One Man and his Dog

  Hello, this is Nicola, and today I'm combining two of my interests in one blog - animals and Prince Rupert of the Rhine, one of my historical heroes. Okay, it's not an obvious combination but bear with me. As an animal lover I've always been interested in the role of animals in history and possess a couple of fascinating books on the subject. Then I became curious about animals in paintings - those little faces in the corner of portraits - as a result of my work at Ashdown House where, on the third landing, we have the biggest portrait in our collection. The artist is William Dobson, court painter to King Charles I, and it was painted in about 1644 during the English Civil War. It shows Prince Rupert of the Rhine and two of his comrades, Colonel Russell and Colonel Murray, and in the bottom left hand corner of the picture is a dog. The dog wears a very fine coat in bright red with a silver trim and it has Prince Rupert's initials monogrammed onto it's collar. This is a very smart-looking dog indeed. It's watching the occupants of the picture with interest as well as gazing at Rupert with devotion!

Animals have featured in paintings for centuries. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries they often carried some symbolic significance. The dog, for example, was usually a symbol of loyalty. By the eighteenth century, however, better documentation would enable the viewer to know whether an animal was included in a painting as a treasured pet, a status symbol, or for some other reason. One of my favourite paintings featuring a pet cat is in the National Portrait Gallery in London and shows a pretty grey and white tabby. Cats had been tolerated in households for centuries as the most effective form of pest control but they had undeserved associations with witchcraft, lethargy and lust! It was only in the eighteenth century that they came to be seen as suitable play companions for children and a symbol of civilised domesticity.

My absolute favourite portrait, however, was one that I came across when I was studying the cult of celebrity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is a picture of Kitty Fisher, one of the most celebrated beauties of the 1750s and also one of the most notorious courtesans in London. The artist has made a pun on her name with his painting of the mischievous black and white fishing kitten. The reflection in the goldfish bowl is also a symbol of eighteenth century celebrity and an invasion of privacy that we can identify with today. It is also thought that this might be the first European pictorial representation of goldfish as well, as these were only introduced from China at the end of the seventeenth century.

Speaking of celebrity, Lady Caroline Lamb, somewhat naughtily, used a dog in a portrait to symbolise her scandalous extra-marital affair with Sir Godfrey Webster. The dog had been a present from her lover and in the painting it is wearing a bracelet about its neck that Sir Godfrey had given to Lady Caroline! The exhibition of the picture at the Royal Academy in 1811 caused absolute outrage in the family and Lady Caroline's mother-in-law Lady Melbourne wrote her a strongly worded letter of reproach. The dog, Phyllis, went on to bite Caroline's son Augustus but not even that seems to have dented her affection for the little creature!

Anyway, back to Prince Rupert of the Rhine and his faithful dog. Rupert, the son of Elizabeth of Bohemia and nephew of King Charles I was renowned for his love of animals, a curious and rather endearing trait in a man also known for his ferocity in battle! In this he was said to take after his mother who was thought to prefer "her dogs, her hunting and her monkeys" to her children, apparently in that order! In this though, Elizabeth was thought little different from the majority of the British aristocracy and even to this day it is said the Queen prefers animals to people! Her preference for pets may, however, have explained why Elizabeth of Bohemia was estranged from all of her children at one time or another. There is a story in the archives that relates that when Elizabeth and her family were forced to flee Bohemia after the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620, the butler was going through the palace to make sure that nothing valuable had been left behind and found Rupert, three years old at the time, abandoned in the nursery. He picked the child up and hurried after Elizabeth's carriage, only to discover that she had made sure that her pet monkey Jacko was safely inside whilst leaving her son behind!

The most famous of Rupert's pet dogs (he also had a pet hare!) was a Standard Poodle called Boy who ran with his cavalry. Boy was a particular target for the Roundheads, who became obsessed with the idea that he was Rupert's familar and attributed to him various magic powers, including that he was fluent in various languages, that he was invulnerable in battle and that he could put a spell on the enemy. Boy began to feature in Roundhead propaganda. A pamphlet of 1643 "Observations upon Prince Rupert's Dogge called Boy" reported that Boy sat beside Rupert in meetings of the King's Council and that Charles I allowed him to sit on the throne! Boy attended church services and was the toast of the Royalists after various victories. The Roundheads tried both poison and prayer to destroy "this Popish, profane dog, more than halfe a divill, a kind of spirit." Although the dog was a white poodle they portrayed him as black in the pictures in order to associate him more closely with the devil.

