3
Goodwife Palsgrave
IT TOOK MORE THAN A month for Elizabeth to reach Heidelberg, site of her husband’s primary residence. The slowness of her progress was by design; the trip was as much a goodwill initiative as a honeymoon journey. To ensure that his daughter was treated with the respect she merited as a member of the English royal family, James had attached a party of senior government officials to the bride’s entourage. “The commissioners that accompany her have the titles of ambassadors, to give them preceding… in any encounters with Almaigne [German] princes,” explained one of James’s ministers in a letter to a friend.
Consequently, everywhere she went, Elizabeth was feted by the local nobility and treated, not as the spouse of the Count Palatine, but as a royal representative of the king of England. To announce her arrival at the port of Flushing (present-day Vlissingen), her first stop after leaving the English coast, the lord admiral of the navy, who had personal command of the ships that bore the couple across the North Sea to Holland, set off a deafening barrage of 400 cannons “to make Heaven and Earth echo forth from the report,” a flourish that was answered by a suitably impressive volley of 200 guns from the shore. At Flushing there were fireworks; at Rotterdam, feasts and plays; at The Hague, hunting and “costly shows.” Elizabeth was showered with wedding presents: a coronet sparkling with thirty diamonds, a pearl pendant and necklace, a diamond hairpin, tapestries, fine table linens, furniture, dishes—everything a discriminating young housewife could possibly need to get started in life. A contemporary pamphleteer conservatively estimated the value of this haul at £10,000.
Nor was the bride’s cultural education neglected. As she made her way south from Amsterdam to Utrecht and from there into Germany, every municipality, eager to meet so exalted a visitor, made sure to point out areas of interest to help familiarize the English princess with her new surroundings. In the small village of Overwinter, for example, Elizabeth learned of a tower where “the people of the country report that the devil walks, and holds his infernal revels!” In Brobgech she passed “that Castle in which by report a German Bishop was eaten up by the rats.”
Finally, on June 10, 1613, Elizabeth reached the outskirts of Heidelberg. Frederick had gone ahead to ensure that all was in readiness for her arrival and to organize an appropriately magnificent reception. Significantly, he chose to welcome his English wife to her new home with a display of the region’s martial capabilities. Twenty-five cannons, the sum total of the Palatinate’s artillery, were rolled out and fired in her honor. The couple were reunited in the presence of a thousand knights on horseback, “all Gentlemen of the country, very richly attired and bravely furnished with armor, and other warlike habiliments,” supplemented by sixteen companies of foot soldiers drawn from the lower classes. Together this force assumed military formation and paraded Elizabeth home to Frederick’s château in Heidelberg, where his mother, surrounded by all the principal ladies of the neighborhood, was waiting to greet her. There followed three days of jousting, feasting, hunting, spectacles, and comic performances, much to the delight of the local burghers and their families.
And then, on the fourth day, those who remained of Elizabeth’s personal entourage (with the exception of Lord and Lady Harrington, who had accompanied their ward at their own expense, and her maid of honor) said a tearful good-bye and departed for England, and she was left alone with her husband and mother-in-law to begin her new life.
BY ALL ACCOUNTS, the castle of Heidelberg was absolutely charming. It was built of stone and stood high on a hill surrounded by gardens. Frederick did everything he could to please Elizabeth, designing rooms and terraced plantings in the English style for her so she would feel at home. Elizabeth, in turn, did her best to accommodate herself to the customs and expectations of her husband and his family and friends.
But there were inevitable frictions caused by her elevated rank. Before she left for Germany, James had insisted that Elizabeth be recognized, not as the Electress Palatine, but as a princess of England. This meant that, like James’s ambassadors, she would take precedence over every baron in Germany, no matter how wealthy or influential, including her husband. As there was no pressing political need for this, it was likely that the king was simply attempting to justify his decision to marry his daughter to someone of lower rank by pretending that it had no effect on her social standing. To have one’s wife so publicly occupy a position of superiority over oneself was hardly a prescription for a happy marriage. Nonetheless, Frederick, supported in this decision by his principal administrator, the count of Shomberg, who was relying heavily on the alliance with England, felt he had no choice but to adhere to this condition.
