Daughters of the Winter Queen

by Nancy Goldstone

  That summer, Elizabeth, eager to capitalize on these events, recalled her two eldest sons, to their great disappointment, from their English visit. “Both the brothers went away unwillingly, but Prince Rupert expressed it most,” wrote an English correspondent, “for being ahunting that very morning with the King, he wished that he might break his neck, so he might leave his bones in England!” But there was no help for it; all the dance partners had changed again. The prince of Orange had made a new alliance with the French against the Habsburgs, and Charles had at last agreed to provide Karl Ludwig with his own force.

  And back at The Hague, Louisa, now fifteen, poor and single, her prospects for love and marriage dwindling with each twist and turn of the war, went on with her painting.

  Henrietta Maria

  Lilies and roses in a seventeenth-century Dutch painting

  9

  Lilies and Roses

  BY THE BEGINNING OF 1638, Henrietta Maria, the Winter Queen’s third daughter, had already moved out of the Leyden house. Born on July 7, 1626, she was only eleven—slightly younger than her elder sisters had been when they were deemed old enough to attend their mother at her court in The Hague. Her progress had been accelerated not because she was particularly mature—she wasn’t—but because of a public scandal involving her brother Maurice. Apparently Maurice, who at sixteen was old enough to feel himself somewhat neglected as compared to his two older brothers, had done what teenage boys sometimes do and expressed himself in a destructive way. Specifically, he had stepped out with two of his mother’s pages for a night on the town, during which time the small band managed to insult the Portuguese ambassador, and then compounded this crime by attacking some innocent passersby on the street. The police had been called in and Maurice and his accomplices were arrested.*

  His mother, judging that it might be best to get him out of Holland while the resulting furor died down, had the happy thought to combine his exile with the schooling of her younger sons, thirteen-year-old Edward and nine-year-old Philip, and so make it less obvious that Maurice was being packed off in disgrace. She was afraid to send the three boys to England—she could not afford to have her family’s image tarnished in any way lest Charles I withdraw his support for Karl Ludwig, and she could not take the chance that Maurice would relapse into impropriety, or that one of his younger brothers would get into trouble and embarrass her. So she looked around and settled on Paris as the next best place to educate her sons and perhaps improve their manners.

  Her choice reflected not only her desire that her children acquire some aristocratic polish but her grudging recognition that, as a result of Cardinal Richelieu’s policies, France now exercised significant power in Germany and it behooved her to cultivate their friendship. Louis XIII had no more liking for the Peace of Prague than she did and had already allied himself with the prince of Orange to fight against the Spanish in the area around Flanders and Belgium, on the northern border of France. The prince of Orange was Elizabeth’s most trusted friend and adviser, even more than her brother Charles, and if he thought it was a good idea to work with the French despite their being an overwhelmingly Catholic kingdom, then probably she should do that too. Perhaps Maurice, or even Edward or Philip, once accustomed to the ways of the French, would make inroads into Louis XIII’s court and eventually help negotiate a settlement that restored the Palatinate to the family. And if they misbehaved, well, the French weren’t doing anything for Karl Ludwig at the moment anyway, so the damage to her foreign policy would be minimal.

  The departure of the brothers meant that only three children—Henrietta Maria, seven-year-old Sophia, and six-year-old Gustavus Adolphus—were left at the nursery in Leyden. There being a considerable gap in age between Henrietta Maria and the two youngest, it was decided that the society of her older sisters would be more beneficial to her upbringing. And so the Winter Queen’s third daughter came to live at the house in The Hague.

  Her mother would not have hesitated to bring her out into society, for Henrietta Maria was the acknowledged belle of the family. Sophia described her, somewhat in awe, as having “fair flaxen hair, a complexion, without exaggeration, of lilies and roses, and a nose which, although well shaped, was able to resist the cold” (a mischievous comparison to Princess Elizabeth’s). “She had soft eyes, black well-arched eyebrows, and an admirable contour of face and forehead,” Sophia continued, “a pretty mouth, and hands and arms as perfect as if they had been turned with a lathe.”

