Chapter 61

4th. To the Sessions-house, where I have a mind to hear Bazill Fielding's case tried; and so got up to the Bench, my Lord Chief- Justice Keeling [Sir John Keeling, Knight, King's Serjeant 1661, Chief Justice of the King's Bench 1665.] being Judge. Here I stood bare, not challenging, though I might well enough, to be covered. But here were several fine trials; among others, several brought in for making it their trade to set houses on fire merely to get plunder; and all proved by the two little boys spoken of yesterday by Sir R. Ford, who did give so good account of particulars that I never heard children in my life. One my Lady Montagu's (I know not what Lady Montagu) son, and the other of good condition, were playing in Moore-fields, and one rogue, Gabriel Holmes, did come to them and teach them to drink, and then to bring him plate and clothes from their fathers' houses: and this Gabriel Holmes did advise to have had two houses set on fire, one after another, that while they were quenching of one they might be burning another. The boys did swear against one of them, that he had made it his part to pull out the plug out of the engine while it was a-playing; and it really was so. Well, this fellow Holmes was found guilty of the act of burning the house, and other things that he stood indicted for. It was time very well spent to be here. Here I saw how favourable the Judge was to a young gentleman that struck one of the officers, for not making him room: told him he had endangered the loss of his hand, but that he hoped he had not struck him, and would suppose that he had not struck him. The Court then rose, and I to dinner with my Lord Mayor and Sheriffs; where a good dinner and good discourse, the Judge being there. There was also tried this morning Fielding (which I thought had been Bazill, but it proved the other, and Bazill was killed,) that killed his brother, who was found guilty of murder, and nobody pitied him. The Judge seems to be a worthy man, and able; and do intend for these rogues that burned this house to be hung in some conspicuous place in the town, for an example.

6th. Mr. Williamson told me that Mr. Coventry is coming over with a project of a peace; which, if the States agree to, and our King when their Ministers on both sides have showed it them, we shall agree, and that is all: but the King, I hear, do give it out plain that the peace is concluded. This day with great satisfaction I hear that my Lady Jemimah is brought to bed, at Hinchingbroke, of a boy [In 1681 created Baron Carteret of Hawnes, co. Bedford, in consideration of the eminent services rendered by his grandfather and father to Charles II.]

7th (Lord's day). Mr. Moor tells me that the discontented Parliament-men are fearful that the next sitting the King will try for a general excise by which to raise him money, and then to fling off the Parliament, and raise a land-army and keep them all down like slaves; and it is gotten among them that Bab. May, the Privy-purse, hath been heard to say that 300l. a-year is enough for any country-gentleman; which makes them mad, and they do talk of 6 or 800,000l. gone into the Privy-purse this war, when in King James's time it arose but to 5000l., and in King Charles's but 10,000l. in a year. He tells me that a goldsmith in town told him, that being with some plate with my Lady Castlemaine lately, she directed her woman (the great beauty,) "Willson," sayes she, "Make a note for this and for that to the Privy-purse for money." He tells me a little more of the basenesse of the courses taken at Court in the case of Mr. Moyer, who is at liberty, and is to give 500l. for his liberty; but now the great ones are divided who shall have the money, the Duke of Albemarle on one hand, and another Lord on the other; and that it is fain to be decided by having the person's name put into the King's warrant for his liberty, at whose intercession the King shall own that he is set at liberty: which is a most lamentable thing, that we do professedly own that we do these things, not for right and justice' sake, but only to gratify this or that person about the King. God forgive us all!

8th. Mr. Coventry is come from Bredah, as was expected; but, contrary to expectation, brings with him two or three articles which do not please the King: as to retrench the Act of Navigation, and then to ascertain what are contraband goods; and then that those exiled persons, who are or shall take refuge in their country, may be secure from any further prosecution. Whether these will be enough to break the Peace upon, or no, he cannot tell; but I perceive the certainty of peace is blown over. To Charing Cross, there to see the great boy and girle that are lately come out of Ireland, the latter eight, the former but four years old, of most prodigious bigness for their age. I tried to weigh them in my arms, and and them twice as heavy as people almost twice their age; and yet I am apt to believe they are very young. Their father a little sorry fellow, and their mother an old Irish woman. They have had four children of this bigness, and four of ordinary growth, whereof two of each are dead. If (as my Lord Ormond certifies) it be true that they are no older, it is very monstrous.

