Le Prince Rupert.
Duc de Baviere et Cumberland.
From the portrait by Honthorst in the Louvre Paris.
RUPERT
PRINCE PALATINE
BY
EVA SCOTT
Late Scholar of Somerville College
Oxford
WESTMINSTER
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & Co.
NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
1900
SECOND EDITION
PREFACE
It is curious that in these days of historical research so little has been written about Rupert of the Rhine, a man whose personality was striking, whose career was full of exciting adventure, and for whose biography an immense amount of material is available.
His name is known to most people in connection with the English Civil War, many have met with him in the pages of fiction, some imagine him to have been the inventor of mezzotint engraving, and a few know that he was Admiral of England under Charles II. But very few indeed could tell who he was, and where and how he lived, before and after the Civil War.
The present work is an attempt to sketch the character and career of this remarkable man; the history of the Civil War, except so far as it concerns the Prince, forming no part of its scope. Nevertheless, the study of Prince Rupert's personal career throws valuable side-lights on the history of the war, and especially upon the internal dissensions which tore the Royalist party to pieces and were a principal cause of its ultimate collapse. From Rupert's adventures and correspondence we also learn much concerning the life of the exiled Stuarts during the years of the Commonwealth; while his post-Restoration history is closely connected with the Naval Affairs of England.
The number of manuscripts and other documents which bear record of Rupert's life is enormous. Chief amongst them are the Domestic State Papers, preserved in the Public Record Office; the Clarendon State Papers, and the Carte Papers in the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the Lansdowne Manuscripts in the British Museum, and the Rupert Correspondence, which originally comprised some thousands of letters and other papers collected by the Prince's secretary. The collection has now been broken up and sold; but the Transcripts of Mr. Firth of Balliol College, Oxford, were made before the collection was divided, and comprise the whole mass of correspondence. For the loan of these Transcripts, and for much valuable advice I am deeply indebted to Mr. Firth. I also wish to acknowledge the kind assistance of Mr. Hassall of Christchurch, Oxford.
Some of the Rupert Papers were published by Warburton, fifty years ago, in a work now necessarily somewhat out of date. But there is printed entire the log kept in the Prince's own ship, 1650-1653, which is here quoted in chapters 13 and 14; also in Warburton are to be found the letters addressed by the Prince to Colonel William Legge, 1644-1645.
The Bromley Letters, published 1787, relate chiefly to Rupert's early life, and to the years of exile, 1650-1660. The Carte Papers are invaluable for the history of the Civil War, and of Rupert's transactions with the fleet, 1648-50; and in the Thurloe and Clarendon State Papers much is to be found relating to the wanderings of Rupert and the Stuarts on the Continent.
With regard to the Prince's family relations, German authorities are fullest and best. Chief among these are the letters of the Elector Charles Louis, and the letters and memoirs of Sophie, Electress of Hanover, all published from the Preussischen Staats-Archieven; also the letters of the Elector's daughter, the Duchess of Orléans, published from the same source. Besides these, Haüsser's "Geschichte der Rheinischen Pfalz", and Reiger's "Ausgeloschte Simmerischen Linie" are very useful.
Mention of the Prince is also found in the mass of Civil War Pamphlets preserved in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library, and in contemporary memoirs, letters and diaries, on the description of which there is not space to enter here.
CONTENTS
Page
CHAPTER I. THE PALATINE FAMILY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [1]
" II. RUPERT'S EARLY CAMPAIGNS. FIRST VISIT TO
ENGLAND. MADEMOISELLE DE ROHAN . . . . . . . [20]
" III. THE SIEGE OF BREDA. THE ATTEMPT ON THE
PALATINATE. RUPERT'S CAPTIVITY. . . . . . . . [34]
" IV. THE PALATINES IN FRANCE. RUPERT'S RELEASE . . . [48]
" V. ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND. POSITION IN THE ARMY.
CAUSES OF FAILURE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [59]
" VI. THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR. POWICK BRIDGE.
EDGEHILL. THE MARCH TO LONDON . . . . . . . . [85]
" VII. THE WAR IN 1643. THE QUARREL WITH HERTFORD.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE QUEEN . . . . . . . . . . . [101]
" VIII. THE PRESIDENCY OF WALES. THE RELIEF OF
NEWARK. QUARRELS AT COURT. NORTHERN
MARCH. MARSTON MOOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . [128]
" IX. INTRIGUES IN THE ARMY. DEPRESSION OF RUPERT.
TREATY OF UXBRIDGE. RUPERT IN THE MARCHES.
STRUGGLE WITH DIGBY. BATTLE OF NASEBY . . . [154]
" X. RUPERT'S PEACE POLICY. THE SURRENDER OF
BRISTOL. DIGBY'S PLOT AGAINST RUPERT. THE
SCENE AT NEWARK. RECONCILIATION WITH
THE KING. THE FALL OF OXFORD . . . . . . . . [177]
" XI. THE ELECTOR'S ALLIANCE WITH THE PARLIAMENT.
EDWARD'S MARRIAGE. ASSASSINATION OF
D'ÉPINAY BY PHILIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [205]
" XII. CAMPAIGN IN THE FRENCH ARMY. COURTSHIP
OF MADEMOISELLE. DUELS WITH DIGBY AND
PERCY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [213]
" XIII. RUPERT'S CARE OF THE FLEET. NEGOTIATIONS
WITH SCOTS. RUPERT'S VOYAGE TO IRELAND.
THE EXECUTION OF THE KING. LETTERS OF
SOPHIE TO RUPERT AND MAURICE . . . . . . . . . [222]
" XIV. THE FLEET IN THE TAGUS. AT TOULON. THE
VOYAGE TO THE AZORES. THE WRECK OF THE
"CONSTANT REFORMATION." ON THE AFRICAN
COAST. LOSS OF MAURICE IN THE "DEFIANCE."
THE RETURN TO FRANCE . . . . . . . . . . . . [241]
" XV. RUPERT AT PARIS. ILLNESS. QUARREL WITH
CHARLES II. FACTIONS AT ST. GERMAINS.
RUPERT GOES TO GERMANY. RECONCILED
WITH CHARLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [265]
" XVI. RESTORATION OF CHARLES LOUIS TO THE
PALATINATE. FLIGHT OF THE PRINCESS LOUISE
FROM THE HAGUE. RUPERT'S DEMAND FOR AN
APPANAGE. QUARREL WITH THE ELECTOR . . . . . [283]
" XVII. RUPERT'S RETURN TO ENGLAND, 1660. VISIT TO
VIENNA. LETTERS TO LEGGE . . . . . . . . . . [293]
" XVIII. RUPERT AND THE FLEET. PROPOSED VOYAGE TO
GUINEA. ILLNESS OF RUPERT. THE FIRST DUTCH
WAR. THE NAVAL COMMISSIONERS AND THE
PRINCE. SECOND DUTCH WAR. ANTI-FRENCH
POLITICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [302]
" XIX. RUPERT'S POSITION AT COURT. HIS CARE FOR
DISTRESSED CAVALIERS. HIS INVENTIONS. LIFE
AT WINDSOR. DEATH . . . . . . . . . . . . . [332]
" XX. THE PALATINES ON THE CONTINENT. RUPERT'S
DISPUTES WITH THE ELECTOR. THE ELECTOR'S
ANXIETY FOR RUPERT'S RETURN. WANT OF
AN HEIR TO THE PALATINATE. FRANCISCA
BARD. RUPERT'S CHILDREN . . . . . . . . . . [344]
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [369]
Genealogical chart
RUPERT, PRINCE PALATINE
CHAPTER I
THE PALATINE FAMILY
"A man that hath had his hands very deep in the blood of many innocent people in England," was Cromwell's concise description of Rupert of the Rhine.[[1]]
"That diabolical Cavalier" and "that ravenous vulture" were the flattering titles bestowed upon him by other soldiers of the Parliament.[[2]] "The Prince that was so gallant and so generous," wrote an Irish Royalist.[[3]] And said Cardinal Mazarin, "He is one of the best and most generous princes that I have ever known."[[4]]
Rupert was not, in short, a person who could be regarded with indifference. By those with whom he came in contact he was either adored or execrated, and it is remarkable that a man who made so strong an impression upon his contemporaries should have left so slight a one upon posterity. To most people he is a name and nothing more;—a being akin to those iron men who sprang from Jason's dragon teeth, coming into life at the outbreak of the English Civil War to disappear with equal suddenness at its close. He is regarded, on the one hand, as a blood-thirsty, plundering ruffian, who endeavoured to teach in England lessons of cruelty learnt in the Thirty Years' War; on the other, as a mere headstrong boy who ruined, by his indiscretion, a cause for which he exposed himself with reckless courage. Neither of these views does him justice, and his true character, his real influence on English history are lost in a cloud of mist and prejudice. His character had in it elements of greatness, but was so full of contradictions as to puzzle even the astute Lord Clarendon, who, after a long study of the Prince, was reduced to the exclamation—"The man is a strange creature!"[[5]] And strange Rupert undoubtedly was! Born with strong passions, endowed with physical strength, and gifted with talents beyond those of ordinary men, but placed too early in a position of great trial and immense responsibility, his history, romantic and interesting throughout, is the history of a failure.
In his portraits, of which a great number are in existence, the story may be read. We see him first a sturdy, round-eyed child, looking out upon the world with a valiant wonder. A few years later the face is grown thinner and sadder, full of thought and a gentle wistfulness, as though he had found the world too hard for his understanding. At sixteen he is still thoughtful, but less wistful,—a gallant, handsome boy with a graceful bearing and a bright intelligent face, just touched with the melancholy peculiar to the Stuart race. At five-and-twenty his mouth had hardened and his face grown stern, under a burden which he was too young to bear. After that comes a lapse of many years till we find him embittered, worn, and sad; a man who has seen his hopes destroyed and his well-meant efforts perish. Lastly, we have the Rupert of the Restoration; no longer sick at heart and desperately sad, but a Rupert who has out-lived hope and joy, disappointment and sorrow; a handsome man, with a keen intellectual face, but old before his time, and made hard and cold and contemptuous by suffering and loneliness.
The first few months of Rupert's existence were the most prosperous of his life, but he was not a year old before his troubles began. His father, Frederick V, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, had been married at sixteen to the famous Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I of England; the match was not a brilliant one for the Princess Royal of England, but it was exceedingly popular with the English people, who regarded Frederick with favour as the leader of the Calvinist Princes of the Empire. Elizabeth was no older than her husband, and seems to have been considerably more foolish. Her extravagancies and Frederick's difficult humours were the despair of their patient and faithful household steward; yet for some years they dwelt at Heidelberg in peaceful prosperity, and there three children were born to them, Frederick Henry, Charles Louis, and Elizabeth.
But the Empire, though outwardly at peace, was inwardly seething with religious dissension, which broke out into open war on the election of Ferdinand of Styria, (the cousin and destined successor of the Emperor,) as King of Bohemia. Ferdinand was a staunch Roman Catholic, the friend and pupil of the Jesuits, with a reputation for intolerance even greater than he deserved.[[6]] As a matter of fact Protestantism was abhorrent to him, less as heresy, than as the root of moral and political disorder. The Church of Rome was, in his eyes, the fount of order and justice, and he was strongly imbued with the idea, then prevalent in the Empire, that to princes belonged the settlement of religion in those countries over which they ruled.
But it happened that the Protestants of Bohemia had, at that moment, the upper hand. The turbulent nobles of the country were bent on establishing at once their political and religious independence; they rose in revolt, threw the Emperor's ministers out of the Council Chamber window at Prague, and rejected Ferdinand as king.
The Lutheran Princes looked on the revolt coldly, feeling no sympathy with Bohemia. They believed as firmly as did Ferdinand himself in the right of secular princes to settle theological disputes. They were loyal Imperialists, and hated Calvinism, anarchy and war, far more than they hated Roman Catholicism.
With the Calvinist princes of the south, at the head of whom stood the Elector Palatine and the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, the case was different. Fear of their Catholic neighbours, Bavaria and the Franconian bishoprics, made them war-like; they sympathised strongly with their Bohemian co-religionists, they longed to break the power of the Emperor, and were even willing to call in foreign aid to effect their purpose. Schemes for their own personal aggrandisement played an equal part with their religious enthusiasm, and their plots and intrigues gave Ferdinand a very fair excuse for his unfavourable view of Protestantism.
For a time they merely talked, and on the death of Matthias they acquiesced in the election of Ferdinand as Emperor: but only a few days later Frederick was invited by the Bohemians to come and fill their vacant throne.
Frederick was not ambitious; left to himself he might have declined the proffered honour, but, urged by his wife and other relations, he accepted it, and departed with Elizabeth and their eldest son, to Prague, where he was crowned amidst great rejoicings.
