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ITER OF PRINCE RUPERT
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
HEIDELBERG : ITS PRINCES AND
ITS PALACES
ENGLISH CHILDREN OF THE
OLDEN TIME
THE WINDING ROAD
THE BRIDAL OF ANSTACE
K'?Z& /
: : a sister of : :
prince rupert
ELIZABETH PRINCESS PALATINE
AND ABBESS OF HERFORD & &
BY EWZABETH GODFREY «
WITH A PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT
AND 16 OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
REPRODUCED FROM PORTRAITS, ETC.
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMIX
WM. KRKNDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, l'LYMOUTH
TO
THE REV. WILLIAM MACINTOSH, M.A., PH.D.
IN REMEMBRANCE OF
HEIDELBERG
PREFACE
SINCE the publication of the only memoir of
Elizabeth, Princess Palatine, in English, so
much new material has come to light as to
justify a new study of one of the least known
of the Queen of Bohemia's children, the eldest sister
of Prince Rupert. Grateful thanks are therefore due
to those who generously permitted the use of copy-
right letters : to Madame la Comtesse Foucher de
Careil for the invaluable collection of those of the
Princess to the philosopher Descartes, discovered and
published by her late husband under the title Des-
cartes, la Princesse Elisabeth, et la Reine Christine.
Also to Herr Professor Doctor Jakob Wille, Principal
Librarian of the Royal University Library at Heidel-
berg, who not only allowed me to make use of the
immense collection of family letters edited by Herr
Professor Karl Haucke in the Heidelberger Jahrbucher,
but also to see them in proof, lest my work should be
delayed. They throw much new light on the char-
acter of Elizabeth, and on her relations with her family.
Unhappily those to her mother are not among them,
but belong to the papers bequeathed by the Queen
A 2 vii
viii PREFACE
of Bohemia to her lifelong friend, Lord Craven, and
are still in the possession of his descendant at Combe
Abbey ; these would have been invaluable as showing
the feeling between mother and daughter, but were
not available.
I also tender my thanks to His Royal Highness
Prince Henry of Prussia for the photograph of the
portrait of Princess Louise, by Honthorst, in his
collection at Burg Rheinstein, which he kindly allows
to appear. Also to the Director of the Mauritzhuis
at the Hague for allowing me to have a photograph
taken of the Honthorst portrait of Frederic William,
Elector of Brandenburg, and his wife. Especial thanks
are due to Herr Rector Normann of Herford, both for
getting photographs taken of the interesting old prints
in the museum in his charge and for directing me to
authorities on the history of the old abbey. The
Librarian of the Bodleian Library kindly permits the
reproduction of a portrait of the Princess Elizabeth
which is of special interest, since, attributed to the
school of Honthorst, it is not improbably by the second
sister, Louise Hollandine, who was a pupil of the
fashionable portrait painter and said to have had
great skill in catching likenesses.
I must, before closing, express my sense of the
kindness of M. Dr. van Wijk, Keeper of the Manu-
scripts at the Royal Library at the Hague, who was
ever ready to give himself trouble in finding the
PREFACE ix
whereabouts of desired illustrations or sources of in-
formation. I am also much indebted to the courtesy
of the Doctor in charge of the asylum at Endegeest
for permitting me, as a special favour, to see the home
of Descartes, though it is as a rule strictly closed to
visitors. Without this I must have borrowed a second-
hand description from other writers.
In conclusion I should like to quote the words of a
literary friend, for whose suggestions and kind help
in proof-reading I am most grateful. She writes :
" Elizabeth is a very human, very ' modern ' woman ;
one feels one has met her in these crowded days — un-
like her own in many ways, and yet so like in the clash
of creeds, the nostrums, and the general unrest."
ELIZABETH GODFREY.
Setley, Brockenhurst.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE ENVIRONMENT OF ELIZABETH
The family of the King of Bohemia — Princess Elizabeth's
letters — Intellectual atmosphere in Holland — Elizabeth's
connection with great movements — Thirty Years' War —
Civil War in England — Influence of Philosophy — Of Quiet-
ism — Her position as Abbess of Herford — History of her
House — Position of the Palatinate at her birth .
CHAPTER II
EARLY CHILDHOOD
Birth of Elizabeth — Prosperity — Offer of Bohemian Crown —
Departure of her parents — Elizabeth and Charles with their
grandmother — A new little brother — Henry's letters — 111
news from Prague — Battle of White Mountain — Removal
of the children to Schondorf — The Palatinate threatened —
Flight to Brandenburg — Birth of Maurice — Parents settle
at the Hague — Elizabeth with her grandmother at
Krossen .......... 20
CHAPTER III
EDUCATION
Disadvantages of Brandenburg — Removal of the children to
Leyden — The Prinsenhof — Desirability of separate estab-
lishment for the children — Letter of Prince Henry — Arrival
of Charles and Elizabeth — Her primness — The nursery party
— Their games — Elizabeth's lessons — Schoolroom day —
Court etiquette — Religious training — First acquaintance
with Anna Maria van Schurmann ..... 39
xi
xii CONTENTS
CHAPTER IV
YOUTHFUL DAYS
PAGE
Elizabeth's return to the Hague — Death of Prince Henry —
Swedish campaign — Death of the King of Bohemia — Letter
of condolence from Elizabeth to her cousin on similar be-
reavement — The Queen's high courage — Social position —
House on the Lange Vorhout — Marriage of the Stadthalter
with Amelia de Solms — Elizabeth's comradeship with Rupert
— Negotiations for her marriage — Her refusal to become a
Catholic — Not anxious to marry — Match suggested with
Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar — Admiration of Waldemar of
Denmark — Her appearance and portraits — Description of
the sisters — Liveliness of the young people — Masques and
tournaments — Practical jokes — Visits of Frederic William
of Brandenburg — His attachment to Louise — Life at
Rhenen .......... 60
CHAPTER V
AN INTELLECTUAL FRIENDSHIP
Introduction of M. Descartes at the Lange Vorhout — Literary
society surrounding the Queen of Bohemia — Sketch of Des-
cartes — His appreciation of the Princess — Attitude of the
Queen — Letter from Elizabeth — Visits to Endegeest —
Rupert's aid in study of chemistry — Correspondence with
Descartes . . . . . . . . .85
CHAPTER VI
LITERARY LADIES
Cultivation of women in the seventeenth century — Learned
women under the Renaissance — Literary guilds in Holland
— Women members — Anna and Tesselschade Visscher —
Links with the Hague — Anna Maria van Schurmann — Her
treatise, The Learned Maid — Her letters to English corre-
spondents — Comparison with Princess Elizabeth — Constan-
tine Huyghens — His poems dedicated to the Princess Pala-
tine — The Queen's album ....... 104
CONTENTS xiii
CHAPTER VII
THE TEACHINGS OF DESCARTES
PAGE
Position of the learned world in his day — Novelty of his
doctrine — Its appeal to Elizabeth — His fundamental prin-
ciple — His own account of its inception — Objections of
adversaries — Princess Elizabeth's questions — His dedica-
tion of the Principia — Summary of his doctrine — Heinz' s
estimate of it — Attitude of Descartes to religion — Eliza-
beth's advice to her master — Her help in translating from
English .......... 123
CHAPTER VIII
HOME AFFAIRS
Increasing troubles — Money difficulties — Rupert at home —
Affairs in England — Visit of Queen Henrietta Maria, bring-
ing her daughter — Elizabeth not unamiable — Letter to
Sir Thomas Rowe — Visit of M. de Schooten — The younger
sisters — The kindness of Lord Craven — The five brothers —
Rupert and Maurice in England — Attitude of Charles Louis
— Edward's marriage and conversion — Distress of his sister
— Philip's employment — The Queen encourages d'Epinay —
Disapproval of her sons — Duel — d'Epinay slain by Philip —
Indignation of the Queen — His banishment — Elizabeth's
sympathy with him — The brothers intercede for him —
Departure of Elizabeth to Brandenburg . . . .142
CHAPTER IX
THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY
Elizabeth has need of her friend — He leaves Endegeest —
Her letters on her illness and troubles — He urges distrac-
tion of mind — Contrast of his temperament with that of
the Princess — He proposes the consideration of Seneca's
Treatise, De Vitd Beata — The three moral laws deduced —
Elizabeth's estimate of Seneca — Her questions on Egotism
and Altruism — Interruptions at Ryswick — Perplexities of
fate and free-will — She begs for the continuance of his
letters ........... 161
xiv CONTENTS
CHAPTER X
BRANDENBURG
TAGE
Society in Berlin — Elizabeth welcomed by her relatives-
Study of Macchiavelli — She discusses his book with Des-
cartes — The waters of Hornhausen — Illness of Henriette —
Pedantry of the Berliners — Elizabeth decides to remain in
Brandenburg during the Treaty of Westphalia — She has
the smallpox — Peace signed — The restoration of the
Palatinate — Execution of the King of England — Descartes
writes to condole — Comments of Anna van Schurmann —
Disappointed of return to Heidelberg — Sadness of the Queen 183
CHAPTER XI
QUEEN CHRISTINA
Descartes is brought to the notice of the Queen of Sweden
by Chanut — He is invited to Stockholm — Idea of interesting
her on behalf of the Princess Palatine — Sketch of the
young Queen — Descartes writes to Elizabeth about her —
His wish to show her Elizabeth's letters to him — Indiscre-
tion of the Queen Mother of Sweden — He goes to Stockholm
— Fails to interest the two ladies in each other — His death
— Chanut asks again for the letters .... 202
CHAPTER XII
THE ELDER SISTER
Difficulty of marrying the Palatinate princesses — Louise and
Sophie — Proposal from Transylvania for Henriette — The
suitor — Henriette sent to Krossen — Charles Louis makes ob-
jections — His letter to the Queen — Letters from Elizabeth
