The secretary wrote as follows from his master's dictation:
Lord D'Albret's letter to the prince.
"My dear Lord,
"I am marvelously surprised at the contents of the letter which you have sent me. I do not know and can not imagine what answer I can make. Your present orders will do me a great injury, and subject me to much blame. For all the men-at-arms whom I have retained by your command have already made their preparations for entering your service, and were only waiting your orders to march. By retaining them for your service I have prevented them from seeking honor and profit elsewhere. Some of the knights had actually made engagements to go beyond sea, to Jerusalem, to Constantinople, or to Russia, in order to advance themselves, and now, having relinquished these advantageous prospects in order to join your enterprise, they will be extremely displeased if they are left behind. I am myself equally displeased, and I can not conceive what I have done to deserve such treatment. And I beg you to understand, my lord, that I can not be separated from my men; nor will they consent to be separated from each other. I am convinced that, if I dismiss any of them, they will all go."
The baron added other words of the same tenor, and then, signing and sealing the letter, sent it to the prince. The prince was angry in his turn when he received this letter.
"By my faith," said he, "this man D'Albret is altogether too great a man for my country, when he seeks thus to disobey an order from my council. But let him go where he pleases. We will perform this expedition, if it please God, without any of his thousand lances."
Edward in want of money.
Don Pedro pledges his three daughters.
This case presents a specimen of the perplexities and troubles in which the prince was involved during the winter, while organizing his expedition and preparing to set out in the spring. The want of money was the great difficulty, for there was no lack of men. Don Pedro agreed, it is true, that when he recovered his kingdom he would pay back the advances which Edward had to make, but he was so unprincipled a man that Edward knew very well that he could not trust to his promises unless he gave some security. So Don Pedro agreed to leave his three daughters in Edward's hands as hostages to secure the payment of the money.