WifClientSecure breaking on ESP8266?

[mooomooo]

MWE: Starting from the example sketch in https://github.com/Links2004/arduinoWebSockets/blob/master/examples/esp8266_pico/WebSocketClientSSL/WebSocketClientSSL.ino, which works fine, I add a new function:

const char* url = "https://www.howsmyssl.com/a/check";

void https() {
    WiFiClientSecure client;
    HTTPClient https;
    client.setInsecure();
    int checkBegin = https.begin(client, url);
    int code = https.GET();
    String payload = https.getString();
    USE_SERIAL.printf("!!!  Begin = %d, code = %d, payload:", checkBegin, code);
    USE_SERIAL.println(payload);
    https.end();
    client.stop();
}

Whenever I call this function before any calls to webSocket.loop(); it successfully connects and prints the payload. However, anytime afterwards, it fails to connect with the debug log:

[HTTP-Client][begin] url: https://www.howsmyssl.com/a/check
[HTTP-Client][begin] host: www.howsmyssl.com port: 443 url: /a/check
[HTTP-Client][sendRequest] type: 'GET' redirCount: 0
[HTTP-Client] failed connect to www.howsmyssl.com:443
[HTTP-Client][returnError] error(-1): connection failed
[HTTP-Client][end] tcp is closed
!!!  Begin = 1, code = -1, payload:
[HTTP-Client][end] tcp is closed

Somehow, the websockets library is preventing any further SSL connections? Notably, this isn't a problem with subsequent http requests using WiFiClient (i.e. not Secure). This issue also does not show up on ESP32 (i.e. it works as expected).