Lord Rochester's running away on Friday night last with Mrs. Mallett, the
great beauty and fortune of the North, who had supped at White Hall with
Mrs. Stewart, and was going home to her lodgings with her grandfather, my
Lord Haly, by coach; and was at Charing Cross seized on by both horse and
foot men, and forcibly taken from him, and put into a coach with six
horses, and two women provided to receive her, and carried away. Upon
immediate pursuit, my Lord of Rochester (for whom the King had spoke to
the lady often, but with no successe) was taken at Uxbridge; but the lady
is not yet heard of, and the King mighty angry, and the Lord sent to the
Tower. Hereupon my Lady did confess to me, as a great secret, her being
concerned in this story. For if this match breaks between my Lord
Rochester and her, then, by the consent of all her friends, my Lord
Hinchingbroke stands fair, and is invited for her. She is worth, and will
be at her mother's death (who keeps but a little from her), L2500 per
annum. Pray God give a good success to it! But my poor Lady, who is
afeard of the sickness, and resolved to be gone into the country, is
forced to stay in towne a day or two, or three about it, to see the event
of it. Thence home and to see my Lady Pen, where my wife and I were shown
a fine rarity: of fishes kept in a glass of water, that will live so for
ever; and finely marked they are, being foreign.--[Gold-fish introduced
from China.]--So to supper at home and to bed, after many people being
with me about business, among others the two Bellamys about their old debt
due to them from the King for their victualling business, out of which I
hope to get some money.

29th. Lay long in bed, being in some little pain of the wind collique,
then up and to the Duke of Albemarle, and so to the Swan, and there drank
at Herbert's, and so by coach home, it being kept a great holiday through
the City, for the birth and restoration of the King. To my office, where
I stood by and saw Symson the joyner do several things, little jobbs, to