Prince Rupert

It was Frederick’s devotion to Protestantism, and his tolerance of all its forms, that ultimately secured Elizabeth’s hand. Since 1555, the rulers of each part of the Holy Roman Empire had been permitted to choose their territory’s official religion. This concession helped to defuse the tension between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Since 1562, with one short-lived aberration, the count’s family had been solidly Calvinist, while its capital, Heidelberg, was known for its religious and intellectual enlightenment. ‘We have to bless God’, wrote an English translator of Palatine scriptures, in 1614, ‘for the religious care of our dread sovereign, in matching his only daughter, a princess peerless, with a Prince of that soundness of religion as the Prince Elector is.’[fn10]

Although the princess’s mother, Anne of Denmark, was a Catholic sympathiser, her father’s succession to the English throne had been conditional on his promise to uphold Anglicanism. The English Establishment, which had so hurriedly welcomed James, already viewed him with concern. Nobles were appalled by his sale of hereditary titles, which introduced rich parvenus to the aristocracy. Furthermore, his rampant homosexuality was considered troubling in a king, partly on moral grounds, but more practically because his good-looking young favourites bypassed the conventional channels of patronage to gorge themselves on ill-deserved honours.

A sure way for James to regain some popularity was to play the religious card: in 1612 he took England into the Protestant Union, a defensive confederation of nine German principalities and seventeen imperial cities formed by Frederick’s father, and which the young Palsgrave now led. The same year, he agreed that Elizabeth should wed Frederick. The public preacher in Bristol — England’s second city and a place that was to play an important role in Rupert’s adult life — welcomed the betrothal: ‘Unto you happy Prince, and sent of God to increase our happiness’, he said in an open letter, ‘Come in thou blessed of the Lord, for whom the choicest pearl in the Christian world is by God himself prepared. The Lord makes her like Leah and like Rahel [sic], which two builded the house of Israel. Let her grow into thousand thousands, and let her seed possess the gate of his enemies.’[fn11]

It was expected for princes and princesses to make dynastic marriages. Rupert’s parents were unusual in that theirs was a genuine love match, whose romantic pulse never slowed. Frederick made a sublime impression, on arriving in England. His ‘well-becoming confidence’[fn12] was noted, as was his ‘wit, courage and judgement’.[fn13] Elizabeth was relieved to be marrying such a dashing young man: when Prince Maurice of Nassau had been presented as a possible mate, she had been repelled by the physical decay of his advanced middle age. By contrast, she fell quickly and completely in love with her handsome, youthful suitor.

The 16-year-old couple, only four days apart in age, married in Whitehall Chapel on St Valentine’s Day, 1613. Elizabeth wore a gold crown, her white dress and loosely hanging hair advertising her virginity. Despite the bride’s simplicity, James managed to spend nearly £100,000 on the celebrations, prompting one of his courtiers to offer a cheerless supplication: ‘God grant money to pay debts.’[fn14] However, the revelry was not only about fleeting extravagance: William Shakespeare offered an enduring wedding gift, writing a play for the couple. The Tempest was performed fourteen times by the King’s Men during the festivities, for which the players received £150. The Archbishop of Canterbury summed up the hopes of all who witnessed the match: ‘The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob bless these nuptials, and make them prosperous to these kingdoms and to his Church.’[fn15]

Frederick left for home ahead of his bride so that he could be in the Palatinate to receive her. Elizabeth travelled with a train of supporters that, by the time it reached the outskirts of Heidelberg, consisted of 12 princes, 30 earls, 1,000 gentlemen, and 2,000 soldiers. Her arrival was greeted with volleys of musket shot and salvoes of cannon fire from the Palatine army. ‘Then they marched altogether orderly in good array,’ wrote an eyewitness, ‘conducting her to Heidelberg, where the citizens wanted no expressions of joy, love, and duty in hearty welcoming of her, & praying for her; all windows being replenished with people of all ages and degrees, and the streets thronged with multitudes of people, drawn thither from all parts, not so much to see the Pageants that were erected to further this honourable entertainment, as to have their eyes filled in beholding of her Highness, whom all honoured and admired.’[fn16]

Frederick and Elizabeth enjoyed six happy years in Heidelberg. The prince enlarged the pink, sandstone castle for his wife, adding a suite of ten rooms — ‘the English wing’ — to welcome her to her new home. The castle’s floors were made of porphyry, while the cornices were inlaid with gems. Elizabeth’s drawing room was hung with silver decorations, against a background of white marble. The library, with its priceless codices, housed one of the greatest book collections in Europe.

