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(An Almost) Royal Wedding

EXCEPT FOR EXCURSIONS TO COURT for holidays or special occasions, as when her mother’s brother Christian IV, king of Denmark, arrived in July 1606 for an official state visit, Elizabeth spent the next few years after the Gunpowder Treason at Coombe Abbey. Her guardian Lord Harrington was responsible for her education and was personally involved in her schooling. Although James demanded that his sons master Latin as part of their curriculum and monitored their progress through letters, Elizabeth was spared this ordeal on the grounds that, as a woman (and therefore inferior, in her father’s opinion), it was unnecessary. She did, however, study French and Italian in addition to music and dancing. The French ambassador noted approvingly when she was twelve that Elizabeth “speaks French very well, much better than her brother.”

It is possible, though, that the princess’s education went further than the traditional finishing school’s preparation in pretty manners and the decorative arts. Lord Harrington, cultivated and erudite, with a gentleman’s passion for the natural sciences, took his duties seriously. Elizabeth likely was introduced on at least a cursory level to history, geography, and botany. This would have been entirely in keeping with the general intellectual climate of the period and especially the keen interest in these subjects at the beginning of the seventeenth century.*

Whatever the extent of her studies, the time Elizabeth spent at Coombe Abbey was a happy period in her life. She loved animals, and her guardians indulged her passion for exotic pets. Lord Harrington’s accounts for his young charge cited expenses for monkey-beds and parrot cages. Religion was clearly emphasized in the household—at thirteen, Elizabeth penned some truly awful verses extolling God and spiritual rewards over worldly delights—but her guardians’ piety in no way inhibited the princess’s high spirits or the pleasure she took in music, dancing, beautiful clothes, jewels, and other court entertainments. She was healthy and athletic and enjoyed riding and hunting, and like any girl her age, she gobbled up sweets whenever she had the chance. Lord and Lady Harrington, mindful that they were responsible for their ward’s deportment as well as her physical needs, made a point of stressing charity and liberality, so although showered with gifts, Elizabeth never displayed symptoms of selfishness. On the contrary, she was known throughout her life for her generosity.

The result of all this tender, enlightened child rearing was that by adolescence, Elizabeth had developed into a lively, poised, and exceedingly charming young woman. When she was eleven, the French ambassador noted that “she is handsome, graceful, [and] well nourished… I assure you it will not be her fault if she is not dauphiness,” while a Scottish diplomat described her as “a princess of lovely beauty… her manners are most gentle, and she shows no common skill in those liberal exercises of mind and body which become a royal maiden.”

As was customary, by the age of thirteen, Elizabeth was spending more and more of her time with the rest of her family at court. This was no hardship for her. She was allowed to stay up late for banquets and masques and to help hand out the prizes at the royal tournaments. But best of all, the princess had the opportunity to see more of her older brother, Henry, whom she adored and idolized.

She was not alone in these sentiments. Henry was growing into a prince of great promise. He was glowingly described by his treasurer as “of a comely, tall, middle Stature, about five Feet and eight Inches high, of a strong, straight, well-made Body (as if Nature in him had showed all her Cunning) with somewhat broad Shoulders, and a small Waist, of an amiable, majestic Countenance, his Hair of an auburn Color, long faced, and broad Forehead, a piercing grave Eye, a most gracious Smile… courteous, loving, and affable.” He was strong-willed, healthy, and extremely athletic, and demonstrated an early interest in leadership and government. “He studies two hours a day, and employs the rest of his time in tossing the pike, or leaping, or shooting with the bow, or throwing the bar, or vaulting, or some other exercise of that kind, and he is never idle,” the French ambassador reported of Henry in 1606, when the prince was twelve. “He shows himself likewise very good natured to his dependents, and supports their interests against any persons whatever; and pushes what he undertakes for them or others, with such zeal as gives success to it.”

