Prince Rupert: The Last Cavalier

by Charles Spencer

  It was agreed that Rupert could lead his men out of the city to any Royalist stronghold within 50 miles of Bristol, with colours flying, drums playing, and swords by their sides. The ordinary soldiers were to take with them all their personal possessions, without being searched or molested by Parliamentary troops. Rupert’s officers and lifeguards were to be allowed to remain fully armed. The sick and wounded were to be permitted to follow when they could. The citizens of Bristol were not to be harmed in any way. Fairfax was to occupy the city and keep all remaining military accoutrements. These included 100 pieces of ordnance, 7,000 muskets, and 10 small ships. The really significant prize, however, was the city itself — the last major port held in Charles’s name had fallen.

  Rupert made as dignified an exit from Bristol as was possible. Oliver Cromwell, second-in-command of the New Model Army, accompanied the prince from the castle’s gate to the outside of the city, where Fairfax greeted him. ‘The Prince was clad in scarlet,’ remarked an eyewitness, with reluctant admiration, ‘very richly laid in silver lace, mounted upon a very gallant black Barbary horse; the General [Fairfax] and the Prince rode together, the General giving the Prince the right hand all the way.’[305] The great civility with which he was treated by the victors made a deep impression on Rupert. ‘All fair respects between him and Sir Thomas Fairfax; much respect from the General Cromwell. He gave the gallant compliment to Major Harrison, “That he never received such satisfaction in such unhappiness, and that if ever in his power, he will recompense it”.’[306]

  Behind Rupert followed a mixed procession that comprised 1,100 soldiers, 40 of his noblemen’s and senior officers’ wives, 80 clergymen, and 450 horses. It was expected that this column would head for nearby Worcester, where Prince Maurice was dangerously ill with the plague, but when he arrived at the green outside Bristol, Rupert announced that his destination would be Oxford. Rupert asked for, and was given, muskets, to stave off attacks from the clubmen. These weapons were to be returned to the Parliamentary escort on reaching Woodstock.

  Colonel John Butler was one of the senior New Model Army officers accompanying Rupert on this journey. On completion of his mission, he wrote to Sir William Waller, with his impressions of the prince: ‘I had the honour to wait upon his Highness Prince Rupert with a convoy from Bristol to this place; and seriously I am glad I had the happiness to see him, for I am confident we are much mistaken in our intelligence concerning him. I find him a man much inclined to a happy peace, and will certainly employ his interest with his Majesty for the accomplishing of it. Therefore I make it my request to you, that you will use some means that no pamphlet be printed that may derogate from his worth for the delivery of Bristol. On my word he could not have held it, unless it had been better manned.’[307]

  Rupert could not rely on such magnanimity from his own side. Marston Moor had punctured Rupert’s aura of invincibility, while Naseby had further tarnished his reputation. With the fall of Bristol, Digby looked to administer the coup de grace to an exquisitely vulnerable foe.

  Chapter Twelve - A Matter of Honour

  ‘Tell my son, that I shall less grieve to hear that he is knocked on the head, than that he should do so mean an action as the rendering of Bristol Castle and Fort upon the terms it was.’

  Charles I to Sir Edward Nicholas, chief adviser to the Prince of Wales

  ‘But is Bristol taken?’ Parliament’s Moderate Intelligencer taunted, pinching himself with delighted disbelief, ‘And in less than three weeks? Fortified four times as well as when Colonel Fiennes was in it, and more men, and the cream of the Royal army. Poor Prince Rupert! “The sentence of death must surely pass on you!” Why not retreat to the castle; the King on one side and Goring on the other, within 60 miles of you!’[308]

  In truth, there had been no chance of Charles’s relieving Bristol: although he was, in theory, only five days’ march from the city, he was closely shadowed by one of Parliament’s finer generals, Sydenham Poyntz. Poyntz would have intercepted any attempt by the king to come to his nephew’s aid. Besides, if scouts had reported Charles’s approach, Fairfax would still have had time to storm the Royalist defences and eliminate the garrison before the main field army arrived. The king would then have been caught in a pincer movement, between his and Poyntz’s armies, finishing off the task that Naseby and Langport had narrowly failed to complete.

