500 of it, but I avoyded it, being not
willing to embarke myself in money there, where I see things going to
ruine. Thence to discourse of the times; and he tells me he believes
both my Lord Arlington and Sir W. Coventry, as well as my Lord Sandwich
and Sir G. Carteret, have reason to fear, and are afeard of this
Parliament now coming on. He tells me that Bristoll's faction is getting
ground apace against my Lord Chancellor. He told me that my old Lord
Coventry was a cunning, crafty man, and did make as many bad decrees in
Chancery as any man; and that in one case, that occasioned many years'
dispute, at last when the King come in, it was hoped by the party
grieved, to get my Lord Chancellor to reverse a decree of his. Sir W.
Coventry took the opportunity of the business between the Duke of Yorke
and the Duchesse, and said to my Lord Chancellor, that he had rather be
drawn up Holborne to be hanged, than live to see his father pissed
upon (in these very terms) and any decree of his reversed. And so the
Chancellor did not think fit to do it, but it still stands, to the
undoing of one Norton, a printer, about his right to the printing of the
Bible, and Grammar, &c. Thence Sir W. Pen and I to Islington and there
drank at the Katherine Wheele, and so down the nearest way home, where
there was no kind of pleasure at all. Being come home, hear that Sir J.
Minnes has had a very bad fit all this day, and a hickup do take him,
which is a very bad sign, which troubles me truly. So home to supper a
little and then to bed.

27th. Up, and to my new closett, which pleases me mightily, and there
did a little business. Then to break open a window, to the leads' side
in my old closett, which will enlighten the room mightily, and make
it mighty pleasant. So to the office, and then home about one thing or
other, about my new closet, for my mind is full of nothing but that. So
at noon to dinner, mightily pleased with my wife's picture that she is
upon. Then to the office, and thither come and walked an hour with me
Sir G. Carteret, who tells me what is done about my Lord's pardon, and
is not for letting the Duke of Yorke know any thing of it beforehand,
but to carry it as speedily and quietly as we can. He seems to be very
apprehensive that the Parliament will be troublesome and inquisitive
into faults, but seems not to value them as to himself. He gone, I
to the Victualling Office, there with Lewes' and Willson setting the
business of the