were inspired by the beauty and grace of the "Queen of Hearts," as
Elizabeth was now called, availed nothing. Her residence was at Rhenen
near Arnheim, where she received many English visitors and endeavoured
to maintain her spirits and fortitude, with straitened means and in
spite of frequent disappointments. The victories of Gustavus Adolphus
secured no permanent advantage, and his death at Lützen was followed by
that of the elector at Mainz on the 29th of November 1632. Subsequent
attempts of the princess to reinstate her son in his dominions were
unsuccessful, and it was not till the peace of Westphalia in 1648 that
he regained a portion of them, the Rhenish Palatinate. Meanwhile,
Elizabeth's position in Holland grew more and more unsatisfactory. The
payment of her English annuity of £12,000 ceased after the outbreak of
the troubles with the parliament; the death of Charles I. in 1649 put an
end to all hopes from that quarter; and the pension allowed her by the
house of Orange ceased in 1650. Her children, in consequence of
disputes, abandoned her, and her eldest son Charles Louis refused her a
home in his restored electorate. Nor did Charles II. at his restoration
show any desire to receive her in England. Parliament voted her £20,000
in 1660 for the payment of her debts, but Elizabeth did not receive the
money, and on the 19th of May 1661 she left the Hague for England, in
spite of the king's attempts to hinder her journey, receiving no
official welcome on her arrival in London and being lodged at Lord
Craven's house in Drury Lane. Charles, however, subsequently granted her
a pension and treated her with kindness. On the 8th of February 1662 she
removed to Leicester House in Leicester Fields, and died shortly
afterwards on the 13th of the same month, being buried in Westminster
Abbey. Her beauty, grace and vivacity exercised a great charm over her
contemporaries, the enthusiasm for her, however, being probably not
merely personal but one inspired also by her misfortunes and by the fact
that these misfortunes were incurred in defence of the Protestant cause;
later, as the ancestress of the Protestant Hanoverian dynasty, she
obtained a conspicuous place in English history. She had thirteen
children--Frederick Henry, drowned at sea in 1629; Charles Louis,
elector palatine, whose daughter married Philip, duke of Orleans, and
became the ancestress of the elder and Roman Catholic branch of the
royal family of England; Elizabeth, abbess and friend of Descartes;
Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice, who died unmarried; Louisa, abbess;
Edward, who married Anne de Gonzaga, "princesse palatine," and had
children; Henrietta Maria, who married Count Sigismund Ragotzki but died
childless; Philip and Charlotte, who died childless; Sophia, who married
Ernest Augustus, elector of Hanover, and was mother of George I. of
England; and two others who died young.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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