  Rupert knew that the war was lost, whether he held Bristol or not. He had been convinced of the inevitability of defeat since Naseby, if not before. His uncle’s obstinate refusal to negotiate flew counter not only to Rupert’s, but also to Henrietta Maria’s, advice. Meanwhile, the prince felt responsible for men who had served him bravely and deserved better than certain death in a hopeless cause. Fairfax’s clever letter had reminded him of the dubious colleagues for whom they would be laying down their lives. Surrender was the only responsible option left open to the prince.

  Lord Digby saw things differently and he made sure that the king shared his perspective. It was Digby who started the rumour that Rupert had surrendered the city for 8,000 gold Jacobus coins. He was certainly behind the allegation that Rupert had been in treacherous correspondence with his Parliamentarian brother Charles Louis — ‘though’, Prince Rupert’s diary refuted indignantly, ‘he never wrote one letter to him’.[309] The king believed Digby’s slanders. When Charles wrote from Hereford, on 14 September, his tone was one of shock and bewilderment at Rupert’s betrayal:

  Nephew,

  Though the loss of Bristol be a great blow to me, yet your surrendering it as you did is of so much affliction to me, that it makes me forget not only the consideration of that place, but is likewise the greatest trial of my constancy that hath yet befallen me; for what is to be done? After one that is so near to me as you are, both in blood and friendship, submits himself to so mean an action (I give it the easiest term) such I have so much to say that I will say no more of it: only, lest rashness of judgement be laid to my charge, I must remember one of your letters of the 12 August, whereby you assured me, (that if no mutiny happened,) you would keep Bristol for four months. Did you keep it four days? Was there any thing like a Mutiny? More questions might be asked, but now, I confess, to little purpose. My conclusion is, to desire you to seek your subsistence (until it shall please God to determine of my condition) somewhere beyond seas, to which end I send you herewith a pass; and I pray God to make you sensible of your present condition, and give you means to redeem what you have lost; for I shall have no greater joy in a victory, than a just occasion without blushing to assure of my being

  Your loving uncle and most faithful friend.[310]

  Charles’s position had further deteriorated, the day after Bristol’s fall: Montrose’s remarkable run of success ended at Philiphaugh, when defeat was followed by the cold-blooded murder of the duke’s Irish troops and their families. They had surrendered in good faith. The king felt beleaguered, with Parliament closing in on him from every direction. He looked to those closest to him to reverse the inevitable slide to total defeat. In this pressurised context, Rupert’s surrender attracted the harshest of interpretations. Meanwhile, Digby remained a source of unrealistic hope, seeing salvation coming from Ireland, France, and even Scotland. The meek capitulation of Bristol was set against this wild optimism and seemed to substantiate all Digby’s past attacks on Rupert.

  Digby now struck hard at his enemies. The prince’s loyal friend Will Legge was removed as Oxford’s governor and imprisoned. His replacement was Sir Thomas Glemham, one of Digby’s acolytes. Rupert was now confined to his room, with musketeers posted outside his door. ‘The Lord Digby hath drawn up articles of high treason against Rupert,’ a rebel pamphlet claimed, ‘and swears he shall have his head, or it shall cost him a fall. The substance of the articles of treason against Rupert:

  1. That he hath, several times, traitorously undermined the designs of the King and his Council, to the hazard of his Majesty’s person, and the loss of his army.

  2. That he h
ath, several times, betrayed his Majesty’s forces to the enemy ... by engaging them wilfully, to their destruction.

  3. That he hath traitorously delivered the fort and castle of Bristol to Sir Thomas Fairfax.

  4. That he himself declared, that he did worse in losing Bristol, than Colonel Fiennes did, in delivering it up to the King.

  5. That he made promise to the enemy, to seduce his Majesty to come into the Parliament; promising never to fight more for the King against the Parliament ...[311]

  Rupert countered Digby’s attacks, writing to his uncle: ‘I only say, that if your Majesty had vouchsafed me so much patience as to hear me inform you before you had made a final judgement — I will presume to present this much — that you would not have censured me as it seems you do: and that I should have given you as just satisfaction as in any former occasions, though not so happy.’[312]

  Charles now publicly disgraced Rupert. An open letter removed him from his commands, and disbanded his infantry and cavalry lifeguards. He was ordered to leave the kingdom. If the prince refused to go, or if he tried to stir up a mutiny, then Sir Edward Nicholas was to imprison him.