Perhaps inevitably, Boy fell prey to a Roundhead bullet at the Battle of Marston Moor and proved not to be invulnerable after all. The Puritans claimed in another pamphlet "A Dog's Elegy or Rupert's Tears" that Boy had been killed by a valiant soldier who had skill in necromancy. The verse ran:

"Lament poor cavaliers, cry, howl and yelp, For the great losse of your malignant whelp." Poor Boy! In an age of superstition it is easy to see how men might attribute magic powers to such a creature and also why the enemy might use Boy as a symbol of the Royalist cause. In the same way it is easy to see how Boy was a talisman and mascot to the Royalists who mourned his loss very deeply. He went down in the army records as the first official British Army Dog which seems a fitting tribute to a loyal pet.

Maybe one of the reasons that I like Prince Rupert is that I can identify with his love of animals. Certainly my pet dog Monty seems to feature in countless of my photographs and if I had my portrait painted he would probably be in that too! If you had your portrait painted would you include a pet? If so, which would you choose and what would be their significance?

Comments

[Susan Scott]

Nicola, I have always loved Prince Rupert, too. His life had so many twists and turns (the Civil War AND governor of Hudson's Bay AND that little stint in the Caribbean when he may or may not have been a pirate AND, finally, winding up as an artist and inventor at Windsor Castle) that I'd thought there should be dozens of novels about him.
At least now he has a most excellent WordWenches blog. *g*

[Linda Banche]

If I had my picture painted with an animal, it would be a duck. I love ducks.

I'm thinking of using a North American Wood Duck as an avatar.

Here's a picture of a wood duck pair:
http://www.netstate.com/states/symb/waterfowl/images/wood_duck_pair.jpg

Unfortunately, the prettier one is the male (most male birds are prettier than the female birds), so I'd have to use the duller, but still prettier than most female ducks, hen. Sigh.

[NinaP]

Wonderful bit of history, Nicola. Thanks!

The portrait of Kitty (especially the way her fingers curl at her breast) puts me in mind of a shrewd woman out to "acquire" for herself all the rarest riches life has to offer.

To dogs… I love them! If I were to have my portrait painted, it would be with my two 70 pound German Shepherds. Drake and Voltan, a.k.a. "the boys," are my constant shadows. Right now, they are laying at my feet along with Karson, an adorable 10# Black lab puppy we are raising for the Seeing Eye.

Nina, looking forward to a day with the ms where her Waterloo hero lives with his two French hounds.

[Laura Vivanco]

Nicola, I was trying to work out which Colonel on either side of Rupert was which, so I Googled, and in the National Trust's photo library that painting is described as being of

"PRINCE RUPERT, PRINCE MAURICE & THE DUKE OF RICHMOND by William Dobson at Ashdown House." http://www.ntprints.com/pictures_1399905/ashdown-house.html

Have they got that wrong?

[Nicola Cornick]

Wasn't he a fascinating man, Susan? The children who come on the Ashdown tour love it when I say that Rupert and Maurice may have been pirates of the Caribbean! But for me the fact that he was a soldier AND a scholar swings it. I love a hero with brains as well as muscle.

Linda, I like your choice of a duck for your portrait. That would look different and unusual. The Wood Duck is exceedingly pretty. It's a great shame for birds that it's usually the male who is the more attractive.

[Nicola Cornick]

Nina, I think you are so right about Kitty! Isn't it an interesting picture?

I like the thought of a portrait of you flanked by "the boys"! Is the Seeing Eye like our Guide Dog organisation in the UK? We raised 4 puppies for them and our pet dog, Monty, was most unimpressed at having puppies hanging off his ears all the time. I hope Drake and Voltan are being kind!

[Nicola Cornick]

Okay, Laura, I'm going to sounds like a bit of an obsessive here, but I comfort myself that you did ask! On the portrait that hangs in Ashdown the names of Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice and the Duke of Richmond are painted onto the picture. However, a few years ago we discovered that a number of the Ashdown portraits including that one have the wrong names on them. We have no idea why but it would be fascinating to know when the names were added and by whom and why they were wrong. A little digging on my part found the original picture (the Ashdown version is an unfinished copy) and thus discovered the real identities of the other colonels. There is a book of an exhibition of Dobson's paintings that gives the background and provenance. Both Murray and Russell were fascinating men but I'll save them for another blog!

