Daughters of the Winter Queen

by Nancy Goldstone

  James devoted himself, not to his government in London, but to his hunting in the countryside. Rather like a modern-day recreational golfer’s, his spirits rose and fell with the sport. If his hounds brought down a stag and he was able to plunge his hands into its entrails and anoint the foreheads of his hunting companions with the animal’s blood (a gory tradition that repelled more than a few of his compatriots), he was elated. If the prey managed to escape, he swore and muttered and, on occasion, sullenly refused to consider the government decrees awaiting his signature. He spent so much time tracking game that the rural population, forced to supply the royal party, became rather desperate and took the expedient of kidnapping one of his hunting dogs, Jowler, returning the animal the next day with a sign tied around its neck. “Good Mr. Jowler,” the note read. “We pray you speak to the King (for he hears you everyday and so doth he not us) that it will please his Majesty to go back to London, for else the country will be undone; all our provision is spent already and we are unable to entertain him longer.” That James refused to take the hint and stayed an extra two weeks did nothing to improve his reputation.

  But even more than his dedication to hunting and his commensurate disinterest in ruling, it was the king’s manners, or, rather, the lack thereof, that really offended the citizenry. James had never gotten over his adolescent fondness for colorful swearwords. His Majesty’s enthusiastic use of expletives and the general coarseness of his language was felt by many to demean the government. This bias in favor of vulgarity unfortunately extended to the royal household and went far beyond mere verbal expression. Drunkenness prevailed at court; Anne’s ladies-in-waiting could regularly be found getting sick in the corridors of Windsor Castle after participating in one of the queen’s famous pageants. Nor did James’s subjects think much of the king’s habit of bestowing big bear hugs and long wet kisses on his attractive male courtiers after he’d had one too many cups of wine. And he did not, it seems, believe in bathing or encourage it for others. “We all saw a great change between the fashion of the court as it is now and of that in the Queen’s [Elizabeth I’s] time,” lamented a lady familiar with both administrations. “For we were all lousy by sitting in the chamber of Sir Thomas Erskine [a high-ranking member of James’s household].”

  Small wonder, then, that the population much preferred the eldest son to the father, a situation that inevitably caused friction. As Henry matured, his youthful interest in sports developed into a distinct prowess in the martial arts. “I perceive, my cousin… that, during your stay in England, you discovered my humor; since you have sent me a present of the two things which I most delight in, arms and horses,” Henry wrote merrily to a French relative when he was thirteen. The prince’s warlike bent, and particularly his love of ships and desire to augment the navy, made a refreshing change from James’s unmanly pacifism and bookish temperament, and caused many of the king’s own officials to vie among themselves for his son’s friendship. “Will he bury me alive?” his father fretted when he saw the number of visitors to Henry’s residence. Nor could the king control his eldest son’s behavior as much as he would have liked. When James expressed disappointment with the progress of Henry’s studies and threatened to disinherit him in favor of his younger brother, who was a much better student, if he did not devote more time to his books, Henry merely queried his tutor if Charles was really such a fine scholar. Upon receiving the assurance that this was in fact the case, Henry replied coolly, “Then will I make him Archbishop of Canterbury.”

  But between Henry and Elizabeth there was no discord, only delight in each other’s company and a steadfast devotion. Elizabeth’s first letter, written when she was seven years old, was to Henry. “My dear and worthy brother,” she inked, being careful to form her letters between the narrow red lines that her writing master had added for that purpose. “I most kindly salute you, desiring to hear of your health, from whom though I am now removed far away, none shall ever be nearer in affection than Your most loving sister, Elizabeth.” As they grew older, they exchanged gifts and horses, and Henry interrupted Elizabeth’s studies with invitations to ride with him so often that her guardian complained. When her brother hosted a grand feast in January 1610, thirteen-year-old Elizabeth occupied the seat of honor across from him. Afterward, the pair stayed up until three o’clock in the morning to watch a play and then returned with the assembled company to the prince’s rooms at St. James’s Palace, where Henry, knowing his sister’s fondness for sweets, had arranged for a huge table, a third the size of a football field, to be laden with elaborate confections in the form of flowers, windmills, toy soldiers, and even the sun and planets, with sugared rose water spouting from crystal fountains.