Unfortunately, with so many noblemen (not to mention their wives and daughters) squabbling for dominance, the rituals of protocol were jealously guarded in Germany. Who sat at whose table, whose derriere merited the comfort of a prestigious armchair rather than the cushion of a lowly stool, which gentleman or lady should be allowed to pass Elizabeth her cup or serve her a slice of meat but could not do the same for a German of the same rank as the Elector Palatine—these details caused endless difficulties.* It was particularly galling to Frederick’s mother to always have to cede to her daughter-in-law the place of honor at social gatherings, and of course she complained to her son.
Sir Henry Wotton, an English ambassador visiting Heidelberg, reported to James that when he had praised Frederick for yielding to his wife’s rank at a recent dinner party, the elector suddenly broke out and “fell plainly to tell me that though indeed he had done it… yet he could do it no more; that it was against the custom of the whole country; that all the Electors and Princes found it strange… that King’s daughters had been matched before in his race, and with other German princes, but still placed under their husbands in public feasts.” To which the ambassador replied sternly “that my Lady [Elizabeth] was not to be considered only as the daughter of a King, like the daughters of France, but did carry in her person the possibility of succession to three Crowns.”* The issue was eventually resolved by Frederick’s mother staying home whenever she and her daughter-in-law were invited anywhere together or by Elizabeth’s absenting herself from any social function where she would not be granted preferred standing.
It is testament to the genuine affection between Elizabeth and Frederick that they did not turn against each other as a result of this destructive requirement. If it had been anyone but James who had commanded her to keep up a royal appearance, Elizabeth would have rejected the idea and accepted her husband’s rank. The count of Shomberg, in his letters, described her as being unhappy with the controversy she caused and wishing she could be more amenable to local custom. But Elizabeth yearned for her father’s love and approval and sought only to please him. In letter after letter home to him she reiterated her devotion, as in this short note, typical of her style and intensity: “Being desirous by all means I can to keep my self still in your M. [Majesty’s] remembrance, I would not let pass so good an occasion as this bearer returning to England to present my most humble duty and service to your M. by these, beseeching your M. to continue me still in your gracious favor it being the greatest comfort I have to think that your M. doth vouchsafe to love and favor me, which I shall ever strive to deserve, in obeying with all humbleness whatsoever your M. is pleased to command her who shall ever pray to God with all her heart for your happiness and that she may ever be worthy of the title of Your Most humble and obedient daughter and servant, Elizabeth,” she implored. It is clear from her writing that Elizabeth took her father’s authority as the law.
And yet, despite the obstacle of her rank, Elizabeth’s life with Frederick at Heidelberg was a comfortable and quiet one. To the great joy of both England and the Palatinate, on January 2, 1614, less than a year into the marriage, she fulfilled the primary duty of wedlock and delivered a son, whom the couple named Frederick Henry, after both his father and the memory of Elizabeth’s cherished brother. This child was followed closely by another son, Karl Ludwig,* on December 24, 1616. The dynasty had been established, the ties between husband and wife were strong, and the gardens, now filled with English musk roses, flourished. Elizabeth found herself pregnant yet again. The days passed gently in prosperous contentment.
And then, in the spring of 1618, an uprising broke out in Bohemia.
INSURRECTION WAS HARDLY AN uncommon event in Bohemia. It would not be misleading to characterize the history of the region as a state of permanent public disorder punctuated by brief periods of sullen wariness. Yet even by this admittedly cynical status quo, the revolt of 1618 stood out.
