Scarcely less consternation was caused in England, where the news arrived on September 30. People there were getting dazed with disaster, and the men who ruled became more and more abhorrent. Already, on September 2, Newcastle had written to the Chancellor that people were becoming outrageous in the North of England, and that a petition was being largely signed in Surrey demanding 'justice against persons however highly dignified or distinguished.' This, he adds drily, may mean you or me, or 'perhaps somebody more highly dignified and distinguished than either of us.'[329] Who could be found to bear such a burden of shame and ignominy, and affront the storm that threatened to burst at once in overwhelming popular fury? Not Fox, undaunted though he might be. Like the condottiere that he was, he did not heed hard knocks provided the pay were good. But here he was defrauded of his deserts, of the promised confidence of the King and his Minister. For Newcastle had betrayed him to the last; the magpie cunning of that old caitiff paralysed every arm that might have defended him. When it came to the point he could not bring himself to part with his monopoly of patronage, and of power as he understood power. He was like a drowning miser with his treasure on him, who will not part with his gold to save his life. So the Duke preferred to sink with all his influence rather than take the chance of floating without it. First he set the King against Fox. The Duke had tried to appease Leicester House by getting the appointment of Groom of the Stole for Bute. The King, suspecting Bute's intimacy with the Princess, detested that fascinating courtier. So Newcastle, to divert from himself the King's wrath at having to make this nomination, told His Majesty that Fox made Bute's appointment a condition of his retaining the seals; and then without telling Fox that his name had thus been mentioned to the Sovereign, informed him that the King was exasperated against him.[330]