20th.  All the morning I was busy to get my window altered, and to have my table set as I would have it, which after it was done I was infinitely pleased with it, and also to see what a command I have to have every one ready to come and go at my command.  This evening came Mr. Boyle on board, for whom I writ an order for a ship to transport him to Flushing.  He supped with my Lord, my Lord using him as a person of honour.  This evening too came Mr. John Pickering on board us.  This evening my head ached exceedingly, which I impute to my sitting backwards in my cabin, otherwise than I am used to do.  To-night Mr. Sheply told me that he heard for certain at Dover that Mr. Edw.  Montagu did go beyond sea when he was here first the other day, and I am apt to believe that he went to speak with the King.  This day one told me how that at the election at Cambridge for knights of the shire, Wendby and Thornton by declaring to stand for the Parliament and a King and the settlement of the Church, did carry it against all expectation against Sir Dudley North and Sir Thomas Willis!  I supped to-night with Mr. Sheply below at the half-deck table, and after that I saw Mr. Pickering whom my Lord brought down to his cabin, and so to bed.

21st.  This day dined Sir John Boys

[Of Bonnington and Sandwich, Gentleman of the Privy-Chamber to Charles I. He defended Donnington Castle, Berkshire, for the King against Jeremiah Horton, 1644, and received an augmentation to his arms in consequence.]

and some other gentlemen formerly great Cavaliers, and among the rest one Mr. Norwood, for whom my Lord give a convoy to carry him to the Brill,—­[Brielle, or Den Briel, a seaport town in the province of South Holland.]—­but he is certainly going to the King.  For my Lord commanded me that I should not enter his name in my book.  My Lord do show them and that sort of people great civility.  All their discourse and others are of the King’s coming, and we begin to speak of it very freely.  And heard how in many churches in London, and upon many signs there, and upon merchants’ ships in the river, they had set up the King’s arms.  In the afternoon the Captain would by all means have me up to his cabin, and there treated me huge nobly, giving me a barrel of pickled oysters, and opened another for me, and a bottle of wine, which was a very great favour.  At night late singing with W. Howe, and under the barber’s hands in the coach.  This night there came one with a letter from Mr. Edw.  Montagu to my Lord, with command to deliver it to his own hands.  I do believe that he do carry some close business on for the King.

[Pepys’s guess at E. Montagu’s business is confirmed by Clarendon’s account of his employment of him to negotiate with Lord Sandwich on behalf of the King. ("History of the Rebellion,” book xvi.)—­Notes and Queries, vol. x. p. 3—­M.  B.]

This day I had a large letter from Mr. Moore, giving me an account of the present dispute at London that is like to be at the beginning of the Parliament, about the House of Lords, who do resolve to sit with the Commons, as not thinking themselves dissolved yet.  Which, whether it be granted or no, or whether they will sit or no, it will bring a great many inconveniences.  His letter I keep, it being a very well writ one.