prove there was
anything of that in it; for that would imply some wit and thoughtfulness;
but we are ruined merely by folly and neglect." And so Sir H. Cholmly
tells me they did all argue for peace, and so he do believe that the King
hath agreed to the three points Mr. Coventry brought over, which I have
mentioned before, and is gone with them back. He tells me further that
the Duke of Buckingham was before the Council the other day, and there did
carry it very submissively and pleasingly to the King; but to my Lord
Arlington, who do prosecute the business, he was most bitter and sharp,
and very slighting. As to the letter about his employing a man to cast the
King's nativity, says he to the King, "Sir," says he, "this is none of my
hand, and I refer it to your Majesty whether you do not know this hand."
The King answered, that it was indeed none of his, and that he knew whose
it was, but could not recall it presently. "Why," says he, "it is my
sister of Richmond's, some frolick or other of hers of some certain
person; and there is nothing of the King's name in it, but it is only said
to be his by supposition, as is said." The King, it seems, seemed not
very much displeased with what the Duke had said; but, however, he is
still in the Tower, and no discourse of his being out in haste, though my
Lady Castlemayne hath so far solicited for him that the King and she are
quite fallen out: he comes not to her, nor hath for some three or four
days; and parted with very foul words, the King calling her a whore, and a
jade that meddled with things she had nothing to do with at all: and she
calling him fool; and told him if he was not a fool, he would not suffer
his businesses to be carried on by fellows that did not understand them,
and cause his best subjects, and those best able to serve him, to be
imprisoned; meaning the Duke of Buckingham. And it seems she was not only
for his liberty, but to be restored to all his places; which, it is
thought, he will never be. While we were at the Excise office talking
with Mr. Ball, it was computed that the Parliament had given the King for
this war only, besides all prizes, and besides the L200,000 which he was
to spend of his own revenue, to guard the sea above L5,000,000 and odd
L100,000; which is a most prodigious sum. Sir H. Cholmly, as a true
English gentleman, do decry the King's expenses of his Privy-purse, which
in King James's time did not rise to above L5000 a year, and in