9th. This evening news comes for certain that the Dutch are with their fleet before Dover, and that it is expected they will attempt something there. The business of the peace is quite dashed again.

12th. The Duke of Buckingham was before the Council the other day, and there did carry it very submissively and pleasingly to the King; but to my Lord Arlington, who do prosecute the business, he was most bitter and sharp, and very slighting. As to the letter about his employing a man to cast the King's nativity, says he to the King, "Sir, this is none of my hand, and I refer it to your Majesty whether you do not know this hand." The King answered, that it was indeed none of his, and that he knew whose it was, but could not recall it presently. "Why," says he, "it is my sister of Richmond's, [Mary, daughter of George Villiers first Duke of Buckingham; married first, to Charles Lord Herbert; secondly, to James Duke of Richmond and Lenox; and thirdly, to Thomas Howard, brother to Charles Earl of Carlisle. She left no issue by any of her husbands.] some frolick or other of hers about some certain person: and there is nothing of the King's name in it, but it is only said to be his by supposition, as is said." The King, it seems, was not very much displeased with what the Duke had said; but however, he is still in the Tower, and no discourse of his being out in haste, though my Lady Caatlemaine hath so far solicited for him that the King and she are quite fallen out: he comes not to her, nor hath for some three or four days; and parted with very foul words, the King calling her a jade that meddled with things she had nothing to do with at all: and she calling him fool; and told him if he was not a fool he would not suffer his businesses to be carried on by fools that did not understand them, and cause his best subjects, and those best able to serve him, to be imprisoned; meaning the Duke of Buckingham. And it seems she was not only for his liberty, but to be restored to all his places; which, it is thought, he will never be. It was computed that the Parliament had given the King for this war only, besides all prizes, and besides the 200,000l. which he was to spend of his own revenue, to guard the sea above 5,000,000l. and odd 100,000l.; which is a most prodigious sum. It is strange how everybody do now-a-days reflect upon Oliver, and commend him, what brave things he did, and made all the neighbour princes fear him; while here a prince, come in with all the love and prayers and good liking of his people, who have given greater signs of loyalty and willingness to serve him with their estates that ever was done by any people, hath lost all so soon, that it is a miracle what way a man could devise to lose so much in so little time. Sir Thomas Crewe tells me how I am mightily in esteem with the Parliament; there being harangues made in the House to the Speaker, of Mr. Pepys's readiness and civility to show them everything.

13th. Mr. Pierce tells us what troubles me, that my Lord Buckhurst hath got Nell away from the King's house, and gives her 100l. a-year, so as she hath sent her parts to the house, and will act no more and yesterday Sir Thomas Crewe told me that Lacy lies a-dying; nor will receive any ghostly advice from a bishop, an old acquaintance of his, that went to see him. It is an odd and sad thing to say, that though this be a peace worse than we had before, yet everybody's fear almost is, that the Dutch will not stand by their promise, now the King hath consented to all they would have. And yet no wise man that I meet with, when he comes to think of it, but wishes with all his heart a war; but that the King is not a man to be trusted with the management of it. It was pleasantly said by a man in this City, a stranger, to one that told him the peace was concluded, "Well," says he, "and have you a peace?" "Yes," says the other. "Why then," says he, "hold your peace!" Partly reproaching us with the disgracefulness of it, that it is not fit to be mentioned; and next, that we are not able to make the Dutch keep it, when they have a mind to break it.

