Elizabeth of Bohemia

by David Elias

  The preparations for my coronation were soon underway and I allowed myself to be dragged about from one venue to another, notwithstanding that I was less than a month away from giving birth to another child. When the day arrived at last, the audience that filled in the pews of St. Vitus Cathedral was still fresh from celebrating Frederick’s coronation, which had taken place three days earlier. I had been there as well to witness the vestments of royalty placed upon him, the sceptre and orb, robe and crown, all of it accompanied by tedious ritual and much preaching, though not of the kind which had been practised within the holy confines of that cathedral in centuries past. By order of Abraham Scultetus the interior of the church had been stripped of all its ornamentation, that those in attendance should be left with no doubt as to the denomination of the services taking place within. St. Vitus would henceforth be a place not of Catholic worship but of the strictest Calvinism.

  Such lengths had Scultetus gone to that even the sanctified vaults beneath the stones of the church floor had been caved in and the remains removed. Though such adornments as altars and crucifixes might have been removed and carted off to some other location, they were instead torn most rudely from the walls, dashed to the ground, and smashed to pieces. All this with such conviction it gave me second thought that I was the author of such zeal, fuelled as it were by the theatre I had arranged, and which now set him so firmly upon his path of destruction.

  Only Wenceslas Chapel, where that ancient King’s relics lay entombed, had been left intact, and it was within this chamber I now stood with Amalia dutifully at my side, awaiting the arrival of the coronation vestments. Ornate Gothic frescoes, magnificent in artistry and detail, decorated the upper regions of the walls, while hundreds, nay thousands, of precious jewels adorned the lower portions. Emerald and sapphire, jasper and amethyst had been fixed into the walls, each one bordered with gold inlay. In the centre of the room sat the sarcophagus of the revered Saint himself, entombed in stunning decoration, and next to it the altar whereupon I should soon be required to kneel and receive such holy blessings as were appropriate to the occasion.

  I was instructed to pray while I waited for the crown of St. Isabella and other vestments to be fetched down from the upper chamber where they were kept for such occasions. This required an elaborate ceremony in which seven prominent citizens of the city each turned a key on one of the locks that sealed the door to the chamber, after which they had to repeat the procedure upon another inner door before making their way up a spiral stone staircase to the chamber high above to retrieve the necessary items.

  The proceedings would on any other occasion have been overseen by the Archbishop of Prague but he was conspicuous in his absence, which might have accounted for the somewhat muted tone of the whisperings and mumblings amongst the parishioners. Even as the spoon and vial were brought forth and my temples anointed with oil, I had my first misgivings about this moment I had plotted and schemed for. At last the crown of St. Isabella was placed upon my head, and I was taken out into the cathedral and up to the altar to be seated upon the throne. I was glad for the chance to sit, as I was in my eighth month of pregnancy and finding it a little taxing to be so long on my feet.

  Rupert would be my fourth child after Charles, Henry, and Elisabeth. There would be five more sons and four more daughters before it was over, and it seemed the reward for my prowess at making babies was to be employed much like a breeding mare. Every pregnancy was an invasion, my body subjected to occupancy by an organism growing ever larger until the cramped quarters set it to squirming and poking about inside me. Each gestation brought home the brutal reality that I was an organism whose function was the propagation of the human creature. The process was an inconvenient one that suffered my spine to be curved out of all symmetry, my internal organs to be rearranged, and for me to walked about bloated, nauseous, now gorged, now famished, my body to give off rude noises and disgusting odours. I groaned, I moaned, I ached.

  And what was required of my husband on each occasion? Naught but a simple act of penetration and insemination to initiate the process. What an accomplishment. If there was little in it of intention, there was less of design. I had no say as to the nature and appearance of the child that was to be born nine months later. I had no control over any of it. Each torturous confinement seemed endless. Even as the next issue swelled toward its arrival inside my belly, my gloom became such that I saw my future as one of little hope. I had thought to become another kind of woman than one that brought forth children the way a sow brings forth piglets.

  Frederick had been crowned three days earlier, so that attendance at this day’s tiresome proceedings amounted to little more than courtesy. The crown they brought forth was much like that of any monarch, fashioned out of refined gold and inset with gemstones, pearls and diamonds, sapphires and amethysts. Even as it was set upon my head with great ceremony, it seemed to me a silly contrivance. The whole idea seemed childish, as a little boy and girl at play might decree themselves to be king and queen by placing a cooking pot each upon the other’s head.

  To be sure, I had not imagined how uncomfortable the thing would be. It dug here and there into my skull so painfully it was all I could do not to yank the thing from my head and dash it to the marble floor. It seemed a most unnatural accessory, one that no sane person would wear by choice. As I sat there in awkward discomfort, I wondered once more how it ever came about that people should suffer themselves to be ruled over by others. If not violence then perhaps some more cunning art played upon their fears. Perhaps our Heavenly Father had ordained it that one creature should seek to gain dominion over another, but here were all these men and women crowded into the cathedral to see me crowned in a ceremony that had no substance at its heart. To think the masses should so easily be appeased by the equivalent of props in a play. Was I to be more regal now than before?