Outside, the Electress’s passion for animals found expression in a monkey-house and a generously proportioned menagerie. The palace garden, the Tiortus Palatinatus’, was famous throughout the Continent, delighting visitors with its system of fountains, its fine statues, and its intricate network of flowerbeds. When an heir, Frederick Henry, was born, Frederick showed his delight by planting an extension to the garden under his wife’s bedroom window: it was laid out with English flowers, to remind the princess of home. Two more children quickly appeared, Elizabeth and Charles Louis, before she fell pregnant with Rupert.

*

The Palatine shared a border with Bohemia. In July 1617, Ferdinand of Austria, a Habsburg prince, was appointed king-elect. The crown was supposedly decided by a vote of the Bohemian nobles, but they felt bypassed and believed that Ferdinand had been foisted on them through trickery. The intensity of Ferdinand’s Catholic faith soon became clear: the new king’s daily routine included several hours in religious meditation and attendance at two masses. Ferdinand reneged on previous assurances and brought in a raft of measures to root out Protestantism in Bohemia, including control of the printing presses. To English diplomats, this made him ‘a silly Jesuited soul’,[fn17] but his leading subjects declined to regard his actions with such lightness. Catholic fanaticism had no place in Prague: the city had produced the fifteenth-century martyr John Hus, burnt to death for questioning Roman orthodoxy. Hus had left behind a tradition of religious tolerance, independence, and diversity: the Hussite majority harmoniously co-existed with Catholics, Calvinists, and even the extreme Church of the Bohemian Brethren.

In May 1618 Ferdinand went too far, ordering the destruction of two Protestant churches in the capital. This prompted a rebellion, led by the Bohemian nobility. Their representatives cornered the two Habsburg regents and their secretary in the council chamber of Hradcany Castle and hurled them from its upper windows. One of the victims, the hefty Jaraslas Martinitz, called out ‘Jesu Maria! Help!’ as he was ejected. The second, Vilem Slavata, clung onto the sill for his life, only loosening his grip when knocked unconscious. Their secretary, Philipus Fabricius, was so terrified by the violence he had witnessed that he put up barely a struggle.

Astonishingly, all three men survived the 80-foot drop, prompting Catholics to celebrate the miraculous intervention of the Blessed Virgin. In fact, salvation had arrived in a more humdrum form: the trio’s billowing cloaks had acted as parachutes, and slowed their fall, before a slurry-pit had cushioned their landing. ‘The Defenestration of Prague’ was a suitably dramatic prelude to the horrors of the ensuing conflict, the Thirty Years’ War.

As Ferdinand arranged avenging armies, the Bohemians sought a new king. After refusals from their first choices, they turned to Frederick to fill the void. He agonised about the decision: his Huguenot and Dutch uncles, his chancellor, as well as his spiritual sense of duty, all told him to consent, but his mother and his father-in-law strongly advised against. The Palsgrave’s family motto was: ‘Rule me, Lord, according to your word.’ Frederick became convinced that God expected him to grasp the opportunity placed before him, for His sake. However, when he eventually agreed to accept the crown, he did so with a sense of deep foreboding. On a dull day in October 1619, waved off by his tearful mother, Frederick rode out with the heavily pregnant Elizabeth by his side, accompanied by young Frederick Henry. It was the last time any of them would see Heidelberg.

*

The omens were initially favourable: the people of Prague noted that the arrival of their new rulers coincided with several days when none of the capital’s civil population died. However, it soon became apparent that Frederick had underestimated the risk he was taking by overestimating the level of support for his cause. Beside his Palatine army of 15,000 men, he had assumed he could also rely on the troops of the Protestant Union. This network of religious allies included several Germanic lands, England, the Dutch United Provinces, Venice, Denmark, and Sweden. But within days of the start of Frederick’s rule, all his calculations were in disarray, for Ferdinand was elected Holy Roman Emperor. This altered everything. The Palsgrave, the Imperial right-hand man, now found himself in armed conflict with his feudal overlord. Many of his German allies found they could not draw their sword against their sovereign master.

