Prince Rupert of the Rhine was born in Prague in 1619, the son of Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James VI and I. His family’s loss of the Bohemian crown forced them into exile, and Rupert entered military life while still young. He gained experience during the Thirty Years’ War before joining his uncle Charles I in England in 1642, where his aggressive cavalry tactics made him the most celebrated and controversial Royalist commander of the First English Civil War.
Rupert fought in major campaigns including Edgehill, Marston Moor and Naseby, later commanding Royalist naval forces during the civil-war aftermath. After the Restoration he served Charles II as a senior admiral, fought in the Anglo-Dutch wars and pursued scientific and technical interests associated with the early Royal Society.
Charles Spencer’s 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. Prince Rupert of the Rhine is treated fictionally in Giles Kristian’s Brothers’ Fury, Michael Arnold’s Devil’s Charge, Michael Arnold’s Marston Moor, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles’ The Oak Apple, and Michael Arnold’s Traitor’s Blood.
