‘Conceive him now in a Man-of-war, with his letters of mart, well armed, victualled, and appointed, and see how he acquits himself. The more power he hath, the more careful he is not to abuse it. Indeed, a Sea Captain is a King in the Island of a ship, supreme Judge, above appeal, in causes civil and criminal, and is seldom brought to an account in Courts of Justice on land for injuries done to his own men at sea.’
The Good Sea Captain, Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)
Prince Rupert set off for Ireland in December, his eight vessels severely undermanned. The prince had recruited in the Netherlands, securing the services of some Flemish sailors, although many more were needed. The Constant Reformation, the prince’s flagship, was designed to have a complement of 300, but only 120 men could be found to man it at this stage of the voyage. The frigates were more generously provided for, so that they could fulfil their roving brief, scouring the seas in search of prizes.
Rupert’s crews were worried that their course would take them through the Channel, and it was inconceivable that they would be able to navigate it without attracting enemy attention. However, when the Parliamentarians started to bear down on the Royalists, Rupert fell back on the tactics that had served him so well in his cavalry days: he turned and attacked, and the startled enemy dispersed and fled in the face of bold, Cavalier, aggression. Their new admiral’s courage impressed the sailors and quelled many of the more disruptive voices on board. A fair wind followed, speeding the ships to Ireland.
Arriving in the Irish port of Kinsale, which had been a Spanish outpost during part of Elizabeth I’s reign, Rupert learned of Charles I’s beheading. The shocking news reverberated around Europe, causing thrilled revulsion and frenzied chatter: the execution of an anointed monarch was viewed by many as an insult to God and seemed to demand divine vengeance. The prince’s feelings ran deeper. Whatever their spats towards the end of the Civil War, a pure love had existed between Charles and Rupert. The king had shown his nephew kindness and had partially filled the void caused by the early loss of his father, Frederick V. Differences over Marston Moor or the surrender of Bristol could not expunge the blood loyalty that bound the two men together.
The prince’s siblings shared the sense of devastation. His elder sister, Elizabeth, was so horrified at the news that she became seriously ill. She wrote of her profound sorrow to her confidant, Descartes, who comforted the princess with soothing words: ‘It is surely something to die in a way which commands universal pity — to leave the world, praised and mourned by whoever partakes of human sentiments. It is undeniable that without his last trial the gentleness and other virtues of the dead king would never have been so remarked and so esteemed as they will be in future by whoever shall read his history … As to what regards his mere bodily sufferings, I do not account them as anything, for they are so short that, could assassins use a fever or any of the ills that Nature employs to snatch men from the world, they might with reason be considered much more cruel than when they destroy life with the short sharp blow of an axe.’[fn1]
Clarendon was less philosophical, stating that the king’s execution was ‘the most execrable murder that was ever committed since that of our Blessed Saviour’.[fn2] He wrote a letter of condolence to Rupert that was flecked with loathing for the Regicides and weighed down with sadness at the ghastliness of the execution:
Sir,
Though, when your Highness left this place, there was no reason to expect any good news from England, yet the horrid wickedness which hath been since acted there, with those dismal circumstances which attend it, was so far beyond the fears and apprehensions of all men, that it is no wonder we were all struck into that amazement with the deadly news of it, that we have not yet recovered our spirits to think or do as we ought.[fn3]
A sense of profound unease arose among many — even those who had been unsympathetic to Charles when he had been alive. They saw the king’s slaying as a cause for national disgrace and mourning, prompting a flood of self-flagellating remorse from pamphleteers and poets:
Come, come, let’s mourn; all eyes, that see this day,
Melt into shows, and weep yourselves away:
O that each private head could yield a flood
Of tears, whilst Britain’s Head streams out His Blood;
Could we pay that his sacred drops might claim,
The World must needs be drowned once again.[fn4]
In defiance of his personal loss, and as an act of monarchical continuity, the Prince of Wales now proclaimed himself Charles II. However, he could afford few of the trappings of kingship: indeed, he was so impoverished, that he could not even find the money to send messengers to thank European rulers for their condolences. Rupert’s task of providing for the Royalist exiles was now even more urgent, although his renewed instructions from the Court differed hardly at all from his original commission: ‘There is no other alteration from the former’, confirmed Charles’s secretary, ‘but what is necessary in regard to the change of condition in the person of the King, by the barbarous murder of his father by the bloody rebels in England.’[fn5] Rupert must raise funds to help free his cousin from financial embarrassment.
