Cavaliers and Roundheads
Today’s dive into the history of the office of the Royal Occultist covers the extended tenure of Prince Rupert from the fraught years of the English Civil War, to that most ignominious period following the Restoration…
It is unknown what incident marked Prince Rupert’s elevation to the position of Royal Occultist, but he soon proved his aptitude during the Affair of the Buckinghamshire Devil in 1642. With the broken remains of the eponymous devil buried beneath an innocuous field, Rupert set about proving his worth as both a military commander and Royal Occultist in a period of mass chaos, marked by witchcraft and necromancy on an unprecedented scale as dark forces sought to take advantage of the English Civil War.
Rupert’s opponents during this time were too numerous to properly record. Assisted by Dr. Thomas Rudd, Rupert battled an array of menaces, including the resurgent Sisterhood of Rats. Even so, he managed to assemble one of the largest occult libraries in the Occident, as well as a not inconsiderable arsenal of mystical artefacts over the course of his tenure, and he is known to have developed and refined a number of rituals which were used by the holders of the office for centuries to come.
Despite this, his conduct during his tenure was not without blemish. He was said to have used vile sorceries against the King’s enemies on no less than two occasions, once involving the summoning of the ghostly Knights of Gerontius to aid the Royalist cause. It was also rumoured that he had made an attempt on Oliver Cromwell’s life through mystic means, leading to the end of his partnership with Rudd, and the beginning of his ill-starred association with the mysterious ‘Lapland Lady’ who was said to haunt his steps, often in the shape of a white dog of unknown pedigree.
But with the defeat of Charles I and the beginning of the Interregnum, the office fell vacant until the Restoration in 1660. Oliver Cromwell, no friend to what he thought of as heathen witchery, officially stripped Rupert of his authority in 1655, though the latter had already been exiled from England in 1646. Rupert soon quarrelled with the Royalist court-in-exile, and decamped to the Germanies, where he is known to have consulted with a certain Baron Vordenburg of Styria on the matter of the Devil Ferenczy, as well as the Circus of Night.
In the meantime, Rupert’s former assistant, Rudd, was called upon by the Parliamentarian government to act as an advisor on matters of the arcane – though not given the title of Royal Occultist. Rudd, elderly and ill, served in this capacity reluctantly and only for a few months before he was replaced by antiquarian, alchemist and politician, Elias Ashmole. Ashmole’s tenure was largely uneventful, as Ashmole mainly concerned himself with various alchemical experiments. During this time, the mystical defence of England was left to a variety of cunning men, oracles and dour Puritan adventurers.
In 1660, following the Restoration, agents of the Order of the Cosmic Ram convinced Ashmole to step aside, allowing Rupert to reassume the duties of the Royal Occultist. But weary and disinterested in furthering the schemes of his benefactors, he soon resigned in favour of his former apprentice, the aptly-named John Cadmus. Cadmus, a former soldier, was one of several assistants employed by Rupert during this period, but by 1674, he was the only one who remained in Rupert’s good graces. Unfortunately for Cadmus, his tenure was fraught from the start.
While the Order of the Cosmic Ram had largely supported Rupert’s tenure, they did not approve of his replacement. Cadmus often found himself stymied in his investigations by the very people he was attempting to help, or worse – attacked by assassins in the pay of the Order. Because of this, Cadmus was never able to take on an assistant, ensuring that the burdens of his position were his alone.
Finally, after a notable encounter with the Sisterhood of Rats on the eve of the Glorious Revolution, Cadmus went missing and was presumed dead. Whether his disappearance was due to the Sisterhood or to the machinations of Order of the Cosmic Ram, is unknown. In the aftermath of William of Orange’s ascent to the throne, the post of Royal Occultist was left vacant once more, this time for a decade…