— Arrangements for the wedding — Elizabeth busy with
trousseau and suite — Difficulties and delays — Wedding day
fixed — Death of Philip — Postponement — Marriage takes
place in May — Henriette' s letters to her brother — Her
happiness — Her illness and death . . . . .223
CHAPTER XIII
HEIDELBERG ONCE MORE
Elizabeth returns to her old home — State of the town and
castle — Sophie and Edward find her altered — State visit to
CONTENTS xv
PAGE
Stuttgardt — Restoration of the University — Learned men
in Heidelberg — The Diet at Ratisbon — Character of the
young Electress Palatine — Her jealousy — She confides in
Elizabeth — Elizabeth's letters to her brother — Rupert
returns — Death of Maurice — Quarrels of the brothers —
The divorce — Elizabeth departs for Cassel . . . .245
CHAPTER XIV
SISTER AND COUSIN
Elizabeth concerns herself for Louise Hollandine — Writes
to her cousin the Abbess of Herford — Suggestion of making
Louise coadjutrix — A visit proposed, but postponed —
Importance of genealogy — Descent not from Queen Eliza-
beth of England — Louise leaves her home — Becomes a
Catholic and takes the veil — Scandalous reports set about —
The King of England and Duke of York visit her — She
is made Abbess of Maubuisson — Her character — Elizabeth
at Cassel — She announces to her brother the death of the
Electress Dowager — Death of Princess Catherine — Letter to
Prince Rupert — Visit to Marie Eleonora, Princess of Simmern 2 69
CHAPTER XV
A HAVEN
Elizabeth is suggested as coadjutrix at Herford — Misunder-
standings with her cousin the Abbess — Difficulty of finding
fees — Appeals to Charles Louis for aid — She is appointed
to succeed Elizabeth Louise — History of the Abbey — Death
of the Abbess — Enthronement of Elizabeth . . .288
CHAPTER XVI
RELIGIOUS LIFE IN A PROTESTANT NUNNERY
Elizabeth's tendency to mysticism — Anna van Schurmann
asks for an asylum for the Labadists — Career of Jean de
Labadie — Evil reports — Elizabeth invokes the protection
of the Elector of Brandenburg — Persecution by the bur-
ghers of Herford — Visit of Prince Charles and his tutor —
Paul Hackenberg's narrative — Departure of the Labadists
— Visits from Quakers — Correspondence with Robert
Barclay — Visit from William Penn — His letters — His de-
scription of the Abbess . . . . . • • 3° 5
xvi CONTENTS
CHAPTER XVII
THE ABBESS LAYS DOWN HER STAFF
PAGE
The brother and sisters draw together — Money difficulties
with the Elector Palatine — Elizabeth's letters to him —
He and Sophie laugh at her religious views and friends —
Negotiations with Charlotte — Scheme for Protestant nun-
nery at Stiff Neuburg — Elizabeth's annual visit postponed
— Sophie goes to Paris — Describes Louise and her sur-
roundings — Elizabeth seriously ill — Constant bulletins to
Charles Louis — Elizabeth's last letter to her brother — To
Louise — Her death — Her will — Her tomb in the Minster —
Her character . . . . . . . . -333
Index 357
ILLUSTRATIONS
Elizabeth, Princess Palatine. From a portrait by Gerard
Honthorst in the National Gallery . . frontispiece
TO FACE PAGE
Heidelberg Castle in the Seventeenth Century. From
an old print by Merian . . ... 20
The Prinsenhof. From an old print in the Archives, Leyden . 40
By permission of M. Dr. J. C. van Overvoorde, Curator of the Archives.
Elizabeth at the Age of Twelve. From a portrait by Kaspar
Barlens . . . . ... 58
By permission of Herr Rector Normann of the Herford Museum.
The King and Queen of Bohemia, Riding in the Buitenhof
WITH the Stadthalter. From a painting by Paulus van
Hillegaert . . . ... 68
By permission of the Director of the Mauritzhuis.
Elizabeth with Hunting Spear. From a painting of the
School of Honthorst . . . . . j6
By permission of the Librarian of the Bodleian, Oxford.
The King's House at Rhenen, from the River. From an old
print . . . . ... 80
By permission of Herr Doctor R. Jesse, Curator of the Archives, Rhenen.
The King's House at Rhenen, from the Street. From an
old print in the Archives at Rhenen . . 84
By permission.
Rene Descartes. From a painting by Bourdon in the Louvre . 90
Endegeest. From a photograph . . . . 96
Prince Rupert. From a painting by Vandyck . . . 100
Anna Maria van Schurmann. From a print in the Herford
Museum . . . . ... 108
By permission of Herr Rector Normann.
Constantine Huyghens with His Children. From a painting
by Adrian Hanneman in the Mauritzhuis, the Hague . .120
By permission.
Frederic William, Elector of Brandenburg, with his
Wife Louise Henriette of Nassau. From a painting by
Honthorst in the Mauritzhuis . . ... 184
By permission.
xvii
xviii ILLUSTRATIONS
TO PACK PACK
Henriette, Princess Palatine. From a painting by Honthorst
at Combe Abbey . . . ... 226
By permission of Messrs. Goupil.
Heidelberg Castle after the Thirty Ykars' War. From
an old print . . . ... 246
Louise Hollandine, Princess Palatine and Abbess of
Maubuisson. From a painting by Gerard Honthorst at Burg
Rheinstein . . . ... 266
By permission of His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Prussia.
Herford with the Stiftberg. From an old print in the
Herford Museum . . . ... 298
By permission of Herr Rector Normann.
Elizabeth, Abbess of Herford. From an old print in the
Herford Museum . . . ... 302
By permission of Herr Rector Normann.
A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
: : A sister of : :
PRINCE RUPERT
CHAPTER I
THE ENVIRONMENT OF ELIZABETH
The family of the King of Bohemia — Princess Elizabeth's letters —
Intellectual atmosphere in Holland — Elizabeth's connection with
great movements — Thirty Years' War — Civil War in England
— Influence of Philosophy — Of Quietism — Her position as Ab-
bess of Herford — History of her House — Position of the Palati-
nate at her birth.
SOMETIMES there meets us in the pages of
history a personality that appeals to us, not
by splendour of achievement, not by political
importance, but in virtue of an intimate and
familiar charm, or by some strange potency of self-
revelation whereby we know him in his tastes and his
idiosyncrasies as we know those we meet in every-
day life, not as we image from afar the occupants of
thrones or the dwellers in the distant arena of state-
craft. To these delightful persons who make history
real and living to us belong the large family of the
King of Bohemia and his wife — King and Queen of
one brief winter — brought up in exile, yet in brilliant
A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
surroundings, in poverty and cheerful optimism, in
inextinguishable yet ever-frustrated hope. Of the
thirteen two are well known to English readers, be-
sides the mother herself, Princess Royal of England,
only daughter of James I and granddaughter of the
beautiful Mary Stuart ; Rupert, the third son, who,
with his brother Maurice, fought for the Royalist
Cause, and became quite an English prince ; and the
youngest princess, Sophie, Duchess of Hanover. She
by the Act of Settlement was made Queen Designate
of Great Britain, a title by which she was proud to
style herself, and though she did not outlive her cousin
Anne, and never sat upon the English throne, was
the mother of the Hanoverian line. In her charming
gossipy Memoirs, in the family correspondence — for
they were all voluminous letter writers — the group
stand revealed in their faults and foibles, in the little
jests and nicknames current among them, in their
courage and charm, in the warm affection which, in
spite of bickerings, they show to one another, and we
realise that, after all, human nature was much the
same in the seventeenth century as in the twentieth.
The third child and eldest daughter, Elizabeth, by
no means the least gifted among them, has hardly
had justice done her. Her very virtues have stood
in her way. Humble, reserved, taking small interest
in social functions or in current chit-chat, she was
wholly lacking both in the self-importance and the
touch of malice which render the Memoirs of her
youngest sister such amusing reading. Elizabeth
wrote no memoirs, wished, indeed, that all her letters
THE ENVIRONMENT OF ELIZABETH 5
might be destroyed, and of autobiographical material
she left no scrap. Her only English biographer,
Madame Blaze de Bury, has eked out her scanty
material with the annals of the House of Orange, but
since this was published many of Elizabeth's own
letters have come to light. Some long reposing in
dusty archives have been unearthed by the diligent
researches of Professor Karl Haucke and published
in his collection of the letters of the children of the
Winter King in the Heidelberger Jahrbilcher. These
comprise many from Elizabeth to her cousin the
Princess of Zweibriicken, her predecessor as Abbess of
Herford, with whom she was on terms of affectionate
intimacy, several to her brother, the Elector Palatine,
about the marriage negotiations on behalf of their sister
Henriette, and some to the Elector of Brandenburg.
Most important of all is the long series of letters to
Descartes, supposed to have been destroyed by her
own wish, copies of which were recovered some years
ago by M. le Comte Foucher de Careil through a
piece of singular good fortune. He had been making
diligent inquiry and search among the old bookshops
of Amsterdam for any remains of the Princess's
correspondence, having devoted much study to the
relation between Descartes and his distinguished pupil,
and had given it up as a hopeless quest, when he one
day received a communication from M. Frederic
Miiller, a dealer in old books, to the effect that having
been entrusted by the Baron de Pallandt with the task
of cataloguing and arranging the contents of his
library at the Chateau of Rosendal, near Arnheim,
6 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
he there found a bundle of MS. letters, numbering
twenty-six, from the Princess Palatine to Descartes,
together with two or three from Queen Christina of
Sweden. These appeared to be copies from the
originals, and the last from Christina to Descartes
was dated some years subsequent to his death, and
was most probably to his friend, Chanut ; but M.
