Prince Rupert attacked the Castle in the same year, 1642, but without success, and in the winter and spring following Essex made it his headquarters and a prison for Royalists, while Rupert flickered here and there about Oxford. At the end of the war Windsor was the strange foil to that notable prayer meeting of the Army officers held some time early in 1648. The Army was uneasy in its relations with people and Parliament; it had cause to fear a revival of royalism; and some officers had thought of laying down their arms, because what they had done, and were willing to do, for the nation was not acceptable to it. Therefore they spent two days together in prayer at Windsor Castle, enquiring when it last was that they could say with confidence: "The presence of the Lord was among us". On the third day the "gracious hand of the Lord" showed them how they had come to their present trouble and uncertainty. It was through their treating with the king and his party, this of course being prompted by their own "conceited wisdom, fear, and want of faith". Thus they were led to loathe their iniquities. They wept for shame of their unbelief and trust in the wisdom of this world, and they arrived at a humble confidence and "a very clear and joint resolution, That it was our duty, if ever the Lord brought us back again in peace, to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for that blood he had shed, and mischief he had done to his utmost, against the Lord's Cause and People in these poor Nations". These are the words written in 1659 by Adjutant Allen, who was at the prayer meeting.