At the office all the morning, where Mr. Wren first tells us of the order from the King, came last night to the Duke of York, for signifying his pleasure to the Sollicitor-General for drawing up a Commission for suspending of my Lord Anglesey, and putting in Sir Thomas Littleton and Sir Thomas Osborne, the former a creature of Arlington’s, and the latter of the Duke of Buckingham’s, during the suspension. The Duke of York was forced to obey, and did grant it, he being to go to Newmarket this day with the King, and so the King pressed for it. But Mr. Wren do own that the Duke of York is the most wounded in this, in the world, for it is done and concluded without his privity, after his appearing for Lord Anglesey, and that it is plain that they do ayme to bring the Admiralty into Commission too, and lessen the Duke of York. This do put strange apprehensions into all our Board; only I think I am the least troubled at it, for I care not at all for it: but my Lord Brouncker and Pen do seem to think much of it. So home to dinner, full of this news, and after dinner to the office, and so home all the afternoon to do business towards my drawing up an account for the Duke of York of the answers of this office to his late great letter, and late at it, and so to bed, with great peace from my wife and quiet, I bless God.
born a creature
into this wounded world
with strange apprehensions
I am but a pen
so full of news
my raw account
of the quiet
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 29 October 1668.