This day at White Hall I
overheard Sir W. Coventry propose to the King his ordering of
some particular thing in the Wardrobe, which was of no great
value; but yet, as much as it was, it was of profit to the King
and saving to his purse. The King answered to it with great
indifferency, as a thing that it was no great matter whether it
was done or no. Sir W. Coventry answered; "I see your Majesty do
not remember the old English proverb, 'He that will not stoop for
a pin, will never be worth a pound.'" And so they parted, the
King bidding him do as he would; which, methought, was an answer
not like a King that did intend ever to do well.
4th. It seems worth remembering that this day I did hear my Lord
Anglesy at the table, speaking touching this new Act for
Accounts, say that the House of Lords did pass it because it was
a senseless, impracticable, ineffectual, and foolish Act; and
that my Lord Ashly having shown that it was so to the House of
Lords, the Duke of Buckingham did stand up and told the Lords
that they were beholden to my Lord Ashly, that having first
commended them for a most grave and honourable assembly, he
thought it fit for the House to pass this Act for Accounts
because it was a foolish and simple Act; and it seems it was
passed with but a few in the House, when it was intended to have
met in a grand Committee upon it.
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