Then, feeling his increasing weakness, he asked leave to return home, as
"the work was done and the chain complete." But he died at sea, in
sight of Plymouth Sound. His funeral in Westminster Abbey was a
splendid one, worthy of the splendid service he had rendered to England,
Cromwell having ordered that "no pomp was to be spared, so as to
encourage all officers to venture their lives." A lasting shame it is
indeed that at the Restoration his remains, with those of Deane, one of
his admirals, and other Parliamentary officers, were taken from their
graves, and buried without any mark of respect in one common grave in
St. Margaret’s Churchyard. Within the Abbey no monument marks his grave,
though he had held for England the supremacy of the seas against
vigorous attacks, and had made a reputation for himself "very wonderful,
which will never be forgotten in Spain."
The very name of Prince Rupert breathes of romance and adventure. His
mother was the fascinating and high-spirited Princess Elizabeth,
daughter of James I., who had married Frederick, Prince Palatine of the
Rhine, and had persuaded him to accept the crown of Bohemia when it was
offered to him by the people, who had just wrested their independence
from the Emperor of Austria. But his reign at Prague was short, for the
Emperor won back his own, and the Queen of Hearts, as Elizabeth was
affectionately called, had to escape with her children as best she
could, Rupert being but a few weeks old. Her father, afraid of Spain
and the Roman Catholic powers, would do nothing to help her, so she
would have fared badly had it not been for some faithful English
friends, headed by Lord Craven, and the people of Holland, who looked on
the king of Bohemia as a sufferer in the Protestant cause, and who
therefore gave his family a home besides a generous allowance.
Frederick was not only deprived of his new kingdom, but lost also his
old possessions, for the Emperor seized his lands on the Rhine and
spoiled his palaces. Many a brave attempt he made to win back the
Palatinate, always to be baffled, and at last, after the death of his
eldest son, he fell into such a low state of health that he died of a
fever. Elizabeth was left with three sons and two daughters, Rupert
being her idol, for she believed him born to be a hero. And truly he
was a boy to be proud of, excelling in everything he undertook, and such
a true soldier that, when he was only fourteen, his tutors declared he
was worthy to command a regiment. When Charles I. became king, he
invited two of his nephews to England, and, with the queen, at once lost
his heart to Rupert, who was then about eighteen. He proposed making
him a bishop or marrying him to an heiress, but Rupert would hear of
neither plan. A soldier’s life, with plenty of adventure, was the only
life for him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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