RUPERT, Prince Palatine of the Rhine (1619-82)

A controversial commander in the Civil War, Prince Rupert was not quite the romantic cavalier hero of post-Restoration mythology. On the one hand he was detested by the parliamentarians as a barbarous and callous enemy who had degenerated into little more than a pirate; on the other, his arrogance and lack of respect for the royalist nobility meant that he was disliked and distrusted by senior members of Charles I’s court. Relations with his own family were quite as tempestuous with the notable exception of his brother, Prince Maurice, whose loss at sea affected Rupert profoundly. After the Restoration, aside from his naval career, Rupert’s principal contribution was as a pioneer in overseas commercial ventures and as a scientific innovator. This was true both in the field of ordnance and by virtue of his role as a promoter of the mezzotint method of engraving artworks.

Civil War and Interregnum

There is no evidence to suggest that Rupert, who was naturalized early in 1642 and created duke of Cumberland in 1644, ever received a writ to sit in the Oxford Parliament, although it is entirely possible that he did so. HMC Hastings, ii. 118. His principal engagement during the Civil War was, of course, as a military commander. Here his intemperate character was often as much of a liability as a benefit to his uncle’s cause. Samuel Pepys^‡ later recounted a conversation in which Rupert was described as ‘the boldest attacker in the world for personal courage; and yet in the defending of Bristol, no man did ever anything worse’: he being too hot-headed to be able to cope with the slow pace of a siege. Pepys Diary, v. 169-70. He was on such bad terms with George Digby, the future 2nd earl of Bristol, that only the intervention of the queen prevented a duel between them in 1647. He also quarrelled openly with John Colepeper, Baron Colepeper, at the council table. Ormonde’s Pprs. comp. T. Carte (1739), i. 150-6, 191-2. John Maitland, then 2nd earl (later duke) of Lauderdale [S], and earl of Guildford, objected to Rupert taking part in the proposed expedition to Scotland in 1648. When he was sent to Ireland during the winter of 1648-9 to assist James Butler, marquess (later duke) of Ormond [I], there were very real fears that Rupert would be unable to sustain a working relationship with Ormond and that the king’s service would suffer as a result. He was involved in the intrigues that characterized the exiled royal court, and was perceived as an ally of the lord keeper, Edward Herbert^‡ (by whom he was said to be ‘totally governed’) and of Charles Gerard, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield). He was thus an enemy to Edward Hyde, later earl of Clarendon, though when Hyde was under attack in 1654 Herbert and Henry Jermyn, Baron Jermyn (later earl of St. Albans) were ‘much disappointed to find Prince Rupert not of their party’. Hamilton Pprs. (Camden Soc. n.s. xxvii), 219, 245; Warburton, Mems. of Prince Rupert, iii. 277; CCSP, ii. 222, 295, 302, 318.

Ejected from his homeland as a child and from England as a result of the Civil Wars, by 1654 Rupert appears to have given up any hope of a restoration. Having quarrelled with the king, he abandoned Charles II’s court in order to take service in Germany. This was perhaps a decisive period in shaping his views on foreign affairs; unlike his Stuart cousins he was determinedly anti-Catholic and was never dazzled into supporting a pro-French policy. His earlier experience as a prisoner during the Thirty Years War also informed his viewpoint, during which time he had withstood repeated efforts to convert him. Corresp. of Elizabeth Q. of Bohemia ed. N. Akkerman, ii. 726, 736-7, 754-5, 802.

Return to England

Following the Restoration, Rupert delayed returning to England, though he was back in London by the end of September 1660. Virtually penniless but haughty and, according to Grammont, ‘crossgrained and incorrigibly obstinate’, Rupert’s arrival at court, Samuel Pepys remarked, ‘was welcome to nobody.’ Unsurprisingly, a correspondent of Rupert’s mother insisted the opposite was true and that ‘everybody here seems to look very graciously on him’. Grammont, Mems. (1965) 323-4; Pepys Diary, i. 255; Add. 63744, ff. 6-7. Welcome or not, many of the most important and lucrative posts had already been disposed of, and rumours of a marriage to the wealthy dowager countess of Richmond proved to be inaccurate. Despite his high status, Rupert was also made to wait until 1662 for admission to the Privy Council. He was given an annuity of £4,000 a year but even though this was one of the more generous sums granted by the king, it was an extremely modest sum with which to maintain his status as a member of the royal family. It was later increased to £6,000 and his income was supplemented by various other grants as well as his entrepreneurial ventures. CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 305, 355; CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 334; Eg. 3351, ff. 166-7. He took his seat in the House of Lords on the first day after the Convention’s summer adjournment (6 Nov.) and attended 30 sitting days (approximately two thirds of the whole).

