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