Elizabeth of Bohemia

by David Elias

  But once again I failed to appreciate the scope of my father’s treachery. Instead of sending troops he used the crisis as an opportunity to foist one final act of betrayal upon his only daughter. Notwithstanding the entreaties of all parties concerned, and in complete dismissal of my letters to him personally, he not only chose to abstain from any involvement in the conflict but made the offence even greater by electing instead to seek an alliance with the hated Spanish. Even as the crisis worsened, word came that the King of England was deeply involved in negotiations that would see his son Charles, heir to the throne, take for his wife the Catholic daughter of Phillip III. Rat!

  In no time at all, the situation degenerated into chaos. How cruelly the fates descended upon me! I became enveloped in a fog of disbelief and despair, even as I bore witness to our brutal and swift overthrow. In Prague and elsewhere the meagre armies Frederick managed to summon in defence of his crown were soon falling back, and it was only a matter of hours before the city lay under siege. We were left with no choice but to throw a few precious belongings together and hurry out of the palace or risk losing our heads. I will venture that an army of well-trained British soldiers should not so easily have allowed themselves to be overrun as those who were sent to defend the city. Much like Frederick himself, they didn’t put up much of a fight. Had Henry still been alive, no doubt things would have gone differently, and he should have been there with an army of his own. Even at that, Captain Hume, who was still very good with a sword, wanted to go down and fight alongside the men, but I insisted he remain behind to see to my personal safety.

  How can I make you appreciate the humiliation and degradation of that hurried departure from Prague Castle? It didn’t help that it all came crashing down just as I was beginning to turn the corner and dig myself out of all that melancholy and disappointment. I had been busy arranging a room for myself much like the study Henry liked to spend so much time in back in London. There were book shelves to organize, artefacts to unpack, paintings and hangings to arrange, and I was moving a lamp into place next to the chair I intended use for reading, when Frederick burst into the room. He stopped abruptly, as a boy might who had stumbled upon the very person he wanted least to throw into distemper.

  “Elizabeth, we have . . . you have to . . . the children . . .”

  “Frederick, what is it?” I stepped toward him. “You look ghastly.”

  “The children. Where are they?” He looked around the room. “See to them at once.” He turned to go, hesitated, then stepped closer and took me by the hand. “We have to go,” he pleaded gently. “All of us. Now.”

  “Go where? Whatever is the matter?”

  “It’s not safe here. The castle shall soon be under siege, and we may not linger.”

  “But how can this be?” I ran to the window. “What of the soldiers who stand always at the ready to defend these walls?”

  “We have been granted safe passage, but only for one night.”

  “Passage?” I turned back to face him. “Passage to where?”

  “We must be out of Prague by noon tomorrow, else our lives may be forfeit.”

  “Who issues these caveats? Have they the force of effect behind them? Surely we can negotiate some other arrangement.”

  “There is no barter to be had save that which I have already stated. We must be gone from here at once.”

  Just then Captain Hume came into the room. “Your Highness,” he said, “I have received word that the Duke of Bavaria approaches the gates of the city.”

  “Then it is just as I feared,” said Frederick. “His forces are no doubt formidable.”

  “It cannot be long now.”

  “I have arranged for us to make our way into the Old Town, there to accept such humble lodgings as may be available to us. We set off on the morrow for Breslau.”

  “And after that?” I said.

  “Heidelberg.”

  “Back where we came from. With all we brought from the place hardly uncrated.”

  “Pack up whatever you can. We leave within the hour.”

  “A little more time, surely. It cannot be so soon. This is a rude turnabout.” I turned to Captain Hume. “Sir, is the situation really as dire as that?”

  “I fear it is. I cannot vouchsafe our safety if we remain. I’m sorry.”

  “It is not for you to apologize,” Frederick intervened. “None of this is your doing.”

  The Captain and I gave each other a quick glance.