Foucher de Careil was entirely satisfied of the authen-
ticity of those from Elizabeth, both because in style
and matter, in turns of phrase, they closely corre-
sponded with those known to be by her, and because
they so accurately matched those addressed to her by
Descartes and published in the edition of his letters
by Victor Cousin. No hypothesis is put forward to
account for their being there, but it seems not im-
probable that on her death they may have come into
the hands of her brother Rupert, to whom the Queen
of Bohemia had bequeathed the country house at
Rhenen, not many miles down the Rhine, and when the
old house was dismantled before being pulled down,
may have been purchased by the Baron or his pre-
decessors — not impossibly unconsciously in some old
bureau in which they may have been stowed. These
letters are most valuable, throwing much light on
Elizabeth's mental development as well as on some
circumstances of her career.
Another interesting series of letters, belonging to
her later years, and showing the attitude of her mind
on religious questions, addressed to the eminent
Quaker, Robert Barclay of Ury, is to be found in MS.
copies in the British Museum. Besides all these, the
THE ENVIRONMENT OF ELIZABETH 7
Memoirs of Sophie, Duchess of Hanover, and her
voluminous correspondence with her brother and niece
abound in characteristic references to her eldest sister.
In all these Elizabeth stands clearly before us in her
uprightness and simplicity of character, her high
qualities and her foibles, her great mental endowments
and nervous, sensitive temperament. We see her as
the thoughtful student, the devotee of Cartesian
philosophy, the affectionate, anxious elder sister, the
loyal friend, constant in her attachments and generous
to those whom she thought oppressed, differing some-
what from the rest in tastes and temper, and a little
apt to be, or to fancy herself, misunderstood, yet
always preferring the interests of her family to her own.
Not seldom somewhat at odds with her elder brother,
the Elector Palatine, but always on affectionate
terms with Rupert, next her in age, to whom she was
drawn by community of tastes and pursuits, and
fondly cherishing all the younger ones.
She, with all her brothers and sisters, seemed to
inherit something both of the bad-luck and of the
brilliant qualities of the two ill-fated but gifted lines
from which they sprang, and in Elizabeth more
strongly than in the rest came out the solid and
steadfast character that distinguished the other strain,
the House of Orange, derived from the Grandmother,
Louise Juliane of Nassau, widow of the Elector
Frederic IV. Of the thirteen children brought up by
the exiled pair at the Hague, three, two boys and a
little girl, died in early childhood, while the hope of the
House, the Hereditary Prince Frederic Henry, was cut
8 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
off by drowning in dawning manhood, but not
before he had shown high promise both in character
and capacity. Of the nine who grew up, five brothers
and four sisters, nearly all were distinguished in some
way — all more or less good-looking, some remarkably
handsome, lively, witty, high-spirited, and not a few
celebrated for some special talent.
The second son, Charles Louis, who succeeded his
father as Elector Palatine, was an extremely handsome
and accomplished man ; he won for himself the title
of " Restorer of his Country," and not of its material
prosperity alone, but of the University, which was its
chief glory. The exploits of Rupert belong to English
history, but besides his military renown he gained a
distinguished reputation both in science and in art,
and gave a good deal of help to his sister Elizabeth
in her more practical studies. Maurice and Philip,
if they had less opportunity than he for displaying their
capacity, were both courageous and brilliant soldiers,
and very early placed in responsible commands.
Edward, neither so tall nor so handsome as his brothers,
lacked also their energy. Fairly good-looking, well-
bred and agreeable, he passed an indolent and un-
distinguished life, chiefly in Paris.
Of the four sisters both the eldest and the youngest
attained celebrity, Elizabeth as the friend of Descartes,
Sophie as the patroness of Leibnitz. Of these two a
distinguished Frenchman said, in answer to one who
affirmed that women of the German race were destitute
of esprit, that in all France he had met no one of a
more charming wit than the Duchess of Hanover, nor a
THE ENVIRONMENT OF ELIZABETH 9
more deeply learned student of philosophy than her
sister the Princess Palatine Elizabeth, and an English-
man who knew them well at their brother's Court at
Heidelberg gave similar testimony, asserting that
Elizabeth was the most learned lady, Sophie the best
bred woman in Europe. The second sister, Louise
Hollandine, was so accomplished an artist that her
work has been more than once attributed to her master,
Gerard Honthorst, the Dutch portrait painter, while
Henriette, less clever than her sisters, was still more
richly dowered with beauty and grace.
On all, girls as well as boys, was bestowed a first-rate
education, for in those days the training of the youth of
both sexes was on much the same lines. In the seven-
teenth century learned ladies were by no means rare.
Women had shared to the full in the intellectual
revival of the preceding age, and they were quick to
receive the new philosophy which was just unfolding.
If Elizabeth Princess Palatine stands pre-eminent
as one who was described as the most learned woman
in Europe, it was by virtue of her personal gifts rather
than of any exceptional training she enjoyed. In her
day girls of the upper classes were as thoroughly
schooled in Latin, logic, and mathematics as their
brothers, as well as taught to write a fair and legible
hand, to draw, to play stringed instruments, and sing
at sight. Also they were expected to speak and write
fluently in at least two modern languages — the Princess
was equally at home in four. No bad foundation this on
which to build. Some added a knowledge of Greek, of
Hebrew, even of Arabic, and not a few dabbled, at the
io A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
least, in theology and philosophy. It has been observed,
I think, by the late Mr. Hamerton, that women have
an innate leaning to theology, and with this goes a
taste for philosophy, in some of its aspects, and
Malebranche averred that the women of his day
embraced and understood the principles of Cartesianism
as he expounded them, more readily than men.
At the time that the exiled Palatinate family were
living in Holland that country was enjoying its
blossoming season. After the long struggle under
William the Silent, political and religious liberty had
been attained, the land was resting on its laurels, and
the two cultivated and enlightened princes who
succeeded their father as Stadthalters were both en-
thusiastic patrons of learning and of all the arts that
beautify life, while comparative security and toleration
offered a fair field for the promulgation of new ideas.
It was an intellectual atmosphere, and in the literary
guilds and circles which, following the fashion set by
the Humanists in the Rhenish and Danubian Societies,
were springing up all over the Low Countries, women
bore no inconsiderable part. Moreover, a woman —
the learned and celebrated Anna Maria van Schurmann,
called " The Dutch Minerva " — was lecturing and
disputing with learned professors and divines in the
halls of the universities of Utrecht and Ley den.
So it is rather as the fine flower of a flourishing tree
than as a solitary exception that the Princess claims
attention.
Rare she was in the qualities of her mind, uniting a
swift intuitive perception, essentially feminine, with a
THE ENVIRONMENT OF ELIZABETH n
strong masculine grasp of logic, a combination of
qualities which enabled her to understand equally
the metaphysical subtleties of one branch of the new
philosophy and the clear mathematical sequence of the
other. Rare too she was in her whole-hearted devotion
to study and the intense concentration of mind with
which she could follow out an argument closely and
lay an unerring finger on any weak link in the chain of
reasoning. In breadth and sanity she excelled one
rival, Anna Schurmann ; in depth and solidity she
eclipsed another, the young Queen of Sweden, Christina,
whose more flashy attainments might dazzle, but could
not stand comparison with those of the quiet and
modest Princess, whose felt but unasserted superiority
galled the spoilt and flattered young sovereign. It
was this singular union of gifts, this unique balance of
faculty, that won for Elizabeth the admiration and
loyal friendship of the foremost thinker of the age,
Rene Descartes.
Uneventful though her personal career was, she was
linked with every great movement of her times.
Child of the Reformation, her family fortunes — mis-
fortunes rather — had their roots far back in the extreme
development that movement assumed in her father's
country. Her youth and early womanhood were
passed under the blighting shadow of the Thirty
Years' War, while her old age witnessed the aggressive
invasion of Germany by Louis XIV. Through her
brothers she was brought in contact with the Civil
War in England, which had a serious though indirect
effect on the hopes and prosperity of her family.
12 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
Besides these things the mental forces of the age
were brought to bear on her. By her. intimate friend-
ship and correspondence with Descartes she shared
in the dawning of that new conception of the universe
which had already almost routed the Scholastic
Philosophy, and was in a generation or two to revolu-
tionise science. The new forces in religion, which the
late upheaval had let loose, had a deep influence on her
temperament, naturally inclined to piety and bred in
the straitest dogmas of the Dutch Reformers. The
Erastian principle, established by the Diet of Spires,
that every nation should be at liberty to choose its
own form of faith, had been pressed to its logical con-
clusion that every individual might do the like, and the
century following the Reformation brought forth an
abundant crop of schisms. Among these the mystic
doctrines of Quakers, Quietists, and Labadists appealed
to that spiritual hunger of the heart which cold
Calvinism could not satisfy, and though not wholly
adopting their views, she was in her latter days strongly
influenced by them. This seems on a superficial
view a strange development for the disciple of the
clear-thinking, hard-headed Descartes, but the in-
consistency is only apparent, for the inner principle
of his teaching that appealed especially to Elizabeth,
was the looking within rather than without for guidance,
the freeing of the mind from dependence on tradition.
Descartes' starting-point, from the inner consciousness
evolving the conception of God, was at one with the
doctrine of interior illumination on which Jansenists,
Quakers, Labadists — all Quietists in short — built,
THE ENVIRONMENT OF ELIZABETH 13
though leading to such far different conclusions. The
ruling principle laid down by Labadie was that " the
soul must judge of all things by its own inward light
to the exclusion of all outward impressions produced
by mere sense, and of all illusions of the imagination."
This dictum, starting with the Cartesian principle
of founding knowledge on the basis of inward con-
viction, passes into the tenets of Quietism which always
exercised a great fascination over the mind of Elizabeth.
In the autumn of her life the Princess enjoyed a
unique position as Abbess of the Protestantised
Nunnery of Herford and Prelatess of the Empire.
In this one cannot but feel that she had a magnificent
opportunity to her hand and missed it — missed its
potentialities, that is. Gifted woman as she was,
had she but made of her Abbey a home of learning and
philosophy, as she was so well qualified to do, instead
of letting it sink into a mere asylum for narrow-minded
fanatics who tried to persuade her that all secular
study was worthless and vain, what might she not
have accomplished towards stemming the ebb-tide
which, especially in Germany, was to sweep the educa-
tion of women into a backwater for many generations ?
