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Wikipedia
Elizabeth of Bohemia (19 August 1596 – 13 February 1662) was the eldest daughter of King James VI and I, King of Scotland, England, Ireland, and Anne of Denmark. As the wife of Frederick V, Elector Palatine, she was Electress Palatine and briefly Queen of Bohemia. Due to her husband's short reign in Bohemia, Elizabeth is often referred to as the Winter Queen.
With the demise of the Stuart dynasty in 1714, her descendants, the Hanoverian rulers, succeeded to the British throne.
[edit] Birth and early life
Elizabeth was born at Falkland Palace, Fife.[1] At the time of her birth, her father had yet to succeed to his later realms, and was King of Scots only. She was named in honour of Queen Elizabeth I of England. During her early life in Scotland, Elizabeth was brought up at Linlithgow Palace.[2] When Elizabeth was six years old, in 1603, Elizabeth I of England died and her father James succeeded to the thrones of England and Ireland. When she came to England, her governess was the Countess of Kildare,[1] until she was consigned to the care of Lord Harington, with whom she spent the years of her happy childhood at Combe Abbey in Warwickshire.[1]
Part of the intent of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was to kidnap the nine-year-old Elizabeth and put her onto the throne of England (and, presumably, Ireland and Scotland) as a Catholic monarch, after assassinating her father and the Protestant English aristocracy.[1] However, this never happened as Guy Fawkes was caught by the King's soldiers before he was able to ignite the powder.[3]
Among Elizabeth's suitors was King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, but she was eventually betrothed to the Elector Palatine in 1612.[1]
[edit] Marriage
On 14 February 1613, she married Frederick V, then Elector of the Palatinate in Germany. The event took place in England at the royal chapel at the Palace of Whitehall and was celebrated in John Donne's poetic masterpiece Epithalamion, or Mariage Song on the Lady Elizabeth, and Count Palatine being married on St. Valentines Day. Afterwards she joined the Electoral court in Heidelberg. Frederick was the leader of the association of Protestant princes in the Holy Roman Empire known as the Protestant Union, and Elizabeth was married to him in an effort to increase James's ties to these princes. Despite this, the two were considered to be genuinely in love, and remained a romantic couple throughout the course of their marriage.[4] Elizabeth's new husband transformed his seat at Heidelberg Castle, creating an "English wing" for her, a monkey-house, a menagerie and the beginnings of a new garden in the Italian Renaissance style popular in England at the time.[5] The garden, the Hortus Palatinus, was constructed by Elizabeth's former tutor, Salomon de Caus[6] and was dubbed the "Eighth Wonder of the World" by contemporaries.[7]
In 1619, Frederick was offered and accepted the crown of Bohemia from the Estates of the kingdom. Elizabeth was crowned Queen of Bohemia on 7 November 1619, three days after her husband was crowned King of Bohemia.[8] Due to the opposition of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, who was the rightful King of Bohemia through birthright, Frederick's rule was brief. Ferdinand's forces routed Frederick at the Battle of White Mountain on 8 November 1620, and he was forced into exile along with this wife. This is how Elizabeth came to be known as the "Winter Queen" ("zimní královna" in Czech), even though she and her husband held court in Prague and controlled the government of Bohemia for months after the end of the winter of 1619-1620. After the defeat at White Mountain, the couple took up residence in The Hague, where 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 and Scottish monarchies, she travelled to London to visit her nephew, Charles II, and died while there.
Elizabeth's youngest daughter, Sophia of Hanover, married Ernest Augustus, the future Elector of Hanover, in 1658. Sophia became the nearest Protestant heir to the English and Irish crowns (later British crown). Under the English Act of Settlement, the succession was settled on Sophia and her issue, so that all monarchs of Great Britain from George I are descendants of Elizabeth.
[edit] Ancestry
Of Elizabeth's fourteen great-great-grandparents, five were German, four were Scottish, two were French, and one each was of Danish, Polish and English parentage. She thus claimed a thoroughly cosmopolitan background typical of royals at that time due to constant intermarriage among the European royal families.