  Perhaps Mr. Shakespeare had been better to say in agony lies the head that wears the crown, for I seemed at that moment no better off than some beggar with a scrap of metal from an ironmonger’s shop stuck to the top of his head. If that was not bad enough, Rupert, my unborn child, chose that moment to effect a sharp kick at my guts which caused me to let out an audible yelp and gave the administrator pause to interrupt his litany. I forced a smile and bade him over the murmurs of the crowd to proceed with the ceremony.

  The festivities which followed my husband’s coronation having only just concluded, now a second round of celebration began. The palace lay yet in decoration, and the feasting and dancing essentially took up where they had only just left off. I should have been glad to dispense with all of it, but instead was forced to endure three more days of revelry. Had it not been for Captain Hume I should never have managed it. Frederick had agreed that the Captain should accompany us to Prague, and I was glad for his company amidst so many courtiers eager to offer congratulations and begin at once their efforts to gain favour. His unkempt appearance and gruff manner served as something of a buffer to so much unwanted attention. The more the lords and ladies of the court failed to disguise their distaste, the more content I was to let it be so, and to enjoy their discomfiture and revel in their offended sensibilities.

  “Madam, how soberly sit the royal garments upon your person,” the Captain remarked. He was dressed on this occasion in clothes poorly tailored, among them a white shirt badly in need of a washing under a loose-fitting black gown. “I should have thought this would be a happier occasion, one you worked very hard to achieve.”

  “I should have donned the robes of England with greater enthusiasm.”

  “I grant they might have allowed for more comfort.”

  “There’s naught of comfort to be had in anything I wear of late.” I put a hand on my rounded belly. “I am swollen to bursting with pregnancy.”

  “No doubt your new title shall soon afford more than mere suffering at the hands of pomp and ceremony.”

  “Though my prospects amou
nt to more than privilege, true effect falls within the purview of my husband.”

  “You will be there to give him good counsel,” the Captain assured me.

  “I am content to let that fall to Abraham Scultetus.”

  “He is no doubt eager to offer it.”

  “I grow weary of resorting to tiresome persuasion.”

  The Captain seemed surprised at this, as I might have been, save that in the very moment of Frederick’s coronation a serpent of doubt slunk into my soul and coiled itself around my ambition. Perhaps I sensed already that the tenure of his rule should last little more than the winter, for we had hardly settled into our apartments at Prague Castle before things began to fall apart. Scultetus continued after the coronation to affect such actions as enraged the Holy Roman Emperor. He had the Great Crucifix which had been for centuries a mainstay upon the Old Bridge not only taken down but demolished. At this rumours began to swirl that it was on my behalf he had acted so, and that I had decreed not to cross the bridge so long as it stood. At every turn were committed atrocities and insults, injustices and transgressions against the authority of the Hapsburgs. He had the Jesuit churches converted to evangelical sanctuaries. It was almost as though he were baiting them.

  I was content to let him carry on in this way, though in hindsight any fool could have foreseen that the reaction to such blatant provocations was bound to be swift and forceful. For the moment I had not the strength to fight him. Other forces were at work on me that came not from without but from within. After Rupert was born I fell into a terrible melancholy from which I seemed powerless to free myself. That same affliction which so often struck me after the birth of a child visited itself upon me with a greater vengeance than I had known hitherto.

  The protocols of my new office were now squarely set before me and I was confronted with a shocking array of uninviting prospects, among them those of seeing to the establishment of a new court, at which I was obliged to accommodate endless entreaties for employment and requests for special consideration from merchants and tailors, musicians and artists, ambassadors and noblemen. I set Amalia to see to some of these matters, the better to spare myself the annoyance, and if I suspected her of making decisions based on little more than her own self-interest I was too beset with duties of my own to bother about it. There were any number of appointments to be made, from the sergeant-at-arms to the keeper of the seals, from the lord chancellor to the master of the horse.

  The duties of Queen Consort proved for the most part to be as tedious as they were numerous. Meanwhile, the kinds of decisions I should more eagerly have had a hand in making fell to Frederick, or more accurately to his advisors, who were considerable in number and led by Abraham Scultetus. Frederick seemed content to do little more than listen attentively and sign whatever document was placed before him. A good many of these had to do with Scultetus’s continued efforts to make as many inroads for his Calvinist doctrines as he could manage, and in the process alienate what little good will remained in those who took offence at his bullying ways.

  I had also noticed that there was an unmistakable change in Scultetus’s demeanour toward me. From the moment of my husband’s coronation he had adopted a dismissive attitude that took me by surprise. Perhaps he sensed that I was in a compromised state, neither as able nor as willing to summon the resources required to stand up to him. In any case he took full advantage of the situation and seemed eager to flaunt his newly inherited powers. I suppose it might be said that I got what I had hoped for, but I quickly came to the realization that the title of Queen Consort brought little in the way of substantive reward. The same could not be said for Scultetus. In the capacity as newly appointed religious leader of Prague, his authority to purge the city of Catholicism and replace it with his own brand of strict Calvinism seemed unbounded.