[Mary Jo Putney]

I love the idea of paying attention to the little furry faces in the corners of the pictures! I particularly like Kitty Fisher and the fishing cat. *g* I can't say that associating cats with lethargy is necessarily inaccurate, though.

I'd certainly have pets in portraits. Luckily, cats are small, so several could fit in at once.

Mary Jo

[Susan/DC]

The portrait of Kitty Fisher is lovely, and I like the fact that the cat seems so oblivious to the human next to him. I don't think the human Kitty would necessarily be considered a great beauty today (standards do change over time), but maybe she would -- I think artists subtly change their sitters' features to conform to then current ideas of beauty, so Kitty may not have looked exactly like that. Not to mention that beauty often comes from a face in motion or alight with intelligence and charm, and that is hard to portray in two dimensions.

As for Prince Rupert, I was first introduced to him in Diana Norman's "The Vizard Mask". I love that book; it's OOP but should be easy to find in a UBS or online. Prince Rupert is definitely one of the good guys in the book, which has one of my favorite opening lines ever: "Penitence Hurd and the plague arrived in London on the same day."

[Nicola Cornick]

I like the idea of a few cats dotted about in a portrait, Mary Jo!

Susan, The Vizard Mask is one of my favourite books and favourite first lines too. Diana Norman is on my auto-read list. And I thought that your comment about the standards of beauty changing was absolutely spot on. The Ashdown portrait collection contains a picture of Princess Elizabeth Palatine, the eldest daughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia. Apparently she was considered one of the greatest beauties of the age and was known as The Star of the North but to my mind she looks a bit vacuous and I think all her sisters are better looking! It's interesting that when I tell the visitors she was thought to be a great beauty I get very sharply divided opinions. One of the things I love about the Ashdown portrait collection, though, is that there's a really strong family resemblance running through the Stuarts with their melancholy dark looks. In part that may be stylised by the artists but it sure makes the men look good!

[Patricia Rice]

Okay, am I the only nudnik who wails at the idea of shooting that poor poodle because they thought it was a devil or witch? Shades of things to come! Really, killing in the name of religion just naturally has to stop--maybe we should shoot the shooters. "G"

Okay, so revisions are causing brain explosions today. I'll go back and sit quietly in my corner.

[Laura Vivanco]

"I'm going to sounds like a bit of an obsessive here, but I comfort myself that you did ask!"

Not obsessive, just interested in getting the details right! And yes, I did ask. Can I also ask what the red and black objects are that Rupert's holding? When I looked at the enlarged version (which is still quite small) the black thing looked a bit like a hat, but it also looked a bit as though he was pouring something into the red object, so I was left feeling a bit confused. I suppose if Rupert was known for his magic, it's possible he's practicing a conjuring trick, but somehow I very much doubt that's the real answer.

"a few years ago we discovered that a number of the Ashdown portraits including that one have the wrong names on them."

Shouldn't the details on the National Trust's website get changed, then? Do they know about this? It doesn't seem very fair to the Colonels for their bodies to be ascribed to other people.

"Both Murray and Russell were fascinating men but I'll save them for another blog!"

I'm looking forward to that!

[Nicola Cornick]

Oh Pat, I'm sorry! I share your feelings over Boy and indeed over killing in the name of religion. And sympathies over the revisions too.

[Nicola Cornick]

"Not obsessive, just interested in getting the details right!"

Thank you, Laura. Sometimes I feel like an Ashdown geek!

"Can I also ask what the red and black objects are that Rupert's holding? When I looked at the enlarged version (which is still quite small) the black thing looked a bit like a hat, but it also looked a bit as though he was pouring something into the red object, so I was left feeling a bit confused. I suppose if Rupert was known for his magic, it's possible he's practicing a conjuring trick, but somehow I very much doubt that's the real answer."

I can send you a big version of the picture if you would be interested, Laura. Rupert's left hand is unfinished in this version of the painting and it looks as though he is wearing a glove. In his right hand is a rolled up piece of parchment and it has been suggested that this is the commission he is apparently offering to Colonel Russell in his Regiment of Foot. Murray (in the centre) has a black hat in one hand and his other is at the base of what is supposed to be a glass of red wine but again this is unfinished so the wine is there but no glass! He is dipping the cockade of the hat into the wine, which was a gesture of homage to the Royalist cause.

