Rupert |
Rupert and Maurice came from a large family. Their mother, Princess Elizabeth Stuart, had wed Frederick of the Palatinate back in 1613 and for a little while the newlyweds had also been King and Queen of Bohemia, a venture that ended rather disastrously when the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, decided to oust the Protestant pretender from Prague. Whatever hopes Frederick and Elizabeth may have had of remaining on the Bohemian throne were ground to dust at the Battle of the White Mountain in November of 1620. (Read more about Elizabeth here)
Elizabeth |
A very young Frederick |
Charles Louis and Rupert |
Maurice |
Maurice served his king capably and loyally. Often in the company of Rupert, he was dismissed as being nothing but his older brother’s shadow, a good-for-nothing that lacked the skills to act independently. This was not the case, and there are various occasions during the Civil War when Maurice’s command and personal bravery resulted in won battles.
No matter how bravely and effectively Maurice fought, his reputation in England was destroyed by the debacle of the Siege of Lyme in 1644. Prince Maurice had been in the west for some time, successfully regaining ground from the Parliamentarian forces until only Plymouth, Poole and Lyme remained under Parliamentarian control.
Maurice was ordered to besiege and take Lyme – a walk in the park according to the other royalist officers. Turns out it wasn’t. Not only was Lyme kept in food and water by Parliamentarian ships sneaking into its harbour, but it was defended by men who fervently believed in the Parliamentarian cause. Maurice’s mercenaries were not as passionate, and things weren’t helped by nature itself, steep cliffs making it difficult for Maurice to deploy his artillery. In desperation, Maurice ordered the town to be stormed. Didn’t work. He did it again. Didn’t work. By now, Maurice’s men were less than enthusiastic about the whole thing and when they had news of the Earl of Essex advancing to relieve the town, Maurice had no choice but to pull back.
Demoted and humiliated, Maurice still continued to fight for his uncle, now mostly under the command of his brother, like at the Battle of Naseby. He was also with Rupert at the disastrous Siege of Bristol where Rupert had to give up. King Charles angrily accused his nephew of cowardice and borderline treason and ordered Rupert to leave his service—immediately.
Rupert wasn’t having it. Neither was Maurice. Somehow they made their way back to the king where Rupert demanded he be court-martialled for the events at Bristol. He was cleared of any duplicitous behaviour but the relationship between the king and his fiery nephew was permanently damaged – even more so when both Rupert and Maurice tried to make King Charles see he had no choice but to negotiate with the Parliamentarians.
“Over my dead body,” Charles likely said (most unfortunately, given how things turned out) but he grudgingly allowed the brothers to remain in his service which they did until they were exiled by the Parliamentary forces in 1646.
Maurice didn’t exactly twiddle his thumbs once he’d left England. He found a new army to serve, new battles to fight, joining the French in Flanders. But when big brother Rupert suggested he return to serve under him in 1648, Maurice eagerly did so, enamoured, no doubt, by Rupert’s plans to crush the Parliamentarian forces at sea now that most of the Parliamentarian vessels had defected to the royalist cause.
Things didn’t work out quite as intended, mainly because fighting at sea was a totally different animal than fighting on land, and neither Rupert nor Maurice had any experience in managing naval forces. Plus, of course, the Parliamentarian navy had one of the better admirals around, a Robert Blake who soon enough had Rupert’s fleet fleeing for its life, away from England, away from Europe.
By the time 1650 rolled in, Rupert and Maurice were down to six ships or so but determined to regroup and return in force to England, there to push the claim of their young cousin, Charles II. Their uncle was dead, beheaded no less, and the royalist cause had little going for it. There was no money, no men, no leadership. It was Rupert’s hope that his ships would be able to sort the money issue by resorting to piracy, and for a while there things went rather well. Until a storm sank one of the ships and most of the treasure. Maurice almost drowned in the debacle but was pulled to safety at the last moment.
A short-lived reprieve as it would turn out. In 1652, the little fleet was hit by a hurricane in the West indies and one of the ships went down. This time, Maurice went down with it and no matter how his brother searched for him, he was never found. A devastated Rupert returned home to Europe. For years, he held out hope that Maurice had somehow survived, but Maurice never did reappear, stuck no doubt in a very watery grave somewhere in the Caribbean.
Maurice |
All pictures in public domain and/or licensed under Wikimedia Creative Commons
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Had Anna Belfrage been allowed to choose, she’d have become a professional time-traveller. As such a profession does not exist, she became a financial professional with two absorbing interests, namely history and writing.
Presently, Anna is hard at work with The King’s Greatest Enemy, a series set in the 1320s featuring Adam de Guirande, his wife Kit, and their adventures and misfortunes in connection with Roger Mortimer’s rise to power. And yes, Edmund of Woodstock appears quite frequently. The first book, In The Shadow of the Storm was published in 2015, the second, Days of Sun and Glory, was published in July 2016, and the third, Under the Approaching Dark, was published in April 2017.
When Anna is not stuck in the 14th century, she's probably visiting in the 17th century, specifically with Alex(andra) and Matthew Graham, the protagonists of the acclaimed The Graham Saga. This is the story of two people who should never have met – not when she was born three centuries after him.
More about Anna on her website or on her blog!
Fantastic post! Poor Maurice. He was overshadowed in life by his older brother. His death was pretty dramatic, being entangled with a hurricane.
ReplyDeleteAll three brothers were good looking Stuarts. Tall dark and handsome. As I recall Rupert was 3rd and Maurice 4th in line to Charles II's throne until James had children, so they were Very Important Princes.
ReplyDeleteActually, there was a fourth brother who married for love despite having to convert to catholicism to do so. He was rather good looking too :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Anna, fascinating post! I had heard of Maurice, but it's true that Rupert is the one we hear about most. Rupert has even appeared as the hero of A Midsummer Tempest, a novel by Poul Anderson, set in a universe in which Shakespeare was known as the Great Historian and Rupert must go to the island from The Tempest to retrieve Prospero's book and use it to save his uncle.
ReplyDeleteOf Doctors And Regeneration: Some Silly Thoughts