King Charles I | Autograph letter signed, to Prince Rupert, ordering his exile, 14 September 1645

King Charles I

Autograph letter signed ("Charles R"), to Prince Rupert

expressing in candid terms his feelings of personal betrayal at Prince Rupert's surrender of Bristol and shock at the ease of his defeat ("...you assured me, (that if no Muteny hapned) you would keepe Bristol for fower Monthes, did you keepe it fower dayes?..."), enclosing a passport and ordering him to depart "somewhere beyond Sease", 1 page, folio, Hereford, 14 September 1645, edge-mounted on card, strengthened at margin and centre fold, tear at bottom of page (c.12cm)

[with:] a retained copy of the letter in a secretarial hand with endorsement (Coppy of my letter to my nepueu Rupert")

"Nepheu / though the loss of Bristol be a great blow to me, yet your surrendring it as you did, is of so much Afflication to me, that it makes me forget, not only, the consideration of that Place, but is lykewyse the greatest tryall of my constancy that hath yet befallen me; for what it to be done? after one, that is so neer me as you ar, both in Blood & Frendship, submits himselfe to so meane an Action..."

AN EXCEPTIONAL LETTER IN WHICH THE KING EXPRESSES HIS BITTER SENSE OF BETRAYAL, WRITTEN TO HIS NEPHEW AND KEY GENERAL AS THE ROYALIST CAUSE COLLAPSED. The fall of Bristol to the New Model Army on 11 September 1645 marked the loss of one of the few cities - and only major seaport - remaining in royalist hands. Coming just months after Cromwell had crushed the royalist army at the Battle of Naseby, it was a devastating blow to the hard-pressed King. Prince Rupert of the Rhine had been the King's most trusted commander since the summer of 1642, and Rupert's cavalry had won battle after battle for the first two years of war. By September 1645, however, Rupert knew that no remaining royalist army was a match for the New Model Army, and he was governor of a city hollowed out by plague and siege. The Parliamentary assault on Bristol breached the city's defences in a matter of hours, and Rupert quickly surrendered. The speed of the city's collapse, and the honourable terms granted by the Parliamentarians, led Rupert's enemies at the royal court to whisper rumours that he had betrayed the cause. It was in the context of these rumours of treason that Charles angrily dismissed Rupert and his followers from his service. In fact, Prince Rupert did not obey the King's orders to banish himself from the Kingdom but hastened to the royal court to face down his enemies. A hastily constituted court martial found no evidence of any treasonous conspiracy and gave the cashiered generals an opportunity to voice their anger at their treatment. By the end of 1645 Prince Rupert and the King were partially reconciled, but the Prince by this time knew that the King's cause was lost, and with the surrender of Oxford in June 1646 he slipped out of England to the French court.