Among the Protestant princes, three, and three only, approved of Frederick's action; these were Christian of Anhalt, the Margrave of Anspach and the Margrave of Baden. Maurice of Hesse-Cassel, on the contrary, though a Calvinist and an enemy of the Imperial House, strongly condemned the usurpation as grossly immoral; and in truth the only excuse that can be offered for it is Frederick's belief in a Divine call to succour his co-religionists. Unfortunately he was the last man to succeed in so difficult an enterprise; yet for a brief period all went well, and at Prague, November 28th, 1619, in the hour of his parents' triumph, was born the Elector's third son—Rupert.
The Bohemians welcomed the baby with enthusiasm; the ladies of the country presented him with a cradle of ivory, embossed with gold, and studded with precious stones, and his whole outfit was probably the most costly that he ever possessed in his life. He was christened Rupert, after the only one of the Electors Palatine who had attained the Imperial crown. His sponsors were Bethlem Gabor, King of Hungary, whose creed approximated more closely to Mahommedanism than to any other faith; the Duke of Würtemberg, and the States of Bohemia, Silesia, and Upper and Lower Lusatia. The baptism was at once the occasion of a great feast, and of a political gathering; it aggravated the already smouldering wrath of the Imperialists; a revolt in Prague followed, and within a year the Austrian army had swept over Bohemia, driving forth the luckless King and Queen.
Frederick had no allies, he found no sympathy among his fellow-princes, on the selfish nobility and the apathetic peasantry of Bohemia he could place no reliance; resistance in the face of the Emperor's forces was hopeless;—the Palatines fled.
In the hasty flight the poor baby was forgotten; dropped by a terrified nurse, he was left lying upon the floor until the Baron d'Hona, chancing to find him, threw him into the last coach as it left the courtyard. The jolting of the coach tossed the child into the boot, and there he would have perished had not his screams attracted the notice of some of the train, who rescued him, and carried him off to Brandenburg after his mother.
Elizabeth had sought shelter in Brandenburg because the Elector of that country had married Frederick's sister Catharine. But George William of Brandenburg was a Lutheran, and a prudent personage, who had no wish to embroil himself with his Emperor for a cause of which he thoroughly disapproved. He gave his sister-in-law a cold reception, but, seeing her dire necessity, lent her his castle of Custrin, where, on January 11th, 1621, she gave birth to a fourth son. Damp, bare and comfortless was the castle in which this child first saw the light, and mournful was the welcome he had from his mother. "Call him Maurice," she said, "because he will have to be a soldier!" So Maurice the boy was named, after the warlike Prince of Orange, the most celebrated general of that day.[[7]]
To the Prince of Orange the exiles now turned their thoughts. Return to their happy home in the Palatinate was impossible, for Frederick lay under the ban of the Empire, and his hereditary dominions were forfeited in consequence of his rebellious conduct; therefore when, six weeks after the birth of her child, George William informed Elizabeth that he dared no longer shelter her, she entrusted the infant to the care of the Electress Catharine, and taking with her the little Rupert, began her journey towards Holland.
Maurice, Prince of Orange and Stadtholder of Holland, was the eldest son of William the Silent, and brother of Frederick's mother, the Electress Juliana. He had strongly urged his nephew's acceptance of the Bohemian crown, and it seemed but natural that he should afford an asylum to those whom he had so disastrously advised. He did not shrink from his responsibility, and the welcome which he accorded to his hapless nephew and niece was as warm as that of the Elector of Brandenburg had been cold. At Münster they were met by six companies of men at arms, sent to escort them to Emerich, where they met their eldest son, Henry, who had been sent to the protection of Count Ernest of Nassau at the beginning of the troubles; there also gathered round them the remnants of their shattered court, and it was with a shadowy show of royalty that they proceeded to the Hague.
Nothing could have exceeded the kindness of their reception, princes and people being equally anxious to show them sympathy. Prince Henry Frederick of Orange, the brother and heir of the Stadtholder, resigned his own palace to their use, and the States of Holland presented Elizabeth with a mansion that stood next door to the palace. The furniture necessary to make this house habitable, Elizabeth was enforced to borrow from the ever generous Prince Henry. For all the necessaries of life the exiles were dependent upon charity, and, but for the generosity of the Orange Princes, supplemented by grants of money from England and from the States of Holland, they would have fared badly indeed.
Thenceforth Elizabeth dwelt at the Hague, while the Thirty Years' War, of which her husband's action had lit the spark, raged over Germany. Slowly and reluctantly a few of the Protestant Princes took up arms against the Emperor. James I sent armies of Ambassadors both to Spain and Austria, and offered settlements to which Frederick would not, or could not agree, but he lent little further aid to his distressed daughter. He regarded his son-in-law's action as a political crime, which had produced the religious war that he had striven all his life to avoid, therefore, though he tacitly permitted English volunteers to enlist under Frederick's mercenary, Count Mansfeld, he would not countenance the war openly. Indeed he deprecated it as the chief obstacle to the marriage of Prince Charles with the Spanish Infanta, on which he had set his heart. The English Parliament, on the contrary, detested the idea of a Spanish alliance, and eagerly advocated a war on behalf of the Protestant exiles.
But if her father would not fight on her behalf Elizabeth had friends who asked nothing better. For her sake Duke Christian of Brunswick, the lay-Bishop of Halberstadt, threw himself passionately into the war. He and Mansfeld having completed between them the alienation of the other Princes, by their lawless plunderings, were defeated by the Imperialist General, Tilly. The Emperor settled the Upper Palatinate on his brother-in-law, the Duke of Bavaria, and, though the Lower Palatinate clung tenaciously to its Elector, Frederick was never able to return thither, until, many years later, the intervention of the quixotic King of Sweden won him a brief and evanescent success.
Thus in trouble, anxiety and poverty passed the early youth of the Palatine children. In the first years of the exile only Henry and Rupert shared their parents' home at the Hague; Charles and Elizabeth had been left in the care of their grandmother Juliana, who, when Heidelberg became no longer a safe place of residence, carried them off to Berlin, where Maurice had been left with his aunt.
Henry was old enough to feel the separation from his brother and sister, to whom he was much attached. "I trust you omit not to pray diligently, as I do, day and night, that it may please God to restore us to happiness and to each other," he wrote with precocious seriousness to Charles, "I have a bow and arrow, with a beautiful quiver, tipped with silver, which I would fain send you, but I fear it may fall into the enemy's hands."[[8]] In another letter he tells Charles that "Rupert is here, blythe and well, safe and sound," that he is beginning to talk, and that his first words were "Praise the Lord", spoken in Bohemian.[[9]] In the following year, 1621, Rupert was very ill with a severe cold, and Henry wrote to his grandfather, King James:—"Sir, we are come from Sewneden to see the King and Queen, and my little brother Rupert, who is now a little sick. But my brother Charles is, God be thanked, very well, and my sister Elizabeth, and she is a little bigger and stronger than he."[[10]] A quaint mixture of childishness and precocity is noticeable in all his letters. "I have two horses alive, that can go up my stairs; a black horse and a brown horse!" he informed his grandfather on another occasion.[[11]]
Frederick, an affectionate father to all his children, was especially devoted to his eldest son, whom he made his constant companion. Of Rupert also we find occasional mention in his letters. "The little Rupert is very learned to understand so many languages!"[[12]] he says in 1622, when the child was not three years old. In another letter, dated some years later, he writes to his wife: "I am very glad that Rupert is in your good graces, and that Charles behaves so well. Certes, they are doubly dear to me for it."[[13]]
But the Queen, so universally beloved and belauded, does not appear to have been a very affectionate mother. A devoted wife she unquestionably was, but she did not exert herself to win her children's love. "Any stranger would be deceived in that humour, since towards them there is nothing but mildness and complaisance,"[[14]] wrote her son Charles in after years; and, though Charles himself had little right so to reproach her, there was doubtless some truth in the saying. She had not been long at the Hague before she obtained from the kindly Stadtholder the grant of a house at Leyden, "where," says her youngest daughter, Sophie, "her Majesty had her whole family brought up apart from herself, greatly preferring the sight of her monkeys and dogs to that of her children."[[15]]
Having thus successfully disposed of her family, Elizabeth was able to live at the Hague with considerable satisfaction, surrounded by the beloved monkeys and dogs, of which she had about seventeen in all. Nor was she without congenial society. At the Court of Orange there were no ladies, for both the Princes were unmarried; but very speedily a court gathered itself about the lively Queen of Bohemia. English ladies flocked to the Hague to show their respect and sympathy for their dear Princess. Nobles and diplomates, more especially Sir Thomas Roe and Sir Dudley Carleton, the last of whom was English Ambassador at the Hague, vied with one another in evincing their friendship for the Queen; and hundreds of adventurous young gentlemen came to offer their swords to her husband and their hearts to herself. "I am never destitute of a fool to laugh at, when one goes another comes,"[[16]] wrote Elizabeth, à propos of these eager volunteers, who had dubbed her the "Queen of Hearts."
Soon after they were settled at Leyden, Henry and Rupert were joined by the sister and brothers hitherto left at Berlin, and their society was further augmented by other children, born at the Hague, and despatched to Leyden as soon as they were old enough to bear the three days' journey thither. To the youngest sister, Sophie, we owe a detailed description of their daily life. "We had," she wrote, "a court quite in the German style; our hours as well as our curtsies were all laid down by rule." Eleven o'clock was the dinner hour, and the meal was attended with great ceremony. "On entering the dining-room I found all my brothers drawn up in front, with their gentlemen and governors posted behind in the same order, side by side. I was obliged to make a very low curtsey to the Princes, a slighter one to the others, another low one on placing myself opposite to them, then another slight one to my governess, who on entering the room with her daughters curtsied very low to me. I was obliged to curtsey again on handing my gloves over to their custody, then again on placing myself opposite to my brothers, again when the gentlemen brought me a large basin in which to wash my hands, again after grace was said, and for the ninth, and last time, on seating myself at table. Everything was so arranged that we knew on each day of the week what we were to eat, as is the case in convents. On Sundays and Wednesdays two divines or two professors were always invited to dine with us."[[17]]
All the children, both boys and girls, were very carefully instructed in theology, according to the doctrine of Calvin, and, observed the candid Sophie, "knew the Heidelberg Catechism by heart, without understanding one word of it."[[18]] According to the curriculum arranged for them, the boys enjoyed four hours daily of leisure and exercise. They had to attend morning and evening prayers read in English; the morning prayer was followed by a Bible reading, and an application of the lesson. They were instructed also in the terrible Heidelberg Catechism, in the history of the Reformers, and in religious controversy. On Sundays and feastdays they had to attend church, and to give an abstract of the sermon afterwards. They learnt besides, mathematics, history, and jurisprudence, and studied languages to so much purpose that they could speak five or six with equal ease.[[19]] To their English mother they invariably wrote and spoke in English, but French was the tongue they used by preference, and amongst themselves; a curious French, often interpolated with Dutch and German phrases.
Rupert early evinced his independence of character by revolting against the strict course laid out for him. "He was not ambitious to entertain the learned tongues.... He conceived the languages of the times would be to him more useful, having to converse afterwards with divers nations. Thus he became so much master of the modern tongues that at the thirteenth year of his age he could understand, and be understood in all Europe. His High and Low Dutch were not more naturally spoken by him than English, French, Spanish and Italian. Latin he understood."[[20]] He showed, moreover, a passion for all things military. "His Highness also applying himself to riding, fencing, vaulting, the exercise of the pike and musket, and the study of geometry and fortification, wherein he had the assistance of the best masters, besides the inclination of a military genius, which showed itself so early that at eight years of age he handled his arms with the readiness and address of an experienced soldier."[[21]]
Occasionally their mother would summon the children to the Hague, that she might show them to her friends; "as one would a stud of horses,"[[22]] said Sophie bitterly. The life at Leyden was also varied by the visits of the Elector Frederick, who was occasionally accompanied by Englishmen of distinction.
In 1626 came the great Duke of Buckingham himself. James I was dead, and Charles I reigned in his stead, but the brilliant favourite Buckingham ruled over the son as absolutely as he had ruled over the father before him. He was inclined now to take up the cause of the Palatines, and, as the price of his assistance, proposed a marriage between the eldest prince, Henry, and his own little daughter, the Lady Mary Villiers. Frederick, knowing his great power, listened favourably, and Buckingham accordingly visited the children at Leyden, where he treated his intended son-in-law with great kindness. Henry remembered the Duke with affection, and addressed some of his quaint little letters to him, always expressing gratitude for his kindness. "My Lord," he wrote in 1628, "I could not let pass this opportunity to salute you by my Lord Ambassador, for whose departure, being somewhat sorrowful, I will comfort myself in this, that he may help me in expressing to you how much I am your most affectionate friend.—Frederick Henry."[[23]] But ere the year was out the Duke had fallen under the assassin's knife, and the little Prince did not long survive him.