Henry’s and Elizabeth’s handsome looks and robust good health stood in stark contrast to their younger brother Charles’s physical condition. Sickly from birth, Charles remained feeble throughout childhood, so much so that his parents had trouble recruiting a guardian willing to take on the nurturing of a boy who so plainly was going to die. Charles’s tutor described him at the age of four as “not able to go, nor scant stand alone, he was so weak in his joints, and especially his ankles, insomuch as many feared they were out of joint.” Charles’s ankles weren’t his only problem; in addition to being unable to walk, he hadn’t learned to talk yet either. His youngest son’s painfully slow development prompted James, ever the authority, to suggest a number of helpful remedies, which, fortunately for Charles, his guardians were able to resist. “The King was desirous that the string under his [Charles’s] tongue should be cut, for he was so long beginning to speak as he thought he would never have spoke. Then he would have him [Charles] put in iron boots, to strengthen his sinews and joints; but my wife protested so much against them both, as she got the victory,” his guardian reported. Charles would eventually learn to walk and talk and, as a teenager, even to ride, but he never matched his older siblings’ easy vitality, their radiant charisma, or their tremendous popularity. Henry and Elizabeth were a golden pair. Charles was the odd child out, in their shadow.

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Elizabeth’s older brother, Henry

If English citizens were proud to have two such exemplary siblings as Henry and Elizabeth in line to inherit the throne, they were rather less enamored of the current occupant of that position. It took James’s subjects only a few years to become deeply discontented with their new sovereign. James bears the brunt of the responsibility for the general disillusionment. After so many years of hoping and waiting for the crown of England, once he got it, he felt he had done enough and behaved like a man on holiday or in the mellow years of his retirement. “As the King is by nature of a mild disposition and has never really been happy in Scotland, he wishes now to enjoy the Papacy, as we say [that is, to live the good life] and so desires to have no bother with other people’s affairs and little with his own,” the Venetian ambassador observed delicately.

James devoted himself, not to his government in London, but to his hunting in the countryside. Rather like a modern-day recreational golfer’s, his spirits rose and fell with the sport. If his hounds brought down a stag and he was able to plunge his hands into its entrails and anoint the foreheads of his hunting companions with the animal’s blood (a gory tradition that repelled more than a few of his compatriots), he was elated. If the prey managed to escape, he swore and muttered and, on occasion, sullenly refused to consider the government decrees awaiting his signature. He spent so much time tracking game that the rural population, forced to supply the royal party, became rather desperate and took the expedient of kidnapping one of his hunting dogs, Jowler, returning the animal the next day with a sign tied around its neck. “Good Mr. Jowler,” the note read. “We pray you speak to the King (for he hears you everyday and so doth he not us) that it will please his Majesty to go back to London, for else the country will be undone; all our provision is spent already and we are unable to entertain him longer.” That James refused to take the hint and stayed an extra two weeks did nothing to improve his reputation.

But even more than his dedication to hunting and his commensurate disinterest in ruling, it was the king’s manners, or, rather, the lack thereof, that really offended the citizenry. James had never gotten over his adolescent fondness for colorful swearwords. His Majesty’s enthusiastic use of expletives and the general coarseness of his language was felt by many to demean the government. This bias in favor of vulgarity unfortunately extended to the royal household and went far beyond mere verbal expression. Drunkenness prevailed at court; Anne’s ladies-in-waiting could regularly be found getting sick in the corridors of Windsor Castle after participating in one of the queen’s famous pageants. Nor did James’s subjects think much of the king’s habit of bestowing big bear hugs and long wet kisses on his attractive male courtiers after he’d had one too many cups of wine. And he did not, it seems, believe in bathing or encourage it for others. “We all saw a great change between the fashion of the court as it is now and of that in the Queen’s [Elizabeth I’s] time,” lamented a lady familiar with both administrations. “For we were all lousy by sitting in the chamber of Sir Thomas Erskine [a high-ranking member of James’s household].”