  But of course, being allowed to stay up late for parties and make more frequent appearances at court indicated that Elizabeth was growing up, and that meant marriage. Naturally, ambitions ran high for so desirable a princess. Recognizing that the competition might be extensive, the king of Sweden got his bid in early. He officially offered his eldest son and heir, Prince Gustavus Adolphus, for Elizabeth’s hand in September 1610, when she had just turned fourteen.

  This would have been a very good match for the princess—and for England. At almost sixteen, Gustavus Adolphus was just the right age and rank. Intelligent and energetic, he was also an outstanding soldier and, most important, a Protestant. Unfortunately, he was also Swedish, and Sweden was the sworn enemy of Denmark, of which Elizabeth’s uncle Christian, her mother’s brother, was king. Yielding to his wife’s feelings, James said no.

  There followed a series of suitors—minor Dutch princes of various shapes and sizes (Maurice of Nassau was corpulent, middle-aged, and balding; Elizabeth was surely glad to see him go) and the son of the Catholic duke of Savoy—all of whom were rejected by the Crown. The prospect of a double marriage with France, Elizabeth to the dauphin, Henry to the eldest French princess, had been hinted at for years, but the likelihood of James achieving this ambitious agenda was seriously called into question when Henry IV, the once Protestant king of France, was assassinated on May 14, 1610, and his Catholic queen, Marie de’ Medici, assumed the regency.

  Elizabeth’s mother, on the other hand, made no secret of her desire for a union between her eldest children and the Spanish royal family, an aspiration that was given a strong boost when the king of Spain’s wife died unexpectedly in 1611. Anne, long denied a say in the government by her husband, had compensated by throwing her energies into the theater, where she patronized artists like Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones, the period’s leading dramatist and foremost set designer, respectively. But on the subject of her children’s marriages, the queen acted with alacrity. She entered into quiet negotiations with the Spanish ambassador to England, intimating that, should the widowed Philip III agree to espouse her daughter, Elizabeth would convert to Catholicism, an inducement that caused quite an uproar when these clandestine conversations inevitably became public. The English ambassador to Spain, appalled that he had not been consulted before this offer was made, complained indignantly to James that members of the Spanish court “have proceeded so far with me, as to tell me they here had already received assurance that, to match with the King of Spain, the princess of England would become a Catholic; which opinion is here so spread, and every man seemeth to speak it so knowingly, that I have been forced, for the king’s honor, to use so plain and direct speech as I should otherwise have thought more fit to be omitted.”

  Queen Anne’s indiscretion caused a serious rift between mother and daughter. Elizabeth had no desire to convert to Catholicism, and her beloved Henry supported her in this decision. “The prince hath publicly said that whosoever should counsel his father to marry his sister to a Catholic prince, were a traitor,” the Spanish ambassador to England entrusted with these negotiations wrote home in despair. “He is a great heretic!” he added for emphasis.*

  When the possibility of a French marriage also fell through—Marie de’ Medici snubbed England and instead scored
a coup by arranging for her son to marry Philip III’s elder daughter, who was supposed to have gone to Henry—James was forced to widen the field of potential suitors. His wife’s fruitless effort to wed Elizabeth to the Spanish king had highlighted the antipathy of the populace to a Catholic union, so her father looked around for a Protestant bridegroom. There being a limited number of candidates of the right age and regional affiliation, it didn’t take long to find him.

  HIS NAME WAS FREDERICK Henry, and his official title was Frederick V, count of the Palatinate (although he was also sometimes known, for maximum confusion, as the Elector Palatine, Count Palatine of the Rhine, or sometimes simply the Palatine or the Palsgrave). If his title was impressive, Frederick’s holdings were rather less so. The Palatinate was composed of two separate counties in Germany, the Upper and Lower Palatinates. The Upper Palatinate, near the border with Bohemia, consisted of the provincial towns of Sulzbach and Amberg and the farmland surrounding them. The Lower Palatinate boasted the more affluent (but hardly cosmopolitan) municipalities of Mannheim and Heidelberg and not much else. Frederick was to Elizabeth’s former suitors—the kings of Sweden, France, and Spain, even the son of the duke of Savoy—as the local coffee shop is to Starbucks.