  “We depart from the square beyond St. Vitus Cathedral,” said Frederick. “I have seen to as many coaches and carriages as I could muster to be loaded and assembled there. Beyond the gate is a private road, little used, that wends its way down to the river, and by such means shall we make our way across the Old Bridge into the town. Now I have some other urgent matters of my own to see to.”

  Frederick left the room and the Captain turned to me. “Your Highness, I am at your disposal. What would you have me do?”

  Before I could make answer, Amalia hurried in through the door. “Your Highness.” She looked at Captain Hume.

  “She has been apprised of the situation,” he told her.

  “Very well.” She turned to me. “Then you understand we must make haste.”

  “Yes, yes, so I am told. Hounded out of the castle like a plague of rats.”

  “We must see to the children,” Amalia continued.

  “And there is the matter of my jewellery and wardrobe.”

  “Shall I send for Master of the House?” the Captain enquired.

  “I’m afraid he has already fled,” said Amalia.

  “The Lord Chamberlain, then.”

  “Also departed, I fear.”

  “And I suppose the Lord Steward is nowhere to be found. Damn them all, the cowards.”

  “There’s also the matter of my bed,” I said.

  “Madam?”

  “I will have to be dismantled and loaded. As many wagons as it takes. Then see to other furniture if there’s time.” I looked intently at him. “Can you do it?”

  “Come,” said Amalia, “there’s much to do,” and hurried me off before I could hear the Captain’s answer.

  The palace was a madhouse of bustle and confusion as people scattered here and there, some taking whatever they could carry. Even as disorder and chaos swirled about me I saw my possible future. If Frederick should be captured or killed, what would become of us? For certain I should have to see to my own financial resources. To that end I busied myself with the gathering of as many valuables as I could manage. I dared not set those few servants still remaining to the task, as they might be tempted to run off with it themselves. I started with my personal jewellery, rummaged for every diamond and sapphire, every necklace and earring. The entire collection of Medici pearls had to be found, as their worth should be greater if all the pieces remained intact. Those of my gowns studded with diamonds and other precious stones I also packed up. When the trunks were ready I summoned only as many attendants as absolutely necessary, paid them handsomely on the spot out of a chest I kept for personal expenses, and had the trunks toted out before me through the doors and across the square to the waiting carriage and wagons.

  “These cannot be out of my sight,” I said to one of the footmen, indicating the trunks. “They must come with us in this carriage.”

  He looked off to one side, unsure of himself, and there I saw Frederick come around the carriage to stand before me.

  “These,” Frederick told the footman, “will have to go elsewhere. The children will be coming with us in the carriage.”

  I turned again to the footman. “None of this can be left behind. You will see to it?”

  “Where are they?” Frederick persisted.

  I heard some commotion behind me and was greatly relieved when I turned to see Amalia herding the children across the square to
ward us.

  “I have done what was necessary,” I said.

  Henry, almost seven now and dressed in his day clothes, went to stand beside his father. Charles Louis, almost three, followed, holding his younger sister Elisabeth’s hand in his. They were in their nightclothes, looking unsettled and roused from sleep.

  “Alright,” said Frederick, “let’s get you loaded up.” He picked up little Elisabeth to lift her into the carriage, after which the rest of the children boarded, followed by myself and Frederick, and we were just about to depart when Captain Hume came striding awkwardly across the courtyard with a baby, swaddled in a blanket and cradled in his arms.

  “Rupert.” Frederick brushed past me and alighted from the carriage to take him from the Captain.

  “Governess, nursemaid — all fled in the confusion,” the Captain said breathlessly, “and so it fell to me.”

  My husband stepped back into the carriage, and after Captain Hume had closed the door behind him I reached out to take Rupert, but without a word Frederick leaned past me and handed him over to Amalia. I sat back stiffly and we drove off in silence.

  It seemed a harsh indictment that the welfare of those trunks should have come at the expense of a child, but I was caught up, preoccupied. Perhaps it was only that he was still so new. It could have happened to anyone. I had seen enough by then to understand that motherhood was not a foolproof business, nor was I the first to overlook an offspring. What of those mothers who saw fit to offer their children everything save what they were most in need of? In any case it should only have been a moment or two before one of us realized he was missing. Why did it seem so unforgivable?