Small wonder, then, that the population much preferred the eldest son to the father, a situation that inevitably caused friction. As Henry matured, his youthful interest in sports developed into a distinct prowess in the martial arts. “I perceive, my cousin… that, during your stay in England, you discovered my humor; since you have sent me a present of the two things which I most delight in, arms and horses,” Henry wrote merrily to a French relative when he was thirteen. The prince’s warlike bent, and particularly his love of ships and desire to augment the navy, made a refreshing change from James’s unmanly pacifism and bookish temperament, and caused many of the king’s own officials to vie among themselves for his son’s friendship. “Will he bury me alive?” his father fretted when he saw the number of visitors to Henry’s residence. Nor could the king control his eldest son’s behavior as much as he would have liked. When James expressed disappointment with the progress of Henry’s studies and threatened to disinherit him in favor of his younger brother, who was a much better student, if he did not devote more time to his books, Henry merely queried his tutor if Charles was really such a fine scholar. Upon receiving the assurance that this was in fact the case, Henry replied coolly, “Then will I make him Archbishop of Canterbury.”

But between Henry and Elizabeth there was no discord, only delight in each other’s company and a steadfast devotion. Elizabeth’s first letter, written when she was seven years old, was to Henry. “My dear and worthy brother,” she inked, being careful to form her letters between the narrow red lines that her writing master had added for that purpose. “I most kindly salute you, desiring to hear of your health, from whom though I am now removed far away, none shall ever be nearer in affection than Your most loving sister, Elizabeth.” As they grew older, they exchanged gifts and horses, and Henry interrupted Elizabeth’s studies with invitations to ride with him so often that her guardian complained. When her brother hosted a grand feast in January 1610, thirteen-year-old Elizabeth occupied the seat of honor across from him. Afterward, the pair stayed up until three o’clock in the morning to watch a play and then returned with the assembled company to the prince’s rooms at St. James’s Palace, where Henry, knowing his sister’s fondness for sweets, had arranged for a huge table, a third the size of a football field, to be laden with elaborate confections in the form of flowers, windmills, toy soldiers, and even the sun and planets, with sugared rose water spouting from crystal fountains.

But of course, being allowed to stay up late for parties and make more frequent appearances at court indicated that Elizabeth was growing up, and that meant marriage. Naturally, ambitions ran high for so desirable a princess. Recognizing that the competition might be extensive, the king of Sweden got his bid in early. He officially offered his eldest son and heir, Prince Gustavus Adolphus, for Elizabeth’s hand in September 1610, when she had just turned fourteen.

This would have been a very good match for the princess—and for England. At almost sixteen, Gustavus Adolphus was just the right age and rank. Intelligent and energetic, he was also an outstanding soldier and, most important, a Protestant. Unfortunately, he was also Swedish, and Sweden was the sworn enemy of Denmark, of which Elizabeth’s uncle Christian, her mother’s brother, was king. Yielding to his wife’s feelings, James said no.

There followed a series of suitors—minor Dutch princes of various shapes and sizes (Maurice of Nassau was corpulent, middle-aged, and balding; Elizabeth was surely glad to see him go) and the son of the Catholic duke of Savoy—all of whom were rejected by the Crown. The prospect of a double marriage with France, Elizabeth to the dauphin, Henry to the eldest French princess, had been hinted at for years, but the likelihood of James achieving this ambitious agenda was seriously called into question when Henry IV, the once Protestant king of France, was assassinated on May 14, 1610, and his Catholic queen, Marie de’ Medici, assumed the regency.

Elizabeth’s mother, on the other hand, made no secret of her desire for a union between her eldest children and the Spanish royal family, an aspiration that was given a strong boost when the king of Spain’s wife died unexpectedly in 1611. Anne, long denied a say in the government by her husband, had compensated by throwing her energies into the theater, where she patronized artists like Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones, the period’s leading dramatist and foremost set designer, respectively. But on the subject of her children’s marriages, the queen acted with alacrity. She entered into quiet negotiations with the Spanish ambassador to England, intimating that, should the widowed Philip III agree to espouse her daughter, Elizabeth would convert to Catholicism, an inducement that caused quite an uproar when these clandestine conversations inevitably became public. The English ambassador to Spain, appalled that he had not been consulted before this offer was made, complained indignantly to James that members of the Spanish court “have proceeded so far with me, as to tell me they here had already received assurance that, to match with the King of Spain, the princess of England would become a Catholic; which opinion is here so spread, and every man seemeth to speak it so knowingly, that I have been forced, for the king’s honor, to use so plain and direct speech as I should otherwise have thought more fit to be omitted.”

