By water to Whitehall (leaving my wife at Whitefriars going to my father’s to buy her a muff and mantle), there I signed many things at the Privy Seal, and carried 200l. from thence to the Exchequer, and laid it up with Mr. Hales, and afterwards took him and W. Bowyer to the Swan and drank with them. They told me that this is St. Thomas’s, and that by an old custom, this day the Exchequer men had formerly, and do intend this night to have a supper; which if I could I promised to come to, but did not.
To my Lady’s, and dined with her: she told me how dangerously ill the Princess Royal is and that this morning she was said to be dead. But she hears that she hath married herself to young Jermyn, which is worse than the Duke of York’s marrying the Chancellor’s daughter, which is now publicly owned.
After dinner to the office all the afternoon. At seven at night I walked through the dirt to Whitehall to see whether my Lord be come to town, and I found him come and at supper, and I supped with him. He tells me that my aunt at Brampton has voided a great stone (the first time that ever I heard she was troubled therewith) and cannot possibly live long, that my uncle is pretty well, but full of pain still.
After supper home and to bed.
Water to the sea:
wan men
said to be dead
walk through the dirt
to see a great stone.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 21 December 1660.