  The horses set off at a trot and soon the other wagons and carriages followed. The lane leading from the palace was lined on either side by high stone walls and tall trees in behind them that leaned over the roadway. It was one I had already come to know, having walked its curved meanderings down the hillside and along the river. It was so little used I could often traverse its entire length in quiet solitude and encounter not a single soul. Now in the awkward silence, save for the horse’s hooves clopping hollow on the cobblestones and the intermittent squeak of leather or rattle of a wheel, the journey took on a sombre tone. I was reminded of the funeral dirge a few years earlier that had brought my dear bother Henry to his resting place at Westminster Abbey.

  We followed the river, black and glistening outside the carriage window, until we came to the Old Stone Bridge and made our way under the towers to cross to the other side into the Old Town. I would learn later that its stone ramparts should soon be adorned with the heads of those who had seen fit to bring Frederick to power, and that mine should certainly have been among them if we had not fled. As we travelled along, the lampposts on either side lit our way through a fine mist that wafted up from the river, and we passed the small crucifix that marked the site where John of Nepomuk had been thrown from the bridge and drowned. His tomb had been among those destroyed in Scultetus’s vehement excoriation of the cathedral. I had heard his story and become fascinated with it. He had been the confessor to an earlier queen of Bohemia and remained faithful to his covenant of secrecy even under threat of death. He refused to divulge the adultery her husband the King suspected her of, remained steadfast even as he was taken out to the middle of the bridge and unceremoniously tossed over the side into the Vltava River. I wondered what Captain Hume should have done under such circumstances, to preserve the secret pact which had brought us to this place of rude and sudden ruin.

  Should it be said of someone who commits an act of unselfish loyalty that it was his finest hour, or is it misplaced? I should have confessed, I think, having granted myself permission to do so on the grounds that no one should be expected to keep such a compact no matter the consequences. Would my children grow up to think I might have abandoned them? It was said that the ghost of John of Nepomuk walked the bridge. Did I see him there now? Shaking his finger at me?

  We passed beneath the tower at the far end of bridge and made our way between the dark houses along the narrow cobblestone streets into the Old Town, where at length we found ourselves herded into the humble quarters of a residence afforded us there. It was very dark, the streets narrow, and we were put up in an inn that was very near the old church of Our Lady Before Tyne. I had never stayed in such a modest room, but it was thought we best not take refuge in a place too well known to the authorities or we should be found and slaughtered in our beds. We woke up very early the next morning and proceeded down to a barge, where we boarded for Breslau. Bribes were offered once again, just as they had been on the night before, and as they would continue to be all along the entire length of our journey.

  We endured many days of arduous travel, slept in countless uncomfortable beds, in cramped rooms, with hardly enough servants to see to the needs of the children let alone ours, and what was provided in the way of food hardly passed for such at times. Dreadful!

  If in the course of all that hardship I learned humility, it was not of a kind that did me much good. Perhaps if it hadn’t seemed largely self-inflicted, I might have garnered more from the experience. The fact of the matter was that things were going to get much worse, though I didn’t know it at the time. I thought we should return to the castle at Heidelberg, back to the English Wing waiting for us there, to the Hortus Palatinus with its groves of orange trees, its ornate sculpture and flowers. I even thought that it might be a way for me to start over again, forget the silly ambitions I had become swept up in, and live out my life there, content to learn a modesty more becoming to my nature, where I might once again leave the machinations of the court to those with a penchant for it and see myself up the mountain to walk about the trails, perhaps to visit Sophia, who would teach me to covet less and appreciate more. I would make an effort to spend more time in the company of my children, teach them and mentor them into a more promising adulthood than mine had turned out to be.

