RUPERT'S LAND

also called Prince Rupert's Land, historic region in northern and western Canada. The name was applied to the territory comprising the drainage basin of Hudson Bay, granted by King Charles II in 1670 to the Hudson's Bay Company. Prince Rupert, cousin of Charles, was the first governor of the company, whence the name. Rupert's Land ceased to exist as a territorial entity in 1869, when the land became part of the Dominion of Canada, but the name still is used as that of an ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Church of Canada.