Rupert, Prince Palatine

Le Prince Rupert. Duc de Baviere et Cumberland. From the portrait by Honthorst in the Louvre Paris.
EVA SCOTT
Late Scholar of Somerville College Oxford
WESTMINSTER ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & Co. NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 1900
SECOND EDITION

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.