Frederick had the opportunity to back down, but two months later he confirmed his acceptance of the crown. Ferdinand, initially unsure of his strength, persisted in urging Frederick to withdraw from Bohemia and return to Heidelberg. If he failed to do this by 1 June 1620, Ferdinand promised, he would attract an Imperial ban. This would place him, and anyone who assisted him, outside the law. Frederick could now be in no doubt: by accepting the throne that wiser men had rejected, and by challenging the orthodoxy of which he was supposed to be the champion, he had raised the possibility of losing everything.

The conduct of Frederick’s allies ushered cataclysm closer. In July, French diplomats persuaded the Protestant Union to remain neutral, while Bohemia faced the consequences of its rebellion alone. Meanwhile, the timing of Frederick’s call for help could not have reached the Dutch United Provinces at a worse time: after decades of fighting for their survival, they were now in the final stages of a truce with Spain, and were gearing up for renewed warfare with the old enemy on their borders. The United Provinces did little more than cheer Frederick on from the sidelines, hoping that his bid for power would succeed, while unable to lend adequate support: some money and 1,500 troops was all they could spare. Similarly, the Swedes and their warrior king, Gustavus Adolphus, were embroiled in a struggle with Poland: they sent Frederick just eight cannon; a pitiful contribution, but more than the Danes and the Venetians mustered between them. In the meantime Bethlem Gabor, Rupert’s supposed protector and Frederick’s sworn ally, chose to pursue his own campaign in Hungary, rather than redirect his forces to help in Bohemia.

The greatest disappointment was James I’s response. He had discouraged his son-in-law from taking the crown of another monarch, and had underlined his disapproval by refusing to send an ambassador to either Frederick or Elizabeth’s coronations. James remained adamant that, as a divinely appointed monarch, he could not raise an army to help a usurper — even if that usurper was his son-in-law. James’s finances were so weak that the task of funding a foreign army was probably beyond him. However, the king’s unhelpfulness was out of kilter with public sentiment: the English held collections for their popular princess and her handsome husband, seeing their cause as fundamentally important in blocking Papist aggression in Europe. These raised £80,000 and produced a small army of 2,250 men. For the Palsgrave, this was nothing like enough.

Emperor Ferdinand, meanwhile, received generous assistance from Catholic allies. Pope Paul V donated 380,000 florins to the Emperor’s cause. Philip III of Spain gave 3 million ducats and sent an army from Flanders under Marquis Spinola. King Sigismund III of Poland, concerned that Frederick was prepared to negotiate with the hated Turks, despatched Cossacks to help suppress the Bohemian revolt.

In the meantime, Saxony, though Protestant, sided with the Emperor. The Elector, John George, was an alcoholic Lutheran who had turned down the Bohemian crown before it was offered to Frederick. He would not allow his Calvinist rival to profit from a gamble that he had declined. Ferdinand’s election as Emperor gave the Saxon an excuse to turn against Frederick: in fighting defiant rebels, he claimed, he was upholding his princely duty to his sovereign lord.

A sizeable force also assembled under the banner of the Catholic League, an alliance of twenty princes sworn to counter the Protestant Union. Its founder was Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria — a Wittelsbach cousin of Frederick’s, who was famed for his penny-pinching greed. He sent an army to assist under Count Tilly, a brilliant Walloon general. Maximilian extracted a secret promise from Ferdinand: if he achieved victory for the Emperor, his reward would be the Palatine electorate.

At the time of Rupert’s birth, Frederick’s enemies comprised a rich array of Imperialists, Catholic Leaguers, and Spaniards. There were 55,000 of them and they were converging on Prague.

*

Kings of Bohemia had a military tradition: one blind predecessor of Frederick’s had fought for France at the battle of Crecy, in 1346. When informed that the day belonged to the English, he ordered his men to lead his horse forward by the bridle, charging into the carnage of defeat. He and his son perished side by side, choosing death with honour over flight or imprisonment. Frederick, the new king, had no experience as a soldier, his military knowledge limited to the regulated tournaments that were a popular diversion at court. Yet now he was commander-in-chief of an army of 35,000 men, who were poorly fed and suffering from low morale. The civilian population was equally dispirited.

