were fatal to an efficient service.  On the 3rd of June the duke had his one victory; it was off the roadstead of Harwich, and the roar of his artillery was heard in Westminster.  It was a fierce fight; the king’s great friend, Charles Berkeley, just made a peer and about to be made a duke, Lord Muskerry and young Richard Boyle, all on the duke’s ship the Royal Charles, were killed by one shot, their blood and brains flying in the duke’s face.  The Earls of Marlborough and Portland were killed.  The gallant Lawson, who rose from the ranks in Cromwell’s time, an Anabaptist and a Republican, but still in high command, received on board his ship, the Royal Oak, a fatal wound.  On the other side the Dutch admiral, Opdam, was blown into the air with his ship and crew.  The Dutch fleet was scattered, and fled, after a loss estimated at twenty-four ships and eight thousand men killed and wounded; England lost no ship and but six hundred men.

The victory was not followed up.  Some say the duke lost nerve.  Tromp was allowed to lead a great part of the fleet away in safety, and when the great De Ruyter was recalled from the West Indies he was soon able to assume the command of a formidable number of fighting craft.

In less than ten days after this great engagement the plague appeared in London, a terrible and a solemnising affliction, lasting the rest of the year.  It was at its worst in September, when in one week more than seven thousand died of it.  The total number of its dead is estimated at sixty-eight thousand five hundred and ninety-six.

On account of the plague Parliament was summoned to meet at Oxford in October 1665.

Marvell must have reached Oxford in good time, for the Admission Book of the Bodleian records his visit to the library on the last day of September.  His first letter from Oxford is dated 15th October, and in it he tells the corporation that the House, “upon His Majesty’s representation of the necessity of further supplies in reference to the Dutch War and probability of the French embracing their interests, hath voted the King L1,250,000 additional to be levied in two years.”  The king, who was the frankest of mortals in speech, though false as Belial in action, told the House that he had already spent all the money previously voted and must have more, especially if France was to prefer the friendship of Holland to his.  Amidst loud acclamations the money was voted.  The French ambassadors, who were in Oxford, saw for themselves the temper of Parliament.

Notwithstanding the terrible plight of the capital, Oxford was gaiety itself.  The king was accompanied by his consort, who then was hopeful of an heir, and also by Lady Castlemaine and Miss Stewart.  Lady Castlemaine did not escape the shaft of University wit, for a stinging couplet was set up during the night on her door, for the discovery of the authorship of which a reward of L1000 was offered.  It may very well have been Marvell’s.[116:1]