will alter the present militia, and bring all to a flying army That my Lord Lauderdale, being Middleton’s¹⁷ enemy, and one that scorns the Chancellor even to open affronts before the King, hath got the whole power of Scotland into his hand, whereas the other day he was in a fair way to have had his whole estate, and honour, and life, voted away from him That the King hath done himself all imaginable wrong in the business of my Lord Antrun,¹⁸ in Ireland, who, though he was the head of rebels, yet he by his letter owns to have acted by his father’s and mother’s and his commissions but it seems the truth is, he hath obliged himself, upon the clearing of his estate, to settle it upon a daughter of the Queene-Mother’s (by my Lord Germin,¹⁹ I suppose,) in marriage, be it to whom the Queene pleases which is a sad story It seems a daughter of the Duke of Lenox’s was, by force, going to be married the other day at Somerset House, to Harry Germin, but she got away and run to the King, and he says he will protect her She is, it seems, very near akin to the King Such mad doings there are every day among them. There was a French book in verse, the other day, translated and presented to the Duke of Monmouth in such a high stile, that the Duke of York, he tells me, was mightily offended at it The Duke of Monmouth’s mother’s brother hath a place at Court, and being a Welchman, (I think he told me,) will talk very broad of the King’s being married to his sister The King did the other day, at the Council, commit my Lord Digby’s²⁰ chaplin, and steward, and another servant, who went upon the process begun there against their lord, to swear that they saw him at church, and receive the Sacrament as a Protestant, (which, the Judges said, was sufficient to prove him such in the eye of the law), the King, I say, did commit them all to the Gate-house, notwithstanding their pleading their dependance upon him, and the faith they owed him as their lord, whose bread they eat And that the King should say, that he would soon see whether he was King, or Digby That the Queene-Mother had outrun herself in her expences, and is now come to pay very ill, or run in debt, the money being spent that she received for leases He believes there is not any money laid up in bank, as I told him some did hope, but he says, from the best informers he can assure me there is no such thing, nor any body that should look after such a thing, and that there is not now above £80,000 of the Dunkirke money left in stock That Oliver the year when he spent £1,400,000 in the Navy did spend in the whole expence of the kingdom £2,600,000 That all the Court are mad for a Dutch war, but both he and I did concur, that it was a thing rather to be dreaded than hoped for, unless by the French King’s falling upon Flanders, they and the Dutch should be divided That our Embassador had, it is true, an audience, but in the most dishonourable way that could be, for the Princes of the Blood (though invited by our Embassador, which was the greatest absurdity that ever Embassador committed these 400 years) were not there, and so were not said to give place to our King’s Embassador And that our King did openly say, the other day in the Privy Chamber, that he would not be hectored out of his right and pre-eminencys by the King of France, as great as he was That the Pope is glad to yield to a peace with the French (as the news-book says,) upon the basest terms that ever was That the talk which these people about our King, that I named before, have, is to tell him how neither priviledge of Parliament nor City is any thing, but that his will is all, and ought to be so and their discourse, it seems, when they are alone, is so base and sordid, that it makes the eares of the very gentlemen of the back- stairs (I think he called them) to tingle to hear it spoke in the King’s hearing, and that must be very bad indeed That my Lord Digby did send to Lisbon a couple of priests, to search out what they could against the Chancellor concerning the match, as to the point of his knowing before-hand that the Queene was not capable of bearing children, and that something was given her to make her so But as private as they were, when they come thither they were clapped up prisoners That my Lord Digby endeavours what he can to bring the business into the House of Commons, hoping there to master the Chancellor, there being many enemies of his there but I hope the contrary That whereas the late King did mortgage Clarendon²¹ to somebody for £20,000, and this to have given it to the Duke of Albemarle, and he sold it to my Lord Chancellor, whose title of Earldome is fetched from thence, the King hath this day sent his order to the Privy Seale for the payment of this £20,000 to my Lord Chancellor, to clear the mortgage Ireland in a very distracted condition about the hard usage which the Protestants meet with, and the too good which the Catholiques And from all together, God knows my heart, I expect nothing but ruin can follow, unless things are better ordered in a little time.

23rd This day, by the blessing of God, I have lived thirty-one years in the world and, by the grace of God, I find myself not only in good health in every thing, and particularly as to the stone, but only pain