Rupert, Prince Palatine

by Eva Scott

Another Colonel denied strenuously an accusation of oppression which had excited Rupert's anger against him.[[26]] That the failure at Edgehill was due to the greed of Rupert's men in plundering the baggage waggons, was an imputation which the Prince hotly resented. To his announcement that he could, "at least, give a good account of the enemy's horse," a bystander retorted: "And of their carts too!"[[27]] Whereupon the Prince drew his sword, and there was nearly a duel in the King's presence. The idea that he enriched himself by plunder is too absurd to need refutation; yet, were it needed, proof to the contrary might be found in a letter written at the end of the war, which draws a painful picture of Rupert's extreme poverty.[[28]]

For the rest, the Prince regarded the enemy with a soldierly chivalry. Instances of his courtesy are not wanting, and in all matters of honour he was most punctilious. "The Prince," said one of his officers, "uses to make good his word, not only in point of honour, but as a matter of religion too."[[29]] Thus, when his men snatched the colours of an enemy promised a safe passage, "some of them felt the edge of his sword," and the colours were courteously returned. To his honourable conduct, under similar circumstances at Bristol, the Puritan Governor bore generous testimony.[[30]]

But personal gallantry, promptitude, and ubiquity were far from being Rupert's only qualifications for his post. He understood, as he himself phrased it, "what belongs to war." His tactics were of the school of the great Gustavus, and he abolished the absurd custom of letting the cavalry halt to fire, before making a charge. At Edgehill he went from rank to rank, bidding the men to charge at the first word, and thus he formed an irresistible cavalry which never failed to sweep all before it, until it met its match at Marston Moor. His method was thus described by the son of one of his officers: "His way of fighting was that he had a select body of horse that always attended him, and, in every attack, they received the enemy's shot without returning it, but one and all bore with all their force upon their adversaries, till they broke their ranks, and charged quite through them. Then they rallied, and, when the enemy were in disorder, fell upon their rear and slaughtered them, into scarce any opposition."[[31]] And says Professor Gardiner: "Rupert was as capable of planning a campaign as he was of conducting a charge."[[32]] Until November 1644, at which period, it should be noted, Rupert's power was on the wane, the strategical superiority was decidedly with the King. The operations of the Royalist army were based on a well-conceived plan, that plan was varied and supplemented as occasion required. This skilful warfare Professor Gardiner ascribes to Rupert's genius. Why then, may we ask, did so good a soldier fail so signally?

The reasons for failure are not far to seek. In the first place, Rupert was too complete a soldier for the task he had undertaken. His common-sense, soldierly point of view quite failed to embrace the political and constitutional sides of the question. He could no more comprehend the King's refusal to make any compromise, than he could have understood the moderate Royalists' dread of a complete victory for their own side. The boyish challenge purporting to be sent by him to Essex, shows, if genuine, how absolutely he failed to grasp the points at issue. "My Lord," it begins, "I hear you are a general of an army.... I shall be ready, on His Majesty's behalf, to give you an encounter in a pitched field at Dunsmore Heath, 18th October next. Or, if you think it too much labour, or expense, to draw your forces thither, I shall be as willing, on my own part, to expect private satisfaction at your hands, and that performed by a single duel. Which proffer, if you please to accept, you shall not find me backward in performing what I have promised.... Now I have said all, and what more you expect of me to be said, shall be delivered in a larger field than a small sheet of paper, and that by my sword, and not by my pen. In the interim I am your friend, till I meet you next."[[33]] The stories of his wandering in disguise through the quarters of the Parliament may be somewhat apocryphal, but they show, at least, the impression he made on his contemporaries. And there is nothing doubtful in the fact that he and Maurice laughed aloud in the face of the Parliamentary Commissioner who proclaimed them solemnly, "traitors, to die without mercy."[[34]]

Rupert, notwithstanding his twenty-two years and his unusual experiences, was a boy still; far too young for the position he held. He was over-confident, and rash with the rashness of youth. Frequently his victorious charge was but the prelude to disaster; for the cavalry were apt to pursue too eagerly, leaving the foot unsupported on the field. Still, it should be remembered that it must have been next to impossible to hold back those gallant, untrained troops; though probably Rupert did not try very hard to do it.