  Digby manoeuvred to keep the king away from Oxford, in order to deny Rupert access to his impressionable uncle. Clarendon wrote:

  ‘The Lord Digby, who had then the chief influence upon his Majesty’s Councils, and was generally believed to be the sole cause of revoking the Prince’s Commission, and of the Order sent to him to leave the Kingdom, without being heard what He could say for himself, found that the odium of all this proceeding fell upon him.’ Prince Maurice made it clear that he blamed Digby for Rupert’s fall from grace, and Lord Gerard fell in with the brothers.

  To avoid ‘the breaking of that cloud upon him, which threatened his ruin’,[313] Digby took Charles to Newark. This was the main Royalist stronghold left in the north and, in the diarist John Evelyn’s estimation, ‘a place of the best security’.[314] However, Digby underestimated the prince’s determination: Rupert was not a man to leave false accusations unchallenged, as his printed rebuttals of Parliamentary lies had repeatedly demonstrated. Now, accused of the basest betrayal, he decided to ride to Newark to plead his case in person.

  The journey was largely across enemy territory. His eighty companions included Prince Maurice — who joined his brother at Banbury — Lord Molyneux, Sir William Vavasour, and Lord Hawley. They managed to cross Parliamentarian Northamptonshire without incident, before arriving at Burghley. The mansion had become a Roundhead garrison, its governor one of Rupert’s deserters. This turncoat raised the alarm and ordered his men to attack the prince. The opposing forces lined up, and then charged one another. ‘The Governor came with the gross of his body’, Prince Rupert’s diary recorded, ‘and knowing the Prince, he came up with his pistol and missed fire, and then cried for quarter, but the Prince shot him dead. And then in a short time the rest fled.’[315]

  Enemies in both camps had now rumbled Rupert’s objective. Digby, desperate to block any rapprochement between uncle and nephew, sent frantic messages in the king’s name, forbidding the prince’s approach. Meanwhile, Parliament committed 1,500 men to hunting down Rupert and his confederates, and commanded its forces in Lincolnshire and Leicestershire to be on the look out for this dangerous troop of Cavaliers. A Parliamentarian colonel filed a report from Grantham, his inflation of the Royalist numbers betraying his fear at the princes’ names: ‘On Tuesday morning we received intelligence that Prince Rupert & P. Maurice were at Banbury upon their march towards Newark, some reported them to be twelve hundred, others six hundred; upon which intelligence all the horse belonging to this garrison, being three hundred, and four hundred more which lay at Stamford, were drawn to Colonel Rossiter, to interpose between the King and the Princes ... No sooner were we marching, but from Leicester we received intelligence that the Princes were upon their march towards Belvoir, [so] we pursued them with all speed.’[316]

  Arriving at a bridge near Belvoir Castle, Rupert found 300 Roundhead troopers barring his way. ‘The Prince stood first toward the horse,’ Prince Rupert’s diary recalled, ‘as if he would charge them, and then upon a sudden turned, and the enemy followed him; the Prince turned and fought them, and beat them twice, by which the other forces of the enemy being alarmed they came up to the Prince. Says the Prince to his people, “We have beaten them twice, we must beat them once more, and then over the pass and away”, which accordingly they did.’[317] Rupert led his men off at a gallop, his route helped by memories of a boyhood visit to Belvoir. He had spent many hours shooting rabbits on the estate and he still remembered various little-known paths through the woods: by twisting down these tracks, Rupert kept ahead of his pursuers.

  He was riding fast, with twenty of his men, when they were suddenly confronted by forty Parliamentarians on a hilltop. ‘Will you have quarter?’ their officer shouted down. Rupert quietly ordered his men to keep close to him and ‘to turn when he turned’. The rebels careered down the hill out of formation, eager to kill or capture the retreating princes and their retinue. Rupert suddenly spun his smaller force round in a counter-charge, killing several of the enemy and forcing the rest to flee. Lord Molyneux despatched a rebel on a strong mare and gave the horse to the prince, who ‘fair and softly went to Belvoir.’[318] The next day Rupert and his party approached Newark.

