Daughters of the Winter Queen

by Nancy Goldstone

  Committed to the success of the alliance, to aid his son’s cause, James raided the crown jewels and sent an astonishing array of precious stones to be given as presents to Maria Anna, in the hope of bribing her to acquiescence.* The ardent bridegroom himself, convinced that love would conquer all, even climbed a wall and waylaid his shy sweetheart, going down on his knees to propose while she was out in the privacy of her garden. This contrivance, while suitably quixotic, did not, alas, elicit the desired effect; rather, it caused the Infanta to immediately go down on her knees in front of her brother the king and beg to be allowed to go into a nunnery rather than marry Charles.

  Lacking money and troops and so helpless to affect their fate, Elizabeth and Frederick were reduced by Charles’s Spanish adventure to the role of sidelined spectators. It is a sign of how deep their resignation was, and how little hope they had of a successful conclusion to their struggle, that in April they accepted yet another gift from the prince of Orange—the use of a second house, this one in Leyden, for the purpose of rearing their children. Elizabeth was pregnant again and they needed more space. Also, she was used to the idea of guardians, and parents living apart from their offspring, as this was how she had been raised. She and Frederick were still divided from three of their children: Karl Ludwig and Princess Elizabeth (neither of whom had seen their parents in four years), and Maurice, the baby born at Custrin. These children were all together at a country house outside Berlin, where his mother had eventually found her way after Bohemia fell. The residence in Leyden was a first step toward perhaps one day soon reuniting the family. In the meantime, nine-year-old Frederick Henry, four-year-old Rupert, and one-year-old Louise Hollandine, as well as the new baby, whom they named Louis, after the French king (as a snub to Spain), moved into the country house that summer.*

  Charles in his wooing days

  By July, Charles, bored with wooing and ready to go home, abruptly gave in and agreed to a marriage treaty that was notable for its utter absence of any mention of the Palatinate and that gave the Spanish government everything it wanted, including a clause allowing Maria Anna to leave her husband and the marriage at any time to enter a convent if she so desired. On September 18, he sailed back to England without his bride (another condition of the agreement; the Infanta would remain in Spain until the pope issued a dispensation allowing the two to marry). By the time he landed it had occurred to Charles that he had been used badly by the Spanish and that perhaps he did not really want to be married to a woman so fond of nuns. Accordingly, he reneged on the treaty. For once, Elizabeth’s ordeal came in handy: to save his son from acute embarrassment over his role in this foreign-policy fiasco, James pretended that the agreement had been scotched because “I like not to marry my son with a portion of my daughter’s tears” (although he, too, had signed the original wedding contract).

  And with this final if reluctant surrender of the dream of the Spanish match, the pendulum of fortune swung ever so temptingly in Elizabeth’s direction once more. Because both Charles and his traveling companion the duke of Buckingham attributed their humiliation in Spain to the mendacity of their hosts—“There is nothing but trickery and deceit in the whole business!” the duke of Buckingham fumed, conveniently forgetting that it was Charles who had broken his word—they sought vengeance by threatening once again to have England intervene militarily in the Palatinate. “Since my dear brother’s return into England all is changed from being Spanish in which I assure you that Buckingham doth most nobly and faithfully for me,” Elizabeth wrote exultantly to a friend on March 1, 1624.

  James tried to resist, but the king was old and sick. The years of heavy eating and drinking had taken their toll. “I remember Mr. French of the spicery, who sometimes did present him with the first strawberries, cherries, and other fruits, and kneeling to the King, had some speech… that he did desire his Majesty to accept them, and that he was sorry there were no better, with such like complimental words. But the King never had the patience to hear him one word, but his hand was in the basket,” reported a bishop of James’s acquaintance. Corpulent, afflicted with gout and arthritis, James was often confined to bed that winter. Early in the spring of 1625 he tried to make his usual hunting progression and came down with a fever. “Yet now, being grown toward sixty, it did a little weaken his body, and going from Theobalds to Newmarket, and stirring abroad when, as the coldness of the year was not yet past almost, it could not be prevented but he fall into a quartan ague,” the bishop continued.