The genesis of the upheaval had its roots in the reign of the previous Holy Roman emperor, Rudolf II. Like his predecessors, Rudolf was a scion of the Habsburg dynasty. The Habsburgs were the undisputed moguls of Europe. In addition to truculent Bohemia, one family member or another ruled Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Spanish Netherlands (present-day Flanders and Belgium), and large portions of Italy, including Milan, Naples, and Sicily, not to mention the extremely lucrative holdings of Mexico and South America in the New World. There were in fact so many Habsburgs stretched so broadly with so much property to protect that often the only suitable candidate for marriage to a Habsburg was another Habsburg. While these unions did result in more Habsburgs, sadly, they were not always of the finest quality.
Rudolf II, for example, manifested the sort of eccentric personality not commonly associated with functioning, well-adjusted adults. He was a recluse in whom the traits of the quack, the voyeur, and the paranoid were put to combined use in a quest for quasi-scientific advancement, lechery, and the hoarding of questionable art. For more than thirty years, from 1576 until 1608, he was not only emperor but also king of Hungary, Bohemia, and Austria, which technically made him one of the most powerful rulers on earth. However, as he never left his gloomy castle in Prague, his impressive domain seems to have been of doubtful use to him. He was afraid to sire a legitimate heir for fear that his son would grow up and murder him for his empire, so he never married and instead consorted with local prostitutes and lowborn women. What Rudolf was really interested in was turning iron into gold and accumulating a prodigious art collection devoted mostly to etchings depicting satyrs and large, bare-breasted dominatrices. In the handful of religious paintings created expressly for the emperor by his personal court artist, even the Baby Jesus leered.
Rudolf II
If he had contented himself with squandering the imperial treasury on his erotica and the occult, as well as the junk heap of petrified ostrich eggs, stuffed birds, porcelain knickknacks, and other rare curiosities enthusiastically hawked to him by every flimflam dealer in Europe, it’s possible that Rudolf would have lived out his days in relative peace and prosperity. But Rudolf, who had been raised by Jesuits, was also a devout and intolerant Catholic who outlawed Protestantism in Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia, even though Lutherans, Calvinists, and other Protestant sects made up a two-thirds majority of the population in those kingdoms. To add insult to injury, he then appropriated the churches formerly owned by the Protestants and gave them to the Catholic minority.
The outcry over this policy was sufficient to attract the attention of the other Habsburgs, who were already concerned about Rudolf’s peculiar governing style, and gave them the excuse they needed to get rid of him. A family meeting was hastily called at which it was decided to depose Rudolf in favor of his much more competent younger brother, Matthias. Accordingly, in 1608, Matthias raised an army of some 10,000 men and invaded Bohemia. He no sooner appeared at the border than an additional battalion of 25,000 disgruntled Protestant Bohemians joined him, and together this force marched on Prague and succeeded in capturing Rudolf in his castle. Having no choice, Rudolf ceded the kingdoms of Hungary and Austria to his brother. It took a little more persuasion and another army, but Bohemia and the imperial crown also went to Matthias, in 1610. Rudolf, who in his fury crushed under his heel the pen he had used to sign the abdication decree forced upon him by his brother, died the following year denouncing his subjects. “Prague, unthankful Prague, who hast been so highly elevated by me, now thou spurnest thy benefactor!” he raged. “May the curse and vengeance of God fall on thee and on all Bohemia!”
Matthias, although a Catholic like the rest of the family, understood that he could not govern if the majority of the population was against him, so he was much more tolerant than his brother had been. Under his rule, the religious liberties that had been taken away during Rudolf’s reign were restored in a decree known as the Letter of Majesty. By this charter, the Protestants were again allowed to hold official administrative positions and to practice their beliefs openly. Their churches were returned to them and they were even granted the right to erect new ones.
But Matthias was already fifty-three years old and childless when he took over the empire. As he neared his sixtieth birthday, it became clear that, to facilitate an orderly transition after his death, he would have to name a successor while he was still alive. In 1616, after some wrangling, Matthias nominated his cousin Ferdinand of Styria as king of Bohemia and the future Holy Roman emperor.* The Bohemians, overwhelmingly Protestant, were appalled. Ferdinand, raised by Jesuits, was yet another intolerant, fervent Catholic—in some ways, even worse than Rudolf. Ferdinand had not only outlawed Protestantism in Styria, he’d expelled anyone who insisted on practicing the religion, and taken the expedient of importing Catholics from the surrounding duchies to fill their place. He used dogs to hunt down those Protestants who violated his order, chasing his victims into Catholic churches, where they were then forced to convert.