14th. To Epsum, by eight o'clock, to the well; where much company. And to the towne to the King's Head; and hear that my Lord Buckhurst and Nelly are lodged at the next house, and Sir Charles Sedley with them: and keep a merry house. Poor girl! I pity her; but more the loss of her at the King's house. Here Tom Wilson come to see me, and sat and talked an hour: and I perceive he hath been much acquainted with Dr. Fuller (Tom) and Dr. Pierson, and several of the great cavalier parsons during the late troubles; and I was glad to hear him talk of them, which he did very ingenuously, and very much of Dr. Fuller's art of memory, which he did tell me several instances of. By and by he parted, and I talked with the two women that farm the well at 12l. per annum of the lord of the manor. Mr. Evelyn with his lady, and also my Lord George Barkeley's lady, [Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of John Maasingberd, Esq.] and their fine daughter, that the King of France liked so well, and did dance so rich in jewells before the King at the Ball I was at at our Court last winter, and also their son, a Knight of the Bath, [Charles, eldest son, summoned to Parliament as Baron Berkeley, VITA PATRIS, 1680, Ob. 1710, having succeeded his father in the Earldom 1698.] were at church this morning. I walked upon the Downes, where a flock of sheep was; and the most pleasant and innocent sight that ever I saw in my life. We found a shepherd and his little boy reading, far from any houses or sight of people, the Bible to him; and we took notice of his wooling knit stockings, of two colours mixed. Mrs. Turner mightily pleased with my resolution, which, I tell her, is never to keep a country-house, but to keep a coach, and with my wife on the Saturday to go sometimes for a day to this place, and then quit to another place; and there is more variety and as little charge, and no trouble, as there is in a country-house.

17th. Home, where I was saluted with the news of Hogg's bringing a rich Canary prize to Hull: and Sir W. Batten do offer me 1000l. down for my particular share, beside Sir Richard Ford's part; which do tempt me; but yet I would not take it;, but will stand and fall with the company. He and two more, the Panther and Fanfan, did enter into consortship; and so they have all brought in each a prize, though ours worth as much as both theirs, and more. However, it will be well worth having, God be thanked for it! This news makes us all very glad. I at Sir W. Batten's did hear the particulars of it; and there for joy he did give the company that were there a bottle or two of his own last year's wine growing at Walthamstow, than which the whole company said they never drank better foreign wine in their lives. The Duke of Buckingham is, it seems, set at liberty without any further charge against him or other clearing of him, but let to go out; which is one of the strangest instances of the fool's play, with which all publick things are done in this age, that is to be apprehended. And it is said that when he was charged with making himself popular, (as indeed he is, for many of the discontented Parliament, Sir Robert Howard, and Sir Thomas Meres, and others, did attend at the Council-chamber when he was examined,) he should answer, that whoever was committed to prison by my Lord Chancellor or my Lord Arlington, could not want being popular. But it is worth considering the ill state a Minister of State is in, under such a Prince as ours is; for, undoubtedly, neither of those two great men would have been so fierce against the Duke of Buckingham at the Council-table the other day, had they not been assured of the King's good liking, and supporting them therein: whereas, perhaps at the desire of my Lady Castlemaine, (who I suppose, hath at last overcome the King,) the Duke of Buckingham is well received again, and now these men delivered up to the interest he can make for his revenge. He told me over the story of Mrs. Stewart, much after the manner which I was told it by Mr. Evelyn: only he says it is verily believed that the King did never intend to marry her to any but himself, and that the Duke of York and Lord Chancellor were jealous of it: and that Mrs. Stewart might be got with child by the King, or somebody else, and the King own a marriage before his contract (for it is but a contract, as he tells me to this day,) with the Queene, and so wipe their noses of the Crown; and that, therefore, the Duke of York and Chancellor did do all they could to forward the match with my Lord Duke of Richmond, that she might be married out of the way: but above all, it is a worthy part that this good lady hath acted. My sister Michell [The wife of Balthazar St. Michel, Mrs. Pepys's brother.] come from Lee to see us; but do tattle so much of the late business of the Dutch coming thither that I am weary of it. Yet it is worth remembering what she says: that she hath heard both seamen and soldiers swear they would rather serve the Dutch than the King, for they should be better used. She saw "The Royal Charles" brought into the river by them; and how they shot off their great guns for joy, when they got her out of Chatham river.

