Prince Rupert—His Character—Serves through the Civil War—His Naval Expedition in the West Indies—Residence in France—And ultimately in London—He receives Groseilliers and introduces him to the King.

It was a fortunate chance for Medard Chouart des Groseilliers that threw him, as we shall see, into the hands of such a man as Rupert, Prince of England and Bohemia.

A dashing soldier, a daring sailor, a keen and enlightened student, a man of parts, and at the age of forty-seven still worshipping adventure as a fetish and irresistibly attracted by anything that savoured of novelty, there was perhaps no other noble in England more likely to listen to such a project as the Canadian was prepared to pour into his ear, no prince in the whole of Europe more likely to succumb to its charm.

Rupert may, on good grounds, be considered one of the most remarkable men of that age. He was the third son of the King of Bohemia by the Princess Elizabeth Stuart, eldest daughter of James I. In common with most German princes he had been educated for the army; and, as he used to observe himself in after years, there was no profession better fitted for a prince provided he could be allowed to fight battles. It was a maxim of his that the arts of patience, of strategy, and parleying with the enemy should be left to statesmen and caitiffs; and it can be said with truth of Rupert that no one could possibly have acted more completely in accordance with his rule than himself. "Than Prince Rupert," wrote a chronicler at his death, "no man was more courageous or intrepid. He could storm a citadel but, alas, he could never keep it. A lion in the fray, he was a very lamb, tho' a fuming one, if a siege was called for."

Youthful, high-spirited and of comely appearance, Rupert found his way to England during his twentieth year to offer his services to his royal uncle, King Charles I. The country was then on the brink of a civil war. Parliament had proved refractory. The Puritan forces had already assembled; and in a few months the first blow was struck. The young Prince placed himself at the head of a troop of cavaliers and soon all England was ringing with the fame of his exploits. On more than one occasion did Cromwell have reason to remember the prowess of "fiery Prince Rupert."

The Great Company's Founder.

Such dashing tactics and spontaneous strategy, however, could not always prevail. He was charged with the defence of Bristol, with what result is a matter of common historical knowledge. His own observation on this episode in his career is an admirable epitome of his character, as comprehensive as it is brief, "I have no stomach for sieges."

Charles wrote him a letter of somewhat undue severity, in which he exhibited all the asperity of his character as well as his ignorance of the situation. Perhaps if he had realized that the circumstances would have rendered the retention of Bristol impossible even to a Caesar or a Turenne, he might have written in a more tolerant strain; but it is not very probable. In any case the letter cut Rupert to the heart.

Before his final overthrow Charles, indeed, relented from his severity, and created his nephew Earl of Holdernesse and Duke of Cumberland, granting him also a safe conduct to France, which was honoured by the Parliamentary leaders.

Thenceforward for a few years Rupert's career is directly associated with the high seas. On the revolt of the fleet from the control of the Commonwealth he made his way on board of one of the King's vessels, and figured in several naval battles and skirmishes. But even here the result was a foregone conclusion. The bulk of the ships and crews still remaining loyal were rapidly captured or sunk, and the remnant, of which Rupert assumed command, was exceedingly small. He began by sailing to Ireland, whither he was pursued by Popham and Blake, who very quickly blocked him up in the harbour of Kinsale. But the Puritan captains were deceived if, as it appears, they fancied the Prince an easy prey. Rupert was no more the sailor than he had been the soldier to brook so facile a capture. He effected a bold escape, just under their guns. But realizing his helplessness to engage the Puritan fleet in open combat, he inaugurated a series of minor conflicts, a kind of guerilla warfare, which, to our modern notions, would best be classified under the head of privateering, to use no harsher term.

A resemblance to piracy.

The Spanish Main was at that period an excellent ground for operations of this kind, and with very little delay Rupert was soon very busy with his small but gallant fleet in those waters. Here the commander of the little Reformation and his convoys spent three years with no little pecuniary profit to himself and crew. On more than one occasion his exploits in the neighbourhood of the West Indies bore no distant resemblance to piracy, as he boarded impartially not only English, Dutch and Spanish ships, but also those flying the English colours. Howbeit on one occasion, being advised that the master of one craft was a Frenchman, he generously forebore to reap the profits of his valour out of respect to the monarch with whom both his cousins, Charles and James, had found a refuge. He insisted that the plunder should be restored. On the whole, however, Rupert seems to have had little conscience in the matter. The mere excitement of such adventures alone delighted him, although it would scarce have satisfied his crews. There is reason to suppose that he himself was not actuated primarily by the mere love of gain. It is known that several of his captains returned with large fortunes; Rupert's own profits were long a matter for conjecture. Even at his death they could not be approximately ascertained; for while he left a goodly fortune, comprising jewels valued at twenty thousand pounds, much of this fortune was acquired legitimately since these stirring days of his youth; and no small part was derived from his share in the Hudson's Bay Company.

