Rupert, Prince Palatine

by Eva Scott

The King had just returned from church, and sat down to dinner, when Rupert, Maurice, Gerard, Willys and some other officers entered the room. Rupert "came in discontentedly, with his hands at his sides, and approached very near the King." Charles thereupon ordered the dinner to be taken away, and, rising, walked to a corner of the room. Rupert, Gerard and Willys followed him. Willys spoke first, asking, respectfully enough, to be told the names of his accusers. Rupert broke in impatiently: "By God! This is done in malice to me, because Sir Richard hath always been my faithful friend!" Gerard then launched into a protest on his own account, and Rupert again interrupted, saying: "The cause of all this is Digby!"—"I am but a child! Digby can do what he will with me," retorted the King bitterly.—A long and violent altercation followed. Rupert referred to Bristol, and the King sighed, "O nephew!" and then stopped short. Whereupon Rupert cried, for the third time: "Digby is the man that hath caused all this distraction between us!" But the King could endure no more: "They are all rogues and rascals that say so!" he answered sharply, "and in effect traitors that seek to dishonour my best subjects!" There was no more to be said; Gerard bowed and went out. Rupert "showed no reverence, but went out proudly, his hands at his sides."[[50]]

That evening the Princes and their party sent in a petition to the effect that: "Many of us trusted in high commands in Your Majesty's service, have not only our commissions taken away without any cause or reason expressed, whereby our honours are blemished to the world, our fortunes ruined, and we rendered incapable of command from any foreign prince,—but many others, as we have cause to fear, are designed to suffer in like manner."[[51]] They repeated their demand for trials by court-martial, and desired that, if this were refused, they might have passes to go over seas. The King answered that he would not make a court-martial the judge of his actions, and sent the passes. Next morning about ten o'clock, the two princes and Lord Gerard came privately to the bed-chamber to take their leave. Gerard "expressed some sense of folly,"[[52]] but the Princes offered no apology, and, with about two hundred officers, they rode off to Belvoir, "the King looking out of a window, and weeping to see them go."[[53]]

As an instance of the way in which stories are exaggerated, Pepys's account of the affair, written some twenty years after, is instructive: "The great officers of the King's army mutinied and came, in that manner, with swords drawn, into the market-place of the town where the King was. Whereupon the King says, 'I must horse,' and there himself personally; when every one expected they should be opposed, the King came, and cried to the head of the mutineers, which was Prince Rupert,—'Nephew, I command you to be gone!' So the Prince, in all his fury and discontent, withdrew; and his company scattered."[[54]]

This was the climax of the long-continued strife between the military and civilian parties; the civilians had triumphed, and the princes now resolved to leave the country. In great indignation, a large number of officers prepared to follow them. "This is an excellent reward for Rupert and Maurice!" declared Gerard wrathfully.[[55]] Rupert himself wrote to Legge: "Dear Will, I hope Goodwin has told you what reasons I had to quit His Majesty's service. I have sent Osborne to London for a pass to go beyond seas; when I have an answer you shall know more. Pray tell Sir Charles Lucas that I would have written to him before this, and to George Lisle, but I was kept close here.... If I can but get permission, I shall hope to see you and the rest of my friends once more; and in particular to bid farewell to my Lord Portland. I forgot to tell you that Lord Digby is beaten back again to Shipton. Alas, poor man!"[[56]]

Osborne, whom Rupert had sent to London to obtain from the Parliament a pass and safe convoy to a sea-port, found his mission greatly facilitated by Digby's new defeat, and the consequent capture of his papers. It was characteristic of the Secretary, that, though his love-letters were carefully preserved in cipher, all those of political importance were written in plain language. Among these papers was found a copy of the King's answer to Rupert's advice to treat, and the Parliament was moved thereby in Rupert's favour. A pass was granted, but on condition of a promise given never again to bear arms against the Parliament. This promise the Princes would not give; and, as they could not possibly leave the country without the Parliament's good will, they fought their way back to Woodstock.