Queen Anne’s indiscretion caused a serious rift between mother and daughter. Elizabeth had no desire to convert to Catholicism, and her beloved Henry supported her in this decision. “The prince hath publicly said that whosoever should counsel his father to marry his sister to a Catholic prince, were a traitor,” the Spanish ambassador to England entrusted with these negotiations wrote home in despair. “He is a great heretic!” he added for emphasis.*

When the possibility of a French marriage also fell through—Marie de’ Medici snubbed England and instead scored a coup by arranging for her son to marry Philip III’s elder daughter, who was supposed to have gone to Henry—James was forced to widen the field of potential suitors. His wife’s fruitless effort to wed Elizabeth to the Spanish king had highlighted the antipathy of the populace to a Catholic union, so her father looked around for a Protestant bridegroom. There being a limited number of candidates of the right age and regional affiliation, it didn’t take long to find him.

HIS NAME WAS FREDERICK Henry, and his official title was Frederick V, count of the Palatinate (although he was also sometimes known, for maximum confusion, as the Elector Palatine, Count Palatine of the Rhine, or sometimes simply the Palatine or the Palsgrave). If his title was impressive, Frederick’s holdings were rather less so. The Palatinate was composed of two separate counties in Germany, the Upper and Lower Palatinates. The Upper Palatinate, near the border with Bohemia, consisted of the provincial towns of Sulzbach and Amberg and the farmland surrounding them. The Lower Palatinate boasted the more affluent (but hardly cosmopolitan) municipalities of Mannheim and Heidelberg and not much else. Frederick was to Elizabeth’s former suitors—the kings of Sweden, France, and Spain, even the son of the duke of Savoy—as the local coffee shop is to Starbucks.

Frederick’s family was distantly related to Elizabeth’s, and James had earlier been in contact with his father concerning a diplomatic initiative known as the Defensive Union. Germany was not a unified kingdom like England but was instead divided into numerous small duchies (like the Palatinate), each presided over by a petty baron (like Frederick). Most of these barons were basically glorified landowners. Each owed allegiance to the Holy Roman emperor, a position held for centuries by one member or another of the Habsburg family. The number of Protestants and Catholics living in Germany being roughly equal (although, as might be expected, the Lutherans vastly outnumbered the Calvinists), these proportions were also reflected in its ruling class, with the result that the subjects of each little fiefdom were either predominantly Catholic or predominantly Protestant, depending on the faith espoused by the local baron.

With so many counts and dukes squeezed so closely together, there was unfortunately always a great deal of trouble about inheritance. This was especially true whenever one of these minor magnates died childless, as those barons living in the immediate vicinity, in the spirit of neighborliness, would thoughtfully move in and try to appropriate the dead man’s property. To prevent this from happening (and, what would be more alarming, to prevent a serious power like Spain from taking advantage of such regional squabbles and invading), the Protestant lords of Germany, calling themselves the Princes of the Union, had decided to band together with the sovereigns of other Protestant countries. The alliance they formed very specifically stated that, should any member of the league be attacked, the other members would automatically come to his aid.

James had originally been approached to join by Frederick’s father and the French king Henry IV (sympathetic to the Protestants, having been one himself before assuming the throne of France), and it had seemed a good idea and relatively risk-free. Henry IV loved soldiering as much as James detested it, so it was more or less understood that France would do most of the fighting, should it come to that, and James could supplement his efforts if necessary. Even after Henry IV was assassinated, in the spring of 1610, and his death was followed closely by that of Frederick’s father in the fall of the same year, James continued to support the initiative, as he believed the mere threat that the Protestant nations would act in concert would be enough to prevent Catholic aggression. “His Majesty is well pleased to enter into a League defensive… as holding it the only means both to preserve the Peace and Tranquility of the Empire and the Countries adjoining thereunto, and to prevent any future Attempt which… some Maligners thereof would set on foot, under one Pretext or other; for that nothing will deter them more, than to see so firm an Association established among so many and so potent Princes and States,” wrote the members of James’s council on September 28, 1610, to the English envoy in charge of these negotiations. James even provided specific language to be used in the treaty: he bound himself to send material aid “if the Princes be assailed beyond the Course of Justice and Contrary to the Constitutions of the Empire.”

