Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/420

 He was also admitted to the privy council (28 April 1662) and made one of the commissioners for the government of Tangier (27 Oct. 1662). In April 1661 Rupert paid a visit to Vienna, hoping to obtain a command from the emperor in the war against the Turks, and to recover some money due to him by the provisions of the treaty of Münster. In both these objects he failed, and his letters attribute his ill-success in part to the hostile intervention of his brother, the elector palatine (, iii. 450, 454–5; cf. Report on the Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth, i. 1–9). He returned to England in November 1661, shortly before the death of his mother, the queen of Bohemia (13 Feb. 1662), at whose funeral, in Westminster Abbey, he was chief mourner. She left him her jewels, and her will seems to have involved him in a fresh dispute with his brother the elector (, Lives of the Princesses of England, vi. 83; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1663–4, p. 528).

Partly in hopes of profit, and partly from interest in maritime and colonial adventure, Rupert became one of the patentees of the Royal African Company on 10 Jan. 1663 (Cal. State Papers, Col. 1660–8, p. 120). Their disputes with the Dutch therefore touched him closely, and in August 1664 it was determined that a fleet of twelve ships-of-war, with six of the company's ships, should be sent under the command of Rupert to the African coast to oppose a Dutch fleet under De Ruyter which was expected there; but, in spite of the prince's eagerness to go, the fleet was never despatched (, Continuation of Life, p. 525;, Life of Clarendon, ii. 265). Early in 1665 the prince fell seriously ill ({sc|Pepys}}, Diary, 15 Jan. 1665). In April he was sufficiently recovered to go to sea as admiral of the white under the command of the Duke of York, and at the battle of Solebay, on 3 June 1665, his squadron led the attack (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1664–5, pp. 280, 408, 420). He showed his habitual courage, though still weak from illness (Poems on Affairs of State, i. 26, ed. 1702). To his great indignation, in the following July the undivided command of the fleet was given to the Earl of Sandwich instead of to himself (, Diary, 25 June and 5 July 1665;, Continuation of Life, p. 660). In April 1666 Rupert was joined with Monck in command under the belief that Monck's experience and discretion would temper his headlong courage (ib. pp. 771, 868). But the fleet was unwisely divided, and while Rupert, with twenty ships, was in search of the French squadron, under the Duc de Beaufort, the Dutch defeated Monck's fleet. Rupert returned on the third day of the fight, in time to save Monck from destruction (3 June 1666), but could not convert the defeat into a victory. He changed his ship three times in the course of the engagement, and his exploits form the theme of many stanzas in Dryden's ‘Annus Mirabilis’ (stanzas 105, 127; Cal. State Papers, Dom. xxi. 441). Rupert was blamed for not coming sooner to Monck's aid; it was urged in defence that the order recalling him was not sent with sufficient despatch, that he started as soon as he heard the sound of the cannonade, and that he was delayed by a contrary wind (, Continuation, p. 873;, Diary, 24 June 1666). He commanded, still in association with Monck, in the actions of 25–9 July, and in the attack on the Dutch coast which followed (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1665–6 p. 579, 1666–7 pp. 22, 32). In the narrative of the miscarriages in the management of the war which he afterwards drew up for the House of Commons, he complained bitterly that want of provisions obliged the fleet to abandon the blockade which these successes made possible (, iii. 480; cf., Diary, 26 Aug. and 7 Oct. 1666). He asserted also that he advised the king to fortify Harwich and Sheerness against a Dutch landing, and blamed the plan of setting out no fleet in 1667, though, according to Clarendon, he had approved of it in council (Continuation, p. 1026). An old wound, which broke out again, kept him inactive for some time; but when the Dutch entered the Medway the king sent him to take command at Woolwich, and ordered him to superintend the fortifications subsequently to be raised on the Medway (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1667, pp. 179, 273;, iii. 486).

On 29 Sept. 1668 Rupert was appointed constable of Windsor Castle, compounding, however, with his predecessor, Lord Mordaunt, for 3,500l. (Le Fleming MSS. p. 59; and, Annals of Windsor, ii. 349–54). He was also given a grant of Upper Spring Gardens in June 1668, and a pension of 2,000l. a year. He sought to add to his fortune further by a scheme for coining farthings (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1667–8, pp. 278, 467, 608, 1670 p. 189). In conjunction with the Duke of Albemarle and others, he took up a scheme for discovering the supposed passage through the great lakes of Canada to the South Sea, and despatched in June 1668 two ships to Hudson's Bay for that purpose. One of the two ships, the Eaglet ketch, was lent by Charles II; the proposer of the expedition was a