Prince Rupert (1619 - 1682). Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland, was a German-British army officer, admiral, scientist and colonial governor. He first came to prominence as a Cavalier cavalry commander during the English Civil War. Rupert was a younger son of the German prince Frederick V of the Palatinate and his wife Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of James VI of Scotland and I of England. Prince Rupert had a varied career. He was a soldier from a young age, fighting alongside Dutch forces against the Habsburg Spain during the Eighty Years' War, and against the Holy Roman Emperor in Germany during the Thirty Years' War. Aged 23, he was appointed commander of the Royalist cavalry during the English Civil War, becoming the archetypal Cavalier of the war and ultimately the senior Royalist general. He surrendered after the fall of Bristol and was banished from England. He served under Louis XIV of France against Spain, and then as a Royalist privateer in the Caribbean Sea. Following the Restoration, Rupert returned to England, becoming a senior English naval commander during the Second Anglo-Dutch War and Third Anglo-Dutch War, and serving as the first governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. He died in England in 1682, aged 62. Rupert is considered to have been a quick-thinking and energetic cavalry general, but ultimately undermined by his youthful impatience in dealing with his peers during the Civil War. In the Interregnum, Rupert continued the conflict against Parliament by sea from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean, showing considerable persistence in the face of adversity. As the head of the Royal Navy in his later years, he showed greater maturity and made impressive and long-lasting contributions to the Royal Navy's doctrine and development. As a colonial governor, Rupert shaped the political geography of modern Canada: Rupert's Land was named in his honour, and he was a founder of the Hudson's Bay Company. He also played a role in the early Atlantic slave trade. Rupert's varied and numerous scientific and administrative interests combined with his considerable artistic skills made him one of the more colourful public figures in England of the Restoration period. His father was Frederick V of the Palatinate, of the Palatinate-Simmern branch of the House of Wittelsbach. As Elector Palatine, Frederick was one of the most important princes of the Holy Roman Empire. He was also head of the Protestant Union, a coalition of Protestant German states. The Palatinate was a wealthy state, and Frederick lived in great luxury. Frederick's mother, Countess Louise Juliana of Nassau, was daughter of William the Silent and sister of Maurice, Prince of Orange, who as stadtholders of Holland and other provinces were the leaders of the Dutch Republic. His mother was Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of King James I of England. Thus Rupert was nephew of King Charles I of England, and first cousin of King Charles II of England, who made him Duke of Cumberland and Earl of Holderness. His sister Electress Sophia was the mother of George I of Great Britain. Rupert was named in honour of Rupert, King of Germany, a famous Wittelsbach ancestor. Rupert was born in Prague, Bohemia in 1619, and was declared a prince by the principality of Lusatia. His father had just been elected King of Bohemia by the largely Protestant estates of Bohemia. This was an act of rebellion by Bohemia against the Catholic House of Habsburg, who had been Kings of Bohemia since 1526, and initiated the Thirty Years' War. Frederick was not supported by the Protestant Union, and in 1620 was defeated by Emperor Ferdinand II in the Battle of White Mountain. Rupert's parents were mockingly termed the Winter King and Queen as a consequence of their reigns in Bohemia having lasted only a single season. Rupert was almost left behind in the court's rush to escape Ferdinand's advance on Prague, until courtier Krystof z Donina tossed the prince into a carriage at the last moment. Rupert accompanied his parents to The Hague, where he spent his early years at the Hof te Wassenaer. Rupert's mother paid her children little attention even by the standards of the day, apparently preferring her pet monkeys and dogs. Instead, Frederick employed a French couple, Monsieur and Madame de Plessen, as governors to his children. They were raised with a positive attitude towards the Bohemians and the English, and as strict Calvinists. The result was a strict school routine including logic, mathematics, writing, drawing, singing, and playing instruments.