Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rupert
RUPERT, Prince, Count Palatine of the Rhine and Duke of Bavaria, afterwards Duke of Cumberland and Earl of Holderness (1619–1682), general, third son of Elizabeth, queen of Bohemia, and of Frederick V, elector palatine, was born at Prague on 17 Dec. 1619, about six weeks after his father's coronation as king of Bohemia. He was baptised on 31 March following. On 8 Nov. 1620 the battle of the White Mountain obliged his parents to fly from Prague, and Rupert accompanied his mother first to Berlin, and finally to Holland (April 1621). Rupert, his eldest brother Frederick Henry, and his sister Louise were established at Leyden in 1623 under the charge of M. de Plessen and his wife. On the death of Frederick Henry (17 Jan. 1629), Charles I transferred to Rupert the pension of 300l. a year which his elder brother, Charles Louis, had previously enjoyed.
Of Rupert's education little is known. A letter from his father to the queen of Bohemia mentions with satisfaction the boy's gift for languages. In 1633 Rupert and his brother were permitted to accompany the prince of Orange during his campaign, and were present at the siege of Rhynberg. But Rupert's military training really began in 1635, when he served as a volunteer in the lifeguards of the prince of Orange during the invasion of Brabant. In 1636 Rupert followed the prince elector to England, and was received with great favour by his uncle. With the king he was entertained by Laud at Oxford, and on 30 Aug. 1636 was created M.A. At Laud's request the names of Rupert and his brother were entered in St. John's College, ‘to do that house honour’ (Laud, Works, v. 150). A wild scheme was proposed for the establishment of an English colony in Madagascar, of which Rupert was to be governor. Davenant constituted himself poet laureate, and addressed to Rupert a poem on Madagascar, celebrating his future conquests (Works, ed. 1673, p. 205). Charles seriously considered the project, and asked the advice and assistance of the East India Company for the intended expedition. The queen of Bohemia, with more wisdom, wrote, ‘As for Rupert's conquest of Madagascar, it sounds like one of Don Quixote's conquests, where he promised his trusty squire to make him king of an island,’ and told Rupert that such a scheme was ‘neither feasible, safe, nor honourable for him.’ She pressed for his return to Holland, saying, ‘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 wars’ (Green, v. 540; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1636–7 p. 559, 1637 p. 82). In July 1637 Charles dismissed Rupert, granting him a monthly pension of eight hundred crowns.
During his stay in England he had earned the good opinion of the king and the court. ‘I have observed him,’ wrote Sir Thomas Roe [q. v.] to the queen of Bohemia, ‘of a rare condition, full of spirit and action, full of observation and judgment. Certainly he will réussir un grand homme, for whatsoever he wills he wills vehemently: so that to what he bends he will be in it excellent. … His majesty takes great pleasure in his unrestfulness, for he is never idle, and in his sports serious, in his conversation retired, but sharp and witty when occasion provokes him.’ In a second letter he added: ‘It is an infinite pity he is not employed according to his genius, for whatsoever he undertakes he doth it vigorously and seriously. His nature is active and spriteful, and may be compared to steel, which is the commanding metal if it be rightly tempered and disposed’ (ib. 1636–7 p. 71, 1637 p. xxvi).
In the autumn of 1637 Rupert took part in the siege of Breda. In 1638 the elector palatine raised a small army and invaded Westphalia, accompanied by Rupert. On 17 Oct. they were defeated by the Austrian general Hatzfeld at Vlotho on the banks of the Weser, and Rupert, after performing prodigies of valour, was taken prisoner (Warburton, i. 83; Charvériat, Histoire de la Guerre de Trente Ans, ii. 406). It was at first reported that Rupert was killed, and the queen of Bohemia was inclined to wish it were true. ‘Rupert's taking is all. I confess 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.’ She feared that her son might be perverted to catholicism by the influences which would be brought to bear upon him, although he assured her that ‘neither good usage nor ill should ever make him change his religion or party.’ ‘I know,’ she wrote, ‘his disposition is good, and he never did disobey me, though to others he was stubborn and wilful. I hope he will continue so, yet I am born to so much affliction as I dare not be confident of it’ (Green, v. 560). Rupert was imprisoned at Linz, where he remained for the next three years. His captivity, which was at times very strict, was alleviated by the study of drawing and painting, and by a love affair with the governor's daughter. The intervention of the Archduke Leopold procured him greater indulgence; he was allowed to shoot, to play tennis, and finally to hunt. In 1641 Sir Thomas Roe succeeded in negotiating his unconditional release, but Rupert appears to have promised not to bear arms against the emperor in future (Warburton, i. 91–105; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1641–3, p. 140). He rejoined his mother at The Hague on 10 Dec. 1641, and then set out to thank Charles I for procuring his freedom. He arrived in England about the middle of February, but returned at once in order to escort Henrietta Maria to Holland (ib. pp. 198, 288, 294, 372).
The outbreak of the civil war opened a career for Rupert, and in July 1642 he landed at Tynemouth and joined Charles at Nottingham (Warburton, i. 462). The king made him general of the horse, and, while instructing him to consult the council of war, authorised him to act independently of that body if he thought fit (Instructions, Catalogue of Rupert MSS. No. 107). His commission exempted him from the command of the Earl of Lindsey, the general of the king's army, and gave rise to faction among the officers and to dissensions between the military and civil advisers of the king (Clarendon, Rebellion, vi. 78, 90). Rupert refused to receive the king's orders through Lord Falkland, the secretary of state. Hyde, who was personally obnoxious to the prince as being the leader of the peace party, complains of his ignorance of the government and manners of the kingdom, and his rough and unpolished nature. His contempt of the king's council was, according to the same authority, the cause of the misfortunes of himself and the kingdom (ib. vi. 21, 78, vii. 289; Warburton, i. 368).
