Rupert Prince Palatine Part 31

{293}

CHAPTER XVII

RUPERT'S RETURN TO ENGLAND, 1660. VISIT TO VIENNA. LETTERS TO LEGGE

Charles II, so often accused of ingrat.i.tude, did not prove forgetful of the cousin who had endured so much in his service. No sooner had the Restoration established him in his kingdom, than he summoned Rupert to share in his prosperity, as he had formerly shared his ill-fortune.

The summons found Rupert with the Emperor, and suffering from an attack of the fever, which had clung about him ever since his return from the West Indies.

"Your friend Rupert has not been well since he came into his quarters,"

wrote the Queen, his mother, to Sir Marmaduke Langdale. "He had like to have a fever, but he writes to me that it left him, onlie he was a little weak. As soon as he can he will be in England, where I wish myself, for this place is verie dull now, there is verie little company."[1] Her position at the Hague was, in truth, a sad and lonely one, but she was still able to write in her old merry style, rejoicing greatly in a mistake made by Sir Marmaduke, who had inadvertently sent to her a letter intended for his stewards, and to the stewards a letter intended for the Queen. "If I had you here, I would jeer you to some tune for it!" she said; and so, no doubt, she would have done. But in her next letter she confessed that she had herself "committed the like mistake manie times," and added more news of Rupert, who had gone away for change of air.[2] In a third letter she expressed {294} satisfaction at the King's affection for Rupert, who was then at Brandenburg with his sister Elizabeth.[3] Before coming to England, the Prince also visited his youngest sister at Osnabruck, and it was late in September when he arrived in London.

His coming had been for some time anxiously expected, though he was evidently regarded as still in the Emperor's service. "For amba.s.sadors," it was said, "we look for Don Luis de Haro's brother from Spain, with 300 followers; Prince Rupert, with a great train from the Emperor; and the Duc d'Epernon from France, with no less State."[4]

Rupert came, however, in a strictly private capacity; and September 29th, 1660, Pepys recorded in his diary: "Prince Rupert is come to Court, welcome to n.o.body!"[5] How the Prince had, thus early, incurred the diarist's enmity is puzzling; later, the causes of it are perfectly understandable.

But though unwelcome to Pepys, Rupert was very welcome to many people, and not least so to the Royal family, who received him as one of themselves. In November the Royal party was augmented by the arrival of Queen Henrietta; her youngest daughter, Henrietta Anne; and the Palatine, Edward, from France. The young Princess Henrietta was already betrothed to the French King's brother, Philippe of Orleans; and Rupert, who had a just contempt for the character of the intended bridegroom, vehemently opposed the conclusion of the match. He could, he declared, arrange the marriage of his young cousin with the Emperor, who would be at once a greater match and a better husband.[6] But both the Queen mother and Charles were anxious for the French alliance, and the marriage took place notwithstanding Rupert's opposition. When, after ten years of unhappiness, the poor young d.u.c.h.ess died a tragic {295} death, Rupert was in a position to say "I told you so," and he always maintained that her husband had poisoned her. "There are three persons at court say it is true," wrote the French Minister, Colbert: "Prince Rupert, because he has a natural inclination to believe evil; the Duke of Buckingham, because he courts popularity; and Sir John Trevor, because he is Dutch at heart, and consequently hates the French."[7]

On New Year's Day, 1661, Anne Hyde, the clandestine bride of James of York, was formally received at court. Rupert and Edward dined with the rest of the Royal family, in public; and on this occasion there was a most unseemly contest between the Roman chaplain of the Queen mother, and the Anglican chaplain of Charles II, for the honour of saying grace. In struggling through the crowd a.s.sembled to see the King dine, the Anglican priest fell down, and the Roman gained the table first and said grace. His victory was greeted by the disorderly courtiers with shouts of laughter. "The King's chaplain and the Queen's priest ran a race to say grace," they declared, "and the chaplain was floored, and the priest won."[8]

Rupert, soon after his arrival in England, had resigned his t.i.tle of President of Wales and the Marches, granted him by Charles I, on the grounds that he would hold only of the reigning King.[9] He had, however, found himself so cordially received, and so generally popular, that he resolved to accept Charles's invitation to remain permanently in England. "Prince Rupert," says a letter in the Sutherland MSS., dated March 1661, "is the only favourite of the King, insomuch that he has given him 30,000 or 40,000 per annum, out of his own revenue, for his present maintenance; and is resolved to make him Lieutenant {296} General of all Wales, and President of the Marches. Meantime he is preparing to go to Germany to take leave of that court and to resign his military charge there, and so return to England. I am told that the King went into the Palatinate with an intent to have procured some money of the Palsgrave, which was refused. Prince Rupert, being then there, seeing the unworthiness of his brother in this particular, made use of all the friends he had, and procured his Majesty a considerable sum of money, which was an act of so much love and civility as his Majesty was very sensible of then, and now he will requite him for it."[10] But Charles's intentions towards Rupert, though doubtless good, were far less magnificent than here represented. The claims on his justice and bounty were far too numerous, and his means far too small, to permit of his rewarding anyone so lavishly.

