Part 18

But his chief companion and diversion was Boy, a hound given him by Lord Arundel, to lighten his captivity. It was of “a breede so famous that the Grand Turk gave it in particular injunction to his ambassadour to obtaine him a puppie thereof.” When Rupert was released, Boy shared his freedom, and became an inseparable friend.

Many an old lady in those hard days was suspected of being a witch, and holding secret confabs with the Devil, after a midnight tide through the air on a broomstick. If she had a cat, especially a black one, poor Pussy was considered a go-between, and was liable to be burned. Dogs, too, fell under suspicion now and then; and as Prince Rupert was thought by the Puritan faction to act under the Devil’s guidance, so Boy was supposed to run on messages between the unholy allies. In the Bodleian Library there is carefully preserved an old pamphlet of 1642, entitled “Observations on Prince Rupert’s dogge, called Boye,” which amusingly details the different views about him.

“I have kept a very strict eye,” says the writer, “upon this dogge, whom I cannot conclude to be a very dounright divell, but some Lapland ladye, once by nature a handsome white ladye, but now by art a handsome white dogge. They have many times attempted to destroye it by poyson, and extempore prayer (!) but they have hurt him no more than the plague plaister did Mr. Pym.” In fact--

’Twas like a Dog, yet there was none did knowe Whether it Devill was, or Dog, or no.

Every squib or broadside of abuse directed against the prince must also hit poor Boy, and in several he figures very cleverly. One of the most amusing is “A Dialogue between Prince Rupert’s Dogge, whose name is Puddle, and Tobie’s Dog, whose name is Pepper.” It bears date 1643, and opens with a sledge-hammer contest of wits between the Royalist and Puritan dogs, under whose names are but thinly veiled the two great parties of the day.

Prince Rupert’s dog opens the parley with great disdain:

“What yelping, whindling Puppy-Dog art thou?” And honest Tobie’s dog retorts the question:

“What bauling, shag-hair’d Cavallier’s Dogge art thou?”

“Pr. R. D. Thou art a dogged sir, or cur, grumble no more but tell me thy name.”

“T. D. I was called Tobie’s house-dog ... my name is Pepper.”

“P. R. D. Though your zeal be never so hot, you shall not bite me, Pepper.”

“T. D. I’ll barke before I bite, and talke before I fight. I heare you are Prince Rupert’s white Boy.”

“P. R. D. I am none of his white Boy, my name is Puddle.”

“T. D. A dirty name indeede; you are not pure enough for my company, besides I heare on both sides of my eares that you are a Laplander, or Fin-land Dog or, truly, no better than a witch in the shape of a white Dogge.”

Hereupon Prince Rupert’s dog calls the other “a Round-headed Puppy that doth bawle and rayle;” and Tobie’s Dog retorts that Puddle is “a Popish, profane dog, ... more than half-divell. It is known,” he says, “that at Edgehill you walked invisible, and directed the bullets who they should hit, and who they shoulde misse, and made your Mister Prince Rupert shott-free.”

And so on, through several amusing pages. It is a pleasant and fun-inspiring jest; but other productions of the time strike a note of savage hate, strange enough, as applied to an innocent dog.

Boy’s fate befitted a soldier’s dog: on the fatal field of Marston Moor, where many a gallant cavalier was slain, he also fell, shot to the heart. As The More True Relation, a Puritan statement, says: “Here also was slain that accursed cur which is here mentioned by the way, because the Prince’s dog hath been so much spoken of, and was prized by his master more than creatures of much more worth.”

(From old pamphlet in British Museum.)]

Even his master’s grief at his loss was a subject of derision; and shortly after Boy’s death a squib appeared, called: “A Dogge’s Elegie, or Rupert’s Teares for the late defeat given him at Marston Moor neere York ... where his beloved Dogge, named Boye, was killed by a valliant souldier who had skill in Necromancy.” (He is said to have used a silver bullet, Boy being proof against leaden ones.)

An old pamphlet contains a queer woodcut, representing his death, and then several lines of doggerel, beginning:

“Sad Cavaliers, Rupert invites you all That doe survive, to his Dog’s Funerall.”

So lived and perished Boy, his master’s well-loved friend, his master’s enemies’ aversion--and almost the only instance in history of an animal being the object of violent party-hate.

Prince Rupert had other pets, both dogs and horses, but none so dear as his white hound. Perhaps the most affecting instance of his feeling after Boy’s death, is shown in a letter to Will Legge, written in 1661. It bears “the dolefull news that poor Royall at this time is dying, after being the cause of the death of many a stag. By heaven,” he bursts out, “I had rather lose the best horse in my stable!”

With this--as a last pleasant memory of Rupert--we will leave him.

VI.

PETS IN ARTIST LIFE.

VI.

PETS IN ARTIST LIFE.