Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Wikipedia
| Elizabeth Stuart | |
|---|---|
| Electress Palatine; Queen of Bohemia | |
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| The widowed Elizabeth Stuart, 1642 | |
| Consort | Palatine: 14 February 1613 – 1623 Bohemia: 4 November 1619 – 8 November 1620 |
| Consort to | Frederick V, Elector Palatine |
| Issue | |
| Frederick Henry von der Pfalz Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine Prince Rupert of the Rhine Prince Maurice von Simmern Edward, Count Palatine of Simmern Sophia of Hanover |
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| Royal house | House of Palatinate-Simmern House of Stuart |
| Father | James VI of Scotland, I of England |
| Mother | Anne of Denmark |
| Born | 19 August 1596 Falkland Palace, Fife |
| Died | 13 February 1662 (aged 65) England |
Elisabeth, Electress Palatine and Queen of Bohemia (born Princess Elizabeth Stuart of Scotland; 19 August 1596 – 13 February 1662) was the eldest daughter to James VI of Scotland and his Queen consort Anne of Denmark. She was thus sister to Charles I of England and cousin to Frederick III of Denmark. With the demise of the Stuart dynasty in 1714, her direct descendants, the Hanoverian rulers, succeeded to the British throne.
[edit] Biography
At the time of Elizabeth's birth at Falkland Palace, Fife, her father was still the King of Scots only. She was named in honour of the Queen of England, in an attempt by her father to flatter the old queen, whose kingdom he hoped to inherit. When the younger Elizabeth was six years old, in 1603, her namesake died and James succeeded to the thrones of England and Ireland, making his daughter a much more attractive bride.
Part of the intent of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was to put the nine year old Elizabeth onto the throne of England (and, presumably, Scotland) as a Catholic monarch, after assassinating her father and the Protestant English aristocracy. At the time of the plot she was staying at Coombe Abbey in Warwickshire, from where the conspirators planned to kidnap her.
On 14 February 1613, she married Frederick V, then Elector of the Palatinate, and took up her place in the court at Heidelberg. Frederick was the leader of the association of Protestant princes in the Holy Roman Empire known as the Evangelical Union, and Elizabeth was married to him in an effort to increase James's ties to these princes. In 1619, Frederick was offered and accepted the crown of Bohemia, but his rule was extremely brief, and thus Elizabeth became known as the "Winter Queen." She was also sometimes called "Queen of Hearts" because of her popularity.
Driven into exile, the couple took up residence in The Hague, and Frederick died in 1632. Elizabeth remained in Holland even after her son, Charles I Louis, regained his father's electorship in 1648. Following the Restoration of the English & Scottish monarchies, she travelled to London to visit her nephew, Charles II, and died while there. Her daughter was known later as Sophia of Hanover; pursuant to the English Act of Settlement 1701, the Electress Sophia and her issue were made heirs to the English, Scottish and Irish thrones (later British throne), so that all monarchs of Great Britain from George I are descendants of Elizabeth.
[edit] Ancestors
| Elizabeth of Bohemia | Father: James I of England |
Paternal Grandfather: Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley |
Paternal Great-grandfather: Matthew Stuart, 4th Earl of Lennox |
| Paternal Great-grandmother: Margaret Douglas |
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| Paternal Grandmother: Mary I, Queen of Scots |
Paternal Great-grandfather: James V of Scotland |
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| Paternal Great-grandmother: Marie de Guise |
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| Mother: Anne of Denmark |
Maternal Grandfather: Frederick II of Denmark |
Maternal Great-grandfather: Christian III of Denmark |
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| Maternal Great-grandmother: Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg |
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| Maternal Grandmother: Sofie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin |
Maternal Great-grandfather: Ulrich III of Mecklenburg-Güstrow |
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| Maternal Great-grandmother: Elizabeth of Denmark |
[edit] Children
- Frederick Henry von der Pfalz (1614-1629) - (Drowned)
- Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine (1617-1680), married Charlotte of Hesse-Kassel, had issue; Marie Luise von Degenfeld, had issue; Elisabeth Hollander von Bernau, had issue
- Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine (1618-1680)
- Rupert, Duke of Cumberland (1619-1682), had one illegitimate daughter
- Maurice (1620-1654) - (Drowned)
- Louise Hollandine (18 April 1622-11 February 1709)
- Ludwig (21 August 1624-24 December 1624)
- Edward, Count Palatine of Simmern (1625-1663), married Anna Gonzaga, had issue
- Henrietta Maria (7 July 1626-18 September 1651); married Prince Sigismund of Siebenbuergen on 16 June 1651
- Johann Philip Frederick (26 September 1627-15 December 1650); also reported to have been born on 15 September 1629
- Charlotte (19 December 1628-14 January 1631)
- Sophia, Electress of Hanover (14 October 1630-8 June 1714), married Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover, had issue including King George I of Great Britain
- Gustavus Adolphus (14 January 1632-1641)
[edit] Legacy
Cape Elizabeth, a peninsula and today a town in the U.S. state of Maine was named in honor of Elizabeth. John Smith explored and mapped New England and gave names to places mainly based on the names used by Native Americans. When Smith presented his map to Charles I he suggested that the king should feel free to change the "barbarous names" for "English" ones. The king made many such changes, but only four survive today, one of which is Cape Elizabeth.[1]
[edit] Fiction
In WG Sebald's novel Vertigo (1990), a woman appears whom the narrator, travelling through Heidelberg by train in 1987, recognizes instantly "without a shadow of a doubt" as Elizabeth when she enters his carriage.
