discourse with him, and some good, among others at table he told us a very
handsome passage of the King's sending him his message about holding out
the town of Newarke, of which he was then governor for the King. This
message he sent in a sluggbullet, being writ in cypher, and wrapped up in
lead and swallowed. So the messenger come to my Lord and told him he had
a message from the King, but it was yet in his belly; so they did give him
some physique, and out it come. This was a month before the King's flying
to the Scotts; and therein he told him that at such a day, being the 3d or
6th of May, he should hear of his being come to the Scotts, being assured
by the King of France that in coming to them he should be used with all
the liberty, honour, and safety, that could be desired. And at the just
day he did come to the Scotts. He told us another odd passage: how the
King having newly put out Prince Rupert of his generallshipp, upon some
miscarriage at Bristoll, and Sir Richard Willis

[Sir Richard Willis, the betrayer of the Royalists, was one of the
"Sealed Knot." When the Restoration had become a certainty, he
wrote to Clarendon imploring him to intercede for him with the king
(see Lister's "Life of Clarendon," vol. iii., p. 87).]

of his governorship of Newarke, at the entreaty of the gentry of the
County, and put in my Lord Bellasses, the great officers of the King's
army mutinyed, and come in that manner with swords drawn, into the
market-place of the towne where the King was; which the King hearing,
says, "I must to horse." And there himself personally, when every body
expected they should have been opposed, the King come, and cried to the
head of the mutineers, which was Prince Rupert, "Nephew, I command you to
be gone." So the Prince, in all his fury and discontent, withdrew, and
his company scattered, which they say was the greatest piece of mutiny in
the world. Thence after dinner home to my office, and in the evening was