19th. One tells me that, by letter from Holland, the people there are made to believe that our condition in England is such as they may have whatever they will ask; and that so they are mighty high, and despise us, or a peace with us: and there is too much reason for them to do so. The Dutch fleet are in great squadrons everywhere still about Harwich, and were lately at Portsmouth; and the last letters say at Plymouth, and now gone to Dartmouth to destroy our Streights' fleet lately got in thither: but God knows whether they can do it any hurt, or no.

22nd. Up to my Lord Chancellor's, where was a Committee of Tangier in my Lord's roome, where he sits to hear causes, and where all the Judges' pictures hung up, very fine. But to see how Sir W. Coventry did oppose both my Lord Chancellor and the Duke of York himself, about the Order of the Commissioners of the Treasury to me for not paying of pensions, and with so much reason, and eloquence so natural, was admirable. And another thing, about his pressing for the reduction of the charge of Tangier, which they would have put off to another time; "But," says he, "the King suffers so much by the putting off of the consideration of reductions of charge, that he is undone; and therefore I do pray you, Sir, (to his Royal Highness,) that when any thing offers of the kind, you will not let it escape you." Here was a great bundle of letters brought hither, sent up from sea, from a vessel of ours that hath taken them after they had been flung over by a Dutchman; wherein, among others, the Duke of York did read superscription of one to De Witt, thus--"To the most wise, foreseeing, and discreet, These, &c.;" which, I thought with myself, I could have been glad might have been duly directed to any one of them at the table, though the greatest men in this kingdom. The Duke of York, the Lord Chancellor, my Lord Duke of Albemarle, Arlington, Ashly, Peterborough, and Coventry, (the best of them all for parts,) I perceive they do all profess their expectation of a peace, and that suddenly. Sir W. Coventry did declare his opinion that if Tangier were offered us now, as the King's condition is; he would advise against the taking it; saying, that the King's charge is too great, and must be brought down, it being like the fire of this City, never to be mastered till you have brought it under you; and that these places abroad are but so much charge to the King, and we do rather herein strive to greaten them than lessen them; and then the King is forced to part with them "as," says he, "he did with Dunkirke, by my Lord Tiviott's making it so chargeable to the King as he did that, and would have done Tangier, if he had lived." I perceive he is the only man that do seek the King's profit, and is bold to deliver what he thinks on every occasion. With much pleasure reflecting upon our discourse to-day at the Tangier meeting, and crying up the worth of Sir W. Coventry. Creed tells me of the fray between the Duke of Buckingham at the Duke's playhouse the last Saturday, (and it is the first day I have heard that they have acted at either the King's or Duke's houses this month or six weeks), and Henry Killigrew, whom the Duke of Buckingham did soundly beat and take away his sword, and make a fool of, till the fellow prayed him to spare his life; and I am glad of it, for it seems in this business the Duke of Buckingham did carry himself very innocently and well, and I wish he had paid this fellow's coat well. I heard something of this at the 'Change to- day: and it is pretty to hear how people do speak kindly of the Duke of Buckingham, as one that will enquire into faults; and therefore they do mightily favour him. And it puts me in mind that, this afternoon, Billing the Quaker meeting me in the Hall, come to me, and after a little discourse did say, "Well," says he, "now you will be all called to an account;" meaning the Parliament is drawing near.