Rupert was still in high favour at the Austrian court, and the "temptations to belong to other nations" were real ones; but he preferred England and the Stuarts to any of the allurements held out to him by France or Germany, and therefore resolved to "remain an Englishman." In accordance with this decision, he set forth for Vienna in April 1661, partly to wind up his affairs there and to take leave of the Emperor, and partly to transact business on behalf of Charles II.

His absence from England lasted nine months, and his doings and movements during that period are chronicled in letters addressed to his "Dear Will." The old friends.h.i.+p of the Prince and the honest Colonel had not cooled, though tried by time and long years of separation; and, on his departure, Rupert appointed Legge his "sufficient and lawful attorney, to act, manage, perform and do all, and all manner of things"

in his behalf.[11]

The greater part of his letters to Legge are printed in {297} Warburton, but with some omissions and inaccuracies. They are also to be found, in their original spelling, in the Report of the Historical MSS. Commission on Lord Dartmouth's Ma.n.u.scripts; but they are, in their frank, familiar, somewhat sardonic style, so characteristic of the Prince as to merit quotation here.[12]

The first letters are dated from the Hague, whither he had gone to visit his solitary mother. "I found the poor woman very much dejected," he informed his friend. And after mentioning disquieting rumours of war, he concluded, with evident triumph:--

"I almost forgott to tell you a nother story which be plesed to acquainted (sic) the Duke of Albemarle with. You have doubtlesse scene a lame Polish Prince, some time at Whitehall with pa.s.se ports a beggin.

This n.o.ble soule is tacken and in prisoned at Alikmare; hath bin b.u.t.t twice burnt in the bake befor this misfortune befell him. The Duke I am sure will remember him, and what my jugement was of the fellow.

"I am your most faithful friend for ever, "Rupert."

Europe was at that time swarming with impostors, who impersonated all imaginable persons of distinction. Only a few months earlier a "Serene Prince" had been visiting the Elector, who wrote of him much as Rupert might have done. "His Highness was graciously pleased to accept from me three ducats for his journey, besides the defraying. I doubt not but he and the counterfeit Ormonde and Ossory will come to one and the same end one day."[13]

In the beginning of May Rupert had reached Cleves, where he found the little Prince of Orange. Rumours of war met him on all sides; both Swedes and Turks were arming against the Emperor, and the Dutch declared loudly {298} that they would defend their herring fisheries against England, with the sword. "I told some that b.u.t.ter and cheese would do better," wrote the Prince; little thinking what stout antagonists he was to find those despised Hollanders at sea. He was anxious to recommend to Charles' service an engineer, "the ablest man in his profession that ever I saw... If the fortification of Portchmouth go on, I wish his advice may be taken, for noen fortifies so well, and cheap, and fast as he. He has a way of working which noen has so good. Pray neglect not this man, and tell Sir Robert Murray of him, with my remembrances; also that I met with camphor wood, which smells of it, also with a distilled pure raine water which dissolved gold."

After a short visit to his friend, the Elector of Mainz, who, he said, "a.s.sured me to be a.s.sisting in all things," Rupert reached Vienna.

There he was very cordially received by the Emperor, though the Spanish Amba.s.sador, for political reasons, saw fit to ignore his arrival. The Austrians were still loth to let him leave them; and on June 22, he wrote to Legge: "A friend of mine, att my coming, a.s.sured me that there were but twoe difficulties whiche hindred my advancement to the Generalls.h.i.+p of the Horse. The one was my being no Roman, the other that the Marquess of Baden and Generall Feldzeugmeister de Sanch might take ill if I was advanced before them. And he thought both these small impediments might easily be overcome, but especially the first, on whiche, he a.s.sured me, most ded depend." He had not yet forgotten his role of Protestant martyr! To this letter he added, as usual, a hurried and incoherent postcript.

"I almost forgott to tell you how that Comte Lesley's cousin, (I forgott his name, but I remember that his sister was married to St.

Michel,) this man ded me the favor to send over a booke to Comte Lesley, ent.i.tled 'The Iron Age,' in whiche it speekes most base languiage of me and my actions in England. It is dedicated to Jake Russell, {299} but I am confident if honest Jake had reade the booke, he would have broke the translator's head.... One Harris translated it; pray inquire after the booke, and juge if it were not a Scotch tricke to sende it... Moutray is the name I forgott."

By July the Spanish Amba.s.sador had deigned to visit the Prince, and to reveal the true cause of his long delay--namely, the rumours of Charles II's approaching marriage with the Infanta of Portugal, which was likely to produce a war with Spain. For this same reason, joined with their resentment at Rupert's refusal of the Generals.h.i.+p of the horse, the Austrian Ministers also treated him with coldness, though the personal kindness of the Imperial family was never abated. "In the meantime be pleased to knowe that Rupert is but coldly used by the Ministers here," wrote the Prince; "they would have him demand the Generalls.h.i.+p before there is an appearance of subsistence,--nay, before what is oweing in arreare, by the Peace of Munster, be made sure unto him; to whiche Rupert doth no waies incline, especialy since he had the intimation given him that his religion was an obstacle to his advancement in the warr. The Emperor, Emperatrice and Archduc are extreamly kind to Rupert; but noen of the Counsellors have done him the honor of a visit. The reason is, I believe, the marriage aforesaid...