When Frederick succeeded to the Palatinate upon his father’s death, his worldly uncle the duke of Bouillon, a highly placed member of the French court, sensed opportunity. Frederick was just the right age (fourteen in 1610) and religion (Calvinist) for the English princess. True, he was not of royal birth, but he had inherited an income sufficient to provide Elizabeth, not with what she was used to, of course, but at least with a large, comfortable château and a well-stocked larder. And as an elector, Frederick was on course to become a force in imperial politics.* The recently signed Defensive Union gave England a stake in German politics; a wedding with one of the principals of that treaty would serve to cement the alliance. It was a long shot but worth the chance. The duke of Bouillon put Frederick forward as a suitor for Elizabeth’s hand.

The timing could not have been more perfect. Both the Spanish and French marriages had fallen through, and the son of the duke of Savoy, although still available, was a Catholic. With Frederick, Elizabeth could stay a Protestant and, even better, would not need a significant dowry. James would never have entertained the possibility of such an inferior match for one of his sons; only princesses were considered suitable for Henry and Charles. But Elizabeth was a female, and females didn’t really count in the king’s opinion, so James had documents drawn up and invited his young cousin to come to England to pursue the engagement.

Anne, who had envisioned her daughter as an important queen, was appalled at the idea of Elizabeth’s marrying someone so far beneath her rank, and she publicly opposed the alliance. But Henry, who had been vocal in his disapproval of the Spanish match, embraced Frederick’s cause enthusiastically. His reasoning had less to do with Elizabeth’s happiness, however, than with his own eagerness for battle. “Prince Henry gave the first encouragement to the Prince Elector to attempt his Sister; desiring more to head an Army in Germany than he durst make Show of,” his treasurer revealed.

In this ambition, Henry would prove far more astute than his father. For where James the scholar had signed the Defensive Union believing that it would secure peace, his son the soldier understood implicitly that, on the contrary, it would inevitably lead to war.

FREDERICK WAS SIXTEEN YEARS old, just Elizabeth’s age—in fact, she was exactly one week older—when he arrived in England on October 16, 1612. The hopeful bridegroom turned out to be slender and undeniably attractive; an English courtier described him as “straight and well-shaped for his growing years… with a Countenance pleasing.” The Venetian ambassador concurred: “He is very handsome, of pleasant speech, with a French accent,” he wrote home in an official state report. Still, Frederick must have been nervous. It had clearly been drummed into him before he left home that this was his big chance and he’d better do everything possible to win over so desirable a wife.

Luckily for Frederick—or the Palatine, as he was called in England—he had some potent weapons in his wooing arsenal. Although his property was in Germany, he had been educated in France by his suave uncle the duke of Bouillon. The duke could not have provided a more thorough or excellent preparation for royal lovemaking. Whatever else the results of Frederick’s studies, his uncle had made sure that he knew how to dress, that his manners were charming, that he spoke French to perfection, and, most important, that he was well versed in the art of romance.

Judging by the recollections of an observer who chronicled the Palatine’s visit to England, Frederick’s first performance at court was nothing short of masterful. He flattered James: “Bending himself with a due Reverence before the King, he told him among other Compliments, that in his Sight and Preference he enjoyed a great part… of the Happiness of his Journey”; conciliated Anne: “She entertained him with a fixed Countenance; and though her Posture might have seemed (as it was judged) to Promise him the Honor of a Kiss for his Welcome, his Humility carried him no higher than her hand”; joked with Henry: “After some few words of compliment… exchanging with him after a more familiar strain certain Passages of Courtesy”; and then knocked it completely out of the park with Elizabeth: “Stooping low to take up the lowest part of her Garment to kiss it, she most gracefully courtseying lower than accustomed, and with her Hand staying him from that humblest Reverence, gave him at his rising a fair Advantage (which he took) of kissing her.”

Nor did the lover’s attentiveness flag in the probationary interval that followed. All that first week and long into his visit, Frederick remained Elizabeth’s devoted servant. “He plies his Mistress so hard, and takes no delight in running at ring nor tennis, nor riding with the Prince… as others of his company do, but only in her conversation,” a member of the court snickered. But Frederick’s passion for his future bride was genuine. She had been portrayed to him as a beautiful princess, sweet-natured and kind, and so she turned out to be. He must have felt a little like he had somehow fallen into a fairy tale.