Rupert was in Vienna when the new Parliament convened on 8 May 1661. His visit had been authorized by the king as an informal diplomatic mission but was really cover to allow him to pursue his own business in the empire. Kitson, Prince Rupert, 135. At a call of the House on 20 May he was listed as having left a proxy probably with Ormond (then sitting under his English peerage as earl of Brecknock). PH, xxviii. 437. Whilst in Vienna he corresponded with his close associate, William Legge^‡, on the subject of foreign affairs. Amongst other matters he described the Spanish ambassador’s belief that Clarendon (as Hyde had since become) and Ormond had engineered Charles II’s Portuguese match in order to build support for a war against Spain and fears that the English government was encouraging Turkey to invade Germany. Rupert answered the latter by pointing out that the ambassador to the Porte was really the Turkey Company’s representative and that what the Spanish ambassador referred to was not crown policy. He returned to England towards the end of the year and took his place in the House once more on 14 December. He was present on approximately 36 per cent of the remaining sitting days of the session. On 24 Jan. 1662 his name was listed among those included on the committee for drawing up an act for repealing the acts of the Long Parliament. His name was one of those annotated by a ‘+’, though the meaning of this is unclear. HMC Dartmouth, i. 6-7; Bodl. Clarendon 105, f. 178; Beinecke Lib. OSB mss fb 159, no. 16.

Whilst overseas Rupert appears to have been involved (in association with William Craven, earl of Craven, the Palatine family’s long-standing supporter) with facilitating his mother’s return to England. She died a few months later in February 1662 bequeathing him her jewels (estimated to be worth £4,500). Control of her papers clearly set the king and Rupert against each other as Clarendon instructed Sir George Downing^‡ to seek out one van der Heck and send over the documents still in his possession. Clarendon warned that van der Heck would no doubt receive the same demands from Rupert and Craven. Settlement of the late queen’s affairs also precipitated a falling out between Rupert and his brother, the Elector Charles Louis. The feud was still unresolved some years later, when the elector accused Rupert of seeking to dispossess him ‘of his ancient rights and revenues by the aid of his enemies and to snatch something for himself’. CCSP, v. 191, 292, 418, 516, 518.

In April 1662 Rupert joined the Privy Council and its four standing committees – perhaps a sign that his stock at court was rising. His advancement did nothing to help him control his temper. In August his resentment over the conduct of George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, at the races led him to throw Buckingham off a horse. Both men drew their swords and had to be parted by the king himself. TNA, PRO 31/3/110, p. 205. In November he was appointed to the committee for the affairs of Tangier alongside his cousin James Stuart* , duke of York, George Monck, duke of Albemarle, Edward Montagu, earl of Sandwich, and Henry Mordaunt, 2nd earl of Peterborough. In the same year he also became a shareholder and active participant in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal African Company) alongside a motley collection of friends and former enemies including Albemarle, St Albans (as Jermyn had since become) and Sandwich. His experiences in the 1650s were in part the inspiration for the establishment of the company. Callow, Making of King James II, 239-40. He attended nearly half the sitting days in the 1663 session (failing to attend for much of May and June). He was present in early July during Bristol’s attempt to rally Parliament against Clarendon but although one might suspect that he would support the attack there is no information on which to base such a suspicion other than his earlier enmity to Clarendon. He was, after all, no friend of Bristol either. The (somewhat unreliable) list compiled by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, simply indicates that Rupert’s support for the motion was doubtful.

