Rupert Prince Palatine Part 27

[22] Warburton, III. p. 335.

[23] Warburton, III. p. 349.

[24] Rupert Transcripts. Captain Fearnes' Relation.

[25] Warburton, III. p. 540.

[26] Harleian MSS. 991.

[27] Warburton, III. p. 340.

[28] Ibid. p. 537, Pitts to --. No date.

[29] Warburton, III. p. 345.

[30] Warburton, III. pp. 346-7.

[31] Thurloe State Papers, II. 405.

[32] Rupert Transcripts. Holmes to Rupert, May 3 and 19, 1653.

[33] Warburton, III. p. 348.

[34] Ibid. p. 349. This letter is supposed by Warburton to be written to Hyde, but it is without address; and the three references of Rupert to Herbert in the letter to the King seem to imply that the accompanying letter was intended for Herbert, and not Hyde.

[35] Warburton, III. p. 541, Feb. 1st 1652.

[36] Ibid. p. 366.

[37] Warburton. III. p. 359.

[38] Domestic State Papers. Commonwealth, 41. fol. 34. 8 Oct. 1653.

Report of Walker.

[39] Warburton, III. p. 360.

[40] Warburton, III. pp. 363-367.

[41] Domestic State Papers. Commonwealth. Vol. XXIV. f. 60. June (?), 1652. c.o.xon's Report.

[42] Warburton, III. p. 370.

[43] Ibid. p. 371.

[44] Ibid. p. 376.

[45] Warburton, III. p. 337.

[46] Warburton, III. p. 382.

[47] Ibid. p. 384.

[48] Ibid. p. 546.

[49] Warburton, III. p. 388.

[50] Rupert Transcripts. Journal, Feb. 26, 1651.

{265}

CHAPTER XV

RUPERT AT PARIS. ILLNESS. QUARREL WITH CHARLES II. FACTIONS AT ST.

GERMAINS. RUPERT GOES TO GERMANY. RECONCILED WITH CHARLES

Rupert's return was eagerly hailed by all parties in the exiled Court of England. Wrote the King:

"My Dearest Cousin,

"I am so surprised with joy in the a.s.surance of your safe arrival in these parts that I cannot tell you how great it is; nor can I consider any misfortunes or accidents which have happened, now I know that your person is in safety. If I could receive the like comfort in a reasonable hope of your brother's, I need not tell you how important it would be to my affairs. While my affection makes me impatient to see you I know the same desire will incline you, (after you have done what can only be done by your presence there,) to make what haste to me your health can endure, of which I must conjure you to have such a care as it shall be in no danger."[1]

Hyde expressed himself with almost equal warmth. "For G.o.d's sake, Sir, in the first place look to your health, and then to the safety of what you have there, and lose no minute of coming away. I do not doubt you will find the welcome that will please you with the King, the Queen, and the Duke of York."[2]

And Jermyn added the a.s.surance of his own "infinite joy," and the Queen's constant friends.h.i.+p, concluding with {266} the appropriate prayer: "G.o.d of Heaven keep you in all your dangers, and give you at length some quiet, and the fruits of them."[3]

The King gave proof of his affection by the zeal with which he prepared for his cousin's reception in Paris; an honour apparently disputed with him by Rupert's brother Edward. "The King is very active in preparing a lodging for you," writes one of the Prince's friends. "If I be not deceived he would have liked well to have it left to him, of which the Prince, your brother, as I understand, gives you some account. I will send you more by the next, knowing no more as yet, but that the King hath it in his love for you to have you near him, which certainly is fitter than to have thought of another lodging, without his knowledge."[4]

But, alas! the Rupert who returned was not the Rupert who had sailed away three years before! He had, as Hyde expressed it, "endured strange hardness,"[5] and the "hardness" had left its mark upon him.

He came back from his long voyage a changed and broken-hearted man.

"His Highness's fire was pretty much decayed, and his judgment ripened," says Campbell; but the change went deeper than that. The Prince had failed in his undertaking; he had lost the greater part of his hard-won treasure, his s.h.i.+ps, his men, above all his best-loved brother--and these losses had carried with them a part of his old self.

The high spirits and buoyant hopefulness of earlier days were gone for ever. Gone too was something of the youthful generosity; Rupert was embittered now, harder, colder, more sardonic; a man, said Colbert, "with a natural inclination to believe evil!"[6]

His health too, that best inheritance from his mother, had been ruined by bad climates and insufficient food. On {267} his arrival at Nantes he fell dangerously ill, nor was he ever again wholly free from suffering. His illness created no small consternation among the Royalists, and much sympathy was poured out upon him. "Think of your health," urged one friend, "and if you dare venture on your old apothecary you may, from whom you will receive some drugs, well meant, if not well prepared."[7] This tempting offer was probably declined.

The Palatines had ideas of their own upon the subject of medicine, a profound distrust of doctors, and a very reasonable aversion to the then universal practice of bleeding. "Pray G.o.d she fall not into the Frenchified physician's hands, and so let blood and die!"[8] Rupert wrote of a fair friend, at a later date, On the present occasion he recovered from his illness, with or without the aid of physicians, and in April hastened to join his cousin, King Charles.

At Paris he met with as warm a reception as he could have desired. Not only the English exiles, but the French Court also hastened to do him honour. The Queen Regent and Mazarin had always been his good friends, and now his strange adventures had fired the imagination of the young King Louis, who "complimented him in an extraordinary manner."[9]

Indeed Rupert, with his romantic history, his striking personality, gigantic stature, and supposed magical powers,[10] not to mention his accredited wealth, his monkeys and "blackamours," made a considerable sensation in the excitable world of Paris. Many were the anonymous letters addressed to him by fair hands; but for some time his bad health and his sorrowful heart made him indifferent to the adulation bestowed on him. "Prince Rupert goes little abroad in France, and is very sad that {268} he can hear nothing of his brother Maurice,"[11]

was the report made by Cromwell's spies. And wrote Hyde, April 25, 1653: "Prince Rupert is not yet well enough to venture to go abroad, and therefore hath not visited the French Court, but I hope he will within a day or two. Of Prince Maurice we hear not one word."[12]

But as his health improved, Rupert relaxed his austerity and joined his Stuart cousins in their amus.e.m.e.nts. He was often to be seen in the hall of the Palais Royal, playing at billiards with the King and the Duke of York,[13] and sometimes he swam with them in the Seine. On one such occasion he was very nearly drowned; he was seized with cramp, and had already gone under water, when one of his train rescued him by the hair of his head. "The River Seine had like to have made an end of your black Prince Rupert," wrote one of the Puritan spies who watched all his actions, "for, some days since, he would needs cool himself in the river, where he was in danger of drowning, but, by the help of one of his blackmores, escaped."[14]

The same spy related another adventure which, if true, ill.u.s.trates the singularly lawless state of Paris, and also suggests that Rupert was not quite indifferent to the overtures of the ladies who courted him.

As he returned from hunting, one Sunday, accompanied only by Holmes, he was overtaken by two gentlemen, riding in great haste towards Paris.