  Digby was still in favour with the king, Parliament’s Mercurius Britannicus commenting: ‘It is remarkable that Prince Rupert, and all the Protestant leaders should be deposed for Popish Digby ...’[319] Learning of Rupert’s approach, Digby persuaded the king to move further north. However, he and Charles had only reached Rotherham when they learnt of Montrose’s defeat of Philiphaugh.

  Despite this disaster, Digby urged an advance into Scotland: it seemed preferable to returning to Newark, where Rupert’s arrival was imminent. Digby was allowed to lead the remnants of the Northern Horse into Scotland as general of the King’s forces North of the Trent, an impressive title for one with such a limited military record. This command came to an inglorious end at Annan Moor, in the Borders, at the beginning of November: ‘Hath not God wrought wonderfully for us in destroying their powers’, a Parliamentary newspaper asked, ‘and crossing their designes; Digby himself routed and fled, nearly escaping with his life, of which he knoweth not how short a list he hath behind.’[320] Digby escaped to the Isle of Man on a fishing boat. From there he moved to Ireland, hopeful of raising an army that he would bring to the king’s aid in England. In this, he failed. The same month, Goring fled to the Continent, with a considerable amount of money. Rupert’s foremost Royalist enemies were overseas, but there were other hostile faces to take their place.

  *

  When the prince arrived at Newark, his retinue swollen to 120 men, he found that Charles had lost control of the town: with defeat hanging in the air, it had descended into dissolute chaos. Twenty-four generals had found sanctuary there, and they and their senior colleagues were hard to discipline. Sir John Oglander, a Royalist knight, witnessed similar debauchery elsewhere: ‘Truly all, or the greatest part, of the King’s commanders, were so debased by drinking, whoring and swearing that no man could expect God’s blessing on their actions.’[321] When Charles tried to establish order, he was ignored.

  A large welcoming party greeted Rupert outside the town walls, while the king skulked inside. Rupert rode into Newark, dismounted, and to the consternation of Sir Edward Walker, an eyewitness, ‘comes straight into the [King’s] presence, and without any usual ceremony, tells his Majesty that he has come to render an account of the loss of Bristol.’[322] Charles refused to acknowledge his nephew’s presence and, appalled by his insolence, walked silently to his supper table. The two princes followed him, standing by his chair, Rupert eagerly trying to open a dialogue. The king started to eat and addressed only Maurice.

  Rupert’s persistence eventually won through, though, and Charles agreed to his request for a court martial. Sitting in judgement were seven Royalist grande
es, including the Earl of Lindsey (son of the general slain at Edgehill), Lord Astley, Lord Gerard, Sir Richard Willis (governor of Newark), Lord Bellasis, and John Ashburnham. Bellasis and Ashburnham were Digby’s men, but the court martial’s verdict was unanimous: the prince was declared innocent of cowardice or treachery. The panel accepted that Rupert would have defended Bristol ‘to the last man; though the tender regard he had to the preservation of so many officers and soldiers, was the chief reason that induced him to capitulate for the whole; they having so long and faithfully served us.’[323] Charles’s counterclaim — that he would have saved the city if his nephew had held out for longer — was rejected.

  On 21 October the king was obliged to sign the humiliating verdict. He then declared he would be leaving for Oxford. His parting shot was the dismissal of Willis as governor, and his replacement by Digby’s acolyte, Bellasis. This was a provocative decision that intensified the faction fighting in the Royalist upper reaches. Charles’s authority was no longer intact, having been eroded by continuous defeat, and the deposed Willis protested vociferously at his demotion. ‘He consulted his friends, at the head of whom was Prince Rupert’, Sir Edward Walker recorded, ‘and they all agreed that he should demand a trial by a Council of War for the misdemeanour, of which ... he was guilty.’[324] The king’s concession of a trial to his nephew had established a dangerous precedent.