The Stadtholder Maurice had died in 1625, bequeathing to Elizabeth, amongst other things, a share in a Dutch Company which had raised a fleet intended to intercept Spanish galleons coming, laden with gold, from Mexico. In January 1629 this fleet returned triumphant to the Zuyder Zee. To Amsterdam went Frederick, accompanied by his eldest son, now fifteen, to claim Elizabeth's share of the spoil. "For more frugality"[[24]] the poverty-stricken King and Prince travelled by the ordinary packet-boat, They reached Amsterdam in safety, but on the return journey, the packet-boat was run down by a heavy Dutch vessel, and sank with all on board. Frederick was rescued by the exertions of the skipper, but young Henry perished, and his piteous cry, "Save me, Father!" rang in the ears of the unhappy Frederick to his dying day.[[25]]
Miseries accumulated steadily. The poverty of the exiles increased as rapidly as did their family, and at last they could scarcely get bread to eat. The account of their debts so moved Charles I that he pawned his own jewels in order to pay them, after which, the King and Queen retired to a villa at Rhenen, near Utrecht, where they hoped to live economically. There Elizabeth was, to a great extent, deprived of the society which she loved; but she found consolation in hunting, a sport to which she was devoted. Sometimes she permitted her sons to join her, and on one such occasion a comical adventure befell young Rupert. A fox had been run to earth, and "a dog, which the Prince loved," followed it. The dog did not reappear, and Rupert, growing anxious, crept down the hole after it. But, though he managed to catch the dog by the leg, he found the hole so narrow that he could extricate neither his favourite nor himself. Happily he was discovered in this critical position by his tutor, who, seizing him by the heels, drew out Prince, dog, and fox, each holding on to the other.[[26]]
To Frederick the sojourn at Rhenen was very agreeable. Failing health increased his natural irritability, and he ungratefully detested the democratic Hollanders. "Of all canaille, deliver me from the canaille of the Hague!"[[27]] he said. "It is a misery to live amongst such a people."[[28]] At last, in 1630, a ray of hope dawned upon him. Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, resolved to assist the Protestants of Germany, and, encouraged by France, launched himself into the Empire. In 1631 he gained the battle of Leipzig, and success followed success, until the Lower Palatinate was in the Swedish hero's hands. Then Frederick, provided, by the Stadtholder, with £5,000, set out to join Gustavus, but ere his departure, paid a farewell visit to Leyden. There he attended a public examination of the University Students, in which Charles and Rupert won much distinction. The visit was his last. By November 1632 his troubles were over, and the weary, anxious, disappointed king lay dead at Mainz, in the thirty-sixth year of his age. The immediate cause of his death was a fever contracted in the summer campaign; but it was said that his heart had been broken by the death of his eldest son, and that all through his illness he declared that he heard the boy calling him. The death of Gustavus Adolphus in the same month checked the victorious progress of the Swedish army, and, consequently, the hopes of the Palatines. Frederick had been loved by his sons, and his loss was keenly felt by those of them who were old enough to understand it. The misfortune was, however, beyond the comprehension of the five-year-old Philip, who evidently had learnt to regard military defeat as the only serious disaster. "But is the battle then lost, because the king is dead?" he demanded, gazing in astonishment at Rupert's passionate tears.[[29]] More than a battle had been lost, and forlornly pathetic was the letter indicted by the elder boys to their uncle, King Charles:
"We commit ourselves and the protection of our rights into your gracious arms, humbly beseeching your Majesty so to look upon us as upon those who have neither friends, nor fortune, nor greater honour in this world, than belongs to your Royal blood. Unless you please to maintain that in us God knoweth what may become of your Majesty's nephews.
"CHARLES.
"RUPERT. "MAURICE.
"EDWARD."[[30]]
Hard, in truth, was the position of Elizabeth, left to struggle as she might for her large and impecunious family. She had lost, besides Henry, two children who had died in infancy. There remained ten, six sons and four daughters, the eldest scarcely sixteen, and all wholly dependent on the generosity of their friends and relations. The States of Holland at once granted to the Queen the same yearly sum which they had allowed to her husband, and while her brother, Charles I, prospered, and the Stadtholder Henry still lived, she did not suffer the depths of poverty to which she afterwards sank. Yet money was, as her son Charles put it, "very hard to come by";[[31]] they were always in debt, and it is recorded by another son, that their house was "greatly vexed by rats and mice, but more by creditors."[[32]]
Happily for herself, Elizabeth was possessed of two things of which no misfortune could deprive her, namely, a buoyant nature and a perfect constitution. "For, though I have cause enough to be sad, I am still of my wild humour to be merry in spite of fortune," she once wrote to her faithful friend, Sir Thomas Roe.[[33]] And her children inherited her high spirits. "I was then of so gay a disposition that everything amused me," wrote Sophie; "our family misfortunes had no power to depress my spirits, though we were, at times, obliged to make even richer repasts than that of Cleopatra, and often had nothing at our Court but pearls and diamonds to eat."[[34]] And as it was with Sophie so it was with the others; despair was unknown to them, and for long it was their favourite game to play that they were travelling back to the lost Palatinate, and had entered a public-house on the way.[[35]] Nor did they less inherit their mother's iron constitution. "Bodily health is an inheritance from our mother which no one can dispute with us," declared Sophie; "the best we ever had from her, of which Rupert has taken a double share."[[36]]
Thus, in spite of poverty, misfortune, and the learning thrust upon them, the children grew up gay, witty, as full of tricks as their mother's cherished monkeys, and all distinguished for personal beauty, unusual talents, strong wills, and a superb disregard of the world's opinion. Charles, called by his brothers and sisters, "Timon", on account of his misanthropic views and bitter sayings, was not a whit behind Rupert in learning, and far his superior in social accomplishments. He was his mother's favourite son. "Since he was born I ever loved him best—when he was but a second son,"[[37]] she wrote once; to which replied her correspondent: "It is not the first time your Majesty has confessed to me your affection to the Prince Elector, but now I must approve and admire your judgment, for never was there any fairer subject of love."[[38]] Elizabeth, named by the rest "La Grecque," was considered, later in life, the most learned lady in all Europe; and the merry Louise was an artist whose pictures possess an intrinsic value to this day. Her instructor in the art of painting was Honthorst, who resided in the family. He often sold her pictures for her, thus enabling her to contribute something to the support of the household. So it happens that some of the pictures now ascribed to Honthorst, are in fact the work of the Princess Louise.
Sophie has left us a description of all her sisters: "Elizabeth had black hair, a dazzling complexion, brown sparkling eyes, a well-shaped forehead, beautiful cherry lips, and a sharp aquiline nose, which was apt to turn red. She loved study, but all her philosophy could not save her from vexation when her nose was red. At such times she hid herself from the world. I remember that my sister Louise, who was not so sensitive, asked her on one such unlucky occasion to come upstairs to the Queen, as it was the usual hour for visiting her. Elizabeth said, 'Would you have me go with this nose?'—Louise retorted, 'What! will you wait till you get another?'—Louise was lively and unaffected. Elizabeth was very learned; she knew every language under the sun and corresponded regularly with Descartes. This great learning, by making her rather absent-minded, often became the subject of our mirth. Louise was not so handsome, but had, in my opinion, a more amiable disposition. She devoted herself to painting, and so strong was her talent for it that she could take likenesses from memory. While painting others she neglected herself sadly; one would have said that her clothes had been thrown on her."[[39]]
Rupert, nicknamed "Rupert le Diable" for his rough manners and hasty temper, was himself no mean artist, but of his especial bent something has been said already. Of the younger children we know less. Maurice is chiefly distinguished as Rupert's inseparable companion and devoted follower. Like Rupert, he seems to have been of gigantic height, for we find Charles, at eighteen, boyishly resenting the imputation that "my brother Maurice is as high as myself," and sending his mother "the measure of my true height, without any heels," to disprove it.[[40]] Edward must have been unlike the rest in appearance, for Charles describes him as having a round face, and fat cheeks, though he had the family brown eyes.[[41]] He shared the wilfulness of the rest, but never especially distinguished himself. Henriette was fair and gentle, very beautiful, but less talented than her sisters. She devoted herself to needlework and the confection of sweetmeats. Poor, fiery Philip, valiant, passionate and undisciplined, came early to a warrior's grave. Sophie lived to be the mother of George I of England, and was famous for her natural intelligence, learning, and social talents. Little Gustave died at nine years old, after a short life of continual suffering.
As the boys and girls grew up they were withdrawn from Leyden to the court at the Hague. The Queen of Bohemia's household was a singularly lively one, abounding in practical jokes and wit of a not very refined nature, so that the young princes and princesses had to "sharpen their wits in self-defence."[[42]] It was a fashion with them to run about the Hague in disguise, talking to whomever they met.[[43]]—Private theatricals were a favourite form of amusement, and the Carnival—their Protestantism notwithstanding—was kept with hilarious rejoicing. The Dutch regarded them with kindly tolerance. The English Puritans were less phlegmatic; and a deputation, happening to come over with "a godly condolence" to Elizabeth, in 1635, retired deeply disgusted by the "songs, dances, hallooing and other jovialities" of the Princes Charles, Rupert, Maurice and Edward.[[44]]
[[1]] Hist. MSS. Commission. 12th Report. Athole MSS. p. 30.
[[2]] Calendar of Domestic State Papers. Wharton to Willingham, 13 Sept. 1642.
[[3]] Carte's Original Letters. Ed. 1739. Vol. I. p. 59. O'Neil to Trevor, 26 July, 1644.
[[4]] Hist. MSS. Commission. 8th Report. Denbigh MSS. p. 5520.
[[5]] Calendar Clarendon, State Papers, 27 Feb. 1654.
[[6]] Gardiner's History of England. 1893. Vol. III. Chap. 29. pp. 251-299.
[[7]] Green, Lives of the Princesses of England. 1855. Vol. V. p. 353.
[[8]] Benger's Elizabeth Stuart. Ed. 1825. Vol. II. p. 255
[[9]] Ibid. II. p. 257.
[[10]] Hist. MSS. Com. Report 3. Hopkinson MSS. p. 265a.
[[11]] Green's Princesses, Vol. V. p. 408, note.
[[12]] Bromley Letters. Ed. 1787. p. 21.
[[13]] Bromley Letters, p. 38.
[[14]] Ibid. p. 178.
[[15]] Preussischen Staatsarchiven. Bd. 4. Memoiren der Herzogin Sophie, pp. 34-35.
[[16]] Letters and Negotiations of Sir T. Roe, p. 74. Elizabeth to Roe, 19 Aug. 1622.
[[17]] Publication aus den Preussischen Staatsarchiven. Bd. 4. Memoiren der Herzogin Sophie, pp. 34-35.
[[18]] Ibid.
[[19]] Haüsser, Geschichte der Rheinischen Pfalz. Vol. II. p. 510.
[[20]] Lansdowne MSS. 817. Fol. 157-168. Brit. Mus.
[[21]] Warburton, Rupert and the Cavaliers, Vol. I. p. 449.
[[22]] Memoiren der Herzogin Sophie, p. 35. Publication aus den Preussischen Staatsarchiven.
[[23]] Harleian MSS. 6988. Fol. 83. British Museum.
[[24]] Howell's Familiar Letters. Edition 1726. Bk I. p. 177. 25 Feb. 1625.
[[25]] Strickland's Elizabeth Stuart. Queens of Scotland, Vol. VIII. pp. 134, 161. Green's Princesses. V. 468-9.
[[26]] Warburton, Vol. I. p. 49, note.
[[27]] Strickland, Elizabeth Stuart, p. 138.
[[28]] Bromley Letters, p. 20.
[[29]] Sprüner's Pfalzgraf Ruprecht, p. 17. Staatsbibliothek zu München.
[[30]] Green, English Princesses, Vol. V. p. 515.
[[31]] Bromley Letters, p. 124.
[[32]] Dict. of National Biography. Art. Elizabeth of Bohemia.
[[33]] Letters and Negotiations of Roe, p. 146.
[[34]] Memoiren der Herzogin Sophie, p. 43.
[[35]] Sprüner, p. 15. MSS. der Staatsbibliothek zu München.
[[36]] Briefwechsel der Herzogin Sophie mit Karl Ludwig von der Pfalz, p. 309.
[[37]] Dom. State Papers. Chas. I. Vol. 325. Fol. 47. Eliz. to Roe, 4 June, 1636.
[[38]] Ibid. Roe to Eliz., 20 July, 1636. Vol. 329. fol. 21.
[[39]] Memoiren der Herzogin Sophie, pp. 38-39.
[[40]] Bromley Letters, p. 97.
[[41]] Forster's Statesmen, Vol. VI. p. 81, note
[[42]] Memoiren der Herzogin Sophie, pp. 36-37.
[[43]] Memoirs of the Princess Palatine. Blaze de Bury. p. 112.
[[44]] Strickland, Elizabeth Stuart, p. 174.
CHAPTER II
RUPERT'S EARLY CAMPAIGNS. FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND.