At the beginning of the war, however, Rupert's energy and activity were of the greatest value to the king's cause. His example inspired his followers: ‘he put that spirit into the king's army that all men seemed resolved’ (Memoirs of Sir Philip Warwick, p. 227). With a small body of cavalry, which numbered at first only eight hundred horse, he traversed the midland counties, raising men and money for Charles. ‘Prince Rupert,’ writes a parliamentary historian, ‘like a perpetual motion, was in a short time heard of at many places at a great distance’ (May, Long Parliament, ed. 1854, p. 249). On 23 Sept. 1642 he gained the first victory of the war, defeating at Worcester a body of Essex's cavalry, commanded by Nathaniel Fiennes [q.v.] (Clarendon, vi. 44; Rushworth, v. 24). A month later at Edgehill Rupert's plan of battle was adopted by the king in preference to that of the general, the Earl of Lindsey, to the great discontent of the latter (Clarendon, vi. 78). Rupert took command of the right wing of the king's horse, entrusting the left to his lieutenant-general, Wilmot. He completely routed the parliamentary cavalry opposed to him and four regiments of their foot, but followed the chase so far that Essex was enabled to crush the king's foot before the royalist horse returned. Wilmot was equally successful, but committed the same error as his commander. Yet while Rupert's inability to keep his men in hand, or to bring them to a second charge after their return to the field, was disastrous in its consequences, the success of the royal cavalry was mainly due to an innovation which the prince introduced into their tactics. He taught them to charge home, instead of halting to fire their pistols and carbines. ‘Just before we began our march,’ writes one of his soldiers, ‘Prince Rupert passed from one wing to the other, giving positive orders to the horse to march as close as was possible, keeping their ranks with sword in hand, to receive the enemy's shot, without firing either carbine or pistol till we broke in amongst the enemy, and then to make use of our firearms as need should require’ (Memoirs of Sir Richard Bulstrode, p. 81). After the battle Essex retreated to Warwick, and Rupert proposed to march to London with the king's cavalry, and dissolve the parliament; but the scheme, which had little prospect of success, was frustrated by the opposition of the king's councillors (Warburton, ii. 37). The king established himself at Oxford, while Rupert's cavalry took up their quarters at Abingdon and captured Reading. In November the king advanced on London, and the parliament opened negotiations for peace. On 12 Nov., while negotiations were in progress, Rupert fell upon two regiments of parliamentary infantry at Brentford and cut them in pieces. But the next day Essex, with superior forces, barred the way to London, and obliged the king's troops to evacuate Brentford and retreat on Reading. Politically the victory was unfortunate to the king's cause, for it brought upon him the charge of treachery. Clarendon asserts that Rupert attacked without orders from the king, being ‘exalted with the terror he heard his name gave the enemy … and too much neglecting the council of state;’ but Charles himself was probably responsible for the movement (Clarendon, Rebellion, vi. 134; Gardiner, Great Civil War, i. 59).
During the winter Rupert's chief object was to extend the king's quarters round Oxford, and to open up communications with the royalists of the west. A pamphleteer described him as defeated by Skippon in an attack on Marlborough, but he was not present at the capture of that town, which was taken by Wilmot and a party from Oxford on Dec. 5 (Waylen, History of Marlborough, p. 174). Towards the end of December he relieved Banbury (Clark, Life of Anthony Wood, i. 74). On 7 Jan. 1643 he unsuccessfully threatened Cirencester, which he took by storm on 2 Feb. (Washbourne, Bibliotheca Gloucestrensis, pp. 153, 159). The consequences of its capture were the evacuation of Sudely and Berkeley castles, the abandonment of Tewkesbury and Devizes, and the surrender of Malmesbury, while Gloucestershire began to pay contributions to the support of the royal forces. Rupert followed up his victory by summoning Gloucester, but there he met with a refusal (ib. pp. 22, 173). He next attempted Bristol, hoping to be admitted by the royalists of the city (7 March); but their timely arrest by the governor prevented the execution of the plot (Seyer, Memorials of Bristol, ii. 341–400). In April he turned his attention to the midland counties, took Birmingham after a stubborn resistance (3 April), and recaptured Lichfield Close, after nearly a fortnight's siege (Prince Rupert's burning Love for England discovered in Birmingham's Flames, 1643, 4to; A true Relation of Prince Rupert's barbarous Cruelty against the Town of Birmingham, 1643, 4to; Warburton, ii. 161).
On 16 April the king recalled Rupert to Oxford to assist in the relief of Reading, but he was repulsed by the besiegers in a fight at Caversham bridge (25 April), and the town capitulated the next day (ib. ii. 165, 178; Coates, History of Reading, p. 35). At the beginning of the summer Essex advanced on Oxford, and threatened to besiege the city. On 17 June Rupert, with about two thousand men, sallied forth intending to intercept a convoy which was coming to Essex's army; he missed the convoy, but surprised some parliamentary troops in their quarters, and defeated at Chalgrove Field (18 June) an attempt to obstruct his return. In the action Rupert's personal daring was conspicuous; he headed the charge in which Hampden was wounded, and Hampden's subsequent death rendered a trifling defeat a political disaster for the parliamentarians (Prince Rupert's late beating up the Rebels' Quarters at Postcombe and Chinnor and his Victory at Chalgrove Field, Oxford, 1643, 4to). On 11 July Rupert met the queen at Stratford-on-Avon, and escorted her to Oxford (Warburton, ii. 224). The addition of her little army to the royal forces, and the victories of the Cornish army under Hopton, enabled the king to take the offensive. On 18 July Rupert left Oxford; on the 23rd he appeared before Bristol and joined the Cornish forces, and on the 26th he assaulted the city and forced Fiennes to capitulate (ib. ii. 236–64; Seyer, Memoirs of Bristol, ii. 402). A fortnight later Rupert and the king laid siege to Gloucester (10 Aug.) The prince took an active part in the early part of the siege; towards its close he was sent with the cavalry to check Essex's march to the relief of the city, and attacked unsuccessfully the parliamentary vanguard at Stow-on-the-Wold on 4 Sept. (Warburton, ii. 280, 286; Bibliotheca Gloucestrensis, pp. 238, 257). In the pursuit of Essex on his return march he was more fortunate, and, by his attack on the parliamentary rear at Aldbourne Chase (18 Sept.), enabled the king to anticipate Essex in occupying Newbury. At the battle of Newbury Rupert's impatience prevented him from utilising to the full the advantages of his position. He led charge after charge on the London trained bands, but could not break their ranks, though he routed the horse which guarded their flanks. Whitelocke describes a personal encounter between Rupert and Sir Philip Stapleton, of which other authorities make no mention. On the next day Rupert attacked Essex's rearguard near Aldermaston, and, though beaten off, put them into great confusion (Gardiner, Great Civil War, i. 213, 219; Money, The Battles of Newbury, ed. 1884, pp. 46, 49, 55, 66, 71).
In October 1643 the king contemplated an attack on the eastern association, and appointed Rupert lieutenant-general of all forces raised or to be raised in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, and the eastern counties (28 Oct.); but the vigilance of the Earl of Essex prevented the execution of the design. Rupert made a plundering raid in Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire, but got no further (Gardiner, i. 243; Black, Oxford Docquets, p. 93). Equally abortive was a plot for surprising Aylesbury on 21 Jan. 1644; Rupert fell into a trap himself, and lost nearly four hundred men in his retreat (Gardiner, i. 275; Warburton, ii. 361).