Elizabeth would have had to be hard-hearted indeed not to respond to such an outpouring of adoration and from such an appealing source. It wasn’t long before she began to reciprocate her handsome swain’s affections. “The Princess, who maybe begins to feel the warmth of the approaching nuptials, adorns her great natural beauty by dress and embellishments,” the Venetian ambassador noticed. Elizabeth’s growing attachment to Frederick did not go unobserved by her mother, who, determined to break the couple up, aimed a dart where she knew it would hurt most. “And ’tis certain (for I had it from good Authority) that Queen Ann was averse to it [the marriage]; and to put the Princess out of conceit of it, would usually call her Daughter ‘Goodwife Palsgrave,’” a historian of the period reported. Although Elizabeth bravely shot back that “she would rather be the Palsgrave’s Wife, than the greatest Papist Queen in Christendom,” it is clear that the barb hit home.

Her mother’s criticisms aside, these first two weeks of courtship were everything a romance should be. There were many banquets and festivities in honor of the young couple, and all the talk at court was of their coming marriage and its preparation. “The Palatine has surpassed expectation, which, on the King’s part, was not great,” the Venetian envoy observed drily.

The only small impediment to the general merrymaking was a slight indisposition of Henry’s, a nagging headache and low-grade fever that he couldn’t quite shake through the month of September and on into October. But it wasn’t enough for real worry, and anyway, Henry was determined not to allow a tiresome fatigue to ruin his sister’s fun or even to change his athletic routine. Tennis being one of his passions, he arranged to play a week after Frederick’s arrival with a member of his future brother-in-law’s suite, who promised to give him a good game. “Above all the rest, one great Match they had at Tennis, on Saturday the 24th of October,” recalled Henry’s treasurer, “where his [Henry’s] undaunted Courage, negligently, carelessly, and willfully (neither considering the former weak State of his Body, Danger, nor Coldness of the Season) as though his Body had been of Brass, did play in his shirt, as if it had been in the Heat of Summer; during which Time, he looked so wonderful ill and pale, that all the Beholders took Notice thereof, muttering to one another what they feared.” But the prince rallied and made light of his weakness to reassure the bystanders. “He (the Match being ended) carried himself so well, as if there were no such Matter, having all this while a reasonable good stomach to meat, yet this Night, at his going to Bed, complaining more than usual of his Laziness and Headache,” his treasurer continued, worried.

The next day, Sunday, Henry rose and heard a sermon, but later that afternoon he was gripped by chills and a high fever and was forced to retreat to his bed. And even though his symptoms abated enough the next morning for him to dress and play cards with his brother Charles for an hour, by evening the headache and fever, now accompanied by a “great thirst,” had returned, and it was clear that the heir to the throne of England was seriously ill.

Doctors crowded around, offering the usual seventeenth-century remedies. They debated bleeding him, forced nasty purgatives on him to make him vomit, and, to relieve the headache, shaved his head and had “Pigeons and Cupping-Glasses applied to lessen and draw away the Humor.” Alas, none of these cures, helpful though they might have been in other circumstances, were of any use to poor Henry, who most likely had contracted typhoid fever. Delirium seized him; convulsions racked his body; his tongue turned black.

In the beginning his family had been allowed to visit him, but by the third of November, a mere ten days after that fateful tennis match, even the king was turned away. On the fifth of November, James was informed that his son was without hope. He begged the lead doctor to chance whatever he could to keep Henry alive, no matter how dangerous the treatment, but the doctor, knowing that nothing could be done and fearing to take the blame, refused, “saying that it should never be said in after Ages, that he had killed the King’s eldest Son.” And so, strong, handsome Henry, budding warrior and statesman, the pride and promise of the realm, died in agony in the cold blackness of the early morning hours of November 6, 1612. He was just eighteen years old.