But Matthias insisted, and a diet was held in Prague in June 1617 to proclaim Ferdinand king of Bohemia, as a first step toward his eventually succeeding to the empire. Many of the local Protestant noblemen had been advised in advance of this assembly that if they opposed the emperor’s candidate, “it would be well for them to have each two heads.” Somewhat cowed by this threat, the delegates decided that they would accept Matthias’s choice but only if Ferdinand formally agreed to abide by the religious freedoms promised in the Letter of Majesty. Ferdinand, who considered all Protestants heretics and therefore not people with whom it was necessary to be absolutely truthful, had no trouble agreeing to this condition. Still wary but believing they had secured their liberty of conscience, the Protestant delegates dropped their opposition to Ferdinand, and he was crowned king of Bohemia in grand ceremony at the castle of Prague on June 19, 1617.
Of course, no sooner had Ferdinand secured his throne than he reneged on his promise. Ominously, when both he and Matthias departed Prague for Vienna soon after the coronation, three Catholic ministers were left in power as regents. In November, new orders came through appointing judges to investigate whether the charters of the Protestant churches were in order. Within a month, two newly constructed houses of worship had been identified as being in violation of imperial law and the buildings were confiscated. One was given to Catholic parishioners; the other was demolished.
Infuriated, the Protestants sent a list of their grievances to Matthias, and when the emperor refused to concede to their demands, called for a second diet, to be held in Prague in May 1618. Emboldened by their experience with Rudolf, the delegates arrived in a feisty mood. Many of them were armed. The most perspicacious of the three Catholic ministers left in charge by Ferdinand took one look and fled the city. The other two, whose names were Slawata and Martinetz, as well as their secretary, remained to try to instill order. Sometime between nine and ten o’clock in the morning of May 23, a mob of Protestant delegates swarmed into the castle to confront the imperial regents and determine the fate of the kingdom. After a short conference, it was resolved that Slawata and Martinetz had conspired with Ferdinand and Matthias to subvert the Letter of Majesty.
There remained then only the problem of how to deal with the culprits. The assembly decided to abide by a long-standing tradition known as defenestration or, in more accessible language, “Let us follow the ancient custom of Bohemia and hurl them from the window,” one of the delegates suggested. This solution was warmly embraced, and immediately out went Martinetz. “Noble lords, another awaits your vengeance,” came the next call. “Jesus! Mary!” cried the hapless Slawata. “Let us see whether his Mary will help him,” the delegates jeered, then dragged the struggling Slawata to the nearest casement and also threw him out the window, followed by his secretary, for good measure.
It was a frightening eighty-foot drop to the ditch below, but luckily for the three victims, the castle of Prague was not very hygienic. In fact, the whole place was surrounded by a mountainous sewage dump. Cushioned by this dung heap, all three men survived the fall and scrambled to safety. “Behold, his Mary has helped him!” one of the perpetrators of the act, leaning out the window from above, exclaimed in astonishment.
Having signaled their dissatisfaction with their new king’s policies by this quaint but nonetheless effective method, the Protestant delegates installed an interim government of their own choosing and prepared for war.
The defenestration of Prague
FERDINAND WAS IN HUNGARY making the usual empty promises about religious freedom to the Protestant population in order to secure the throne when he got the news that his Bohemian subjects had revolted. Although Matthias counseled concessions to restore peace, Ferdinand insisted instead on fielding an army to bring his unruly kingdom to heel. The problem was, he was a little slow about it, and the Bohemians beat him to it. With help from their Protestant neighbors Silesia and Moravia, they managed to pull together a respectable battalion of some 15,000 men. Ferdinand, by contrast, was able to marshal only about 12,000 soldiers, as the Protestant populations of Austria and Hungary, who were in sympathy with the Bohemians, refused to contribute to the effort.