MADEMOISELLE DE ROHAN
At the age of thirteen Rupert made his first campaign. Prince Henry of Orange had succeeded his brother Maurice as Stadtholder, and under his Generalship, the Protestant states of Holland still carried on the struggle against Spain and the Spanish Netherlands, which had raged since the days of William the Silent. The close alliance of Spain with the Empire, and of Holland with the Palatines, connected this war with the religious wars of Germany; young Rupert was full of eagerness to share in it, and the Stadtholder, with whom the boy was a special favourite, begged Elizabeth's leave to take him and his elder brother on the campaign of 1633. The Queen consented, saying, "He cannot too soon be a soldier in these active times."[[1]] But hardly was the boy gone, than she was seized with fears for his morals, and recalled him to the Hague. Rupert submitted reluctantly, but the remonstrances of the Stadtholder, ere long, procured his return to the army.
A brief campaign resulted in the capture of Rhynberg, which triumph Prince Henry celebrated with a tournament held at the Hague. On this occasion Rupert greatly distinguished himself, carrying off the palm, "with such a graceful air accompanying all his actions, as drew the hearts and eyes of all spectators towards him ... The ladies also contended among themselves which should crown him with the greatest and most welcome glory."[[2]]
After all this excitement, the boy found his life at Leyden irksome, and "his thoughts were so wholly taken up with the love of arms, that he had no great passion for any other study." He was therefore allowed to return to active service, and on the next campaign he served in the Stadtholder's Life Guards. With eager delight, he "delivered himself up to all the common duties and circumstances of a private soldier;"[[3]] in which capacity he witnessed the sieges of Louvain, Schenkenseyan, and the horrible sack of Tirlemont. Even thus early he showed something of the impatience and impetuosity which was afterwards his bane. The dilatory methods and cautious policy of the Stadtholder fretted him; "an active Prince, like ours, was always for charging the enemy." His courage indeed "astonished the eldest soldiers," and they exerted themselves to preserve from harm the young comrade who took no care of himself.[[4]] Eventually Rupert returned from his second campaign, covered with glory, and not a little spoilt by the petting of the Stadtholder, and of his companions in arms. A visit to England, which followed soon after, did not tend to lessen his good opinion of himself.
His eldest brother, Charles Louis, had just attained his eighteenth year. This being the legal age for Princes of the Empire, he assumed his father's title of Prince Elector Palatine, and was thereupon summoned to England by his uncle, King Charles, who hoped to accomplish his restoration to the Palatinate. Elizabeth suffered the departure of her favourite with much misgiving. "He is young et fort nouveau, so as he will no doubt commit many errors," she wrote to Sir Henry Vane. "I fear damnably how he will do with your ladies, for he is a very ill courtier; therefore I pray you desire them not to laugh too much at him, but to be merciful to him."[[5]]
In October 1635 young Charles landed at Gravesend, and was well received by his relatives. "The King received him in the Queen's withdrawing room, using him extraordinarily kindly. The Queen kissed him. He is a very handsome young prince, modest and very bashful; he speaks English," was the report of a friend to Lord Strafford.[[6]] Nevertheless the Elector, who had expected to be restored with a high hand, was somewhat disappointed in his uncle. Ambassadors King Charles did not spare. In July 1636 he despatched Lord Arundel on a special mission to Vienna. He endeavoured to league together England, France and Holland in the interests of the Palatines. He negotiated with the King of Hungary, and he attempted to secure the King of Poland by marrying him to the Elector's eldest sister, Elizabeth. The marriage treaty fell through because the princess refused to profess the Roman Catholic faith. The other negotiations proved equally fruitless; and armies, fleets and money it was not in the King's power to furnish. "All their comfort to me is 'to have patience'!"[[7]] complained the young Elector to his mother.
In other respects he had nothing to complain of; the impression he made was excellent, and the King showed him all the kindness in his power. The old diplomat, Sir Thomas Roe, who watched over the boy with a fatherly eye, wrote enthusiastically to his mother, Elizabeth: "The Prince Elector is so sweet, so obliging, so discreet, so sensible of his own affairs, and so young as was never seen, nor could be seen in the son of any other mother. And this joy I give you: he gains upon his Majesty's affection, by assiduity and diligent attendance, so much that it is expressed to him by embracings, kissings, and all signs of love."[[8]]
Thus encouraged, Elizabeth resolved to send her second son to join his brother; though with little hope that "Rupert le Diable" would prove an equal success with the young Elector. "For blood's sake I hope he will be welcome," she wrote; "though I believe he will not trouble your ladies with courting them, nor be thought a very beau garçon, which you slander his brother with." And she entreated Sir Henry Vane "a little to give good counsel to Rupert, for he is still a little giddy, though not so much as he has been. Pray tell him when he does ill, for he is good-natured enough, but does not always think of what he should do."[[9]] But the mother's judgment erred, for the despised Rupert won all hearts at the English Court, so completely as to throw his brother into the shade. Doubtless the jeers of his mother had helped to render him shy and awkward at the Hague; now, for the first time, he found himself free to develop unrestrained, in a congenial atmosphere. The natural force of his character showed itself at once, and his quick wit and vivacity charmed the grave King. "I have observed him," reported Sir Thomas Roe, "full of spirit and action, full of observation and judgment; certainly he will réussir un grand homme (sic); for whatsoever he wills he wills vehemently, so that to what he bends he will in it be excellent... His Majesty takes great pleasure in his unrestfulness, for he is never idle; in his sports serious, in his conversation retired, but sharp and witty when occasion provokes him."[[10]]
In his love for the arts King Charles found another point of sympathy with his nephew. The English Court was then the most splendid in Europe; Charles's collections of pictures, sculptures, and art treasures were the finest of the times. He was himself so proficient a musician that an enemy remarked later, that he might have earned his living by his art.[[11]] Rubens, Van Dyke and other famous artists, sculptors and musicians were familiar figures at the Court. In a word, the society which Charles gathered round him was cultivated and intellectual to the highest degree. To a boy like Rupert, sensitive, excitable, and intensely artistic in feeling, there was something intoxicating in this feast of the senses and intellect, so suddenly offered to him. Nor was this all. The Queen and her ladies, so famous for their wit and beauty, marked him for their own; and before he had been many days in England, the boy found himself the chief pet and favourite of his fascinating aunt. Queen Henrietta, who had a passion for proselytising, soon saw in her handsome young nephew a hopeful subject for conversion to the Roman Church; and Rupert, on his part, was not a little drawn by the artistic aspect of her religion.
The young Elector watched his brother's prosperous course with dismay. Rupert, he lamented, was "always with the Queen, and her ladies, and her Papists." Nor did he look more favourably on Rupert's affection for Endymion Porter, a poet, and a connoisseur in all the arts, whose wife was as ardent a Roman Catholic as was the Queen herself. "Rupert is still in great friendship with Porter," he wrote to his mother. "I bid him take heed he do not meddle with points of religion among them, for fear some priest or other, that is too hard for him, may form an ill opinion in him. Mrs. Porter is a professed Roman Catholic. Which way to get my brother away I do not know, except myself go over."[[12]] Roe also hinted that Elizabeth would do well to recall her second son. "His spirit is too active to be wasted in the soft entanglings of pleasure, and your Majesty would do well to recall him gently. He will prove a sword for all his friends if his edge be set right. There is nothing ill in his stay here, yet he may gather a diminution from company unfit for him."[[13]] It was enough. Elizabeth took alarm, and from that time made desperate but vain efforts to recover her giddy Rupert, who, said she, "spends his time but idly in England."[[14]] But Rupert was far too happy to return home just then; nor were his uncle and aunt willing to part with him. The Queen loudly protested that she would not let him go, and Elizabeth was obliged to resign herself, saying, "He will not mend there."[[15]]
It was not fears for her son's Protestantism alone that moved her. She was aware that he and the King were concocting between them, a scheme of which she thoroughly disapproved. This was a wild and utterly unfeasible plan for founding a colony in Madagascar, of which Rupert was to be leader, organiser, and ruler. He had always taken a keen interest in naval affairs, and now he devoted himself eagerly to the study of ship-building. But his unfortunate mother was frantic at the idea. In her eyes, the boy's only fit vocation was "to be made a soldier, to serve his uncle and brother,"[[16]] and she entreated her friend Roe to put such "windmills" out of this new Don Quixote's head. No son of hers, she declared, fiercely, should "roam the world as a knight-errant;"[[17]] not foreseeing, poor woman, that such was precisely her children's destined fate. From Roe at least she had full sympathy: "I will only say," he wrote to her, "that it is an excellent course to lose the Prince in a most desperate, dangerous, unwholesome, fruitless action."[[18]] But to mockery and exhortation Rupert turned a deaf ear. His mother, finding her letters treated with indifference, sent her agent, Rusdorf, to represent to the boy his exalted station as a Prince of the Empire, the grief he was causing to his grandmother, mother and sisters, and the necessity of his remaining in Europe to combat his ancestral enemies. Rupert listened in absolute silence, and remained unmoved at the end. Nor could his brother Charles make the least impression on him. "When I ask him what he means to do I find him very shy to tell me his opinion,"[[19]] was the young Elector's report. Rupert probably knew Charles well enough to guess that anything he did tell him would be at once repeated to his mother, and he was always good at keeping his own counsel.
Both boys had broken loose from their home restraints. They were now "quite out of their mother's governance", and resolved to go their own way, heeding neither her nor her agents, present or absent.[[20]] The state of affairs was not improved by the interference of one of Elizabeth's ladies, who was also on a visit to England. Between the boys and this Mrs. Crofts there was no love lost. She told tales of their doings to their mother, and carried complaints of their rudeness to their mentor, Lord Craven. The Princes were furious, believing that she had been sent to spy upon them, and, at the same time, they betrayed evident terror lest her stories should gain credence rather than their own. "I am sure your Majesty maketh no doubt of my civil carriage to Mrs. Crofts, because she was your servant, and you commanded it," declared Charles, "yet I hear she is not pleased, and hath sent her complaints over seas. I do not know whether they are come to your Majesty's ears, but I easily believe it, because she told my Lord Craven that I used her like a stranger and would not speak to her before her King and Queen. Yet I may truly say that I have spoken more to her, since she came into England, than ever I did in all my life before."[[21]] Rupert also had insulted the lady. "He told me she would not look upon him,"[[22]] wrote his brother indignantly.
After all this agitation, a visit to Oxford, in the company of the King, proved a welcome diversion. This was a great event in the University, and the scholars were admonished "to go nowhere without their caps and gowns, and in apparel of such colour and such fashion as the statute prescribes. And particularly they are not to wear long hair, nor any boots, nor double stockings, rolled down, or hanging loose about their legs, as the manner of some slovens is."[[23]] On the night of the Royal Party's arrival a play was performed by the students of Christ Church, which Lord Carnarvon reported the worst he had ever seen, except one which he saw at Cambridge. On the following day Rupert, clad in a scarlet gown, was presented for the degree of Master of Arts by the Warden of Merton College. The University bestowed on him a pair of gloves; and from Archbishop Laud, then Chancellor of Oxford, he received a copy of Cæsar's Commentaries. Subsequently the Royal guests dined with Laud, at St. John's College, and in the evening they were condemned to witness a second play at Christ Church, which happily proved "most excellent."[[24]]
Elizabeth remained, in the meantime, far from satisfied; and in February 1637, King Charles thought it well to ascertain her serious intentions with regard to Rupert. To this end, young George Goring, then serving in the Stadtholder's army, was commissioned to sound her. Thus he reported to his father:—"I found she had a belief he would lose his time in England, and for that reason had an intention to recall him. I saw it not needful to give her other encouragement from His Majesty, than that I heard the King profess that he did believe Prince Rupert would soon be capable of any actions of honour, and if he were placed in any such employment would acquit himself very well; and I persuaded Her Majesty to know what the Prince of Orange would think fit for him to do, which she did on their next meeting, and His Highness wished very much that there were some employment in the way worthy of him. But this business is silenced since upon a letter the Queen has received from the Prince Elector, where he mentions the sending of some land forces into France, which he judges a fit command for him ... Only that which His Highness spoke to Dr. Gosse, concerning Prince Rupert, would joy me much, being I might hope for a liberty of attempting actions worthy of an honest man."[[25]]
Plans for the recovery of the lost Palatinate were now indeed maturing. The cause was one very near the hearts of the English Puritans, who regarded it as synonymous with the cause of Protestantism, and they showed themselves willing to subscribe money in aid of it. The King promised ships, and tried to win the help of France; while young English nobles eagerly offered their swords to the exiled Princes. The Elector was so delighted that he could scarcely believe his good fortune, and Rupert abandoned his own schemes in order to assist his brother. "The dream of Madagascar, I think, is vanished," wrote Roe. "A blunt merchant called to deliver his opinion, said it was a gallant design, but one on which he would be loth to venture his younger son."[[26]]
But the dream of Rupert's conversion was not over, and his mother was as anxious as ever to recover possession of him. She appealed now to Archbishop Laud who had shown great interest in the boys, often inviting them to dine with him. "The two young Princes have both been very kind and respective of me," he said. "It was little I was able to do for them, but I was always ready to do my best."[[27]] To him therefore Elizabeth stated that she was about to send Maurice with the Prince of Orange, "to learn that profession by which I believe he must live,"[[28]] and that she desired Rupert to bear his brother company. "I think he will spend this summer better in an army than idly in England. For though it be a great honour and happiness to him to wait upon his uncle, yet, his youth considered, he will be better employed to see the war."[[29]] Laud replied in approving terms: "If the Prince of Orange be going into the field, God be his speed. The like I heartily wish to the young Prince Maurice. You do exceedingly well to put him into action betimes."[[30]] Still he offered no real assistance, and Elizabeth fell back on the sympathetic Roe, repeating how she had sent for Rupert, and adding—"You may easily guess why I send for him; his brother can tell you else. I pray you help him away and hinder those that would stay him."[[31]]
Her untiring solicitations and Rupert's own martial spirit, combined with the fact that the Elector, having completed his negotiations, was now ready to return with his brother, prevailed. The King at last consented to let them go, and in June 1637 they embarked at Greenwich, arriving safely at the Hague, after a stormy passage in which both suffered severely. The parting in England had been reluctant on both sides. "Both the brothers went away very unwillingly, but Prince Rupert expressed it most, for, being a-hunting that morning with the King, he wished he might break his neck, and so leave his bones in England."[[32]]
But, in the opinion of Elizabeth and Roe, that pleasant holiday had ended none too soon. "You have your desire for Prince Rupert," wrote the latter. "I doubt not he returns to you untainted, but I will not answer for all designs upon him. The enemy is a serpent as well as a wolf, and, though he should prove impregnable, you do well to preserve him from battery."[[33]] Later the boy confessed that a fortnight more in England would have seen him a Roman Catholic. Elizabeth thereupon poured forth bitter indignation on her sister-in-law, but Henrietta only retorted, with cheerful defiance, that, had she known Rupert's real state of mind, he should not have departed when he did.