  It was at his Theobalds estate at the beginning of March that the illness really took hold. James did not do much to help himself, continuing to drink heavily and refusing to listen to his doctors. By March 24 it was clear that the king was dying. He asked for Charles, and the two were alone together for several hours. So private was this conference that no one was allowed into any of the surrounding rooms for fear that their secrets might be discovered.

  Three days later, in the early morning hours of March 27, 1625, James cried out for his son again. Charles came in his nightgown but his father had already lost consciousness. James I, king of England, died near noon that day, the new king by his side. He left no message for his daughter, not a single trinket or kind word for her or any member of her family. He departed life without ever having seen even one of his grandchildren or making any provision for them.

  “He enjoyed life for fifty-nine years, for fifty-eight of which he was King of Scotland, and for twenty-four he governed the whole of Great Britain,” the Venetian ambassador wrote home to the doge by way of a eulogy. “He spent his days in study, in peace, and in hunting.”

  James might have spent his days in peace but he left behind a war that would last for thirty years.

  6

  Queen of Hearts

  ELIZABETH WAS TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS OLD, the mother of a large and still growing brood—her sixth son and eighth child, Edward, had been born the previous October—when she received the news of her father’s death. She would not have been human if her grief was not tinged with a hint of relief. She and Frederick were by this time living under such straitened conditions that Charles, as one of his first acts, had to send his sister’s family the black clothing necessary to outfit them during the official period of mourning. “You may easily judge what an affliction it was to me to understand the evil news of the loss of so loving a father as his late majesty was to me,” Elizabeth wrote to an English diplomat of long acquaintance on April 11, 1625. “It would be much more but that God hath left me so dear and loving a brother as the king is to me, in whom, next God, I have now all my confidence,” she added candidly.

  Even better, this time Charles would not be laboring alone in his effort to restore the Palatinate to his sister and her husband. In the ever-shifting minuet that represented seventeenth-century European politics, a new and completely unexpected partner had suddenly emerged from the wings to help lead the next promenade around the dance floor. A prominent Catholic at the court of Louis XIII of France, this new ally’s name was Armand Jean du Plessis, although he is much better known by his title Cardinal Richelieu.

  The immense popularity of Alexandre Dumas’s swashbuckling historical romance The Three Musketeers, which cast Richelieu firmly in the role of archvillain, has assured the cardinal of the reprobation of millions of ardent readers over the centuries. But in fact, Louis XIII and France were in many ways, most particularly in regard to foreign policy, extremely lucky to have him. Part statesman, part soldier—for Richelieu had attended the top military academy in France before abruptly switching to theology at the University of Paris in order to take advantage of the opening of a lucrative bishopric that fell within the province of his family’s estate—the cardinal had started his political career in the service of Louis’s mother, Marie de’ Medici, widow of Henry IV. But he soon advanced to a position of national prominence on the council of state and from there to chief adviser to the king himself.

  Richelieu’s great insight was that, although
a staunch Catholic himself, he did not perceive the world in terms of religious dogma but instead focused on power. He could not help but notice, for example, that the Habsburgs were becoming something of a problem for France. It was perhaps not the best idea, the cardinal reasoned, to let the armies of Spain and the empire, Catholic though they might be, win quite so convincingly over their Protestant opponents. They were getting a little too ambitious. Already, Spanish forces were beginning to encroach on key mountain passes through the Alps that had traditionally been allied to France. To lose this territory made the kingdom much more vulnerable to attack. What Richelieu needed was something to divert Spain’s and the emperor’s attention and military away from Italy so that France could reclaim that property.

