Office day all the morning. In the afternoon with the upholster seeing him do things to my mind, and to my content he did fit my chamber and my wife’s. At night comes Mr. Moore, and staid late with me to tell me how Sir Hards. Waller (who only pleads guilty), Scott, Coke, Peters, Harrison, &c. were this day arraigned at the bar at the Sessions House, there being upon the bench the Lord Mayor, General Monk, my Lord of Sandwich, &c.; such a bench of noblemen as had not been ever seen in England!
They all seem to be dismayed, and will all be condemned without question. In Sir Orlando Bridgman’s charge, he did wholly rip up the unjustness of the war against the King from the beginning, and so it much reflects upon all the Long Parliament, though the King had pardoned them, yet they must hereby confess that the King do look upon them as traitors.
To-morrow they are to plead what they have to say. At night to bed.
Noon, do things to my mind.
Fit my chamber.
Night comes with coke and dismay,
without a beginning,
so reflect upon me
though I don a lead hat.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 10 October 1660.