Book
Prince Rupert
Prince Rupert is Charles Spencer’s biography of Rupert of the Rhine, the exiled German prince who became the most famous Royalist cavalry commander of the English Civil War. Spencer begins with Rupert’s birth in Prague and the collapse of his family’s Bohemian kingship, then follows his early military experience in the Thirty Years’ War and his arrival in England to serve his uncle Charles I.
The book examines Rupert’s rapid battlefield successes, his defeats and disputes within the Royalist command, and his later career after the collapse of the king’s cause. It continues through his years as a naval commander and exile to his Restoration service under Charles II, when he became a senior admiral and pursued scientific and technical interests. The result is a full-life study rather than simply an account of the cavalier legend.