The king and queen had forfeited much of the good will that had greeted their arrival in Bohemia. Instead of providing tolerant rule, Frederick had allowed his chief adviser, Abraham Scultetus, to pursue a dogmatic, Calvinist agenda. When Scultetus secretly ordered the felling of an ancient crucifix on Prague’s Charles Bridge, there was outrage. Elizabeth had already alienated many influential subjects because of her apparent frivolity, her revealing décolletage provoking indignation among the ladies, and her lack of punctuality causing consternation among courtiers and churchmen alike. Now she openly supported Scultetus against his critics and was seen to be contemptuous of her subjects’ most dearly held customs and beliefs.

The decisive battle took place against this backcloth of discontent. On 8 November 1620 the two armies faced each other 5 miles to the west of the capital, on the broad summit of White Mountain. Despite his lesser numbers, Frederick’s defensive position was strong: his men were deployed at the top of a ridge, protected by a stream and earthworks. However, the Protestants had failed to dig in as well as they might, complaining that their old spades were useless against the frozen ground.

Assured by his general, Prince Christian of Anhalt, that the enemy would not strike, Frederick returned to Prague for breakfast. Meanwhile, under a blanket of fog, Tilly pushed his army across the stream that separated the two armies and launched a surprise attack. It was not only the Protestants who were taken unawares: when Tilly’s colleague, Carlos Bonaventura Bucquoy, learnt of this risky manoeuvre, he called for an immediate council of war. Here the two generals clashed furiously, their tactical deadlock threatening a paralysis that would play into the Bohemians’ hands.

It was at this point that Father Dominicus, a Carmelite monk from Maximilian of Bavaria’s retinue, stepped forward. He humbly asked permission to speak. Given the floor, Father Dominicus started his address calmly, before being transformed by religious fervour into an impassioned orator. He told the commanders it was God’s undoubted will that they attack the rebel Bohemians: He would ensure victory against an heretical enemy; they need only be the instruments of divine retribution. The Father’s inspired words put fire in the bellies of the Catholic high command. They resumed the action with unity, confidence, and energy.

It was all over in an hour. Four thousand of Frederick’s men were killed or captured, including four of his generals. All his artillery and one hundred of his standards were also taken. The king only arrived at the battlefield in time to see his army utterly broken. He then rushed back to the city that had so briefly been his capital, to find pandemonium in the streets. Recognising his defeat, Frederick sent to Maximilian of Bavaria, requesting twenty-four hours’ grace in which to gather his belongings and quit the city. Maximilian was not feeling generous: he granted his defeated cousin just eight hours to be gone. The royal family and its retinue frantically loaded up their carriages, ready for flight. In the panic, Frederick left behind the Bohemian crown, orb and sceptre.

Prince Rupert was also mislaid. His nurse had placed him on a sofa while she packed and then had either forgotten or deserted him. Christopher Dhona, an intellectual attached to the court from Heidelberg University, was conducting a final sweep of the palace when he was startled to hear the cries of a baby coming from the saloon. He discovered Rupert on the floor, screaming in protest after rolling off the sofa. Dhona scooped up the baby, wrapped him tight, and sprinted to the courtyard. Seeing the last Palatine coach departing, he ran alongside it and tossed the prince through its window. Rupert slipped into the boot where he bounced around among the fugitives’ crammed belongings. Again, the strength of his lungs saved him: the coach’s occupants heard his screams and pulled him to safety while the carriage sped out of Prague’s gates. However, Rupert’s mother was not at hand. Elizabeth was consoling Frederick, and comforting a lady-in-waiting. One of them had lost a kingdom that day, the other a husband.