Her own learned tastes and love of books, however,
remained with her to the last ; she entered with
interest into her sister's friendship with Leibnitz and
exchanged some letters with him, and also had a
correspondence with Malebranche, who was endeavour-
ing to bring the Cartesian philosophy more into
harmony with Christianity. She also enriched the
library of her Abbey with many books and MSS.
t 4 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
To comprehend the influences which surrounded
Elizabeth it is needful to take a slight survey of the
history of the race from which she sprang. This I will
do very briefly, having told the story of the Palatinate
more fully in Heidelberg : Its Princes and its Palaces.
At her birth the Rhenish Palatinate was at the zenith
of its prosperity : in the fourteenth century under
Rupert I, and greatly through his friendship with
the Emperor Charles IV, as well as through his own
statesmanlike qualities, it had risen to great importance
both in the Councils of the Empire and as the seat of
one of the earliest universities in Germany, which made
it from that time forth a centre of thought and of
scholarship. This prosperity, imperilled under the
next Rupert, who was also Emperor, was con-
solidated by the good government of Louis IV
and the brilliant conquests of Frederic the Victorious.
In the time of Philip and his successors, his two sons,
Louis V and Frederic II, and his grandson, Otto
Henry, came the golden days of the Renaissance,
filling Heidelberg with learned men and beautiful
buildings. In those days the castle became glorious,
a palace in place of a frowning stronghold, enriched
with the finest works of art in architecture and
sculpture.
The Reformation, under these enlightened princes,
was making its way gradually on the lines of genuine
reform of abuses rather than of sudden schismatic
upheaval ; but with the change of dynasty it was to
take on a new shape, which was soon to shake the
Palatinate to its foundations. On the death of the last
THE ENVIRONMENT OF ELIZABETH 15
of the Wittelsbachs the Simmern line came in, bringing
with them the doctrines of Geneva, supported with all
the enthusiasm of a new crusade. After violent
oscillations between Lutheranism and Calvinism the
pendulum settled down to the teachings of the Heidel-
berg Catechism, under the rule of John Casimir,
Administrator for his infant nephew. Stability having
been secured by the high-handed manner in which
he overrode the will of his brother Louis VI, he
nursed his ward's patrimony most successfully, and
at his death left him heir to a prosperous and un-
encumbered land, and also to his own position as the
leading champion of the Alliance of Protestant Princes.
Shortly before he died he had arranged a marriage
for his nephew with Louise Juliana, of Nassau, a
daughter of William the Silent, by his third marriage
with Charlotte de Montpensier, daughter of the Due
de Bourbon. This Charlotte, whose mother was a
Protestant, had escaped from the convent to which
her father had consigned her, and had taken refuge
at Heidelberg with Frederic the Pious, the first
Elector Palatine of the Simmern line. He warmly
espoused her cause and firmly refused to give her up
to the irate father, and for several years she grew up
with his young sons and daughters, and had been as a
sister to John Casimir. With these young people
the great champion of the Protestant Cause, William
the Silent, was quite a hero of romance, and though
he had lost one wife and divorced another, Charlotte
was proud to become his third. She died after a very
few years of union, leaving two daughters, one of whom
16 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
became the wife of the Huguenot Due de Bouillon,
the other, Juliana, being destined for Frederic IV,
Elector Palatine. William's fourth wife, Louise de
Coligny, was a very kind stepmother, and brought up
the two little girls in all the strict Puritan discipline
and Protestant tradition of their House. Elizabeth,
Queen of England, was godmother to the little Juliana,
and a very pretty little letter is extant in which the
child invokes the protection of the powerful Queen
after the assassination of her father, the Prince of
Orange.
Probably Juliana was no stranger to her young
bridegroom, and the union was a happy one, clouded
only from time to time by Friedrich's lapses into his un-
fortunate failing, a too great appreciation of the Rhine
wine for which his country was so famous. In her
day was added the noble pile known as the Friedrichbau
with its ranks of historic statues. Six children were
born to her, of whom five grew up : Frederic, who
became Elector Palatine and afterwards King of
Bohemia, Philip Louis, a somewhat insignificant
person, and three daughters. The eldest of these
married her cousin the Duke of Zweibriicken, who
was Administrator during her brother's minority,
the second became the wife of George William, Mar-
grave and Elector of Brandenburg, and the youngest,
Catherine, remained unmarried, and was her mother's
constant companion to the day of her death.
In Juliana's granddaughter Elizabeth is very clearly
to be traced the influence of this mingled Dutch and
Huguenot ancestry ; not only in her firm adherence
THE ENVIRONMENT OF ELIZABETH 17
to the Protestant teaching in which she had been bred,
but also in a certain staidness of character which set
her somewhat apart from her more riotous brothers
and sisters. With her mother, Elizabeth Stuart, a
new strain was introduced, and from that line the
daughter, missing the charm which the mother had
derived from her beautiful grandmother, Mary of
Scotland, inherited the long features and dark eyes
of the Stuarts, together with a temperament inclined
to melancholy, in which, as well as in her steadfastness
— not to call it obstinacy — she not a little resembled
her uncle Charles I. Moreover, she seems to have
had more than her share of the persistent ill-luck
which dogged the Stuarts, for she was a proverb in her
family for it. When late in life she attained her desire
in being made Abbess of Herford, her sister Sophie
hopes that Elizabeth's luck may have turned at last.
' This is the first thing," she writes to her brother,
" that she ever succeeded in."
Ever since the change of dynasty from the Wittels-
bach to the Simmern line, the Palatinate had taken a
very pronounced part on the side of the extreme
Reformers, establishing Calvinism as the State Religion,
and embodying it in the Heidelberg Catechism, drawn
up as a standard of doctrine for that party.
Frederic IV, though not such a strong man as his
grandfather nor as his uncle, the Administrator, had
inherited the leading position of the latter in the
Alliance of Protestant Princes, and his son, Frederic V,
on attaining his majority, aspired to put himself at
their head. He was young, untried, though full of
18 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
promise and overflowing with enthusiasm, and his
family connections marked him out for taking a leading
part in European politics. Grandson of William the
Silent, and nephew of Maurice, who was carrying on
and consolidating his father's policy, Frederic had
with him the Calvinistic interest of the Low Countries ;
as nephew by marriage to the Due de Bouillon, at
whose castle he had been educated, he engaged the
sympathies of the French Huguenots, for whose cause
John Casimir had often fought, and his marriage
with the Princess Royal of England would, it was
hoped, unite the Protestants of that country with those
of the Continent ; moreover, from both grandfather
and uncle he inherited the confidence of the reformed
bodies of the Rhineland.
It was little wonder perhaps that he should have
been selected by the representatives of revolted
Bohemia for the dangerous honour of their crown ;
but the critical conjuncture of affairs on the eve of the
Thirty Years' War required an older and a wiser head.
It was yet to be seen how incapable Frederic was,
spite of excellent intentions, of playing a great part
on the world's stage, though his vacillations on receiving
the proposal might have opened men's eyes. Though
urged to acceptance by his Dutch and Huguenot
uncles, who saw in the offer a great opportunity for
Protestantism, he hung back when a swift and resolute
decision might have availed ; then, when he had sent
to consult his father-in-law of England, without waiting
for that touchy monarch's reply, stung by a taunt, he
rushed upon his fate. Swayed alternately by the
THE ENVIRONMENT OF ELIZABETH 19
beseechings of his prudent mother and by the eager
ambitions of his young and ardent wife, he accepted
the crown, but passed the day before he went to
assume it in humiliation and dire forebodings. Stand-
ing as he did at the height of the prosperity and power
of his own little principality, he reached for something
beyond, hardly so much from ambition as from a
misguided sense of duty, and so lost all.
But this was the subsequent development of affairs ;
at the time his eldest daughter made her entry into
this troublesome world all things were at the height
of smiling prosperity and fair promise.
CHAPTER II
EARLY CHILDHOOD
Birth of Elizabeth — Prosperity — Offer of Bohemian Crown — De-
parture of her parents — Elizabeth and Charles with their grand-
mother — A new little brother — Henry's letters — 111 news from
Prague — Battle of White Mountain — Removal of the children
to Schondorf — The Palatinate threatened — Flight to Branden-
burg — Birth of Maurice — Parents settle at the Hague — Eliza-
beth with her grandmother at Krossen.
EIDELBERG CASTLE, in the zenith of
its beauty and magnificence, was the
birthplace of Elizabeth ; the scene was
at its fairest, the time at the most
propitious. The splendid pile shown in the con-
temporary prints by Merian was in all its glory, in the
fresh completeness of its later palaces, while all its
ancient walls and towers were as yet untouched by
war or decay. Though it was not many years since
the grandfather of the little Elizabeth had raised the
stately building on the north side of the quadrangle,
her father had added another noble suite of rooms to
receive his bride, called in her honour the English
Wing. The interior of this was very richly decorated,
with floors of porphyry and gilt pillars, walls hung with
tapestry, ceilings painted in fresco with cornices inlaid
with gems ; it formed a block of ten rooms, described as
20
^*S^*
z
EARLY CHILDHOOD 21
" a complete Gothic Palace." One saloon, probably
the withdrawing-room of the Electress, was all in
white marble with silver decorations and brocaded
hangings in white and silver to correspond, and was
known as the Silver Chamber. This portion is shown
in the old print by Merian which illustrates this chapter,
rising high against the Thick Tower, and adjoining
the Friedrichbau, with which it communicated. In
one of these luxurious chambers, now a hollow ruin,
the little princess first saw the light ; most probably
in one of those looking out on the other side across the
moat, for there lay the Electress's garden which had
been laid out along the old Ordnance Terrace under
her windows to please her on the birth of the
Electoral Prince, by his delighted father. Arranged
in less formal style than the elaborate designs
which the great landscape gardener, Solomon de
Caus, was carrying out all up the wooded hills to the
south and east, it would be filled with those sweet
old-fashioned English flowers the English bride had
learned to love in her childish days at Combe Abbey,
and tended under the direction of her friend Lucia
Harrington. No flowers, however, were in the gardens
to greet the little new-comer, whose arrival in this
cold world, like that of so many of her brothers and
sisters, was in the winter. Likely enough, shrubs and
borders were shrouded in snow and the trees glittering
with hoar-frost diamonds, for winters are hard in
Heidelberg if summers are hot.