Rupert attended Parliament almost every day during the brief spring session of 1664 but the outbreak of war with the Dutch and his consequent naval duties meant that his attendance during the 1664-5 and 1665 sessions was minimal. Rupert’s involvement in the command of naval affairs was predictable given his previous military experience but his reputation for recklessness nevertheless made it unwelcome to some. In January 1665 when a serious injury to his skull dislodged a plate inserted following an earlier trepanning operation and threatened his life, a somewhat precipitate obituary of this ‘illustrious prince’ remarked that his recent conduct had dissipated ‘those prejudicate opinions that overclouded his fame at his embarking’. In April Rupert was in receipt of instructions from Clarendon concerning diplomatic negotiations with the elector of Mainz. No doubt in such matters Rupert’s personal knowledge of the empire was of particular benefit to the administration. HMC Hastings, ii.146-8; Clarendon 83, ff. 99-100. Later that year, when York narrowly escaped death at the battle of Lowestoft, Rupert and Albemarle were given joint command in his stead.

Rupert’s next significant appearance in the House was during the 1666-7 session. His attendances were all concentrated in the period between 11 Oct. and 15 Dec. 1666 when a variety of issues combined with lack of effective leadership from the court threatened to paralyse the government’s attempts to obtain an effective supply for the continuance of the war. Over the spring and summer of 1666 Rupert and Albemarle had sent a string of letters to the commissioners of ordnance complaining that the navy’s ability to fight effectively was hampered by the lack of money, ships and men. The Rupert and Monck letter book, eds. J. R. Powell and E.R. Timings, 14-15, 27. It is possible that Rupert’s attendance of the Lords was caused by the government’s increasingly desperate attempts to secure adequate finance. Equally his attendance may have been related to his own role in arguments with Albemarle and York over naval policy. He had been involved in a distasteful squabble with Albemarle over the dispute between two naval captains, Sir Robert Holmes^‡ and Sir Jeremy Smith (Rupert backing the former with whom he was closely associated and Albemarle the latter) about tactics after the battle of St James’s day in July. The result was chaos at the head of the admiralty. As Pepys remarked in October, ‘the duke of York and the duke of Albemarle do not agree... The duke of Albemarle and Prince Rupert do less agree. So that we are all in pieces, and nobody knows what will be done the next year.’ Pepys may not have been an impartial witness but he was almost certainly correct in suggesting that the government distrusted Rupert’s abilities. He also claimed that Rupert and Albemarle were allowing exorbitant fees to be charged for the sale of commissions and that they were responsible for the lack of discipline that threatened the fighting capacity of the fleet. Rupert had written in September about the ‘very strange remissness in the fleet as to the strict obeying of orders’ but clearly did not think himself to be responsible. Pepys Diary, vii. 314-15, 323-24, 340; Add 12097, f. 26.

Rupert registered his proxy in favour of John Robartes, 2nd Baron Robartes, later earl of Radnor, on 18 December. It was vacated by the end of the session in February. Rupert’s retreat from the session was probably on account of poor health associated with his old head injury. On 12 Feb. 1667 it was reported that he had been sick since ‘the opening of his head’ but that ‘blessed be God he is somewhat better now’. Another newsletter of 21 Feb. recorded that following this latest trepanning operation Rupert’s surgeons used instruments of his own devising to treat him. Bodl. Carte 222, f. 147; CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 523.

Rupert took his seat once more at the opening of the new session on 10 Oct. 1667. He attended fitfully through the troubled session that lasted from 1667 to 1669, being present on just under 39 per cent of the sitting days. Rupert profited from the turbulence of 1667, with the naval disaster in the Medway and the political instability caused by the attack on Clarendon and subsequent dispute between the two Houses over the case of Skinner v. East India Company. In June 1667, he was rumoured to be a beneficiary of the pressure being exerted on John Mordaunt, Viscount Mordaunt, and likely to acquire his office as constable of Windsor Castle, though it was not until the following year that he was eventually able to secure the place. Verney ms mic. M636/21 M. Elmes to Dr W. Denton, 29 June 1667. During the Commons’ investigation into the performance of the navy during the war, Rupert and Albemarle were complimented by the Commons for their service at sea and asked for an explanation of the problems besetting the navy. On 31 Oct. Rupert and Albemarle submitted their narratives to the Commons outlining the reasons for the navy’s travails. According to Rupert, the blame rested on poor intelligence, want of provisions and a failure to maintain defences. He also pointed out that had York’s orders in the first campaign of the summer been ‘strictly observed’ a total victory would have been obtained. Rupert accepted no blame himself. According to a newsletter of 5 Nov. Rupert and Albemarle’s narratives ‘please the House [of Commons] very well’. Add. 36916, ff. 4, 14.

