Prince Rupert of the Rhine was an intrinsic part of the civil wars that devastated the three kingdoms of Stuart Britain. A nephew of King Charles I, Rupert was both the archetypical royalist hero and parliamentarian villain. In his lifetime, he accumulated at least nine derogatory pseudonyms – from ‘Duke of Plunderland’ to ‘The Diabolical […]
The women Prince Rupert loved
The two women Prince Rupert loved are thought of — if they’re thought of at all — as his mistresses. But, says Mark Turnbull, they were much more than the bed partners of Rupert the Devil. As the Prince’s biographer, he believes: “Knowing them is knowing him.” Think of the women linked to Prince Rupert […]
Henrietta Maria by Leanda de Lisle
Henrietta Maria, Charles I’s queen, is the most reviled consort in British history. Condemned as the ‘Popish brat of France’ and a ‘notorious whore’, she remains in popular memory the woman who turned the king Catholic — and so causing a civil war — and a cruel and bigoted mother. Leanda de Lisle unpicks these […]
Charles I’s Private Life by Mark Turnbull
The execution of King Charles I is one of the well-known facts of British history, and an often-quoted snippet from our past. He lost the civil war and his head. But there is more to Charles than the civil war and his death. To fully appreciate the momentous events that marked the twenty-four years of […]
Charles I – the boy who would be King
Charles I is often thought of in polarised terms, as a martyr or a murderer. Mark Turnbull, author of a new biography of the king, argues that by more closely examining Charles’s personal relationships a more three-dimensional image of the man can be built up. Here he writes about the boy who would become a […]