page_title: Prince Rupert of the Rhine
section_title: Parents and ancestry
hierarchical_section_title: Prince Rupert of the Rhine / Parents and ancestry
caption_attribution_description: English: Coat of arms of Rupert, Count Palatine of the Rhine, KG
context_page_description: Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland, KG, PC, FRS was a German-English army officer, admiral, scientist and colonial governor. He first came to prominence as a Royalist cavalry commander during the English Civil War.
  Rupert was the third son of the German prince Frederick V of the Palatinate and Elizabeth, eldest daughter of James VI of Scotland and I of England.
  Prince Rupert had a varied career. He was a soldier as a child, fighting alongside Dutch forces against Habsburg Spain during the Eighty Years' War, and against the Holy Roman Emperor in Germany during the Thirty Years' War. Aged 23, he was appointed commander of the Royalist cavalry during the English Civil War, becoming the archetypal "Cavalier" of the war and ultimately the senior Royalist general. He surrendered after the fall of Bristol and was banished from England. He served under Louis XIV of France against Spain, and then as a Royalist privateer in the Caribbean Sea. Following the Restoration, Rupert returned to England, becoming a senior English naval commander during the Second Anglo-Dutch War and Third Anglo-Dutch War, and serving as the first governor of the Hudson's Bay Company.
context_section_description: His father was Frederick V of the Palatinate, of the Palatinate-Simmern branch of the House of Wittelsbach. As Elector Palatine, Frederick was one of the most important princes of the Holy Roman Empire. He was also head of the Protestant Union, a coalition of Protestant German states. The Palatinate was a wealthy state, and Frederick lived in great luxury.
  Frederick's mother, Countess Louise Juliana of Nassau, was daughter of William the Silent and half-sister of Maurice, Prince of Orange, who as stadtholders of Holland and other provinces were the leaders of the Dutch Republic.
  Rupert's mother was Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of King James I of England. Thus Rupert was nephew of King Charles I of England, and first cousin of King Charles II of England, who made him Duke of Cumberland and Earl of Holderness. His sister Electress Sophia was the mother of George I of Great Britain.
  Rupert was named in honour of Rupert, King of Germany, a famous Wittelsbach ancestor.
caption: Arms of Prince Rupert, as a
  Knight of the Garter
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