Yet Rupert, in spite of this reputation was neither ruffianly nor cruel. The News Letters called him "a loose wild gentleman",[18] and many accused him of hanging Roundheads at their own doors, and plundering villages wholesale;[19] but such rumours were libels. "Where are these men that will affirm it? In what country or town stood those houses betrayed by me, or by my sufferance, to that misery of rapine?" demanded the Prince, in answer to one of his accusers. "He will answer '_they_' said it. But who '_they_' were he knows not; in truth, nor I neither, nor no man else."[20] And said Sir Thomas Roe, who was not all inclined to approve the part Rupert had taken: "I cannot hear anything, _credibly_ averred, which can be blamed by those who know the liberty of wars."[21] But the English did not know "the liberty of the wars," and they were naturally inclined to judge the young Prince harshly. Severe Rupert undoubtedly could be, if necessary. When the Puritans began a wholesale massacre of the King's Irish soldiers, the Prince promptly retaliated by executing an equal number of Puritan {65} prisoners. But the stern act, coupled with the assurance that for the life of every Royalist that of a Roundhead should pay, effectually checked the barbarities of the Parliament. The nickname of "Prince Robber"[22] was certainly unjustly bestowed; yet the Royal Army had to be supported, and the only way to support it was by levying contributions on the country. "The Horse have not been paid, but live upon the country,"[23] wrote a Cavalier to his wife. It is possible that Rupert was not over-scrupulous when the persons taxed happened to be Puritans, yet he always maintained what he considered a proper degree of discipline; and the frequent apologies of his officers prove that the Prince did not permit indiscriminate plunder. "Our men are not very governable, nor do I think they will be, unless some of them are hanged. They fall extremely to the old kind of plundering, which is neither for their good, nor for His Majesty's service,"[24] wrote Lord Wentworth. And, after a high-handed capture of some arms at Swanbourne, the same officer again apologised: "If your Highness think it too great a cruelty in us I hope you will pardon us. You shall consider that we could not have done otherwise."[25]