l, and there spent all the afternoon in the Gallery, till the
Council was up, to speake with Sir W. Coventry. Walking here I met with
Pierce the surgeon, who is lately come from the fleete, and tells me
that all the commanders, officers, and even the common seamen do condemn
every part of the late conduct of the Duke of Albemarle: both in his
fighting at all, in his manner of fighting, running among them in his
retreat, and running the ships on ground; so as nothing can be worse
spoken of. That Holmes, Spragg, and Smith do all the business, and the
old and wiser commanders nothing. So as Sir Thomas Teddiman (whom the
King and all the world speak well of) is mightily discontented, as being
wholly slighted. He says we lost more after the Prince come, than before
too. The Prince was so maimed, as to be forced to be towed home. He says
all the fleete confess their being chased home by the Dutch; and yet the
body of the Dutch that did it, was not above forty sayle at most. And
yet this put us into the fright, as to bring all our ships on ground. He
says, however, that the Duke of Albemarle is as high almost as ever,
and pleases himself to think that he hath given the Dutch their bellies
full, without sense of what he hath lost us; and talks how he knows now
the way to beat them. But he says, that even Smith himself, one of his
creatures, did himself condemn the late conduct from the beginning to
the end. He tells me further, how the Duke of Yorke is wholly given up
to his new mistresse, my Lady Denham, going at noon-day with all his
gentlemen with him to visit her in Scotland Yard; she declaring she will
not be his mistresse, as Mrs. Price, to go up and down the Privy-stairs,
but will be owned publicly; and so she is. Mr. Bruncker, it seems, was
the pimp to bring it about, and my Lady Castlemaine, who designs thereby
to fortify herself by the Duke; there being a falling-out the other
day between the King and her: on this occasion, the Queene, in ordinary
talke before the ladies in her drawing-room, did say to my Lady
Castlemaine that she feared the King did take cold, by staying so late
abroad at her house. She answered before them all, that he did not stay
so late abroad with her, for he went betimes thence (though he do not
before one, two, or three in the morning), but must stay somewhere else.
The King then coming in and overhearing, did whisper in the eare aside,
and told her she was a bold impertinent woman, and bid her t