Frederick V, Elector Palatine

I was born at Amberg in 1596 and bred in the strict discipline of the Reformed religion. I succeeded my father as Elector Palatine in 1610, still a boy, under a regency. In 1613 I took Elizabeth Stuart to wife, daughter to James of England and Scotland; with her came music, courage, and a web of kin that reached beyond the Empire. At Heidelberg we raised terraces and fountains—the Hortus Palatinus—signs, I thought, of a Protestant house at peace and in strength.

Then Bohemia’s Estates, having defied their Habsburg king, sought another. Christian of Anhalt and other counsellors pressed that the hour was mine; the Protestant cause would stand about me. I accepted the Bohemian crown in 1619 and was anointed in Prague. The promises that had sounded like trumpets faded to distant drums; Spain, the Emperor, and the Catholic League moved with one accord, and our allies with hesitation.

White Mountain ended my Bohemian kingship in a single November afternoon of 1620. Elizabeth and I quitted Prague in haste; the scoff of “Winter King” clung to me thereafter. The Emperor’s ban followed, Spanish and League troops overran my Rhenish lands, and in 1623 my electoral dignity was transferred to Maximilian of Bavaria. I had staked an Elector’s security on a kingdom’s plea and lost.

In exile at The Hague, under the Dutch stadtholders’ shelter, we kept a travelling court. I hired Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick, petitioned my father-in-law, and pinned hopes at last to Gustavus Adolphus. He fell at Lützen; I died that same month, 1632, at Mainz. My sons—Charles Louis and Rupert—grew in that exile. In 1648, Westphalia restored part of the Palatinate and a new electoral voice to my line.