Lord Charles does not forget his wife as danger begins to face him: "I request that, if it please God to call me to Him in this service of her Majestie, which I am most willing to spend my life in, that her Majestie of her goodness will bestow my boy upon my poor wife" (he was probably a page at Court), "and if it please her Majestie to let my poor wife have the keeping either of Hampton Court, or Oatlands, I shall think myself most bound to her Majestie; for" (in his own spelling) "I dow assur you, Sir, I shall not leve heer so well as so good a wyfe dowthe desarve." It is strange to mark from the letters written a few weeks before the Armada set sail how very parsimonious both the Queen and Burghley seemed to the admiral to be in providing for the expenses of fitting out the fleet. Drake had been prevented from getting his fleet in order for sea-service at Plymouth. "The fault is not in him," wrote Howard, "but I pray God her Majestie do not repent her slack dealing." Four ships, which Howard had asked for, the Queen was loth to use, and especially the _Elizabeth Jonas_, a stout vessel of 900 tons burthen, which carried more guns and not fewer seamen than any of the other ships. "Lord! when should she serve if not at such a time as this?" wrote Howard to Walsingham on the 7th of April; "either she is fit now to serve, or fit for the fire. I hope never in my time to see so great a cause for her to be used. The King of Spain doth not keep any ship at home, either of his own or any other that he can get for money. I am sorry that her Majestie is so careless of this most dangerous time. I fear me much, and with grief I think it, that she relieth on a hope that will deceive her and greatly endanger her, and then it will not be her money nor her jewels that will help. Well, well! I must pray heartily for peace, for I see the support of an honourable war will never appear. Sparing and war have no affinity together."