On 24 Jan. 1644 Rupert was created Earl of Holderness and Duke of Cumberland, and about the same time he was given an independent command. The king constituted him captain-general of the counties of Chester, Lancaster, Worcester, Salop, and the six northern counties of Wales (6 Jan.), with power to appoint commissioners for the levy of taxes and troops (5 Feb.). Rupert left Oxford on 6 Feb. 1644, and established his headquarters at Shrewsbury (Black, pp. 125, 133, 136, 140; Warburton, ii. 366). From thence he was summoned on 12 March by the king's orders to relieve Newark, which was besieged by Sir John Meldrum [q. v.] Setting out at once, and, collecting seven thousand men from royalist garrisons in his line of march, he not only defeated Meldrum, but forced the besiegers to an ignominious capitulation (22 March), by which they abandoned their arms and artillery to avoid becoming prisoners (Rushworth, v. 306; Gamaliel Dudley, His Highness Prince Rupert's Raising of the Siege of Newark, 4to, 1644). In a letter to his nephew, Charles styles it a ‘beyond imaginable success’ and ‘no less than the saving of all the north,’ while Clarendon calls it ‘a victory as prodigious as any happened throughout the war’ (Warburton, ii. 397; History of the Rebellion, vii. 416). But the effects of the victory were slight. Lincoln, Gainsborough, and other towns, which were abandoned by the parliamentarians in consequence of the defeat at Newark, were recovered a couple of months later.
Rupert returned to Shrewsbury, and was immediately called to Oxford by the king to consult on the plan of the next campaign. His advice was that the king should reinforce the garrisons of Oxford, Wallingford, Abingdon, Reading, and Banbury with all the foot, leaving some horse in and about Oxford, and sending the rest of the horse to join Prince Maurice [q.v.] in the west. This defensive strategy the king resolved to adopt, but, unfortunately for his cause, other counsellors persuaded him to abandon it (Walker, Historical Discourses, p. 13; Warburton, ii. 410, 415). Rupert returned to Wales, collected his forces, and set forth to the assistance of the Earl of Derby and the Marquis of Newcastle, both of whom had sent him pressing appeals for help (ib. ii. 434). Defeating the parliamentarians at Stockport, he forced his way into Lancashire, stormed Bolton on 28 May, and captured Liverpool on 11 June (Ormerod, Civil War Tracts of Lancashire, p. 187, Chetham Soc. 1844). His desire was to complete the reduction of Lancashire, but the peremptory orders of the king obliged him to march at once to the relief of York. ‘If York be lost,’ wrote Charles on 14 June, ‘I shall esteem my crown little less; unless supported by your sudden march to me and a miraculous conquest in the south, before the effects of their northern power can be found here. But if York be relieved and you beat the rebel army of both kingdoms, which are before it; then, but otherwise not, I may possibly make a shift upon the defensive to spin out time until you come to assist me.’ If York were lost, or if Rupert were unable to relieve it, he was charged to march at once to Worcester to join the king (Warburton, ii. 439). Whatever the precise meaning of the king's involved sentences may have been, Rupert, as it was predicted he would do, construed them as a command to fight. Marching by Skipton, Knaresborough, and Boroughbridge, he outmanœuvred the besieging army, and effected a junction with Newcastle without fighting (for a map of his march see Gardiner, Great Civil War, i. 365). Rupert followed the retreating parliamentarians so closely that he forced them to turn and give battle at Marston Moor (2 July 1644). Newcastle was averse to fighting, and Newcastle's second in command, General King, criticised the prince's dispositions as faulty, but the prince himself was confident of victory. In the centre the battle was long and stubborn; on the left wing the royalist cavalry under Goring were victorious, but, on the right, Rupert's horse were routed by Cromwell, who then defeated Goring and crushed the royalist foot. Four thousand royalists were killed and fifteen hundred prisoners taken. Rupert himself, who seems to have commanded the right wing in person, narrowly escaped capture; his sumpter horse was taken, the white poodle which was his inseparable companion was killed, and it was reported by the parliamentary newspapers that the prince only escaped by hiding in a beanfield (Gardiner, i. 371; Vicars, God's Ark, pp. 272, 274, 284). York surrendered a fortnight later (16 June), while Rupert, collecting about five thousand horse, made his way to Lancashire, and thence to Wales, where he endeavoured to raise fresh forces (Webb, Civil War in Herefordshire, ii. 65, 71).
Until Marston Moor, Rupert's career had been one of almost uninterrupted success. The royalists had come to regard him as invincible.
Thread the beads
Of Cæsar's acts, great Pompey's, and the Swede's,
And 'tis a bracelet fit for Rupert's hand,
By which that vast triumvirate is spanned.
(Cleveland, ‘Rupertismus,’ Poems, p. 51, ed. 1687.) Even so great a reverse did not destroy his prestige. The king was so far from blaming Rupert that he resolved to appoint him commander-in-chief, in place of the Earl of Brentford, as soon as a convenient opportunity offered; while Goring was, at Rupert's request, made general of the horse in place of Wilmot (Warburton, iii. 12, 16; Walker, Historical Discourses, p. 57). If he had lost the king the north of England in June, he retrieved the fortune of the campaign in the south in the following November. After his defeat at the second battle of Newbury, Charles, with about three hundred horse, joined Rupert at Bath on 28 Oct., and returned with the prince's northern and western forces to Oxford. On 6 Nov., at a general rendezvous of the royal army on Bullingdon Green, Rupert was declared general, and three days later he relieved Donington Castle, removed the artillery which Charles had left there, and offered battle to the parliamentary army (Walker, Historical Discourses, pp. 114, 117, 119; Warburton, iii. 31; Symonds, Diary, pp. 147, 159).
