The Diary of Samuel Pepys [151]
thought if the Queene had died, he would have married her. Mr. Blackburne and I fell to talk of many things, wherein he was very open to me: first, in that of religion, he makes it greater matter of prudence for the King and Council to suffer liberty of conscience; and imputes the loss of Hungary to the Turke from the Emperor's denying them this liberty of their religion. He says that many pious ministers of the word of God, some thousands of them, do now beg their bread: and told me how highly the present clergy carry themselves every where so as that they are hated and laughed at by every body; among other things, for their excommunications, which they send upon the least occasions almost that can be. And I am convinced in my judgement, not only from his discourse, but my thoughts in general, that the present clergy will never heartily go down with the generality of the commons of England; they have been so used to liberty and freedom, and they are so acquainted with the pride and debauchery of the present clergy. He did give me many stories of the affronts which the clergy receive in all places of England from the gentry and ordinary persons of the parish. He do tell me what the City thinks of General Monk, as of a most perfidious man that hath betrayed every body, and the King also; who, as he thinks, and his party, and so I have heard other good friends of the King say, it might have been better for the King to have had his hands a little bound for the present, than be forced to bring such a crew of poor people about him, and be liable to satisfy the demands of every one of them. He told me that to his knowledge, (being present at every meeting at the Treaty at the Isle of Wight,) that the old King did confess himself over-ruled and convinced in his judgement against the Bishopps, and would have suffered and did agree to exclude the service out of the churches, nay his own chapell; and that he did always say, that this he did not by force, for that he would never abate one inch by any violence; but what he did was out of his reason and judgement. He tells me that the King by name, with all his dignities, is prayed for by them that they call Fanatiques, as heartily and powerfully as in any of the other churches that are thought better: and that, let the King think what he will, it is them that must help him in the day of warr. For so generally they are the most substantiall sort of people, and the soberest; and did desire me to observe it to my Lord Sandwich, among other things, that of all the old army now you cannot see a man begging about the streets; but what? You shall have this captain turned a shoemaker; the lieutenant, a baker; this a brewer; that a haberdasher; this common soldier, a porter; and every man in his apron and frock, &c., as if they had never done anything else: whereas the other go with their belts and swords, swearing and cursing, and stealing; running into people's houses, by force oftentimes, to carry away something; and this is the difference between the temper of one and the other; and concludes (and I think: with some reason,) that the spirits of the old parliament soldiers are so quiet and contented with God's providences, that the King is safer from any evil meant him by them one thousand times more than from his own discontented Cavalier. And then to the publick management of business: it is done, as he observes, so loosely and so carelessly, that the kingdom can never be happy with it, every man looking after himself, and his own lust and luxury; and that half of what money the Parliament gives the King is not so much as gathered. And to the purpose he told me how the Bellamys (who had some of the northern counties assigned them for their debt for the petty warrant victnalling) have often complained to him that they cannot get it collected, for that nobody minds, or if they do, they won't pay it in. Whereas (which is a very remarkable thing,) he hath been told by some of the Treasurers at Warr here of late, to whom the most of the 120,000l. monthly was paid, that for most