The kingdom’s grief was very great. “Our Rising Sun is set ere scarce he had shone,” lamented a member of the highest nobility. The mourning spread to the prince’s birthplace. “When the women in Scotland, even unto this day, do lament the death of their dearest children, to comfort them it is ordinarily said, and is passed into a proverb, ‘Did not good Prince Henry die?’” wrote a later historian. James and Anne were devastated. Whatever friction had developed between Henry and his father was buried with the tragedy. “The King is doing all he can to forget his grief, but it is not sufficient,” reported the Venetian ambassador. “For many a time it will come over him suddenly and even in the midst of the most important discussions he will burst out with: ‘Henry is dead, Henry is dead.’”

But no one suffered more than Elizabeth. “The Princess has gone two days without food and cries incessantly,” reported the Venetian. Elizabeth had tried several times to get in to see Henry during the throes of the disease, even masking herself in an attempt to disguise her identity, but had been denied admittance by the doctors. She never had a chance to soothe him or to say good-bye. Worse, she knew that Henry had wanted her with him, had asked for her, and she couldn’t get to him! “The Lady Elizabeth is much afflicted with this loss, and not without good cause,” observed a member of James’s government. “For he did extraordinarily affect her, and the last words he spoke in good sense, they say, were ‘Where is my dear Sister?’”

“The Succession to this Crown,” the Venetian ambassador gravely informed his master, the doge, “now rests on one single child of ten years, the Duke of York [Charles], though it is true the law does not exclude the Princess.”*

POOR FREDERICK FOUND HIMSELF in a very awkward position. It was obviously not the best time to press for a wedding, what with his intended and all of her family, friends, and subjects prostrate with grief. Yet if he did not act soon, he stood in danger of losing Elizabeth altogether. Already there were murmurings at court that the princess should not leave England as it was likely that she would inherit the Crown. True, her younger brother Charles was next in line, but Charles’s prospects were questionable. If Henry, who had been so strong and fit, could be taken so suddenly, what chance did Charles, sick and stunted from birth, have of surviving to adulthood, let alone of succeeding to the throne?

But Frederick had a strong ally in James, who, deprived of his eldest child, kept this endearing future son-in-law near him during the dark days after Henry’s death as something of a salve against the pain. He was such a nice boy, and Elizabeth clearly loved him. After an appropriate period of mourning, plans for the wedding went ahead.

In addition to James’s fondness for the Palatine, there seems to have been more to this alliance than appeared on its face—a sort of concealed agenda that came out slowly in the wake of Henry’s demise. “He [Henry] meant to have conducted her [Elizabeth] on her way into Germany, to the uttermost bounds of the States dominions, which purpose he kept very secret; and it came abroad but since his death,” a courtier informed an English ambassador on November 12. Soon, more details of the plan leaked out. Henry and his forces, it seemed, were to have helped Frederick assume a throne. But which throne? “On Tuesday I took occasion to go to court because I had never seen the Palsgrave, nor the Lady Elizabeth near hand for a long time,” wrote the same nobleman. “I had the full view of them both, but will not tell you all I think but only this, that he owes his Mistress nothing if he were a King’s son, as she is a King’s Daughter. The worst is, methinks he is much too young and small-timbered to undertake such a task,” he warned. Whatever this task was, it involved soldiering and not romance, for certainly Frederick was capable of performing his marital duties.

Christmas came gloomily, with the court still in mourning. To brighten the holiday, gifts were exchanged—Frederick’s to Elizabeth included a necklace, tiara, and drop earrings all glittering with diamonds, plus two magnificent pearls “for bigness, fashion, and beauty, esteemed the rarest that are to be found in Christendom”—and a ceremony was held to celebrate the couple’s official engagement. Anne, still not reconciled to the match, refused to make an appearance. “The Affiancy of the Palsgrave and the Lady Elizabeth was solemnized in the great Banqueting-room on Sunday (the 27th) before dinner, in the presence of the King and a great store of Nobility, but the Queen was absent, being troubled, as they say, with the gout,” the same courtier reported.*

It was this obstinacy of the bride’s mother that brought the clandestine scheme out into the open at last. Piqued by what he perceived to be Anne’s slighting of her future son-in-law, the count of Shomberg, Frederick’s close friend and top administrator who had come over from Germany with him to take charge of his retinue, disclosed the truth. “The Queen is noted to have given no great grace nor favor to this match, and there is no doubt will do less hereafter, for that upon these things Shomberg (that is chief about him) is said to have given out, that his master is a better man than the King of Denmark, and that he is to take place of him in the Empire, at leastwise of a greater King than he, the King of Bohemia.”