Alongside such national concerns, Rupert also took care of his own privileges. On 22 Nov. the House was informed of a complaint against two men who had beaten Rupert’s footmen while he had been en route to Parliament. The men were attached, but on 27 Nov. having made their submission, they were released at Rupert’s personal intercession. Despite contemporary hints of his involvement, the part Rupert played in the downfall and subsequent attempt to impeach Clarendon remains obscure. He may well, though, have resented the lord chancellor’s efforts to mediate between him and his brother the Elector Palatine over their ongoing disputes. Marvell ed. Margoliouth, ii. 59; Milward Diary, 134; CCSP, v. 625. He was certainly in the House on 27 and 29 Nov. when the impeachment was under discussion but he was not named as a manager to any of the conferences with the Commons on the matter of the impeachment or to the committee to draw up the bill for Clarendon’s exile.

In the wake of Clarendon’s fall Rupert was involved in a number of initiatives but only had limited success in securing backing for any of them. During the winter of 1667-8 he was actively and unsuccessfully attempting to influence foreign policy, warning against over-dependence on France. Albion viii. 337. In March 1668 he joined with Albemarle in seeking a revival of the committee of miscarriages as a way of preventing the king from appointing Sir William Penn^‡ as commander of the fleet. C. Roberts, Growth of responsible government, 177. The same month he was also engaged in a project with Henry Howard for attempting to secure a licence for manufacturing farthings on a model of his own invention. CSP Dom. 1667-8, p. 278. Early that summer, there were reports that Rupert and Albemarle would again command the fleet. The two men were also said to be collaborating on an expedition to discover the north-west passage. Rupert finally arrived at an agreement with Mordaunt over the latter’s offices at Windsor by the end of the summer, though Mordaunt was at first unwilling to surrender his title of constable. He paid, according to one newsletter £3,500, according to another 3,500 guineas. Add. 36916, ff. 88, 107, 115; Verney ms mic. M636/22, Dr. W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 9 Apr. 1668; HMC Le Fleming, 56, 59.

During 1669 Rupert obtained further distinctions, though not major ones. He was named one of the commissioners to treat with the Danish ambassador but there is little indication that this was anything other than an honorary role, and rumours that he was to be appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland were ill-founded. The First Triple Alliance ed. W. Westergaard, pp. xxv, 71. In the summer, in spite of his usual suspicion of the French, Rupert was reported to have recommended an alliance with France at a meeting of the ‘council of state’ so that the two kingdoms could drive the Spanish out of America and divide the territory between them. This was reckoned by the Venetian envoy to be little more than an ‘extravagance’ on the part of the prince. CSP Ven. 1669-70, p. 63. In October the decision to prorogue Parliament was taken at a meeting at which he was present together with York, Ormond and Henry Bennet, Baron (later earl of) Arlington. In December when a decision was taken to prorogue Parliament again to the following February Rupert was said to have been one of those arguing, successfully, in favour of the prorogation in opposition to Arlington, who on this occasion failed to carry his point. Browning, Danby, i. 75; Harris, Sandwich, ii. 311-17.

Rupert was ill once again in the early months of 1670. Add. 36916, ff. 163-4. He seems to have recovered by the spring when he joined Craven, Arlington and others in becoming one of the governors of the Hudson’s Bay Company. He had been instrumental in securing its charter. HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 11; R. Rebitsch, Rupert von der Pfalz, 138. That year he was again peripherally involved in diplomacy when he was drawn into helping Charles II in his unsuccessful attempt to sound out the elector of Brandenburg over France: a further indication of his perceived value as a conduit between England and the empire. EHR, xxiv. 265. His difficult personality, coupled with his anti-French views meant, however, that he was kept in the dark about the secret Treaty of Dover. However, a later report that he was removed from the committee for foreign affairs seems to have been false as he continued to attend the sessions, although he is rarely recorded as intervening. J. Phillips, Secret History of the Reigns of K. Charles II and K. James II (1690), 59; TNA, SP 104/176, 177.

