victualling, and paying them But it is a pleasant thing to think how their Basha, Shavan Aga, did tear his hair to see the soldiers order things thus, for (just like his late predecessors,) when they see the evil of war with England then for certain they complain to the Grand Seignor of him, and cut his head off this he is sure of, and knows as certain Thence to Westminster Hall, where I met with Mr Pierce, surgeon and among other things he asked me seriously whether I knew any thing of my Lord’s being out of favour with the King, and told me, that for certain the King do take mighty notice of my Lord’s living obscurely in a corner not like himself, and becoming the honour that he is come to I was sorry to hear, and the truth is, from my Lord’s discourse among his people (which I am told) of the uncertainty of princes’ favour, and his melancholy keeping from Court, I am doubtful of some such thing, but I seemed wholly strange to him in it, but will make my use of it He told me also how loose the Court is, nobody looking after business, but every man his lust and gain, and how the King is now become besotted upon Mrs Stewart, that he gets into corners, and will be with her half an hour together kissing her to the observation of all the world, and she now stays by herself and expects it, as my Lady Castlemaine did used to do, to whom the King, he says, is still kind, so as now and then he goes to her as he believes, but with no such fondness as he used to do But yet it is thought that this new wench is so subtle, that it is verily thought if the Queene had died, he would have married her Mr Blackburne and I fell to talk of many things, wherein he was very open to me first, in that of religion, he makes it greater matter of prudence for the King and Council to suffer liberty of conscience, and imputes the loss of Hungary to the Turke from the Emperor’s denying them this liberty of their religion He says that many pious ministers of the word of God, some thousands of them, do now beg their bread and told me how highly the present clergy carry themselves every where so as that they are hated and laughed at by every body, among other things, for their excommunications, which they send upon the least occasions almost that can be And I am convinced in my judgement, not only from his discourse, but my thoughts in general, that the present clergy will never heartily go down with the generality of the commons of England, they have been so used to liberty and freedom, and they are so acquainted with the pride and debauchery of the present clergy He did give me many stories of the affronts which the clergy receive in all places of England from the gentry and ordinary persons of the parish He do tell me what the City thinks of General Monk, as of a most perfidious man that hath betrayed every body, and the King also, who, as he thinks, and his party, and so I have heard other good friends of the King say, it might have been better for the King to have had his hands a little bound for the present, than be forced to bring such a crew of poor people about him, and be liable to satisfy the demands of every one of them He told me that to his knowledge (being present at every meeting at the Treaty at the Isle of Wight,) that the old King did confess himself over-ruled and convinced in his judgement against the Bishopps, and would have suffered and did agree to exclude the service out of the churches, nay his own chapell, and that he did always say, that this he did not by force, for that he would never abate one inch by any vyolence, but what he did was out of his reason and judgement He tells me that the King by name, with all his dignities, is prayed for by them that they call Fanatiques, as heartily and powerfully as in any of the other churches that are thought better and that, let the King think what he will, it is them that must help him in the day of warr For so generally they are the most substantiall sort of people and the soberest, and did desire me to observe it to my Lord Sandwich, among other things, that of all the old army now you cannot see a man begging about the streets, but what? You shall have this captain turned a shoemaker, the heutenant, a baker, this a brewer, that a haberdasher, this common soldier, a porter, and every man in his apron and frock, &c, as if they had never done anything else whereas the other go with their belts and swords, swearing and cursing, and stealing, running into people’s houses, by force oftentimes, to carry away something, and this is the difference between the temper of one and the other, and concludes (and I think with some reason,) that the spirits of the old parliament soldiers are so quiet and contented with God’s providences, that the King is safer from any evil meant him by them one thousand times more than from his own discontented Cavalier And then to the publick management of business it is done, as he observes, so loosely and so carelessly, that the kingdom can never be happy with it, every man looking after himself, and his own lust and luxury, and that half of what money the Parliament gives the King is not so much as gathered And to the purpose he told me how the Bellamys (who had some of the northern counties assigned them for their debt for the petty warrant victualling) have often complained to him that they cannot get it collected, for that nobody minds, or if they do, they won’t pay it in Whereas (which is a