HKB
Trials.] is found guilty of felony and burglary: and strange stories of his confidence at the barr, but yet great indignation in his arguing. All desirous of his being hanged.
20th. My Lord Sandwich did seal a lease for the house he is now taking in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which stands him in 250l. per annum rent. Sir Richard Ford told me that Turner is to be hanged to-morrow, and with what impudence he hath carried, out his trial; but that last night, when he brought him news of his death, he began to be sober and shed some tears, and he hopes will die a penitent; he having already confessed all the thing, but says it was partly done for a joke, and partly to get an occasion of obliging the old man by his care in getting him his things again, he having some hopes of being the better by him in his estate at his death. Mr. Pierce tells me that, my Lady Castlemaine is not at all set by by the King, but that he do doat upon Mrs. Stewart only; and that to the leaving out all business in the world, and to the open slighting of the Queene: that he values not who sees him or stands by him while he dailies with her openly; and then privately in her chamber below, where the very sentrys observe his going in and out; and that so commonly, that the Duke or any of the nobles, when they would ask where the King is, they will ordinarily say, "Is the King above, or below?" meaning with Mrs Stewart: that the King do not openly disown my Lady Castlemaine but that she comes to Court; but that my Lord FitzHarding and the Hambletons, [Geoge Hamilton, and the Count Antoine Hamilton, author of the Memoires de Grammont.] and sometimes my Lord Sandwich, they say, intrigue with her. But he says my Lord Sandwich will lead her from her lodgings in the darkest and obscurest manner, and leave her at the entrance into the Queene's lodgings, that he might be the least observed: that the Duke of Monmouth the King do still doat on beyond measure, insomuch that the King only, the Duke of York, and Prince Rupert, and the Duke of Monmouth, do now wear deep mourning, that is, long cloaks, for the Duchesse of Savoy: so that he mourns as a Prince of the Blood, while the Duke of York do no more, and all the nobles of the land not so much; which gives great offence, and he sees the Duke of York do consider. But that the Duke of York do give himself up to business, and is like to prove a noble prince; and so indeed I do from my heart think he will. He says that it is believed, as well as hoped, that care is taken to lay up a hidden treasure of money by the King against a bad day. I pray God it be so!
21st. Up, and after sending my wife to my aunt Wright's to get a place to see Turner hanged, I to the 'Change; and seeing people flock in the City, I enquired, and found that Turner was not yet hanged. And so I went among them to Leadenhall Street, at the end of Lyme Street, near where the robbery was done; and to St. Mary Axe, where he lived. And there I got for a shilling to stand upon the wheel of a cart, in great pain, above an hour before the execution was done; he delaying the time by long discourses and prayers one after another, in hopes of a reprieve; but none come, and at last was flung off the ladder in his cloak. A comely-looked man he was, and kept his countenance to the end: I was sorry to see him. It was believed there were at least 12 or 14,000 people in the street.