The pleasures of the parks and Whitehall, with all the licentious accompaniments of the latter, were not always enough to meet the vitiated appetite for amusement which then prevailed among the courtiers. Lord Rochester--whose end formed such a striking contrast to his life; whose sorrow for his sins was so intense, and his desire for forgiveness and spiritual renewal so earnest--was prominent in these extravagances, and set himself up in Tower-street as an Italian mountebank, professing to effect extraordinary cures. Sometimes, also, he went about in the attire of a porter or beggar. This taste was cherished and indulged by the highest personages. "At this time," (1668,) says Burnet, "the court fell into much extravagance in masquerading; both the king and queen and all the court went about masked, and came into houses unknown, and danced there with a great deal of wild frolic. In all this people were so disguised, that without being in the secret none could distinguish them. They were carried about in hackney chairs. Once the queen's chairman, not knowing who she was, went from her. So she was alone, and was much disturbed, and came to Whitehall in a hackney coach; some say a cart." Scenes of dissipation at Whitehall, with occasional excesses of the kind just noticed, make up the history of the court at London during the reign of Charles II. The palace, under his brother James, who, with all his popish zeal, was far from a pure and virtuous man, though cleansed from some of its pollution, was still the witness of lax morals. The habits of William III. and his queen Mary, greatly changed the aspect of things at Whitehall, till its destruction by fire, (the Banqueting House excepted,) in the year 1691. Afterwards the royal residence was either at Kensington or Hampton Court.