10th. Up late and by water to Westminster Hall, where I met Pierce the
chirurgeon, who tells me that for certain the King is grown colder to my
Lady Castlemaine than ordinary, and that he believes he begins to love the
Queen, and do make much of her, more than he used to do. Up to the Lobby,
and there sent out for Mr. Coventry and Sir W. Batten, and told them if
they thought convenient I would go to Chatham today, Sir John Minnes being
already there at a Pay, and I would do such and such business there, which
they thought well of, and so I went home and prepared myself to go after,
dinner with Sir W. Batten. Sir W. Batten and Mr. Coventry tell me that my
Lord Bristoll hath this day impeached my Lord Chancellor in the House of
Lords of High Treason. The chief of the articles are these: 1st. That he
should be the occasion of the peace made with Holland lately upon such
disadvantageous terms, and that he was bribed to it. 2d. That Dunkirke
was also sold by his advice chiefly, so much to the damage of England.
3d. That he had L6000 given him for the drawing-up or promoting of the
Irish declaration lately, concerning the division of the lands there.
4th. He did carry on the design of the Portugall match, so much to the
prejudice of the Crown of England, notwithstanding that he knew the Queen
is not capable of bearing children. 5th. That the Duke's marrying of his
daughter was a practice of his, thereby to raise his family; and that it
was done by indirect courses. 6th. That the breaking-off of the match
with Parma, in which he was employed at the very time when the match with
Portugall was made up here, which he took as a great slur to him, and so
it was; and that, indeed, is the chief occasion of all this fewde. 7th.
That he hath endeavoured to bring in Popery, and wrote to the Pope for a
cap for a subject of the King of England's (my Lord Aubigny ); and some
say that he lays it to the Chancellor, that a good Protestant Secretary
(Sir Edward Nicholas) was laid aside, and a Papist, Sir H. Bennet, put in
his room: which is very strange, when the last of these two is his own