The precise date is variously given ;* some German
* Raumer, Historisches Taschenbuch. 3 Folge, I Jahrgang.
22 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
authorities name 5th January, 1619, Madame Blaze
de Bury, following Guhrauer, places it on 27th Decem-
ber, 161 8, which is the date given on Elizabeth's
tombstone in Herford Minster Church. These two
dates would be reconciled by the difference between
old and new style, a source of great confusion at this
period, more especially in what relates to the Palatinate
family, since England was still adhering to the old
style, while the Continent had adopted the new,
and the Queen of Bohemia and her children used
either or both indifferently; but the discrepancy
between these dates and that given by Mrs. Everett
Green in her memoir of the Queen of Bohemia— Lives
of the Princesses of England — is too great to be accounted
for in this way. She states on the authority of Stow's
Chronicle, and also on that of a letter from Lewenstein
to Carleton in the Holland Correspondence, that it
took place on 27th November, 1618, between one and
two in the morning. Possibly the German date may
be that of baptism instead of birth, or Mrs. Green's
November may be a misprint for December.
Be that as it may, the time of Elizabeth's entry
into the world was that of her country's highest
prosperity, just before the fatal step was taken which
was to doom the Palatinate to ruin and the reigning
family to half a century of poverty and exile. Seldom
to all seeming did fairer auspices surround a cradle :
not one of those who welcomed the advent of the baby
princess but would have foretold for her a brilliant
future, a life lapped in luxury, and safe, if ever mortal
life can be considered safe, from all mischance and dis-
EARLY CHILDHOOD 23
aster. Happy too she seemed in her home surround-
ings ; her parents were young, handsome, popular,
highly gifted and cultured, and devotedly attached to
one another, and since her arrival had been preceded
by that of two sturdy boys, she had not encountered
the doubtful welcome accorded to a daughter when
dynastic hopes have been set upon an heir. If the
young father and mother thought more of their boys,
there was much cherishing for the new baby at the
hands of the tender grandmother, the Dowager
Electress Juliana and the maiden aunt, Catherine,
whose especial charge the little niece became in later
days.
No such gorgeous ceremonies are recorded on the
baptism of the little princess as attended that of the
Electoral Prince, described in Stow, or that of the
second brother, Charles Louis,* for whom the King
of Denmark, the uncle of the Electress, and Charles
Prince of Wales, her brother, stood sponsors by
deputy. Princess Catherine was the godmother, and in
all probability held the baby at the font, and the god-
fathers are unrecorded. The christening doubtless
took place in the Castle chapel, which formed the
ground floor of the Friedrichbau, so the infant would
not have to encounter the inclement blasts of a
German January. The Court Chaplain, Doctor
Scultetus, a rigid Calvinist, performed the ceremony,
such as it was, and the mother's name alone was
bestowed upon the baby.
Of her early days we learn nothing. Father,
* Memoires de Loyse Juliane Electrice, Friedrich Spanheim
24 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
mother, and grandmother were all too deeply absorbed
with the affairs of kingdoms to have leisure for those
of the nursery ; for through those first months of her
life the question of the crown of Bohemia was being
debated, while she, unconscious infant, little recked
how the decision was to deflect the course of her whole
future from its fair beginning. The summer was
waning when the fatal choice was made, and on a
gloomy October day the Elector and his wife drove for
the last time out of the grand courtyard, she little
thinking she was never to see her home again. They
took the eldest boy, Frederic Henry, heir, as they
deemed him, to the crown of Bohemia, to show their
new subjects, leaving the two babies in the charge
of the Electress Dowager. Elizabeth was but an
infant, barely ten months old, and Charles was about
two years. One pictures them, held up in the arms
of the aunt or the weeping grandmother, to look at the
fast-vanishing coach, and wave a tiny hand as it
drove under the battlemented gate-tower and over
the drawbridge, and went thundering down the stony
hill to the town.
The little Electoral Prince seems to have retained a
fond remembrance of his baby sister, though she was
too young to remember him, as he often sent her
trifling presents and messages in his letters to his
aunt Catherine. He was a beautiful child, the especial
pride of his father, already at five years old showing a
likeness, which must have gratified his mother, to her
beloved young brother, Henry Prince of Wales, after
whom he was named, and whom he was also, alas ! to
EARLY CHILDHOOD 25
resemble in his death in opening manhood. He had
the same oval face and broad thoughtful brow, the
same full lips, firmly closed, but with much sweetness
in their smile, the same quick intelligence and aptness
to learn, the same gracious ways, winning popularity
with the people, and the same loving heart. This
likeness must have endeared him to his mother,
who all her girlhood had looked up to her elder brother
with fond sisterly admiration as well as affection —
indeed, it was supposed to be not a little her lively
recollection of his enthusiastic devotion to the Pro-
testant Cause that made her spur her husband on to
the enterprise on which they were now embarked.
The die was cast and away they went to take posses-
sion of their barren honours, leaving the brilliant and
happy home of their early married days, never again
to revisit it together. No wonder that the grand-
mother, far-seeing woman as she was, wrung her
hands and mourned as she saw them disappear that
the Palatinate was sacrificed to Bohemia. They
departed cheerfully enough, Elizabeth's eager, hopeful
spirit sustaining the more despondent temper of her
husband, who was oppressed with conscientious
scruples and weighed down with forebodings of coming
disaster. He must have looked back with regretful
tenderness at the gentle mother whose urgent and wise
advice he had set at naught. Did Elizabeth, one
wonders, shed a tear over the baby girl she was not to
see again for so long ? No doubt she looked to have
her as well as the little toddler Charles sent to the new
kingdom at no distant date, when affairs should be
26 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
more settled ; the prospect that she would not see
them again for nearly two years, and then in exile and
sorrow, never crossed her buoyant spirit. For her
little Charles she had an especial tenderness. Many
years later, on sending him to England, she wrote to
her old friend, Sir Thomas Rowe,* " I ever loved him
best, even when he was but a second son " ; it must
surely have cost her a pang to leave him behind.
The grandmother and aunt had left their home at
Kaiserslautern, where they had been settled in the
dower house soon after the marriage of the young
Elector, and took up their abode in the castle in order
to maintain the dignities of the Court while the
government was administered by Frederic's brother-in-
law, the Duke of Zweibriicken. There would, however,
be but little entertaining — nothing beyond what the
formalities of the position demanded. The tastes of
both Juliana and her daughter were for quiet and
seclusion, and they had now but little heart for amuse-
ment ; it must have been a very different life from
that under the gay rule of Elizabeth. They were very
loving and tender guardians to the two babies left in
their care, but their hearts were too full of anxious
forebodings to make them very cheerful playfellows
for the children ; and these two, who passed their
early years with them, were always of a graver and
less playful spirit than their brothers and sisters,
born in misfortune though most of the younger ones
were. Moreover, there was more of Puritan strictness
in Juliana than in her daughter-in-law.
* Green's Lives of the Princesses of England.
EARLY CHILDHOOD 27
Details of the childhood of the little pair there are
none ; whatever letters were sent to the parents,
reporting health and well-being, growth or progress
in their studies, have not survived, in all probability
left behind at Prague and lost, but a knowledge of their
surroundings and of the characters of those who had
charge of them supplies the framework. It is easy to
picture them playing about the spacious rooms and
courtyards or roaming in the big gardens which
surrounded the castle and stretched up into the wooded
hills. That winter the baby would be taking her first
steps in one of those round wooden hoops, raised about
eighteen inches from the floor, in which a baby was
supported by its armpits, as may be seen in old German
prints, the weight being thus taken off the feeble legs
till the art of walking was mastered and some balance
gained. She was a fine child, and at one time bigger
than her brother, though he was a full year older, as we
learn from a letter from little Prince Henry to his
grandfather James I of England, written a year or
two later. Charles was, however, a very good-looking
boy, and if he grew late, developed into a tall and
strikingly handsome man. He had fair curling hair
and blue eyes, while the little Elizabeth had the dark
eyes of the Stuarts.
When Elizabeth could run the two children may have
amused themselves trying to thread the mizmaze,
such a fashionable feature of the gardens of those
days, which Solomon de Caus had designed, as
shown in the illustrated book of plans for the
garden which he dedicated to the Elector Palatine
28 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
not long before the departure to Bohemia. In and out
trot the little pair, the boy still in petticoats, after the
custom of the day, the girl a year younger, toddling,
after him, a solemn baby with big, round dark eyes
and fresh pink cheeks, dressed in a full skirt down to her
toes, possibly protected by a muslin apron with a frill
at the bottom, a stiff little stomacher with her waist
at her armpits, and her head covered with a close
white cap. This would be considered sufficient for
the garden unless the sun was hot, but for driving to
the town or such occasions of ceremony it would be
surmounted by a big hat with feathers. This was the
fashion in which well-born children were dressed
throughout the seventeenth century, and it endured
through many generations, for in those days fashions
changed but slowly. Thus are her little cousins
of England dressed in the Vandyck portraits of a
few years later. Perhaps they rolled their balls or
trundled their hoops along the terrace on the rampart
of the English garden, and the boy would certainly
love to pitch stones down into the valley far below
and watch them go bounding down the hill. In the
other part of the gardens, partly built into the rocky
acclivity, was the curious monkey - house with its
carvings of strange beasts and birds over the doorways,
where their mother's pets were kept, and no doubt the
children would be immensely entertained with the
antics of the quaint creatures. The Queen's favourite
dogs probably went with her, but enough would be left
to play with the children, who loved pets as she did.
