The Holy Roman Emperor who was also the deposed king of Bohemia struck back, leading to Frederick and Elizabeth fleeing before the Catholic armies within the year. Mere months later, her wedding to Frederick V, Elector Palatine turned into what is said to have been the most sumptuous feast of the early modern period, and after six years in the Palatinate she was crowned Queen of Bohemia in Prague at twenty-three. At sixteen she was heir apparent to the crowns of England, Scotland, and Ireland, due to the feeble health of her younger brother Charles and the unexpected death of their older brother Henry, Prince of Wales. At the heart of the Gunpowder Plot was a plan to install her as Catholic puppet queen when she was but eight and a half years old. As daughter of King James VI of Scotland (from 1603 also James I of England) and Anna of Denmark, Elizabeth was always at the center stage of politics. When Elizabeth Stuart died in 1662, having returned to England the previous year after forty years of exile, she had been welcomed into the world as the daughter of Scotland, been heir apparent to the three thrones of the Stuart kingdom, became Electress Palatine of the Rhine and Queen of Bohemia, brought on the Thirty Years’ War, been eulogized as the icon of pan-European Protestantism and Elizabeth Rediviva, the true spiritual heir of her godmother Queen Elizabeth I, and had transformed the cultural landscape of the Dutch Republic, her place of asylum.
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