On November 9, 1618, these two forces met at the tiny village of Lomnice, in southeast Bohemia, about seventeen miles outside the regional city of Brno. There, in a battle notable for the lack of artillery on either side, the Bohemians thoroughly trounced their opponents. They then followed up on this remarkable achievement by invading Austria with the intent of marching on Vienna, a Catholic city, to try to force Matthias, who as emperor had the authority to overrule Ferdinand, to restore the religious liberties promised under the Letter of Majesty.
This valiant attempt was ultimately suppressed, not by Ferdinand or Matthias, but by the brutality of winter. The Bohemians lost eight thousand men to terrible privations and illness and were forced to retreat. But the political victory was theirs. The initiative sparked a crisis that threatened the empire to its core. The regional Protestant majorities sensed that their moment had come, that the time was finally right to rise up and shake off the tyranny of tradition as represented by the Catholic Habsburgs. Suddenly, Ferdinand faced revolts in Austria and Hungary as well as Silesia and Moravia. He found himself lectured on freedom of religion in his own halls by the very subjects he had duped by false promises into crowning him king. The threat was so great, he was forced to summon a contingent of imperial archers as protection against a personal assault.
And then, on March 20, 1619, just when it seemed the situation could not become more complicated or critical, a broken and ill Matthias breathed his last, leaving vacant the all-important position of Holy Roman emperor.
THE EFFECT OF THESE events on Frederick and Elizabeth, sitting in their charming château in Heidelberg (now the parents of a third child, a daughter, Princess Elizabeth, born November 27, 1618), is well documented. Their warm interest in the affairs of Bohemia was palpable; this was the opportunity they had been waiting for, what their marriage had been arranged to accomplish! Frederick immediately offered aid and encouragement to the Bohemians and sent a private messenger to Prague to evaluate the situation firsthand. He tried to secure money and supplies from Savoy and England on behalf of the kingdom, but disappointingly, James disregarded his entreaties, preferring a negotiated settlement or at least to delay until the question of who would succeed Matthias was settled. Elizabeth and Frederick consoled themselves with the thought that they would not have long to wait. In accordance with imperial tradition and law, a meeting of the seven electors (of whom Frederick was one) responsible for choosing the next Holy Roman emperor would begin in Frankfurt on July 20.
Frederick did not attend the electoral diet personally, but sent proxies with instructions on how to cast the vote for the Palatinate. Instead, Frederick went to stay in the town of Amberg, in his own territory near the border with Bohemia, so he could get news from his agent in Prague as quickly as possible. The Protestant majority in Bohemia had called an emergency session with the intent to depose Ferdinand and substitute a new sovereign in his place. It was critical that this be done quickly, as the king of Bohemia was also one of the seven electors responsible for choosing the new emperor. Of the remaining six, three were confirmed Catholics and three were Protestants.* It was possible, then, that whoever legitimately ruled Bohemia at the time of the election would cast the deciding vote.
Ferdinand, as Matthias’s acknowledged successor, made a point of arriving early in Frankfurt to ease the process of his own election. The Bohemians sent a delegation to try to prevent him from casting a vote, arguing that he had violated his vows and should therefore not be considered as representing the kingdom in the election, but Ferdinand managed to have them excluded from the deliberations. These turned out to be extensive, however, and the diet dragged on into late August as the electors squabbled among themselves about whether it would be better to resolve the question of who ruled Bohemia before they chose the emperor, or after. Any delay worked in the Protestants’ favor, and Frederick, receiving updates on the ongoing negotiations from his agents in both Frankfurt and Prague, felt himself on the verge of triumph. “I have heard nothing from Bohemia this week, but it seems likely that, instead of gaining a crown at Frankfurt, Ferdinand may chance to lose two,” he observed to Elizabeth from his perch in Amberg on August 13, 1619. “God grant him that grace! What a happy prince is he, to be hated by everybody.”