On the south side were the sloping cherry orchards
EARLY CHILDHOOD 29
with gnarled trees, tempting to climb as they got a
little older, where a generation later Charles's own
little girl, Liselotte, loved to play.
In summer time Juliana would be sure to take her
little grandchildren to her own best-loved haunt in the
woods, where her husband, Frederic IV, had built in
their early married days a little hunting lodge at the
Wolfsbrunnen, the scene of the legendary tragedy
of Jetta, which was commemorated by a bronze wolf.
From the wolf's mouth a fountain spouted, tinkling
down into a moss-grown basin with goldfish, and thence
through a trim garden with box-edged borders and
miniature terraces which her son, Frederic V, had laid
out. We can fancy her bringing the children here and
telling them of the childhood of her own six, their father
and his brother and sisters. Catherine, too, would have
many childish recollections of the place. Quiet as
were the tastes of the Electress Dowager, she enjoyed
riding and open-air life almost as well as did the
English Elizabeth, and Elizabeth the younger learned
to love tranquillity and green woodland places.
It would be interesting if we could know what re-
membrances, if any, the child carried away of it all.
Children, in those days, matured so much earlier
than they do now, and she was gifted with such
unusual powers, both of observation and of memory,
that it is not impossible that some faint traces
of those fair peaceful days may have remained.
She was hardly old enough that first winter to take in
the news that came from Bohemia of the arrival of a
new baby brother, and of the splendid ebony cradle
30 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
that had been presented by the citizens of Prague
for his reception. Charles would be, told, and later
might talk to her about the little Rupert, for these
children, though apart, were taught to take great
interest in each other. Charming letters came from
time to time from little Henry : he writes to his brother
with the prim religious forms inculcated in those days,*
" I trust you omit not to pray diligently, as I do day
and night, that it may please God to restore us to
happiness and to each other." This from a boy of six
to one not quite four ! The next sounds more natural :
" I have a bow and arrows with a beautiful quiver
tipped with silver, which I would fain send you, but I
fear it may fall into the enemy's hands." This re-
ference to the enemy shows it to have been written
in the autumn of 1620, and just before he was sent
away to his uncle for safety comes a mention of his
little brother : " Rupert is here blythe and well ; he
is beginning to talk, and his first words were ' Praise
the Lord ' in Bohemian." In a letter to his aunt
Catherine, just before the catastrophe, he sent Elizabeth
a little heart — " with a true-hearted brotherly kiss,"
and a little later he writes from exile of his longing
to see his little sister again " in dear Heidelberg with
all happy things about her."
News from Bohemia must have seemed from the first
ominous and disquieting to the anxious watchers at
Heidelberg who had foreseen difficulty and dis-
illusionment. Even before the coronation took place
disputes and misunderstandings arose, fanned into a
* Rupert, Prince Palatine, Eva Scott.
EARLY CHILDHOOD 31
flame by the indiscreet zeal of the Court Chaplain,
Scultetus, who entirely misconceived the situation,
holding his master called to establish the straitest
Calvinistic version of the Reformed Faith with a high
hand instead of supporting the liberties of the Bo-
hemians. Political freedom and religious toleration
were what Frederic's new subjects desired, and they
were so split up among themselves, and their views so
diverse, that to impose one rigid form of faith on all was
to outrage and alienate some large section of the nation,
and thereby to court disaster. The coronation diffi-
culty was got over at the price of offending Scultetus
and his party of extremists ; but when he avenged
himself by instigating the hewing down of the ancient
crucifix which for centuries had adorned the principal
bridge in Prague, not all the Queen's charm and former
popularity could avail to convince the infuriated
citizens that it had not been done by her connivance,
if not by her order. The new subjects did not actually
rebel, but they gave a sullen and half-hearted support
to the king whom they had chosen and invited, and
when the troops of the Emperor gathered round and
began to close in upon Bohemia, the result was a
foregone conclusion. So, while the children played
and prattled and roamed about the gardens in their
summer pride for the last time, the storm was gathering
which should not only drive the Winter King from
his new dominions, but banish the children from
their beautiful home on the Neckar.
With the autumn came terrible news of defeat and
disaster, of the fatal battle of White Mountain by which
32 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
all was lost, and of the hurried flight from Prague.
The little Electoral Prince had been already placed in
safety with his uncle ; but the baby Rupert, who
remained with his mother, had the narrowest escape
of falling into the enemy's hands. He was, of course,
in charge of his nurse, and the woman, it seems, laid him
down on a settee in the large saloon while she collected
his clothes, or possibly more valued possessions of her
own. In the sudden panic that arose on the report
that the Imperial troops were upon them she forgot
all about the poor baby, and he would have been left
behind, only, being a lusty infant, he kicked till he
rolled off on the floor, uttering yells that fortunately
attracted the notice of Christopher Dhona, rushing
through the rooms to gather up leavings in haste.
He had but just time to snatch up the child and toss him
into the last coach bearing the fugitives, which was at
that moment turning out of the courtyard. The poor
mite rolled down into the boot among the baggage,
from whence, on his redoubling his cries, he was
rescued by the occupants and carried in more seemly
fashion. It is hardly fair to lay this to the Queen's
charge as proving her an indifferent mother, for she
doubtless believed the little prince safe with his own
attendants, and she was absorbed in sustaining her
husband, overwhelmed by the disaster, and doing
all she could to comfort her lady-in-waiting, whose
husband was among the fallen. Though she was
herself in a state of health that might have excused
nerves and hysterics, she put aside her own distress
and showed the utmost fortitude, giving all needful
EARLY CHILDHOOD 33
orders with foresight and calmness. It was only when
her inspiring presence was withdrawn that the house-
hold fell a prey to panic.
There must have been anxious expectation in
Heidelberg that the fugitives would endeavour to
reach home, and could they have done so, Frederic's
best chance would have been to make a stand in his
own dominions, in his well-fortified castle surrounded
by the loyal support of his own people. But the Im-
perial troops lay between, the road was difficult and
dangerous, if not impossible, and his one thought was to
get his adored wife into a place of safety while she was
still able to travel ; his anxiety for her overshadowed
all sense of public duty. It was a case where the best
husband makes the worst king or commander, and he
hurried her anxiously from place to place. In truth
the Winter King lost his head in the completeness of
his overthrow, and instead of frankly abandoning an
untenable position, and taking his stand on his in-
alienable rights, he continued to grasp at the shadow
and throw away the substance till the shadow of an
empty name was all that remained. He left the
defence of his own country to his brother-in-law, a
well-meaning but ineffectual person whose chief claim
to being appointed Administrator was the extremeness
of his Calvinistic opinions, while he wandered about,
seeking a refuge for the Queen, and help to regain that
fatal crown.
The first halt was in Saxony, but the fugitives
had already been placed under the ban of the Empire,
and were requested to move further. They next
34 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
repaired to Frankfort-on-the-Oder, looking confidently
for a welcome, or at least an asylum, from the Margrave
of Brandenburg, both as a prominent member of the
Protestant alliance, and as husband of Frederic's
sister Charlotte. But George William had been, so to
speak, sitting on the fence during the affair of Bohemia,
and now made haste to descend on the safe side ; he
looked coldly on the refugees, and professed that his
duty to the Emperor forbade him to harbour rebels.
But poor Elizabeth could stand no more hurried
journeys in the depth of winter ; mere humanity
demanded that a refuge should be found for her, and
churlishly enough he placed the almost ruinous and
deserted castle of Ciistrin at her disposal, adding the
discouraging information that it was bitterly cold and
hardly weather-proof, overrun with rats and but half
furnished. Such as it was she resolved to make the
best of it. With her characteristic cheerful courage
she, who had given birth to her first four children in
palaces surrounded with every dainty luxury wealth
and love could devise, now, in the lack of the com-
monest comforts, without carpets, curtains, cushions,
and with the barest needful utensils, with no attendance
but that of her two faithful ladies-in-waiting, brought a
new little prince into the world, born a lackland and
to be a lackland all his days — her Christmas baby,
Maurice, born on a snowy Christmas Eve.
Meanwhile the two little ones, with their grand-
mother, had been carried off from Heidelberg, no
longer considered safe, and had spent the winter at
Schondorf. The Imperialists and their allies were
EARLY CHILDHOOD 35
threatening the Palatinate, and troops were drawing
nearer and nearer to the doomed capital : a brief
return of a few weeks was made when Schondorf
became unsafe ; but when the Bergstrasse was in the
hands of the enemy it became needful that they too
should seek a refuge in Brandenburg. George William
was less ungracious to his wife's mother than he had
been to her brother, so thither travelled our little
Elizabeth, leaving Heidelberg a prey to the invaders,
not to see her early home again till she had reached
middle age.
How long the Queen remained at Ciistrin we do not
know, nor whether, while she was so near, she saw her
little daughter ; but we gather from a letter of Prince
Henry's to his grandfather King James, written in
the spring of 1621, that for a time they were all together,
probably before the King and Queen departed for the
Hague. He writes :* " Sir, we are come from Sewnden
[sic] to see the King and Queen and my little brother
Rupert, who is now a little sick. But my brother
Charles is now, God be thanked, very well, and my
sister Elizabeth, and she is a little bigger and stronger
than he."
New arrangements were now made : the States-
General of Holland, having urged the fatal enterprise
upon the Elector Palatine, now very creditably
acknowledged the obligation to support him; and
Maurice the Stadthalter, his uncle, who was one of
Elizabeth's devoted admirers, having received and
escorted her when she came as a bride on her way to
* Green's Lives of the Princesses.