"Shouldn't the details on the National Trust's website get changed, then? Do they know about this? It doesn't seem very fair to the Colonels for their bodies to be ascribed to other people."

I agree but unfortunately it takes a very long time for details such as this to be changed by the Trust!

[Laura Vivanco]

"I can send you a big version of the picture if you would be interested, Laura"

Oh, yes please. I'm on your mailing list, but I'm not sure how easily you'd find me on that as I'm sure it's a long list.

An email address is required to post a comment to this blog, so maybe you can get it that way, or is it only the webmistress who can see that bit of the blog?

I've got a contact form on my website: http://www.vivanco.me.uk/contact I'm not sure if you could send me a photo via that page, but if you email me, I can email you back and then you'd get my full email address. I'm trying to keep it off the internet to keep down the amount of spam I get.

"Rupert's left hand is unfinished in this version of the painting and it looks as though he is wearing a glove. In his right hand is a rolled up piece of parchment"

Oh, so Rupert is the one on the far left of the painting? For some reason I thought he must be the man in the middle. Well, Rupert is definitely the most handsome of the three (in my opinion), even if he's not in the centre of the painting. Do you think he looks a bit like Charles II?

"He is dipping the cockade of the hat into the wine, which was a gesture of homage to the Royalist cause."

Why? Was it supposed to recall communion wafers and wine? Or am I on completely the wrong track?

I think if I were visiting Ashdown House I'd be a very annoying visitor who'd pester you for lots and lots of details. ;-)

[Patricia Barraclough]

We have had a lot of pets. Actually, the one I am pictured with most is my snake. I take it to classes and to work. If I had a portrait done, I'd like my peacocks in the background and our oldest dog Olivia (a 13 year old lab mix) at my side. She is such a sweet heart and has gotten so gray. We have 3 more dogs and two cats, but that would be a bit much. The dogs especially adore my husband and they would all end up in a picture of him.

[Nicola Cornick]

Wow, Pat, you certainly have a menagerie! A snake in the picture? That's a great idea! Your Olivia sounds like our Monty. He's only eight but he looks very grey these days. We think maybe all those guide dog pups turned him white almost overnight!

[Nicola Cornick]

Laura, I like visitors who ask lots of questions. They are definitely the best sort!

Yes, Rupert is on the left, which is interesting as he is the focal point of the painting in the sense that it was probably painted to represent him as the saviour of the Royalist cause. And yes he is taller and better looking than the others!

Interesting about the cockade. I don't know the origin of that gesture but you have now inspired me to find out!

[parlance]

I've always thought of Rupert as a tragic figure and I was in love with him in my teenage years (and beyond). I think I got the idea of his life being a tragedy from reading a novel, maybe it was the one by Margaret Irwin.

Having read what you've said about him here (and reading people's comments) has reignited my interest in him.

[curator]

Parlance very kindly let me know about this wonderful post (and blog). I had only heard the barest outline about Prince Rupert's "devil dog," though I had always meant to learn more about both the hero and his dog. I personally think his affection for his animals must show the true quality of his valor -- was he merciful to those he'd conquered? (I see I have some reading to do.)
LOVE the Kitty Fisher portrait, by the way.

[Nicola Cornick]

Interesting that you saw Rupert as a tragic figure, Parlance. I'd like to read the Margaret Irwin book and see how he is portrayed. I will look out for that one.

Curator, I agree about Rupert's affection for animals showing his true quality. He had something of a reputation for brutality in war, however, though some of that was also parliamentarian propaganda. I think Charles Spencer's book abut Prince Rupert tackles that subject so I am going to read up on it. It was the Dobson painting that first awakened my interest in Rupert and his dog and I wrote one of my Masters essays about it.

I'm so pleased that you have both enjoyed the blog and really interested in everyone's comments. As a bit of an Ashdown/Craven/English Civil War geek it is lovely to share my obsessions! I was working at Ashdown today and a lady was commented on Rupert's good looks. There really is something about him!

[margaret]

For other Rupert fans (I count myself among that number) I recommend the historical fiction novel The Winter Prince by Cheryl Sawyer (now writing as Cheryl Hingley.) It was published in the US by Penguin, and features the romance between Rupert and the Mary Villiers, Duchess of Richmond, during the Civil War.

I second the recommendation of The Vizard Mask. I'm currently re-reading it for the ?th time!