  But none of that would come to pass. We had taken temporary refuge at some lodgings in Breslau thanks to my cousin Maurice of Nassau and expected to depart at any time for Heidelberg when word came that the armies of the Catholic League under the command of Count Tilly had overrun the town, laid siege to the castle, and laid waste to a good portion of it. Soon after, we were hounded out of Breslau and so, by degrees measured daily in strife and hardship, crossed Bohemia. In some places we were only grudgingly permitted to stay for a night or two before we had to move on. In others the welcome was a little warmer but invariably followed close upon by a poorly disguised ruse designed to hasten our departure and see us move on. And so it went from day to day, place to place, until the day approached when I should have to suffer another child to be born. We managed to reach Brandenburg in the snow, where accommodation at the Castle of Custrin had been afforded us. It was Christmas Eve, and along the streets, lamps had been lighted which illuminated the decorations mounted upon the houses along both sides. The castle now came into view and looked inviting in all of its adornment and brightness. I was thankful to consider I should be allowed to birth my fifth child in what looked at first glance to be a comfortable and well-appointed castle.

  By then there had been somewhat of a thaw between Frederick and I after our departure from Prague and we were looking forward to some means, however modest, of celebrating Christmas with the children. Frederick had gone to the trouble of arranging a small gift for each of the children to open upon the morrow, and these along with our other necessaries were carried into the castle by the few attendants still in our employ. You might be surprised to hear that the yuletide was one of the few times in the year when I managed to engage in the spirit of family life, if only for the sake of the children, and as we were led along I was glad to see the hallways brightly lit with enormous Christmas candles and adorned with decorous leaves of holly and ivy, bay and laurel.

  We passed a chamber where an atmosphere of good cheer reigned within, a fire of uncomm
on brightness burned in the hearth and all looked festive and gay. A great long table had been set with all manner of succulent dishes, and one of the children remarked upon the peacock pie at the centre which boasted a great fanned tail. A man stood at the head of the table, dipped his cup into the bowl of wassail set before him, and held it high to offer a toast to the seated guests for a merry Christmas and a happy new year. The children cheered at these sights as they chattered amongst themselves, and it occurred to me how so many things I had always been wont to take for granted suddenly seemed quite wonderful.

  Three burly men carried upon their shoulders an enormous yule log, and one of the children remarked that perhaps they might have been sent to set us a jolly fire in our apartments. The men turned off into a room up ahead, but we were led on farther down the hall until the sounds of cheer had all but died out behind us and the walls stood devoid of candles and decoration. An unwelcome silence settled about us as we were led into a remote corner of the castle.

  “I suppose it is for our own safety,” said Frederick, “that the lord of the manor wants us as far away from the main living quarters as possible. All the better to remain incognito.”

  At last we arrived and made entry to the rooms provided for us. They were all but barren! The echoing starkness of those quarters rings yet in my memory. No more in the way of furnishings from one chamber to the next than a table here and a mattress there, all of them equally uninviting, walls bare of so much as an arras to mitigate the cold and damp. No fire in the hearth nor any stick of wood to light one. I should have insisted on having some of the furniture we’d taken out of Prague brought up, but those wagons no longer accompanied us. Most of them, including the ones that transported the great bed I had taken pains to see dismantled and loaded, had been sent on ahead. Indeed a great many of our original party had been scattered here and there and might never be seen or heard from again.

  Amalia helped me into a chair, and as I laboured through intermittent bouts of birthing pains, the sheer bleakness of it all threatened to overwhelm me. Was ever a place so foreign and unwelcoming? Now the intensity of my birthing pains increased greatly and I was taken into the next room and made to lie down upon the cold mattress there. Amalia shouted out orders to the attendants and gave forth great resourcefulness. By means I hardly recall she managed to get a fire lit in the hearth and to see to a kettle of boiling water and such. I had yet enough wits about me to insist that if she was going to act as midwife she must wash her hands thoroughly with soap and hot water. In all of this she was compliant and made not once to question my wishes as the physicians surely would have, and insist on poking their filthy hands about my insides without a second thought for cleanliness. And so I was suffered to give birth to a son, Maurice, there within the confines of those all-but-empty and unwelcoming quarters. The delivery was uneventful and Amalia heroic.