Rupert early evinced his independence of character by revolting against the strict course laid out for him. "He was not ambitious to entertain the learned tongues.... He conceived the languages of the times would be to him more useful, having to converse afterwards with divers nations. Thus he became so much master of the modern tongues that at the thirteenth year of his age he could understand, and be understood in all Europe. His High and Low Dutch were not more naturally spoken by him than English, French, Spanish and Italian. Latin he understood."[[20]] He showed, moreover, a passion for all things military. "His Highness also applying himself to riding, fencing, vaulting, the exercise of the pike and musket, and the study of geometry and fortification, wherein he had the assistance of the best masters, besides the inclination of a military genius, which showed itself so early that at eight years of age he handled his arms with the readiness and address of an experienced soldier."[[21]]
Occasionally their mother would summon the children to the Hague, that she might show them to her friends; "as one would a stud of horses,"[[22]] said Sophie bitterly. The life at Leyden was also varied by the visits of the Elector Frederick, who was occasionally accompanied by Englishmen of distinction.
In 1626 came the great Duke of Buckingham himself. James I was dead, and Charles I reigned in his stead, but the brilliant favourite Buckingham ruled over the son as absolutely as he had ruled over the father before him. He was inclined now to take up the cause of the Palatines, and, as the price of his assistance, proposed a marriage between the eldest prince, Henry, and his own little daughter, the Lady Mary Villiers. Frederick, knowing his great power, listened favourably, and Buckingham accordingly visited the children at Leyden, where he treated his intended son-in-law with great kindness. Henry remembered the Duke with affection, and addressed some of his quaint little letters to him, always expressing gratitude for his kindness. "My Lord," he wrote in 1628, "I could not let pass this opportunity to salute you by my Lord Ambassador, for whose departure, being somewhat sorrowful, I will comfort myself in this, that he may help me in expressing to you how much I am your most affectionate friend.—Frederick Henry."[[23]] But ere the year was out the Duke had fallen under the assassin's knife, and the little Prince did not long survive him.
The Stadtholder Maurice had died in 1625, bequeathing to Elizabeth, amongst other things, a share in a Dutch Company which had raised a fleet intended to intercept Spanish galleons coming, laden with gold, from Mexico. In January 1629 this fleet returned triumphant to the Zuyder Zee. To Amsterdam went Frederick, accompanied by his eldest son, now fifteen, to claim Elizabeth's share of the spoil. "For more frugality"[[24]] the poverty-stricken King and Prince travelled by the ordinary packet-boat, They reached Amsterdam in safety, but on the return journey, the packet-boat was run down by a heavy Dutch vessel, and sank with all on board. Frederick was rescued by the exertions of the skipper, but young Henry perished, and his piteous cry, "Save me, Father!" rang in the ears of the unhappy Frederick to his dying day.[[25]]
Miseries accumulated steadily. The poverty of the exiles increased as rapidly as did their family, and at last they could scarcely get bread to eat. The account of their debts so moved Charles I that he pawned his own jewels in order to pay them, after which, the King and Queen retired to a villa at Rhenen, near Utrecht, where they hoped to live economically. There Elizabeth was, to a great extent, deprived of the society which she loved; but she found consolation in hunting, a sport to which she was devoted. Sometimes she permitted her sons to join her, and on one such occasion a comical adventure befell young Rupert. A fox had been run to earth, and "a dog, which the Prince loved," followed it. The dog did not reappear, and Rupert, growing anxious, crept down the hole after it. But, though he managed to catch the dog by the leg, he found the hole so narrow that he could extricate neither his favourite nor himself. Happily he was discovered in this critical position by his tutor, who, seizing him by the heels, drew out Prince, dog, and fox, each holding on to the other.[[26]]
To Frederick the sojourn at Rhenen was very agreeable. Failing health increased his natural irritability, and he ungratefully detested the democratic Hollanders. "Of all canaille, deliver me from the canaille of the Hague!"[[27]] he said. "It is a misery to live amongst such a people."[[28]] At last, in 1630, a ray of hope dawned upon him. Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, resolved to assist the Protestants of Germany, and, encouraged by France, launched himself into the Empire. In 1631 he gained the battle of Leipzig, and success followed success, until the Lower Palatinate was in the Swedish hero's hands. Then Frederick, provided, by the Stadtholder, with £5,000, set out to join Gustavus, but ere his departure, paid a farewell visit to Leyden. There he attended a public examination of the University Students, in which Charles and Rupert won much distinction. The visit was his last. By November 1632 his troubles were over, and the weary, anxious, disappointed king lay dead at Mainz, in the thirty-sixth year of his age. The immediate cause of his death was a fever contracted in the summer campaign; but it was said that his heart had been broken by the death of his eldest son, and that all through his illness he declared that he heard the boy calling him. The death of Gustavus Adolphus in the same month checked the victorious progress of the Swedish army, and, consequently, the hopes of the Palatines. Frederick had been loved by his sons, and his loss was keenly felt by those of them who were old enough to understand it. The misfortune was, however, beyond the comprehension of the five-year-old Philip, who evidently had learnt to regard military defeat as the only serious disaster. "But is the battle then lost, because the king is dead?" he demanded, gazing in astonishment at Rupert's passionate tears.[[29]] More than a battle had been lost, and forlornly pathetic was the letter indicted by the elder boys to their uncle, King Charles:
"We commit ourselves and the protection of our rights into your gracious arms, humbly beseeching your Majesty so to look upon us as upon those who have neither friends, nor fortune, nor greater honour in this world, than belongs to your Royal blood. Unless you please to maintain that in us God knoweth what may become of your Majesty's nephews.
"CHARLES.
"RUPERT. "MAURICE.
"EDWARD."[[30]]
Hard, in truth, was the position of Elizabeth, left to struggle as she might for her large and impecunious family. She had lost, besides Henry, two children who had died in infancy. There remained ten, six sons and four daughters, the eldest scarcely sixteen, and all wholly dependent on the generosity of their friends and relations. The States of Holland at once granted to the Queen the same yearly sum which they had allowed to her husband, and while her brother, Charles I, prospered, and the Stadtholder Henry still lived, she did not suffer the depths of poverty to which she afterwards sank. Yet money was, as her son Charles put it, "very hard to come by";[[31]] they were always in debt, and it is recorded by another son, that their house was "greatly vexed by rats and mice, but more by creditors."[[32]]
Happily for herself, Elizabeth was possessed of two things of which no misfortune could deprive her, namely, a buoyant nature and a perfect constitution. "For, though I have cause enough to be sad, I am still of my wild humour to be merry in spite of fortune," she once wrote to her faithful friend, Sir Thomas Roe.[[33]] And her children inherited her high spirits. "I was then of so gay a disposition that everything amused me," wrote Sophie; "our family misfortunes had no power to depress my spirits, though we were, at times, obliged to make even richer repasts than that of Cleopatra, and often had nothing at our Court but pearls and diamonds to eat."[[34]] And as it was with Sophie so it was with the others; despair was unknown to them, and for long it was their favourite game to play that they were travelling back to the lost Palatinate, and had entered a public-house on the way.[[35]] Nor did they less inherit their mother's iron constitution. "Bodily health is an inheritance from our mother which no one can dispute with us," declared Sophie; "the best we ever had from her, of which Rupert has taken a double share."[[36]]