“Prince Rupert, the last Cavalier”

Another book with a German connection, which I greatly enjoyed recently, is “Prince Rupert, the last Cavalier” by Charles Spencer.  The author is the brother of the late Princess of Wales and, like Mary Kenny, he writes very well. The book is published by Phoenix Press.

Prince Rupert is best known as the leading general on the Kings side in the English Civil War of the  1640’s.

 He was the Kings nephew, but had been brought up in Germany where his mother, the Kings sister, was married to the Elector Palatine. The Elector took the wrong side at the outset of the Thirty Years War and was dethroned by the Emperor. The family had to go into exile and had no employment. So Rupert became a soldier of fortune, initially in the Thirty Years War on anti Imperial side.

 But when the English Civil War broke out he went to the aid of his uncle.  He commanded the Kings forces in most of the major battles of the war although he was only in his early 20s.

After the Kings forces were defeated on land, Rupert   led a royalist naval force, visited Kinsale during the Cromwellian wars here, was later in exile in France,  and even became  a friend of the German emperor.

 He returned to England at the Restoration of the monarchy, had an interesting private life, and founded the Hudson Bay Company that opened up Canada to British traders.

This book is very enjoyable, and tells a story of an extraordinary life, and in the process it  lights up eighty  years of European history.

"Germany Calling"

I have just finished reading “Germany Calling” by Mary Kenny.  Published by New Island Press, it is a biography of William Joyce, popularly known as Lord Haw Haw, who broadcast in English on German Radio  during the Second World War. He was captured shortly after the end of the war in hiding near the Danish border and was the last person ever to be executed for treason in Britain. 

Mary Kenny has done really detailed research, visiting all the places where Joyce lived and interviewing everyone who knew him or even had good second hand recollections of him. This is a fascinating book about a man who was highly intelligent, but unbalanced and volatile.

By any standard he was a contrarian and an extremist. 

As a 15 year old in 1922, he had to flee to England from Galway, where he had been brought up in a relatively prosperous family, because he was at risk of being assassinated because he was informing the British forces of the whereabouts of   local republicans. His father, though a Catholic, opposed Irish separation from the United Kingdom and the young Joyce took that opinion to extremes.  The family eventually followed him to England as some of their Irish properties were burned during the  Irish Civil War.

In England, he became, at first, a fanatical British patriot and anti Semite. He was prominent in various Fascist movements. He even formed a breakaway party of his own. But the British people rejected his ideas and he became disillusioned.

 Then, within days of war breaking out in autumn 1939, Joyce got a tip off that he was about to be interned because of his pro German agitation.  He and his wife then took, what was probably one of the last, trains to Germany before hostilities closed all transport links, and arrived in Berlin just as Britain declared war.

Almost by chance, he got a job in the English speaking service of German Radio.  He was a natural broadcaster, witty and sarcastic, and acquired a big following in the early years of the war. His broadcasts were also popular in Ireland where there was some pro German feeling. 

ST AUDOEN’S CHURCH

Last  week,  I visited one of Dublin’s lesser known tourist attractions, a place I had driven past  thousands of times but never stopped to see, St Audoen’s church on High Street in the centre of medieval Dublin. It is very close to the better known cathederals of  St Patrick, and  of Christchurch .

The church was built around 1190, just twenty years after the Normans conquered Dublin. A previous church on the site had been dedicated to St Colmcille, but the Normans dedicated their new church to St Audoen( or St Ouen), who had been the bishop of Rouen in Normandy in the  7^th century.

The church actually took 30 years to build and has been added to and subtracted from over the centuries. In fact, in 1773 the roof was removed from the eastern section of the church because of declining congregations. I am wondering what was saved by doing this, but I suppose the roofing material was used to repair the rest of the church.

Part of the building is still used as a church by the Church of Ireland, and part houses an exhibition  about the history of the church,  and another about the different trade guilds that were active in medieval  Dublin. Beside St Audoen’s Church of Ireland church is another newer church dedicated to the same Norman saint. It is a Catholic church and is used now by the large Polish community in Dublin.