Nor even within the walls of Oxford was there freedom from jealousy and strife. Henrietta could not bring herself to look cordially upon Holland[297] when he came to ask pardon of the King for his rebellion, even though he used Jermyn as his intermediary, and there were others who, though faithful to the cause, stood between her and that complete ascendancy over her husband at which she aimed. Perhaps it was hardly to be expected that she should like Rupert of the Rhine, the son of the Queen of Bohemia, who had great influence over his uncle in military matters. Never at any time during the war did the affairs of the King promise better than during Henrietta's stay at Oxford. She and her advisers, among whom were prominent the Earl of Bristol and his son, that same George Digby who had been with her in Holland, with their usual leaning to the bold and enterprising course, wished Charles to march on London, and end the war by a grand _coup_. It was a sore disappointment to her when, on the advice of Rupert, he turned aside to the siege of Gloucester. She believed (and she kept the belief to the end of her days[298]) that had he pushed on to the capital at this favourable moment, he would have been able to overcome his enemies. But, in spite of all these accumulated worries, Henrietta's stay in Oxford was probably the happiest time she had known since the opening of the Long Parliament. After her long absence she was restored to "the dearest thing in the world to her, after God, the presence of the King her husband and the Princes her children."[299] After the troubles and dangers of her sojourn in Holland and her campaign in the north she was in peace and safety, though the city was strongly fortified and cannon were to be seen both at "Newparkes and S. Giles his fields." Nor, in spite of these warlike preparations, was the mimic Court without its diversions, for each college and hall was turned into a dwelling for gay royalist ladies and gentlemen, so that as Henrietta took her airing in Trinity Grove, the Hyde Park of Oxford, she saw many of the faces she had been accustomed to see in the real Hyde Park in London. Absurd reports were rife among the enemy of the condition of the city; how it swarmed with Irish rebels, how Mass was said in every street; while the more sober-minded descanted upon the condition of the colleges, which "look as they did in Queen Elizabeth's daies on the street side, but if you go in you will find Henry the 8 his reformation in the Chappell."[300] It is probable that the Queen paid little attention to the flights of the Puritan fancy, but she took some pains to conciliate her husband's Protestant friends; and when a sermon which was used to be preached in Merton College chapel on Sundays was discontinued as a compliment to her, she was much annoyed, and gave orders that it should be resumed.