So far as Rupert was concerned, the visit had not been, from the mother's point of view, a success. The only one of her brother's schemes for the boy's advantage of which she approved, unhappily commended itself very little to Rupert himself; this was no less than the time-honoured device of marrying him to an heiress. The lady selected was the daughter of the Huguenot Duc de Rohan, and in September 1636 the Elector had written to his mother: "Concerning my brother Rupert, M. de Soubise hath made overture that, with your Majesty's and your brother's consent, he thinks M. de Rohan would not be unwilling to match him with his daughter.... I think it is no absurd proposition, for she is great both in means and birth, and of the religion."[[34]] The death of the Duc de Rohan delayed the conclusion of the treaty, which dragged on for several years. In 1638 King Charles renewed relations with the widowed Duchess, through his Ambassador at Paris, Lord Leicester. "For Prince Robert's service, I represented unto her as well as I could, how hopeful a prince he was, and she said she had heard much good of him, that he was very handsome, and had a great deal of wit and courage,"[[35]] wrote the Ambassador. But Cardinal Richelieu was by no means willing to let such a fortune as that of the Rohans, fall to a heretic foreigner, and without his consent, and that of Louis XIII, nothing could be done. The difficulties in the way were great, and though the Duchess was well inclined to Rupert, both on account of his religion and of his Royal blood, she was not blind to the fact that neither of these would support either himself or his family. He would, she supposed, settle down in France, but great though her daughter's fortune was, it would not, she declared, maintain a Royal prince in Paris; and she desired to know what King Charles would do for his nephew. Leicester could only reply vaguely that the King would "take care" of his nephew, and of any future children. He was, however, admitted to an interview with the young lady, whom he facetiously told, that he "came to make love unto her, and that, if it were for myself, I thought she could hardly find it in her heart to refuse me, but it being for a handsome young prince, countenanced by the recommendation of a great king, I did take upon myself to know her mind.... She gave me a smile and a blush, which I took for a sufficient reply."[[36]]
Owing to the opposition of the Cardinal, no formal betrothal took place, but Marguerite de Rohan evidently regarded her unwilling lover with favour, for when he fell into the hands of the Emperor she showed herself loyal to him. Leicester, on receiving the news of Rupert's capture, hastened to interview the Duchess, but found her still well inclined. "I cannot find that she is at all changed," he reported. "She answered also for her daughter, and related this passage to me. Some one had said to Mademoiselle de Rohan: 'Now that Prince Rupert is a prisoner, you should do well to abandon the thought of him, and to entertain the addresses of your servant, the Duc de Nemours.' To which she answered: 'I am not engaged anywhere; but, as I have been inclined, so I am still, for it would be a lâcheté to forsake one because of his misfortunes, and some generosity to esteem him in the same degree as before he fell into it."[[37]]
Her generosity was not felt as it deserved. Rupert did not want to be married; he had already plenty of interests and occupations, and he could not be brought to regard the matter from a practical point of view. Eighty thousand pounds a year, united to much other valuable property and the expectation of two more estates, could not induce the penniless Palatine to sacrifice his liberty. In 1643 Marguerite would await the recalcitrant suitor no longer, and the incident closed with a very curious letter, written by King Charles to Maurice. Evidently the King was loth that such a fortune should be lost to the family, after all his trouble.
"Nepheu Maurice," he wrote, "though Mars be now most in voag, yet Hymen may sometimes be remembyred. The matter is this: Your mother and I have bin somewhat ingaged concerning a marriage between your brother Rupert and Mademoiselle de Rohan. Now her friends press your brother for a positive answer, which I find him resolved to give negatively. Therefore I thought fit to let you know, if you will, by your ingagement, take your brother handsomely off. And indeed the total rejecting of this alliance may do us some prejudice, whether ye look to these, or to the German affairs; the performance of it is not expected until the times shall be reasonably settled, but I desire you to give me an answer, as soon as you can, having now occasion to send to France, because delays are sometimes as ill taken as denials. So hoping, and praying God for good news from you,
"I rest, your loving oncle,
"C. R."[[38]]
But Maurice was not to be moved by his uncle's eloquence, and his answer was as positively negative as that of his brother had been. Subsequently the neglected lady wedded Henri Chabot, a poor gentleman of no particular distinction, with whom she was, possibly, happier than any Palatine would have made her.
[[1]] Domestic State Papers. Elizabeth to Roe. 12/22, April, 1634.
[[2]] Lansdowne MSS. 817. Fol. 157-168.
[[3]] Benett MSS. Warburton. Vol. I. p. 450.
[[4]] Lansdowne MSS. 817. British Museum.
[[5]] Dom. State Papers. Chas. I. Vol. 300. fol. 1. 18/28 May, 1635.
[[6]] Letters and Despatches of Thomas Wentworth. Earl Strafford. Ed. 1739. Vol. I p. 489.
[[7]] Bromley Letters, p. 73.
[[8]] Dom. State Papers. Chas. I. 320. 2; 1 May, 1636.
[[9]] Dom. State Papers. Eliz. to Vane, Feb. 2, 1636. Chas. I. Vol. 313. f. 12.
[[10]] Dom. State Papers. Roe to Elizabeth, July 20, 1636. Chas. I. Vol. 339. f. 21.
[[11]] Lilly. Character of Charles I.
[[12]] Bromley Letters, p. 86.
[[13]] Dom. State Papers. Chas. I. 320. f. 2. 1 May, 1636.
[[14]] Dom. State Papers. Chas. I. 318. f. 16. 4 April, 1636.
[[15]] Ibid. 325. f. 47. 4 June, 1636.
[[16]] Ibid. 318. f. 16. April 4, 1636.
[[17]] Howell's Letters, p. 257, 4 Jan. 1636.
[[18]] Dom. State Papers. Roe to Eliz. Chas. I. 350. 16. 17 March, 1637.
[[19]] Bromley Letters, p. 86.
[[20]] Haüsser, Geschichte der Rheinischen Pfalz. Vol. II. p. 546.
[[21]] Bromley Letters, p. 85.
[[22]] Bromley Letters, p. 88.
[[23]] Dom. S. P. Decree of University, Aug. 12, 1636.
[[24]] Ibid. 5 Sept. 1636.
[[25]] Dom. State Papers. Geo. Goring to Lord Goring, 4 Feb. 1637. Chas. I. 346. f. 33.
[[26]] Ibid. Roe to Elizabeth, May 8, 1637.
[[27]] Dom. S. P. Laud to Eliz. Aug. 7, 1637.
[[28]] Ibid. Eliz. to Laud. May 19, 1637.
[[29]] Ibid. June 10, 1637. Chas. I. 361.
[[30]] Ibid. Laud to Eliz. June 22, 1637.
[[31]] Ibid. Eliz. to Roe. June 7, 1637.
[[32]] Stafford Papers. Vol. II. p. 85. June 24, 1637.
[[33]] Dom. State Papers. Roe to Eliz. June 19, 1637.
[[34]] Bromley Letters, p. 56.
[[35]] Collins Sydney Papers, 1746. Vol. II. p. 549. 8 May, 1638.
[[36]] Collins Sydney Papers, 1746. Vol. II. pp. 560-561. 22 July, 1638.
[[37]] Collins Sydney Papers. Vol. II. p. 575. 12 Nov. 1638.
[[38]] Harleian MSS. 6988. fol. 149.
CHAPTER III
THE SIEGE OF BREDA. THE ATTEMPT ON THE PALATINATE.
RUPERT'S CAPTIVITY
Immediately on his return from England in 1637, Rupert joined his brother Maurice in the army of the Stadtholder. Prince Henry was just then engaged in the siege of Breda, a town which was oftener lost and won than any other in the long wars of the Low Countries. Many Englishmen were fighting there, in the Dutch army: Astley, Goring, the Lords Northampton and Grandison, with whom the Palatines were already well acquainted, besides others whom they were to meet hereafter in the English war, either as friends or foes. The two young princes acted with their usual energy and "let not one day pass in that siege, without doing some action at which the whole army was surprised."[[1]] Once, by their courage and ready wit, they saved the camp from an unexpected attack. Waking in the night, Rupert fancied that he heard unusual sounds within the city walls. He roused Maurice, and the two crept up so close to the Spanish lines that they could actually hear what the soldiers said on the other side. Thus they discovered that the enemy was preparing to fall upon them at mid-night, and, hastening back to the Stadtholder, they were able to give him timely warning. Consequently, when the besieged sallied out, the besiegers were ready for them, and forced them to retire with great loss.[[2]] On another occasion Rupert's love of adventure led him into flat insubordination. Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, was about to make an attack upon the enemy's words, which was considered so dangerous that the Stadtholder expressly forbade Rupert to take part in it. But Rupert no sooner heard the Stadtholder give the order to advance, than he dashed away, anticipating the aide-de-camp, himself delivered the order to Monk, and, slipping into his company as a volunteer, took his share in the exploit. The Prince came off unhurt, but many of his comrades fell, and both Goring and Wilmot were severely wounded. The fight over, Rupert and some other officers threw themselves down on a hillock to rest; they had been there some time, when, to their surprise, a Burgundian, whom they had taken for dead, suddenly started up, crying: "Messieurs, est-il point de quartier?" The English officers burst out laughing, and immediately dubbed him "Jack Falstaff", which name he bore to his dying day.[[3]] What the Stadtholder thought of Rupert's mutinous conduct is not recorded.
Eventually Breda fell to the Dutch arms, and Maurice was, immediately after, sent to school in Paris, with his younger brothers, Edward and Philip. He must have gone sorely against his will, especially as Charles and Rupert were proceeding to levy forces for their own attempt on the Palatinate. But Elizabeth was inexorable. She was resolved not to blush for the manners of her younger sons, as she declared she did for those of Rupert; and she was, besides, anxious to have Maurice in safety, seeing that the two elder boys were about to risk their lives in so rash a venture.
Since the death of their King Gustavus the Swedes had continued the war in Germany, though without any such brilliant successes as had been theirs before. Still many towns were in their hands, and doubtless the young Elector hoped for their coöperation in his own venture. He had been joined by many English volunteers; and by means of English money he was able to raise troops in Hamburg and Westphalia. As a convenient muster-place, he had purchased Meppen on the Weser, from a Swedish officer, to whom the place had been given by Gustavus. But ere the Elector's levies were completed, the negligence of the Governor suffered the town to fall into the hands of the Imperialists. Charles took this mischance with praiseworthy philosophy: "A misty morning," quoth he, "often makes a cheerfuller day."[[4]] And thanks to the kindness of the Stadtholder, and the connivance of the States, he was enabled to continue his levies, quartering his men about Wesel.
In the midst of their labours, both he and Rupert found time to attend a tournament at the Hague. Dressed as Moors, and mounted on white horses, they, as usual, outshone all others. Indeed so pleased were they with their own prowess, that they issued a printed challenge for a renewal of the courses. Balls also were in vogue, and the Hague was unusually gay; yet Elizabeth retired, early in the season, to her country house at Rhenen. Feeling between mother and sons was still somewhat strained. The Queen found the boys far less submissive to her will than they had been before their year of liberty in England, and Lord Craven, who acted as mediator, found the post no sinecure.