Rupert and the ‘Country party’

During the 1670-1 session Rupert attended the House on some 44 per cent of sitting days but he left no record of any activity in the House otherwise. He took his seat three days into the session and on 7 Apr. registered his proxy with Heneage Finch, 3rd earl of Winchilsea. This was clearly intended to cover a later absence as he was in attendance again on 11 Apr.—the final day before the six-month adjournment—but the proxy was not marked as vacated until 24 Oct. even though Rupert was not listed as being in attendance that day. He eventually returned to the House on 27 October.

Rupert’s relationship with the royal brothers remained distant but his status as a member of the royal family continued to be crucial to his self-image. In October 1670 the Privy Council decided that the visiting William of Orange should have precedence over Rupert, since William was more closely related to the king (his uncle) than Rupert (his cousin). Rupert was so deeply wounded that he refused even to meet the young prince. He had recovered his poise by the summer of the next year when he joined York in introducing the king of Sweden (represented by a proxy) as a knight of the garter. Westergaard, First Triple Alliance, 323, 325; P. Geyl, Orange and Stuart 1641-72, p. 323; CSP Dom. 1671, p. 284.

As well as his involvement in the Royal African and Hudson’s Bay companies, Rupert’s scientific interests also held out the possibility of commercial exploitation. In 1671 together with Anthony Ashley Cooper* , Baron Ashley, later earl of Shaftesbury, and Sir Thomas Chicheley^‡, master of the ordnance, he was granted a patent for ‘nealed’ iron guns—thinner and lighter than conventional cast-iron cannon—which were subsequently sold to the ordnance at three times the normal cost of iron guns. S. Barter Bailey, Prince Rupert’s Patent Guns (Royal Armouries Monograph 6), 1-20; HMC Le Fleming, 81.

Rupert was appointed vice-admiral in York’s place early in 1673. At the beginning of February it was reported that he had gone to sea and that ‘no noblemen’ had gone with him, ‘which perhaps he is not much troubled at’. Add. 25117, ff. 85-86; NLS, ms 7006, ff. 6-7. The report was premature as Rupert was present in the House on 4 Feb., attended the crisis meetings of the foreign affairs committee of the council during February and continued to attend the Lords until the end of March: in all he was present on 80 per cent of the total sittings. SP 104/177, ff. 137, 140v, 144. Rupert’s commitment to protestantism suggests that he might have been suspicious to the first Declaration of Indulgence. Once the strength of opposition had become known, he certainly urged the king to abandon it during the debates in the foreign affairs committee on 16 February, stressing the need to secure the money bill. SP 104/177, ff. 143-4. He had little difficulty in accepting the Test Act of 1673 and his willingness to take the sacraments provided a stark and very public contrast to the refusal of his cousin, York, to do so. At Easter York retreated to his own lodgings while Rupert accompanied the king to take communion. Rupert then took the sacrament again along with a number of other peers prior to taking the oaths at king’s bench. It was also said that he insisted on his officers doing likewise or losing their places. So strained were relations between Rupert and York that in June it was reported that they had come close to a duel in the king’s presence when York called Rupert a coward and Rupert retaliated by calling York a traitor. Verney ms mic. M636/25, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 3 Apr. 1673; HMC Le Fleming, 101, 102; HMC Kenyon, 95-96. The defeat at the battle of the Texel in August turned Rupert into something of a popular hero. His version of events, in which the blame for defeat was laid firmly on the French, tarnished York’s image still further. It also reinforced popular anti-French prejudices and fuelled a belief that the French were deliberately seeking the destruction of England’s naval capacity. By September Rupert, unlike York who had rendered himself still more unpopular by his Catholic marriage, was ‘received by the whole court and town with the greatest expressions of affection imaginable.’ To the despair of observers, the mutual recriminations of Rupert and James (and their followers) continued to weaken naval morale. Add. 70119, T. to Sir E. Harley, 23 Aug. 1673; HMC Le Fleming, 101-3. Perhaps not surprisingly, Rupert drew increasingly close to Shaftesbury. The two men were said to be ‘very great’ with each other and ‘are looked upon to be great Parliament men, and for the interest of Old England’. Williamson Letters ii. (Cam. Soc. n.s. ix), 21-22.

