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Rupert, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, 1st Duke of Cumberland, 1st Earl of Holderness (German: Ruprecht Pfalzgraf bei Rhein, Herzog von Bayern), commonly called Prince Rupert of the Rhine, KG, FRS (17 December 1619 – 29 November 1682) was a noted soldier, admiral, scientist, sportsman, colonial governor and amateur artist during the 17th century. Rupert was a younger son of the German prince Frederick V, Elector Palatine and his wife Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of James I of England. Thus Rupert was the nephew of King Charles I of England, who created him Duke of Cumberland and Earl of Holderness, and the first cousin of King Charles II of England.
Rupert Stuart in 1632[]
Along with the rest of his family, Rupert Stuart was taken captive when Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand seized most of the Netherlands after the destruction of the Dutch fleet by the League of Ostend.
Even in his mid-teens, Rupert's size and strength were notable; he was six feet tall by the time he was sixteen. He was also known for his adamant statements that he would not follow the military career that he had in the OTL, as he was determined not to allow his fame in the old timeline to determine the course of his life in the new one. Even so, he was a student in a Dutch salle d’armes, and maintained a rigorous regimen. He was familiar with what was known of his military career. His mentions of becoming an artist or inventor may be irony, given that he had also been remembered as a talented amateur in those areas, or may imply that he was aware of that.
In the winter of 1634-1635, his older sister Elisabeth asked him to accompany her when she moved to Amsterdam to study medicine under Anne Jefferson, and he did. When Anne, who was less than happy about being placed in that situation, arranged for Elisabeth's introduction to medicine to be an anatomy lesson, he provided a bucket for her to vomit into. However, he was the one who could not bear to watch -- and needed the bucket.
Before they left for Amsterdam, Rupert received an inviation from Thomas Wentworth, who had written him at the urging of William Laud. The meeting was good for both of them, they were, in their own ways, still dealing with aspects of having a well-recorded life that had happened elsewhere, and which they had not been able to resist learning about. Simply by being much younger and having become much more famous, Rupert was able to lift Wentworth out of the doldrums he had been in. In turn, Wentworth was able to get Rupert to see that being guided by a determination to avoid the path of his "other life" would still be allowing it to determine the course of his present life. The meeting also helped both of them realize that they were not the people in the histories, and that even if they did something their "other selves" had done, they would be doing it for the first time.
Later in 1635, while at a masque rehearsal with his sister, Rupert played a key role in defeating assassins sent by the Earl of Cork before they could kill more than one of their intended targets. His sister was wounded during this, though not seriously. One of the assassins he'd hit with a thrown chair inadvertently fired his pistol, and the deflected and spent bullet glanced off her head. Rupert, however, only knew that she had been hit. Thinking she had been killed, he went into a rage, first throwing her chair at the assassins, then breaking a third chair and using the legs as weapons, and finally hurling two of the assassins into a wall. At one point, he was nearly shot himself, only being saved because Ben Jonson stumbled in front of him as the shot was being fired -- and because the assassins were using single-shot pistols. However, he was not a target; the shooter did not know who he was, only that he was an obvious and imminent threat.
Afterwards, Rupert was convinced that he and Elisabeth had been targets of the assassins, and was irate at what he believed to have been a deliberate attack on his sister. Also, while others believed that the Earl of Cork was ultimately behind the attack, Rupert was certain of that, and held King Charles ultimately responsible for it. Wentworth made no effort to persuade Rupert that his suspicions were unwarranted, as he thought that Rupert's conviction and anger would serve his goal of overthrowing Charles.
Note[]
By showing a private conversation between Richard Boyle and Paul Pindar, the final section of "The Masque" shows the reader that Boyle was, in fact, behind the attack. However, the characters in Amsterdam have no evidence directly linking Boyle, much less Charles, to the attack.