Rupert, Prince Palatine

by Eva Scott

Of Rupert's later life in England, apart from his naval career, there is not much to tell. In the dissolute court of the Restoration there was no place for Rupert of the Rhine. He represented the older Cavaliers. He had stood side by side and fought on many a field with the fathers of the men who adorned the Court of Charles II; but with the sons, the children of the exiles, he could have no sympathy. Much has been said and written contrasting those fathers and sons, the men who died for Charles I, and the men who lived with Charles II. But no contrast is stronger than that of the two Kings themselves,—of the grave, dignified, blundering, narrow, but ever earnest martyr-king, with the dissolute, easy-going, but always shrewd, merry monarch.

The Cavaliers of the Civil War were, as we have seen, by no means free from faults and follies; but the real difference between them and their successors lay less in individual character than in ideal. In the first half of the seventeenth century religious feeling had been strong in all classes, and the tone of morality high. Devotion to duty was strongly inculcated, and men believed it their duty to sacrifice themselves for their King, or for their opinions as the case might be. That most of the Cavaliers were willing to offer their sacrifices in their own way only, and that many were desirous of gaining rewards for their services may be granted; but the fact remains that they did sacrifice themselves, and clung loyally to their Sovereign when all hope of reward was passed.

In 1660 the ideal of life was changed, or rather all ideal had perished, and the Courtiers imitated their master in his attempt to lounge through life with as much pleasure and as little inconvenience to themselves as possible. The relaxation of all moral restraint was due, in a great measure, to the inevitable reaction from Puritan rigidity and hypocrisy; but it was due still more to the years of exile, during which the Royalists had been "strangely tossed about on the fickle waves of fortune."[[1]] The Civil War had been a check on all education; it had released boys from school and students from college to throw them, at an early age, into the perils and temptations of a camp. At the same time, it had deprived them of the care and guidance of parents and guardians. Later, these boys, grown men before their time, had led a precarious existence on the Continent, living how and where they could, and snatching consolation for sorrow and privation in such illicit pleasures as came in their way. This life had ruined Charles II, and it is not wonderful that it ruined other men.

Rupert had been young too in those days,—he was only eight years Charles's senior, but the precarious life had not affected him in the same way. He had never drifted; it was not in his nature to drift, and his own strength and earnestness had kept him ever hard at work, with some definite end before him. Yet it cannot be denied that his character had suffered. The edge of it was, as it were, blunted. His ideals had perished in the stress of toil and anxiety. His chivalry had given place to common-sense. His hopefulness was gone, and his youthful eagerness had been replaced by a coldly sardonic view of life. "Blessed are those who expect nothing" was Rupert's motto now.

In all things he had grown coarser, and yet his standard of life remained, for those times, high. He had imbibed in his youth, says an admiring contemporary, "such beautiful ideas of virtue that he hath ever since esteemed it, notwithstanding the contempt the world hath put upon it; nor could he abhor the debaucheries of the age as he doth, had not his prejudice against it been of long duration. Such virtue is not formed in a day, and it is to his education that he owes the glory of a life so noble and so Christian."[[2]] Rupert had in truth too much self-respect, it may be too much religion, to sink to the depths to which Charles's court was sunk, and he held himself aloof with lofty disdain. "Mon cousin", as the mocking courtiers called him, in imitation of the King, was at once the object of their fear and of their merriment. So great was their terror of him that, mock though they might behind his back, not one of them dared, as they owned, make him the object of open satire, from which the King and the Duke of York did not escape.

The royal brothers themselves stood in some awe of their cousin. Sandwich told Pepys that he had heard James laugh at Rupert in his absence,[[3]] but in his cousin's presence James usually behaved to him with due respect. As for the King, he confessed, in 1664, that he dared not send for Sandwich to Court, lest his coming should offend Rupert.[[4]] Occasionally there were quarrels and coolnesses between the cousins, for Rupert was still sometimes irritable; yet he always retained the friendship of both Charles and James. His position was somewhat anomalous, especially after the popular party had raised the no-Popery cry and looked to him as their natural head. Yet he steered through that difficult course with satisfaction to all parties, and infinite credit to himself. He showed, says one of his admirers, "temperance and moderation in committing nothing towards the present differences amongst us, nor adding any fuel to those unhappy heats, which he, supposing too high already, endeavoured rather to quench than to increase."[[5]]

