In the meantime his agent at Oxford enjoyed no easy task. For everything that Rupert wanted Trevor had to contend vehemently with Percy and Ashburnham, and, had he not been clever enough to win the alliance of Jermyn, his success would have been small indeed. Jermyn exerted himself nobly. He collected evidence of Rupert's strength and necessities to lay before the Oxford Parliament. He supplied a consignment of muskets, pistols, and powder at his own expense;[13] he even combated the obstinacy of the King, though not always with success, as on one occasion he was forced to despatch supplies to Worcester, "where the King sayeth they are to go, and would have it so, in spite of everything that could be said to the contrary; though I did conceive it was your Highness's desire that they should be sent to Shrewsbury."[14]
Yet even Jermyn was occasionally disheartened by the Prince's insatiable wants. "His Majesty," wrote Trevor in February, "was very well pleased at your letter, and so was my Lord Jermyn, until he found your wants of arms, and ammunition. At which, after a deep sigh, he told me; 'This is of more trouble to me than it would be pain to me at parting of my flesh and bones.'" This despondency is partially accounted for by the next sentence; "The petards I cannot now send Your Highness, by reason of a strong quarrel that is fallen out between M. La Roche { 134} and Lord Percy, whose warrant and orders he absolutely denies to obey. Where it will end I know not. It begins in fire."[15] This state of affairs must have lasted for weeks. Not until April did Trevor wring two petards from Lord Percy, "and now I have got them, I do not, for my life, know how to send them to your quarters," he declared. And La Roche seems to have been, even then, in the same impracticable frame of mind: "Your Highness's letters to M. La Roche I did deliver; and when he had sworn and stared very sufficiently, and concluded every point with, 'Noe money! noe money!'--he carried me to his little house by Magdalen, and when he had swaggered there a pretty time, and knocked one strange thing against another, he told me he would send me letters, wherewith I was well satisfied, not having money for him, without which I see he hath no more motion than a stone. He talks much of Captain Faussett, but whether good, bad, or indifferent, I swear I do not know!"[16]