Green’s Dictionary of Slang

the four of spades.

1791		Gent.’s Mag. LXI 141: The Queen of Clubs is here [Lincs.] called Queen Bess... the Four of Spades, Ned Stokes, for why I don’t know.
1851		Durham Co. Advertiser 14 Nov. 2/1: Popular names for certain Playing Cards [...] Four of Spades...Ned Stokes.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn).
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1888		Jersey Indep. 14 Jan. 7/4: No one can tell why [...] the four of spades [is] ‘Ned Stokes’.
1898		Princeton Union (MN) 20 Jan. 7/6: ‘Ned Stokes’ is the name of the four of spades.
1908		Bucks Herald 4 Jan. 7/3: The four of spades [is called] ‘Ned Stokes’.
1923		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 16 Oct. 5: The four of spades is ‘Ned Stokes’. The Queen of Clubs is called [...] ‘Queen Bess.’ Ans we all know, the nine of diamonds is called the ‘curse of Scotland’.