  Frederick’s family was distantly related to Elizabeth’s, and James had earlier been in contact with his father concerning a diplomatic initiative known as the Defensive Union. Germany was not a unified kingdom like England but was instead divided into numerous small duchies (like the Palatinate), each presided over by a petty baron (like Frederick). Most of these barons were basically glorified landowners. Each owed allegiance to the Holy Roman emperor, a position held for centuries by one member or another of the Habsburg family. The number of Protestants and Catholics living in Germany being roughly equal (although, as might be expected, the Lutherans vastly outnumbered the Calvinists), these proportions were also reflected in its ruling class, with the result that the subjects of each little fiefdom were either predominantly Catholic or predominantly Protestant, depending on the faith espoused by the local baron.

  With so many counts and dukes squeezed so closely together, there was unfortunately always a great deal of trouble about inheritance. This was especially true whenever one of these minor magnates died childless, as those barons living in the immediate vicinity, in the spirit of neighborliness, would thoughtfully move in and try to appropriate the dead man’s property. To prevent this from happening (and, what would be more alarming, to prevent a serious power like Spain from taking advantage of such regional squabbles and invading), the Protestant lords of Germany, calling themselves the Princes of the Union, had decided to band together with the sovereigns of other Protestant countries. The alliance they formed very specifically stated that, should any member of the league be attacked, the other members would automatically come to his aid.

  James had originally been approached to join by Frederick’s father and the French king Henry IV (sympathetic to the Protestants, having been one himself before assuming the throne of France), and it had seemed a good idea and relatively risk-free. Henry IV loved soldiering as much as James detested it, so it was more or less understood that France would do most of the fighting, should it come to that, and James could supplement his efforts if necessary. Even after Henry IV was assassinated, in the spring of 1610, and his death was followed closely by that of Frederick’s father in the fall of the same year, James continued to support the initiative, as he believed the mere threat that the Protestant nations would act in concert would be enough to prevent Catholic aggression. “His Majesty is well pleased to enter into a League defensive… as holding it the only means both to preserve the Peace and Tranquility of the Empire and the Countries adjoining thereunto, and to prevent any future Attempt which… some Maligners thereof would set on foot, under one Pretext or other; for that nothing will deter them more, than to see so firm an Association established among so many and so potent Princes and States,” wrote the members of James’s council on September 28, 1610, to the English envoy in charge of these negotiations. James even provided specific language to be used in the treaty: he bound himself to send material aid “if the Princes be assailed beyond the Course of Justice and Contrary to the Constitutions of the Empire.”

  When Frederick succeeded to the Palatinate upon his father’s death, his worldly uncle the duke of Bouillon, a highly placed member of the French court, sensed opportunity. Frederick was just the right age (fourteen in 1610) and religion (Calvinist) for the English princess. True, he was not of royal birth, but he had inherited an income sufficient to provide Elizabeth, not with what she was used to, of course, but at least with a large, comfortable château and a well-stocked larder. And as an elector, Frederick was on course to become a force in imperial politics.* The recently signed Defensive Union gave England a stake in German politics; a wedding with one of the principals of that treaty would serve to cement the alliance. It was a long shot but worth the chance. The duke of Bouillon put Frederick forward as a suitor for Elizabeth’s hand.

  The timing could not have been more perfect. Both the Spanish and French marriages had fallen through, and the son of the duke of Savoy, although still available, was a Catholic. With Frederick, Elizabeth could stay a Protestant and, even better, would not need a significant dowry. James would never have entertained the possibility of such an inferior match for one of his sons; only princesses were considered suitable for Henry and Charles. But Elizabeth was a female, and females didn’t really count in the king’s opinion, so James had documents drawn up and invited his young cousin to come to England to pursue the engagement.

