out the
late command for my paying no more pensions for Tangier. Thence home,
and there did business, and so in the evening home to supper and to bed.
This day Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, was with me; and tells me how this
business of my Lord Chancellor's was certainly designed in my Lady
Castlemayne's chamber; and that, when he went from the King on Monday
morning, she was in bed, though about twelve o'clock, and ran out in her
smock into her aviary looking into White Hall garden; and thither her
woman brought her her nightgown; and stood joying herself at the old
man's going away: and several of the gallants of White Hall, of which
there were many staying to see the Chancellor return, did talk to her in
her birdcage; among others, Blancford, telling her she was the bird of
paradise.

[Clarendon refers to this scene in the continuation of his Life (ed.
1827, vol. iii., p. 291), and Lister writes: "Lady Castlemaine rose
hastily from her noontide bed, and came out into her aviary, anxious
to read in the saddened air of her distinguished enemy some presage
of his fall" ("Life of Clarendon," vol. ii., p. 412).]

28th. Up; and staid undressed till my tailor's boy did mend my vest, in
order to my going to the christening anon. Then out and to White Hall,
to attend the Council, by their order, with an answer to their demands
touching our advice for the paying off of the seamen, when the ships
shall come in, which answer is worth seeing, shewing the badness of our
condition. There, when I come, I was forced to stay till past twelve
o'clock, in a crowd of people in the lobby, expecting the hearing of the
great cause of Alderman Barker against my Lord Deputy of Ireland, for
his ill usage in his business of land there; but the King and Council
sat so long, as they neither heard them nor me. So when they rose, I
into the House, and saw the King and Queen at dinner, and heard a little
of their viallins' musick, and so home, and there to dinner, and in the
afternoon with my Lady Batten, Pen, and her daughter, and my wife, to
Mrs. Poole's, where I mighty merry among the women, and christened the
child, a girl, Elizabeth, which, though a girl, yet my Lady Batten would
have me to give the name. After christening comes Sir W. Batten, [Sir]
W. Pen, and Mr. Lowther, and mighty merry there, and I forfeited for
not kissing the two godmothers presently after the christening, before I
kissed the mother, which made good