On another evening they were talking of England, and of recent events there, chiefly of the high-handed dismissal of the Parliament, and the gay-hearted Elizabeth laughed at the affair very complacently. "I am an English Princess," she said, "but I hate Parliaments; so did his late Majesty, my brother Charles. But for the Parliament, my fate might have been different. I adored my husband, that is known, but it was the Parliament who made our marriage. My father, the great and wise King James, did not wish me to marry the Elector Palatine,—it was a poor match for the Princess Royal of England,—but the Parliament thought the Elector would make himself the leader of the Calvinistic princes of the Empire. My dear Lady Matilda, he was sixteen years old, and I was sixteen, and we two children, what could we do with those turbulent Bohemian Protestants? You make a stir about your Oliver Cromwell ordering the English Members of Parliament out of their own House, listen then: the Protestant nobles of Bohemia threw the Emperor’s ministers and members out of their Council Chamber windows. It was only their way of telling the Emperor they would not have the Catholic King he supported. The English adore the Law, and will commit any crime in it and for it; the Bohemians are a law unto themselves. They then asked us to come to Prague, and we went and were crowned there, and in the midst of this glory, the Prince Rupert was born. He was a wonder for his great size, even then. And he had for his sponsors the King of Hungary and the Duke of Wurtenburg and the States of Bohemia, Silesia, and Upper and Lower Lusatia. Yet in less than a year we were all fugitives, and the poor child was thrown aside by his frightened nurse, and found lying alone on the floor by Baron d’Hona, who threw him into the last coach leaving the palace; and he fell into the boot and nearly perished. So you see how unfortunate he was from the beginning." "But, madame, you have a large family; some of them will surely retrieve your misfortunes." "I do not trouble myself about the day I have never seen. There is a great astrologer in Paris, and he has told me that my daughter Sophia will bear a son, who will become King of England. Sophia gives herself airs on this prediction." Sophia, who was present, laughed heartily. "Indeed, madame," she said, "and when I am Queen Mother I shall abolish courtesies. Imagine, Lady de Wick, that I cannot eat my dinner without making nine separate courtesies, and on Sundays and Wednesdays, when we have two divines to eat with us, there are extra ones. I shall regulate my Court with the least amount of etiquette that will be decent."