He was inordinately proud of England, and he abused her incessantly.

When the King is mad, it is an honor to be an exile.

The jackdaw sat on the Cardinal’s chair!

A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.

The brilliant chief, irregularly great,
Frank, haughty, rash,— the Rupert of debate!

... The had its . The had its . ... He drank prodigiously, even for the seventeenth century. He was subject to violent bursts of passion, and he had absolutely no self-control. He was the supreme bully. His greatest joy in life was to denounce, to jeer, and to hurt. And nature had eminently fitted him for the rôle that he had chosen. Jeffreys's one passion was a genuine hatred of and ...

He, who supreme in judgment, as in wit,
Might boldly censure, as he boldly writ.

There he dwelt, a prisoner acting like a king.

He seems to have declared war on the King’s English as well as on the English king.

Who shall call me ungentle, unfair, I long'd so heartily then and there To give him the grasp of fellowship; But while I past he was humming an air, Stopt, and then with a riding whip, Leisurely tapping a glossy boot, And curving a contumelious lip, Gorgonised me from head to foot With a stony British stare.

Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o'er again;
And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.

Whereas Leahy was stern, reserved, and even dour, King was nothing short of bombastic. Throughout his career, King's personality was routinely commented upon- and frequently feared- by his contemporaries and junior officers alike. His seniors usually found it merely annoying, although many- Forrestal was clearly an exception- tended to overlook his grating manner because there was no question that this demanding and strong-willed individual was also highly intelligent and capable of delivering results. King simply had no tolerance for subordinates who failed to carry out his orders to his satisfaction. Considering King's satisfaction was a very high bar, many failed to clear it. "On the job" wrote historian Robert Love in his history of the chiefs of naval operations, "[King] seemed always to be angry or annoyed." But some of that anger or annoyance may well have been a mask that was best breached when one stood up to him or took the initiative in doing what King likely would have done had he been in the other's shoes.

"Queen Elizabeth was rather a flirt all her life. She finally developed a bad habit of boxing her partners' ears and shouting "god's death, I'll have thy head!" This discouraged some of her more sensitive partners,"