At the same time as the prince was coming to terms with his uncle’s beheading, he had to comfort his mother who was confronting another family disaster: Princess Louise had converted to Catholicism, after being won over by the arguments of Jesuit priests. On 24 February, Rupert sent a letter to Elizabeth, telling her of his great sadness at his sister’s change in faith. He also wrote angrily to the States-General, defending his mother’s honour from scurrilous rumours doing the rounds in Holland, that she had encouraged Louise to become Papist. The princess’s conversion had been so sudden and complete that she had left a short note one morning for Elizabeth stating that she was leaving for the true Church, and was leaving her mother and the outside world forever. She carried through this threat, later becoming the Abbess of Maubuisson.
*
Rupert’s arrival in Ireland gave a huge fillip to Royalist morale. He was a talisman, a reminder of past glories, and a general whose dogged loyalty demanded respect. One correspondent greeted him with a warm tribute: ‘I have been always ambitious to be esteemed your servant, and your unwearied labours for the King and gallant dangerous undertakings increase my desires therein; there are but few men, of your quality and fortune, that would expose himself to those difficulties you constantly are subject to, your ends therein having no particular relation to the interests of your own person, and seeing that the redemption of his sacred Majesty is that which your Highness proposes to make your actions glorious, I am sure you will accomplish it, and may he perish that contributes not thereto.’[fn6]
Rupert’s time in Kinsale, far from the navy’s prime bases in the Thames, was initially successful. He managed to supply the stubborn Royalists holding the Isles of Scilly. Privateers joined him, swelling his fleet to twenty-eight ships — considerably larger than Parliament’s force in the Irish Sea. The prince suffered some losses — the frigate Charles became isolated in a storm, then lost in a fog, before being taken by two enemy vessels — but his tally of hostile ships was significant. Parliament decided to implement a convoy system, to protect its merchantmen from Royalist attacks. When losses in the west remained unacceptably high, it despatched the main fleet to deal with the problem. Flying the new ‘cross and harp’ jack as its flag, ‘the State’s Navy’ had another task: to assist Cromwell’s campaign on the Irish mainland. The roads in Ireland were terrible, so being able to supply the New Model Army by sea gave the invading English a huge advantage over Lord Lieutenant Ormonde’s Royalists.
In May 1649 Parliament’s fleet appeared outside Kinsale, blockading Rupert’s men inside the harbour. ‘We began to careen and fit for a summer voyage’, Prince Rupert’s papers recorded, ‘but the fleet being ready to fall down to the mouth of the harbour, the enemy appeared with a very potent fleet before it, which caused us to stop our proceedings.’[fn7] Leading the enemy force was Robert Blake, a 50-year-old friend of Cromwell and Hampden, and a former MP. The princes knew Blake: he had distinguished himself during Rupert’s capture of Bristol, holding out for a day and a night after the main Parliamentarian surrender. Blake had been even more successful when facing Rupert’s brother. He had held Maurice’s Western Army at bay for two months, with only 500 men, until the Earl of Essex’s approach forced the Royalists to lift their unsuccessful siege.
Rupert organised batteries of artillery to protect the harbour entrance. He then summoned his council of war, whose members advised that the current fleet should be strengthened, while further craft were built as reinforcements. They also recommended that fire-ships be prepared: these were floating pyres that were set alight and directed at opposing ships, which they either scattered or burned. Once these additions had been made, the council members agreed that the prince could engage Parliament.
Rupert accepted these conditions, personally leading a recruiting drive along the coast, collecting soldiers and sailors to provide man-power for the tasks in hand. But, when Rupert had achieved the council of war’s objectives, its members back-pedalled. They were concerned that the scanty Royalist fleet might be annihilated in a single action. Their strong advice now was that Rupert should ride at anchor, safe in his harbour, and wait for bad weather to drive Blake away.