23rd. By and by comes sudden news to me by letter from the Clerke of the Cheque at Gravesend, that there were thirty sail of Dutch men-of-war coming up into the Hope this last tide: which I told Sir W. Pen of; but he would not believe it, but laughed, and said it was a fleet of Billanders, and that the guns that were heard was the salutation of the Swede's Embassador that comes over with them. But within half an hour comes another letter from Captain Proud, that eight of them were come into the Hope, and thirty more following them, at ten this morning. By and by comes an order from White Hall to send down one of our number to Chatham, fearing that, as they did before, they may make a show first up hither, but then go to Chatham: so my Lord Brouncker do go, and we here are ordered to give notice to the merchant men- of-war, gone below the barricado at Woolwich, to come up again.

24th. Betimes this morning comes a letter from the Clerk of the Cheque at Gravesend to me, to tell me that the Dutch fleet did come all into the Hope yesterday noon, and held a fight with our ships from thence till seven at night; that they had burned twelve fire-ships, and we took one of theirs, and burned five of our fire-ships. But then rising and going to Sir W. Batten, he tells me that we have burned one of their men-of-war, and another of theirs is blown up: but how true this is, I know not. But these fellows are mighty bold, and have had the fortune of the wind easterly this time to bring them up, and prevent our troubling them with our fire-ships; and, indeed, have had the winds at their command from the beginning, and now do take the beginning of the spring, as if they had some great design to do. About five o'clock down to Gravesend; and as we come nearer Gravesend, we hear the Dutch fleet and ours a-firing their guns most distinctly and loud. So I landed and discoursed with the landlord of the Ship, who undeceives me in what I heard this morning about the Dutch having lost two men-of-war, for it is not so, but several of their fire-ships. He do say, that this afternoon they did force our ships to retreat, but that now they are gone down as far as Shield-haven: but what the event hath been of this evening's guns they know not, but suppose not much for they have all this while shot at good distance one from another. They seem confident of the security of this town and the River above it, if ever the enemy should come up so high; their fortifications being so good, and guns many. But he do say that people do complain of Sir Edward Spragg, that he hath not done extraordinary; and more of Sir W. Jenings, that he came up with his tamkins [Tamkin or Tompion, the stopple of a great gun.] in his guns.

25th. I demanded of Sir R. Ford and the rest, what passed to-day at the meeting of Parliament: who told me that, contrary to all expectation by the King that there would be but a thin meeting, there met above 300 this first day, and all the discontented party; and, indeed, the whole House seems to be no other almost. The Speaker told them, as soon as they were sat, that he was ordered by the King to let them know he was hindered by some important business to come to them and speak to them, as he intended; and, therefore, ordered him to move that they would adjourn themselves till Monday next, (it being very plain to all the House that he expects to hear by that time of the sealing of the peace, which by letters, it seems, from my Lord Hollis was to be sealed the last Sunday.) But before they would come to the question whether they would adjourn, Sir Thomas Tomkins steps up and tells them, that all the country is grieved at this new- raised standing-army; and that they thought themselves safe enough in their trayn-bands: and that, therefore, he desired the King might be moved to disband them. Then rises Garraway and seconds him, only with this explanation, (which he said he believed the other meant;) that, as soon as peace should be concluded, they might be disbanded. Then rose Sir W. Coventry, and told them that he did approve of what the last gentleman said; but also, that at the same time he did no more than what he durst be bold to say he knew to be the King's mind, that as soon as peace was concluded he would do it of himself. Then rose Sir Thomas Littleton, and did give several reasons from the uncertainty of their meeting again but to adjourne, (in case news comes of the peace being ended before Monday next,) and the possibility of the King's having some about him that may endeavour to alter his own, and the good part of his Council's advice, for the keeping up of the land-army: and, therefore, it was fit that they did present it to the King as their desire, that as soon as peace was concluded the land-army might be laid down, and that this their request might be carried to the King by them of their House that were Privy-councillors; which was put to the vote, and carried NEMINE CONTRADICENTE. So after this vote passed, they adjourned: but it is plain what the effects of this Parliament will be, if they be suffered to sit, that they will fall foul upon the faults of the Government; and I pray God they may be permitted to do it, for nothing else, I fear, will save the King and kingdom than the doing it betimes.