



Produced by Al Haines










[Frontispiece: 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




{v}

PREFACE

It is curious that in these days of historical research so little has
been written about Rupert of the Rhine, a man whose personality was
striking, whose career was full of exciting adventure, and for whose
biography an immense amount of material is available.

His name is known to most people in connection with the English Civil
War, many have met with him in the pages of fiction, some imagine him
to have been the inventor of mezzotint engraving, and a few know that
he was Admiral of England under Charles II.  But very few indeed could
tell who he was, and where and how he lived, before and after the Civil
War.

The present work is an attempt to sketch the character and career of
this remarkable man; the history of the Civil War, except so far as it
concerns the Prince, forming no part of its scope.  Nevertheless, the
study of Prince Rupert's personal career throws valuable side-lights on
the history of the war, and especially upon the internal dissensions
which tore the Royalist party to pieces and were a principal cause of
its ultimate collapse.  From Rupert's adventures and correspondence we
also learn much concerning the life of the exiled Stuarts during the
years of the Commonwealth; while his post-Restoration history is
closely connected with the Naval Affairs of England.

The number of manuscripts and other documents which bear record of
Rupert's life is enormous.  Chief amongst them are the Domestic State
Papers, preserved in the Public Record Office; the Clarendon State
Papers, and the Carte Papers in the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the
Lansdowne Manuscripts in the British Museum, and the Rupert {vi}
Correspondence, which originally comprised some thousands of letters
and other papers collected by the Prince's secretary.  The collection
has now been broken up and sold; but the Transcripts of Mr. Firth of
Balliol College, Oxford, were made before the collection was divided,
and comprise the whole mass of correspondence.  For the loan of these
Transcripts, and for much valuable advice I am deeply indebted to Mr.
Firth.  I also wish to acknowledge the kind assistance of Mr. Hassall
of Christchurch, Oxford.

Some of the Rupert Papers were published by Warburton, fifty years ago,
in a work now necessarily somewhat out of date.  But there is printed
entire the log kept in the Prince's own ship, 1650-1653, which is here
quoted in chapters 13 and 14; also in Warburton are to be found the
letters addressed by the Prince to Colonel William Legge, 1644-1645.

The Bromley Letters, published 1787, relate chiefly to Rupert's early
life, and to the years of exile, 1650-1660.  The Carte Papers are
invaluable for the history of the Civil War, and of Rupert's
transactions with the fleet, 1648-50; and in the Thurloe and Clarendon
State Papers much is to be found relating to the wanderings of Rupert
and the Stuarts on the Continent.

With regard to the Prince's family relations, German authorities are
fullest and best.  Chief among these are the letters of the Elector
Charles Louis, and the letters and memoirs of Sophie, Electress of
Hanover, all published from the Preussischen Staats-Archieven; also the
letters of the Elector's daughter, the Duchess of Orleans, published
from the same source.  Besides these, Hauesser's "Geschichte der
Rheinischen Pfalz", and Reiger's "Ausgeloschte Simmerischen Linie" are
very useful.

Mention of the Prince is also found in the mass of Civil War Pamphlets
preserved in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library, and in
contemporary memoirs, letters and diaries, on the description of which
there is not space to enter here.




CONTENTS

                                                                 Page

CHAPTER      I.  THE PALATINE FAMILY ..............   1

   "        II.  RUPERT'S EARLY CAMPAIGNS.  FIRST VISIT TO
                   ENGLAND.  MADEMOISELLE DE ROHAN ....... 