The prince was obliged to accept the king’s insistence that Albermarle retain the post. But he was reduced to anguished fury when, in the spring of 1668, it was revealed that the Duke of Buckingham had secretly been permitted to buy the Mastership from Albermarle for £1,000 a year. The insensitivity of the king was particularly galling, for the new Master of the Horse was, in everyone except Charles’s eyes, a sycophantic fraud.
Buckingham was the son of the royal favourite assassinated early in Charles I’s reign. He had subsequently been brought up with the royal princes, at Richmond. After the Civil War, Buckingham had accompanied Charles abroad, before joining him on his ill-fated foray from Scotland into England. There, his veneer of loyalty began to crack, before he deserted the Prince of Wales at his time of greatest need. Charles chose to ignore this wobble and later welcomed the duke back into his court-in-exile in France.
Buckingham, however, spurned his second chance. Bored of life abroad and convinced that the Stuarts were a spent force, he persuaded Charles to let him return to England, supposedly in a mission to help the royal cause. But instead, in an astonishing turnaround, he suggested to Oliver Cromwell that he marry one of the Lord Protector’s daughters. To press his suit, Buckingham publicly expressed his contempt for ‘Charles Stuart’ and claimed to relish the prospect of drawing his sword against the man whose family had looked after him as one of their own. Cromwell, made of sterner moral fibre, was less than impressed: he would not contemplate accepting such a snake in the grass as a son-in-law. Lord Fairfax proved a softer touch: Buckingham succeeded in winning his daughter. He married into the family that had done more than any other to tame the Stuarts on the battlefield.
After the Restoration, Buckingham was at first ostracised for his treachery: he remained on the sidelines, an outcast, while the Royalist world triumphantly reordered itself. However, the duke’s charms were undimmed and could not long be ignored by an impressionable king. Buckingham soon wheedled his way into the Privy Council and then retrieved his estate, which was worth £20,000 per year. Such advances allowed the duke to dream of further promotion. Yet Buckingham remained incapable of straight dealing and was destined to fail: he would squander his money and conspire against the king. But, before he revealed his treachery once more, he was allowed to become Master of the Horse. In the circumstances, giving Prince Rupert the Constabulary of Windsor Castle was the least that Charles could do: his loyal, long-suffering cousin had stood by his cause throughout its darkest days, losing his brother while keeping the royal banner flying.
Rupert was the ideal candidate for the position: he was one of the most famous old soldiers in the land, his record well matched to the castle’s martial significance. Furthermore, he had long been one of the select Knights of the Garter, whose Camelot Windsor was. Charles needed a respected and accomplished champion to head up one of his key garrisons, at a time of increasing political tension: the Earl of Clarendon, omnipotent in the first years of the Restoration had fallen spectacularly from favour and was now in exile, all the failures of the Anglo-Dutch War unfairly laid at his feet. The vigorous attention of Clarendon’s enemies was now concentrated on the king’s brother and heir, James. Soon after his return to England, on reading accounts of the Reformation, the Duke of York had become a Roman Catholic. Although he forced himself to take Anglican Communion until 1672, his faith was sincere and intense, and increasingly difficult to conceal. Catharine of Braganza’s apparent inability to provide an heir brought closer the prospect of the next king being a Papist.
In 1668, there were the first rumblings that Charles must address this matter urgently: if the current queen could not provide an heir, Anglican opponents insisted, Charles must divorce and remarry. Rupert’s old enemy George Digby, now Earl of Bristol, even took it upon himself to go to Italy, in search of a fertile replacement bride. Meanwhile, Rupert’s friend and business partner Anthony Ashley Cooper (the future Earl of Shaftesbury) led the calls for James to be removed from the succession and from command of the fleet. His acolytes began to talk openly of the need for a Protestant heir, the illegitimate Duke of Monmouth their favoured candidate. This tall, handsome, but dim young man was the result of Charles’s affair with Lucy Walter, a promiscuous Welsh woman who died of venereal disease, and one of the seventeen or so mistresses attained during his European exile. With his brother under sustained attack, Charles was wise to promote his dependable cousin to a meaningful military position, having denied him the honorific post he so desired. Rupert offered solidity in a fickle, increasingly menacing, world.
