1660 he quarrelled with and killed one Francis Woolley, a student
at law, to avoid the consequences of which act he speedily fled
the country.

Arriving at Calais, he wrote to King Charles, who was then
preparing to return, throwing himself on his mercy, and
beseeching his pardon; which the king granting, Lord Chesterfield
sought his majesty at Brussels. Soon afterwards Barbara Palmer
and her complaisant husband, a right loyal man, joined the king's
court abroad, when the intrigue begun which was continued on the
night of the monarch's arrival in London. True the loyal
PARLIAMENTARY INTELLIGENCER stated "his majesty was diverted from
his pious intention of going to Westminster to offer up his
devotions of prayer and praise in publick according to the
appointment of his Majesty, and made his oblations unto God in
the presence-chamber;" but it is, alas, equally certain,
according to Oldmixon, Lord Dartmouth, and other reliable
authorities, he spent the first night of his return in the
company of Barbara Palmer. From that time this abandoned woman
exercised an influence over the king which wholly disgraced his
court, and almost ruined his kingdom.

Another prominent figure, whose history is inseparable from the
king's, was that of his majesty's brother, James, Duke of York--a
man of greater ambition and lesser talents than the merry
monarch, but one whose amorous disposition equalled the monarch's
withal. At an early period of his life the Duke of York was
witness of the strife which divided his unhappy father's kingdom.
When only eight years old he was sent for by Charles I. to York,
but was forbidden by the Parliament to leave St. James's Palace.