[edit] Children
- Henry Frederick, Hereditary Prince of the Palatinate (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 two illegitimate children
- Maurice (1620–1652)
- Louise Marie of the Palatine (18 April 1622 – 11 February 1709)
- Louis (21 August 1624 – 24 December 1624)
- Edward, Count Palatine of Simmern (1625–1663); married Anna Gonzaga, had issue
- Henriette Marie of the Palatinate (7 July 1626 – 18 September 1651); married Prince Sigismund of Siebenbuergen on 16 June 1651
- John 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
The Elizabeth River in Southeastern Virginia was named in honour of the princess, as was Cape Elizabeth, a peninsula and today a town in the U.S. state of Maine. 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.[9]
According to legend, William the first Earl of Craven built Ashdown House in Berkshire, England, in honour of Elizabeth, although she died before the house was completed.
[edit] Fiction
In W. G. Sebald's novel Vertigo (1990), a woman appears whom the narrator, travelling through Heidelberg by train in 1987, recognises instantly "without a shadow of a doubt" as Elizabeth when she enters his carriage.
The Winter Queen also plays a seminal role in Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle by giving birth to many children.
A Polish baroque poet Daniel Naborowski wrote a short poem praising Elizabeth's eyes.[10] He saw her in 1609, when he visited London on a diplomatic mission.
Scottish writer Nigel Tranter has Elizabeth appear in several chapters of his book The Young Montrose (1972–3, originally two volumes), about the life of the heroic James Graham, Earl of Montrose.
[edit] See also
[edit] Bibliography
- Gorst-Williams, Jessica (1977), Elizabeth, the Winter Queen, London: Abelard, ISBN 020072472X
- Hart, Vaughan (1994), Art and Magic in the Court of the Stuarts, London: Routledge.
- Ross, Josephine (1979), The Winter Queen: The Story of Elizabeth Stuart, New York: St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0312882327 (alternative ISBN 0-297-77603-7)
- Kassel, Richard (2006), The Organ: An Encyclopedia, London: Routledge.
- Oman, Carola (2000), The Winter Queen: Elisabeth of Bohemia, London: Phoenix Press, ISBN 1842120573
- Spencer, Charles (2008) Prince Rupert: the Last Cavalier, London: Phoenix.
- Stevenson, Jane (2002), The Winter Queen: A Novel, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ISBN 0618149120 (alternative ISBN 0-618-38267-4)
- Yates, Frances (1972), The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, ISBN 0710073801 , devotes its early chapters to describing her 1613 wedding and the reputation she and her husband had in Europe at the time.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e Emery Walker, Historical Portraits 1600–1700, READ BOOKS, 2007
- ^ Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. vii, 10 (1891), 521.
- ^ [1]
- ^ Spencer, p.6.
- ^ Spencer, p.7.
- ^ Turner, p.149.
- ^ Kassel, p.482.
- ^ Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland; Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland; Museum, 2001
- ^ Stewart, George R. (1967) [1945], Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States (Sentry edition (3rd) ed.), Houghton Mifflin, p. 38
- ^ http://staropolska.pl/barok/D_Naborowski/wybor_19.html
[edit] External links
|
Elizabeth of Bohemia
Born: 19 August 1596 Died: 13 February 1662 |
||
| Preceded by Louise Juliana of Nassau | Electress Palatine 1613–1623 | Succeeded by Elisabeth of Lorraine |
| Vacant
Title last held by
Anna of Tyrol |
Queen consort of Bohemia 4 November 1619 – 9 November 1620 | Vacant
Title next held by
Eleonor Gonzaga |
| British royalty | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Charles I of England | Heir to the English, Scottish and Irish Thrones as heiress presumptive 27 March 1625 – 29 May 1630 | Succeeded by Charles II of England |
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Elizabeth of Bohemia |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | 19 August 1596 |
| Place of birth | Falkland Palace, Fife |
| Date of death | 13 February 1662 |
| Place of death | England |
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?