  Charles’s repudiation of the Spanish marriage and his subsequent ascension to the throne of England was coincident with the cardinal’s rise to power. So when Charles, still looking for a suitable bride, inquired through intermediaries about the possibility of his marrying Louis XIII’s youngest sister, fifteen-year-old Henrietta Maria, and tying this alliance to a French promise of help in retrieving the Palatinate for Frederick and Elizabeth, his proposal was met with approval, pending favorable resolution of a few niggling details. It was twenty-four-year-old Charles I and his favorite, the duke of Buckingham, negotiating against twenty-three-year-old Louis XIII and his favorite, Cardinal Richelieu. This cannot really be called a fair fight.

  Cardinal Richelieu

  Louis XIII and the cardinal proved to be every bit as intractable and indefatigable in negotiation as the Spanish. In exchange for a league dedicated to the recovery of the Palatinate, they insisted that all the discriminatory laws currently enforced against English Catholics be rescinded; that Henrietta Maria be allowed to worship publicly in a chapel; that she be allowed to raise her children as Catholics; and that her household be made up of French Catholic attendants. (Luckily, the princess was not interested in going into a convent, so Charles was saved from that condition.) And, since the marriage was tied to a military alliance, the French also demanded the loan of English ships. For this, Louis XIII was willing to give his sister a dowry of £120,000, to help defray the expenses of a war for the Palatinate and to supply Frederick’s commander, General Mansfield, with funds for six months.

  Charles accepted all of these conditions, although he kept the terms a secret, knowing they would be unpopular in Protestant England, and sent the duke of Buckingham to France in May with instructions to bring his bride to him as quickly as possible.* Henrietta Maria and her escort arrived in Dover on June 12 and the marriage was consummated the next day (they had been wedded by proxy in Paris). By June 17, 1625, they were in London, where Charles’s new French Catholic wife was greeted by a traditional English downpour.

  And with this marriage and the league with France, for the first time in years, Elizabeth allowed herself to feel hope. “The comforte of my deare brother’s love doth revive me,” she wrote excitedly in a letter to an English friend. “He hath sent to me Sir Henry Vane, his coferer [treasurer], to assure me, that he will be both father and brother to the King of Bohemia and me. Now, you may be sure, all will goe well in Englande; for your new master will leave nothing undone for our good. The great fleet is almost readie to goe out. [Charles had promised to bring the English navy into the war to help retrieve the Palatinate.]… My uncle, the King of Dennemark, doth beginne to declare himself for us, and so doth Sweden… I have the best brother in the worlde.”

  That the return of the Palatine to Frederick would even be considered to be an important international issue after so many years was due almost entirely to his wife’s efforts. It was spirited, engaging Elizabeth who, by the sheer force of her personality, drew supporters to their small court in The Hague and made it a center of influence in Holland; Elizabeth who charmed and cajoled, both by personal appeal and letter, all who might be of service to their cause, frequently bestowing drolly affectionate nicknames on her correspondents; Elizabeth (unlike her husband, who often gave in to depression, although who could blame him) who recognized that allies come to those who remain positive and refuse to surrender to despair. “Though I have cause enough to be sad, yet I am still of my wild humor, to be as merry as I can, in spite of fortune,” she wrote. The English ambassador in Holland agreed. “I know not so great a lady in the world, nor ever did—though I have seen many courts—of such natural affection,” he observed. Even the prince of Orange, though related to the husband, took the wife’s part. “The Queen of Bohemia is accounted the most charming princess of Europe, and called by some the queen of hearts; but she is far more than that,—she is a true and faithful wife, and that, too, of a husband who is in every respect her inferior,” he concluded frankly before his death in the spring of 1625. Unlike her father, he persuasively demonstrated his high opinion of her by leaving her valuable shares in the Dutch East India Company in his will. Her brother Charles, upon his ascension to the throne, made it clear that he too believed Elizabeth’s political acumen to be more acute than her husband’s. “I send you herewith letters of my sister and brother. I place them so because I think the gray mare [Elizabeth] is the best horse,” read the new king’s instructions to the duke of Buckingham when he sent him off to The Hague for an official state visit.