The appointment of Rupert as commander-in-chief seems to have been popular with the professional soldiers, but distasteful to the nobles and officials who surrounded the king. The quarrel between the prince and the Marquis of Hertford about the government of Bristol, and the want of respect which Rupert had in other instances shown to the claims of the nobility, had produced considerable ill-feeling (Clarendon, Rebellion, vii. 145, viii. 168; Webb, Civil War in Herefordshire, ii. 10). He had throughout slighted the king's council, and was on bad terms with Lord Digby and Lord Colepeper, the two privy councillors most consulted by the king in military matters. When Rupert became general, the king effected a hollow reconciliation between the prince and Lord Digby; but their mutual animosity, and the divisions which it caused, exercised a fatal influence over the campaign of 1645 (Warburton, iii. 23, 25, 27). The independent command which Goring gradually succeeded in obtaining in the west further hampered Rupert's plans as general (ib. iii. 52). In February 1645 Rupert was recalled to Wales, by the necessity of suppressing a rising which his lieutenant, Maurice, was unable to quell (ib. iii. 63, 69; Webb, ii. 141, 157, 178). The original plan of campaign was that the king should join Rupert at Hereford in April, and, marching north, relieve Chester and Pontefract and drive back the Scots. But Cromwell's activity delayed the intended junction, and obliged the king to summon Rupert and Goring to cover his march from Oxford (7 May). Their combined forces amounted to six thousand horse and over five thousand foot (Walker, p. 125). The king's council now proposed to turn the army against Fairfax, who was just setting out with the New Model to relieve Taunton; but Rupert persuaded the king to adhere to the northern plan and to send Goring, with his three thousand horse, back to the west. Jealousy of Goring as a possible rival was alleged to be one of the motives which induced the prince thus to divide his forces (ib. p. 126; Clarendon, Rebellion, ix. 30; Cal. Clarendon Papers, i. 267). The northern movement began with success. Hawkesley House in Worcestershire was taken (14 May), and the siege of Chester was raised at the rumour of Rupert's approach (18 May). The news that Fairfax was besieging Oxford led the prince to turn south again, and the attack on Leicester was undertaken ‘somewhat to divert Fairfax's designs.’ After its capture (31 May) Rupert wished to resume his northern march, but the anxiety of the king and his advisers to keep within reach of Oxford obliged the army to linger near Daventry. Meanwhile, Fairfax raised the siege of Oxford and marched to engage the king's army. Rupert was so full of confidence that he neglected adequately to inform himself either of the movements or the numbers of his opponents. When he heard of Fairfax's approach he did not hesitate to abandon an advantageous defensive position in order to attack a numerically superior enemy on ground chosen by themselves. In the battle of Naseby (14 June) he routed the right wing of Fairfax's horse, and chased them as far as their baggage-train, which he prepared to attack; but when he returned to the field he found the king's foot and the rest of his horse defeated, and could not rally his men for a second charge (Walker, p. 115; Slingsby, Diary, p. 151). All the king's foot were taken prisoners, and his horse were pursued as far as Leicester. Charles made his way to South Wales, while Rupert left the king at Hereford (18 June) to take command of the garrison of Bristol. In July it was resolved that the king should join Rupert at Bristol, and both should unite with Goring's army in the west, but Rupert's enemies at court frustrated the scheme (Walker, p. 117; Clarendon, Rebellion, ix. 67). By this time the prince had come to believe a further struggle hopeless. On 28 July he wrote to the Duke of Richmond urging the king to make peace. ‘His majesty,’ he said, ‘hath no other way to preserve his posterity, kingdom, and nobility but by treaty. I believe it to be a more prudent way to retain something than to lose all.’ The king indignantly rejected the proposal, and Rupert became regarded as one of the leaders of the party which wished to force Charles to accept whatever conditions the parliament would give him (Gardiner, ii. 287, 303; Warburton, iii. 149).
On 21 Aug. 1645 Fairfax appeared before Bristol, which he summoned on 4 Sept. Rupert strove to gain time by negotiating, but on 10 Sept. Fairfax made a general assault, and, by capturing an important fort, rendered the city untenable. Rupert capitulated, and marched out on the following day (Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva, pp. 97–131). In an apology, published some months later, the prince alleged the weakness of the fortifications and the insufficiency of the garrison as the causes of the fall of Bristol (A Declaration of Prince Rupert concerning Bristol, 4to, 1647; Rushworth, vi. 69; Nicholas Papers, i. 65). The king, however, had concerted an infallible scheme for the relief of the city, and could only explain its surrender on the theory of Rupert's gross dereliction of duty. Without further inquiry he revoked all his nephew's commissions, and wrote to him in the highest indignation: ‘Though the loss of Bristol be a great blow to me, yet your surrendering it as you did is of so much affliction to me, that it makes me forget not only the consideration of that place, but is likewise the greatest trial of my constancy that hath yet befallen me; for what is to be done when one that is so near to me both in blood and friendship submits himself to so mean an action? … My conclusion is to desire you to seek your subsistence (until it shall please God to determine of my condition) somewhere beyond seas, to which end I send you a pass, and I pray God to make you sensible of your present condition, and give you means to redeem what you have lost’ (Clarendon, Rebellion, ix. 90; Evelyn, Diary, ed. 1879, iv. 173). Rupert was resolved not to be condemned unheard, and, in spite of the king's prohibitions and the troops of the parliament, he forced his way to Newark and demanded to be judged by a court-martial. Their verdict declared him ‘not guilty of any the least want of courage or fidelity, but did not absolve him from the charge of indiscretion’ (10 Oct.) On 26 Oct. a fresh quarrel broke out between the king and his nephew over the removal of Sir Richard Willis from the government of Newark. Rupert, in a stormy interview with the king, complained that Willis was removed because he was his friend, and denounced Lord Digby as the cause of all the recent misunderstandings. ‘Digby,’ he cried, ‘is the man that hath caused all this distraction between us.’ The prince and his adherents then presented a petition demanding that no officer should be deprived of his commission without being heard in his own defence by a council of war, and, on the king's refusal, left Newark, and, proceeding to Belvoir, sent to the parliament for passports to leave the country (Walker, pp. 145–7; Symonds, Diary, p. 270; Gardiner, ii. 373). As passports were refused him unless he would promise never to draw his sword against the parliament again, the negotiation fell through (Lords' Journals, vii. 671, 699, viii. 2; Warburton, iii. 208). Finding that he could not go with the parliament's leave or stay with the king's, Rupert preferred to submit to his uncle, and, on his free acknowledgment of his errors, a reconciliation took place (8 Dec. 1645). He came to Oxford, kissed the king's hand, and was restored to some degree of favour, though his commissions were not given back to him (ib. iii. 212, 223; Clarendon State Papers, ii. 195). When King Charles (against Rupert's advice) escaped from Oxford and put himself into the power of the Scots, Rupert wished to accompany him, but the king declined, saying that he would be discovered by his height (Warburton, iii. 196, 225). He therefore stayed in Oxford, and was wounded in a skirmish during the siege (Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva, p. 263). By the terms of the capitulation of that city Rupert and his brother Maurice were given leave to stay in England for six months, residing at a certain distance from London, and were then to have passes to go abroad with their servants and goods (ib. p. 168). But parliament, which in the Uxbridge propositions and in subsequent treaties had excluded Rupert from pardon, was not minded to let him stay so long in England, and on 25 June 1646 the brothers were ordered to leave the country within ten days, on the ground that they had broken the articles of capitulation by coming to Oatlands, which was within the prohibited distance from London (Cary, Memorials of the Civil War, i. 114, 119, 121).