In truth the Royalist army was as hard a one to manage as ever fell to the lot of a general. It was an army of volunteers, supported chiefly by the private means of nobles and gentlemen, who, while scorning to take orders from one another, showed themselves equally averse to taking them from a foreign Prince. It was small, far smaller than that of Essex; undisciplined, badly armed, and continually on the verge of mutiny for want of pay. "It is e'en being, for the most part, without arms, a general of an army of ordnance without a cure, not a gun too, lesse money, much mutiny,"[[35]] wrote a faithful follower of Rupert, at one period of the war. The men were raw recruits; the officers were full of complaints and discontents, all showing a remarkable willingness to do anything rather than that which they were required to do. "The officers of your troop will obey in no kind of thing, and, by their example, never a soldier in that company," lamented Daniel O'Neil, from Abingdon. "I had rather be your groom in Oxford than with a company that shall assume such a liberty as yours does here!"[[36]] From Reading, protested Sir Arthur Aston, "I wish when your Highness gave your consent to leave me here behind you, that you had rather adjudged me to lose my head."[[37]] And from Wales came the striking declaration, "If your Highness shall be pleased to command me to the Turk, or the Jew, or the Gentile, I will go on my bare feet to serve you; but from the Welsh good Lord deliver me!"[[38]] From all sides came complaints of mutinies, of "unbecoming language," "affronts," injuries and violence. "In spite of my three several orders to come away, Captain Mynn remains at Newent," declared Colonel Vavasour. The garrison of Donnington not only defied the order to be quiet, "it being very late at night," but forcibly released one of their number, under arrest, and outraged the town by "robbing, and doing all villainy."[[39]]

Nor was it with insubordination alone that Rupert had to deal. Wrote Louis Dyves: "Our men are in extreme necessity, many of them having neither clothes to cover their nakedness, nor boots to put on their feet, and not money enough amongst them to pay for the shoeing of their horses."[[40]] And declared Sir Ralph Hopton: "It is inconceivable what these fellows are always doing with their arms; they appear to be expended as fast as their ammunition."[[41]] Another officer required supplies of biscuits: "For your Highness knows what want of victuals is among common men."[[42]] A fourth desired a change of quarters, "because the country, hereabouts, is so heavily charged with contributions, as our allowance falls short."[[43]] A fifth modestly requested, "to be put into the power of a thousand horse, or foot, and then I doubt not, by God's assistance, to give a sufficient account of what is committed to my charge."[[44]] Every one of them lacked arms and ammunition, and all their wants were poured out to the luckless young Prince, who was expected to attend to every detail, and whose own supplies were wretchedly insufficient.

Added to all this, there were private quarrels to be appeased. Wyndham declined to serve under Hopton, who had "disobliged" him.[[45]] Vavasour complained of "very high language" used towards him by Sir Robert Byron. At Lichfield disputes between the factions of Lord Loughborough and Sir William Bagot raged violently. "In all places where I come, it's my misfortune to meet with extreme trouble," lamented the brave old Jacob Astley, to whose lot the pacifying of this quarrel fell; "I have met, in this place with exceeding great trouble, the commanders and soldiers in the close at Lichfield, having shut out my Lord Loughborough."[[46]] And not even the efforts of old Astley could bring about a peace between the contending officers; "our minds being both too high to acknowledge a superiority,"[[47]] confessed Loughborough candidly. But even more serious than such quarrels as these were the court factions which divided the Royalist army against itself. From the very beginning, the attempts of the King's Council to regulate military affairs were bitterly resented by the soldiery. Courtier detested soldier, and soldier despised courtier! Nor were the military and civil factions the only ones existent; there was party within party, intrigue within intrigue. Wrote the shrewd Arthur Trevor, in 1643: "The contrariety of opinions and ways are equally distant with those of the elements, and as destructive, if there were not a special providence that keeps men in one mind against a third party, though they agree in no one thing among themselves."[[48]] Equally opposed to the military party of Rupert, and to the constitutionalists led by Hyde and Falkland, were the followings of the Queen and of Lord Digby. Bitter, private jealousies completed the confusion, and the vacillation of the King, who lent an ear now to one, now to another, destroyed all consistency of action. With such a state of affairs a young man of barely three-and-twenty was called upon to deal!