The conditions, however, failed to deteriorate and Blake refused to budge. The Royalists remained so tightly cooped up that not even merchantmen were able to enter or leave Kinsale. With supplies failing, and morale wavering, the Perfect Weekly Account reported to Westminster: ‘Letters from the West gave us some particulars of the State of the Prince his Fleet at Kinsale representing of it thus. The English seamen, will not endure to have received aboard with them the Irish Rebels, provisions also becomes scarce amongst them, and therefore time is thought will be necessitated to fight if the Parliament ships are able to lie but some few days longer before it.’[fn8]
Rupert’s situation deteriorated further when he lost the man who, after his brother Maurice, was his most trusted ally. The Parliamentarians swooped on a frigate just outside the harbour, taking the ship and sixty prisoners: ‘In this frigate’, a Parliamentary pamphleteer reported, ‘we found Colonel William Legge, which was once at Oxford.’[fn9] Legge was sent for imprisonment at Bristol Gaol (one of a remarkable eleven prison sentences that Legge suffered for his loyalty to Rupert or the Crown), an accusation of high treason hanging over him. With execution of defeated Royalists now quite common — the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Capel had followed their king to the block — it seemed likely that Legge would also be killed. Meanwhile, there were further erosions of Rupert’s manpower and resources. ‘Letters from the Navy say, that there have happened some dispute and action between the Parliament’s Fleet and the Princes near Kinsale, and after several volleys, the Parliamentary Navigators became victors.’[fn10] Two ships and one hundred prisoners were taken.
While Rupert remained inside the harbour, the self-proclaimed Charles II and his court moved to Jersey, landing at St Helier in mid September. The plan was to move on to Ireland at the earliest opportunity, but Charles’s advisers were hampered by their own faction fighting, their lack of funds, and their leader’s innate laziness. As they lingered in the Channel Islands, news arrived of savage Parliamentary victories at Wexford and Drogheda in September and October. Drogheda, just north of Dublin, held out until Cromwell led his men in a ferocious charge. When the defensive walls were breached, Cromwell ordered his men to spare nobody: 2,500 defending troops and up to 1,000 civilians perished. Those seeking sanctuary in the church were smoked out to waiting executioners, or chose to burn alive. Aston, the Royalist commander, was held down and his skull was staved in with his own wooden leg. All other captured officers were summarily shot, while their soldiers were lined up and decimated: one in ten was hauled out and clubbed to death in front of his comrades. The rest were sent to toil in servitude, in the sugar-cane fields of Barbados. News of the brutality that followed futile resistance led to many of the new king’s remaining garrisons quickly surrendering.
It was clear that Cromwell’s advance was unstoppable and that he would eventually reach Kinsale by land. Rupert heard rumours of discontent in the town’s garrison and judged that the safety of his fleet demanded decisive action: he overpowered the governor and took command of the fortress. This persuaded the governor of nearby Cork, who had already made up his mind to betray his town, to attempt a small place in history as the man who killed Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
Rupert’s passion for stag-hunting being well known, the governor invited him to join a hunt outside his town. Rupert accepted, before urgent business prevented his going. When the invitation was reissued, with rather too much haste and enthusiasm, Rupert’s suspicions were aroused. He confronted the governor, who confessed his true intentions and then surrendered Cork to the prince. There was a further plot, involving one of Rupert’s ensigns who had been compromised by the enemy. The plan was for this traitor to overrun one of the guard-posts at the entrance of Kinsale, allowing the Parliamentarians to sail into the harbour. But he and his colleagues were rumbled before they could attempt their treachery and were executed after a summary trial.
Although these intrigues and plots on land were worrying for Rupert, a far greater challenge lay outside Kinsale harbour. Robert Blake shared the prince’s lack of naval experience. However, he fully understood the meaning of his orders: Parliament had told him to ‘pursue, seize, scatter, fight with and destroy’[fn11] the Royalist fleet. Both princes were already aware of his military tenacity and skill. They were to be unsettled, though, by the ease with which he transferred these gifts to maritime warfare. It was Rupert’s grave misfortune to be pursued by such a fierce and determined terrier, whose career drew the admiration of Nelson who, in a rare moment of modesty, said: ‘I do not reckon myself equal to Blake.’[fn12] It was Rupert’s ill luck to be faced with Blake at his most able and focused.
*
Eventually the weather came to Rupert’s aid, strong northeasterly winds dispersing Blake’s blockade. ‘The seas thus cleared,’ Prince Rupert’s papers recalled, ‘we set sail for Portugal.’[fn13] The prince began his expedition on 17 October 1649 with seven ships. He was forced to leave several others behind: they were in good condition, but there were not enough men to crew them.
The small Royalist fleet was buffeted by the same storm that had driven away its enemy. However, there were immediate rewards for braving the gales: Prince Maurice took the first prize of the voyage and this was quickly followed by a brief engagement, which yielded up two more trophies. Maurice then took a fourth ship. At this point King John IV of Portugal, who in 1640 had secured his nation’s independence from Spain, invited the princes to Lisbon as his guests.
