with her in the fields; and being come to the castle, she excused her not
being yet ready to confer with him upon his articles, as she had
promised, but told him that she had ordered something to be written down
on that subject to show to him. She took him into her coach, where was
the "Belle Comtesse," the Countess Gabriel Oxenstiern, Prince Adolphus,
Piementelle, Montecuculi, Tott, and Whitelocke. The Queen was very merry,
and they were full of cheerful discourse. Being returned to the castle at
night, she desired to hear Whitelocke's music, whom he sent for to the
castle; and they played and sang in her presence, wherewith she seemed
much pleased, and desired Whitelocke to thank them in her name. She said
she never heard so good a concert of music, and of English songs; and
desired Whitelocke, at his return to England, to procure her some to play
on those instruments which would be most agreeable to her.

[SN: The Chancellor falls ill.]

Lagerfeldt came to Whitelocke in the Court, and told him that the
Chancellor intended to have had a meeting with him this day, but was
hindered by falling sick of an ague; but in case his health would not
permit him to meet, that then his son Eric Oxenstiern, by the Queen's
appointment, would meet and confer with Whitelocke about the treaty in
place of his father. But Whitelocke was not glad of this deputation,
wishing much rather to confer with the old man upon this subject, who was
good-natured, civil, and affectionate to Whitelocke, than with the son,
Grave Eric, who was of a more rugged and self-conceited humour, and not
so soon gained by reason and convinced by arguments as the good old man
his father used to be.


_March 8, 1653._