those very
particular demands of merchants of the Guinny Company and others, which
he, when he was there, had adjusted with the Dutch, and come to an
agreement in writing, and they undertaken to satisfy, and that this was
done in black and white under their hands; and yet we have forgiven all
these, and not so much as sent to Sir G. Downing to know what he had
done, or to confer with him about any one point of the treaty, but
signed to what they would have, and we here signed to whatever in grosse
was brought over by Mr. Coventry. And [Sir G. Downing] tells me, just in
these words, "My Lord Chancellor had a mind to keep himself from being
questioned by clapping up a peace upon any terms." When I answered that
there was other privy-councillors to be advised with besides him, and
that, therefore, this whole peace could not be laid to his charge,
he answered that nobody durst say any thing at the council-table but
himself, and that the King was as much afeard of saying any thing there
as the meanest privy-councillor; and says more, that at this day the
King, in familiar talk, do call the Chancellor "the insolent man," and
says that he would not let him speak himself in Council: which is very
high, and do shew that the Chancellor is like to be in a bad state,
unless he can defend himself better than people think. And yet Creed
tells me that he do hear that my Lord Cornbury do say that his father do
long for the coming of the Parliament, in order to his own vindication,
more than any one of his enemies. And here it comes into my head to set
down what Mr. Rawlinson, whom I met in Fenchurch Street on Friday last,
looking over his ruines there, told me, that he was told by one of my
Lord Chancellor's gentlemen lately (--------byname), that a grant coming
to him to be sealed, wherein the King hath given her [Lady Castlemaine],
or somebody by her means, a place which he did not like well of, he did
stop the grant; saying, that he thought this woman would sell everything
shortly: which she hearing of, she sent to let him know that she had
disposed of this place, and did not doubt, in a little time, to dispose
of his. This Rawlinson do tell me my Lord Chancellor's own gentleman did
tell him himself. Thence, meeting Creed, I with him to the Parke,
there to walk a little, and to the Queen's Chapel and there hear their
musique, which I liked in itself pretty well as to the composition,
but their voices are very harsh and rough that I t