From the prince’s point of view, the appointment was a good one. He needed somewhere to drop anchor after nearly five decades of wandering. Since the age of one, he had roamed northern Europe, criss-crossed the seas, and never found a place to settle. Since his teens, he had felt a spiritual connection with his mother’s homeland. Yet, despite his royal blood and his many labours on behalf of the Stuart dynasty, he still had no fortune, no mansion, and no estate.
In his late forties, the governorship of Windsor Castle answered many of his needs and, most importantly, it gave him a home. Although it could never be his to possess, as constable he enjoyed the run of the place. One of the perks of the job, a previous incumbent recalled, was being able to ‘use any of [the] lodgings or rooms in the Castle, whereof the King hath not present use’.[645] He appointed his own men to key offices: Anthony Choqueux, the doctor who had helped cure his nasty head wound in 1667, was appointed the castle’s ‘chirurgeon’ (surgeon); and Sir William Reeves, Rupert’s page at the time of the near-fatal ambush precipitated by Marshal Gassion’s madcap streak, was made ‘Rider of the Forest of Windsor’. Reeves was given powers to act as Rupert’s lieutenant when necessary.
The prince was now able to repay some of the hospitality that he had received from friends on the Continent: in late July 1670, he marked the arrival of the Landgrave of Hesse with a salute from the castle’s thirty-one great guns.
At last, stability, position, and purpose coincided, to promise security and contentment in middle and old age. Apart from when fighting for his adopted country at sea, Rupert would never leave England again.
*
The passing years failed to dull the prince’s keen energy. In a general reordering of the castle’s defences, he had the real tennis court pulled down and resurrected elsewhere. He also levelled the nearby soldiers’ houses, with wooden huts providing temporary shelter for the men. These contained ‘forty double beds for two soldiers to lie in,’ according to a letter from the Duke of Monmouth to Colonel Will Legge, ‘each bed, with bedding and bedclothes for them accordingly to be provided & furnished for the use of his Highness Prince Rupert’s Company at Windsor Castle.’[646]
Rupert then repaired the neglected Devil’s Tower and moved the garrison’s gunpowder there from the keep, where he now installed his company of soldiers. Finding the proportions of this part of the castle too constrained for the efficient use of pikes, he ordered halberds for his men: these were shorter and better suited to action in confined spaces. Each of the changes dovetailed with one another — making sense individually, while collectively bringing real improvements to the king’s Thames Valley stronghold.
Finding the procedures inherited from his predecessor unacceptably slack, Rupert issued a set of twelve clear instructions through his secretary, James Hayes: Orders Established by his Highness Prince Rupert, Constable of the Royal Castle of Windsor, for the better Government of the Garrison there.
1. That Fifteen Soldiers of each Company within the said Garrison are to be upon the Watch every night, Viz. forty-five in ye Whole, and one Lieutenant, one Ensign, and a Sergeant with them.
2. That every one of the said Officers who are upon the Watch take their Round every night: The Lieutenant, the Grand Round, and the other Officers once apiece at least.
3. That there be a Corporal, and Six men, upon the Watch at the outward Gate of the Castle; and the key of the Said Gate be left with the said Co
rporal, to use upon necessity.
4. The Sentinels shall be placed at the several Posts where they now are; and when they are Relieved, it shall be done in a Troop.
5. That the Keys be always fetched by the Major of the Castle from the Constable, or other Superior Officer in his absence, with a Guard.
6. That the Major of the Castle do see the Gates shut and opened, and bring the Keys to the Constable, or other Superior Officer, and take the Word; and that the Sergeants attend him for the same.
7. That in Winter, at the shutting in of the Day, the Gates shall be put together, & latched.
8. That the Taptou be at nine a Clock in the Winter, and at Ten in the Summer; and the Reveal always at Break of day.
9. The Watch shall always be Relieved at nine a Clock in the morning.
10. Before the Gates are open, some Soldiers shall be first sent out at the Wicket for discovery; and all the time the Gates are opening, the Soldiers are to stand to their Arms.
