29th After dinner in comes Mr Moore, and sat and talked with us a good while, among other things, telling me that neither my Lord nor he are under apprehensions of the late discourse in the House of Commons concerning resumption of Crowne lands.

April 1st I went to the Temple to my Cozen Roger Pepys, to see and talk with him a little, who tells me that, with much ado, the Parliament do agree to throw down Popery but he says it is with so much spite and passion, and an endeavour of bringing all Nonconformists into the same condition, that he is afraid matters will not yet go so well as he could wish.

2nd Sir W Pen told me, that this day the King hath sent to the House his concurrence wholly with them against the Popish priests, Jesuits, &c which gives great content, and I am glad of it.

3rd To the Tangier Committee, where we find ourselves at a great stand, the establishment being but £7000 per annum, and the forces to be kept in the town at the least estimate that my Lord Rutherford can be got to bring is £5300 The charge of this year’s work of the Mole will be £13,000, besides £1000 a-year to my Lord Peterborough as a pension, and the fortifications and contingencys, which puts us to a great stand I find at Court that there is some bad news from Ireland of an insurrection of the Catholiques there, which puts them into an alarme I hear also in the City that for certain there is an embargo upon all our ships in Spayne, upon this action of my Lord Windsor s at Cuba, which signifies little or nothing, but only he hath a mind to say that he hath done something before he comes back again.

4th After dinner to Hide Parke, at the Parke was the King, and in another coach my Lady Castlemaine, they greeting one another at every turn.

8th By water to White Hall, to chapel, where preached Dr Pierce, the famous man that preached the sermon so much cried up, before the King against the Papists His matter was the Devil tempting our Saviour, being carried into the Wilderness by the spirit And he hath as much of natural eloquence as most men that ever I heard in my life, mixed with so much learning After sermon I went up and saw the ceremony of the Bishop of Peterborough’s paying homage upon the knee to the King, while Sir H Bennet, Secretary, read the King’s grant of the Bishopric of Lincolne to which he is translated His name is Dr Lany²⁸ Here I also saw the Duke of Monmouth, with his Order of the Garter, the first time I ever saw it I hear that the University of Cambridge did treat him a little while since with all the honour possible, with a comedy at Trinity College, and banquet, and made him Master of Arts there All which, they say, the King took very well Dr Raynbow,²⁹ Master of Magdalene, being now Vice-Chancellor.

12th (Lord’s day) Coming home to-night, a drunken boy was carrying by our constable to our new pair of stocks to handsel them.

14th Sir G Carteret tells me to-night that he perceives the Parliament is likely to make a great bustle before they will give the King any money, will call all things in question and above all, the expences of the Navy, and do enquire into the King’s expences everywhere, and into the truth of the report of people being forced to sell their bills at 15 per cent losse in the Navy, and, lastly, that they are in a very angry pettish mood at present, and not likely to be better.

17th It being Good Friday, our dinner was only sugar-sopps and fish, the only time that we have had a Lenten dinner all this Lent To Paul’s Church Yard, to cause the title of my English Mare Clausum to be changed, and the new title dedicated to the King to be put to it, because I am ashamed to have the other seen dedicated to the Commonwealth.

20th With Sir G Carteret and Sir John Minnes to my Lord Treasurer’s, thinking to have spoken about getting money for paying the Yards, but we found him with some ladies at cards and so, it being a bad time to speak, we parted This day the little Duke of Monmouth was marryed at White Hall, in the King’s chamber, and to-night is a great supper and dancing at his lodgings, near Charing-Cross I observed his coate at the tail of his coach he gives the arms of England, Scotland, and France, quartered upon some other fields, but what it is that speaks his being a bastard I know not.