ring of L700, which she shews
to every body, and owns that the King did give it her; and he hath
furnished a house for her in Suffolke Street most richly, which is a most
infinite shame. It seems she is a bastard of Colonell Howard, my Lord
Berkshire, and that he do pimp to her for the King, and hath got her for
him; but Pierce says that she is a most homely jade as ever she saw,
though she dances beyond any thing in the world. She tells me that the
Duchesse of Richmond do not yet come to the Court, nor hath seen the King,
nor will not, nor do he own his desire of seeing her; but hath used means
to get her to Court, but they do not take. Thence home, and there I to my
chamber, having a great many books brought me home from my bookbinder's,
and so I to the new setting of my books against the next year, which costs
me more trouble than I expected, and at it till two o'clock in the
morning, and then to bed, the business not being yet done to my mind.
This evening come Mr. Mills and his wife to see and sit and talk with us,
which they did till 9 o'clock at night, and then parted, and I to my
books.
15th. Up, and to the Office, where all the morning. At noon home to
dinner, and then to the Office again, where we met about some business of
D. Gawden's till candle-light; and then, as late as it was, I down to
Redriffe, and so walked by moonlight to Deptford, where I have not been a
great while, and my business I did there was only to walk up and down
above la casa of Bagwell, but could not see her, it being my intent to
have spent a little time con her, she being newly come from her husband;
but I did lose my labour, and so walked back again, but with pleasure by
the walk, and I had the sport to see two boys swear, and stamp, and fret,
for not being able to get their horse over a stile and ditch, one of them
swearing and cursing most bitterly; and I would fain, in revenge, have
persuaded him to have drove his horse through the ditch, by which I
believe he would have stuck there. But the horse would not be drove, and
so they were forced to go back again, and so I walked away homeward, and
there reading all the evening, and so to bed. This afternoon my Lord
Anglesey tells us that it is voted in Council to have a fleete of 50 ships
out; but it is only a disguise for the Parliament to get some money by;
but it will not take, I believe, and if it did, I do not think it will be
such as he will get any of, nor such as will enabl
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