25th. To White Hall, and there to chapel; where it was most infinite full to hear Dr. Critton. [Creighton.] The Doctor preached upon the thirty-first of Jeremy, and the twenty-first and twenty-second verses, about a woman compassing a man; meaning the Virgin conceiving and bearing our Saviour. It was the worst sermon I ever heard him make, I must confess; and yet it was good, and in two places very bitter, advising the King to do as the Emperor Severus did, to hang up a Presbyter John (a short coat and a long gowne interchangeably) in all the Courts of England. But the story of Severus was pretty, that he hanged up forty senators before the Senate-house, and then made a speech presently to the Senate in praise of his own lenity; and then decreed that never any senator after that time should suffer in the same manner without consent of the Senate: which he compared to the proceeding of the Long Parliament against my Lord Strafford. He said the greatest part of the lay magistrates in England were Puritans, and would not do justice; and the Bishops' powers were so taken away and lessened, that they could not exercise the power they ought. He told the King and the ladies, plainly speaking of death and of the skulls and bones of dead men and women, how there is no difference; that nobody could tell that of the great Marius or Alexander from a pyoneer; nor, for all the pains the ladies take with their faces, he that should look in a charnel-house could not distinguish which was Cleopatra's, or fair Rosamond's, or Jane Shore's.
26th. Sir W. Batten told me how Sir Richard Temple hath spoke very discontentful words in the house about the Triennial Bill; but it hath been read the second time to-day, and committed; and, he believes, will go on without more ado, though there are many in the house are displeased at it, though they dare not say much. But above all expectation, Mr. Prin is the man against it, comparing it to the idoll whose head was of gold, and his body and legs and feet of different metal. So this Bill had several degrees of calling of Parliaments, in case the King, and then the Council, and then the Lord Chancellor, and then the Sheriffes, should fail to do it. He tells me also, how, upon occasion of some 'prentices being put in the pillory to-day for beating of their masters or such like thing, in Cheapside, a company of 'prentices come and rescued them, and pulled down the pillory; and they being set up again, did the like again.
28th. The great matter to-day in the House hath been, that Mr. Vaughan, [John Vaughan, afterwards knighted, and made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.] the great speaker, is this day come to town, and hath declared himself in a speech of an hour and a half with great reason and eloquence, against the repealing of the Bill for Triennial Parliaments, but with no successe: but the House have carried it that there shall be such Parliaments, but without any coercive power upon the King, if he will bring this Act. But, Lord! to see how the best things are not done without some design; for I perceive all these gentlemen that I was with to-day, are against it (though there was reason enough on their side); yet purely I could perceive, because it was the King's mind to have it; and should he demand any thing else, I believe they would give it him.
APRIL 1, 1664. To White Hall; and in the Gallery met the Duke of York; (I also saw the Queene going to the Park, and her Maids of Honour: she herself looks ill, and methinks Mrs. Stewart is grown fatter, and not so fair as she was:) and he called me to him, and discoursed a good while with me; and after he was gone, twice or thrice staid and called me again to him, the whole length of the house: and at last talked of the Dutch; and I perceive do much wish that the Parliament will find reason to fall out with them.
3rd. Called up by W. Joyce, [William Joyce had married Mr. Pepys' first cousin, Kate Fenner.] he being summonsed to the House of Lords to-morrow, for endeavouring to arrest my Lady Peters for a debt. [Elizabeth, daughter of John Earl Rivers, and first wife to William fourth Lord Petre, who was, in 1678, impeached by the Commons of High Treason, and died under confinement in the Tower, January 5th, 1683, S.P.]
4th. Up, and walked to my Lord Sandwich's; and there spoke with him about W. Joyce, who tells me he would do what was fit; in so tender a point. I to the Lords' House before they sat; and stood within it, while the Duke of York come to me and spoke to me a good while about the new ship at Woolwich. Afterwards I spoke with my Lord Barkeley and my Lord Peterborough about it. And so staid without a good while, and saw my Lady Peters, an impudent jade, soliciting all the Lords on her behalf. And at last W. Joyce was called in; and by the consequences, and what my Lord Peterborough told me, I find that he did speak all he said to his disadvantage, and so was committed to the Black Rod: which is very hard, he doing what he did by the advice of my Lord Peter's own steward. But the Serjeant of the Black Rod did direct one of his messengers to take him in custody, and peaceably conducted him to the Swan with two Necks, in Tuttle-street, to a handsome dining-room; and there was most civilly used. It was a sad sight, methought, to-day to see my Lord Peters coming out of the House, fall out with his lady (from whom he is parted) about this business, saying that she disgraced him. But she hath been a handsome woman, and is, it seems, not only a lewd woman, but very high-spirited.
5th. Lord Peterborough presented a petition to the House from W. Joyce: and a great dispute, we hear, there was in the House for and against it. At last it was carried that he should be bayled till the House meets again after Easter, he giving bond for his appearance. Anon comes the King and passed the Bill for repealing the Triennial Act, and another about Writs of Errour. I crowded in and heard the King's Speech to them; but he speaks the worst that ever I heard man in my life: worse than if he read it all, and he had it in writing in his hand. I went to W. Joyce, where I found the order come, and bayle (his father and brother) given; and he paying his fees, which come to above 12l., besides 5l. he is to give one man, and his charges of eating and drinking here, and 10s. a-day as many days as he stands under bayle: which, I hope, will teach him hereafter to hold his tongue better than he used to do.
8th. Home to the only Lenten supper I have had of wiggs [Buns, still called wiggs in the West of England.] and ale.
15th. To the Duke's house, and there saw "The German Princesse" acted, by the woman herself; but never was any thing so well done in earnest, worse performed in jest upon the stage. [Mary Moders, alias Stedman, alias Carleton, a celebrated impostor, who had induced the son of a London citizen to marry her under the pretence that she was a German Princess. She next became an actress, after having been tried for bigamy and acquitted. The rest of her life was one continued course of robbery and fraud; and in 1678 she suffered at Tyburn, for stealing a piece of plate from a tavern in Chancery-lane.]
18th. Up and by coach to Westminster, and there solicited W. Joyce's business again; and did speak to the Duke of York about it, who did understand it very well. I afterwards did without the House fall in company with my Lady Peters, and endeavoured to mollify her: but she told me she would not, to redeem her from hell, do any thing to release him; but would be revenged while she lived, if she lived the age of Methusalem. I made many friends, and so did others. At last it was ordered by the Lords that it should be referred to the Committee of Priviledges to consider. So I away by coach to the 'Change; and there do hear that a Jew hath put in a policy of four per cent. to any man, to insure him against a Dutch warr for four months: I could find in my heart to take him at this offer. To Hide Park, where I have not been since last year: where I saw the King with his periwigg, but not altered at all; and my Lady Castlemaine in a coach by herself, in yellow satin and a pinner on; and many brave persons. And myself being in a hackney and full of people, was ashamed to be seen by the world, many of them knowing me.