11. The Officer that hash the Guard is to take notice of any Stranger that comes into the inner Castle, or lies there, and to give an account thereof: And if any thing belonging to the King be embezzled from thence, The Officer that hash the Guard shall be responsible for the same.
12. The Sentinels who are placed upon the Batteries & Magazines, are not to permit any Stranger to come near them, but to Command them to keep at a Distance.
Signed
Rupert[647]
The tone of these words — assured, direct, and clear — could have emanated from the prince at any stage of his adult life: they expected — indeed, demanded — obedience. Their detailed contents also reveal a new, mature understanding of the task required of him: behind them lay more than three decades of military experience, which had seen the capture and the forfeit of important military bastions. Rupert’s new orders demonstrated a refusal to risk his latest charge. If obeyed, they would keep Windsor safe for the Crown in a way that had been beyond him when defending Bristol.
*
His credentials as a man of war aside, Rupert’s passion for the chase made him the ideal custodian of the castle’s great sporting estate. With political conflict raging in the capital, it was even more important that the king could get away to enjoy his favourite pastimes. Charles had a restless physical energy that contrasted with his easygoing, often indolent, style of rule. He liked to exercise, particularly enjoying real tennis, which he played daily, referring to it as his ‘usual physic’. He swam and sculled in the Thames, generally at dawn. He inherited his father’s enjoyment of bowls, and also participated in falconry and cockfighting. Charles was a fine, natural horseman, but he gained equal pleasure covering his kingdom on foot: companions complained of the pace set by their fiercely fit monarch. John Evelyn, who enjoyed more sedentary pursuits, wrote during his visit to Windsor Castle in the summer of 1670 of how: ‘The King passed most of his time in hunting the stag, and walking in the parks, which he was now planting with rows of trees.’[648] In fact, the landscaping around Windsor was relatively minor, compared to the changes implemented at other royal residences: the monarch planted swathes of trees in Greenwich, including 6,000 elm saplings, and the surrounds of Hampton Court were studded with lime trees.
Charles took direct control of restocking and replanting the New Forest and Sherwood Forest, and delegated much of the restorative work at Windsor to his cousin, one of whose titles was ‘Keeper of the Forest’. The prince knew what was necessary to bolster the numbers of wild game: he stamped out poaching and protected the natural habitat. Rupert set about his task with enthusiasm. He ordered racks to be built in the clearings, where fodder could be placed during the winter months when natural food was scarce. Not just red and fallow deer but all game — including ‘hares, coneys [rabbits], pheasants, partridges [and] heathpoults’ — fell under the protection of the prince. He monitored the increase in numbers of the deer, sending ‘Regardors’ to take regular head counts which were kept in accounting books. Rupert’s personal responsibility was Cranborne Walk, which, within a year of his taking it on, boasted 175 fallow deer. Only one other walk contained more than fifty-five deer.
The prince was impatient with officers who allowed poachers to prosper. Sir Thomas Foster and his fellow JPs in Chertsey received a forceful reprimand:
Gentlemen,
I have been informed, That his Majesty’s Game of all sorts hath been of late, and is daily destroyed, in the Forest of Windsor; but especially in the Perambulation of Chertsey, there by some disorderly persons, who, without authority or permission, carry guns, and also use greyhounds, mongrels, setting-dogs, trammels, tunnels, nets, and other engines, wherewith they destroy his Majesty’s game ...
The prince added: ‘I shall not need to say more to you on this matter’.[649] He expected the poachers’ speedy apprehension and conviction. Suspects were tried in Rupert’s courts and offenders were kept in ‘the Coale house’, a prison in the castle.
