old day; and there took two or three
turns the length of the Pell Mell: and there I met Serjeant Bearcroft,
who was sent for the Duke of Buckingham, to have brought him prisoner
to the Tower. He come to towne this day, and brings word that, being
overtaken and outrid by the Duchesse of Buckingham within a few miles
of the Duke's house of Westhorp, he believes she got thither about a
quarter of an hour before him, and so had time to consider; so that,
when he come, the doors were kept shut against him. The next day, coming
with officers of the neighbour market-town to force open the doors, they
were open for him, but the Duke gone; so he took horse presently, and
heard upon the road that the Duke of Buckingham was gone before him for
London: so that he believes he is this day also come to towne before
him; but no newes is yet heard of him. This is all he brings. Thence to
my Lord Chancellor's, and there, meeting Sir H. Cholmly, he and I walked
in my Lord's garden, and talked; among other things, of the treaty: and
he says there will certainly be a peace, but I cannot believe it. He
tells me that the Duke of Buckingham his crimes, as far as he knows, are
his being of a caball with some discontented persons of the late House
of Commons, and opposing the desires of the King in all his matters in
that House; and endeavouring to become popular, and advising how the
Commons' House should proceed, and how he would order the House of
Lords. And that he hath been endeavouring to have the King's nativity
calculated; which was done, and the fellow now in the Tower about it;
which itself hath heretofore, as he says, been held treason, and people
died for it; but by the Statute of Treasons, in Queen Mary's times and
since, it hath been left out. He tells me that this silly Lord hath
provoked, by his ill-carriage, the Duke of York, my Lord Chancellor, and
all the great persons; and therefore, most likely, will die. He tells
me, too, many practices of treachery against this King; as betraying
him in Scotland, and giving Oliver an account of the King's private
councils; which the King knows very well, and hath yet pardoned him.

[Two of our greatest poets have drawn the character of the Duke of
Buckingham in brilliant verse, and both have condemned him to
infamy. There is enough in Pepys's reports to corroborate the main
features of Dryden's magnificent portrait of Zimri in "Absolom and
Achitophel":