For G.o.d's sake, if there be any likelihood of a breach with Spaine, lett us knowe it by times; it concerns us, Ile a.s.sure you."

In August matters were much in the same condition, and Rupert was still struggling for the arrears of the debt due to him. "Monys is comodity in greate request in this court, and scarce enough!" he confessed.

Notwithstanding his refusal to enter the Austrian service, he identified himself with the Empire sufficiently to write of "our commander," when referring to the war then waged by the Emperor against the Turks. In the next month the Elector had played him "a brotherly trick," and the letter which {300} he wrote to Will was as full of fury, as any he had indited during the Civil War.

"Dear Will,

"I am not able to writt you of any subject but of one, which, I confesse, doth troble me in the highest degre, and dothe concerne our master as well as myself. The stori is this. The Elector Pallatin hath bin plesed to writt to a Prive Consellor of this Court, in these terms--what the King of England's amba.s.sador doth negotiate with the Porte Elector Pallatin knowes not, nor what is intended by him against the house of Austria, but Prince Rupert, whoe is intimate with Kinge of England and his Prive Consellor, can tell, if he plese.--All this is a brotherly tricke you'l saye; but I thancke G.o.de they heere doe little beleeve what he saies... By Heven I am in suche a humour that I dare not writt to any; therefore excuse me to alle, for not writting this post... Faire well, deare Will!"

Five days later Rupert had recovered himself, and could write in his ordinary sarcastic fas.h.i.+on: "By the last I writt you the kinde usage of my brother the Elector to me, as alsoe the good office he ded the Kinge in this Court. I thanke G.o.de he hath not realised his barbaros intentions!" But the letter was broken off abruptly, because the Emperor was waiting for Rupert's hounds to hunt a stag. By the next post the Prince had to lament the loss of one of these hounds, and his keen regret shows plainly that his love for dogs was as strong as ever.

"I am glad that Holmes hath given the King satisfaction.... Pray give him thankes for remembering his ould master. Pray remember my service to the General (Monk); tell him I am glad to heere of his recouvrey, it was before I knew he had been sicke. If my Lord Lindsay be at court, the same to him, with the doleful news that poore Rayall att this instant is dying, after having ben the cause of the {301} death of many a stagge. By Heven, I would rather loose the best horse in my stable."

Rupert was now preparing to return to England, and was very busy purchasing wines for the use of the English Court. A considerable quant.i.ty, presented to him by the Elector of Mainz, he had already forwarded to Legge, to dispose of as he pleased. By November 22 he had reached Ca.s.sel, whence he wrote to Legge, "I am making all the haste I can to you." But at Ca.s.sel he found his eldest sister, and he remained with her some weeks, not returning to England until the beginning of 1662.

His mother, in the meantime, had obtained her much desired summons to England, and had taken up her abode in a house placed at her disposal by the ever faithful Craven. For a brief period she enjoyed rest and peace, rejoicing in the return to her native land, and in the affection of her Stuart nephews, who, she said, showed her more kindness than any of her own sons had ever done. Eighteen months after her arrival in England, she died, in the arms of the King. Her pictures she bequeathed to Lord Craven, and her papers and jewels to Rupert, thereby establis.h.i.+ng a new cause of contest between her two eldest sons.[14]

For the Elector denied his mother's right to leave the jewels--which were, he declared, heirlooms--to a younger son. Rupert held tenaciously to his possessions, and the dispute raged long and bitterly.

[1] Strickland's Elizabeth Stuart, p. 268.

[2] Ibid. p. 268.

[3] Strickland's Elizabeth Stuart, p. 269.

[4] Hist. MSS. Com. Rept. V. App. I. p. 173. Sutherland MSS., 4 Aug. 1660.

[5] Pepys Diary, Sept. 29th, 1660.

[6] Cartwright. Madame: A Life of Henrietta of Orleans, pp. 70-71.

[7] Cartwright's Madame, p. 359.

[8] Strickland's Henrietta Maria, Queens of England, VIII. p. 232.

From MSS. of Pere Cyprian Gamache.

[9] Hist. MSS. Com. Rept. V. App. I. p. 200. Sutherland MSS. 3 Nov. 1660.

[10] Hist. MSS. Com. Rept. V. App I. p. 170. 2 Mar. 1661.

[11] Collins Peerage, Dartmouth, Vol. IV. p. 107, _pa.s.sim_

[12] See Hist. MSS. Com. Rept. on Dartmouth MSS. Vol. I. pp. 1-9.

[13] Bromley Letters, p. 209, Aug. 11-21, 1660.

[14] Will of Elizabeth of Bohemia. Wills from Doctors Commons, p. 109.