Part 36 (2/2)

His ”family” was devoted to him, but it seems to have been somewhat troublesome on occasion. Thus, soon after the Restoration, certain members of it caused the Lord Chamberlain to search Albemarle's cellars for gunpowder, a proceeding which naturally excited Albemarle's wrath.

Rupert was so exceedingly annoyed at the occurrence, that he not only dismissed the servant in fault, but ”offered to fight any one who set the design on foot.”[36] Later, we find a pet.i.tion from a Frenchman, complaining of an a.s.sault made upon him ”by several scoundrels of the Prince's stables.”[37]

Rupert's love for dogs had not abated with advancing years. In 1667 he lost a favourite greyhound, for which {342} he advertised as follows:--”Lost, a light, fallow-coloured greyhound b.i.t.c.h. She was lost on Friday last, about twelve of the clock, and whosoever brings her to Prince Rupert's lodgings at the Stone Gallery, Whitehall, they shall be well rewarded for their pains.”[38] But at Windsor it was a ”faithful great black dog” which was his inseparable companion, and which accompanied him on the solitary evening rambles which won them both the reputation of wizards. The fact that he was so regarded by the country people troubled Rupert not at all, and he referred to it with grim amus.e.m.e.nt in writing to his sister Elizabeth.[39]

”And thus,” says one of his gentlemen, ”our n.o.ble and generous Prince spent the remainder of his years in a sweet and sedate repose, free from the confused noise and clamour of war, wherewith he had, in his younger years, been strangely tossed, like a s.h.i.+p, upon the boisterous waves of fickle and inconstant fortune.”

The end came in 1682. For many years Rupert had been quite an invalid--”fort maladif”, as the Danish Amba.s.sador told the Princess Sophie; not only the old wound in his head, but also an injury to his leg caused the Prince acute and constant suffering during the last years of his life. He was at his town house in Spring Gardens, November 1682, when he was seized with a fever, of which he died in a few days. It was said that his horror of being bled led him to conceal the true cause of his suffering until it was too late to remedy it.

”Yesterday Prince Rupert died,” says a letter, dated November 30th.

”He was not ill above four or five days; an old hurt in his leg, which has been some time healed up, broke out again, and put him into an intermitting fever. But he had a pleurisy withal upon him, which he concealed, because he would not be let blood until it was too late. He died in great pain.”[40] {343} Rupert made his will, November 27th, appointing Lord Craven his executor, and guardian of his daughter, Ruperta; and not forgetting any of those who had served him faithfully.

Two days later he died.[41] His funeral was conducted with all due state, Lord Craven acting chief mourner; and the King ordered a waxen effigy of the Prince to be placed, as was then the fas.h.i.+on, beside his grave. He lies in the chapel of Henry VII, in Westminster Abbey, but his effigy is not one of those that survive to the present day; and the verger who points out to us the tombs of George of Denmark and other insignificant people, pa.s.ses by that of Rupert of the Rhine without remark.

[1] Memoir of Prince Rupert, p. 75.

[2] Lansdowne MSS. 817. fols. 157-168. British Museum.

[3] Pepys, 23 June, 1665.

[4] Ibid. 14 July, 1664.

[5] Memoir of Prince Rupert, Preface.

[6] Strickland. Queens of England, VIII. pp. 303-304.

[7] Pepys, 8 Mar. 1669.

[8] D. S. P. Feb. 1669.

[9] Pepys, 2 Sept. 1667.

[10] Knight's London, Vol. II. p. 374.

[11] Dom. State Papers, Nov. 1660.

[12] Ibid. Nov. 1668.

[13] Warburton, III. pp. 508-510.

[14] Campbell, II. 244.

[15] Treskow. Prinz Ruprecht, 210-211.

[16] Dom. State Papers, Apr. 22, 1671.

[17] Ibid. Nov. 17, 1671.

[18] Ibid. Feb. 7, 1668.

[19] Campbell, II. 249.

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