The very first skirmish of the war established his reputation. The terrified Puritans spread abroad reports of the "incredible and unresistible courage of Prince Rupert,"[9] which grew and multiplied as the war proceeded, until Rupert, "exalted with the terror his name gave to the enemy,"[10] would not believe that any troops could {63} withstand his charge. "The enemy is possest with so strange and senseless a feare as they will not believe any place tenable to which Your Highness will march,"[11] reported his officers. Nor was it wonderful that the Puritans deemed him something more than human. Conspicuous always by his dress and unusual height, ever foremost in the charge, utterly "prodigal of his person," he bore a charmed life. Twice pistols were fired in his face, without doing him the slightest harm. Once his horse was killed under him, but "he marched off on foot leisurely, without so much as mending his pace."[12] While guarding the retreat from Brentford he stood alone for hours, exposed to a heavy fire, and yet came off unscathed. "Nephew, I must conjure you not to hazard yourself so nedlessely,"[13] wrote his anxious uncle; but the King's anxiety was uncalled for, Rupert remained uninjured till the end of the war, though Maurice was wounded in almost every action in which he engaged. The Austrians at Vlotho had called Rupert "shot free", and so he seemed now to Puritan and Cavalier. "Sir, you're enchanted! Sir, you're doubly free "From the great guns, and squibbing poetry,"[14] declared a Royalist poet. Rupert, moreover, seemed to be in all places at once. "This prince, like a perpetual motion.... was in a short time, heard of in many places at great distances,"[15] says the Parliamentary historian, May. And again: "The two young princes, and especially Prince Rupert, the elder brother, and most furious of the two, within a fortnight after his arrival commanded a small party.... Through {64} divers parts of Warwickshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Worcester and Cheshire did this young prince fly with those troops he had."[16] Nowhere did the adherents of the Parliament feel safe from his attack, and the magical rapidity of his movements enhanced the terror inspired by his prowess. Wrote his admirer, Cleveland: "Your name can scare an atheist to his prayers, "And cure the chincough better than the bears; "Old Sybils charm toothache with you; the nurse "Makes you still children; and the pondrous curse "The clown salutes with is derived from you; "'Now Rupert take thee, Rogue! How dost thou do?'"[17]