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brilliance. He provided a kick of adrenalin, like the other things Charles loved – sailing in a hard wind, fierce games of tennis, racing, sex. The aura of imminent danger added to his allure.
    Meanwhile the navy was on the verge of disintegrating. When some sailors were sent to Newgate for ‘discontented words’, several hundred armed seamen gathered in the city to break into the prison to release them, and Albemarle was forced to march his troops to Wapping. At the end of 1666 Pepys wrote disconsolately, ‘Public matters in a most sad condition. Seamen discouraged for want of pay, and are become not to be governed. Nor, as matters are now, can any fleet go out next year. Our enemies, French and Dutch great, and grow more, by our poverty.’ 11
    The winter frost was violent and intense. In January a sudden thaw filled London streets with mud and slush, and then two more months of freezing weather followed, bringing the coldest days in living memory. The people shivered, complaining loudly of the scarcity of coal and the extortionate prices. The need for money was so urgent that Charles took Arlington’s advice, against that of the Duke of York, Clarendon and Sheldon, and told the Lords to accept the Irish Cattle Bill, including the nuisance clause, and the Poll Tax Bill. But instead of immediately discussing the grant, the Commons returned to Mordaunt’s impeachment, which he answered in the Lords this month. Charles would pardon him the following July, but a year or so later, Mordaunt resigned his offices and retired. For stalwarts like Clarendon and Ormond the precedent was ominous. It was the first time in Charles’s reign, discounting Bristol’s wild attempt, that a serious move was made to impeach a peer.
    The session of parliament left Charles bruised. He had surrendered over the Cattle Bill but had still not obtained his money. In mid-January he addressed both houses in angry tones:
     
    My Lords and Gentlemen: I have now passed your Bills; and I was in good Hope to have had other Bills ready to pass too. I cannot forget that within a few days after your coming together in September both Houses presented me with their vote and declaration, that they would give me a Supply proportionable to my occasions; and the confidence of this made me anticipate that small part of my Revenue which was unanticipated for the payment of the same. And my Credit hath gone farther than I had reason to think it would; but it is now at an end.
    This is the first day I have heard of any Money towards a Supply, being the 18th of January, and what this will amount to, God knows. And what Time I have to make such preparations as are necessary to meet Three such Enemies as I have, you can well enough judge… 12
     
    He blamed the delay partly on Buckingham, with whom he had finally completely lost patience. On 25 February, almost as soon as the parliamentary session ended, Charles ordered a warrant to be put out for his arrest. The charge, manufactured by Arlington, was that he had arranged to have the king’s horoscope drawn up by an astrologer. 13 Since a horoscope implied the old offence of ‘imagining the king’s death’ it could be categorised as treason. Faced with the prospect of such an accusation, Buckingham went into hiding. His post as Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire was taken over by Lord Burlington, his protégé George Savile was dismissed, and he was stripped of the lucrative patents for his glassworks.
    But if Charles could not control his nobles, his subjects, his sailors or his parliament, he could at least try to make a deal with his enemies. Early in 1667 he began to sue for peace.

V Spades/ piques

 
    King of Spades from The English Counties , by Robert Morden, 1676. The medallion for the King of each suit showed Charles II, while the Queen was depicted by Catherine of Braganza. Clubs showed the Northern counties, Hearts the Eastern, Diamonds the Southern and Spades the Welsh.

35 Loving Too Well

    He spends all