ss to return becoming
displeasing to the citizens, and they being aware of its cause, it was
whispered in taverns and cried in the streets, "The king cannot go away
till my Lady Castlemaine be ready to come along with him," which truth
was found offensive on reaching the royal ears.

Towards the end of January, 1666, he returned to Whitehall, and a month
later the queen, who had been detained by illness, joined him. Once more
the thread of life was taken up by the court at the point where it
had been broken, and woven into the motley web of its strange history.
Unwearied by time, unsatiated by familiarity, the king continued his
intrigue with the imperious Castlemaine, and with great longing likewise
made love to the beautiful Stuart. But yet his pursuit of pleasure
was not always attended by happiness; inasmuch as he found himself
continually involved in quarrels with the countess, which in turn
covered him with ridicule in the eyes of his courtiers, and earned him
contempt in the opinions of his subjects.

One of these disturbances, which occurred soon after his return from
Oxford, began at a royal drawing-room, in presence of the poor slighted
queen and ladies of the court. It happened in the course of conversation
her majesty remarked to the countess she feared the king had taken cold
by staying so late at her lodgings; to which speech my Lady Castlemaine
with some show of temper answered aloud, "he did not stay so late abroad
with her, for he went betimes thence, though he do not before one, two,
or three in the morning, but must stay somewhere else." The king, who
had entered the apartment whilst she was speaking, came up to her, and
displeased with the insinuations she expressed, declared she was a bold,
impertinent woman, and bade her begone from the court, and not return
until he sent for her. Accordingly she whisked from the drawing-room,
and drove at once to Pall Mall, where she hired apartments.

Her indignation at being addressed by Charles in such a manner before
the court, was sufficiently great to beget strong desires for revenge;
when she swore she would be even with him and print his letters to her
for public sport. In cooler moments, however, she abandoned this idea;
and in course of two or three days, not hearing from his majesty,
she despatched a message to him, not entreating pardon, but asking
permission to send for her furniture and belongings. To this the
monarch, who had begun to miss her pre