s 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 thought it was some
instruments they had that made them sound so. So to White Hall, and saw
the King and Queen at dinner; and observed (which I never did before),
the formality, but it is but a formality, of putting a bit of bread
wiped upon each dish into the mouth of every man that brings a dish; but
it should be in the sauce. Here were some Russes come to see the King
at dinner: among others, the interpreter, a comely Englishman, in the
Envoy's own clothes; which the Envoy, it seems, in vanity did send to
show his fine clothes upon this man's back, which is one, it seems, of
a comelier presence than himself: and yet it is said that none of their
clothes are their own, but taken out of the King's own Wardrobe; and
which they dare not bring back dirty or spotted, but clean, or are
in danger of being beaten, as they say: insomuch that, Sir Charles
Cotterell says, when they are to have an audience they never venture to
put on their clothes till he appears to come to fetch them; and, as soon
as ever they come home, put them off again. I to Sir G. Carteret's
to dinner; where Mr. Cofferer Ashburnham; who told a good story of a
prisoner's being condemned at Salisbury for a small matter. Wh