He was not infrequently to be found in the King's company, notwithstanding his aversion to the court. In 1663, he accompanied Charles on a progress through the western counties. On the King's marriage he went with him to meet the bride at Dover; and, on this occasion, he scandalised the Portuguese by his rudeness. The Portuguese Ambassador took precedence of the Prince, whereupon Rupert took him by the shoulders and quietly put him out of the way. The King, much shocked, remonstrated with his cousin, and induced him to yield place.[[6]] In March 1669 Rupert was driving with the King on the occasion when the royal coach was upset in Holborn, and, as Pepys said, "the King all dirty, but no hurt."[[7]] Rupert was also of the party that received Henrietta of Orleans on her one brief visit to England in 1670; he is frequently mentioned as dining with the Royal family; and when the Prince of Tuscany visited England incognito, the Queen Mother decided that, according to etiquette, his first visit was due to Rupert.[[8]] Pepys tells how he went to see a tennis-match between Rupert and Captain Cook on one side, and May and Chichely on the other. The King was present as a spectator, and, says the diarist, "It seems they are the best players at tennis in this nation."[[9]] A trivial, yet characteristic anecdote is told by Coke. He was walking in the Mall with the King, when they were overtaken by Prince Rupert. "The King told the Prince how he had shot a duck, and which dog fetched it, and so they walked on, till the King came to St. James's House, and there the King said to the Prince: 'Let's go and see Cambridge and Kendal!'—the Duke of York's two sons, who then lay a dying."[[10]]

One of Rupert's principal cares was the relief of the distressed Cavaliers, who looked to him as their supporter and representative. Charles II has often been blamed for not relieving the wants of so many of those who had suffered for his father. Probably he was callous to suffering which he did not directly witness, but it must be confessed that his position was a hard one. He could dispose of very little money, and he was much bound to the Presbyterians who had restored him to the throne. His pledges to them prevented him from upsetting much of the existing arrangements, and consequently hampered him in the relief of the Royalists. Such of these as were in want turned to Rupert, sure of a hearing and of such aid as he could give, whether it were in money, or in intercession with the King. The State papers are full of their petitions, which generally refer to Rupert as their guarantor; indeed his certificate seems to have been regarded as the necessary hall-mark of their authenticity. In 1660 he came to the defence of 142 creditors of the late King;[[11]] and we find him pleading for a certain Cary Heydon, and other people, at the commission for indigent officers.[[12]] One very striking instance of his justice and good memory occurred just before his death. A certain member of Parliament, named Speke, had been accused of conspiring for Monmouth against the Duke of York, and was summoned before the Council Chamber. He defended himself ably, and quoted his former services to Charles I. Rupert suddenly stood up, told the King that it was all true, "and added one circumstance which Mr. Speke had thought it not handsome to mention," namely, that when he, Rupert, had been in great want of money for the King's service, Speke had sent him "1,000 pieces"; and had been so far from asking repayment, that the Prince had neither seen nor heard of him from that day to this. The accusation was promptly dismissed; and on the next day Rupert invited Speke to dinner, when he "entertained him in the most obliging manner."[[13]]

In December 1662 Rupert became one of the first Fellows of the Royal Society, of which the King was also a member,[[14]] and their common interest in science formed an additional bond of union between the cousins. Rupert had both a forge and a laboratory in which he himself worked with great zeal. The King, with his favourite Buckingham, was wont to lounge in and sit on a stool, watching his energetic cousin, with keen interest. Sometimes the Prince would weary of their chatter, and he had a short and effectual way of ridding himself of them. He would coolly throw something on to the fire which exhaled such fearful fumes that the King and courtiers would rush out half-choked, vowing in mock fury that they would never again enter the "alchemist's hell."[[15]]

Rupert's inventions were many, and were connected chiefly with the improvement of weapons and materials of war. He made an improved lock for fire-arms; increased the power of gunpowder ten times; invented a kind of revolver; a method of making hail-shot; a means of melting black-lead like a metal; a substance composed of copper and zinc, and called "Prince's metal" to this day; and a screw which facilitated the taking of observations with a quadrant at sea. In 1671 he took out a patent "for converting edge-tools forged in soft iron, after forged; and for converting iron wire, and softening all cast or melted iron, so that it can be wrought and filed like forged iron."[[16]] He also had a patent for tincturing copper upon iron,[[17]] and he built a house at Windsor for the carrying on of his works. Besides his scientific works and studies, he had on hand innumerable projects, adventurous and commercial. He was deeply interested in African trade, and was a patentee of the Royal African Company, formed for its promotion. In 1668 he had conceived a scheme for discovering the north-west passage. The idea had been suggested to him by a Canadian, and he forthwith demanded of the King a small ship, the "Eagle," which he despatched on the quest.[[18]] As a result of this, he became first President of the Hudson Bay Company, to which the King granted in 1670 the sole right to trade in those seas.[[19]] In the same year he was appointed to the Council of trade and plantations. During the Dutch wars he fitted out four privateers, the "Eagle," the "Hawk," the "Sparrow Hawk," and the "Panther."[[20]] In 1668 he petitioned, in conjunction with Henry Howard, for the sole right to coin farthings, for which he had invented a new model.[[21]] This petition was regarded with great favour by the nation at large, for "every pitiful shopkeeper" coined at his own pleasure, and the abuses of the system were many. The farthings of Prince Rupert were "much talked of and desired;"[[22]] and, in consequence of his petition, he was empowered, with Craven and others, to examine into the abuses of the Mint.[[23]] Later he started a project, in partnership with Shaftesbury, for working supposed silver-mines in Somersetshire.[[24]]