But to Lord Craven no task came amiss in the service of the Palatines. The history of his life-long devotion to the exiled Queen is well known, and it is doubtful whether his unparalleled generosity, or the boundless wealth which made such generosity possible, be the most astonishing. His father, a son of the people, had made in trade, the enormous fortune which he bequeathed to his children. The eldest son, fired by military ambition, had entered the service of the Palatine Frederick, and, at the siege of Kreuznach, had attracted the notice and approbation of the great Gustavus. His wealth and his military fame won him an English peerage, but, after Frederick's death, Lord Craven continued to reside at the Hague, filling every imaginable office in the impoverished Palatine household, and lavishing extravagant sums on the whole family. "He was a very valuable friend, for he possessed a purse better furnished than my own!"[[5]] confessed Sophie. In later years, when the good Prince of Orange was dead, and Charles I no longer in a position to aid his sister, Elizabeth was almost entirely dependent on this loyal friend; but the English Parliament at last confiscated his estates, and so deprived him of the power to assist her. The young Palatines were doubtless attached to him, but it must be admitted that they showed themselves less grateful than might have been desired. His follies and his eccentricities impressed them more than did his virtues, and "the little mad my lord" afforded them much matter for mirth. Possibly he was, as Sophie said, lamentably lacking in common-sense,[[6]] but the family would have fared far worse without him. On the present occasion he had contributed £10,000 to the support of the Elector's army, and, at Elizabeth's request, undertook the special care of the rash young Rupert, whose senior he was by ten years.
By October 1638 Charles Louis' little army was ready for action. Rupert had the command of a regiment of Horse, and Lord Craven led the Guards; the other principal officers were the Counts Ferentz and Königsmark. Anything more wild and futile than this expedition it is hard to conceive. There seems to have been no coöperation with the Protestant princes of the Empire, nor with the Swedish army. On the contrary, at the very moment of the Elector's attack, there was a cessation of hostilities elsewhere. Banier, the chief of the Swedish commanders, lay with his forces in Munster, and he made no movement to join with his young ally; all that he did was to send his second in command, a Scot, named King, to direct the Elector's operations. To the advice of King, Rupert, at least, attributed the disasters that followed; but it would have been a miracle indeed had the two boys, with their four thousand men, dashed themselves thus wildly against the numberless veteran troops of the Emperor with any better result. To the Lower Palatinate, which was always loyal at heart, Charles Louis turned his eyes. Accordingly he marched from Wesel, eastward, through the Bishopric of Munster. On the march, Rupert, with his usual eagerness to fight, succeeded in drawing out upon his van an Imperial garrison. But the vigorous charge with which he received it drove it back into the town, whither Rupert nearly succeeded in following it.[[7]] On this occasion a soldier fired at him from within ten yards, but, as so often happened when the Prince was threatened, the gun missed fire. After this adventure the army proceeded steadily towards the river Weser, resolving to lay siege to Lemgo, which lies south of Minden in Westphalia. But hardly had the Elector sat down before the town, when he heard that the Imperial forces, led by General Hatzfeldt, were advancing to cut off his retreat. To await Hatzfeldt's onslaught was madness, and instant retreat to Minden, then held by the Swedes, was the only course for the Palatines. Two routes lay open to them, that by Vlotho on the west, or by Rinteln on the east. Following, the advice of General King, they chose the way of Vlotho and thus fell "into the very mouth of Hatzfeldt."[[8]] They were still between Lemgo and Vlotho when they encountered eight regiments of Imperialist Cuirassiers, a regiment of Irish Dragoons, and a force of eighteen thousand foot. General King at once sent away his baggage, "an act which received a very ill construction,"[[9]] and then counselled the Elector to draw up his troops on the top of a neighbouring hill. Field-marshal Ferentz complied with the suggestion; but Königsmark who commanded the hired Swedes, so much disliked the position, that Rupert offered to follow him wherever he pleased. Thereupon Königsmark drew the horse down again, into an enclosed piece of land, courteously giving the van to the Elector. King, in the meantime, went to bring up the foot and cannon.
The Imperialists fell first upon the Elector and Ferentz, who were both beaten back. Rupert withstood the third shock, and beat back the enemy from their ground. Lord Craven then brought his Guards to Rupert's assistance, and a second time they beat back the Imperialists with loss. They were, however, far outnumbered. Calling up another regiment, under Colonel Lippe, and sending eight hundred Horse to attack Rupert's rear, the enemy charged him a third time, with complete success. The young Elector, who had hitherto fought bravely, now took to flight, with General King, and both narrowly escaped drowning in the flooded Weser. Rupert might also have escaped; cut off from his own troops by the very impetuosity of his charge, he rode alone into the midst of the enemy, but, by a curious chance, he wore in his hat a white favour, which was also the badge of the Austrians, and thus, for a time, escaped notice. While he looked out for some chance of escape, he perceived his brother's cornet struggling against a number of Imperial troopers. Rupert flew to the rescue, and thus betrayed himself. The Austrians closed round him; he tried to clear the enclosure, but his tired horse refused the jump. Colonel Lippe caught at his bridle, but Rupert, struggling fiercely, made him let go his hold. Lord Craven and Count Ferentz rushed to the rescue of their Prince, but all three were speedily overpowered. Then Lippe struck up Rupert's visor, and demanded to know who he was. "A Colonel!" said the boy obstinately. "Sacrement! It is a young one!" cried the Austrian. A soldier, coming up, recognised the boy and identified him as "the Pfalzgraf", and Lippe, in great joy, confided him to the care of a trooper. Rupert immediately tried to bribe the man to let him escape, giving him all the money he had, "five pieces", and promising more. But the arrival of Hatzfeldt frustrated the design, and the Prince was carried off, under a strict guard, to Warrendorf. On the way thither a woman, won by the boy's youth and misfortunes, would have helped him to escape, but no opportunity offered itself. At Warrendorf, Rupert was allowed to remain some weeks, until Lord Craven, who, with Ferentz, was also a prisoner, had somewhat recovered from his wounds. The Prince was also permitted to despatch Sir Richard Crane to England, with a note to Charles I, written in pencil on a page of his pocketbook, for pen and ink were denied him.[[10]]
News of the disaster had been received with dismay in England, where it was reported with much exaggeration. "Prince Rupert," it was said, "is taken prisoner, and since dead of his many wounds; he having fought very bravely, and, as the gazette says, like a lion."[[11]] His fate remained doubtful for some days, and it was even rumoured that he had been seen at Minden, two days after the battle. But his mother gave little credence to such flattering reports; in her opinion the boy's death would have been preferable to his capture. "If he be a prisoner I confess it will be no small grief to me," she wrote to her faithful Roe, "for I wish him rather dead than in his enemies' hands."[[12]] And when her worst fears had been realised, she wrote again: "I confess that in my passion I did rather wish him killed. I pray God I have not more cause to wish it before he be gotten out. All my fear is their going to Vienna; if it were possible to be hindered!... Mr. Crane, one that follows My Lord Craven, is come from Rupert, who desired him to assure me that neither good usage nor ill should ever make him change his religion or his party. I know his disposition is good, and that he will never disobey me at any time, though to others he was stubborn and wilful. I hope he will continue so, yet I am born to so much affliction that I dare not be confident of it. I am comforted that my sons have lost no honour in the action, and that him I love best is safe."[[13]] "Him I love best" was of course the Elector Charles, and thus, even in the moment of Rupert's peril, his mother confessed her preference for his elder brother.
In January 1639 Elizabeth's fears about Vienna seemed justified, for an English resident wrote thence to Secretary Windebank: "Prince Rupert is daily expected, and will be well treated, being likely to be liberated on parole. Hatzfeldt praises him for his ripeness of judgment, far beyond his years."[[14]] And to Rupert himself Hatzfeldt gave the assurance that he should see the Emperor—"Then the Emperor shall see me also!"[[15]] exclaimed the boy, in angry scorn. But the interview did not take place. In February Rupert was lodged, not at Vienna, but at Linz on the Danube, under the care of a certain Graf Kuffstein. Craven and Ferentz soon ransomed themselves. They had not been permitted to accompany the Prince further than Bamberg, though Lord Craven, who paid £20,000 for his own liberty, offered to pay more still for permission to share Rupert's captivity. But the Emperor was resolved to isolate the boy from all his friends, as a first step towards gaining him over to the Imperial politics, and the Roman faith. The Elector therefore attempted in vain to send some companion to his brother. "I must tell Your Majesty," he wrote to his mother, "that it will be in vain to send any gentleman to my brother, since he cannot go without Hatzfeldt's pass, for which I wrote long ago. But I have received from him an answer to all points in my letter, except to that, which is as much as a modest denial. Essex[[16]] should have gone, because there was no one else would, neither could I force any to it, since there is no small danger in it; for any obstinacy of my brother Rupert, or venture to escape, would put him in danger of hanging. The Administrator of Magdeburg was suffered to have but a serving-boy with him. Therefore one may easily imagine that they will much less permit him (i.e. Rupert) to have anybody with him that may persuade him to anything against their ends."[[17]]
As Charles surmised, Rupert's confinement was, at first, very vigorous. All the liberty that he enjoyed was an occasional walk in the castle garden; all his entertainment an occasional dinner with the Governor. Graf Kuffstein, himself a convert from Lutheranism, was commissioned by the Emperor to urge his desires on the young prisoner. "And very busy he was to get the prince to change his religion." At first he urged him to visit some Jesuits, but this Rupert refused to do unless he might also go elsewhere. Then Graf Kuffstein offered to bring the Jesuits to the Prince, but Rupert would only receive their visits on condition that other people might visit him also.[[18]] To the promise of liberal rewards if he would but serve in the Imperial army, the boy proved equally impervious; and though deprived of all society he found interests and occupations for himself. His artistic talents stood him in good stead, and he devoted himself much to drawing and etching. At this period also he perfected an instrument for drawing in perspective, which had been conceived, but never rendered practical, by Albert Durer. This instrument was in use in England after the Restoration of 1660. Military exercises Rupert also used, as far as his condition would permit. He was allowed to practise with "a screwed gun," and, after some time, he obtained leave "to ride the great horse," and to play at tennis. Naturally, constant efforts were made to procure his release. In July 1640 Lord Craven wrote to Secretary Windebank on the subject: "Mr. Webb has informed me that His Majesty has imposed upon you the putting him in mind of pressing on the Spanish Ambassador the delivery of Prince Rupert. I know you will, of yourself, be willing enough to perform that charitable action, however, the relation I have to that generous prince is such that I should fail of my duty if I did not entreat your vigilance in it."[[19]] King Charles sent Ambassadors extraordinary, not only to the Emperor, but also to Spain, whose intercession he entreated. The Cardinal Infant promised to plead, at least, for Rupert's better treatment, and King Charles next turned to France. France, then at war with the Empire, held prisoner Prince Casimir of Poland who, it seemed to Charles, might be a fit exchange for his nephew. Through Leicester he urged Prince Casimir's detention until Rupert's liberty were promised. But the scheme failed; Rupert, it was answered, was "esteemed an active prince,"[[20]] and would not be released, so long as danger threatened the Empire. So early had he acquired a warlike reputation.
Owing perhaps to the intercession of the Cardinal Infant of Spain, he was at last permitted the attendance of a page and groom, who might be Dutch or English, but not German. "I have sent Kingsmill his pass," wrote the Elector in August 1640, "he will be fit enough to pass my brother Rupert's time, and I do not think he will use his counsel in anything."[[21]] Of Kingsmill's arrival at Linz we hear nothing, but two other companions now relieved Rupert's solitude.
Susanne Marie von Kuffstein, daughter of Rupert's gaoler, was then a lovely girl of about sixteen. She was, says the writer of the Lansdowne MS., "one of the brightest beauties of the age, no less excelling in the beauty of her mind than of her body." On this fair lady the young prisoner's good looks, famous courage, and great misfortunes made a deep impression. She exerted herself to soften her father's heart, and to persuade him to gentler treatment of the captive. In this she succeeded so well "that the Prince's former favours were improved into familiarities, as continual visits, invitations and the like." Thus Rupert was enabled to enjoy Susanne's society, and that he did enjoy it there is very little doubt, "for he never named her after in his life, without demonstration of the highest admiration and expressing a devotion to serve her."[[22]] It has been suggested that the memory of Susanne von Kuffstein was the cause of Rupert's rejection of Marguerite de Rohan. There is, however, little ground for crediting him with such constancy. Maurice, it must be remembered, rejected the unfortunate Marguerite with equal decision. Moreover, Susanne herself married three times, and Rupert's sentiment towards her seems to have been nothing more passionate than a chivalrous and grateful admiration.
Besides Susanne the Prince had at Linz another friend,—his white poodle "Boye." This dog was a present from Lord Arundel, then English Ambassador at Vienna; it remained Rupert's inseparable companion for many years, and met at last a soldier's death on Marston Moor. The Prince also, for a short time, made a pet of a young hare, which he trained to follow him like a dog, but this he afterwards released, fearing that it might find captivity as irksome as did he himself.