But Frederick had not reckoned with the persuasive pull of the status quo. Toward the end of August, Ferdinand, tired of waiting, made the usual sham concessions, and the other Protestant electors discovered that they did not, after all, wish to take on the all-powerful Habsburgs at this time and perhaps risk armed intervention from Spain. On August 28, ballots were cast, and all but the envoys for the Palatinate voted for Ferdinand (including, of course, Ferdinand, who as king of Bohemia was allowed to vote for himself). In the second round, fearing reprisals against their master if he should remain the one holdout, even Frederick’s agents ignored their orders and cast their ballot in favor of the obvious victor.
And then came word that two days earlier, on August 26, 1619, the Bohemian aristocracy, by an overwhelming ballot of 110 to 3, supplemented by a unanimous vote by the middle-class burghers, had deposed Ferdinand of Styria and elected Frederick V, Elector Palatine, as king of Bohemia in his place.
ALTHOUGH THIS FLATTERING EXPRESSION of trust was almost certainly the outcome he’d hoped for, Frederick did not rush to accept the throne offered to him. Faced suddenly with the reality of so important and dangerous a commitment—for the Elector Palatine was well aware that Ferdinand would contest the legality of this referendum and would defend his right to the sovereignty of Bohemia by arms, if necessary—Frederick, who had only just turned twenty-three, tried to act in a conscientious and deliberate manner. He sought the counsel of the other Protestant barons. He asked for specific commitments from allies and called a meeting of the Defensive Union for September. And, most important, as English support was deemed essential to the undertaking, he immediately apprised his father-in-law of the situation and asked James for his opinion as to whether the offer should be accepted.
Actually, the first notification came from Elizabeth, who had no doubt at all what decision her husband should make, and what they had been led to believe England would do for them. If her brother Henry were still alive, she knew he would have been at her front gate at the head of an army, ready to escort her and Frederick to Bohemia before she had time to order a suitable coronation gown.* She understood that James was not Henry, that he was older and more cautious, but she was sure that ultimately he would not fail them because he was her father and he loved her and he had already demonstrated that he wanted this. Of these facts she was certain, just as she was certain that it was James who had set them on this path in the first place, who had married her to this man, so inferior to her in station, in the expectation that Frederick would rise to her level by achieving the very throne he had now been offered. This had been the plan all along; it was merely a matter of having the courage to see it through. She was determined that she and Frederick do their parts.
Elizabeth had been absent from England for six years, but she had prepared for this day by keeping herself well informed of the nuances of her father’s court. Consequently, she sent her letter not directly to James—Frederick would do that—but by special messenger to George Villiers, the seductively handsome duke of Buckingham who was the king’s reigning favorite and the man most likely to have His Majesty’s ear and sympathy.† “This worthy bearer will inform you of a business that concerns his master [Frederick] very much; the Bohemians being desirous to choose him for their King, which he will not resolve of till he know his Majesty’s opinion in it,” she wrote from Heidelberg on September 1. “The King hath now a good occasion to manifest to the world the love he hath ever professed to the Prince here,” she reminded Buckingham. “I earnestly entreat you to use your best means in persuading his Majesty to show himself now, in his helping of the Prince here, a true loving father to us both.”
Sentiment in England overwhelmingly favored seizing this opportunity to extend Protestant influence abroad. “It is much debated here… whether it be fit the Prince Palatine should accept the crown or not; and I find it by most concluded that, since the revolutions of the world will in all likelihood… forcibly carry us out of this peaceable time, it is better to begin the change with advantage,” reported one of James’s ministers to a compatriot at The Hague. “If the Bohemians be suffered to be oppressed, the consequence of their loss will fall upon their neighbors, whose defense [a reference to England’s obligations under the treaty James had signed with the German Protestants] is like to cost as much blood and with much less fruit than this acquisition.”