  But beauty doesn’t always know its own power. Coming to her mother’s court on the cusp of adolescence, still a child in many ways, Henrietta Maria seems to have been somewhat intimidated by her new surroundings. She had not Princess Elizabeth’s intelligence nor Louisa’s artistic ability and wit. Instead, she was sweet, delicate, and gentle. Henrietta Maria did not compete with her sisters and was in no way ambitious. (“Her talents, by which I chiefly profited,” Sophia reported, “lay in the direction of needlework and preserve-making.”) Rather, she looked up to her older siblings, particularly Princess Elizabeth, whom she regarded almost as a second mother. Fittingly, she appears in the oversize Honthorst family portrait The Triumph of the Winter Queen as a small, soft-colored presence, a child dressed as an adult, clutching an open book so heavy and unwieldy that she can barely stand upright (most likely a Bible, burdensome symbol of the family’s commitment to Protestantism, an unintended irony), trailing behind the prominent royal-blue figure of her eldest sister.

  Henrietta Maria’s appearance at her mother’s court coincided with a glittering extravaganza that, like almost all the queen of Bohemia’s social engagements, had a significant political dimension. In February 1638, Elizabeth organized a jousting tournament followed by a grand feast and dancing, ostensibly to celebrate the marriage of the princess of Orange’s sister but which she in fact used to showcase Karl Ludwig’s and Rupert’s military prowess. The two young men, back from England, were mounted on pure white stallions and costumed as Saracen warriors, complete with flowing robes and scimitars. They paraded around the ring at the head of a procession of thirty knights to open the competition while Henrietta Maria and her sisters watched from the stands. Rupert, as always, particularly distinguished himself, winning his joust with ease to the loud approval of the Dutch public, who had been invited to observe the games.

  The reason behind this unusual display of pomp and optimism (not to mention expenditure of scarce resources), what the family was really celebrating, was Charles I’s sudden, unexpected decision to provide Karl Ludwig with his own army. “I am so much overjoyed with this… that it seemth to me as a dream,” Karl Ludwig exulted when he heard the news. His mother’s enthusiasm matched his own. “The king my dear brother was pleased to write to me himself, that he doth approve of my son’s intentions, and with so great a favor as the bestowing his money towards the levies. You may easily imagine how much contentment it brought to us both… the levies are already begun; I hope shortly he will be ready to go himself into the field,” she wrote to Bishop Laud, Charles’s chief adviser, on April 12, 1638.

  Henrietta Maria, observing the jubilant bustle surrounding her brothers’ preparation for battle all that spring and summer, could not have helped but be caught up in the general excitement. She had been only six when Frederick died—just old enough to remember him, but barely. She regarded Karl Ludwig, now twenty-one and head of the family, as a surrogate father and worshipped both him and the dashing Rupert as paragons of manliness. Of course they would win! How could they not, especially as the king of England had allowed Lord William Craven and a regiment of trained soldiers to join with Karl Ludwig and Rupert to assist in the retaking of the Palatine? This infantry was supplemented by three regiments of cavalry, one of which was led by Rupert, and two troops of dragoons, all paid for by Lord Craven and the English levies.

  By the end of August, all was at last in readiness. The two brothers, splendid in their new white-plumed helmets and burnished armor, rode out of town at the head
of their regiments. They must have made quite a stirring impression on the local population, and especially on their little sister.

  KARL LUDWIG HAD ARRANGED to join forces with a small Swedish battalion at Bentheim, about 120 miles to the east, and this rendezvous was successfully accomplished on September 10. The heir to the Palatinate now had approximately 4,000 soldiers under his command.

  The original plan had been to head immediately south to Heidelberg, but the commander of the Swedish warriors wanted to make a short stop first at the stronghold of Lemgo, about seventy miles to the east, which was then under siege by an undermanned imperial force. He argued that theirs was the only Protestant army in the area available to help and that the castle could be relieved so quickly that they would lose little time. This seemed like a laudable goal, so Karl Ludwig agreed to make the detour, and off they went.

