my Lady Castlemaine, whom I do heartily admire, and good sport to see how most that did give their ten pounds did go away with a pair of globes only for their lot, and one gentlewoman, one Mrs Fish, with the only blanke And one I staid to see draw a suit of hangings valued at £430 and they say are well worth the money, or near it One other suit there is better than that, but very many lots of three and fourscore pounds I observed the King and Queene did get but as poor lots as any else But the wisest man I met with was Mr Cholmley, who insured as many as would, from drawing of the one blank for 12d, in which case there was the whole number of persons to one, which I think was three or four hundred And so he insured about 200 for 200 shillings, so that he could not have lost if one of them had drawn it, for there was enough to pay the £10 but it happened another drew it, and so he got all the money he took.

25th Met with a printed copy of the King’s commission for the repairs of Paul’s, which is very large, and large power for collecting money, and recovering of all people that had bought or sold formerly any thing belonging to the Church No news, only the plague is very hot still, and encreases among the Dutch.

26th Great discourse of the fray yesterday in Moorefields, how the butchers at first did beat the weavers, (between whom there hath been ever an old competition for mastery,) but at last the weavers tallied and beat them At first the butchers knocked down all for weavers that had green or blue aprons, till they were fain to pull them off and put them in their breeches At last the butchers were fain to pull off their sleeves, that they might not be known, and were soundly beaten out of the field, and some deeply wounded and bruised, till at last the weavers went out tryumphing, calling £100 for a butcher.

28th I am overjoyed in hopes that upon this month’s account I shall find myself worth £1000 besides the rich present of two silver and gilt flaggons, which Mr Gauden did give me the other day My Lord Sandwich newly gone to sea, and he did before his going, and by his letter since, show me all manner of respect and confidence.

30th To the ’Change, where great talk of a rich present brought by an East India ship from some of the Princes of India worth to the King £70,000 in two precious stones.

August 1st To the Coffee-house, and there all the house full of the victory Generall Soushe (who is a Frenchman, a soldier of fortune, commanding part of the German army) hath had against the Turke, killing 4000 men, and taking most extraordinary spoil.

2nd To the King’s play-house, and there saw Bartholomew Fayre; which do still please me, and is, as it is acted, the best comedy in the world, I believe I chanced to sit by Tom Killigrew, who tells me that he is setting up a nursery, that is, is going to build a house in Moorefields, wherein he will have common plays acted But four operas it shall have in the year, to act six weeks at a time where we shall have the best scenes and machines, the best musique, and everything as magnificent as is in Christendome, and to that end hath sent for voices and painters and other persons from Italy Thence homeward called upon my Lord Marlborough.

4th To a play at the King’s house, The Rivall Ladys,⁴² a very innocent and most pretty witty play I was much pleased with it, and it being given me,⁴³ I look upon it as no breach of my oath Here we hear that Clun, one of their best actors, was, the last night, going out of towne (after he had acted the Alchymist, wherein was one of his best parts that he acts) to his country-house, set upon and murdered, one of the rogues taken, an Irish fellow It seems most cruelly butchered and bound The house will have a great miss of him Thence visited my Lady Sandwich, who tells me my Lord FitzHarding is to be made a Marquis.

5th About ten o’clock I dressed myself, and so mounted upon a very pretty mare, sent me by Sir W Warren, according to his promise yesterday And so through the City, not a little proud, God knows, to be seen upon so pretty a beast, and to my cosen W Joyce’s, who presently mounted too, and he and I out of towne toward Highgate, in the way, at Kentish-towne, he showing me the place and manner of Clun’s being killed and laid in a ditch, and yet was not killed by any wounds, having only one in his arm but bled to death through his struggling He told me, also, the manner of it, of his going home so late drinking with his mistress, and manner of having it found out.