ter dinner with W. Pen, who come to my house to call me, to
White Hall, to wait on the Duke of York, where he again and all the
company magnified me, and several in the Gallery: among others, my Lord
Gerard, who never knew me before nor spoke to me, desires his being better
acquainted with me; and [said] that, at table where he was, he never heard
so much said of any man as of me, in his whole life. We waited on the
Duke of York, and thence into the Gallery, where the House of Lords waited
the King's coming out of the Park, which he did by and by; and there, in
the Vane-room, my Lord Keeper delivered a message to the King, the Lords
being about him, wherein the Barons of England, from many good arguments,
very well expressed in the part he read out of, do demand precedence in
England of all noblemen of either of the King's other two kingdoms, be
their title what it will; and did shew that they were in England reputed
but as Commoners, and sat in the House of Commons, and at conferences with
the Lords did stand bare. It was mighty worth my hearing: but the King
did only say that he would consider of it, and so dismissed them. Thence
Brouncker and I to the Committee of Miscarriages sitting in the Court of
Wards, expecting with Sir D. Gawden to have been heard against Prince
Rupert's complaints for want of victuals. But the business of Holmes's
charge against Sir Jer. Smith, which is a most shameful scandalous thing
for Flag officers to accuse one another of, and that this should be heard
here before men that understand it not at all, and after it hath been
examined and judged in before the King and Lord High Admirall and other
able seamen to judge, it is very hard. But this business did keep them
all the afternoon, so we not heard but put off to another day. Thence,
with the Lieutenant of the Tower, in his coach home; and there, with great
pleasure, with my wife, talking and playing at cards a little--she, and I,
and W. Hewer, and Deb., and so, after a little supper, I to bed.

7th. Up, and to the office, where all the morning, at noon home to
dinner, where Mercer with us, and after dinner she, my wife, Deb., and I,
to the King's playhouse, and there saw "The Spanish Gipsys," the second
time of acting, and the first that I saw it. A very silly play, only
great variety of dances, and those most excellently done, especially one
part by one Hanes, only lately come thither from the Nursery, an
understanding fellow, but