  Unfortunately, the commander’s information had been somewhat dated. The army of the Palatinate arrived only to find that the original imperial troops had been supplemented by auxillary units and that they now faced an enemy force of some 8,000 soldiers. Nor could they strategically retreat, as they hadn’t bothered to send a reconnaissance unit ahead to assess the situation. The imperial commanders had already spotted them and would have given chase. There was nothing to do but make the best of it and fight.

  The battle took place on October 19, 1638, just outside Lemgo. On the advice of his more experienced warriors, Karl Ludwig arranged his army into four lines, the better to preserve strength, with the idea that each division would move forward to help as necessary. Rupert headed the third line, composed of cavalry. Karl Ludwig, as the commanding general, prudently took control of the rear guard, which was to be held in reserve and then unleashed at the critical moment.

  Alas, the imperial soldiers did not feel the need to conform to their opponents’ battle plan. They hurled eight regiments of armored knights, some four thousand men, at the enemy force. The sight of this crushing mass of iron weaponry approaching at full speed seemed to mesmerize Karl Ludwig’s front line. Instead of galloping out to meet the attack as they were supposed to, they backed up, which got them sort of tangled up in their own second line. This did not last long, however, as the second line, noting the reaction of those in front, turned around in a panic and fled—right into Rupert.

  For valiant Rupert, the athlete, was in his element. Tearing ahead, he charged his cavalry into the thick of the imperial troops, hacking away with his sword. He was joined by Lord Craven (who had promised the queen of Bohemia that he would watch out for her sons) and the English knights, and together they put up enough of a fight that the imperial army, which had also held back some of its troops, sent in reinforcements.

  Now was the time for Karl Ludwig and his fourth line, left in reserve for this very purpose, to enter the fray! But when Rupert looked behind him to call for support, there was no one there. Like those in his advance line, Karl Ludwig had taken one look at the first tidal wave of imperial soldiers and fled the field, and with their commander gone, the bulk of his army had done the same.

  Despite this disappointing reality, Rupert kept up the struggle for as long as he could. (He appears to have been aided in his efforts by the white plume in his helmet; unwittingly, Rupert had chosen the same insignia the imperial officers used, and in the confusion, it seems to have taken the enemy some time to figure out that he was fighting against them rather than for them.) But eventually even Rupert was forced to surrender, although he had to be surrounded and pulled down from his horse before submitting. Still undaunted, he refused to identify himself when ordered, so his adversaries pulled up his visor to see for themselves. “Sacrément! You are a young one!” the officer in charge exclaimed when he saw his seventeen-year-old captive.

  It didn’t take them long to figure out who he was, particularly as Lord Craven, loyal to the end, had been captured as well. Having a member of the Winter Queen’s family in custody was a boon, as Rupert, a nephew of the king of England, could be held for ransom. He and Lord Craven (who was also recognized as a potential financial asset) were immediately packed off as prisoners of war to a castle in Austria for safekeeping.

  His fellow recruits were not so lucky. Two thousand of Karl Ludwig’s original four-thousand-man army, many of them members of Rupert’s cavalry, died on the field that day. The commander himself just barely escaped alive when the carriage in which he had fled the scene tried to ford a fast-running river and flooded. Horses and driver drowned, but the heir to the Palatinate survived by seizing the overhanging limb of a well-placed tree and holding on with all his might until help arrived.

  THE INTERMINABLE YEARS of struggle had clearly taken their toll; even inured to disaster as she was, Elizabeth’s chagrin on hearing the news of her sons’ defeat was very great. She tried as always to put as favorable an interpretation on the fiasco as possible, to limit the public damage to the family’s reputation and cause, but could not fully control her anger and despair. “I am glad to hear the good opinion you have of [Karl Ludwig], though hitherto he has had but misfortune,” she replied on November 1 to one of her closest friends, who had written to console her. “My comfort is, though he had the worse, yet he has lost no honor; and if I were sure where Rupert were, I should not be so much troubled. If he be prisoner, I confess it would be no small grief to me, for I wish [him] rather dead than in his enemies’ [hands],” she ended apprehensively. She soon calmed down, however, and bent her energies toward trying to free the captive. Karl Ludwig had vigorously to dissuade her from launching a rescue attempt. “It will be in vain to send any gentleman to my brother Rupert… neither could I force any to it, since there is no small danger in it, for any obstinacy of my brother Rupert’s, or venture to escape, would put him in danger of hanging,” he warned his mother bluntly.

