England under Charles II. from the Restoration to the Treaty of Nimeguen, 1660-1678: English History from Contemporary Writers
Taylor, W. F.
1889
The King's fondness of his natural children, his dislike for the Queen. The Cabal is foreshadowed as early as 1664.
Pepys's Diary. Feb. 22, . | |
This evening came Mr. Allsopp, the king's brewer, with whom I spent an hour talking and bewailing the posture of things at present; the king led away by half a dozen men, that none of his serious servants and friends can come at him. There are Lauderdale, Buckingham, Hamilton, Fitz-Harding, to whom he hath, it seems, given £12,000 per annum in the best part of the king's estate; and that the old duke of Buckingham could never get of the king. Progers [the king's valet de chambre] is another, and Sir H. Bennett [afterwards lord Arlington]. He loves not the queen at all but is rather sullen to her; and she by all reports incapable of children. He is so fond of the duke of Monmouth that everybody admires [i.e. wonders at] it; and he says that the duke hath said that he would be the death of any man that says the king was not married to his mother [Lucy Walters]; though Allsopp says it is well known that she was a common strumpet before the king was acquainted with her. But it seems he says that the king is mighty fond of these bastard children; and at this day will go at midnight to my lady Castlemaine's nurses, and take the child and dance it in his arms. | |