Rupert sought and received the king’s assurance that he and his flotilla would be subject to the Law of Nations, which guaranteed the Royalists’ safety while in Portuguese waters. If the prince was nervous about how he would be received, he need not have worried: his and Maurice’s welcome was warm, the gun emplacements along the River Tagus saluting them as they passed. Anchoring in the Bay of San Katherina, Rupert organised supplies for his fleet and discussed the disposal of his plunder with local merchants. The princes were then invited ashore, ‘where they were received by many of the nobles, and treated in very great state for some days, until preparation was made for their reception at Court; which being ready, the King sent his nobles with a great train to attend them to his palace, where he received them with great kindness’.[fn14]
With the formalities completed, Rupert oversaw the sale of his goods, which raised £40,000. He then prepared his ships for the next leg of their voyage. The seven, original vessels were careened and filled with fresh provisions, while the captured merchantmen were adapted for warfare. It was clear the prince was not planning to indulge the King of Portugal’s hospitality for long: he wanted action and booty. However, his plans were undone by the appearance, on 10 March 1650, of Blake. He was in his customary role, menacingly patrolling the harbour mouth, waiting to pounce.
Parliament looked to Blake to rid the seas of the threat of the Royalist privateers: ‘The clearing of the coasts of such implacable enemies, would be a great encouragement to merchants, and therefore we are very joyful to hear there is a gallant fleet prepared by the Parliament’, London learnt from its pamphlets, ‘the knowledge whereof, strikes a terror into the enemy, who having persisted in their obstinacy, deserve not the least favour; for how can it be safe for the Commonwealth not to revenge such injuries done to the State?’[fn15]
Blake carried an ambassador with him from England, who demanded that Rupert, Maurice, and their ships either be immediately handed over or forced to sail for open waters. The ambassador pointed out that the princes had been capturing neutral ships to add to their fleet and that this was an unacceptable threat to peaceful commerce. The king refused to yield to these demands, stating that he would, as he had promised to do, observe the Laws of Nations: this meant that Rupert’s fleet would have three days to leave Lisbon. The ambassador replied that such a delay was unacceptable. If King John persisted in harbouring its enemies, he explained, then the Commonwealth’s navy would feel free to attack Portuguese shipping.
In the meantime the weather deteriorated and Blake looked for protection in Weyes Bay. Blake’s proximity encouraged some Portuguese merchants to express their unhappiness at the Palatine princes’ presence. One of John IV’s chief advisers, the Conde de Miro, strongly sympathised with Parliament and urged the king to expel his guests. The matter proved divisive at a heated meeting of the Royal Council: strong support was expressed for both of the English navies, with de Miro fanning opposition to the princes’ continued presence. The king proposed that the Portuguese were duty bound to escort the vestiges of Charles I’s navy out of the harbour, to prevent their annihilation by a superior force. However, his merchants wanted to be rid of the princes and of the unsettling effect their visit was having on their peaceful dealings: England was a very important export market for Portuguese wines, figs, oranges, and lemons, while King John’s dependencies (especially Brazil) sold their sugar to London via Lisbon. The merchants’ greatest fear was Blake’s threat to interfere with their shipping.
Rupert skilfully exploited the rift among the Portuguese. He concentrated his attention on the clergy, who were sympathetic to his plight, and who: ‘began to fill the pulpits with how shameful a thing it was for a Christian King to treat with the rebels’.[fn16] At the same time the prince made sure the people saw him in the flesh, rather than merely hearing about him as a faceless troublemaker in their midst. While secretly preparing his fleet for departure, Rupert rode to hounds each day, a glamorous, energetic prince, seemingly unconcerned by the furore engulfing his hosts. Rupert’s ease with people of all backgrounds, which had so shocked the aloof Royalist grandees early in the Civil War, charmed a populace accustomed to a snobbish aristocracy. This clever public relations’ exercise paid off, the groundswell of opinion siding with the put-upon prince. For the time being, it was impossible for de Miro to toss Rupert into the waiting, open jaws of the enemy.
The Parliamentarians now resorted to skulduggery. A small force was put ashore to ambush and kidnap the princes on one of their hunting expeditions. The trap was sprung, but Rupert and Maurice reacted quickly, galloping to safety. Rupert then plotted his revenge, his love of science leading to the creation of an ingenious booby-trap: he ‘fitted a bomb-ball in a double-headed barrel, with a lock in the bowels to give fire to a quick-match, [and he then] sent it aboard their Vice-Admiral in a town-boat with one of his soldiers clad in a Portugal habit, to put into the stern-boat as a barrel of oil’.[fn17] But the would-be assassin gave himself away, undermining his foreign disguise by swearing in remarkably fluent English. Blake’s men dismantled his device and arrested him. Rupert, always loyal to his bravest men, later managed to secure his release.