  With my melancholy at last somewhat abated I found myself one morning unwilling to remain content with trivial household duties while important matters of state were left to others. I made my way to the Hall of the Imperial Court Council and arrived at the entrance to the chamber just in time to see my husband seating himself at the head of the table, where a number of advisors, Scultetus among them, hovered over him with papers in hand, while others sat or stood in small groups about the room. When Frederick looked up from the table and saw me about to enter he pushed back his chair to greet me, but Scultetus put a firm hand on his shoulder and gently coaxed him back into his seat. Frederick looked up at him, then over at me, then leaned back in his chair while Scultetus made his way to where I was standing, took me rather forcefully by the arm, and directed me back out into the hall. He pulled me a little off to one side and spoke at close quarters in an urgent tone.

  “Highness, it is good of you to grace us with your presence. May I be of some assistance? Nothing’s amiss, I trust.”

  “No.” I wrenched my arm away from his grasp.

  “Nothing urgent?”

  “No.”

  “May I enquire, then, as to the matter of your presence here?”

  “I will attend this assembly.”

  “Beg pardon, Highness, but I’m afraid the occasion does not call for it.”

  “And what occasion it that?” I rubbed my arm.

  “You need not concern yourself with these affairs of state. We have the matter well in hand.”

  “Then it should be of no consequence either way if my husband, the King, should choose to let me sit in on the proceedings.”

  I glanced over at Frederick, now on the very edge of his chair, looking as though he might jump up at any minute and come out to me.

  “I’m afraid it isn’t that simple.”

  “And why is that?”

  “It lies outside the protocol . . .” He hesitated for a moment. “. . . of a queen consort.” Scultetus subtly manoeuvred himself to stand before me in such a manner that I had to lean around him if I wanted to catch sight of my poor husband. It was clear to me Frederick was torn, that there was in his manner more of the school boy than the master.

  “You no doubt have many duties to perform” — Scultetus adopted a condescending tone now — “that are of greater import for your husband’s comfort and good cheer than these tedious deliberations.” I could see in his eyes that he was no longer afraid of me.

  “I am happy to leave off those obligations for the moment.” I looked again into the chamber and saw Frederick staring out at me, his features contorted.

  “It is in your realm to see to them.” Scultetus was firmer now. “Just as it is in your husband’s to see to others.”

  “But these proclamations do daily bring us farther into disfavour with those who stand to do us harm. I can hardly think my husband should grant these undertakings willingly if he knew the extent and scope of their repercussions.”

  “Surely you were better to concern yourself with matters more immediate to your present condition.” Scultetus lowered his eyes to stare at my swollen belly.

  “Tell me, Reverend, whether these sentiments be yours or those of the King? In any case my ‘condition,’ as you put it, has nothing to do with my admission to these deliberations.”

  “I only meant that you have more pressing concerns as to matters domestic.”

  “Much as the livestock, you mean — horses and sheep and such?”

  “You know I meant not that, Highness, but we all have our place.”

  “And I must be kept in mine.”

  “Now if you will excuse me, we have urgent matters to attend to.”

  “I would learn for myself the manner by which my husband assents to these provocations upon the Holy Roman Emperor, which amount to the repeated poking of a nasty beast.”

  “I hardly think that is an accurate characterization.”

  “I will speak with him.”

  “We are pressed for time.”

  “Nevertheless.”

&
nbsp; At this Scultetus turned and walked back into the room, made his way over to Frederick, still seated at the head of the table, and leaned over to talk closely into his ear. My husband listened, then turned to look at me for a moment before he nodded at Scultetus. It was unquestionably a gesture of resignation, and though my instinct was to charge into the room and make a scene, some part of me would not allow it. While Frederick conferred with those around him, now addressing Scultetus, now others nearby, I felt a chasm open up between us wider than any that had been there before. And last he turned to me and the expression written upon his features gave me to understand that I might take my leave. Scultetus made as though to come over and speak to me a final time, but before he could add to my humiliation I turned abruptly and hurried away.

  ***

  Scultetus was allowed to continue his brash and insulting behaviour toward all things Catholic, and it was not long before word reached the castle that an army deployed by the Hapsburgs was marching toward the city. The invasion of Prague was imminent, and as Bohemia had managed to alienate those allies who might have seen fit to offer aid in the conflict, there was precious little in the way of resistance. Even so I held out some hope that help might be on the way. My father had after all married me off to a Calvinist prince the better to consolidate the interests of British and Bohemian Protestants. Frederick himself had made reference to as much in his very first letter to me, but his words would soon come back to haunt me. By my reckoning the King of England would feel obliged to come to the aid of his Bohemian counterpart, if not for political reasons then for his daughter’s sake. Surely he would send an army across the channel to fight at her husband’s side against the Catholic forces.