The exiled prince, in whose name Rupert was always extremely careful to conduct his depredations on the prosperous commerce of the West Indies, does not appear himself to have derived much material advantage therefrom. It was true the terror of his name was already industriously spread in those waters, and this perhaps was some consolation for the contempt with which it was regarded by the insolent and usurping Puritans. In a newspaper of the period, "Pleasant Passages," I find under date of October 15, 1652, the following quaint comment:

"Prince Rupert hath lately seized on some good prizes and he keeps himself far remote; and makes his kinsman, Charles Stuart, make a leg for some cullings of his windfalls."

Loss of the "Reformation."

Rupert after a time transferred the scene of his operations to the Azores, where after some collisions with the Portuguese, he met with a catastrophe so severe as to compel him to permanently desist from his predatory operations. A violent storm came on, and the Reformation and his entire fleet perished, no fewer than 360 souls being lost on the flagship. It was with difficulty that the Prince and twelve of his companions, including his brother Maurice, escaped with a portion of the treasure. A contemporary news-writer records that Rupert had landed at Nantes with ten thousand pounds or so, "'tis said by those best informed. The King hath sent his carriage to meet him at Orleans."

Charles, who was of course the King mentioned, was then in high hopes of obtaining funds from his cousin Rupert, which might enable him to make an effort for the recovery of his crown. But the king, minus a throne, was destined to be disappointed. Rupert did not yet seem prepared to disgorge, acting, it is easy to see, on advice.[8]

"No money for his Majesty out of all this," forms the burden of numerous letters written by the faithful Edward Hyde, afterwards to become the Lord Chancellor Clarendon.

"The money the King should have received!" he complains, in an epistle addressed to Sir Richard Browne. "Why, Rupert is so totally governed by the Lord Keeper, Sir Edward Herbert, that the King knows him not. The King hasn't had a penny, and Rupert pretends the King owes him more than ever I was worth."

Hyde had no love for the Lord Keeper of the exiled court; but according to several contemporary writers, the buccaneering Prince looked upon Herbert as "an oracle," (to quote the diarist Evelyn) and chose for a time at least to spend most of his gains in his own way.

But Rupert did not persist in the course suggested by his friend Herbert. Soon afterwards he is announced to have made Charles a present of two thousand pounds, for which the King expressed his profound satisfaction by attaching him immediately to the royal household.

A little later, in 1654, there is recorded the following, printed in the "Loyal Gentleman at Court."

"Prince Rupert flourishes highly here, with his troop of blackamoors; and so doth his cousin Charles, they having shared the money made of his prize goods at Nantz."

Rupert's Secretary.

It was in this year that Rupert seems to have engaged one William Strong, a cavalier who had lost all he possessed, to replace John Holder as his private secretary, a circumstance worthy of mention, inasmuch as it was Strong who was to figure later as the intermediary between his master and the adventurer Groseilliers in London.

There is a passage of this period which describes Rupert as he appeared in Paris, "a straight and comely man, very dark-featured," probably owing to exposure in warm climates, "with jet black hair and a great passion for dress." He is often referred to in news-letters and diaries of the time under the sobriquet of the "Black Prince."

"Our Black Prince Ruperte" records one, "has had a narrow escape from drowning in the Seine; but by the help of one of his blackamoors escaped."

This was perhaps the period of the closest friendship between Charles and his Bohemian cousin; inasmuch as a decided coolness had already arisen on the part of the exiled monarch and his brother, the Duke of York. This coolness at length terminated in a quarrel, and a separation in the ensuing year at Bruges. Indeed, the Duke advised Rupert to have no further dealings with his royal brother, a proposition which the Prince wisely, and fortunately for himself, neglected to entertain, for had he acted otherwise, it is extremely doubtful if at the Restoration he would have been in a position to demand any favours at the monarch's hands. James, probably on this score, never afterwards professed much cordiality towards his kinsman, Rupert.

A patron of commerce.

In the years between 1656 and 1665, Rupert spent much of his time in cultivating science and the arts. There are a hundred evidences of his extraordinary ingenuity. A mere list of his devices and inventions, as printed at his decease in 1682, almost entitles him to be considered the Edison of his day, a day in which inventors were rare. Yet in the period before the outbreak of the Dutch war his activity was by no means limited to the laboratory which he had constructed for himself in Kings' Bench Walk, Temple, or to his study at Windsor. None could have exhibited greater versatility. In April, 1662, he was sworn a member of the Privy Council; he also became a member of the Tangier Commission; and in December of the same year he was unanimously elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He already cut a prominent figure as a patron of commerce, being appointed a member of the Council of Trade, and taking an active part in the promotion of commerce with Africa as a member of the Royal African Company.