One of his contemporary biographers insisted that Rupert’s subsequent life was spent ‘in a sweet and sedate repose’ and that he had adopted an ‘exact neutrality’ in order to keep out of ‘our present unhappy heats’. Anon., Hist. Mems. of the Life and Death of … Rupert Prince Palatine of the Rhine (1683), 75-76. Certainly Sir William Temple^‡, writing to Arthur Capel, earl of Essex on 25 Oct., bracketed him with Ormond as ‘in great credit with all parties and firmly principled for religion and against the war’; ‘but, for the rest, engaged with no parties’. Essex Pprs. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xlvii), 131. Nevertheless, that commitment to avoiding party appeared to be stretched over the following months. Rupert attended three days of the brief four-day session of October 1673. On 24 Oct., three days before the session opened, he received the proxy of John Manners, 8th earl of Rutland, which was vacated by the close. Rutland registered the proxy with Rupert once more in advance of the ensuing session early the following year. At the dismissal of Shaftesbury in November Rupert was said to have been visibly dejected; a visit to the fallen chancellor’s house served as an ostentatious expression of solidarity. He took his seat once more at the opening of the new session on 7 Jan. 1674 and proceeded to attend on each one of its sitting days. When the king suddenly prorogued Parliament in February, Rupert’s reaction was said to have identified him as the most hostile of the Privy Councillors; he also disapproved of the decision to extend the prorogation to April 1675. Haley, Shaftesbury, 343; W.D. Christie, Life of Shaftesbury, ii. 192, 199-200.

Rupert was again present on nearly every sitting day of the contentious sessions of 1675. Once again, in anticipation of the session, he was entrusted with Rutland’s proxy. One reason for his attendance that year was to obtain an act of Parliament granting an exclusive 31-year licence for his method of ‘nealing’ guns. In the Lords the committee considering the bill was chaired by Shaftesbury; in the Commons those named to the equivalent committee included Chicheley and Shaftesbury’s son, also Anthony Ashley Cooper, styled Lord Ashley, later 2nd earl of Shaftesbury. Rupert’s was one of only five bills passed at the end of the session. That June, Rupert, together with York, Arlington, Ormond and Sir Joseph Williamson^‡, argued unsuccessfully at council for a dissolution of Parliament. Prince Rupert’s Patent Guns, 41-42; Verney ms mic. M636/28, Sir R. to E. Verney, 10 June 1675; Haley, Shaftesbury, 407. He was present in the House when the subject was debated there on 20 November. One of those voting in favour of the address for a dissolution was listed merely as ‘His Royal Highness’, which may have been York rather than Rupert, and Rupert did not sign the dissent when the motion was lost. Timberland, i. 183.

Rupert’s continued closeness to Shaftesbury is indicated by his employment of the latter’s relative, Thomas Bennet^‡, as his secretary. Rupert and Shaftesbury continued to be involved in the manufacture of ‘nealed’ guns and were perhaps increasingly irritated by the ordnance’s reluctance to pay the inflated price they were demanding. For all Rupert’s association with Shaftesbury’s opposition, he remained a familiar companion of the king through 1676. Early the following year a drunken evening at Windsor resulted in some courtiers breaking into his laboratory and smashing his equipment. Verney ms mic. M636/29, J. to Sir R. Verney, 13 Apr. 1676; Eg. 3330, ff. 32-34; HMC Rutland, ii. 37-38.