  After his woeful performance outside Lemgo, it’s reasonable to assume that Karl Ludwig might have had second thoughts about his proficiency as a military leader, but this was not the case. Instead, having lost one army, he simply looked around for another. Conveniently, a large force became available the following year when one of the few Protestant German barons who had not been lured back to the imperial side by the Peace of Prague died of fever on July 18, 1639, and left a battalion of some 16,000 soldiers without a commander. Even better, this army was stationed in Alsace, which was practically next door to Heidelberg. Karl Ludwig at once left for London to try to get his uncle to provide the funds necessary for him to purchase the loyalty of these regiments.

  Unfortunately, the political environment in England had deteriorated alarmingly since his last visit. Charles I had only recently returned from Scotland, where the outcry over his decision to back the bishops over the obstreperous Presbyterians (which had taken the tangible form of replacing the old, humble Scottish prayer book with a new, much fancier version that followed the English Anglican model) had caused a rebellion. The king had been forced to lead an army into Scotland to quell the disturbance. No sooner had he left, however, than the Scottish Presbyterians went right back to their violent protests and civil disobedience.* Charles had consequently just spent a great deal of money for nothing and was not in a position to finance his nephew’s newest scheme, particularly after the miserable showing associated with his prior cash outlay. “My son writes that the king continues to persuade him to go, but will give no money nor much hope of any hereafter, excusing all upon the business of Scotland,” Elizabeth fumed in frustration.

  Karl Ludwig, unwilling to let such an exceptional opportunity pass by without at least taking a crack at it, resolved to follow his uncle’s advice and just show up in Alsace to see if, on the strength of his family’s name and commitment to Protestantism, he couldn’t convince the orphaned army to fight under his command. Time being of the essence, he felt he couldn’t afford to take the long way around through Holland and Germany. But nor could he take the more direct route through France without applying for a safe passage from Louis XIII, which would take ti
me and might raise uncomfortable questions about the purpose of his journey. So, emulating his father, who had once found himself in a similar predicament, Karl Ludwig decided to try to sneak through France in disguise. On October 4, 1639, again encouraged by Charles, whose fond memories of his own youthful escapade with the duke of Buckingham seems to have given rise to a somewhat unrealistic impression of the ease with which the French could be fooled by a change of clothing, Karl Ludwig sailed from England dressed as a valet.

  Unfortunately for the success of this ploy, Cardinal Richelieu also wanted that army—had, in fact, already bribed its officers to accept a French commander—in order to secure Alsace for Louis XIII. The cardinal was aware, too, of Karl Ludwig’s desire to use this force to fight for the Palatinate—he’d made no secret of it—and through an extensive spy network had been keeping an eye on his competitor. He let his prey get as far as Moulins, about 200 miles south of Paris, before swooping down and having Karl Ludwig arrested on October 14. The captive was subsequently transferred to the castle of Vincennes, which functioned as a prison near the capital, where he was held under close guard.

  The uproar at the family court at The Hague caused by this inhospitable treatment of the Winter Queen’s eldest son may well be imagined. Henrietta Maria now had two brothers incarcerated by enemies, and Maurice, Edward, and Philip were all still in France, which clearly could no longer be considered friendly territory. It must have been a very frightening time for her. Her mother, determined to get her sons out, was grimly consumed by her correspondence. Elizabeth called on everyone in her wide acquaintance—English, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, German—to exert pressure on the French court to release Karl Ludwig, and she demanded that Maurice, Edward, and Philip be allowed to return to her immediately. “I do pity, and shall pity all my life, the misfortunes of this noble princess,” wrote one of her secretaries in a letter of November 21, 1639, “and shall not less admire her firm constancy, by which she remains unmoved, by the sad attacks of a fortune which has made her, like another Niobe, fruitful only for misfortune.”