With all his sympathies and activities, however, it is very clear that Rupert did not enjoy very great favour at Court. He was suspected of holding his royal cousin in not very high esteem, and of entertaining pronounced opinions on the subject of the royal prerogative; whatever the cause, his influence at Whitehall was not always fortunate. Seeing his councils neglected on several occasions, he kept aloof, and the courtiers, taking as they supposed their cue from their master, made light of his past achievements, finding in his surrender of the city of Bristol, a specially suitable subject for their derision.

In 1664 we find in Pepys' Diary that Rupert had been "sent to command the Guinny Fleet. Few pleased, as he is accounted an unhappy [i.e., unlucky] man." As a consequence of these sentiments, which Rupert was soon destined by his valour to alter, one Captain Holmes was sent instead. Nevertheless it was known at Court that Rupert desired a naval employment, and as the authorities found that their estimate of his abilities was not mistaken, he was in 1666 selected to command the fleet against the Dutch, in conjunction with the Duke of Albemarle. His conduct was most exemplary. On one occasion he wrested a victory from the Dutch, and again in the month of June beat them soundly, pursuing them into their own harbour. Returning to England on the cessation of hostilities, he found himself in much higher favour at Court. But with a single exception, which I will proceed to relate, Rupert sought no favours at the hands of his royal relations from this moment until the day of his death. He was content to pursue an even career in comparative solitude, a circumstance for which a serious physical ailment, which soon overtook and for a time threatened his life, was no doubt in some measure responsible. The fire which distinguished his youth was exchanged, we are told, for good temper and sedateness. He was credited with writing an autobiography, but if the report be true, it is a pity there remains no tangible evidence of such an intention. It is certain that his correspondence was so large as to entail the continuous employment of a secretary, William Strong; but prior to the inception of the Hudson's Bay project, it probably related almost entirely to his chemical and scientific researches and achievements.

In May, 1667, the Prince's secretary opened a letter from Lord Preston, then English ambassador at Paris, intimating that one M. des Groseilliers, a Canadian fur-trader, would be the bearer of an introductory letter from himself to his highness. He was convinced that the French were managing the fur-trade of New France very clumsily, and he added that Monsieur des Groseilliers seemed as much disaffected towards the new company lately chartered by the French king as towards the old. There is no reason, in the writer's opinion, why English men of commerce should not avail themselves of opportunities and instruments, such as the weak policy of their rivals now afforded, for obtaining a share in the northern fur-trade.

Rupert sends for Groseilliers.

Unfortunately Rupert was at first unable to see the adventurer who had travelled so far. The cause of the delay is not quite clear, but it appears plausible to suppose that it was due to the Prince's illness. He had already undergone the operation of trepanning, and it was found necessary to still continue treatment for the disease to which he had been subject. At any rate it was a fortnight or three weeks before the first interview took place, and the Prince and the French trader did not meet until the 4th of June. The result of this interview was that Prince Rupert promised his credit for the scheme. Three days later he sent for Groseilliers, who found on his arrival in the Prince's apartments several gentlemen, among whom Lord Craven, Sir John Robinson and Mr. John Portman appear to have been numbered. In a week from this conference both Radisson, Groseilliers and Portman travelled to Windsor Castle at the request of the Prince. There is no record of what then passed, but there is mention of a further meeting in a letter written by Oldenburgh, the secretary of the Royal Society to Robert Boyle, in America.

"Surely I need not tell you from hence" he wrote, "what is said here with great joy of the discovery of a north-west passage by two Englishmen and one Frenchman, lately represented by them to his Majesty at Oxford and, answered by the grant of a vessel to sail into Hudson's Bay and channel into the South Sea."

From this it would appear that Radisson was then popularly supposed to be an Englishman, probably on account of his being Sir John Kirke's son-in-law, and also that the matter was not settled at Windsor, but at Oxford.

Then came a long delay—during which there is nothing worthy of record. It was too late to attempt a voyage to the Bay in 1667, but during the autumn and winter Groseilliers and Radisson could console themselves with the assurance that their scheme had succeeded.

For at last the adventurers had met with a tangible success. A ship was engaged and fitted out for them; and it was none other than that commanded by their Boston friend, Captain Zachary Gillam.