Rupert returned to the House, again in possession of Rutland’s proxy, at the opening of the session of 1677-8 and was thereafter present on 96 per cent of all sitting days. In spite of his earlier backing for a dissolution, he made no attempt to join the opposition peers in demanding that Parliament had been dissolved by the long prorogation. Although he was listed on Shaftesbury’s assessment of the peerage, no comment was placed next to his name. He took his place once more at the opening of the following session (23 May 1678). He was named one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament on 1 Aug. but did not attend that day. Verney ms mic. M636/31, W. Fall to Sir R. Verney, 1 Aug. 1678. He was in the chair at the meeting of the council on 27 Sept. at which Titus Oates presented his evidence of a Popish Plot, and was later appointed to the secret committee entrusted with investigating the allegations. Kenyon, Popish Plot (2000), 77, 84. Rupert took his place in the final session of the Parliament on 21 Oct. and attended on 94 per cent of sitting days. A week before the opening he was entrusted with Rutland’s proxy for the final time, which he again held throughout the session. On 7 Nov. his name was raised during a debate in the Commons over the faulty translation of the Gazette into French, as Rupert had protected Moranville, the Frenchman responsible for the text. No reflection was made on Rupert for his role in this, which was merely seen as having been due to compassion on a man fallen on hard times. Grey, vi. 157-58. On 15 Nov. he voted in favour of disabling Catholics from sitting in Parliament. Although he was said to have been associated with Arlington in talking to the ‘country’ opposition to Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), he voted against committing the embattled lord treasurer. When the king wanted to prorogue the session on 27 Dec. it was reported that it was Rupert who dissuaded him. If so, his arguments had only temporary currency: Parliament was prorogued on 30 Dec. instead. Knights, Pols. and Opinion, 26; Haley, Shaftesbury, 494.

There is little evidence of Rupert’s involvement at either of the general elections of 1679, although his position as constable of Windsor and as lord lieutenant of Berkshire and Surrey should have given him considerable influence in those areas. In advance of the new session he was initially noted by Danby as a likely supporter, but this was subsequently amended to doubtful. His attendance at the first Parliament of 1679 was initially very high but his last attendance of the session was on 22 Apr. - the day that the king announced the re-organization of the Privy Council (Rupert continued to be a member of the council). He was thus not present during the debate on the expulsion of Catholics from London when Gilbert Holles, 3rd earl of Clare, and William Wentworth, 2nd earl of Strafford, incorrectly described in the source as the barred Catholic William Howard, Viscount Stafford, made members of the House uneasy by complaining of the king’s description of Rupert as a ‘prince of the blood’ in his declaration about the reorganization of the council. Such a term was to be resisted because it was ‘a French term of art’ which ‘was not well understood in England’. HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 67. Rupert was probably a convinced believer in the reality of the Popish Plot: he not only presided over several of the council’s investigations but was instrumental in securing Bedloe’s testimony against Reading. In May 1679 he was appointed as one of the councillors to oversee the review of the justices of Berkshire. HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 31-32; TNA, PC 2/68, 47. Despite his own absence from Parliament in late April and May, he was still closely associated with the country peers who were in opposition to the court. In September it was reported that the banished James Scott, duke of Monmouth, was to have the use of Rupert’s house in Rhenen in the Netherlands.

Following the second election of 1679, Rupert attended the prorogation of 17 October. Rupert did not sign the peers’ petition calling for Parliament to sit, but on 7 Dec. he introduced its signatories to the king’s presence. HMC Le Fleming, 162; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 210. He attended the prorogation again on 26 Jan. 1680. His health seems to have collapsed once more that summer and in September it was reported that a leg condition (a chronic complaint) might ‘end him’. Carte 72, f. 506; Verney ms mic. M636/34, J. to Sir R. Verney, 1 Aug. 1680; HMC Rutland, ii. 55. Despite his own ill heath, the same month he was one of the nobility to visit Shaftesbury, who was also sick in London. In October he expressed support for the proposition that York be sent back into exile in Scotland. Carte 233, f 295; Haley, Shaftesbury, 587. After the second Parliament of 1679 was finally allowed to sit on 21 Oct. 1680 Rupert was again present on nearly every sitting day. In spite of his hostility to York, he seems to have stepped back from supporting exclusion, voting in favour of putting the question that the exclusion bill be rejected at first reading. On 23 Nov. he also voted in favour of appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the nation.

