Oswald made another journey to Wales, this time by ship from Carlisle to Aberystwith, and there acquainted Glendower and Mortimer with the preparations that had been made, assuring them that the rising would take place at the end of May. He also asked Glendower to raise as large an army as possible, without delay; and Sir Edmund Mortimer to betake himself at once to Hereford, there to raise his banner and summon his vassals, and those of the Earl of March, to join him--the king having, on his return from his last expedition, entered Ludlow, seized Mortimer's plate and other property, and appointed to the governorship of Ludlow a knight on whose devotion he could rely. Chapter 21: Shrewsbury. The Percys' preparations could not be carried on without exciting attention; and in March the king, seeing that the open defiance of his authority, by the release of the Scottish prisoners, would assuredly be followed by armed rebellion, which the Douglas would probably have pledged himself to aid as the condition of his release, began, on his side, to make similar preparations. Levies were called out, and the Prince of Wales was appointed to the command of the Welsh marches, and the governorship of Wales. Towards the end of June Douglas, faithful to his agreement, crossed the frontier; and was at once joined by Hotspur, with the force he had gathered. Hotspur's father was lying sick at Berwick, but was to follow, as speedily as possible, with the army collected in the north of the county, and from Dunbar's estates. It had been arranged that Glendower should meet the allies at Lichfield; and on his being joined by his uncle, the Earl of Westmoreland, with his following, Hotspur marched south. His intention was, after effecting a junction with Glendower, to march and give battle to the army with which Henry and the Prince of Wales were advancing against him. At Lichfield, however, he learned that Glendower had not completed his preparations in sufficient time to join him. He therefore changed his direction, and made for Shrewsbury, towards which place Glendower was marching. Percy's array had swollen as he went south. He had been joined by a number of archers, from Cheshire, and by other adherents of the late king; these regarding the war as an attempt, not to place the Earl of March upon the throne, but to overthrow the usurper who had dethroned their king. Oswald rode with sixty spearmen from his own estate; while his father, with thirty men from Yardhope, rode in his company. Both regarded the failure of Glendower to come to the place appointed as a serious misfortune.