A few weeks later Charles returned to Oxford, and at once released Legge from his confinement. Rupert was still at Woodstock, and his faithful friend lost no time in attempting to mediate between him and the King. "My most dear Prince," he wrote, November 21st, "the liberty I have got is but of little contentment when divided from you..., I have not hitherto lost a day without moving His Majesty to recall you; and truly, this very day, he protested to me he would count it a great happiness to have you with him, so he received the satisfaction he is bound in honour to have. What that is you will receive from the Duke of Richmond. The King says, as he is your Uncle, he is in the nature of a parent to you, and swears that if Prince Charles had done as you did he would never see him again, without the same he desires from you.... you must thank the Duchess of Richmond, for she furnished a present to procure this messenger—I being not so happy as to have any money myself."[[57]] And four days later, he wrote again: "I am of opinion you should write to your Uncle—you ought to do it—; and if you offered your service to him yet, and submitted yourself to his disposing and advice, many of your friends think it could not be a dishonour, but rather the contrary, seeing he is a King, your Uncle, and, in effect, a parent to you."[[58]]

But Rupert sulked, like Achilles in his tent, and his other friends took up the protest. "This night I was with the King, who expresses great kindness to you, but beleevs y^r partinge was so much the contrary as Y^r Highnes cannot but think it finill," wrote an anonymous correspondent, "Now truly, Sir, His Majesty conceiving it soe, in my opinion, 'tis ffitt you should make sume hansume applycation, for this reason; because my Lord Duke and others here, are much your servants, and all that are so wish your return to courte, though it be but to part frindlye. But I think it necessary you should prepare the way first by letters to the Kinge. Sir, I have no designes in this but your service, and if you understand me rightlye, that will prevayle so far as you will consider what I saye before you resolve the contrarye. I knowe there be sum that are your enemies, but they are such as may barcke, but I am confident are not able to fight against you appeare. Therefore, Sir, I beseech you, do not contrybute to the satisfaction of your foes, and the ruyne of your friends, by neglecting anything in your power to make peace with fortune. If after all your attempts to be rightlye understood you shall fayle of that, yet you cannot waynt honor for the action. 'Tis your Uncle you shall submit to, and a King, not in the condition he meryt! What others may saye I knowe not, but really, soe may I speak my opinion as a person that valews you above all the world besydes. I am confident you know how faithfully my harte is to your Highness!"[[59]] Also from Lord Dorset came a pathetic appeal: "If my prayers can prevail, you shall not have the heart to leave us all in our saddest times. If my advice were worthy of following, surely you should not abandon your Uncle in the disastrous condition these evil storms have placed him in."[[60]]

These exhortations and entreaties at length prevailed; the Prince suffered his natural generosity to overcome his pride, and was induced to write the required apology: "I humbly acknowledge that great error, which I find your Majesty justly sensible of, which happened upon occasion at Newark."[[61]] Several letters passed, and Charles then sent his nephew, "by Colonel Legge, a paper to confess a fault." Rupert returned a blank sheet with his signature subscribed, to signify his perfect submission to his Uncle's will: "the King, with tears in his eyes, took that so well that all was at peace.... The Prince went to Oxford, and the King embraced him, and repented much the ill-usage of his nephew." To this account of the reconciliation, is appended the marginal note, "ask the Duchess of Richmond," but the information that she was able to supply was never filled in.[[62]]

Rupert was now restored to the favour and the counsels of his Uncle, but not to military command. The war was practically over, and though the King would have had his nephew raise a new life-guard, the Oxford Council quashed the design. Then Charles confided to Rupert his intention of taking refuge with the Scottish army. The Prince distrusted the Scots, and strongly combated the idea; but, finding that he could not move the King's resolution, he obtained from him a signed statement that he acted against his nephew's advice. For one mistake, at least, the Prince would not be held responsible. April 27th, 1646, the King left Oxford secretly, rejecting Rupert's companionship on the grounds that his "tallness" would betray him.[[63]]

Oxford was now almost the last town holding out; on the first of May, Fairfax sat down before it, and the end was not long in coming. A little skirmishing took place, but the Royalists had no real hope of success. On one occasion Rupert, Maurice and Gerard went out against the Scots, with "about twenty horse, in stockings and shoes." In mere bravado, they charged three troops of the enemy, and Maurice's page, Robert Holmes, of whom we shall hear more hereafter, was wounded. Rupert also was hurt, for the first time in the war; "a lieutenant of the enemy shot the Prince in the shoulder, and shook his hand, so that his pistol fell out of his hand; but it shot his enemy's horse."[[64]]