At Reading they were detained some days by the illness of the Prince of Wales, but on Tuesday, the 29th, the King took up his winter quarters in Oxford. Rupert continued to hover about Essex's army, and ordered Wilmot to take Marlborough. This duty Wilmot accomplished, but with evident reluctance. "Give me leave to tell your Highness that I think myself very unhappy to be employed upon this occasion," he wrote, "being a witness that at other times, in the like occasions, troops are sent out without any manner of forecast or design, or care to preserve or quarter them when they are abroad."[39] It is not remarkable that Rupert did not love an officer who addressed him in such a strain. Sir John Byron also wrote with ill-concealed impatience to demand his instant removal from Reading, where, he said, the want of accommodation was ruining his regiment. And Daniel O'Neil sent pathetic accounts of his struggles with the Prince's own troop, in the absence of their leader. "They say you have given them a power to take what they want, where they can find it. This is so extravagant that I am confident you never gave them any such. That the rest of the troop (not only of your own regiment, but that of the Lieutenant-General) may be satisfied, declare in what condition you will have your company, and how commanded. And let me, I beseech you, have in writing the orders I shall give to that party you sent into Buckinghamshire."[40] Already numberless such complaints were pouring in. Even then the Royalists, as Byron said, "abounded in nothing but the want of all things necessary;" and Rupert was well-nigh distracted by his efforts to supply their needs, quash their mutinies, and soothe their discontents. So closed the year 1642. [1] Clar. Hist. Bk. VI. p. 1. [2] Ibid. VI. 21. [3] Rupert Transcripts. Digby to Prince, Sept. 10, 1642. [4] Dom. State Papers. Wharton to Willingham, 13 Sept. 1642. [5] Rupert to Mayor of Leicester. Warburton, I. p. 393. [6] Vicars' God in the Mount, pp. 155-157. [7] Verney Memoirs, Vol. II. p. 160. [8] Plot's Hist. of Staffordshire, Ch. 9, p. 336. Hudibras, ed. 1810. I. p. 156, _note_. [9] Warburton, I. p. 409. Falkland, 28 Sept. 1642. [10] Clarendon. Hist. Bk. VI. 44-46. Dom. S. P. 13 Sept. 1642 [11] Webb Civil War in Herefordshire. Vol. I. p. 131. 20 Sept. 1642. [12] Dom. State Papers. Chas. I. Vol. 492. fol. 31. 6 Oct. 1642. [13] Carte, Original Letters. Vol. I. p. 47. 8 Mar. 1643. [14] Whitelocke. p. 101. [15] Green. VI. 11. [16] Warburton: II. p. 196. [17] Pamphlet. Brit. Museum. Prince Rupert: his Disguises. [18] Clarendon. Bk. VI. 75. [19] King to Rupert. Warburton. II. p. 12. [20] Clarendon. Bk. VI. p. 78. [21] Bulstrode's Memoirs. Ed. 1721. p. 81. [22] Carte's Original Letters, Vol. I. p. 10. [23] Warburton, II. pp. 4, 47. [24] Ibid. I. p. 465. [25] Prince Rupert: his Declaration. Pamphlet. British Museum.