Thus passed a two years' imprisonment, after which the Emperor deigned to offer terms to his captive. In the first place he required that Rupert should embrace the Roman faith. But the boy was a Palatine, and, though he had listened willingly to the persuasions of his aunt, Henrietta, the least hint of compulsion rendered him staunchly Protestant. He answered the Emperor, somewhat grandiloquently, "that he had not learnt to sacrifice his religion to his interest, and he would rather breathe his last in prison, than go out through the gates of Apostacy." The Emperor then consented to waive the question of religion, only insisting that Rupert must ask pardon for his crime of rebellion against the Holy Roman Empire. But to do this would have been to deny his brother's right to his Electorate, and Rupert only retorted coldly that he "disdained" to ask pardon for doing his duty. Finally, he was invited to take service under the Emperor, and to fight against France, which country had just imprisoned his eldest brother. But here also the boy was obdurate. To fight under the Emperor would inevitably involve fighting against the Swedes and the Protestant princes. Rupert therefore replied, "that he received the proposal rather as an affront than as a favour, and that he would never take arms against the champions of his father's cause."[[23]]
After such contumacy it may well be believed that the Emperor's patience was exhausted. His brother-in-law the Duke of Bavaria, then owner of the Upper Palatinate, and of the ducal title which was Rupert's birthright, suggested that the boy's spirit was not yet broken, and urged the Emperor to deprive him of his privileges. Accordingly, Graf Kuffstein was ordered to cease his civilities, and Rupert was placed in a confinement rendered stricter than ever, guarded day and night by twelve musketeers.
For this severity the proximity of a Swedish army was an additional reason. Maurice himself was serving in their ranks, and the Emperor feared lest Rupert should hold correspondence with them. Against these Swedes was despatched the Emperor's brother, the Archduke Leopold, who, very happily for Rupert, passed, on his way, through Linz. Being at Linz, the Archduke naturally visited the youthful prisoner who had made so much sensation, and was forthwith captivated by him. Leopold, whose gentle piety had won him the name of "the Angel", was but a few years older than the Palatine; the two had many tastes in common, and in that visit was established a friendship between Rupert the Devil and Leopold the Angel, which endured to the end of their lives.
The Archduke's intercession with the Emperor not only restored to Rupert his former privileges, but won him the additional liberty of leaving the castle on parole for so long as three days at a time.[[24]] As soon as this concession made their civilities possible, the nobles of the country showed themselves anxious to alleviate the tedium of Rupert's captivity. They "treated him with all the respects imaginable," invited him to their houses, and gave hunting parties in his honour. The house most frequented by Rupert was that of Graf Kevenheller, who, oddly enough, had been one of Frederick's bitterest foes. Yet Frederick's son found this Graf's house "a most pleasant place," at which he was always "very generously entertained."[[25]] And Rupert, on his part, seems to have made himself exceedingly popular with his friendly foes. He was, as they said, "beloved by all,"[[26]] and, wrote an Imperialist soldier, "his behaviour so obligeth the cavaliers of this country that they wait upon him and serve him as if they were his subjects."[[27]] As pleasant a captivity as could be had was Rupert's now, but yet a captivity; and still, in spite of Susanne von Kuffstein, in spite of the Archduke and of "all the cavaliers of the country," his thoughts turned wistfully to the Hague, where, for him, was home.
[[1]] Lansdowne MSS. 817. fol. 157-168.
[[2]] Benett MSS. Warburton. Vol. I. p. 450.
[[3]] Benett MSS. Warburton. Vol. I. p. 451.
[[4]] Green's Princesses, Vol. V. p. 558.
[[5]] Memoiren der Herzogin Sophie, pp. 42-43.
[[6]] Briefwechsel der Herzogin Sophie mit Karl Ludwig von der Pfalz. Ed. Bodemann. p. 184. Preussischen Staats Archiven.
[[7]] Beoett MSS. Warburton. Vol. I. p. 453.
[[8]] Ibid.
[[9]] Warburton, I. p. 453.
[[10]] Benett MSS. Warburton. Vol. I. pp. 454-455
[[11]] Dom. S. P. Nicholas to Pennington, Nov. 14, 1638.
[[12]] D. S. P. Eliz. to Roe, Oct. 2, 1638.
[[13]] Dom. State Papers, Eliz. to Roe, Nov. 6, 1638.
[[14]] Clarendon State Papers, f. 1171. Taylor to Windebank, Jan. 12, 1638-9.
[[15]] Green's Princesses of England. Vol. V. p. 570.
[[16]] Probably Colonel Charles Essex, killed 1642, at Edgehill.
[[17]] Bromley Letters, p. 103.
[[18]] Benett MSS. Warburton. Vol. I. p. 457.
[[19]] Dom. State Papers, Craven to Windebank, July 6, 1640.
[[20]] Clarendon State Papers, Sir A. Hopton to Windebank, 18-28 July, 1640. fol. 1397.
[[21]] Bromley Letters, p. 116.
[[22]] Lansdowne MSS. 817.
[[23]] Lansdowne MSS. 817.
[[24]] Benett MSS. Warburton. Vol. I. pp. 457-458.
[[25]] Warburton, p. 458.
[[26]] Clarendon State Papers, Leslie to Windebank, July 19, 1640.
[[27]] Dom. S. P. Leslie to Windebank, July 29-Aug. 8, 1640.
CHAPTER IV
THE PALATINES IN FRANCE. RUPERT'S RELEASE
Elizabeth had imagined that by sending her younger sons to school in Paris, she was keeping them out of harm's way; great was her surprise and annoyance when she found their position to be almost as dangerous as was that of Rupert. The cause of this new disaster was the imprudent conduct of the elder brother, Charles Louis. Undaunted by his recent defeat, the young Elector sought new means for recovering his country, and he now bethought him of Duke Bernhard of Saxe Weimar. The alliance of this Duke, a near neighbour of the Palatinate, was very important, and in January 1639 Lord Leicester had proposed a marriage between him and the Princess Elizabeth. Further, he had suggested to King Charles that Maurice should take a command in Bernhard's army, for which, young though the Prince was, he believed him fitted. "For," said he, "besides that he has a body well-made, strong, and able to endure hardships, he hath a mind that will not let it be idle if he can have employment. He is very temperate, of a grave and settled disposition, but would very fain be in action, which, with God's blessing, and his own endeavours will render him a brave man... Being once entered there, if Duke Bernhard should die, the army, in all likelihood would obey Prince Maurice; so keep itself from dissolving, and bring great advantage to the affairs of your nephew"[[1]] (i.e. to the Elector, Charles Louis).
But Charles Louis, full of impatience, and putting little faith in the negotiations of his uncle, set off in October 1639 to join Duke Bernhard in Alsace. Foolishly enough, he visited Paris, by the way, "en prince," and then attempted to depart thence incognito. Now it so happened that Cardinal Richelieu had uses of his own for the army of Duke Bernhard. It therefore suited him to detain the Elector in Paris, and the Elector's irregular conduct gave him the pretext he required. Declaring that so serious a breach of etiquette was capable of very sinister construction, he arrested Charles Louis, and placed his three brothers under restraint. Lord Leicester complained loudly of this treatment of the Elector, and though Maurice at once sent a servant to his brother, the man was only allowed to speak to Charles in French, and in the presence of his guards. The distracted mother flew to the Prince of Orange, who explained to her that Richelieu feared her son's attachment to England, which, however, Richelieu himself denied.
No sooner was the Weimarian army safely committed to the charge of a French general than Charles Louis was permitted to take up his residence with the English Ambassador. After this, though still a prisoner, he spent a very pleasant time in Paris, at an enormous expense to the King, his uncle. Maurice was allowed to return home in an English ship, but Edward and Philip were detained as hostages. Elizabeth spared no pains to recover them, and, as usual, made the Prince of Orange her excuse, "I send for Ned out of France, to be this summer in the army," she wrote to Roe; "and, finding Philip too young to learn any great matters yet, I send for him also, to return next winter;—which I assure you he shall not do."[[2]]
But it was not until April 1640 that her boys were restored to her, and the Elector did not recover his full liberty until the following July. In the autumn of the same year he went to England, to attend the marriage of his cousin Mary with the little William of Orange, on which occasion he quarrelled with the bridegroom for precedence. But his chief object in this visit was to obtain money either from King or Parliament. Elizabeth urged him to do something for Maurice, but he evidently regarded his third brother with much indifference. "As for my brother Maurice," he wrote, "your Majesty will be pleased to do with him as you think fit. It will be hard to get the money of his pension paid him."[[3]] His next letter was a little more encouraging. "The King says he will seek to get money for Maurice, and then he may go to what army he pleases. I want it very much myself, and it is very hard to come by in these times."[[4]]
The army which Maurice chose was that of the Swedes, under Banier; perhaps because it was then quartered near to the captive Rupert. Ere his departure, he wrote to King Charles:
"Sir,—Being ready to tacke a journy towards Generall Banier, I may not neglect to aquaint you therewithal, et to recomend myselfe et my actions to Yor Roial favour, whiche I chal strive to deserve in getting more capacity for your service. Yt is the greatest ambition of Yor Majestie's
"Most obedient nephew et humble servant,
"MAURICE."[[5]]
The letter, which is written in a clear, school-boy hand, betrays less confusion of tongues, the curious use of "et" notwithstanding, than do most epistles of the Palatines.
Maurice remained with the Swedes some months. In January 1641 his mother informed Roe that he was at Amberg in Bavaria. In the next month she was able to report of him at greater length. "I have had letters from Maurice, from Cham in the High Palatinate. He tells me that Banier has intercepted a letter of the Duke of Bavaria, to the Commander of Amberg. He writes that he understands that there is in Banier's army a young Palatine; and he should take good heed no bailiffs, or other officers, go to see him or hold any correspondence with him... Maurice is still very well used by Banier, who now makes more of Princes than heretofore, since he has married the Marquis of Baden's daughter."[[6]]
In June 1641 Maurice returned to Holland where he found life going on much as usual. Hunting and acting continued to be the principal Palatine amusements. "I did hunt a hare, last week, with my hounds; it took seven hours, the dogs never being at fault," wrote Elizabeth triumphantly; "I went out with forty horse at least, and there were but five at the death... Maurice, Prince Ravenville, the Archduke, and many another knight, were entreated by their horses to return on foot. I could not but tell you this adventure, for it is very famous here."[[7]] In another letter she tells how her daughters acted the play of "Medea and Jason", and how Louise, who played a man, looked "so like poor Rupert as you would then have justly called her by his name."[[8]] It is not unlikely that Louise impersonated Jason in her brother's clothes, and so enhanced the likeness.
The family had, by this time, almost despaired of "poor Rupert's" release; but it was nearer than they thought. King Charles, after labouring for three years in vain, had at last succeeded in rousing the sympathy of France, and, when he despatched Sir Thomas Roe, in 1641, to plead Rupert's cause at Vienna, it was with a reasonable hope of success. "I hope, by the solicitation of Sir Thomas Roe, we shall see our sweet Prince Rupert here. He hath been so long a prisoner!"[[9]] wrote one of Elizabeth's ladies.
The Emperor had long had a secret kindness for the gallant boy who had dared to defy him, and, in the Archduke Rupert had a warm friend and advocate. But in the old Duke of Bavaria, who held, as before said, so much of the Palatine property, he had a bitter foe. His release became the subject of fierce family discussion. The Emperor hesitated, but, moved by the intercession of France, and by his affection for his brother, decided at last to show mercy. Thereupon, his sister, the Duchess of Bavaria, fell on her knees before him, and passionately entreated him to detain Rupert a prisoner. Again the Emperor wavered, but the Empress, siding with the Archduke, carried the day in Rupert's favour. The boy was offered his liberty on the single condition of never again drawing sword against the Imperial forces. The peremptory commands of King Charles procured Rupert's submission to this condition, which he would fain have disputed. But when his promise was required in writing it was more than he could endure. "If it is to be a lawyer's business let them look well to the wording!" said he scornfully. The Emperor took the hint, and declared himself satisfied with a simple promise, Rupert giving his hand upon it, according to the custom of the country.[[10]]
Though France had been the principal factor in Rupert's release, Sir Thomas Roe had all the credit of it; and to Roe's guidance Elizabeth exhorted her son to submit himself. Rupert obeyed her meekly. He seems indeed to have been in an unusually submissive frame of mind, judging by the letters which he addressed at this time to Roe. The first of these bears the date, "Linz, 21 Aug. 1641."
"My Lord!
"A little journe a had towards the Count of Kevenheller was the cause that thus long you were without an answer. But now I could not let another occasion pass without giving you very great thanks for your pains, and the affection you show in my business, and to tell you that I leve all the conditions to your disposing, since I know your Lordshippe is my frend, and am assured that you would do nothing against my honor.
"And so I rest
"Your Lordshippe's most affectioned frend,
"RUPERT."[[11]]
The next letter, written a month later, is very curiously humble, coming from the fiery Rupert.
