Meanwhile, the merry monarch behaved as if he had no higher
purpose in life than that of following his pleasures. "The king
is as decomposed [dissipated] as ever," the lord chancellor
writes to the Duke of Ormond, in a letter preserved in the
Bodleian library, "and looks as little after his business; which
breaks my heart, and makes me and other of your friends weary of
our lives. He seeks for his satisfaction and delight in other
company, which do not love him so well as you and I do." His days
were spent in pursuing love, feasting sumptuously, interchanging
wit, and enjoying all that seemed good to the senses. Pepys, who
never fails to make mention of the court when actual experience
or friendly gossip enables him, throws many pleasant lights upon
the ways of the monarch and his courtiers.

For instance, he tells us that one Lord's day--the same on which
this excellent man had been to Whitehall chapel, and heard a
sermon by the Dean of Ely on returning to the old ways, and,
moreover, a most tuneful anthem sung by Captain Cooke, with
symphonies between--whom should he meet but the great chirurgeon,
Mr. Pierce, who carried him to Somerset House, and into the queen
mother's presence-chamber. And there, on the left hand of
Henrietta Maria, sat the young queen, whom Mr. Pepys had never
seen before, and now thought that "though she be not very
charming, yet she hath a good, modest, and innocent look, which
is pleasing." Here, likewise, he saw the king's mistress, and the
young Duke of Monmouth, "who, I perceive," Pepys continues, "do
hang much upon my Lady Castlemaine, and is always with her; and I
hear the queenes, both of them, are mighty kind to him. By-and-
by in comes the king, and anon the duke and his duchesse; so
that, they being all together, was such a sight as I never could