February 3rd. To visit my Lady Sandwich, and she discoursed largely to me her opinion of a match, if it could be thought fit by my Lord, for my Lady Jemimah, with Sir G. Carteret’s eldest son; but I doubt he hath yet no settled estate in land. But I will inform myself, and give her my opinion. Then Mrs Pickering (after private discourse ended, we going into the other room) did, at my Lady’s command, tell me the manner of a masquerade before the King and the Court the other day. Where six women (my Lady Castlemaine and Duchesse of Monmouth being two of them,) and six men, (the Duke of Monmouth and Lord Avon and Monsieur Blanfort,⁷ being three of them) in vizards, but most rich and antique dresses, did dance admirably and most gloriously. God give us cause to continue the mirth!

4th. I to the Sun behind the ’Change, to dinner to my Lord Belasses. He told us a very handsome passage of the King’s sending him his message about holding out the town of Newarke, of which he was then governor for the King. This message he sent in a slugg-bullet, being writ in cipher, and wrapped up in lead and sealed. So the messenger come to my Lord and told him he had a message from the King, but it was yet in his belly; so they did give him some physick, and out it come. This was a month before the King’s flying to the Scots; and therein he told him that at such a day, the 3rd or 6th. of May, he should hear of his being come to the Scots, being assured by the King of France that in coming to them he should be used with all the liberty, honour, and safety, that could be desired. And at the just day he did come to the Scots. He told us another odd passage: how the King having newly put out Prince Rupert of his generalship, upon some miscarriage at Bristol, and Sir Richard Willis of his governorship of Newarke, at the entreaty of the gentry of the County, and put in my Lord Bellasses; the great officers of the King’s army mutinyed, and come in that manner with swords drawn, into the market-place of the town where the King was; which the King hearing says, ‘I must horse.’ And there himself personally, when everybody expected they should have been opposed, the King come, and cried to the head of the mutineers, which was Prince Rupert, ‘Nephew, I command you to be gone.’ So the Prince, in all his fury and discontent, withdrew, and his company scattered.

6th. One of the coldest days, all say, they ever felt in England.

9th. Sir William Petty tells me that Mr Barlow⁸ is dead; for which, God knows my heart, I could be as sorry as is possible for one to be for a stranger, by whose death he gets £100 per annum.

12th. To Church to St Lawrence to hear Dr Wilkins, the great scholar, for curiosity, I having never heard him: but was not satisfied with him at all.

15th. At noon, with Creed to the Trinity-house, where a very good dinner among the old jokers, and an extraordinary discourse of the manner of the loss of the Royall Oake coming home from Bantam, upon the rocks of Scilly. Thence with Creed to Gresham College, where I had been by Mr Povy the last week proposed to be admitted a member; and was this day admitted, by signing a book and being taken by the hand by the President, my Lord Brouncker, and some words of admittance said to me. But it is a most acceptable thing to hear their discourse, and see their experiments, which were this day on fire, and how it goes out in a place where the ayre is not free, and sooner out where the ayre is exhausted, which they showed by an engine on purpose. After this being done, they to the Crown Tavern, behind the ’Change, and there my Lord and most of the company to a club supper; Sir P. Neale,⁹ Sir R. Murrey,¹⁰ Dr Clerke, Dr Whistler,¹¹ Dr Goddard,¹² and others, of the most eminent worth. Above all, Mr Boyle was at the meeting, and above him Mr Hooke, who is the most, and promises the least, of any man in the world that ever I saw. Here excellent discourse till ten at night, and then home.

17th. Povy tells me how my Lord Barkeley will say openly, that he hath fought more set fields than any man in England hath done.

18th. At noon, to the Royall Oak taverne in Lombard Street; where Sir William Petty and the owners of the double-bottomed boat (the Experiment) did entertain my Lord Brouncker, Sir R. Murrey, myself, and others, with marrow bones, and a chine of beef of the victuals they have made for this ship; and excellent company and good discourse: but, above all, I do value Sir William Petty. Thence home; and