Latest / Ridiculous History / A Prince and His Poodle: The Supernatural Adventures of Rupert and Boy

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A Prince and His Poodle: The Supernatural Adventures of Rupert and Boy · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
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Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Shout out to the one
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Speaker 1: and only super producer, Max Williams. They call me Ben. Also,
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Speaker 1: I'm a lover of dogs, Noel. You and I have
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Speaker 1: talked about this before, right about your love of dogs,
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Speaker 1: about well, dogs in general. Because the our local hangout
0:51
Speaker 1: spot that we when we've been shouting out a lot
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Speaker 1: recently is uh, those places are dog friendly. And you know,
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Speaker 1: there's there's nothing quite like getting There's this validation that
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Speaker 1: I feel when a dog, a random dog like comes
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Speaker 1: up and likes me. I'm like, all right, okay, I'm
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Speaker 1: doing something absolutely. I mean, it's sort of like that
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Speaker 1: trope from science fiction movies where like when the bad
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Speaker 1: aliens are coming, the dogs are always the first to know. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: really great barometer for all things sinister. So if a
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Speaker 1: dog comes up to you and gives you a little
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Speaker 1: nuzzle and lets you pet, it probably means you're relatively
1:29
Speaker 1: okay person. Yeah, and you like you you have a cat,
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Speaker 1: but you like dogs as well. I think you can't
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Speaker 1: stand him. I'm kidding. It takes a particular type of dog.
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Speaker 1: There are some dogs that, let's just say, test me
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Speaker 1: a little bit. Um. My girlfriend's dog Jude, who is
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Speaker 1: I think like a lab mixed kind of situation. She
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Speaker 1: is a little older but just so sweet, and she'll
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Speaker 1: like lay down right at the foot of your bed,
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Speaker 1: and you know she she'll bark when there's danger, but
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Speaker 1: not overly, so she doesn't freak out for no reason.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, I love the idea of a dog as
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Speaker 1: a part actor. A dog is a companion, and then
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Speaker 1: you know, like eve dare I say, even like a
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Speaker 1: familiar Yeah, there we go. That's one thing that dogs
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Speaker 1: do very well. They tend to be bonded quite closely
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Speaker 1: with their humans. And also they tend to be quite protective.
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Speaker 1: In some dog breeds, this is trait that has been
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Speaker 1: bred into them purposefully. And it's amazing to see dogs
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Speaker 1: without any kind of like training her education, for instance,
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Speaker 1: just sort of naturally start hurting sheep. That's crazy. That's
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Speaker 1: crazy specific. But before we begin, I think you're getting
2:36
Speaker 1: us a perfect setup. I gotta ask Max, what's your
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Speaker 1: pet situation? Man? So I am a very proud cat lover.
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Speaker 1: I have I have only one cat right now because
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Speaker 1: she's extremely territorial and aggressive with other animals, which is funny.
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Speaker 1: She's eight pounds, solid white, with like a high pitched
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Speaker 1: me out. She's like not intimidating at all, but she
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Speaker 1: has her clothes. She's pathetic. I love her at death.
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Speaker 1: I love this cat. No, I think you might know
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Speaker 1: my cat. What's your cat's name? Her name is Sylvia.
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Speaker 1: She's had multiple names throughout the throughout the years. It
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Speaker 1: was Germaine. At one point, she was a stray that
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Speaker 1: got fount There's a whole story behind my cat. I
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Speaker 1: don't know that i've met your cat, Max, but I
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Speaker 1: love the idea of a cat with morphing names. I
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Speaker 1: once had a cat with two names, Robert and Fernando. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: you'd call them different things depending on the situation, Like
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Speaker 1: if he was being a bad boy, you did say Robert,
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Speaker 1: and if he was being a sweetie, you'd say, oh, Fernando. Um,
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Speaker 1: I've got I got. I got a cat with multiple
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Speaker 1: names too. He is a cat with a thousand names.
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Speaker 1: Because when I got him, the folks who were living
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Speaker 1: with me, I messed up and I made it democratic
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Speaker 1: and uh no one, no one won the vote. So
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Speaker 1: we were just like, this cat has his many names
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Speaker 1: at once, but we're not talking about cats at least
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Speaker 1: at least nobody named it Catty McCAT face. I'm just
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Speaker 1: gonna say that. No, I've got the one cat with
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Speaker 1: many names, uh, and one that I referred to as
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Speaker 1: the Colonel, and then another cat named Dr Bankman, which
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Speaker 1: is still like one of my top ten favorite names
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Speaker 1: for a pet. Incredible pet name, incredible pet. It's not
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Speaker 1: quite as ah, It's not quite as I would say,
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Speaker 1: as much of a statement as naming a dog. Boy.
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Speaker 1: They were talking about uh, an amazing, an amazing little
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Speaker 1: pooch poodle who was sometimes called Puddle and sometimes called Boy.
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Speaker 1: Very magic dog allegedly and true story scholars site this
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Speaker 1: guy as the Well scholars site this dog, I should say,
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Speaker 1: as the first ever British military dog. That's right. This
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Speaker 1: dog was the best boy of Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
4:53
Speaker 1: Rupert of the Rhyme was a German nobleman. He went
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Speaker 1: on to do all kinds of amazing things that will
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Speaker 1: will get to some of uh in today's episode, but
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Speaker 1: we're mainly going to talk about his political and military career. Um.
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Speaker 1: But he did go on to become an artist and
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Speaker 1: a scientist and an inventor. He was the nephew of
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Speaker 1: King Charles the First of England and cousin, uh first
5:14
Speaker 1: cousin rather of King Charles the Second of England. So
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Speaker 1: he was in the mix with these royals, and he
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Speaker 1: was introduced into a military life very very young, I
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Speaker 1: believe around the age of thirteen and sixteen thirty three
5:30
Speaker 1: when he began his tenure in the military during the
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Speaker 1: Thirty Years War. Yeah, he was a child soldier, that's
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Speaker 1: what we call it today. Uh. This war had a
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Speaker 1: personal toll on him because it resulted in his father,
5:46
Speaker 1: Frederick Elector Palatine and briefly the King of Bohemia, losing
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Speaker 1: his crown. And so he's he's growing up in times
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Speaker 1: of war. And during one of the wars he took
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Speaker 1: part in when he was still very young, he was
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Speaker 1: around seventeen or so, it's the Thirty Years War in Germany.
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Speaker 1: He fought against the Holy Roman Empire and he was captured.
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Speaker 1: But because you know, he was well to do and
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Speaker 1: from the ruling class, he had a little bit different
6:15
Speaker 1: treatment as a pownal. He was locked up in a
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Speaker 1: castle in Austria, the Lens Castle, and the main thing
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Speaker 1: that his captors wanted from him was not necessarily like
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Speaker 1: a ransom or you know, political cloud. Their main issue
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Speaker 1: was they wanted to convert him from Calvinism to Catholicism.
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Speaker 1: So like every day they come in and they say,
6:39
Speaker 1: feeling Catholic. That's a hard pass. But the puritanical nature
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Speaker 1: of Rupert's opponents in these battles is really what leads
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Speaker 1: to the kind of propaganda around him and his dog
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Speaker 1: in particular, uh, he gets he's actually gifted this uh,
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Speaker 1: this white poodle which is actually bred to be unting dog.
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Speaker 1: They were bred to retrieve ducks, you know, or other
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Speaker 1: you know, game birds, you know, when they were shot
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Speaker 1: down over water usually and they're kind of little velcro
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Speaker 1: like curls that you see. I mean, you know, obviously
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Speaker 1: poodles can be groomed in bizarre and elaborate ways, but
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Speaker 1: typically just like a short hair pood poodle that doesn't
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Speaker 1: have like pom poms shaved into it, have these curly,
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Speaker 1: almost knit like coats, very dance exactly and very good
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Speaker 1: for keeping them warm but also increasing their buoyancy, which
7:34
Speaker 1: allowed them to be very very effective at retrieving those birds. Yeah. Yeah,
7:38
Speaker 1: and at this point a bit of foreshadowing ridiculous historians.
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Speaker 1: It is important to note that while he was incarcerated,
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Speaker 1: some soldiers from the Austrian side started spreading these rumors
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Speaker 1: that Rupert had super natural abilities, what we would call
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Speaker 1: superhuman abilities today, but to them this was the result
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Speaker 1: of magic. He was invulnerable to bullets, what they called
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Speaker 1: shots free. They said they had like fired at him
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Speaker 1: point blank range, and it wasn't that their weaponry was flawed.
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Speaker 1: It was that this guy was somehow immune to bullets,
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Speaker 1: which is a nice it's a nice rumor to have
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Speaker 1: about you, although it could come back to to bite you.
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Speaker 1: As I'm gonna, I'm gonna test this theory out, um
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Speaker 1: blast this guy at point blank range. And that's exactly
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Speaker 1: what that was claimed. Was claimed that he could take
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Speaker 1: shots up close and and still you know, walk away unscathed.
8:35
Speaker 1: I love the idea of shot free being kind of
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Speaker 1: an old timey version of bulletproof, you know. Yeah. And
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Speaker 1: and they thought this is the thing though, they didn't
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Speaker 1: just make this up out a whole cloth, right, People
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Speaker 1: really believed throughout you know, the area at this time,
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Speaker 1: they really believed there was possible to use magic to
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Speaker 1: make yourself shot free, let's say shot free instead of bulletproof.
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Speaker 1: I like that totally, really quickly, right up front, just
9:00
Speaker 1: want to list some amazing sources that we used for
9:03
Speaker 1: this episode. We've got History Extra an article called the
9:06
Speaker 1: Prince and his Devil Dog, and this is a piece
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Speaker 1: actually for the BBC's History Magazine and also BBC History Revealed.
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Speaker 1: We have a lovely little article from the Vintage News
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Speaker 1: about Boy the magical dog of Prince Rupert of the rhyme,
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Speaker 1: and we also have a great one from Alice Obscura,
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Speaker 1: one of our favorites. Five years later, English school children
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Speaker 1: still learn about a magic propaganda dog by Eric Grundhauser.
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Speaker 1: And a few others that will list along the way,
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Speaker 1: but those are the big ones I'd like to shout
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Speaker 1: out some specifically. Mark Style also wrote a book about this,
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Speaker 1: uh called I'm not going to give the full title
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Speaker 1: till the end, but it's called The Black Legend of
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Speaker 1: Prince Rupert's Dog. And then there's a there's a book
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Speaker 1: will pull a little bit from that was published in
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Speaker 1: sixteen forty three called Observations upon Prince Rupert's white dog
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Speaker 1: called Boy keefully taken by tea be for the purpose
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Speaker 1: employed by for some of quality in the city of London.
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Speaker 1: I'm reading from a very old copy. Yeah, I believe
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Speaker 1: that's a pamphlet. And part of this propaganda wars you
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Speaker 1: start to see waged against Rupert and his dog Boy.
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Speaker 1: So he gets the dog and immediately they are inseparable
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Speaker 1: like his is by his side, brings it to several battles. Um,
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Speaker 1: he really starts to get involved in the in this
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Speaker 1: campaign against parliament. Right, yeah, yeah, let's let's talk a
10:39
Speaker 1: little bit about how how Boy gets on the scene. So,
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Speaker 1: like we said, because of his high social status, Rupert
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Speaker 1: is being treated better than your garden variety prisoner. And
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Speaker 1: there's a guy, an Englishman named the Earl of Arundel,
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Speaker 1: who is an old old friend of the family, and
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Speaker 1: he says, you know what's gonna help Rupert out here?
11:01
Speaker 1: He might feel a little less less uh down on
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Speaker 1: himself if he has some companies. So I'm gonna send
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Speaker 1: him a puppy. Uh. This was a different time. I
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Speaker 1: hope everybody knows today that if you send, if you
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Speaker 1: give someone a dog as a gift, unless you know
11:19
Speaker 1: explicitly what kind of dog they want, and they've said it,
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Speaker 1: then you're not giving them a gift, you're giving them
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Speaker 1: a responsibility. But this, this was a different circumstance. And uh,
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Speaker 1: the reason I said this guy and then changed it
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Speaker 1: to this dog is because even though they named the
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Speaker 1: dog Boy, she was female and like Noel said, she is,
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Speaker 1: she was down to ride. She was ride or die
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Speaker 1: for Rupert, that was her human. And you can see
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Speaker 1: these accounts of Rupert and Boy going on hunts together.
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Speaker 1: It's very Pixar, you know what I mean. It's very
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Speaker 1: like first act of a Disney or Pixar film. So
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Speaker 1: they know that, like you had said earlier, No, they
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Speaker 1: know that this was definitely a working dog, a hunting dog,
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Speaker 1: because there are stories about the dog helping him, you know,
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Speaker 1: hunt deer and whatnot. But this is important because it
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Speaker 1: carries onto Boy's behavior in war, right, like that those
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Speaker 1: same sets of skills are helping helping Boy. I want
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Speaker 1: to say, but also I have to ask do you think,
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Speaker 1: like how active do you think Boy really was? As
12:27
Speaker 1: we'll see, this is kind of a tough question to answer.
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Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, it's like it would take
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Speaker 1: some really specific training to train a poodle, uh to
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Speaker 1: two more than retrieved ducks, you know, to actually like
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Speaker 1: attack and go for the throat. But they are all
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Speaker 1: these like woodcuts of Prince Rupert and Boy where he
12:45
Speaker 1: was so his brand right, it was like so tied
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Speaker 1: to this dog that you knew just from like they're
12:51
Speaker 1: kind of proximity in these images, um who we were
12:54
Speaker 1: dealing with. He invades the city of Birmingham and actually
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Speaker 1: sets fire to to several houses, and Boy is apparently
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Speaker 1: by his side during that battle. And you have images
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Speaker 1: of this that actually have to name the city of
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Speaker 1: Birmingham like in text in the background, even though there's
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Speaker 1: the fires. So like the burning and the sacking of
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Speaker 1: that city was less iconic than the man himself. And this,
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Speaker 1: you know, this devil dog. Oftentimes it's portrayed like a crazy,
13:21
Speaker 1: ferocious black lion in some images. Weird that they get
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Speaker 1: the color so off. I mean, that's obviously for creative license,
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Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, there were two poodles. Actually, that's part
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Speaker 1: of one of the one of the stories is that
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Speaker 1: he was given two poodles, one of whom had a
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Speaker 1: black coat and died early on, so might explain some
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Speaker 1: of it, but we should also mention Rupert did get
13:45
Speaker 1: out of prison in one and that's where and you
13:49
Speaker 1: know boy went with him and maybe that other poodle,
13:52
Speaker 1: and that's when he started, you know, just pillaging across
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Speaker 1: across Europe and and people people would see this on
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Speaker 1: the battlefield and they would, uh, they started making this
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Speaker 1: very effective propaganda about this. It's centered on the dog.
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Speaker 1: I mean, we're not like Rupert did do messed up
14:12
Speaker 1: stuff like you said in April sixte Uh. He was
14:16
Speaker 1: setting fire to houses in Birmingham, and you know his
14:20
Speaker 1: dog is right there with him. And so these propaganda
14:22
Speaker 1: pamphlets start to come out, and one of them is
14:26
Speaker 1: a true relation Prince Rupert's barbarous cruelty against the town
14:31
Speaker 1: of Birmingham. Yeah, the old only English. Let's just also
14:38
Speaker 1: really quickly, just get a few terms straight. Not to
14:40
Speaker 1: be labor it too much. We don't want to get
14:42
Speaker 1: to um in the weeds here. But this was the
14:45
Speaker 1: English Civil War, and this was a conflict between parliamentarians
14:49
Speaker 1: and royalists, Parliamentarians being people that were loyal to parliament
14:54
Speaker 1: and royalists being people that were loyal to royals. Uh.
14:58
Speaker 1: And obviously Prince Rupert was firmly in that camp, given
15:02
Speaker 1: his proximity and relation to all of these royal bloodlines. Yeah, yeah,
15:08
Speaker 1: and there this is an information war, Make no mistake,
15:11
Speaker 1: parliament supporters. We're trying to spread word about Rupert as
15:17
Speaker 1: like a villain and non trustworthy, bloodthirsty dude. And they
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Speaker 1: also if you look at the wood cuts, which are
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Speaker 1: freely available online, if you look at the wood cuts
15:28
Speaker 1: of Boy B A y E by the way, you
15:32
Speaker 1: will see something that looks a lot less like a
15:36
Speaker 1: poodle today and much more closely resembles a wolf like creature.
15:41
Speaker 1: It's the kind of if you have ever had a
15:45
Speaker 1: nightmare about a poodle. I think we're speaking to a
15:49
Speaker 1: very specific part of the audience today, but if you've
15:52
Speaker 1: ever had a poodle related nightmare, this is a nightmare poodle.
15:56
Speaker 1: It's like whomever was drawing these pamphlets or creating these
15:59
Speaker 1: wood cuts made Boy look more like a lion, wouldn't
16:03
Speaker 1: you say? And it's it's probably bigger than it actually
16:07
Speaker 1: was for sure. Like I said, there's lots of these
16:09
Speaker 1: where there's definitely some styling going on, whether some of
16:12
Speaker 1: them were depicting previous poodle or not. Um, they're all
16:16
Speaker 1: pretty ferocious looking. And again there were these pamphlets let's
16:20
Speaker 1: let's not forget this is a war against Parliament, and
16:23
Speaker 1: there there's lots of different sex but I think that
16:25
Speaker 1: the main cause of the Civil War was people who
16:28
Speaker 1: are loyal to the royalists King Charles the first and
16:31
Speaker 1: the second, and people who are loyal to Parliament, and
16:33
Speaker 1: so that was where the beef came from. And so
16:35
Speaker 1: Parliament was understandably trying to win over the hearts and
16:40
Speaker 1: minds of the people, not only painting Rupert is this
16:42
Speaker 1: kind of elitist royal sympathizer, but also literally like a
16:47
Speaker 1: witch or demon of some kind, you know, with this
16:50
Speaker 1: uh familiar devil dog at his side. Yeah, yeah, he was.
16:55
Speaker 1: He was presented as a warlock, one who trafficked in
16:59
Speaker 1: the occult and he was also called a shape shifter,
17:04
Speaker 1: and these devilish bowers were attributed to him. This was
17:07
Speaker 1: pretty effective during sixty two. Before he's burning Birmingham and
17:12
Speaker 1: he's already been an agent of chaos across the land.
17:16
Speaker 1: And during early hundreds and hundreds of pamphlets were printed
17:20
Speaker 1: every single month to either talk trash about the king's friends,
17:25
Speaker 1: which includes rupert or exalt the king's foes and make
17:30
Speaker 1: them look good and noble and just so these claims
17:35
Speaker 1: were made when we have to remember the majority of
17:39
Speaker 1: people definitely just assumed witchcraft was a thing, even if
17:43
Speaker 1: they didn't know too much about it. Like if the
17:45
Speaker 1: the four of us, Uh, Noel, Max, Me and you
17:49
Speaker 1: listening along at home, if we were back in that
17:52
Speaker 1: time and we said, hey, I think somebody this just
17:56
Speaker 1: point a random person, I think they might be a witch,
17:59
Speaker 1: you know, and other people would say, uh, I don't. Yeah,
18:03
Speaker 1: they're definitely out there, which is here a thing? Everybody agreed,
18:06
Speaker 1: which is there a thing? So if you look at
18:09
Speaker 1: the pamphlets, you see what the mission of the propaganda is.
18:13
Speaker 1: It's to make people think that anyone who sides with
18:17
Speaker 1: the Royalist is siding with the infernal powers. Like they're
18:21
Speaker 1: trying to make you think it's the same thing as
18:23
Speaker 1: supporting Lucifer or Satan and the opposition to the Royalists
18:29
Speaker 1: were referred to, or at least one sect of them
18:32
Speaker 1: were referred to as round heads. By the way, also
18:35
Speaker 1: the Royalists and and Bruper they were referred to as
18:38
Speaker 1: cavaliers because they apparently they their dress kind of was
18:43
Speaker 1: reminiscent of the Couble arrows and Spain and just the
18:47
Speaker 1: kind of like look of their kind of flowy silks
18:50
Speaker 1: and their whole garb or whatever. And then you had
18:53
Speaker 1: supporters of Parliament, um were often referred to as round heads.
18:58
Speaker 1: And then you also had a group under Oliver Cromwell,
19:01
Speaker 1: who you know, you know, absolutely meant business was about
19:04
Speaker 1: as puritanical as they come. His men were known as
19:07
Speaker 1: iron Sides. That makes me think of the actor Michael Ironsides. Yeah.
19:12
Speaker 1: And then of course there was Parliament Funkadelic, which is
19:15
Speaker 1: where the name of the band comes from, and if
19:16
Speaker 1: you think about it, most of their songs are about
19:19
Speaker 1: the English Civil War. Then I can't tell if you're
19:22
Speaker 1: joking or not, but I love it either way, and
19:24
Speaker 1: I do know you're joking. Parliament the underrated band that
19:30
Speaker 1: people think of like only the George Clinton era, like
19:33
Speaker 1: the really like spaceship kind of you know vibe. Their
19:36
Speaker 1: album Maggot Brain is actually like a total psychedelic masterpiece.
19:40
Speaker 1: Highly recommend if you have it. Checked that one out.
19:42
Speaker 1: But okay, so we got your roundheads right, and they
19:45
Speaker 1: were considered by the Royalists to be kind of dulty, right,
19:48
Speaker 1: like a little bit slow on the uptake, So they
19:51
Speaker 1: actually started writing their own propaganda. It was really interesting
19:54
Speaker 1: flex it was almost like a like a sat was satire,
19:57
Speaker 1: but it was satire masquerading as actual propaganda against their
20:01
Speaker 1: own cause. So the Royalists were writing up these pamphlets
20:05
Speaker 1: that were very similar to the ones the roundheads were
20:07
Speaker 1: putting out to try to, you know, turn public opinion
20:10
Speaker 1: against this devil dog and you know, Luciferian master. But
20:14
Speaker 1: they would write these things that were almost so outlandish
20:17
Speaker 1: they were feeding the room or mill. Uh. They knew
20:20
Speaker 1: what they were doing, and it was a way of
20:22
Speaker 1: mocking their you know, their enemies. But I think it
20:25
Speaker 1: may have done I don't know, Like do you how
20:28
Speaker 1: this seems like a good thing. If people are really
20:30
Speaker 1: starting to believe this stuff, it could strike fear into
20:34
Speaker 1: the hearts of people that would like, you know, meet
20:36
Speaker 1: him in battle, you know, Rupert and and uh and
20:39
Speaker 1: uh and and boy in battle. Yeah. Yeah, Because now
20:44
Speaker 1: the information has spread such that even if you read
20:48
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff, let's say your roundhead and you're like, oh, okay,
20:52
Speaker 1: this is this is a little far there are witches,
20:55
Speaker 1: but I don't know if this guy's which. And then
20:57
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, knowing this information, you see him
21:00
Speaker 1: in person on the on the battlefield, and you see
21:03
Speaker 1: boy accompanying him. You might think, uh, I don't know,
21:08
Speaker 1: is he shot free? Because now the rubbers hitting the road.
21:11
Speaker 1: I love the satire though, because there's this one Royalist
21:15
Speaker 1: poet that's that we found in the Atlas Obscura article
21:19
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier. His name is John Cleveland, and he
21:24
Speaker 1: is probably the source of the beginning like comedic response
21:30
Speaker 1: to the parliamentary and propaganda is. He has this poem
21:35
Speaker 1: that he wrote called to Prince Rupert, which we've read.
21:38
Speaker 1: You can find it online. Well, we're not gonna read
21:41
Speaker 1: it right now because it is it is very long.
21:45
Speaker 1: It is not a radio friendly poem if you look
21:47
Speaker 1: at it, but it's it's funny the way that it
21:52
Speaker 1: the way that it traces, uh, the powers attributed to Rupert. Anyway,
22:00
Speaker 1: So there are two fronts of this war. There's an
22:01
Speaker 1: information war and then there's the actual war. The King
22:05
Speaker 1: tried to take London in November sixty two. He was
22:10
Speaker 1: not able to do this successfully and he had to
22:14
Speaker 1: return back to Oxford. And when this occurred, John Cleveland
22:20
Speaker 1: hits back again. He's sort of like a maybe like
22:24
Speaker 1: a John Oliver esque figure. You know, he's lampooning people,
22:28
Speaker 1: and he writes a satirical poem that mocks the Roundheads
22:34
Speaker 1: for being dumb enough to believe that Rupert has magic powers,
22:40
Speaker 1: and he says, you know, the Roundheads all believe this
22:42
Speaker 1: guy is a witch. They're all convinced that the Prince's
22:46
Speaker 1: dog Boy is his familiar, a demon in the shape
22:50
Speaker 1: of an animal, and this gives him this may indeed
22:53
Speaker 1: be one of the sources of his power. Speaking of
22:56
Speaker 1: his powers, yeah, his powers are Upert's uh boys. Um specifically,
23:03
Speaker 1: I mean that this list started to grow and grow
23:06
Speaker 1: and it got real specific. Um Again, we've mentioned the
23:10
Speaker 1: idea that we people believe Rupert was a shape shifter. Oh,
23:13
Speaker 1: not to mention that there was heavily implied in some
23:17
Speaker 1: of these pamphlets. And then something that I didn't even
23:19
Speaker 1: realize is apparently heavily implied in general with witches or
23:22
Speaker 1: warlocks and they're familiars. Is that. Yeah, Rupert was definitely
23:26
Speaker 1: having sex with Boy. Yeah, it was about there. There's
23:31
Speaker 1: a there's an expression. There's something in one of these
23:33
Speaker 1: pamphlets that says that describes them as laying together, sometimes
23:37
Speaker 1: with Rupert upon boy and sometimes Boy upon Rupert's Uh.
23:44
Speaker 1: So the yeah, you could cut that innu window with
23:47
Speaker 1: a giant broadsword or something. Um. But so again obviously
23:53
Speaker 1: intended to demean uh and to other and to make
23:57
Speaker 1: Rupert into some sort of pariah, you know, or them
24:00
Speaker 1: that people would be like, this guy is unnatural. He's
24:03
Speaker 1: you know, evil in every way. But the dog had
24:06
Speaker 1: these the following powers. Um, my favorite is that possessed
24:10
Speaker 1: it was polylingual and possessed the ability to speak in
24:13
Speaker 1: a quote mixed language. Uh m I x T love
24:17
Speaker 1: the old English spellings somewhere between Hebrew and High Dutch. Okay, interesting. Um,
24:25
Speaker 1: he could see the future or she could see the future.
24:27
Speaker 1: So it's really confusing when you got a dog called
24:28
Speaker 1: boy that's a not a boy at all. That she
24:31
Speaker 1: could prophecy or to or predict the future. We've also
24:35
Speaker 1: got yeah, we've already we've already mentioned being invulnerable, uh
24:38
Speaker 1: two bullets and and just all around you know, godlike
24:42
Speaker 1: and it's uh ability to withstand attack. Yeah, also could
24:47
Speaker 1: find hidden treasure that was one of the powers attributed
24:51
Speaker 1: to Boy. Also a couple of things these are coming
24:55
Speaker 1: from John Cleveland, by the way, a lot of these
24:57
Speaker 1: these are coming from a royalist. Uh, it's the definition
25:03
Speaker 1: of a moment because he is a Roundheads are dumb.
25:08
Speaker 1: They believe the following about this dog. But some of
25:10
Speaker 1: the things he describes sound more like very specific political
25:15
Speaker 1: jokes or very specific tricks that Boy was trained to do.
25:20
Speaker 1: Like there's the idea that if you say the name Pim,
25:25
Speaker 1: that boy will lift her leg like she's gonna pee
25:29
Speaker 1: on him. And then there's the idea that if you
25:33
Speaker 1: ever say the word Charles around Boy, uh, the dog
25:38
Speaker 1: will immediately quote come aloft for whomever says that, Wait,
25:44
Speaker 1: does that mean like come at them? I think so.
25:47
Speaker 1: I think so. I think it means a come for you.
25:49
Speaker 1: So it's like a dog that just goes beast mode
25:52
Speaker 1: whenever here's but Charles. But I thought I thought Boy
25:56
Speaker 1: liked Charles. I thought we were in Charles's camp. I know,
25:59
Speaker 1: I thought it was like a Charles and Charged situation.
26:02
Speaker 1: But but yeah, or maybe it means I come aloft.
26:05
Speaker 1: As a little vague right for us, you may mean
26:08
Speaker 1: that the dog just runs up to you and it
26:10
Speaker 1: is your buddy. But may mean it's a flying tackle
26:14
Speaker 1: they have, but maybe okay, like maybe it's like a
26:16
Speaker 1: loving Dino to Fred Flintstone type tackle. You know what
26:20
Speaker 1: I mean? Um, I love this one. It's just so simple.
26:23
Speaker 1: The power to inflict death or injury on those who
26:27
Speaker 1: had wronged him, Yes, exactly. Uh. This so this was
26:34
Speaker 1: a big hit with other royalists. They thought it was
26:38
Speaker 1: hilarious because they also said, yeah, we get it. Roundheads
26:41
Speaker 1: are dumb. And by January it was apparently common for
26:48
Speaker 1: supporters of the king when they're all around drinking right
26:52
Speaker 1: to cheers to Prince Rupert's dog, so he'd be like,
26:55
Speaker 1: cheers the y boy. I guess I just wanted to
26:58
Speaker 1: throw a ye in there. He's fun, it's a good
27:01
Speaker 1: one and I like eat as well. Unrelated, so surely,
27:05
Speaker 1: I mean, I think this probably worked, right, I mean this, Uh,
27:09
Speaker 1: these rumors that the royalists themselves started about, boy, I
27:13
Speaker 1: mean I was taken in by it. I'm like, this
27:15
Speaker 1: is the fun stuff to repeat. Did you hear about
27:18
Speaker 1: the dog with the power to prevent others from making
27:21
Speaker 1: rational decisions by making them impotent in their minds. Have
27:25
Speaker 1: you heard of this been It totally sounds like it
27:28
Speaker 1: checks out, totally seems legit. Terrified of this boy, Um,
27:32
Speaker 1: I wouldn't he have the powers of the shadow from
27:35
Speaker 1: the golden era of radio and comics? Right, he can
27:37
Speaker 1: cloudman's mind? She boy can't? She boy can't. The last
27:42
Speaker 1: one on the list is she possesses the power to
27:45
Speaker 1: move you right that this is just a tribute. It
27:51
Speaker 1: is the greatest to the greatest dog in the world.
28:00
Speaker 1: So whatever of these you know, uh powers that the
28:04
Speaker 1: round has. The parliamentarians actually believed they They definitely seemed
28:11
Speaker 1: to be some stock put in this idea that Boy
28:15
Speaker 1: and Rupert were of the devil were in some way, um,
28:19
Speaker 1: wielding the black arts, you know, on the battlefield, and
28:22
Speaker 1: it really got out of hands, it did. It did
28:26
Speaker 1: because it started like imagine, it's the definition of not
28:29
Speaker 1: getting the joke. Like imagine you saw a late night
28:35
Speaker 1: monologue right from one of the late night hosts and
28:38
Speaker 1: someone said, oh, yeah, no, this is whatever they're saying
28:42
Speaker 1: is absolutely absolutely true, and you said, no, no, part
28:46
Speaker 1: of it's true, but this part is the joke, and
28:47
Speaker 1: they were like, you are a fool this This is
28:50
Speaker 1: completely true. Why else would they bother to put it
28:53
Speaker 1: on television? This stuff spread, people were like, why else
28:57
Speaker 1: would someone bother to print it if it's not true?
28:59
Speaker 1: And we have to keep in mind a lot of
29:01
Speaker 1: people already wanted to hate this rupert guy. So if
29:06
Speaker 1: you already want to dislike someone it doesn't like, you're
29:09
Speaker 1: gonna be very open to stuff that confirms your opinion.
29:12
Speaker 1: One of my favorites was that the idea that boy
29:16
Speaker 1: was not a dog at all, but in fact to
29:19
Speaker 1: quote lapland lady, meaning the Sami people of northern Europe,
29:24
Speaker 1: and this area was infamous for its quote unquote, which
29:27
Speaker 1: is because of the traditional practices of those people. But
29:31
Speaker 1: as you said, the joke goes so out of hand.
29:34
Speaker 1: Parliamentarians totally have that woosh moment. They don't get it.
29:38
Speaker 1: They start to think that it is factual information. The
29:42
Speaker 1: common folk, including some supporters of the Royalists, start believing
29:47
Speaker 1: these rumors. It's like they were realing Mad magazine for
29:52
Speaker 1: news kind of That's how that's how weird it got.
29:55
Speaker 1: And the people who didn't take witchcraft seriously on the
30:00
Speaker 1: Royalist side still thought it was hilarious. But eventually it
30:04
Speaker 1: backfired and Boy gained a real reputation as a supernatural familiar.
30:09
Speaker 1: People genuinely believed this and this pre existing association with witchcraft.
30:17
Speaker 1: By being allegedly shot free, it didn't help tamp the
30:21
Speaker 1: fire down right. Let' let's not forget. I mean it
30:24
Speaker 1: was Rupert was already considered to be pretty witchy in
30:27
Speaker 1: his own right before the dog even even came on
30:29
Speaker 1: the scene. So the Royalists, though, really looked at Rupert
30:35
Speaker 1: as this kind of symbol right of of of their
30:39
Speaker 1: superiority on the battlefield, their whole brand right, and the
30:43
Speaker 1: dog would be by his side. I mean the Rupert
30:47
Speaker 1: was in fact a absolute beast on the battlefield. He
30:52
Speaker 1: was a very very sharp tactician. Um he knew how
30:55
Speaker 1: to sack, he knew how to pillage, and he could
30:58
Speaker 1: like do no wrong. I mean, he was loved by
31:00
Speaker 1: his troops because he was out there on the front
31:03
Speaker 1: lines with them and with Boy and Boy in particular.
31:07
Speaker 1: It's so incredibly popular word of mouth of this magical dog.
31:12
Speaker 1: Again on their side, they're not calling it a devil dog.
31:14
Speaker 1: They're calling it a magical dog. You know, I was
31:16
Speaker 1: spreading all around Europe and the powers. This notion, these
31:21
Speaker 1: powers even reached Murad the Fourth, uh, the Sultan of
31:25
Speaker 1: the Ottoman Empire, who said, you know what, I want
31:29
Speaker 1: to give me one of those. Yeah, the Sultan, he's
31:32
Speaker 1: at the point where you can just hear stuff and
31:34
Speaker 1: say I want one of those. Make it so, you know,
31:38
Speaker 1: kind of like kind of like the way Prince was
31:42
Speaker 1: able to make ridiculous demands and people would just follow
31:45
Speaker 1: through with it. I'm talking about Prince the musical legend. Uh,
31:49
Speaker 1: not European Prince, but this the Sultan was like that
31:53
Speaker 1: was quite well to do, of course, and boy even
31:58
Speaker 1: got the rank of sergeant. Made your general. She was
32:01
Speaker 1: a mascot. She was a supporter on the battlefields. This
32:04
Speaker 1: is this is a pattern we see in a lot
32:06
Speaker 1: of militaries across human history. Animals, whether they're wild or
32:11
Speaker 1: whether they belong to some specific person, end up becoming
32:15
Speaker 1: these mascots and people people like having an animal on
32:19
Speaker 1: their side or just hanging out cats. Uh, did we
32:23
Speaker 1: ever do an episode on various military animals? I want
32:26
Speaker 1: to someone to do it on military cats, in particular
32:29
Speaker 1: military cats. Yeah, let's do it, let's do It's gotta
32:31
Speaker 1: be some weird military cat, but probably belonging to a Frenchman. Yeah,
32:35
Speaker 1: you know, it depends on the cat. I think we're
32:37
Speaker 1: talking big cats. To be dope, to have a tiger
32:39
Speaker 1: on your side. We just we we gotta work out
32:42
Speaker 1: the logistics. But they're probably, to your point, Nold, probably
32:45
Speaker 1: house cats. As this continues, royalists still think this is hilarious.
32:50
Speaker 1: Roundheads are starting to get superstitious and genuinely believe that
32:56
Speaker 1: boy has these powers. But we're taking a turn, Max.
33:01
Speaker 1: Can we get some you know, like the music in
33:03
Speaker 1: the third act of it Pixar Disney film where it
33:06
Speaker 1: gets kind of serious. Yeah, there it is, Okay, let's
33:09
Speaker 1: bring it down a lot. Yeah. So on July one, four,
33:15
Speaker 1: Rupert's troops are coming into support the Royalist in York
33:22
Speaker 1: and this is currently held by the Marquess of Newcastle.
33:26
Speaker 1: The next day, Rupert and Newcastle put themselves in position
33:31
Speaker 1: in a place west of York called Marston Moore, and
33:35
Speaker 1: they prepare themselves for battle most of the day. If
33:39
Speaker 1: you've been in a combat situation, you're probably familiar with this.
33:43
Speaker 1: It's surprising how you can spend a lot of time
33:45
Speaker 1: waiting just kind of waiting around for something to happen.
33:49
Speaker 1: And that's what they did for most of the day.
33:51
Speaker 1: But from what we understand, in the early evening, forces
33:56
Speaker 1: commanded by a Lord Fairfax, the Earl of Manchester in
34:00
Speaker 1: the Earl of Levin, got together. They vultron up and
34:03
Speaker 1: they launched a surprise attack. They had the advantage in numbers,
34:09
Speaker 1: and they had the advantage in training. The troops were
34:11
Speaker 1: both better prepared and outnumbering the royalist, so they absolutely
34:18
Speaker 1: mopped the floor with him. They the parliamentarians, won this battle.
34:23
Speaker 1: Rupert during the battle, his horses shot under him, and
34:27
Speaker 1: so he hides in a field of beans, which feels
34:31
Speaker 1: like a piece of folklore, doesn't it. But that's what
34:33
Speaker 1: he does, does it really does? And you know, the
34:36
Speaker 1: pamphlets kept coming, and one of them that came out
34:40
Speaker 1: later that month Um said the following He said, a
34:42
Speaker 1: valle and Soda, who had skill in necromancy, saw boy
34:48
Speaker 1: and killed the dog, possibly shooting in with a brass button,
34:52
Speaker 1: which was like a consider I guess, like a silver
34:56
Speaker 1: bullet kind of situation, like werewolf fools, and I was
34:59
Speaker 1: supposed to be it was supposed to be a magical weapon.
35:03
Speaker 1: I guess is the implication the real story feels. Accounts differ,
35:09
Speaker 1: but it looks like when they were fighting, Boy had
35:12
Speaker 1: been tied up in the Royalist camp but somehow got
35:15
Speaker 1: free and went to find went to find Rooper her person,
35:19
Speaker 1: but she didn't make it, and it turns out that
35:22
Speaker 1: sadly she was not bullet proof and expired on the
35:27
Speaker 1: field of battle. No one sure what happened to Boy's body.
35:31
Speaker 1: But back to Mark style, he has an interesting suggestion.
35:35
Speaker 1: He says, you know what, if the parliamentary and soldiers
35:39
Speaker 1: knew that this poodle was Boy, wouldn't they have wanted
35:42
Speaker 1: to take the body with them as a trophy because
35:46
Speaker 1: it's the most it is the most famous dog in
35:48
Speaker 1: England at the time by far. Sorry, there's I don't
35:51
Speaker 1: even know if there's a second place. Well, you gotta
35:53
Speaker 1: wonder too if maybe there was a sense that they
35:56
Speaker 1: could honess his abilities even in death. I don't know.
36:00
Speaker 1: Maybe they were may maybe I'm just have read too
36:02
Speaker 1: much fantasy and sci fi. And a fun fact, Boy
36:06
Speaker 1: was actually one of the oldest living London dogs that
36:12
Speaker 1: have been detailed in historical records of the time. Um
36:15
Speaker 1: and that because it had very specific data about its birth, breed, color,
36:22
Speaker 1: and the exact date of his death. Yeah. Yeah, and
36:27
Speaker 1: this story is still told today to a lot of
36:31
Speaker 1: school kids in England. But according to Mark Style, all
36:36
Speaker 1: we have really we don't have a ton of evidence.
36:38
Speaker 1: All we have our fragments of evidence and the propagandist
36:42
Speaker 1: campaign about the dog. So this is this, this whole
36:46
Speaker 1: kerfuffle is kind of fake news, at least in the
36:50
Speaker 1: propaganda aspect of it. And and it didn't stop. That's
36:53
Speaker 1: the thing. When Boy passed away, unfortunately, very sad. When
36:57
Speaker 1: Boy passed away, propagandists printing pamphlets about this they did.
37:03
Speaker 1: I mean, it was good fodder, you know, it was.
37:05
Speaker 1: It did gave folks something to fear and despise. Oh
37:10
Speaker 1: and this is when he turns black. Aha, Okay, maybe
37:13
Speaker 1: it's because it was you know, somehow reanimated, unholy or
37:19
Speaker 1: something like that, you know, come from the Great Beyond,
37:22
Speaker 1: sort of like when Gandalf becomes goes from Gandalf the
37:25
Speaker 1: Grade a Gandolf the White, you know, but like in
37:27
Speaker 1: reverse I could see that, So yeah, I get like
37:30
Speaker 1: black Philip. For example, the the demonic goat in the
37:33
Speaker 1: film The David Agger's film or the Robert Actors film
37:36
Speaker 1: rather the Witch, So that makes sense. It was really
37:38
Speaker 1: kind of leaning into this whole idea of it being
37:41
Speaker 1: a a satanic demon from from the pit. So yeah,
37:46
Speaker 1: we actually have a publication of one of those pamphlets
37:50
Speaker 1: that we have a record of called a Dog's Elegy
37:53
Speaker 1: or Rupert's Tears, and that was published in July secon
37:58
Speaker 1: six and sort of starts to build on that mythology
38:01
Speaker 1: because apparently you know, History mag the BBC piece that
38:05
Speaker 1: we referenced as it really makes a really great point
38:08
Speaker 1: that in death the dog was even more useful than
38:12
Speaker 1: in life for this propaganda war because now they could
38:15
Speaker 1: say whatever they wanted about it. There would be no
38:17
Speaker 1: way for anyone to question it or or have it
38:19
Speaker 1: be backed up. Um. It was absolutely just the perfect
38:23
Speaker 1: storm of like you know, generating these like larger than
38:25
Speaker 1: life stories about this uh, this cursed creature um. And
38:29
Speaker 1: so the royalists they never really seemed to mention boy
38:33
Speaker 1: again because I think for them, they realize that they're
38:36
Speaker 1: joke kind of backfired and now the you know, parliamentarian
38:41
Speaker 1: Um pamphleteers were using this against them even still, so
38:44
Speaker 1: I think they were probably just like kind of tired
38:46
Speaker 1: of it at that point. Yeah, and it also would
38:49
Speaker 1: probably feel like bad form to continue propaganda for this
38:55
Speaker 1: poor guy's dog, because Ruper is still alive, is still alive,
38:58
Speaker 1: So he was probably sad about this, you know, and
39:02
Speaker 1: all his people I think that they didn't want to
39:03
Speaker 1: maybe didn't want to, you know, pour salt on the wound. Yeah.
39:07
Speaker 1: So sixty six, as you know, Royalist cause collapses, Rupert
39:11
Speaker 1: high tails it for the European continent, and eventually, after
39:16
Speaker 1: the restoration of the monarchy, he returns to England and
39:20
Speaker 1: he is buried at Westminster Abbey in sixteen eighty two.
39:24
Speaker 1: By this time, boy is old old news and no
39:28
Speaker 1: one is really talking about this pooch until the eighteenth
39:33
Speaker 1: and twenty century when scholars rediscover the satirical text of
39:39
Speaker 1: John Cleveland. And you have to think this is something
39:44
Speaker 1: that soil ask in history. Extra You have to think
39:48
Speaker 1: how tickled John Cleveland would have been to know that
39:52
Speaker 1: the joke he started way back in sixteen forty two
39:56
Speaker 1: would still be around today. Luckily we have a better
40:01
Speaker 1: understanding of it. Of course. You know, while I've yet
40:04
Speaker 1: to see a magic dog, if you have one or
40:06
Speaker 1: proof of one. I think we'd all love to see it.
40:09
Speaker 1: If you have a dog that can change shape, that's
40:11
Speaker 1: I mean, do a little video clip all here please?
40:15
Speaker 1: Oh man, you can send all of that and more
40:18
Speaker 1: to us in our apparently working email, which is ridiculous
40:22
Speaker 1: at I heart media dot com. Thanks as always to
40:25
Speaker 1: our super producer Max Williams thinks as well to Casey Pegram.
40:29
Speaker 1: Thanks to our own devil Dog, Jonathan Stricklands, a k a.
40:32
Speaker 1: The Quister, who I have a feeling will be returning suit.
40:36
Speaker 1: There's a restaurant in my hometown of Augusta, Georgia called
40:39
Speaker 1: Knuckle Sandwiches. I've always thought a very cute name, and
40:42
Speaker 1: they do a really fantastic spicy hot dog called a
40:44
Speaker 1: devil Dog. I'mnna have to ask if it was named
40:47
Speaker 1: after boy that be hilarious person who you're talking to.
40:52
Speaker 1: The restaurant owner says, yes, you know, really, I only
40:55
Speaker 1: run a restaurant to support my primary love, which is
40:59
Speaker 1: learning more of the English Civil War. I think we
41:01
Speaker 1: need more history themed restaurants were like each you know,
41:04
Speaker 1: I love a food item in some way teaches you
41:06
Speaker 1: a lesson about history. Revolution, revolution, and let us know
41:11
Speaker 1: your history themed restaurant ideas or any food related history puns.
41:15
Speaker 1: Again ridiculous. I heart media dot com so happy that
41:18
Speaker 1: it exists, going to say one more time ridiculous at
41:20
Speaker 1: I heeart media dot com. You can also set us
41:23
Speaker 1: up on social media individually. I am how now Noel
41:25
Speaker 1: Brown on Instagram. You can learn more about my misadventures
41:29
Speaker 1: my ongoing research where I am at Ben Bullen on Instagram. Also,
41:34
Speaker 1: I got a bone to pick with you guys, because
41:37
Speaker 1: I went to the trouble of getting that email address
41:39
Speaker 1: set up and I don't think I'm getting it, so
41:41
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna try to fix it. But word
41:44
Speaker 1: on the street is Max and Noel can see them,
41:46
Speaker 1: so I know, I know you sent that test the
41:51
Speaker 1: other day and it came right through to me and
41:53
Speaker 1: Max that is absurd. We'll give it a try, ridiculous historians.
41:57
Speaker 1: Hopefully Ben will get them, and if he doesn't, I
42:00
Speaker 1: must you've been We will forward them to you immediately.
42:02
Speaker 1: But let's get to the bottom of a big big
42:04
Speaker 1: thanks to Eaves, Jeff Cope, Big thanks to Christopher hascy
42:08
Speaker 1: Otis Big Big thanks to boy or Puddle a shoe
42:12
Speaker 1: is sometimes called uh you just you can't beat having
42:16
Speaker 1: a cruel dog, you know, it's it's something to aspire to.
42:20
Speaker 1: I'd love to see people's dog pictures over on the
42:22
Speaker 1: Facebook page Ridiculous Historians. We'll see you next time, folks.
42:32
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the I
42:34
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
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Speaker 1: your favorite shows.