“God forbid he [Frederick] should refuse it, being the apparent way His Providence hath opened to the ruin of the Papacy,” exhorted another member of the English nobility to the same ambassador. “I hope therefore that his Majesty will assist in this great work… For my part most willingly I here offer both life and fortunes to serve his Majesty in this or any way I may be of use.”
Frederick, meanwhile, was in Rothenburg, about 150 miles east of Heidelberg, addressing the Princes of the Union, his fellow Protestant members of the German defensive league. He knew that he could not even think of accepting the Bohemians’ offer without the full support of this group. Ferdinand was vindictive enough to retaliate against the Elector Palatine for his presumption by attempting to annex his ancestral properties. Frederick needed to ensure that his Protestant neighbors would defend both the Upper and Lower Palatinates against any imperial incursions while he was away in Prague. As Frederick’s request was clearly covered by the terms of the Defensive Union, the signers all agreed to abide by their obligations and protect his territory in his absence. They naturally expected England, also a participant in this agreement, to honor the terms as well.
Ironically, among the many and varied parties involved in these events, including the members of his own Privy Council, James alone believed he had not encouraged his daughter and son-in-law’s ambitions or committed himself to defending their property in any way. Of course, he had said he expected that Frederick would one day be king of Bohemia, and he had signed the treaty obliging him to send money and troops in specific amounts to Germany in case of a Catholic attack, but that didn’t mean he thought he’d ever have to really do it! He was extremely irritated to be forced by Elizabeth and her husband to act on what he had always considered to be the usual vague promises. James had very high hopes that his one remaining son, Charles, now nearly nineteen years old and of marriageable age, might be wedded to the king of Spain’s daughter, and of course Philip III was unlikely to be cajoled into an alliance with a suitor whose family was actively engaged in undermining Habsburg rule in Bohemia. The very first thing James did was dash off an obsequious note to Spain swearing that he’d had absolutely nothing to do with his son-in-law’s enterprise and offering to mediate. After that, he did his best to stall and went out hunting in the hopes that it would all just go away.
But time had run out. The Bohemians, anxious to settle the matter, sent an urgent embassy to Frederick, threatening to withdraw the offer if he did not give an immediate answer. Around the third week of September, still having heard nothing from James and fearing to lose so great an opportunity, Frederick agreed to become king of Bohemia and sent a messenger to England informing the court of his decision.
The envoy arrived in London in the middle of a council meeting, where the news of Frederick’s acceptance was greeted with great excitement by the ministers of James’s government. The Spanish ambassador was quick to inform Madrid of the general approbation and celebratory atmosphere. “The greater number of the councilors… were inclined to persuade the King that he was under an obligation to help and succor his son-in-law on such an occasion; and they wished for an illumination [fireworks] and other demonstrations of joy, in order that the news of the Palatine’s becoming a King might obtain the more credence, and that they might in this way entangle the King the more,” he wrote worriedly to Philip III on September 27, 1619. But the analysis of the Venetian ambassador, who did not fail to note James’s obvious reluctance to commit himself to the undertaking, was more astute. “The hope of making his daughter a Queen, and of giving his son-in-law two votes in the election of the next Emperor, the obligation under which he acknowledges himself to be from nearness of blood, and as the head of the Princes of the Union, incite him to a generous resolution,” the envoy observed to the doge. “On the other hand, the desire of living without trouble, his disinclination to incur expense for the sake of others, and especially devotion to the friendship of Spain, are enough to keep him amused,” the Venetian predicted.
But the newly elected king and queen of Bohemia, unaware of the character of the man in whom they and all of Protestant Germany had placed their trust, and perhaps not giving proper consideration to the obstacles that might be involved in governing a realm that resolved its differences by throwing the opposition out the window, forged ahead. On the very day that the diplomats from Spain and Venice informed their governments of developments in England, Frederick, along with a heavily pregnant Elizabeth, left their two youngest children, Karl Ludwig and Elizabeth, in Heidelberg with his mother (who had counseled strongly against the move), packed up their eldest son, Frederick Henry, and 135 cartloads of luggage, and set off for Prague.