a company of poor wretches, dragging them up and down the street; but would have him rather to take some of the greatest ringleaders of them, and punish them; whereas this do but tell the world the King’s fears and doubts.  For Dunkirk; he wonders any wise people should be so troubled thereat, and scorns all their talk against it, for that he says it was not Dunkirk, but the other places, that did and would annoy us, though we had that, as much as if we had it not.  He also took notice of the new Ministers of State, Sir H. Bennet and Sir Charles Barkeley, their bringing in, and the high game that my Lady Castlemaine plays at Court (which I took occasion to mention as that that the people do take great notice of), all which he confessed.  Afterwards he told me of poor Mr. Spong, that being with other people examined before the King and Council (they being laid up as suspected persons; and it seems Spong is so far thought guilty as that they intend to pitch upon him to put to the wracke or some other torture), he do take knowledge of my Lord Sandwich, and said that he was well known to Mr. Pepys.  But my Lord knows, and I told him, that it was only in matter of musique and pipes, but that I thought him to be a very innocent fellow; and indeed I am very sorry for him.  After my Lord and I had done in private, we went out, and with Captain Cuttance and Bunn did look over their draught of a bridge for Tangier, which will be brought by my desire to our office by them to-morrow.  Thence to Westminster Hall, and there walked long with Mr. Creed, and then to the great half-a-crown ordinary, at the King’s Head, near Charing Cross, where we had a most excellent neat dinner and very high company, and in a noble manner.  After dinner he and I into another room over a pot of ale and talked.  He showed me our commission, wherein the Duke of York, Prince Rupert, Duke of Albemarle, Lord Peterborough, Lord Sandwich, Sir G. Carteret, Sir William Compton, Mr. Coventry, Sir R. Ford, Sir William Rider, Mr. Cholmley, Mr. Povy, myself, and Captain Cuttance, in this order are joyned for the carrying on the service of Tangier, which I take for a great honour to me.  He told me what great faction there is at Court; and above all, what is whispered, that young Crofts is lawful son to the King, the King being married to his mother.

[There has been much confusion as to the name and parentage of Charles’s mistress.  Lucy Walter was the daughter of William Walter of Roch Castle, co.  Pembroke, and Mr. S. Steinman, in his “Althorp Memoirs” (privately printed, 1869), sets out her pedigree, which is a good one.  Roch Castle was taken and burnt by the Parliamentary forces in 1644, and Lucy was in London in 1648, where she made the acquaintance of Colonel Algernon Sidney.  She then fell into the possession of his brother, Colonel Robert Sidney.  In September of this same year she was taken up by Charles, Prince of Wales.  Charles terminated his connection with her on