Acutely conscious of his own status, and aware that in the absence of his cousin York he would be the senior peer present, when the arrangements for the trial of Viscount Stafford were being made Rupert vociferously opposed an attempt to allow the high steward’s commission to be read in the House. He objected that this would entitle the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham), to take precedence over him in the procession to Westminster Hall. A compromise was arrived at whereby the commission was read in the House but Finch agreed to continue acting in the capacity of lord chancellor until he arrived in Westminster Hall and only then to assume his place as lord high steward. HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 511. At the trial itself Rupert had no hesitation in voting Stafford guilty.

Rupert’s final appearance in the House was at the dissolution of 10 Jan. 1681. He did not attend the Oxford Parliament and in April he was so sick with fever that there were further reports of his likely imminent demise, sufficiently convincing to make Thomas Windsor, earl of Plymouth, to head for London in the hopes of securing the (as he hoped) vacant constableship of Windsor. Carte 222, f. 280; Add. 75359, Windsor to Halifax, 16 Apr. 1681. Rupert survived, however, and continued to be active: he refused to sign the warrant that committed Shaftesbury to the Tower on 2 July. When Stephen College’s dying declaration was delivered to the king in council by Thomas Bennet, Leoline Jenkins^‡ made it clear that he believed Bennet—‘a known Parliament man’—was still employed as Rupert’s secretary. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk, ii. 281; CSP Dom. 1680-1, p. 424. He was, though, settling his affairs. In May 1681, he was said to have ‘owned his marriage’—presumably to his former mistress Frances Bard. Verney ms mic. M636/35, J. to E. Verney, 2 May 1681. A certificate purporting to refer to this had been drawn up in July 1664. However a reference in Rupert’s will to Dudley Bard as his natural son suggests otherwise and that the relationship was never regularized. In January 1682 Secretary Jenkins relayed to Ormond a request from the king for a Captain Hughes to be granted a company. Jenkins explained that the king ‘did it upon Prince Rupert’s importunity and sets no stress upon it, therefore I hope you will be engaged otherways.’ The request was repeated by Rupert several months later, underscoring Hughes’s ‘honesty, courage and obedience’. Ormond declared himself willing to oblige both because of Rupert’s recommendation and the captain’s own merits. HMC Ormonde, n.s. vi. 302, 476.

In October 1681 Rupert was involved in a discussion in council about his plans to sell ‘nealed’ guns to the French. Thomas Belasyse, 2nd Viscount (later earl of) Fauconberg, expressed concerns at handing new technology to a potential enemy but Rupert insisted that since his invention was undervalued at home he was not to be blame for looking for alternative markets. Fauconberg was presumably unaware that the ordnance now believed the invention to be worthless and that the gun-founding business that Rupert used to manufacture his guns was virtually bankrupt, although in January 1682 it was reported that the ordnance had determined to keep the guns and not allow them to be sold to the French. CSP Dom. 1680-1, p. 493; Prince Rupert’s Patent Guns, 50; Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 158.

Rupert died at his house in Spring Gardens of a fever on 29 Nov. 1682. The following day an order was made out for materials to be provided to the king’s apothecary for Rupert’s embalming. Roger Morrice wrote that he was ‘universally lamented as a lover of the nation and a firm adherer to the protestant religion’. TNA, LC5/66, f. 66; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk, ii.335. Rupert’s funeral in Westminster Abbey was led by his friend and executor Craven. Notwithstanding his many commercial ventures, Rupert appears to have had little in the way of real or personal estate to leave. His accounts from the final years of his life suggest he had lived relatively frugally, perhaps by necessity. Add. 29767. His legacy to his son consisted of his house in Rhenen and the debts owed to him by the Holy Roman Emperor and his nephew, Charles II, the Elector Palatine. Debts owed to his estate by the king of England were to satisfy his legacies to his servants. The remaining real and personal estate was to go to his mistress, Margaret (Peg) Hughes and their daughter, Ruperta (who was later married to Emanuel Scrope Howe^‡). In the absence of a legitimate heir the peerage was extinguished by his death. It was next revived for George of Denmark, consort to the future Queen Anne.