Obviously the position was one requiring the greatest tact, patience and circumspection, which were, unhappily, the very qualities most lacking in the young Prince. The circumstances of his early career had been calculated to inspire him with an exaggerated sense of his own importance. Notwithstanding his position as fourth child among thirteen, and the constant snubs of his mother, he had been spoilt by the Prince of Orange, and by the English Court. The admiration he had won, during his captivity among his enemies, added to his self-esteem. His steadfast refusal to renounce either his faith or his party, in spite of flatteries, threats, promises and persuasions, had raised him to the proud position of a Protestant martyr. "All the world knows how deeply I have smarted, and what perils I have undergone, for the Protestant cause,"[[49]] he declared to the English Parliament. Thus conscious of his own abilities and claims to distinction, and valuing to the full his previous experience, he was possessed of a not unnatural contempt for the military views of civilians. The overbearing manner which he permitted himself to assume towards Courtiers and Councillors gave great offence. "We hear that Prince Rupert behaves himself so rudely, whereby he doth himself a great deal of dishonour, and the King more disservice,"[[50]] was the report of a Royalist to his friends. "Prince Rupert's pleasure was not to be contradicted," and, "Prince Rupert could not want of his will," says the contemporary historian, Sir Edward Walker.[[51]] Clarendon complained that the Prince "too affectedly" despised what was said of him, and "too stoically contemned the affections of men."[[52]] While the faithful Sir Philip Warwick lamented that, "a little sharpness of temper and uncommunicableness in society, or council, by seeming, with a 'Pish!' to neglect all that another said and he approved not, made him less grateful than his friends could have wished. And this humour soured him towards the Councillors of Civil Affairs, who were necessarily to intermix with him in Martial Councils."[[53]] Certainly this was not the spirit calculated to recommend him to the English nobles, men who served their sovereign at their own cost, and who considered themselves at least as good as the son of a dethroned King.

Nor could Rupert atone for official imperiousness by geniality in private life. In happier days, at Heidelberg, Frederick's faithful steward had declared that the morose manners of his master rendered him "afraid and ashamed" when any one visited the castle.[[54]] Something of his father's disposition Rupert had inherited; and, with all his self-confidence, he was very shy. From the nobility both he and Maurice held aloof with a reserve born of pride and an uncertain position. Princes they might be, but they were also exiled and penniless, dependent on their swords, or on the bounty of their relatives. "The reservedness of the Prince's nature, and the little education he then had in Courts made him unapt to make acquaintance with any of the Lords, who were thereby discouraged from applying themselves to him," says Clarendon. "Whilst some officers of the Horse were well pleased to observe that strangeness, and fomented it, believing that their credit would be the greater with the Prince."[[55]] Maurice, of whom Clarendon confessed he had "no more esteem than good manners obliged him to,"[[56]] came in for yet stronger censure. "This Prince had never sacrificed to the Graces, nor conversed among men of quality, but had most used the company of inferior men, with whom he loved to be very familiar. He was not qualified with parts by nature, and less with any acquired; and towards men of the best condition, with whom he might very well have justified a familiarity, he maintained—at least—the full state due to his birth."[[57]] Doubtless Clarendon's personal dislike of the Palatines made him a severe critic; but, in the main, his censure was true enough. Their unfortunate shyness threw them almost entirely upon their officers, and men of lesser rank, for friendship and companionship. Nor was the position unnatural; for many of these men were already well known to them as brother officers in the army of the Stadtholder, and familiar guests at their home at the Hague.