The fugitives made for Silesia, a neighbouring Bohemian dependency. Elizabeth was in the final trimester of pregnancy and a halt was called at Glatz, so she might rest for a few days. The party then moved on to Breslau, the Silesian capital, where Frederick stayed to organise resistance. He sent his wife, Frederick Henry, and Rupert on to Brandenburg. Frederick was sure the Margrave of Brandenburg would help: he was a fellow Protestant Elector and the husband of Frederick’s sister, Charlotte. However, the margrave proved a reluctant host, fearing Habsburg vengeance if he was seen to assist an Imperial enemy. He allowed the Palatine family to lodge in the castle at Küstrin. It was almost a ruin, half-roofed and crawling with rats. Here, at Christmas, two ladies-in-waiting helped Elizabeth to deliver her fifth child, a son. He was named Maurice after the Dutch stadtholder, Frederick V’s uncle and a rare friend in an increasingly hostile world. All around him, Frederick’s former supporters turned their back on his cause and begged for Habsburg mercy.

The rebel nobles of Prague capitulated a fortnight after the battle of White Mountain. For several months, it seemed that Emperor Ferdinand would forgo vengeance. However, he had not forgotten the rebellion, nor forgiven the rebels. Twenty-seven ringleaders were suddenly rounded up and a scaffold was erected. The condemned were publicly paraded, before torture and execution. Their remains were hacked up and left to decompose in key positions along the Charles Bridge. They stayed on view for several years, reminders of the reward for insurrection.

On 21 January 1621, the Emperor carried out his terrible threat: Frederick was issued with the Imperial ban, for ‘the rupture of the public peace’. There were objections from the Elector’s allies, criticising this ‘so sudden, extraordinary, and most dangerous proceeding’,[fn18] but Frederick was now an outlaw, who could be harmed by anyone with impunity. Young Frederick Henry chose this moment of imminent danger to report on his brothers and sisters to his grandfather in England: ‘Sir, we are come from Sewnden to see the King and Queen and my little brother Rupert, who is now a little sick. But my brother Charles is now, God be thanked, very well, and my sister Elizabeth, and she is a little bigger and stronger than he.’[fn19]

Frederick’s imperative was to withdraw himself and his family to a place where they would no longer be vulnerable to Habsburg vengeance. The United Provinces felt a moral duty to grant sanctuary to a man who they had encouraged to fight a common enemy, but who had failed. Frederick also had a significant blood link with the Dutch — his mother was the daughter of William the Silent. The republic took in its defeated ally, who was a grandson of their most revered warrior prince.

While baby Maurice, freshly weaned, was sent to live with his aunt in Brandenburg, and Charles Louis and young Elizabeth remained with their grandmother in Krossen, Rupert and Frederick Henry accompanied their parents to The Hague. Here they were housed and given a monthly pension of 10,000 guilders. Their residence was the Hof to Wassenaer, a large town house. Frederick immediately started plotting how best to reclaim his lands. In the summer, the Dutch lent him 150,000 guilders to raise an army.

*

Looking back, the risk of accepting the Bohemian crown had seemed reasonable. Frederick’s formidable pedigree seemed to be matched by an extensive network of support: ‘The great alliances which he had contracted, his high parentage; his mighty supportments, both within Germany, and without it; the considerable eminency of his House, his Estate, and the body of confederates, principally depending upon his directions; together with the hopefulness, that other Princes and Peoples had of him: these were the fair eminencies that differed him from other Princes; and these were the procurers of his election to the Crown of Bohemia.’[fn20] However, failure made Frederick a figure of ridicule across Europe.

Opponents of the couple gloated at their pitifully short rule, referring to them as the ‘Winter King and Queen’. Such critics viewed their fall as the inevitable result of unreasonable ambition. There was a seventeenth-century proverb: ‘They which take upon them more than of right belongeth, commiteth a great error, and seldom escape unpunished.’[fn21] Frederick and Elizabeth’s fate seemed to embody this lesson. A 1621 book contains an illustration of Frederick clinging to the wheel of fortune. As it turns, he is spun from his throne into the sea. Friendly Dutch fishermen save him from the waves, hauling him, bedraggled, to safety. The text accompanying the image pulls no punches:

Whoever wishes to understand fortune and misfortune,

Let him observe this play of the Palatine.

Very happy was he in the Empire,

His like was not easy to be found.

He lacked neither people nor lands,

Ruled wisely and with judgement.

A wife of royal lineage,

Who multiplied his high name,

Was bringing happiness with young heirs.

His line would not soon die out.

By rich and poor, by young and old,

He was held in high esteem,

Which then was but just,

For he held the most important Electorate

Of the four lay Electors: