Note 10 — WINDLESHAW ABBEY.
Reading edition
Several years afterwards we find him in command of a squadron of ships, entrusted to him by Charles II, when an exile in Normandy. Admiral Blake received orders from the Parliament to pursue him. Rupert, being much inferior in force, took shelter in Kinsale, and escaping thence, fled toward the coast of Portugal. Blake pursued and chased him into the Tagus, where he intended to attack him; but the King of Portugal, moved by the favour which throughout Europe attended the royal cause, refused Blake admission, and aided the Prince in making his escape. Having lost the greater part of his fleet off the coast of Spain, he made sail towards the West Indies; but his brother, Prince Maurice, was there shipwrecked in a hurricane. Everywhere his squadron subsisted by privateering, sometimes on English, sometimes on Spanish, vessels. Rupert at last returned to France, where he disposed of the remnants of his fleet, together with his prizes.[10]