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]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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