36 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
Heidelberg, offered a residence at the Hague, and a
subsidy which, with Elizabeth's dowry from England,
should have sufficed for their support — " until their
restoration," which all Protestant Europe imagined
must come about in a year or two at farthest. So to
the Hague they went, taking with them Henry and
Rupert, baby Maurice so soon as he was weaned
being sent to the nursery of his aunt Charlotte, in
Brandenburg, while Charles and Elizabeth remained in
their grandmother's charge at Krossen, where she and
Princess Catherine made their home for many years.
Definite information concerning the children's life
there is very much to seek. The biography of the
Electress Dowager Juliana has been written at some
length by her chaplain, Friedrich von Spanheim, but
it is a tantalisingly disappointing production, entirely
lacking in those precious little personal touches of
character or of the events of everyday life that make
the value of biography as an adjunct to history, and
containing hardly a mention of the grandchildren
whose education was her prime interest for so many
years, only referring to them when they were of political
importance, just recording the birth of the Electoral
Prince, or the distinguished sponsors who lent lustre
to the baptism of the second boy. The little girl,
in whom the grandmother was wrapped up, who was
her companion for a long period of her childhood,
might have been non-existent for any mention of her
in these pages. In fact the whole memoir is but a peg
on which to hang the history of the Thirty Years' War
from the writer's point of view. Far better is the more
EARLY CHILDHOOD 37
recent study by Miss Bunnet, who made independent
researches in Heidelberg and Karlsruhe, and unearthed
more detail than Spanheim vouchsafed ; but though
this gives much interesting information concerning
Juliana's private life as girl, wife, and mother, and
also of her last days, the portion covering the education
of her grandchildren is practically a blank.
Education had probably already begun for the little
folks before they settled at Krossen. Elizabeth at
two and a half, and Charles in his fourth year, could
most likely already read ; not impossibly the boy had
begun Latin, for children were taught much earlier
then than now, and an educational expert of that day
recommended that they should be taught to read as
soon as they could speak, and Latin concurrently with
English. Aunt Catherine, in the midst of her sorrows
and anxieties on behalf of the brother she loved so well,
may have found solace in teaching his children, in-
structing the little Elizabeth in her Horn-book and
setting her tasks on her sampler. Both children were
clever and quick to learn ; Elizabeth very docile and
obedient, grave and sober above her years, Charles
intelligent and capable when he would apply himself,
but wilful and of a somewhat sulky temper.
Krossen, though containing a castle of the Margraves
of Brandenburg, was but a small town, situated on the
borders of Silesia where two rivers meet, the Oder
and the Bober, and surrounded by open country, so the
children probably led much the same outdoor life
of play as they had enjoyed at Heidelberg, though the
gardens were nothing like so large and fine as those
38 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
of their old home. Make-believe, however, can do
wonders, and doubtless they were -quite happy and
hardly realised the disaster that had overtaken their
House. In winter, as we learn from later letters of
Elizabeth, Krossen was often quite snowed up, for the
north-eastern part of Germany is far colder than the
Rhineland ; but some part of every year was spent at
Brandenburg or Berlin, where their other aunt, the
Electress Charlotte, was very kind to them, and where
they would see Maurice, and also had their little
Brandenburg cousins to play with, the eldest, Frederic
William, " the great Elector," as he afterwards came
to be called, being all his life warmly attached to his
cousin Elizabeth.
After a short time Maurice was sent to the Hague,
where already Henry and Rupert were with their
mother. A little sister, Louise Hollandine, had been
added to the nursery, and each year saw a fresh
arrival. The Queen had moved into another house,
as it seemed the exile was likely to be prolonged, and
Charles and Elizabeth remained with their grandmother
for the present.
CHAPTER III
EDUCATION
Disadvantages of Brandenburg — Removal of the children to Leyden
— The Prinsenhof — Desirability of separate establishment for
the children — Letter of Prince Henry — Arrival of Charles and
Elizabeth — Her primness — The nursery party — Their games —
Elizabeth's lessons — Schoolroom day — Court etiquette — Re-
ligious training — First acquaintance with Anna Maria van
Schurmann.
yA T the time when the little Princess Pala-
/ % tine was living with her grandmother at
/ ^ Krossen, the Mark of Brandenburg, later
to rise to pre-eminence as the kingdom of
Prussia, was as yet considerably behind the south and
west of Germany in point of cultivation. The wave
of Humanism which had swept the Rhineland into
the main current of European culture had scarcely,
if at all, touched the fringe of the cold northern Elec-
torate, though possibly Charlotte, on her marriage
with the Margrave George William, may have im-
ported some of the refined tastes for which the Pala-
tinate family for several generations had been dis-
tinguished. Berlin, instead of being one of the chief
capitals of Europe, was but the second town in the
Mark, Brandenburg, on the Havel, being the principal
residence of the Margraves, though it possessed the
nucleus of its castle which Frederic William, now a
39
40 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
child, later enlarged and adorned with the first of its
art treasures. Now it is one of the- best centres for
education in art and music ; but at that day good
masters for those things and for dancing and elocution,
of which the Queen of Bohemia thought a good deal,
were probably hardly to be had there or at Branden-
burg, still less at lonely Krossen, away on the frontier,
so, though the Dowager Electress and her daughter
were accomplished women, fully competent to direct
the children's studies for some time, as they grew
older, and the residence at the Hague promised to
become permanent, it was decided to withdraw them
from the fond care of grandmother and aunt and send
them to share in the advantages being bestowed on
their brothers and sisters at Ley den.
The states of Holland extended a very liberal hospi-
tality to the unfortunate Winter King and Queen,
and a few years after they had taken up their abode
at the Hague, as their family was increasing very
rapidly and the residence lent them was not very
large, the authorities of the town of Leyden put at
their disposal a house near the University for the
establishment of a kind of Nursery Court for the young
princes and princesses. This appears to have been
kept for the occupation of the Stadthalter when he
visited the town, as it was known as the Prince-
logement or Prinsenhof ; and Sir Dudley Carleton,
ambassador at the Hague, writing to Calvert, men-
tions it as having been " lent by the Prince of Orange."
The archives of the town of Leyden, however, contain
the record under date 28th May, 1641, that the Hof-
EDUCATION 41
meister of the children of the Queen of Bohemia came
to the assembly of the Burgomasters of Ley den "to
present her thanks for the permission accorded them
for so many years to live in the house called the
Prince-logement, and in acknowledgment of this cour-
tesy she begged their acceptance of a silver-gilt cup"
(now in the Town Museum). This, of course, proves
that the town authorities were the owners.
The house stood at the corner of the Rapenburg,
its principal windows looking out upon the canal
which flows past the old University, and one side
commanding the Langenburg. It had been originally
the convent of St. Barbara, and probably covered the
ground now occupied by several houses. It was de-
molished many years ago, and the fine old edifice
which faces the canal is now divided into three, the
middle part being a restaurant called the Maison
Prince. Trees now shade the canal and form a plea-
sant walk on its borders ; these do not appear in the
contemporary print, but that does not prove that
there were none, since if in the way of a clear view of
the building, the artist, not being bound by the limita-
tions of photography, would have no scruple in leaving
them out, and trees along all the canals seem to have
been an essential feature of the Dutch town of that
day. The position must have been a very convenient
one, as the boys had but to cross the bridge and run
a hundred yards or so to attend the lectures and
classes which were then held in the old University
building, though now in different halls established
since.
42 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
Their tenancy of the house extended a long while,
nearly eighteen years, from the summer of 1623 to
May, 1641. The letter in which Carleton refers to the
arrangement then being made is undated, but must
have been written in the early summer of that year,
as he alludes to the expectation of the birth of another
child, and Louis was born 21st August, 1623. The
letter is worth quoting, showing the careful interest
the King and Queen were taking in the establishment
of the children. The passage runs :*
" The Prince Elector and Her Highness returned from
Breda on Tuesday last. . . ." (It will be observed that,
according to the wish of King James, the title of King
and Queen of Bohemia was withheld by English corre-
spondents.) "To-morrow they are going to Ley den to
visit a house belonging to the Prince of Orange which
he lends them, where they intend to settle the three
children they have here for some time, under the govern-
ment of Mons. de Plessen and his wife, both persons very
fit for such a charge. Their Highnesses are in part
compelled to this course by reason of the greatness of
their family, which exceeds the proportion of the small
house they have here, and will increase by one more
within this few months, when it shall please God to send
Her Highness a safe delivery."
Maurice, it would appear, must have been still at
Brandenburg.
It seems a gratuitous assumption on the part of the
youngest, Sophie, writing many years later, that the
Queen chose to bring up her children at a distance
from indifference, " preferring the antics of her mon-
* Green, Lives of the Princesses.
EDUCATION 43
keys and lap-dogs to those of her babies." All her
life, since her old days at Combe Abbey, Elizabeth
had loved pets and adored her horses and dogs, and
so did most of her children, and it is true she never
was a woman to be wholly wrapped up in her nursery ;
but it may be questioned if she did not do far better
for her numerous brood in maintaining her place in
society, and furthering their interests by keeping up
with influential friends and holding herself and her
tragic misfortunes well in the public eye. She was,
moreover, a most devoted wife, and all her powers
were absorbed in trying to sustain the more despondent
temper of her husband and spur him on to fresh efforts
to recover all they had lost. Through the long days
of exile, when the stairs were steep, the bread bitter
to the dethroned King, she kept up his spirit as well
as her own, and was ever inciting him to fresh plans
and inspiring him with new hopes of regaining at
least his ancient patrimony, if the crown he had lost
was past recovery, and it was needful that she should
smile upon the friends, new and old, who came to offer
their swords to her service, and keep up a continual
correspondence with emissaries in various Courts and
with old friends in England from whom aid might be
looked for. It is likely, with all these cares, she did
not find very much leisure for the flock of little toddlers
who followed one another so quickly.
