These extreme measures of repression on the part of the Puritans led to the result which might be anticipated. They gave courage to those who were anxious for the return of royalty, and reconciled many to its reinstatement who would otherwise have struggled for the maintenance of republican institutions; and when Charles II. was once more safely enthroned, there followed a reaction in morals which has left to that period the unenviable notoriety of being the most corrupt and dissolute in the whole history of our country. Debauchery and drunkenness prevailed in almost every rank of society, but chiefly amongst the higher and middle classes. The King set the example, and history abounds with tales of the debauchery of the court. We are told that when William, Prince of Orange, came over to visit his intended, “one night at a supper given by the Duke of Buckingham, the King made him (the Prince) drink very hard. The heavy Dutchman was naturally averse to it, but being once entered, was the most frolicsome of the company; and now the mind took him to break the windows of the chambers of the maids of honour, and he had got into their apartments had they not been timely rescued. His mistress” (the princess, afterwards Queen Mary), “I suppose,” adds the narrator, “did not like him the worse for such a notable indication of his vigour.”[268] Another well-known story is related of the same monarch. On one occasion, when he was dining with the Lord Mayor, Sir Robert Viner, and the guests as well as his lordship had imbibed more than was consistent with propriety in the presence of their sovereign, the latter intimated to his suite his intention to withdraw; and he had succeeded in making his escape from the banqueting hall, when he was hastily pursued by the Lord Mayor, who caught hold of his robe, exclaiming, “Sir, you shall stay and take t’other bottle.” The airy monarch looked kindly at him over his shoulder, and with a smile and graceful air repeated this line of the old song, “He that is drunk is as great as a king,” and with this compliment to his host, he immediately returned and “took t’other bottle.”