Prince Rupert

Prince Rupert is best known as the poster boy of the Royalist cause. He was the dynamic leader of Charles I's Cavaliers – the fearless champion of the King.In this new exploration Charles Spencer follows the prince from his exile and three years a prisoner of war, to his exhilarating years in the Civil War.After Royalist defeat Rupert served Louis XIV, before leading Charles's navy against Cromwell's, in the Caribbean and Africa. Repeatedly wounded, he survived some of the more gruesome medical procedures of the time.Artist, scientist, adventurer, lover, inventor and admiral, Rupert's life was on of extraordinary range and depth (he was, in Samuel Pepys's view, the best tennis player in England). Charles Spencer paints a compelling portrait of an intriguing individual and a helter-skelter existence, giving a fresh face to the archetypal cavalier.