The kingship of Bohemia was ostensibly an elected position but in reality had been held by the Holy Roman emperor for centuries. This, then, seems to have been what Henry intended by accompanying Elizabeth back to Germany: he meant to help place Frederick on that throne and raise him to her rank, thereby expanding Protestant influence in the empire and securing England’s interests in the region. Nor did this ambition die with Henry. To take over Bohemia, which bordered the Upper Palatinate—this perhaps was the task the courtier worried that Frederick was too young and small to undertake.

From a closely guarded secret known to only a small group of intimates surrounding Henry, Frederick, and, it appears, James, the pursuit of Bohemia now became so public that even the Spanish ambassador, whose master was allied with the emperor, picked up on it. After noting that whenever the king of England was questioned about the disparity in rank between Elizabeth and Frederick, he would invariably reply “that he doubted not but that his son-in-law should have the title of a King within a few years,” the Spaniard launched an investigation whereby he “procured to learn, whereupon this speech might be grounded, and findeth it to be in respect of the crown of Bohemia, because they pretend it to be elective, and the Palatine hath great intelligence there… and he heareth that France secretly furthereth and helpeth that negotiation.”*

Whether James fully understood the implications of his tacit approval for this project is not clear. It’s quite possible that the king thought it a nice idea in general that Frederick should become sovereign of Bohemia and humored him in the ambition, believing that to have such a goal was an indication of spirit that could do no harm, and that perhaps his son-in-law might after all achieve the realm one day. But it is unlikely that Frederick—or later Elizabeth, as her husband confided in her completely after their marriage—grasped that nuance. There is little doubt that the couple believed they had her father’s full support and the enthusiasm of the Protestant majority for this quest. And behind the king and this majority stood the formidable financial resources and military might of England itself.

And so the princess and the Palatine were married. The wedding, which was preceded by three days of festivities that included a stunning fireworks display, took place, appropriately enough, on Valentine’s Day, 1613. There was great rejoicing. Even Anne, bowing to circumstances beyond her control, relented and took part in the celebrations, oohing and aahing at the brilliance of the fireworks from the balcony with the rest of the royal family and attending the nuptials with good humor. The ceremony was as opulently staged and its participants as richly clothed as would have occurred had the bride been pledged to the most important sovereign in Europe. Elizabeth was resplendent in “a gowne of white satin, richly embroidered… upon her head a crown of refined gold, made Imperial by the pearls and diamonds thereupon placed, which were so thick beset that they stood like shining pinnacles upon her amber-coloured haire.” The princess’s red-gold curls, always a source of admiration, were mentioned on this occasion as being particularly magnificent. Piled atop her head, individual strands had been painstakingly woven with “gold-spangles, pearls, rich stones, and diamonds; and withal, many diamonds of inestimable value, embroidered upon her sleeves, which even dazzled and amazed the eyes of the beholders.” Behind her swept a train supported by a bevy of ladies, some fifteen in all, also wearing white satin “adorned with many rich jewells.”

The archbishop of Canterbury solemnly officiated, the king gave his daughter away, and the choir sang a benediction set to the strains of a melody composed specially for the bride by John Bull. Afterward, the entire company repaired to the Banqueting House to prepare for the wedding feast. After so much sorrow, so much heartbreak, there was no mistaking the popularity of this union. As the newlyweds made their first entrance into society as a married couple, the hundreds of assembled guests rose to their feet as one and a great cry rang out: “God give them joy, God give them joy!”

image

Elizabeth in her wedding dress

(Princess Elizabeth, Later Queen of Bohemia by Robert Peake the Elder: Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Gift of Kate T. Davison, in memory of her husband, Henry Pomeroy Davison, 1951)

A little more than two months later, on April 25, 1613, sixteen-year-old Elizabeth found herself on board a ship, her husband by her side, bound first for the Netherlands and from there to her new home in faraway Germany.