The return of the king from exile was signalised by a general scramble for offices, the king and his ministers being inundated with petitions for all kinds of places. While the king came in upon a promise of general pardon, his return was followed by measures of great severity; and it is perhaps not far from the truth to attribute much of what took place to the clamour of the Royalists, whose claims to place could not be satisfied without turning other men out. In order to clear the way, it would obviously be necessary to proceed against the then holders upon some plea or other. The petitions are founded on every variety of alleged service or suffering, from the most trivial to the most important. For example, one suitor begs for the place of Groom of the Great Chamber to the King or the Dukes of York or Gloucester, stating that he "had been clerk of the chapel to the late king, and served His Majesty, when prince, as keeper of his balloons and paumes, and of tennis shoes and ankle socks." An aged widow, named Elizabeth Cary, begs a place as page for her son, on the ground that she had suffered greatly for her loyalty. She had had her back broken at Henley-on-Thames, and a gibbet was erected to take away her life. She was imprisoned at Windsor Castle, Newgate, Bridewell, the Bishop of London's house, and lastly in the Mews, at the time of the late king's martyrdom, "for peculiar service in carrying his gracious proclamations and declarations from Oxford to London, and only escaped with her life by flying into her own country." Many petitions were received for places in the Post Office. The plaint of one applicant is, that "his father's property was destroyed by Lord Fairfax at the siege of Leeds." In another case it is set forth that the petitioner "should have succeeded his father, but was put by for taking arms for the late king." A suppliant in the West says, that he "has been a constant sufferer from the tyranny of His Majesty's enemies. Would not mention his sufferings, in the joy of the Restoration, but for his wife and children, those patient partakers of all his troubles. Was the first man in Exeter to be taken up and imprisoned in all occasions during the late rebellion," etc. A former postmaster of Lichfield says, that "he suffered much loss by pulling down of his house and plunder of his goods, and was displaced by the then Parliament." The prayer of Thomas Challoner, postmaster of Stone, is based on the fact that he is brother to Richard Challoner, martyred for his loyalty before the Royal Exchange in 1643, and has often been plundered, etc. Thomas Taylor, of Tadcaster, solicits the postmastership of that place: urging his claim upon the fact that his ancestors had served since Queen Elizabeth's time; that his father, Thomas Taylor, had been seized and executed by Lord Fairfax for carrying an express to Prince Rupert, when York was besieged, to hasten to its relief; and that his family had been kept out of the place ever since.