Lord Crew's. My Lord not being come home, I met and staid below with
Captain Ferrers, who was come to wait upon my Lady Jemimah to St. James's,
she being one of the four ladies that hold up the mantle at the
christening this afternoon of the Duke's child (a boy). In discourse of
the ladies at Court, Captain Ferrers tells me that my Lady Castlemaine is
now as great again as ever she was; and that her going away was only a fit
of her own upon some slighting words of the King, so that she called for
her coach at a quarter of an hour's warning, and went to Richmond; and the
King the next morning, under pretence of going a-hunting, went to see her
and make friends, and never was a-hunting at all. After which she came
back to Court, and commands the King as much as ever, and hath and doth
what she will. No longer ago than last night, there was a private
entertainment made for the King and Queen at the Duke of Buckingham's, and
she: was not invited: but being at my Lady Suffolk's, her aunt's (where my
Lady Jemimah and Lord Sandwich dined) yesterday, she was heard to say,
"Well; much good may it do them, and for all that I will be as merry as
they:" and so she went home and caused a great supper to be prepared. And
after the King had been with the Queen at Wallingford House, he came to my
Lady Castlemaine's, and was there all night, and my Lord Sandwich with
him, which was the reason my Lord lay in town all night, which he has not
done a great while before. He tells me he believes that, as soon as the
King can get a husband for Mrs. Stewart however, my Lady Castlemaine's
nose will be out of joynt; for that she comes to be in great esteem, and
is more handsome than she. I found by his words that my Lord Sandwich
finds some pleasure in the country where he now is, whether he means one
of the daughters of the house or no I know not, but hope the contrary,
that he thinks he is very well pleased with staying there, but yet upon
breaking up of the Parliament, which the King by a message to-day says
shall be on Monday next, he resolves to go. Ned Pickering, the coxcomb,
notwithstanding all his hopes of my Lord's assistance, wherein I am sorry