"My Lord!
"According your demand I doe send you this answer with all possible speed. As for the present your Lordshippe speks of I am in greate doubt what to give, this being a place where nothing worth presenting is to be had; besides I doe not knowe what present he would accept. Therefore I must heere in desire your Lordshippes consel, desiring you to let Spina take what you shalle thinke fitt, both for the Count, and for the Emperor's —, who deserves it, having had a greate dele of paines with my diet, and other thinges. Sir, I must give you a greate dele of thankes for the reale frendshipp you shewed in remembering me of my faults, whiche I confesse, and strive, and shalle the more heereafter, to mend. But I doubt not, according to the manner of some peple heere, they have added and said more than the thinge itselfe is. I beseech you not to hearken to them, but assure yourselfe that it has been only from an evill costum, which I hope in short time to mend. Desiring you to continue this your frendshippe in leting me knowe my faults, that I mai have to mend them,
"I rest,
"Your Lordshippe's most affecionat frend,
"RUPERT."[[12]]
The third, and last letter is dated "October" and docketed "of my release."
"My Lord!
"Sence you have happiely broght this businesse almost to and end, I mene to followe your Lordshippe's consel in alle. At your coming, alle shalle be redie for our journay to Viena. The moyns (moyens, i.e. money) I have when alle debts are paiet woul not bee moer than a 1,000 ducats. Thefore I beseech your Lordshippe to hasten our journe from Viena as much as possible. If you think fit, I mene to take my waie to Inspruck and throgh France, whiche is sertainely the best and saifest wai of alle. I woul desire a sudain answer of your Lordshippe that I mai send for bils of exchange to bee delivered at Geneva and Paris. Thys is alle I have at this time to troble Yor Lordshippe withalle, and so I rest,
"Your most affectioned to doe you service,
"RUPERT."[[13]]
It may here be noticed that Rupert, throughout his whole life, was singularly scrupulous about the payment of his debts.
When all negotiations were completed, the Emperor organised "an extraordinary hunting" in Lower Austria, at which Rupert was directed to appear, as if by chance. He had the good luck to kill the boar with his spear, an exploit very highly accounted in the Empire. The Emperor, thereupon, extended his hand to the successful hunter; Rupert kissed it, and, that being the final sign of release, was thenceforth free. For a week he was detained as a guest at Vienna, while every effort was made to gain his adherence to the Emperor. He seems to have been as popular at Vienna as at Linz. "There were," says the Lansdowne MS., "few persons of quality by whom he was not visited and treated... The ladyes also vied in their civilities, and laboured to detain him in Germany by their charms." But Rupert refused to be beguiled, charmed they never so wisely. As for the Emperor, he lavished so much kindness on his quondam prisoner, "that the modesty of the Prince could not endure it without some confusion. Yet his deportment was composed, and his answers to the civilities of the Emperor were so full of judgment and gratitude that they esteemed him no less for his prudence than for his bravery."[[14]]
At last he was suffered to depart. Fain would the Emperor have sent him to the Archduke at Brunswick, believing that the influence of the Angel might yet win him. But Rupert preferred to visit Prague, his own birthplace, and the scene of his father's brief kingship. With a kindly caution not to venture into the power of the Duke of Bavaria, the Emperor bade him farewell. From Prague Rupert went to Saxony, where he astonished the reigning Elector not a little by his refusal to drink. A banquet had been arranged in his honour, but the Prince, "always temperate", excused himself from drinking with the rest. "'What shall we do with him then,' says the Elector, 'if he cannot drink?'—and so invited him to the entertainment of a hunting."[[15]] After this Rupert travelled night and day, in his eagerness to be the first to bring news of his release to his family. He just managed to anticipate Roe's letter, which arrived at the Hague on the same night with himself. Boswell, then English Ambassador in Holland, wrote an account of the event to Roe. "Prince Rupert arrived here in perfect health, but lean and weary, having come that day from Swoll, and from Hamburg since the Friday noon. Myself, at eight o'clock in the evening, coming out of the court gate, had the good luck to receive him first of any, out of his waggon; no other creature in the court expecting his coming so soon. Whereby himself carried the news of his being come to the Queen, newly set at supper. You may imagine what joy there was!"[[16]] And to Roe wrote the Queen also: "The same night, being the 20th of this month (December), that Rupert came hither I received your letter, where you tell me of his going from Vienna. He is very well satisfied with the Emperor's usage of him. I find him not altered, only leaner, and grown. All the people, from the highest to the lowest, made great show of joy at his return. For me, you may easily guess it, and also how much I esteem myself obliged to you."
Yet, even after a three years' separation, Elizabeth had no notion of keeping her son beside her. "What to do with him I know not!" she lamented. "He cannot in honour, yet go to the war; here he will live but idly, in England no better. For I know the Queen will use all possible means to gain him to the prejudice of the Prince Elector, and of his religion. For though he has stood firm against what has been practised in his imprisonment, amongst his enemies, yet I fear, by my own humour, that fair means from those that are esteemed true may have more power than threatenings or flattery from an enemy."[[17]] Doubtless the Queen's anxiety for her son's employment was justified; there was no money to maintain him; and, moreover, the Hague was no desirable residence for an idle and active-minded young Prince. There seems to have been some idea of sending him to Ireland, where the natives had risen against the English Government. The King approved of the suggestion: "But," wrote the Elector, "the Parliament will employ none there but those they may be sure of. I shall speak with some of them about it, either for Rupert, or for brother Maurice. This last might, I think, with honour, have a regiment under Leslie, but to be under any other odd or senseless officer, as some are proposed, I shall not advise it."[[18]] Apparently the idea failed to commend itself to the English Parliament, which perhaps suspected that the younger brothers would be found less time-serving than was the Elector.
In accordance with his mother's wishes, and doubtless with his own, Rupert went over to England, early in February 1642, with the avowed object of thanking his uncle for his release. He found King Charles at Dover, whither he had accompanied his wife and eldest daughter on their way to Holland. Affairs in England were approaching a crisis, and the Queen, under the pretext of taking the Princess Mary to her husband, was about to raise money and men for the King, on the Continent. The visit of the warlike Rupert at so critical a juncture roused hostile comment, and, since war was not yet considered inevitable, the King desired his nephew to return home with the Queen. Therefore, after a visit of three days, he embarked with the Queen and Princess on board the Lyon, and sailed straight for Holland. The arrivals were met, on their landing, by Elizabeth, two of her daughters, the Prince of Orange and his son; all of whom proceeded in one coach to the Court of Orange. Rupert remained at the Hague until August, when war broke out in England, and gave him the employment desired for him by his mother.
At this point, August 1642, closes what we may consider as the first period of Rupert's life. Probably these early years were his best and happiest. Marked though they were by poverty and misfortune, they were yet full of interests and adventure, unmarred by the struggles, jealousies, disappointments, and family dissensions which were to come. Rupert had no lack of friends; he had won the hearts of his very enemies. Not the least among a brilliant group of brothers and sisters, he was happy in their companionship and sympathy, the bond of which was so soon to be severed; happy also in the kindness and affection of the Prince of Orange and of the King and Queen of England. He had shown himself gifted with rare abilities, capable of valiant action, and of loyal and patient endurance;—a generous, high-souled boy, fired by chivalric fancies, free from all self-seeking, earnest, faithful, strong-willed, but also, alas, opinionated, and impatient of contradiction.
[[1]] Collins Sidney Papers, Vol. II. pp. 584-5, 28 Jan. 1639.
[[2]] Com. State Papers. Chas. I. Vol. 539. Eliz. to Roe, Jan. 7/17, 1640.
[[3]] Bromley Letters, p. 122.
[[4]] Ibid. p. 124.
[[5]] Dom. State Papers. Maurice to Charles I, Oct. 30, 1640. Chas. I. Vol. 470. fol. 21.
[[6]] Dom. State Papers, Chas. I. Vol. 477. Feb. 22, 1641.
[[7]] Ibid. Chas. I. Vol. 539. Jan. 7-17, 1641.
[[8]] Ibid. Chas. I. 484. f. 51. Oct. 10, 1641.
[[9]] Fairfax Correspondence. Ed. Johnson. 1848. Vol. I. p. 322.
[[10]] Benett MSS. Warburton. I. pp. 102, 458.
[[11]] Dom. State Papers. Chas. I. Vol. 483. fol. 39.
[[12]] Dom. State Papers. Sept. 19-29. 1641. Chas. I. 484. f. 36.
[[13]] Ibid. Oct. 1641. Chas. I. 484 f. 61.
[[14]] Lansdowne MSS. 817. British Museum.
[[15]] Warburton. I. p. 459.
[[16]] Dom. S. Papers. Boswell to Roe. 23 Dec. 1641. Chas. I. 486. f. 53.
[[17]] Dom. State Papers. Chas. I. 486. f. 51. Elizabeth to Roe, 23 Dec. 1641.
[[18]] Forster's Statesmen, Vol. VI. p. 74. 10 March, 1642.
CHAPTER V
ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND. POSITION IN THE ARMY.
CAUSES OF FAILURE
During his last brief visit to England Rupert had promised to serve his uncle whensoever he should have need of him; and in August 1642, he received, through Queen Henrietta, his Commission, as General of the Horse. Immediately upon this he set out to join the King in England. He embarked in the "Lyon," the ship which had brought the Queen to Holland; but, after the Prince had come on board, the Commander, who was of Puritan sympathies, received a warning against bringing him over. Captain Fox's anxiety to get rid of his passenger was favoured by the weather. A storm blew them back to the Texel, and there Fox persuaded the Prince to go ashore, promising to meet him at Goree so soon as the wind should serve. Rupert thereupon returned to the Hague, and Fox, after quietly setting the Prince's people and luggage on shore, sailed away, and was no more seen in Holland.
Enraged and disappointed, Rupert appealed to the Stadtholder, who lent him another ship, commanded by Captain Colster. This time Maurice insisted on accompanying his brother, and the two Princes, having provided themselves with an engineer, a "fire worker," and a large store of arms, muskets, and powder, set sail for Scarborough. Near Flamborough Head they were spied by some Parliamentary cruisers, and a ship called the "London" came out to hail them. Colster hoisted the Dunkirk colours, but the other Captain, still unsatisfied, desired to search the small vessel in which the arms were stored. Rupert, who had been extremely, and even dangerously, ill throughout the voyage, struggled on deck "in a mariner's cap" and ordered out the guns, saying he would not be searched. On this the "London" shot to leeward, and two other ships came out to her aid. But Rupert succeeded in running into Tynemouth, and, anchoring outside the bar, landed by means of boats. His little vessel also escaped, and landed her stores safely at Scarborough in the night.[[1]]
When they reached Tynemouth it was already late, but Rupert's eagerness would brook no delay. "The zeale he had speedily to serve His Majesty made him think diligence itself were lazy."[[2]] Accompanied by Maurice, an Irish officer, Daniel O'Neil, and several others, he started at once for Nottingham. But the stars, in their courses, fought against him. As ill luck would have it, Rupert's horse slipped and fell, pitching him on to his shoulder. The shoulder was discovered to be out of joint, but, "by a great providence," it happened that a bone-setter lived only half a mile away. This man, being sent for in haste, set Rupert's shoulder in the road, and, "in conscience, took but one-half of what the Prince offered him for his pains." Within three hours the indefatigable Rupert insisted on continuing his journey.
Arrived at Nottingham, he retired to bed, but he was not destined long to enjoy his well-earned rest. A curious dilemma now brought him into contact with the two men who were to prove, respectively, his warmest friend and his bitterest foe, in the Royal Army,—namely, Captain Will Legge, and George, Lord Digby. The King, who was at Coventry, had sent to Digby, demanding a petard. Odd though it may appear, a petard was to Digby a thing unknown—"a word which he could not understand." He therefore sought out the weary Prince to demand an explanation. Rupert, at once, got out of bed to search the arsenal; but no such thing as a petard was to be found. Then, Captain Legge, coming to the rescue, contrived to make one out of two mortars, and sent it off to the King.[[3]] Rupert, following the petard, found his uncle at Leicester Abbey, and there formally took over charge of the cavalry, which then consisted of only eight hundred horse. On the next day, August 22nd, they all returned to Nottingham, where the solemn setting up of the Royal Standard took place.
War was now irrevocably declared, and Rupert found his generalship no sinecure. The King, in these early days, relied implicitly on his nephew's advice, and, though Commander of the Cavalry only in name, Rupert had in reality the whole conduct of the war upon his hands. The real Commander-in-Chief was old Lord Lindsey, but Rupert's position was one of complete independence. He was, indeed, instructed to consult the Council of War, but was also directed "to advise privately, as you shall think fit, and to govern your resolution accordingly."[[4]] Further, he requested that he might receive his orders only from the King himself. And this request King Charles unwisely conceded, thus freeing Rupert from all control of the Commander-in-Chief, dividing the army into two independent parties, and establishing a fruitful source of discord between the cavalry and infantry.