Convenience

Up late and by water to Westminster Hall, where I met Pierce the chirurgeon, who tells me that for certain the King is grown colder to my Lady Castlemaine than ordinary, and that he believes he begins to love the Queen, and do make much of her, more than he used to do. Up to the Lobby, and there sent out for Mr. Coventry and Sir W. Batten, and told them if they thought convenient I would go to Chatham today, Sir John Minnes being already there at a Pay, and I would do such and such business there, which they thought well of, and so I went home and prepared myself to go after, dinner with Sir W. Batten.
Sir W. Batten and Mr. Coventry tell me that my Lord Bristoll hath this day impeached my Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords of High Treason. The chief of the articles are these:
1. That he should be the occasion of the peace made with Holland lately upon such disadvantageous terms, and that he was bribed to it.
2. That Dunkirke was also sold by his advice chiefly, so much to the damage of England.
3. That he had 6000l. given him for the drawing-up or promoting of the Irish declaration lately, concerning the division of the lands there.
4. He did carry on the design of the Portugall match, so much to the prejudice of the Crown of England, notwithstanding that he knew the Queen is not capable of bearing children.
5. That the Duke’s marrying of his daughter was a practice of his, thereby to raise his family; and that it was done by indirect courses.
6. That the breaking-off of the match with Parma, in which he was employed at the very time when the match with Portugall was made up here, which he took as a great slur to him, and so it was; and that, indeed, is the chief occasion of all this fewde.
7. That he hath endeavoured to bring in Popery, and wrote to the Pope for a cap for a subject of the King of England’s (my Lord Aubigny ); and some say that he lays it to the Chancellor, that a good Protestant Secretary (Sir Edward Nicholas) was laid aside, and a Papist, Sir H. Bennet, put in his room: which is very strange, when the last of these two is his own creature, and such an enemy accounted to the Chancellor, that they never did nor do agree; and all the world did judge the Chancellor to be falling from the time that Sir H. Bennet was brought in. Besides my Lord Bristoll being a Catholique himself, all this is very strange.
These are the main of the Articles. Upon which my Lord Chancellor desired that the noble Lord that brought in these Articles, would sign to them with his hand; which my Lord Bristoll did presently. Then the House did order that the judges should, against Monday next, bring in their opinion, Whether these articles are treason, or no? and next, they would know, Whether they were brought in regularly or no, without leave of the Lords’ House?
After dinner I took boat (H. Russell) and down to Gravesend in good time, and thence with a guide post to Chatham, where I found Sir J. Minnes and Mr. Wayth walking in the garden, whom I told all this day’s news, which I left the town full of, and it is great news, and will certainly be in the consequence of it.
By and by to supper, and after long discourse, Sir J. Minnes and I, he saw me to my chamber, which not pleasing me, I sent word so to Mrs. Bradford, that I should be crowded into such a hole, while the clerks and boarders of her own take up the best rooms. However I lay there and slept well.

love if convenient
would be high treason

a peace made on disadvantageous terms
with break-up and feud

a room is the last
enemy to all the world

falling from time
into desire

no hand or pinion
full of consequence

should crowd into
such a hole

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 10 July 1663.