The reason for this severity was the odium which Rupert had incurred during the war. He was accused of cruelty and plundering. ‘Many towns and villages he plundered, which is to say robbed (for at that time was the word first used in England, being born in Germany when that stately country was so miserably wasted and pillaged by foreign armies), and committed other outrages upon those who stood affected to the parliament, executing some, and hanging servants at their masters' doors for not discovering of their masters’ (May, History of the Long Parliament, ed. 1854, p. 244). The prince published a declaration in answer to these charges, but, however exaggerated, they were not altogether undeserved (Prince Rupert his Declaration, 1643; Warburton, ii. 119). He stuck at very little in raising contributions. The prisoners he took at Cirencester were treated with great barbarity, and when his troops stormed Liverpool and Bolton much slaughter took place. But when he granted articles he rigidly observed them, and the plundering which took place at Bristol and Newark he used every effort to prevent (Warburton, ii. 262; Rushworth, v. 308; cf. Gardiner, i. 15). And, though sometimes rigorously enforcing the laws of war against the vanquished, he was also capable of acting with chivalrous generosity towards them (Warburton, i. 391; Webb, Civil War in Herefordshire, ii. 359). His execution of twelve prisoners in March 1645, which called forth a solemn denunciation from the parliament, was a justifiable reprisal for the execution of a like number of his own soldiers by a parliamentary commander (ib. ii. 142; Old Parliamentary History, xiii. 444, 455).
Rupert's unpopularity was still greater because his activity for the king's cause was looked upon as an act of ingratitude to the English nation. ‘Let all England judge,’ wrote Fairfax to Rupert, ‘whether the burning its towns, ruining its cities, and destroying its people be a good requital from a person of your family, which has had the prayers, tears, purses, and blood of its parliament and people’ (Sprigge, p. 109). Three years earlier, in September 1642, Sir Thomas Roe urged the queen of Bohemia and the elector palatine to represent to Rupert the injury which his conduct was doing to the cause of his family (Green, vi. 10). In October 1642 a declaration was published on behalf of the queen and the elector palatine disavowing Rupert's actions, and lamenting the fruitlessness of their efforts to restrain him (Somers Tracts, iv. 498).
Rupert left England on 5 July 1646, and went at once to St. Germains. There he was solicited to enter the French service, and accepted the offer, reserving to himself liberty to return to the service of Charles I whenever that king's affairs would permit. The French government appointed him mareschal-de-camp, with command of all the English troops in French service, amounting to fifteen hundred or two thousand men (Clarendon State Papers, ii. 301; Warburton, iii. 236–47). Rupert served under Marshal Gassion in the campaign of 1647, showing his skill at the siege of Landrécy, and his courage in the rescue of Sir Robert Holmes at a skirmish before La Basse. At the siege of La Basse he received a shot in the head, which obliged him to leave the army for a time, and led him to return to St. Germains (ib. iii. 245). The king had by this time forgiven the prince his offences in 1645. ‘Since I saw you,’ he wrote to Rupert in September 1647, ‘all your actions have more than confirmed the good opinion I have of you. Next my children I shall have most care of you, and shall take the first opportunity either to employ you or have your company’ (Warburton, iii. 248). At the exiled court, however, Rupert met his old opponent, Lord Digby, and a challenge passed (October 1647); but mutual explanations and the intervention of the queen prevented a duel (Carte, Original Letters, i. 153; Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland, 1641–52, i. 731). In March 1648, however, he fought another of his adversaries, Lord Percy, whom he wounded, ‘the prince being as skilful with his weapon as valiant’ (Hamilton Papers, p. 178).
In June 1648 Rupert accompanied Prince Charles in his journey to Holland, and sailed with the prince and the revolted ships to fight the Earl of Warwick's fleet (Warburton, iii. 251). He was desirous of attending Prince Charles in his proposed expedition to Scotland, but the prince's council were against it; and Lauderdale, on behalf of the Scottish leaders, demanded that Charles should not bring with him one ‘against whom both kingdoms have so just cause of exception’ (Hamilton Papers, pp. 219, 234). Rupert wished to use the fleet to attack the Kentish ports, or to attempt something against Carisbrooke Castle, or to attack the Portsmouth fleet before it joined the Earl of Warwick. The failure of these designs he attributed partly to the supposed cowardice of Sir William Batten, who was the real commander of the prince's fleet, partly to the influence of Lord Colepeper. Rupert had old grudges against Colepeper, which were industriously cultivated by Attorney-general Herbert, and their mutual animosity distracted the council of Prince Charles. They quarrelled openly at the council-table; Colepeper challenged Prince Rupert, and was assaulted in the streets of The Hague by one of Rupert's dependents (Clarendon, Rebellion, xi. 32, 63, 83, 128). In December 1648 it was resolved that the fleet should be sent to Ireland to assist the Marquis of Ormonde, and Prince Rupert was appointed to command it, in spite of the fear that he would not ‘live with that amity towards the Marquis of Ormonde as was necessary for the public service.’ In his ‘History,’ Clarendon attributes the appointment to Rupert's successful intrigues to obtain it, but in his correspondence he praises him for preserving and reorganising the fleet; in both he represents Rupert as the only possible choice for the post (ib. xi. 142, 149; Clarendon State Papers, ii. 467; Warburton, iii. 261–278).