The prince looked for an escape from Portugal with increasing anxiety. A letter arrived from Charles candidly revealing his appalling financial position and urging his cousin to place him in funds through privateering. But Rupert’s task was made more awkward when Parliament reinforced its blockading fleet: not only did this complicate his escape plans, it also endangered the Portuguese fleet whose trade with Brazil was so extraordinarily profitable. The prince realised that this threat would make the Lisbon merchants even keener to see the back of him. It was best if he went quickly, and voluntarily.
John IV persisted in his support of the Royalists, but his influence was waning. Meanwhile de Miro’s supporters ensured that the dockworkers performed slowly, so delaying Rupert’s plans. However, organising provisions was one of the prince’s strengths: through hectoring and bullying he prepared his flotilla for a dash for the open seas. The king told his admirals to assist the Royalists’ flight, when it came, by sailing out with them.
On 16 July the perfect opportunity arose for Rupert to slip the blockade: news came that Blake had taken the majority of his ships to find fresh water in Cadiz. However, to Rupert’s annoyance, the promised Portuguese escort failed to materialise, its admiral delayed so long that eventually Rupert’s men were forced to sail alone. Despite Blake’s temporary absence, there were still enough Commonwealth ships patrolling outside the Tagus to contest Rupert’s escape, especially now that he had forfeited the advantage of surprise. In the ensuing action the prince’s fore-top mast was destroyed by a cannonball, leaving his ship temporarily immobile. He limped on, but after a fortnight, with his provisions running low, Rupert returned to Portugal. He remained there for the rest of the summer. Another attempt to break out, in the fog of early September, was also a failure because one of de Miro’s men betrayed the plan.
A week after this second fiasco, Parliament carried out its threat to fall upon the Brazil fleet: Blake captured nine Portuguese ships, adding them to his force. The king was so disturbed by news of this aggression that he went directly to Rupert’s ship and asked him to attack Blake. Even though his vessels were unprepared for such a venture, Rupert felt obliged to assist, but the enemy steered clear of the Royalists. Eventually, his supplies exhausted, Rupert was forced to return once more to Lisbon.
In October, Blake summoned all his ships to regroup and refit in Cadiz. ‘The King, having no more use of our ships,’ recorded Prince Rupert’s papers, with mild resentment, ‘victualled our fleet, and fitted us with such other stores as were necessary for us, giving the Princes many thanks for their endeavours to preserve the fleet, and assured them of his friendship.’[fn18] The stress of hosting unpopular guests for so long had sapped John IV of his loyalty to their faltering cause. Soon after the Royalists quit his kingdom, he gave in to de Miro: Portugal made peace with England’s Parliament and agreed that the princes would receive no further protection in any of its territories.
The outlook for Rupert’s expedition was bleak. Under-resourced and with ill-defined aims, Prince Rupert’s papers recalled, ‘Poverty and despair [were our] companions, and revenge our guide.’[fn19] Blake allowed no breathing space, his eagerness in pursuit fuelled by concern at Royalist attacks on Commonwealth shipping along the Portuguese and Andalusian coastline. Fearing that the superior enemy fleet would pick off his ships one by one, the prince ordered his captains to meet at Formentera in the Balearic Islands. His commanders, however, were eager for booty and dangerously delayed their rendezvous. When they suddenly saw the enemy on the horizon, they dashed for the harbour of Carthagena, where they expected to be granted sanctuary.
The Spaniards, however, did nothing to stop Blake as he sailed into Carthagena, firing at Rupert’s ships. One Royalist vessel, the Henry, was overrun by its crew and joined the enemy. The rest realised that they were in a hopeless position: ‘Our officers not being able to defend themselves’, the prince’s papers revealed, ‘ran their ships ashore, making them unserviceable; another having landed his ammunition, set fire on his ship, so as they were no ways profitable to the enemy.’[fn20] Blake destroyed or captured nearly all the Royalist fleet in a day. The only two ships to escape were those commanded by Rupert and Maurice.
Unaware of his comrades’ fate, Rupert waited by Formentera with mounting concern. The island was uninhabited, so when he quit it he left letters for his men, urging them to meet him in Toulon as quickly as possible. His instructions were rolled up in a bundle and placed under a rock. This he draped with a white flag, to attract attention. Rupert then set sail for Toulon, where he hoped to meet up with Maurice immediately, and to see his captains soon afterwards.