20th. I went forth to Westminster Hall, where I met with
Chetwind, Simons, and Gregory. [Mr. Gregory was, in 1672, Clerk
of the Cheque at Chatham.] They told me how the Speaker Lenthall
do refuse to sign the writs for choice of new members in the
place of the excluded; and by that means the writs could not go
out to-day. In the evening Simons and I to the Coffee House,
where I heard Mr. Harrington, and my Lord of Dorset and another
Lord, talking of getting another place at the Cockpit, and they
did believe it would come to something.
21st. In the morning I saw many soldiers going towards
Westminster Hall, to admit the secluded members again. So I to
Westminster Hall, and in Chancery I saw about twenty of them who
had been at White Hall with General Monk, who came thither this
morning, and made a speech to them, and recommended to them a
Commonwealth, and against Charles Stuart. They came to the House
and went in one after another, and at last the Speaker came, But
it is very strange that this could be carried so private, that
the other members of the House heard nothing of all this, till
they found them in the House, insomuch that the soldiers that
stood there to let in the secluded members they took for such as
they had ordered to stand there to hinder their coming in.
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