  Anne, who had envisioned her daughter as an important queen, was appalled at the idea of Elizabeth’s marrying someone so far beneath her rank, and she publicly opposed the alliance. But Henry, who had been vocal in his disapproval of the Spanish match, embraced Frederick’s cause enthusiastically. His reasoning had less to do with Elizabeth’s happiness, however, than with his own eagerness for battle. “Prince Henry gave the first encouragement to the Prince Elector to attempt his Sister; desiring more to head an Army in Germany than he durst make Show of,” his treasurer revealed.

  In this ambition, Henry would prove far more astute than his father. For where James the scholar had signed the Defensive Union believing that it would secure peace, his son the soldier understood implicitly that, on the contrary, it would inevitably lead to war.

  FREDERICK WAS SIXTEEN YEARS old, just Elizabeth’s age—in fact, she was exactly one week older—when he arrived in England on October 16, 1612. The hopeful bridegroom turned out to be slender and undeniably attractive; an English courtier described him as “straight and well-shaped for his growing years… with a Countenance pleasing.” The Venetian ambassador concurred: “He is very handsome, of pleasant speech, with a French accent,” he wrote home in an official state report. Still, Frederick must have been nervous. It had clearly been drummed into him before he left home that this was his big chance and he’d better do everything possible to win over so desirable a wife.

  Luckily for Frederick—or the Palatine, as he was called in England—he had some potent weapons in his wooing arsenal. Although his property was in Germany, he had been educated in France by his suave uncle the duke of Bouillon. The duke could not have provided a more thorough or excellent preparation for royal lovemaking. Whatever else the results of Frederick’s studies, his uncle had made sure that he knew how to dress, that his manners were charming, that he spoke French to perfection, and, most important, that he was well versed in the art of romance.

  Judging by the recollections of an observer who chronicled the Palatine’s visit to England, Frederick’s first performance at court was nothing short of masterful. He flattered James: “Bending himself with a due Reverence before the King, he told him among other Compliments, that in his Sight and Preference he enjoyed a great part… of the Happiness of his Journey”; conciliated Anne: “She entertained him with a fixed Countenance; and though her Postur
e might have seemed (as it was judged) to Promise him the Honor of a Kiss for his Welcome, his Humility carried him no higher than her hand”; joked with Henry: “After some few words of compliment… exchanging with him after a more familiar strain certain Passages of Courtesy”; and then knocked it completely out of the park with Elizabeth: “Stooping low to take up the lowest part of her Garment to kiss it, she most gracefully courtseying lower than accustomed, and with her Hand staying him from that humblest Reverence, gave him at his rising a fair Advantage (which he took) of kissing her.”

  Nor did the lover’s attentiveness flag in the probationary interval that followed. All that first week and long into his visit, Frederick remained Elizabeth’s devoted servant. “He plies his Mistress so hard, and takes no delight in running at ring nor tennis, nor riding with the Prince… as others of his company do, but only in her conversation,” a member of the court snickered. But Frederick’s passion for his future bride was genuine. She had been portrayed to him as a beautiful princess, sweet-natured and kind, and so she turned out to be. He must have felt a little like he had somehow fallen into a fairy tale.

  Elizabeth would have had to be hard-hearted indeed not to respond to such an outpouring of adoration and from such an appealing source. It wasn’t long before she began to reciprocate her handsome swain’s affections. “The Princess, who maybe begins to feel the warmth of the approaching nuptials, adorns her great natural beauty by dress and embellishments,” the Venetian ambassador noticed. Elizabeth’s growing attachment to Frederick did not go unobserved by her mother, who, determined to break the couple up, aimed a dart where she knew it would hurt most. “And ’tis certain (for I had it from good Authority) that Queen Ann was averse to it [the marriage]; and to put the Princess out of conceit of it, would usually call her Daughter ‘Goodwife Palsgrave,’” a historian of the period reported. Although Elizabeth bravely shot back that “she would rather be the Palsgrave’s Wife, than the greatest Papist Queen in Christendom,” it is clear that the barb hit home.