him in his estate at his death. Home to dinner, and after dinner my wife
and I by water, which we have not done together many a day, that is not
since last summer, but the weather is now very warm, and left her at Axe
Yard, and I to White Hall, and meeting Mr. Pierce walked with him an hour
in the Matted Gallery; among other things he tells me that my Lady
Castlemaine is not at all set by by the King, but that he do doat upon
Mrs. Stewart only; and that to the leaving of all business in the world,
and to the open slighting of the Queene; that he values not who sees him
or stands by him while he dallies with her openly; and then privately in
her chamber below, where the very sentrys observe his going in and out;
and that so commonly, that the Duke or any of the nobles, when they would
ask where the King is, they will ordinarily say, "Is the King above, or
below?" meaning with Mrs. Stewart: that the King do not openly disown my
Lady Castlemaine, but that she comes to Court; but that my Lord
FitzHarding and the Hambletons,

[The three brothers, George Hamilton, James Hamilton, and the Count
Antoine Hamilton, author of the "Memoires de Grammont."]

and sometimes my Lord Sandwich, they say, have their snaps at her. But he
says my Lord Sandwich will lead her from her lodgings in the darkest and
obscurest manner, and leave her at the entrance into the Queene's
lodgings, that he might be the least observed; that the Duke of Monmouth
the King do still doat on beyond measure, insomuch that the King only, the
Duke of York, and Prince Rupert, and the Duke of Monmouth, do now wear
deep mourning, that is, long cloaks, for the Duchesse of Savoy; so that he
mourns as a Prince of the Blood, while the Duke of York do no more, and
all the nobles of the land not so much; which gives great offence, and he
says the Duke of York do consider. But that the Duke of York do give
himself up to business, and is like to prove a noble Prince; and so indeed