more strange, tells me that little Mis. Tooker hath got a clap as young as
she is, being brought up loosely by her mother . . . . In the
afternoon away to White Hall by water, and took a turn or two in the Park,
and then back to White Hall, and there meeting my Lord Arlington, he, by I
know not what kindness, offered to carry me along with him to my Lord
Treasurer's, whither, I told him, I was going. I believe he had a mind to
discourse of some Navy businesses, but Sir Thomas Clifford coming into the
coach to us, we were prevented; which I was sorry for, for I had a mind to
begin an acquaintance with him. He speaks well, and hath pretty slight
superficial parts, I believe. He, in our going, talked much of the plain
habit of the Spaniards; how the King and Lords themselves wear but a cloak
of Colchester bayze, and the ladies mantles, in cold weather, of white
flannell: and that the endeavours frequently of setting up the manufacture
of making these stuffs there have only been prevented by the Inquisition:
the English and Dutchmen that have been sent for to work, being taken with
a Psalmbook or Testament, and so clapped up, and the house pulled down by
the Inquisitors; and the greatest Lord in Spayne dare not say a word
against it, if the word Inquisition be but mentioned. At my Lord
Treasurer's 'light and parted with them, they going into Council, and I
walked with Captain Cocke, who takes mighty notice of the differences
growing in our office between Lord Bruncker and [Sir] W. Batten, and among
others also, and I fear it may do us hurt, but I will keep out of them.
By and by comes Sir S. Fox, and he and I walked and talked together on
many things, but chiefly want of money, and the straits the King brings
himself and affairs into for want of it. Captain Cocke did tell me what I
must not forget: that the answer of the Dutch, refusing The Hague for a
place of treaty, and proposing the Boysse, Bredah, Bergen-op-Zoome, or
Mastricht, was seemingly stopped by the Swede's Embassador (though he did
show it to the King, but the King would take no notice of it, nor does
not) from being delivered to the King; and he hath wrote to desire them to