Le Prince Rupert.
Duc de Baviere et Cumberland.
From the portrait by Honthorst in the Louvre Paris.
RUPERT
PRINCE PALATINE
BY
EVA SCOTT
Late Scholar of Somerville College
Oxford
WESTMINSTER
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & Co.
NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
1900
SECOND EDITION
PREFACE
It is curious that in these days of historical research solittle has been written about Rupert of the Rhine, a manwhose personality was striking, whose career was full ofexciting adventure, and for whose biography an immenseamount of material is available.
His name is known to most people in connection withthe English Civil War, many have met with him in thepages of fiction, some imagine him to have been the inventorof mezzotint engraving, and a few know that he wasAdmiral of England under Charles II. But very few indeedcould tell who he was, and where and how he lived, beforeand after the Civil War.
The present work is an attempt to sketch the characterand career of this remarkable man; the history of theCivil War, except so far as it concerns the Prince, formingno part of its scope. Nevertheless, the study of PrinceRupert's personal career throws valuable side-lights on thehistory of the war, and especially upon the internaldissensions which tore the Royalist party to pieces and werea principal cause of its ultimate collapse. From Rupert'sadventures and correspondence we also learn muchconcerning the life of the exiled Stuarts during the years ofthe Commonwealth; while his post-Restoration history isclosely connected with the Naval Affairs of England.
The number of manuscripts and other documents whichbear record of Rupert's life is enormous. Chief amongstthem are the Domestic State Papers, preserved in thePublic Record Office; the Clarendon State Papers, and theCarte Papers in the Bodleian Library, Oxford; theLansdowne Manuscripts in the British Museum, and the Rupert{vi}Correspondence, which originally comprised some thousandsof letters and other papers collected by the Prince's secretary.The collection has now been broken up and sold; but theTranscripts of Mr. Firth of Balliol College, Oxford, weremade before the collection was divided, and comprise thewhole mass of correspondence. For the loan of theseTranscripts, and for much valuable advice I am deeplyindebted to Mr. Firth. I also wish to acknowledge the kindassistance of Mr. Hassall of Christchurch, Oxford.
Some of the Rupert Papers were published by Warburton,fifty years ago, in a work now necessarily somewhatout of date. But there is printed entire the log kept inthe Prince's own ship, 1650-1653, which is here quotedin chapters 13 and 14; also in Warburton are to be foundthe letters addressed by the Prince to Colonel WilliamLegge, 1644-1645.
The Bromley Letters, published 1787, relate chiefly toRupert's early life, and to the years of exile, 1650-1660.The Carte Papers are invaluable for the history of theCivil War, and of Rupert's transactions with the fleet,1648-50; and in the Thurloe and Clarendon State Papersmuch is to be found relating to the wanderings of Rupertand the Stuarts on the Continent.
With regard to the Prince's family