next Sessions: which is a horrid shame. How the King and these gentlemen
did make the fiddlers of Thetford, this last progress, to sing them all
the bawdy songs they could think of. How Sir W. Coventry was brought the
other day to the Duchesse of York by the Duke, to kiss her hand; who did
acknowledge his unhappiness to occasion her so much sorrow, declaring his
intentions in it, and praying her pardon; which she did give him upon his
promise to make good his pretences of innocence to her family, by his
faithfulness to his master, the Duke of York. That the Duke of Buckingham
is now all in all, and will ruin Coventry, if he can: and that W. Coventry
do now rest wholly upon the Duke of York for his standing, which is a
great turn. He tells me that my Lady Castlemayne, however, is a mortal
enemy to the Duke of Buckingham, which I understand not; but, it seems,
she is disgusted with his greatness, and his ill usage of her. That the
King was drunk at Saxam with Sidly, Buckhurst, &c., the night that my Lord
Arlington come thither, and would not give him audience, or could not
which is true, for it was the night that I was there, and saw the King go
up to his chamber, and was told that the King had been drinking. He tells
me, too, that the Duke of York did the next day chide Bab. May for his
occasioning the King's giving himself up to these gentlemen, to the
neglecting of my Lord Arlington: to which he answered merrily, that, by
God, there was no man in England that had heads to lose, durst do what
they do, every day, with the King, and asked the Duke of York's pardon:
which is a sign of a mad world. God bless us out of it!

24th. This morning comes to me the coachmaker, and agreed with me for
L53, and stand to the courtesy of what more I should give him upon the
finishing of the coach: he is likely also to fit me with a coachman. There
comes also to me Mr. Shotgrave, the operator of our Royal Society, to show
me his method of making the Tubes for the eyes, which are clouterly done,
so that mine are better, but I have well informed myself in several things