The king placed confidence in him, and he was in turn courted and abused by the factions which grew up among the English exiles on the continent.
There was probably some resemblance of character which sustained the confidential relation; but the conclusion stated by some contemporary writers, that the physician was as unprincipled as his royal patient, is unsupported by evidence, and no weight attaches to the abuse of Sir John Denham and of Samuel Pepys.
Pepys's informant was Pierce, a groom of the privy chamber, who repeated backstairs' gossip.
The bailiffs were beaten by the king's order, but this was not due to any misconduct on the physician's part, but to royal indignation at a supposed breach of a prerogative.
He attended Mary, Princess of Orange in the attack of small-pox which ended fatally on Christmas Eve, 1660, and the young James, Duke of Cambridge and Charles, Duke of Kendal in the illness which killed both in 1667, and he superintended the successful trepanning of Prince Rupert's skull on Sunday, 3 February 1666.