castle of Nottingham; and from this moment his name figures prominently in the story of the times. It is only just to him to remember that, after all the experiences through which he had passed, he was not yet twenty-three years of age. We can very well believe the accounts which represent him as an accession of no ordinary kind to the company of friends and counsellors gathered round the king. There was little cheerfulness in that assembly, naturally enough, the spirits of the king were dark and drooping. We need not suppose that the young prince brought much wisdom to the councils, but his daring impetuosity, the promptitude and vigorous decision in the character of the young man, must have been like a gale of new life; he did not come of a wise and thoughtful race, but, on the other hand, there does seem to have been a dash of magnanimity in his character which seldom shone, and only in occasional gleams, in the more distinguished representatives of the Stuart race. Recklessness was his vice; but the portraits of him at this period present quite an ideal cavalier, and perhaps he has always been regarded as the representative cavalier. His moral and intellectual nature would seem to have been derived from his mother: the handsome physique, the high-bred Norman nose, the supercilious upper lip, the handsome stately form, seem to bear testimony to his father's race. Assuredly, a figure more unlike to that grotesque piece of humanity, his grandfather, James I., it is impossible to conceive; the long love locks of the cavalier fell over his shoulders, and he is described as altogether such a person as Vandyke loved to transfer to his canvases, and ladies would regard with attractive interest. Of the great questions, the profound, matters, which led to the solemn discussions of his uncle with the people of England, we may believe him to be utterly ignorant; it is not saying too much to assert that they were quite beyond the comprehension of a nature like that of Prince Rupert. It is worthy of notice that the mighty enjoyment of his life was a hunt; to him might have been applied the words of the Danish ballad,— "With my dogs so good I hunt the wild deer in the wood." And every conflict in which he engaged on English ground seems merely to have been regarded by him as a kind of wild hunt. Off he started in the impetuosity of the fight, and, as we shall see again and again, having left the field as he supposed in the possession of his army, and started off in mad pursuit, he returned to discover that he had missed his opportunity, and the field was lost. Such was Prince Rupert, such his relationship to Charles, and the circumstances which brought him to the Royalist army. CHAPTER X. THE BATTLE OF NASEBY. NOW we shall push on more rapidly. The Self denying Ordinance is regarded as a masterpiece of duplicity originating from the mind of Cromwell. The superseding of the most illustrious officers in the People's army was hailed by the Royalists as a sure prelude to their thorough routing. The king was in high hopes. It was about this time he wrote to the queen, "I may, without being too much sanguine, affirm, that since the rebellion my affairs were never in so fair and hopeful a way." Cromwell, certainly, could not suppose that he long could be dispensed with; but neither could he at all have known how soon his services would be required, and how important those services were to be. The supreme power, we have seen, was vested in the hands of Fairfax. is quite noticeable that his commission was worded differently from the way in which all previous commissions had been worded. It was made in the name of the Parliament alone, not in that of the king and Parliament. It "Towards the end of April," says M. Guizot, " Fairfax announced that in a few days he should open the |