"ALL SUNSHINE MAKES THE DESERT" Whatever faults Whitehall may have had as a place of residence, dulness was not among them.

There were balls, games with high stakes, theatres, gossip, scandals, and once in a long while an affair of state to interest us.

In order to interest the court thoroughly, an affair of state must have involved the getting of money for the privy purse; that is, for the king's personal use, for out of it the courtesans were fed and gambling debts were paid.
The time of our Dover journey was one of extreme depletion in the privy purse.

The king had borrowed from every person and every city within the realm who, by threats or cajolery, could be induced to part with money.
But now he had reached the end of his tether.
When matters were thus in extremis, some one, probably Castlemain, suggested the sale of England's possessions on the continent, chief of which was the rich city of Dunkirk, situate on the French side of the Straits of Dover.

This fortified city, within a few leagues of Calais, had cost the English nation heavily in blood and gold to gain, and still more heavily to hold, but its value to England commercially and politically was beyond measure.
Since Queen Mary had lost Calais, Dunkirk was the only important foothold England had on continental soil; therefore it was almost as dear to the English people as the city of London itself.