But his chief companion and diversion was Boy, a hound given him by Lord Arundel, to lighten his captivity. It was of “a breede so famous that the Grand Turk gave it in particular injunction to his ambassadour to obtaine him a puppie thereof.” When Rupert was released, Boy shared his freedom, and became an inseparable friend.
Many an old lady in those hard days was suspected of being a witch, and holding secret confabs with the Devil, after a midnight tide through the air on a broomstick. If she had a cat, especially a black one, poor Pussy was considered a go-between, and was liable to be burned. Dogs, too, fell under suspicion now and then; and as Prince Rupert was thought by the Puritan faction to act under the Devil’s guidance, so Boy was supposed to run on messages between the unholy allies. In the Bodleian Library there is carefully preserved an old pamphlet of 1642, entitled “Observations on Prince Rupert’s dogge, called Boye,” which amusingly details the different views about him.
“I have kept a very strict eye,” says the writer, “upon this dogge, whom I cannot conclude to be a very dounright divell, but some Lapland ladye, once by nature a handsome white ladye, but now by art a handsome white dogge. They have many times attempted to destroye it by poyson, and extempore prayer (!) but they have hurt him no more than the plague plaister did Mr. Pym.” In fact—
’Twas like a Dog, yet there was none did knowe
Whether it Devill was, or Dog, or no.
Every squib or broadside of abuse directed against the prince must also hit poor Boy, and in several he figures very cleverly. One of the most amusing is “A Dialogue between Prince Rupert’s Dogge, whose name is Puddle, and Tobie’s Dog, whose name is Pepper.” It bears date 1643, and opens with a sledge-hammer contest of wits between the Royalist and Puritan dogs, under whose names are but thinly veiled the two great parties of the day.
Prince Rupert’s dog opens the parley with great disdain:
“What yelping, whindling Puppy-Dog art thou?” And honest Tobie’s dog retorts the question:
“What bauling, shag-hair’d Cavallier’s Dogge art thou?”
“Pr. R. D. Thou art a dogged sir, or cur, grumble no more but tell me thy name.”