  But it was not for her admirers alone that Elizabeth was known as the queen of hearts. No woman in Europe could boast a more tangibly affectionate husband than Frederick. No year passed without Elizabeth’s either becoming pregnant, preparing for labor, or just getting over a delivery. On July 7, 1626, she gave birth to her ninth child and third daughter, whom she and Frederick christened Henrietta Maria as a gesture of respect to her new sister-in-law. On September 27 of the next year came Philip, number ten. Philip was followed in December 1628 by another daughter (who sadly did not survive childhood) but who was in any event almost immediately replaced by Sophia, number twelve, born on October 14, 1630. The arrival of Gustavus Adolphus on January 14, 1632, made for a whopping baker’s dozen.

  All of these children lived away from their parents under the care of a variety of tutors and governesses at the house in Leyden. In 1624, Karl Ludwig, the king and queen of Bohemia’s second son, had been sent from Berlin to live with his brothers and sisters, but it wasn’t until 1628 that the remaining two children, Princess Elizabeth and Maurice, who had been left in the care of Frederick’s mother and sister in Germany, joined the rest of the family in Holland.

  Of all of their many offspring, Elizabeth’s and Frederick’s highest hopes for the future naturally settled on their eldest, Frederick Henry. Frederick Henry was not only heir to the Palatinate and crown prince of Bohemia, he was third in line (after Charles I and Elizabeth, so long as Charles remained childless) to inherit the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Moreover, he was a bright, attractive boy, affectionate to his siblings, and showed great promise of developing into a strong and noble statesman. He was very attached to his sister Princess Elizabeth, who was only a baby when he left Heidelberg but whom he associated with his happy childhood days in Germany before the war. He sent letters to his grandmother in Berlin asking after her welfare and sometimes enclosed little gifts. “I wish for nothing so much that I may see her again, with all happy things around her, at dear Heidelberg,” ran one of these compositions. “I beg your Highness to accept with this a pair of gloves and a silver pen… I beseech you to present… to my sister Elizabeth a true-hearted brotherly kiss, to whom I send also the enclosed trinket—a little heart—in token of my fond, faithful, fraternal love.” With his brothers Karl Ludwig and Rupert (the others were too young), he attended the University of Leyden, where he mastered several languages, including French, English, German, and the inevitable Latin. His military training was not neglected and he took a keen interest in sports and particularly in the navy. His father was extremely proud of him, and took Frederick Henry with him on excursions and brought him to The Hague whenever he could to expose him to state business and diplomac
y.

  In her insistence that all of her children become fluent in English as well as French and German and that they be trained in English composition so that they would become accustomed to writing letters, Elizabeth ensured that, should all else fail, her progeny would at least have a future in her native land. Judging by the disastrous results of the efforts ostensibly waged on her behalf by her brother in the first few years of his rule, this would turn out to be a worthwhile endeavor.

  IN HIS EXUBERANCE AT being crowned king, Charles—egged on by his most influential adviser and best friend, the duke of Buckingham, a man of large vision if somewhat questionable abilities—had made a great many promises. Among the more significant were his pledge to provide Mansfield, Frederick’s general, with £240,000 (of which £120,000 was supposed to come from his wife’s dowry) to support enough soldiers to take back the Palatine; another £300,000 to help his uncle Christian, king of Denmark, field an army against the Spanish troops who had remained in northern Germany in order to protect Holland and the Netherlands from imperial encroachment; and a further £300,000 to refurbish the mighty English fleet, which had been sadly neglected during James’s reign, and which Charles and Buckingham, still nurturing hurt feelings over the humiliating Infanta episode, intended to use to attack Spain outright. These expenses were over and above the amounts Charles would also need to pay for his father’s funeral, his own coronation, and his and his wife’s household living allowances. A quick examination of the royal treasury confirmed a substantial deficit between the new king’s expectations and the funds available at the time of his ascension, so Charles called a parliament in order to petition the kingdom’s legislators to supply the difference.