Lord did also seal a lease for the house he is now
taking in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, which stands
him in 250 per annum rent. Thence by water to
my brother’s, whom I find not well in bed, sicke,
they think, of a consumption, and I fear he is not
well, but do not complain, nor desire to take anything.
From him I visited Mr. Honiwood, who is lame, and
to thank him for his visit to me the other day, but
we were both abroad. So to Mr. Commander’s
in Warwicke Lane, to speak to him about drawing up
my will, which he will meet me about in a day or two.
So to the ’Change and walked home, thence with
Sir Richard Ford, who told me that Turner is to be
hanged to-morrow, and with what impudence he hath carried
out his trial; but that last night, when he brought
him newes of his death, he began to be sober and shed
some tears, and he hopes will die a penitent; he having
already confessed all the thing, but says it was partly
done for a joke, and partly to get an occasion of
obliging the old man by his care in getting him his
things again, he having some hopes of being the better
by him in his estate at his death. Home to dinner,
and after dinner my wife and I by water, which we
have not done together many a day, that is not since
last summer, but the weather is now very warm, and
left her at Axe Yard, and I to White Hall, and meeting
Mr. Pierce walked with him an hour in the Matted Gallery;
among other things he tells me that my Lady Castlemaine
is not at all set by by the King, but that he do doat
upon Mrs. Stewart only; and that to the leaving of
all business in the world, and to the open slighting
of the Queene; that he values not who sees him or
stands by him while he dallies with her openly; and
then privately in her chamber below, where the very
sentrys observe his going in and out; and that so
commonly, that the Duke or any of the nobles, when
they would ask where the King is, they will ordinarily
say, “Is the King above, or below?” meaning
with Mrs. Stewart: that the King do not openly
disown my Lady Castlemaine, but that she comes to
Court; but that my Lord FitzHarding and the Hambletons,
[The three brothers,
George Hamilton, James Hamilton, and the Count
Antoine Hamilton, author
of the “Memoires de Grammont.”]
and sometimes my Lord Sandwich, they say, have their
snaps at her. But he says my Lord Sandwich will
lead her from her lodgings in the darkest and obscurest
manner, and leave her at the entrance into the Queene’s
lodgings, that he might be the least observed; that
the Duke of Monmouth the King do still doat on beyond
measure, insomuch that the King only, the Duke of
York, and Prince Rupert, and the Duke of Monmouth,
do now wear deep mourning, that is, long cloaks, for
the Duchesse of Savoy; so that he mourns as a Prince
of the Blood, while the Duke of York do no more, and
all the nobles of the land not so much; which gives
great offence, and he says the Duke of York do consider.
But that the Duke of York do give himself up to business,