of so much power already under colour of serving the King; and having, by his German manner of plundering, and active disposition in military affairs, won the hearts of so many soldiers of fortune, and men of prey. He is already their chieftain and their Prince, and he is like enough to be their King.... This whole war is managed by his skill, labour and industry; insomuch as, if the King command one thing and he another, the Prince must be preferred before the King. Witness Banbury, which was secured from plundering under the King's own hand; but that was slighted, and the town plundered by Prince Rupert vilifying the King's authority, and making it a fault of his unexpertness, saying, 'His Uncle knew not what belonged {189} to war.' ... Neither shall Prince Rupert want abettors in his cursed design; for many of our debauched and low-fortuned young nobility and gentry, suiting so naturally with this new conqueror, will make no bones to shoulder out the old King."[32] Eagerly did Rupert's Royalist foes catch at the libel. We have already seen that, before Marston Moor, Digby, Percy and Wilmot ventured to assert openly that the victory of Prince or Parliament was a matter of indifference. And even after that battle had broken his power, Sir George Radcliffe wrote to Ormonde of "the great fear some have of Prince Rupert, his success and greatness."[33] The formation of Rupert's peace-party in 1645 put the finishing touch to Digby's hatred of him, and also afforded means of exciting the King's distrust. The sanguine and unpractical Secretary, ignorant of military details, did not know that the King was beaten and could never draw another army into the field. He had a thousand schemes for gaining over the Scots, for obtaining help from Ireland or France, and he would not, and could not, believe that the game was lost. Consequently he resented the suggestion of compromise even more hotly than did the King. "Alas! my Lord!" he wrote to Jermyn in August, "I do not know four persons living, besides myself and you, that have not already given clear demonstration that they will purchase their own, and as they flatter themselves, the Kingdom's quiet, at any price to the King, the Church, and the faithfullest of his party... The next news that you will hear, after we have been one month at Oxford, will be that I, and those few others who may be thought by our Counsels to fortify the King in firmness to his principles, shall be forced or torn from him. You will find Prince Rupert, {190} Byron, Gerard, Will Legge, and Ormonde[34] are the prime instruments to impose the necessity upon the King of submitting to what they, and most of the King's party at Oxford, shall think fit."[35]