On 11 Jan. 1649 Rupert sailed from Helvoetsluys with eight ships, and arrived at Kinsale about the end of the month. During his voyage, and after his arrival in Ireland, he captured a considerable number of prizes, the profits of which helped to maintain the fleet and to support the court of Charles II. He also relieved the Scilly Isles, the headquarters of royalist privateers, which Sir John Grenville was holding for the king (ib. iii. 289). But he gave Ormonde no effectual aid in the reconquest of Ireland, though urged by him to assist the land forces by blockading Dublin or Derry, and his correspondence with Antrim, Owen Roe O'Neill [q. v.], and other opponents of Ormonde caused new difficulties to the lord-lieutenant (Carte, Life of Ormonde, iii. 438, ed. 1851). In the summer Blake, with the parliamentary fleet, blockaded Kinsale, reducing Rupert to great straits; but in October a gale drove Blake off shore, and Rupert escaped to sea with seven ships (Warburton, iii. 281–98; Carte, iii. 459, 482). It had been intended that the prince should convey Charles II from Jersey to Ireland, but the king had now resolved to make terms with the Scots instead (Hoskins, Charles II in the Channel Islands, ii. 345, 357, 374). Rupert accordingly cruised off the Straits of Gibraltar and the coast of Portugal, capturing all the English merchantmen he could meet. The king of Portugal, John IV, promised him protection, and allowed him to sell his prizes and refit his ships at Lisbon during the winter. On 10 March 1650 a parliamentary fleet under Blake appeared in Cascaes Bay at the mouth of the Tagus, denounced Rupert as a pirate, and demanded the surrender of his prizes. Meeting in the end with a refusal, Blake blockaded the river. Rupert attempted to blow up one of Blake's vessels with an explosive machine, and twice, on 26 July and on 7 Sept., made abortive endeavours to break out, which Blake frustrated. Finally Blake's capture of a portion of the Brazil fleet (14 Sept.) made the Portuguese anxious to be rid of their guest, and during Blake's absence at Cadiz Rupert once more put to sea (12 Oct. 1650). Entering the Mediterranean with a squadron of six ships, he sailed along the Spanish coast, capturing and destroying English merchantmen. Blake pursued him, took two of his ships, drove one ashore, and forced others to take refuge in Cartagena, where they were wrecked (2–5 Nov. 1650). Rupert succeeded in reaching Toulon with two ships and a prize (Gardiner, History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, i. 331–9; Warburton, iii. 313–23; Report on the Duke of Portland's Manuscripts. i. 511, 531, 536).
At Toulon Rupert refitted his fleet, and, increasing its number to five ships, sailed to the Azores, intending to go to the West Indies, and make Barbados his headquarters. He captured indiscriminately English and Spanish ships, treating the Spaniards as allies of the English, and selling the captured goods to the Portuguese at Madeira. But his sailors, now little better than pirates, compelled him to linger at the Azores in hope of further captures (July–December 1651), and during the stay his flagship, the Constant Reformation, was lost, with most of its crew, and one of his smaller vessels, the Loyal Subject, was driven on shore. The next spring he cruised off the coast of Guinea and the Cape de Verde islands, entering the Gambia, where he took several Spanish prizes, and was wounded in a fight with the natives. Off the Cape de Verde islands his fleet was further diminished by the loss of the Revenge through the mutiny of its crew. He did not arrive in the West Indies till the summer of 1652, about six months after Sir George Ayscue had reduced Barbados to obedience to the parliament. There he captured or destroyed a few small English ships at Nevis and St. Christopher's, but the Defiance, which bore his brother Prince Maurice, was lost, with all its crew, in a storm off the Virgin Islands (September 1652), and the Honest Seaman was also cast away. In March 1653 Rupert returned to France, putting in at Paimbœuf with his own ship, the Swallow, and a few prizes (Warburton, iii. 324–88; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1651–2, p. 308).
Charles II received his cousin with the greatest cordiality, sent his own coach to meet him, and made him master of the horse. ‘I am so surprised with joy at your safe arrival in these parts,’ wrote the king, ‘that I cannot tell you how great it is, nor can I consider any misfortunes or accidents which have happened now I know your person is in safety’ (Warburton, iii. 419). Hyde wrote with equal warmth, and the queen's faction were not less friendly. Rupert was ill for some time at Paris from a flux contracted by the hardships of the voyage, and in June 1653 was nearly drowned when bathing in the Seine (Clarendon State Papers, iii. 161, 173). It was proposed to raise a fleet of privateers under his command to take advantage of the war between England and the Dutch, but Rupert's ships were too unseaworthy to be so utilised (ib. iii. 164, 167, 184). Still more disappointing to the exiled court was the small amount of prize-money the prince had brought home. The pecuniary results of the voyage had been as small as the political. Moreover, the French authorities obstructed the sale of the prize-goods, and obliged Rupert to sell the guns of the Swallow at a low rate to the French government. At the same time, his accounts gave great dissatisfaction. Hyde complained not only that they were very insufficient, but that the prince contrived to make the king his debtor for the expenses of the cruise, claiming not only all the prize-money, which came to 14,000l., but half the proceeds of the sale of the guns (ib. iii. 176, 200, 224, 231; Evelyn, Diary, ed. 1879, iv. 286, 288; Rebellion, xiv. 78).
The political intrigues of the exiled court widened the breach. Rupert had fallen once more under the influence of Sir Edward Herbert—now lord-keeper—and was hand and glove with Lord Jermyn, Lord Gerard, and the faction who wished to overthrow Hyde. Finding his efforts unavailing, he threw up his post of master of the horse, telling the king ‘that he was resolved to look after his own affairs in Germany, and first to visit his brother in the palatinate, and require what was due from him for his appanage, and then to go to the emperor to receive the money that was due to him upon the treaty of Munster’ (Clarendon, Rebellion, xiv. 69, 90; Clarendon State Papers, iii. 177, 191, 233, 236, 245). He left Paris in June 1654, and spent the next six years in Germany. Occasional notices of his movements are contained in the news-letters of Secretary Thurloe's German agents (Thurloe State Papers, ii. 405, 514, 580, 644). In 1655 he proposed to enter the service of the Duke of Modena, but the negotiations fell through (ib. iii. 591, 683; Bromley, Royal Letters, pp. 193–200, 266). In the winter of 1659 he is said to have entered the imperial service, and to have led in the capture of the Swedish intrenchments at Warnemünde on 10 March 1660 (Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, xxix. 745).
At the Restoration Rupert returned to England (October 1660), and was well received by Charles II, who granted him an annuity of 4,000l. a year (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1 pp. 305, 355, 1661–2 p. 334). He was also admitted to the privy council (28 April 1662) and made one of the commissioners for the government of Tangier (27 Oct. 1662). In April 1661 Rupert paid a visit to Vienna, hoping to obtain a command from the emperor in the war against the Turks, and to recover some money due to him by the provisions of the treaty of Münster. In both these objects he failed, and his letters attribute his ill-success in part to the hostile intervention of his brother, the elector palatine (Warburton, iii. 450, 454–5; cf. Report on the Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth, i. 1–9). He returned to England in November 1661, shortly before the death of his mother, the queen of Bohemia (13 Feb. 1662), at whose funeral, in Westminster Abbey, he was chief mourner. She left him her jewels, and her will seems to have involved him in a fresh dispute with his brother the elector (Green, Lives of the Princesses of England, vi. 83; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1663–4, p. 528).
