ty end here:
at a cost of six thousand crowns she obtained for him the post of
groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of York, and was instrumental in
subsequently forwarding his advancements in the army.

My Lady Castlemaine was by no means inclined to spend her days in misery
because the royal favour was no longer vouchsafed her; and therefore, by
way of satisfying her desires for revenge, conducted intrigues not only
with John Churchill and Harry Jermyn, but likewise with one Jacob Hall,
a noted acrobat. This man was not only gifted with strength and agility,
but likewise with grace and beauty: so that, as Granger tells us, "The
ladies regarded him as a due composition of Hercules and Adonis." His
dancing on the tight rope at Bartholomew Fair was "a thing worth seeing
and mightily followed;" whilst his deeds of daring at Southwark Fair
were no less subjects of admiration and wonder. The countess was so
charmed by the performance of this athlete in public, that she became
desirous of conversation with him in private; and he was accordingly
introduced to her by Beck Marshall, the player. The countess found his
society so entertaining that she frequently visited him, a compliment
he courteously returned. Moreover, she allowed him a yearly salary, and
openly showed her admiration for him by having their portraits painted
in one picture: in which she is represented playing a fiddle, whilst he
leans over her, touching the strings of a guitar.

Her amours in general, and her intimacy with the rope-dancer in
particular, becoming common talk of the town, his majesty became
incensed; and it grieved him the more that one who dwelt in his palace,
and was yet under his protection, should divide her favours between a
king and a mountebank. Accordingly bitter feuds arose between her and
the monarch, when words of hatred, scorn, and defiance were freely
exchanged. His majesty upbraiding her with a love for the rope-dancer,
she replied with much spirit, "it very ill became him to throw out such
reproaches against her: that he had never ceased quarrelling unjustly
with her, ever since he had betrayed his own mean low inclinations: that
to gratify such a depraved taste as his, he wanted the pitiful strolling
actresses whom he had lately introduced into their society." Then came
fresh threats from the lips of the fury, followed by passionate storms
of tears.

The king, who loved ease greatly, and valued peace exceedingly, became
desirou