12th (Lord’s day) To my Lord, and with him to White Hall Chapel where Mr Calamy preached, and made a good sermon upon these words ‘To whom much is given, of him much is required’ He was very officious with his three reverences to the King, as others do After sermon a brave anthem of Captain Cooke’s,¹⁴⁵ which he himself sung, and the King was well pleased with it My Lord dined at my Lord Chamberlin’s¹⁴⁶.

14th To the Privy Seale, and thence to my Lord’s, where Mr Pin the taylor, and I agreed upon making me a velvet coat From thence to the Privy Seale again, where Sir Samuel Morland come with a Baronet’s grant to pass, which the King had given him to make money of Here we staid with him a great while, and he told me the whole manner of his serving the King in the time of the Protector, and how Thurloe’s bad usage made him to do it, how he discovered Sir R Willis, and how he had sunk his fortune for the King, and that now the King had given him a pension of £500 per annum out of the Post Office for life, and the benefit of two Baronets, all which do make me begin to think that he is not so much a fool as I took him to be I did make even with Mr Fairebrother for my degree of Master of Arts, which cost me about £9 16s.

15th To the office, and after dinner by water to White Hall, where I found the King gone this morning by five of the clock to see a Dutch pleasure-boat below bridge, where he dines and my Lord with him The King do tire all his people that are about him with early rising since he come.

18th Captain Ferrers took me and Creed to the Cockpitt play, the first that I have had time to see since my coming from sea, The Loyall Subject,¹⁴⁷ where one Kinaston,¹⁴⁸ a boy, acted the Duke’s sister, but made the loveliest lady that ever I saw in my life.

20th This afternoon at the Privy Seale, where reckoning with Mr Moore, he had got £100 for me together, which I was glad of, guessing that the profit of this month would come to £100 With W Hewer by coach to Worcester House, where I light, sending him home with the £100 that I received today Here I staid, and saw my Lord Chancellor come into his Great Hall, where wonderful how much company there was to expect him Before he would begin any business, he took my papers of the state of the debts of the Fleet, and there viewed them before all the people, and did give me his advice privately how to order things, to get as much money as we can of the Parliament.

21st I met Mr Crewe and dined with him, where there dined one Mr Hickeman, an Oxford man, who spoke very much against the height of the now old clergy, for putting out many of the religious fellows of Colleges, and inveighing against them for their being drunk It being post-night, I wrote to my Lord to give him notice that all things are well, that General Monk is made Lieutenant of Ireland, which my Lord Roberts¹⁴⁹ (made Deputy) do not like of, to be Deputy to any man but the King himself.

22nd In the House, after the Committee was up, I met with Mr G Montagu, and joyed him in his entrance (this being his 3rd day) or Dover Here he made me sit all alone in the House, none but he and I, half an hour, discoursing how there was like to be many factions at Court between Marquis Ormond,¹⁵⁰ General Monk, and the Lord Roberts, about the business of Ireland, as there is already between the two Houses about the Act of Indemnity, and in the House of Commons, between the Episcopalian and Presbyterian men.

23rd By water to Doctors’ Commons to Dr Walker,¹⁵¹ to give him my Lord’s papers to view over. concerning his being empowered to be Vice-Admiral under the Duke of York Thence by water to White Hall, to the Parliament House, where I spoke with Colonel Birch,¹⁵² and so to the Admiralty chamber, where we and Mr Coventry had a meeting about several businesses Amongst others, it was moved that Phineas Pett,¹⁵³ (kinsman to the Commissioner,) of Chatham, should be suspended his employment till he had answered some articles put in against him, as that he should formerly say that the King was a bastard and his mother a strumpet.

25th This night W Hewer brought me home from Mr Pim’s my velvet coat and cap, the first that ever I had.