Partly in hopes of profit, and partly from interest in maritime and colonial adventure, Rupert became one of the patentees of the Royal African Company on 10 Jan. 1663 (Cal. State Papers, Col. 1660–8, p. 120). Their disputes with the Dutch therefore touched him closely, and in August 1664 it was determined that a fleet of twelve ships-of-war, with six of the company's ships, should be sent under the command of Rupert to the African coast to oppose a Dutch fleet under De Ruyter which was expected there; but, in spite of the prince's eagerness to go, the fleet was never despatched (Clarendon, Continuation of Life, p. 525; Lister, Life of Clarendon, ii. 265). Early in 1665 the prince fell seriously ill ({sc|Pepys}}, Diary, 15 Jan. 1665). In April he was sufficiently recovered to go to sea as admiral of the white under the command of the Duke of York, and at the battle of Solebay, on 3 June 1665, his squadron led the attack (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1664–5, pp. 280, 408, 420). He showed his habitual courage, though still weak from illness (Poems on Affairs of State, i. 26, ed. 1702). To his great indignation, in the following July the undivided command of the fleet was given to the Earl of Sandwich instead of to himself (Pepys, Diary, 25 June and 5 July 1665; Clarendon, Continuation of Life, p. 660). In April 1666 Rupert was joined with Monck in command under the belief that Monck's experience and discretion would temper his headlong courage (ib. pp. 771, 868). But the fleet was unwisely divided, and while Rupert, with twenty ships, was in search of the French squadron, under the Duc de Beaufort, the Dutch defeated Monck's fleet. Rupert returned on the third day of the fight, in time to save Monck from destruction (3 June 1666), but could not convert the defeat into a victory. He changed his ship three times in the course of the engagement, and his exploits form the theme of many stanzas in Dryden's ‘Annus Mirabilis’ (stanzas 105, 127; Cal. State Papers, Dom. xxi. 441). Rupert was blamed for not coming sooner to Monck's aid; it was urged in defence that the order recalling him was not sent with sufficient despatch, that he started as soon as he heard the sound of the cannonade, and that he was delayed by a contrary wind (Clarendon, Continuation, p. 873; Pepys, Diary, 24 June 1666). He commanded, still in association with Monck, in the actions of 25–9 July, and in the attack on the Dutch coast which followed (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1665–6 p. 579, 1666–7 pp. 22, 32). In the narrative of the miscarriages in the management of the war which he afterwards drew up for the House of Commons, he complained bitterly that want of provisions obliged the fleet to abandon the blockade which these successes made possible (Warburton, iii. 480; cf. Pepys, Diary, 26 Aug. and 7 Oct. 1666). He asserted also that he advised the king to fortify Harwich and Sheerness against a Dutch landing, and blamed the plan of setting out no fleet in 1667, though, according to Clarendon, he had approved of it in council (Continuation, p. 1026). An old wound, which broke out again, kept him inactive for some time; but when the Dutch entered the Medway the king sent him to take command at Woolwich, and ordered him to superintend the fortifications subsequently to be raised on the Medway (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1667, pp. 179, 273; Warburton, iii. 486).
On 29 Sept. 1668 Rupert was appointed constable of Windsor Castle, compounding, however, with his predecessor, Lord Mordaunt, for 3,500l. (Le Fleming MSS. p. 59; Tighe and Davis, Annals of Windsor, ii. 349–54). He was also given a grant of Upper Spring Gardens in June 1668, and a pension of 2,000l. a year. He sought to add to his fortune further by a scheme for coining farthings (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1667–8, pp. 278, 467, 608, 1670 p. 189). In conjunction with the Duke of Albemarle and others, he took up a scheme for discovering the supposed passage through the great lakes of Canada to the South Sea, and despatched in June 1668 two ships to Hudson's Bay for that purpose. One of the two ships, the Eaglet ketch, was lent by Charles II; the proposer of the expedition was a Frenchman named Groseilliers, and its commander Zachariah Guillam, a native of Boston. Its result was the grant of a charter (2 May 1670) incorporating Rupert and others as the Hudson Bay Company, giving them the sole right to trade to that region and the government of the adjacent territory, which was to be called Rupert's Land (Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, iv. 172, viii. 5; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1667–8 p. 220, 1668–9 p. 139; Le Fleming MSS. p. 56). In August 1670 Rupert was made one of the new council for trade and plantations.
In March 1672 the third Dutch war broke out, and on 15 Aug. 1672 Rupert was appointed vice-admiral of England. On the resignation of the Duke of York, after the passing of the Test Act, the prince became successively general at sea and land (26 April 1673) and admiral of the fleet (16 June 1673; cf. Letters to Sir Joseph Williamson, Camd. Soc. i. 52, 90). He joined the French fleet under D'Estrées in the Channel on 16 May, and engaged the Dutch under Tromp and De Ruyter off Schoneveldt on 28 May, and again on 4 June 1673. Both actions were indecisive, and he returned to harbour to refit. At the end of July he put to sea, and fought a third battle with the Dutch off the Texel on 11 Aug. The losses of the two sides were about equal, but the fruits of victory fell to the Dutch, who frustrated the plan for an English landing in Holland, and freed their ports from blockade (Mahan, Influence of Sea-power, pp. 151–5; Life of Tromp, 1697, pp. 457–489; Report on the Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth, i. 20–3; Life of Rupert, 1683, p. 55). Rupert attributed the ill-success of the last engagement partly to the disobedience of Sir Edward Spragge, who was killed in the battle, and partly to the lukewarmness of his French allies. A contemporary apologist complained of the difficulties caused Rupert by the Duke of York's partisans both in England and in the fleet itself. ‘The captains,’ writes Burnet, ‘were the duke's creatures, so they crossed him in all they could, and complained of all he did’ (Own Time, ii. 15; An Exact Relation of all the several Engagements and Actions of his Majestie's Fleet. … Written by a person in command in the Fleet, 1673, 4to; cf. Dartmouth MSS. i. 24). On the other hand, it was said freely that ‘if the duke had been there things had gone better’ (Letters to Williamson, i. 39). But Rupert's complaints against the conduct of the French admiral met with ready acceptance in England, and his hostility to the French alliance gained him popularity (ib. i. 143, 170, 174, 185, 194).
