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 endeavor of bringing all Nonconformists into the same condition, that he is afeard matters will not go so well as he could wish....  To my office all the afternoon; Lord! how Sir J. Minnes, like a mad coxcomb, did swear and stamp, swearing that Commissioner Pett hath still the old heart against the King that ever he had, ... and all the damnable reproaches in the world, at which I was ashamed, but said little; but, upon the whole, I find him still a foole, led by the nose with stories told by Sir W. Batten, whether with or without reason.  So, vexed in my mind to see things ordered so unlike gentlemen, or men of reason, I went home and to bed.

3d.  To White Hall and to Chappell, which being most monstrous full, I could not go into my pew, but sat among the quire.  Dr. Creeton, the Scotchman, preached a most admirable, good, learned, honest, and most severe sermon, yet comicall....  He railed bitterly ever and anon against John Calvin and his brood, the Presbyterians, and against the present terme, now in use, of “tender consciences.”  He ripped up Hugh Peters (calling him the execrable skellum), his preaching and stirring up the mayds of the city to bring in their bodkins and thimbles.  Thence going out of White Hall, I met Captain Grove, who did give me a letter directed to myself from himself.  I discerned money to be in it, and took it, knowing, as I found it to be, the proceed of the place I have got him, the taking up of vessels for Tangier.  But I did not open it till I came home to my office, and there I broke it open, not looking into it till all the money was out, that I might say I saw no money in the paper, if ever I should be questioned about it.  There was a piece of gold and 4L in silver.

4th.  To my office.  Home to dinner, whither by and by comes Roger Pepys, etc.  Very merry at, before, and after dinner, and the more for that my dinner was great, and most neatly dressed by our owne only mayde.  We had a fricasee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, three carps in a dish, a great dish of a side of lambe, a dish of roasted pigeons, a dish of four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie (a most rare pie), a dish of anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all things mighty noble and to my great content.

5th (Lord’s day).  Up and spent the morning, till the Barber came, in reading in my chamber part of Osborne’s Advice to his Son, which I shall not never enough admire for sense and language, and being by and by trimmed, to Church, myself, wife, Ashwell, etc.  Home and, while dinner was prepared, to my office to read over my vows with great affection and to very good purpose.  Then to church again, where a simple bawling young Scot preached.