[edit] See also
[edit] Bibliography
- Jessica Gorst-Williams, Elizabeth, the Winter Queen (1977) ISBN 0-200-72472-X
- Josephine Ross, The Winter Queen: The Story of Elizabeth Stuart (1979) ISBN 0-312-88232-7, ISBN 0-297-77603-7
- Carola Oman, The Winter Queen: Elisabeth of Bohemia (2000) ISBN 1-84212-057-3
- Jane Stevenson, The Winter Queen: A Novel (2002) ISBN 0-618-14912-0, ISBN 0-618-38267-4
- Frances Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1972) devotes its early chapters to describing her 1613 wedding and the reputation she and her husband had in Europe at the time
[edit] References
- ^ Stewart, George R. [1945] (1967). Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States, Sentry edition (3rd), Houghton Mifflin, p. 38.
[edit] External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
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Elizabeth of Bohemia
Born: 19 August 1596 Died: 13 February 1662 |
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| British royalty | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Charles I of England |
Heir to the English, Scottish and Irish Thrones as heiress presumptive March 27, 1625-May 29, 1630 |
Succeeded by Charles II of England |
| Preceded by Louise Juliana of Nassau |
Electress Palatine 1613 – 1623 |
Succeeded by Elizabeth of Lorraine |
Annotations
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1596-1662
1634 portrait by Gerard Honthorst:http://www.boughtonhouse.org.uk/htm/gallery2/paintings/bohemiaqueen.htm
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Charles the Second’s great aunt, exiled to London, where she died in a house in Leicester Square.
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Charles the Second’s Aunt
(correction to above) -
1596-1662. Eldest daughter of James I of Great Britain and Anne of Denmark.
Interesting life story:
http://52.1911encyclopedia.org/E/EL/ELIZABETH_1596_1662_.htm -
She was known as the Winter Queen.
To summarize the story told in Pauline’s link: In February 1613 (at sixteen) she married Frederick V, the Elector Palatine (ruler of the Palatinate, a major German state on the Rhine, and one of the seven men who traditionally elected the Holy Roman Emperor); when he was offered the crown of Bohemia by the Czechs rebelling against the Catholic Habsburgs in 1619 he accepted (against the advice of friends and relatives — how else was he going to become a king?), and after his troops were defeated by the Catholic armies at the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620 he and his wife lost everything: mockingly referred to as the “Winter” king and queen (their reign had lasted less than a year), they were forced into exile in Holland where they were dependent on the kindness of their hosts and occasional subventions from other Protestant rulers. The Holy Roman Emperor, who also happened to be the head of the House of Habsburg, stripped Frederick of the Palatinate, transferred the electorate to Bavaria, and allowed the Spanish army to occupy his territories, where he died during a secret visit in 1632.Meanwhile his wife (who was remarkable for having survived 20 childbirths in just under 20 years of marriage) was left to bring up the half of the children who made it through to adolescence. After the peace of Westphalia in 1648 a part of her husband’s domains, the Rhenish Palatinate, was restored to her eldest son, Karl Ludwig, who became an elector like his father, but he didn’t want his mom around, and her other children deserted her as well. (Her daughter Sophia married Ernst August, the Elector of Hanover, and their son became George I of England in 1714.) Her Dutch pension ceased in 1650. There was popular sentiment in her favor in England, but Charles II showed no desire to receive her; eventually she sailed for England anyway in May 1661 and was granted a pension. “On the 8th of February 1662 she removed to Leicester House in Leicester Fields, and died shortly afterwards on the 13th of the same month, being buried in Westminster Abbey.”
An interesting fact is that if Charles I had been at home in 1641 when plague broke out near Whitehall (he’d just left for Scotland) and had died, Elizabeth would have inherited the throne, and her son would presumably have become King of England rather than Elector Palatine.
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The Winter Queen
There is a historical novel by Jane Stevenson, The Winter Queen, about a (non-historical) romance between Elizabeth and “a former African prince and freed slave,” Pelagius van Overmeer; it’s gotten good reviews and may be worth investigating:
http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?titleNumber=688000 -
“If Charles I had died [of the plague, in 1641], Elizabeth would have inherited the throne, and her son would presumably have become King of England.”
I don’t get this. Charles I’s son Charles (later Charles II) was ten in 1641 (and had four younger siblings, by my reckoning). Why wouldn’t he have succeeded if Charles I had died then?