Rupert's traditional connection with the ‘country party’ belongs to this period. His intimacy with Shaftesbury began to attract remarks in 1673. ‘They are looked upon,’ wrote one of Sir Joseph Williamson's correspondents, ‘to be the great parliament men, and for the interest of old England’ (ib. ii. 21). When Shaftesbury was dismissed by Charles II, Rupert ostentatiously visited the ex-chancellor (North, Examen, p. 50). The supposed friendship of the prince for Andrew Marvell, which is first mentioned in Cooke's ‘Life of Marvell’ in 1726, if there is any truth in the story at all, must be referred to the same period of Rupert's career (Marvell, Works, ed. 1772, i. 10). In any case, his connection with the opposition was brief and unimportant.
Rupert was first lord of the admiralty from 9 July 1673 to 14 May 1679, and was also during the same years one of the commissioners for the government of Tangier. On 21 April 1679 he was appointed a member of the new privy council established on Sir William Temple's plan (Doyle). Apart from a few references in the correspondence of his sister, the electress Sophia of Hanover, little is known of the last years of his life (Bodemann, Briefwechsel der Herzoginn Sophie von Hannover mit ihrem Bruder dem Kurfürsten Karl Ludwig von der Pfalz, 1885). His latest letter is addressed to her (Catalogue of Mr. Alfred Morrison's Manuscripts, v. 325).
Rupert's death, which was caused by a fever, took place on 29 Nov. 1682 at his house in Spring Gardens. He was buried in Henry VII's chapel in Westminster Abbey on 6 Dec. (Chester, Westminster Registers, p. 206). His will, dated 27 Nov., is printed in ‘Wills from Doctors' Commons’ (Camd. Soc. p. 142).
Rupert was never married, but left two natural children. By Margaret Hughes [q. v.], the actress, he had a daughter named Ruperta, born in 1673. In his will he left his household goods and other property in England to the Earl of Craven in trust for Ruperta and her mother. A full-length portrait of Ruperta by Kneller is in the possession of the Earl of Sandwich at Hinchinbrook House, Huntingdonshire. An engraving of the head is contained in Bromley's ‘Royal Letters.’ She married General Emmanuel Scrope Howe, and died in 1740 (Warburton, iii. 489; Bromley, Original Royal Letters, 1787, pref.) By Frances, or Francesca, daughter of Sir Henry Bard, viscount Bellamont in the peerage of Ireland, Rupert left a son, Dudley Bard, born about 1666, and killed 13 July 1686 at the siege of Buda. To him Rupert left some property in Holland, and the debts due from the emperor and the elector palatine. Frances Bard, who claimed to be married to Rupert, is often mentioned in the correspondence of the electress Sophia, at whose court she long resided, and by whom she was treated with great favour (English Historical Review, July 1896, p. 527; Warburton, iii. 466).
In his youth Rupert was handsome and prepossessing. He was very tall, strong, and active. He was reputed a master at all weapons, and Pepys describes him in 1667 as one of the best tennis-players in England (Diary, 2 Sept. 1667). Of his appearance in later years, Grammont observes: ‘Il était grand, et n'avait que trop mauvais air. Son visage était sec et dur, lors même qu'il voulait le radoucir’ (Mémoires de Grammont, ed. 1716, p. 252). A gentleman who served under him in the civil wars describes him as ‘always very sparkish in his dress;’ ‘the greatest beau’ as well as ‘the greatest hero’ (SIR EDWARD SOUTHCOTE; MORRIS, Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, i. 392). In a narrative of one of his battles it is said: ‘The prince was clad in scarlet, very richly laid in silver lace, and mounted on a very gallant black Barbary horse.’
Portraits of Rupert, painted and engraved, are numerous. The one by Vandyck, representing him aged 12, now in the Imperial Museum at Vienna, is one of Vandyck's finest works; it is engraved in Guiffrey's ‘Antoine Van Dyck,’ 1882. The National Portrait Gallery possesses a half-length by Lely and a miniature by Hoskins. Another by Vandyck is in the possession of the Earl of Craven, and the Marquis of Lothian has a third, representing Rupert with his brother Charles Louis (not Maurice, as stated in the Catalogue). One by Kneller belongs to Lord Ronald Gower; it was engraved by R. White. A portrait by Dobson was finely engraved by Faithorne, and another by Lely (representing him in the robes of the Garter) by A. Blooteling. The Vandyck portrait belonging to the Marquis of Bristol is really of his older brother, Charles Louis, and not of Rupert, as stated in the catalogue of the Vandyck exhibition in 1887.
Like his cousin, King Charles II, Rupert had also a taste for scientific experiments. ‘Il avait,’ writes Grammont, ‘le génie fécond en expériences de mathématiques et quelques talens pour la chimie.’ He devoted much attention to improvements in war material, inventing a method of making gunpowder of ten times the ordinary strength, a mode of manufacturing hailshot, a gun somewhat on the principle of the revolver, and a new method of boring cannon (Warburton, iii. 433; Birch, History of the Royal Society, i. 329, 335, ii. 58). For these purposes Rupert established a laboratory and forge, his labours in which are celebrated in one of the elegies on his death.
Thou prideless thunderer, that stooped so low
To forge the very bolts thy arm should throw,
Whilst the same eyes great Rupert did admire,
Shining in fields and sooty at the fire:
At once the Mars and Vulcan of the war.
(Memoirs of the Life and Death of Prince Rupert, 1683, pp. 74, 80.)
‘Princes-metal,’ a mixture of copper and zinc, in which the proportion of zinc is greater than in brass, is said to have been invented by Rupert. His name also survives in the scientific toys called ‘Ruperts-drops,’ which are said to have been introduced into England by him (cf. Pepys, Diary, 13 Jan. 1662, ed. Wheatley). The invention of the art of mezzotint engraving erroneously attributed to Rupert is really due to Ludwig von Siegen, an able artist, who imparted the secret to Rupert (see J. Challoner Smith, British Mezzotinto Portraits, in which all the facts are given, together with a complete list of the engravings by, and attributed to, Rupert). Rupert showed Evelyn the new way of engraving, with his own hands, on 13 March 1661, and Evelyn published it to the world in his ‘Sculptura, or the History and Art of Chalcography,’ 1662. Evelyn's book gives as a specimen a head representing the executioner of St. John (Warburton, iii. 436, 546; Evelyn, Diary, ed. 1879, ii. 124; cf. H. W. Diamond, Earliest Specimens of Mezzotint Engraving, 1848).
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.240
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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