Thence home, and there did business, and so in the evening home to supper
and to bed. This day Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, was with me; and tells me
how this business of my Lord Chancellor's was certainly designed in my
Lady Castlemayne's chamber; and that, when he went from the King on Monday
morning, she was in bed, though about twelve o'clock, and ran out in her
smock into her aviary looking into White Hall garden; and thither her
woman brought her her nightgown; and stood joying herself at the old man's
going away: and several of the gallants of White Hall, of which there were
many staying to see the Chancellor return, did talk to her in her
birdcage; among others, Blancford, telling her she was the bird of
paradise.

[Clarendon refers to this scene in the continuation of his Life (ed.
1827, vol. iii., p. 291), and Lister writes: "Lady Castlemaine rose
hastily from her noontide bed, and came out into her aviary, anxious
to read in the saddened air of her distinguished enemy some presage
of his fall" ("Life of Clarendon," vol. ii., p. 412).]

28th. Up; and staid undressed till my tailor's boy did mend my vest, in
order to my going to the christening anon. Then out and to White Hall, to
attend the Council, by their order, with an answer to their demands
touching our advice for the paying off of the seamen, when the ships shall
come in, which answer is worth seeing, shewing the badness of our
condition. There, when I come, I was forced to stay till past twelve
o'clock, in a crowd of people in the lobby, expecting the hearing of the
great cause of Alderman Barker against my Lord Deputy of Ireland, for his
ill usage in his business of land there; but the King and Council sat so
long, as they neither heard them nor me. So when they rose, I into the
House, and saw the King and Queen at dinner, and heard a little of their
viallins' musick, and so home, and there to dinner, and in the afternoon