Prince Rupert of the Rhine
Prince Rupert of the Rhine commanded Charles I's cavalry, was blamed for losing the war, and spent his later life as an admiral and an inventor. Born in Prague in 1619, the third son of the Elector Palatine Frederick V and Elizabeth Stuart, he was a few months old when his father accepted the crown of Bohemia and lost it at the White Mountain, which began the Thirty Years' War and made the family exiles. He soldiered from fourteen, was captured at Vlotho in 1638, and spent three years in Austrian captivity, where he was given a poodle called Boy. He arrived in England in 1642 at twenty-three and was made general of horse. His method was the full-speed charge with sword rather than the caracole with pistols, and it broke the enemy wing in almost every battle he fought — at Edgehill, Chalgrove, Newbury and Marston Moor. It also went straight off the field in pursuit, which lost Edgehill its result and contributed to the disaster at Marston Moor in 1644, where his army was destroyed and Boy killed. He surrendered Bristol in 1645 on terms and was dismissed by his uncle, who suspected treachery. He then commanded the royalist fleet, raiding as far as the Caribbean and West Africa, and after the Restoration led squadrons in the Dutch wars. He was a founder member of the Royal Society, improved mezzotint, invented an alloy, and gave his name to the glass drops that shatter when their tail is snipped. He died in 1682, and Rupert's Land in Canada is named for him.
- Lived: 1619 CE – 1682 CE
- Nationality: German
- Roles: head_of_state, military_leader