Rupert was a popular figure with the law-abiding people of Windsor and its surrounds. The terrible aggressor of Civil War propaganda seemed far removed from this honourable and conscientious man, who exercised his duties fairly, and seemed content in his position both as constable and as lord lieutenant for the county: we hear of him being ‘much beloved by all the country gentlemen of Berkshire’.[650]
The prince had plenty of time for his active pleasures: he was excellent at real tennis and was rated by Pepys as one of the four finest players in England. He sailed as well, keeping a private yacht on the Thames. He also took full toll of the deer whose numbers were boosted by his careful husbandry. Choosing to remain aloof from the turmoil of politics at court and in Westminster, Rupert had time for what truly interested him, particularly his scientific experiments. He established a suite of apartments in one of the castle’s towers where, according to Warburton, ‘forges, laboratory instruments, retorts and crucibles, with all sorts of metals, fluids, and crude ores, lay strewn around in the luxurious confines of a bachelor’s domain’.[651]
His unreconstructed bachelorhood was evident in his masculine tastes in interior design. Swathes of swords, spears, and shields were displayed on the walls in a heavy hang, the tools of war taking the place of conventional tapestries and canvases. John Evelyn was intrigued by the effect, recording in August 1670: ‘Windsor was now going to be repaired, being exceedingly ragged and ruinous. Prince Rupert, the Constable, had begun to trim up the keep or high round tower, and handsomely adorned his hall with furniture of arms, which was very singular, by so disposing ye pikes, muskets, pistols, bandoliers, holsters, drums, back, breast, and head pieces as was very extraordinary. Thus those huge steep stairs ascending to it had the walls invested with this martial furniture all new and bright, so disposing the bandoliers, holsters, and drums as to represent festoons, and that without any confusion, trophy-like.’
But Rupert, the renowned warrior, also possessed a softer side — the part of his character that made him capable of producing accomplished works of art with his own hands. Evelyn, aware of the Cavalier legend but ignorant of the gentler creativity within, was amazed by the contrast between the arrangements of weaponry in the public spaces and the subtle touch evident in the prince’s private quarters: ‘From the hall we went into his bedchamber, and ample rooms hung with tapisserie, curious and effeminate pictures; so extremely different from the other, which presented nothing but war and horror.’[652]
Rupert believed it his prime duty to make the king love his time at Windsor. This was not a difficult task, for Charles shared many of his cousin’s tastes. Like Rupert, he devoted increasing time to experiments and science. One of his chief delights when at Windsor was watching an extraordinary contraption made by Sir Samuel Morland, which pumped drinking water up to the higher reaches of the castle, for the court’s consumption. One contemporary judged Morland’s device: ‘the boldest and most extraordinary experiment ever performed by water in any part of the world’.[653] The king would stand beside it, timing th
e upward flow to check that it was working correctly, delivering a barrel a minute to the top of the building.
Charles enjoyed spending time at Windsor and the evenings offered scant respite. When there were no plays or concerts, he would visit his women. Although most of his mistresses were left in London, Catharine of Braganza was rarely without competition for her husband’s attentions. Louise de Keroualle was a beauty from Brittany who captivated the king. She was created Duchess of Portsmouth and transcended her mistress status to become Charles’s true friend and confidante. He granted her use of a suite of apartments at Windsor Castle. Nell Gwynn, who was also good company outside the bedroom, was similarly housed in the grounds: her lodgings, Burford House, took its name from the title given to her and Charles’s illegitimate son, the Earl of Burford.
It was during Rupert’s tenure of the castle that the king ordered the modification of the State Apartments, so they could accommodate his retinue in style. St George’s Hall, built by Edward III 300 years before, was remodelled during the mid to late 1670s in the Baroque style (which Louis XIV had favoured when building the Louvre, a decade earlier). Charles commissioned Antonio Verrio, the great Neapolitan artist, to paint bold frescoes of scenes from the lives of Edward III and the Black Prince. He also included representations of Charles’s martial exploits, even though he had none to be proud of. With a similar touch of flattery, Verrio portrayed his patron accompanied not only by Fortitude but also by Prudence and Temperance. Rather more justifiably, the queen’s Audience Chamber and the queen’s Presence Chamber were adorned with images of Catharine of Braganza surrounded by symbols of virtue, one of which showed the long-suffering consort in a chariot drawn by swans. Grinling Gibbons added to the lustre of the display, with ornate cornices and frames. John Evelyn, witnessing these achievements months after Rupert’s death, wrote that Gibbons must now be considered: ‘without controversy, the greatest master both for invention and rareness of work, that the world ever had in any age’.[654]
Prince Rupert: The Last Cavalier Page 41