Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

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R U P —R U S
Naseby. Rupert fled to Bristol, whence he counselled the
king to come to terms with the parliament. In his con¬
duct of the defence of the town, this “ boldest attaquer in
the world for personal courage” showed how much he
wanted the patience and seasoned head to consult and
advise for defence” (Pepys). His surrender of the town
after only a three weeks’ siege, though he had promised
Charles to keep it four months, caused his disgrace with
the king, who revoked all his commissions by an order
dated September 14, and in a cold, letter ordered him to
seek his subsistence beyond seas, for which purpose a pass
was sent him. Rupert, however, broke through the enemy,
reached the king at Oxford, and was there reconciled to
him. Ke challenged an investigation of his conduct, and
was triumphantly acquitted by the council of war. He
appears, too, to have remonstrated personally with Charles
in terms of indecent violence. He then applied to the
parliament for a pass. This, however, was offered only on
unacceptable conditions. On June 24 Rupert was taken
prisoner by Fairfax at Oxford, and on July 5, at the
demand of the parliament, sailed from Dover for France.
He was immediately made a marshal in the French
service, with the command of the English there. He
received a wound in the head at Armentieres during 1647.
The greater jiart. of the English fleet having adhered to
Charles, and having sailed to Holland, Rupert went with
the prince of Wales to The Hague, where the charge of it
was put into his hand. He immediately set out in
January 1649 upon an expedition of organized piracy,
n hebruary, after passing without molestation through
the Parliamentary ships, he was at Kinsale, of which he
took the fort. He relieved John Grenville at the Scilly
Isles, and practically crippled the English trade.
Attacked by Blake, he sailed to Portugal, and was received
with kindness by the king; Blake, however, blockaded
nm in the Tagus, and demanded his surrender. Rupert
broke through the blockade and sailed to ihe Mediter¬
ranean, landing at Barbary, and refitting at Toulon; thence
he proceeded to Madeira, the Canaries (in 1652), the
Azores, Cape de Verd, and the West Indies, sweeping the
ocean between the latter places for a considerable time.
Finding it impossible, however, to escape the indefatigable
pursuit of Blake, he returned to France in 1653. He was
now invited to Paris by Louis XIV., who made him master
of the horse; he had also an offer from the emperor to
command his forces. He travelled for some while, and
was again in Paris in 1655. His movements, however, at
this time are very uncertain, but he appears to have
devoted his enforced leisure to engraving, chemistry, the
perfection of _ gunpowder, and other arts, especially those
o military science. Whether he was the actual discoverer
of mezzotinto engraving, in which he was skilful, is un¬
certain, but this seems probable.
At the end of September 1660 Rupert returned to
England; he was abroad during 1661, was placed on the
pnvy council in April 1662, and in October was one of the
commissioners for Tangiers; in December he became a
member of the Royal Society. In August 1664 he was
appointed to command the Guinea fleet against the Dutch
and set sail in October. On June 5, 1665, he gained
with Monk a great victory over the Dutch, and on his
return had his portrait painted by Lely along with the
other admirals present at the battle. He again put to
sea m May 1666, to hinder the junction of the Dutch and
French, and returned in the beginning of June after a
heavy defeat, his ship having stuck on the Galloper Sands
during the fight. He was obliged to justify himself
befoie the council. In January 1667 he was very ill, but
recovered after the operation of trepanning. At this time
he is mentioned as one of the best tennis players in the
nation. On October 22, 1667, he received with Monk
the thanks of the House of Commons for his exertions
against the Dutch at Chatham, and he was again at
sea in April 1668. He was always staunch in his Pro¬
testant principles, and was carefully kept in ignorance of
Charles’s Catholic plot in 1670. In August of that year
he was constable of Windsor, and busied himself with the
fitting up of the Round Tower, a turret of which he
converted into a workshop. He shared in the prevail¬
ing immorality of the time, his favourite mistress being
the celebrated actress, Mrs Hughes. In 1673 he was
appointed lord high admiral, and fought two battles with
the Dutch Fleet on May 28 and August 11, but could do
little through the backwardness of the French in coming
to his assistance. Jhis appears to have so annoyed him
that he henceforward eagerly helped the anti-French party.
He was an active member of the Board of Trade and
governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Till his death
on November 29, 1682, he lived in complete retirement at
Windsor. /0 A \
RUPERT’S LAND. See Hudson’s Bay Company and
North-West Territory.
RUPTURE. See Hernia.
RUSH. Under the name of rush or rushes, the stalks
or fistular stem-like leaves of several plants have minor
industrial applications. The common rushes (species of
Juncus) are used in many parts of the world for chair-
bottoms, mats, and basket work, and the pith they
contain serves as wicks in open oil-lamps and for tallow-
candles, whence rushlight. The bulrush, Typha elephan-
tma, is used in Sindh for mats and baskets. Under the
name of rushes, species of Scirpus and other Cyperacese are
used for chair-bottoms, mats, and thatch. The elegant
lush mats of Madras are made from Papyruspangorei.
The sweet rush, yielding essential oil, is Andropogon
ochcenanthus, known also as lemon grass. Large quantities
of the “ horse tail,” Equisetum hiemale, are used under the
name of the Dutch or scouring rush, for scouring metal
and other hard surfaces on account of the large proportion
of silica the plant contains.
RUSH, Benjamin (1745-1813), the Sydenham of
America, was born near Bristol (12 miles from Phila¬
delphia), on a homestead founded by his grandfather,
who had followed Penn from England in 1683, being of
the Quaker persuasion, and a gunsmith by trade. After
a. careful education at school and college, and an appren¬
ticeship of six years with a doctor in Philadelphia, Rush
went for two years to Edinburgh, where he attached
himself chiefly to Cullen. He took his M.D. degree
there in 1/68, spent a year more in the hospitals of
London and Paris, and began practice in Philadelphia at
the age of twenty-four, undertaking at the same time
the chemistry class at the new medical school. He at
once became a leading spirit in the political and fsocial
movements of the day. He was a friend of Franklin’s,
a member of Congress for the State of Pennsylvania in
1 / / 6, and one of those who signed the Declaration of
ndependence the same year. He had already written on
the Test Laws, “Sermons to the Rich,” and on Negro
Slavery, having taken up the last-named subject" at the
instance of Anthony Benezet, whose Historical Account of
Guinea was the inspiration of Clarkson’s celebrated college
essay twelve years after. In 1774 he started along with
James Pemberton the first anti-slavery society in America,
and. was its secretary for many years. When the political
crisis ended in 1 / 87 with the convention for drawing up
a federal constitution, of which he was a member, he
retired from public life, and gave himself up wholly to
medical practice. In 1789 he exchanged his chemistry
lectureship for that of the theory and practice of physic;