got, they say, L20,000 since the King come in. Mr. Pierce did also tell me
as a great truth, as being told it by Mr. Cowly, who was by, and heard it,
that Tom Killigrew should publiquely tell the King that his matters were
coming into a very ill state; but that yet there was a way to help all,
which is, says he, "There is a good, honest, able man, that I could name,
that if your Majesty would employ, and command to see all things well
executed, all things would soon be mended; and this is one Charles Stuart,
who now spends his time in employing his lips . . . . about the Court,
and hath no other employment; but if you would give him this employment,
he were the fittest man in the world to perform it." This, he says, is
most true; but the King do not profit by any of this, but lays all aside,
and remembers nothing, but to his pleasures again; which is a sorrowful
consideration. Very good company we were at dinner, and merry, and after
dinner, he being gone about business, my wife and I and Mrs. Pierce and
Betty and Balty, who come to see us to-day very sick, and went home not
well, together out, and our coach broke the wheel off upon Ludgate Hill.
So we were fain to part ourselves and get room in other people's coaches,
and Mrs. Pierce and I in one, and I carried her home and set her down, and
myself to the King's playhouse, which troubles me since, and hath cost me
a forfeit of 10s., which I have paid, and there did see a good part of
"The English Monsieur," which is a mighty pretty play, very witty and
pleasant. And the women do very well; but, above all, little Nelly; that
I am mightily pleased with the play, and much with the House, more than
ever I expected, the women doing better than ever I expected, and very
fine women. Here I was in pain to be seen, and hid myself; but, as God
would have it, Sir John Chichly come, and sat just by me. Thence to Mrs.
Pierce's, and there took up my wife and away home, and to the office and
Sir W. Batten's, of whom I hear that this Proviso in Parliament is
mightily ill taken by all the Court party as a mortal blow, and that, that
strikes deep into the King's prerogative, which troubles me mightily.