Both she herself and Frederic had been brought
up at a distance from their parents, as was the custom
for Royal or well-born children in their day ; he had
been educated in the guardianship of the Duke of
44 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
Bouillon, and she had had a little Court of her own at
Combe Abbey, presided over by Lord and Lady
Harrington, her father, James I, considering that it
was best for children to grow up away from the dis-
traction of Court life. Madame de Plessen had been
Frederic's own governess till he was seven, so she was
well fitted to undertake the care of his children. His
own instructions to the tutor for the forming of the
prince's mind were very precise :* "Be careful to
breed him in the love of English and of my people,
for that must be his best lining ; and, above all things,
take heed he prove not a Puritan, which is incom-
patible with Princes who live by order, but they by
confusion." A letter written in his tenth year by the
boy to his grandfather shows his progress. It is in a
round, childish hand: —
Sire, — I kiss your hand. I would fain see your Matie.
I can say Nominativo hie, haec, hoc, and all five declen-
sions, and a part of pronomen, and a part of verbum. I
have two horses alive that can go up my stairs, a black
horse and a chestnut horse.
I pray God to bless your Matie.
Your Matie's
Obedient Grandchild,
Frederic Henry.
Elizabeth must have been about nine and Charles
in his eleventh year when they were taken from the
seclusion of Krossen and the fostering care of grand-
mother and aunt, and despatched to Leyden to find
their own level amongst the troop of brothers and
* Green's Princesses.
EDUCATION 45
sisters who must have been almost strangers to them.
Elizabeth appears to have been a somewhat formal
little person for her years, for Madame Blaze de Bury
relates a characteristic little anecdote, that on her
arrival at the Hague her great-uncle Maurice, pinch-
ing her ear, remarked, " Why, here is another Juliana
as demure as the first." This seems rather apocryphal
since Maurice died in 1625, at which time Elizabeth
would be barely seven years old, and though seven
was the age at which nursery days were supposed to
end and more serious schooling to be entered on, all
her biographers are at one in stating nine as the age
when she rejoined her family. Moreover, in a letter
referred to by Mrs. Everett Green, written in the
autumn of 1626, there is mention of a probable de-
scent of the Imperial troops on Berlin, and of the
fears that were entertained lest the two children there
might fall into the hands of the enemy. On the whole,
the probability is that they did not return till 1627,
and it may very well have been the other great-uncle,
Frederic Henry, by whom the remark was made, as
he succeeded his brother as Stadthalter, and being
recorded of " the Stadthalter," the biographer, with-
out a reference to date, may have ascribed it to
Maurice. No doubt, Elizabeth was a prim little
maiden, having been so much with grown-up people,
and one of the uncles, at any rate, made merry over
her soberness and stiff old-maidish ways, so unlike the
riotous little crew that had been added to the nursery
since her day. It is a pity that none of the letters
extant record what father or mother thought of her ;
46 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
they must have been together at the time of her re-
turn, so there was no interchange of impressions, as
there might otherwise have been, as they wrote almost
daily letters when apart.
Nor is there any description of her arrival at the
juvenile Court at Leyden ; our knowledge of the life
there is almost entirely drawn from the Memoirs of
Sophie, and that shrewd little observer was not yet in
existence. What a picture she might have given us
of the brother and sister, newly come from afar, almost
strangers to the rest as they must have been, except
to Henry and Maurice. Imagination paints the two
standing together, Elizabeth perhaps clinging to the
hand of the brother she was used to, a little aloof,
eyeing and being eyed, as is the wont of children just
introduced to one another ; tall of her age and per-
haps a little awkward, not a little shy, and made more
so by the teasings of the merry uncle at the Hague.
Beside her the fair, handsome boy, even less inclined
to make friends than she was, a trifle sullen, and,
after having been " cock of the walk " at his grand-
mother's for so long, not quite disposed either to defer
to the elder, the Crown Prince, or to permit the
familiarities of the younger ones. His rather moody
temper earned him presently the nickname of Timon,
which clung to him all his life, for Elizabeth, writing
to Rupert some forty years afterwards on a money
dispute, refers to Charles by the old nursery title.
The other children had more of their mother's
bright, eager, friendly nature, and probably accorded
a warm welcome to the new-comers. Henry remem-
EDUCATION 47
bered his brother and sister well, and as they had met
some seven years before they would remember him,
at least Charles would. He was now a tall, well-
grown lad of twelve or so, quite out of the women's
governance and attending the University, already,
when at home, made quite a companion by his father,
who took great pride both in his quick intelligence
and in his manly looks and strength. If a little less
regular in feature than Charles Louis, he had a
countenance of greater sweetness and charm. Rupert
was not quite a year younger than his sister, and a
wonderfully quick and clever child. He had babbled
in three languages by the time he was three years old,
and now knew five, having added Dutch and French
to his original repertoire of German, English, and
Czech. He was a trifle obstinate, however, about the
dead languages, declining to burden himself with
Latin and Greek ; he was going to be a soldier, he
always said, and for a soldier modern tongues would
be enough, and he was a young man who always knew
very well what he wanted. The learned professors of
the classics at the University probably found that you
ma}' lead a horse to water, but you cannot make
him drink. Mathematics, the science of fortification,
physics, and drawing he would study, for he had
plenty of capacity ; plenty of obstinacy, too, and
what he did not choose he would not learn. He was
a high-spirited, eager boy, absolutely fearless, and we
may well believe at eight years old ever in mischief,
for it is of the unruly boys that such men as Rupert,
the military commander, are made. His family nick-
48 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
name was Robert le Diable. Hard after him in age
and height followed Maurice, and the two were so
alike and so closely knit in a strong bond of fraternal
affection they might have been taken for twins.
Whatever Rupert did, Maurice must do too, and where
Rupert went, Maurice must needs follow. If what we
know of Rupert in later life may be taken as an indi-
cation of what he was in childhood, we may picture
him a boy full of resource and invention in a day
when playthings were few, as well as ringleader in all
the pranks and practical jokes for which the whole
mirthful set were famous. Maurice, with less initiative,
was always ready to play lieutenant in Rupert's diver-
sions.
Next came a little girl, Louise Hollandine, the first
who was born at the Hague, goddaughter to the
States-General, who bestowed not only her second
name, but also a pension of £200 a year. She had been
baptised in the Calvinist church close to the house on
the Vorhout, where the exiled family lived. She was
quite unlike her sister, not so tall for her age and less
regular in feature, but softer looking and graceful as
a kitten, a very merry child and good-natured, idle
in some ways and desperately careless, but able to
display immense energy in the things that really in-
terested her. Edward, two years younger, was a
sturdy, round-faced boy with more of the little Dutch-
man in his build and manner than his slender brethren,
who all took after the Stuarts, but dark-eyed like the
rest. Between him and Louise had come a little boy,
Louis, but before Elizabeth joined the nursery party
EDUCATION 49
he had died of a fever in teething, to the great grief
of his mother, who wrote to her constant correspondent,
Sir Thomas Rowe : ' He was the prettiest child I had,
and the first I ever lost."
The flaxen-haired baby Henrietta completed the
party at this time ; later were added Philip the hasty
and hot-tempered, a little Charlotte, baptised in 1639,
but not living long enough to join the Leyden nursery,
and Sophie, a quick, clever child, wonderfully obser-
vant, whose recollections are the source of most of
what we know of the youth and home life of the
family. Last came the little Gustavus, born after his
father's death and named after the King of Sweden,
a very lovely child, but so frail that his life was one
of continual suffering, and he died at the age of nine.
Sophie relates that on one occasion he and she were
taken to the Hague to be shown to the Princess of
Nassau, who remarked in English : " He is very
pretty, but she is thin and plain — I hope she does not
understand English." She did, however, and bitterly
resented the remark. Plain she certainly was not,
spare and light, with fair, curly hair, and very sprightly,
becoming later the darling of her brother Charles.
But this is anticipating ; when Elizabeth arrived
little Sophie was not yet one of them.
About a year after Elizabeth's coming her father
had a group painted by Poelemberg to send to England
to their uncle Charles I, of the seven elder children in
semi-classical costume, with hunting trophies at their
feet and a landscape background : the two little ones,
Henrietta and Philip, being considered too young to
50 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
include. The King wrote of it to his brother-in-law
as " the great portrait in which your- Ma. will see all
your little servants and maidens whom you bring up
— or rather who live on your bounty." The youngest
girl, seated at the end of the row with a bird on her
finger, is Louise, the little maiden in red Elizabeth.*
It is rather pathetic to read that the children's
favourite game was an imaginary journey in coaches,
for which chairs must do duty, with stoppages at im-
aginary inns on their road to Heidelberg, always the
goal of their travels. This no doubt was devised by
Henry, who remembered. Little deemed they how
long that journey was to be, and how few of them
were to arrive.
Into the midst of the lively party came the grave
little pair, but they soon shook down amongst the rest
and rubbed off their stiffness in that atmosphere of
laughter and jest ; both were clever enough, and
Elizabeth, though she never wholly lost the gravity of
her demeanour, quickly picked up a certain brightness
and readiness in repartee, for in after years a brother
and sister meeting her again after a long absence
lamented to each other the loss of her liveliness and
aptness of tongue.
In lessons she would be at no disadvantage — at least,
in the more solid ones ; she had been well grounded,
and was always clear-headed to grasp down to the
very foundations whatever was taught her, and she
had especial aptitude for languages and logic. In the
fine arts, in music, in which her mother delighted, and
* This picture is now at Hampton Court.
EDUCATION 51
in painting, in which both she and her sister Louise
had lessons from Honthorst, the celebrated Court
painter at the Hague, she did not rival the others.
Both Louise and Rupert had marked talents in this
direction. Singing and lute-playing were invariably
taught at this period, but Elizabeth was never able
to do more than bear her part without discredit in the
family concerts, and her want of proficiency was rather
a disappointment to her mother. Of the particulars
of her schooling there is no record, as her education
was finished before Sophie, with her descriptive pen,
came upon the scene, but it is not likely that Madame
de Plessen changed her methods much, and what was
taught to Sophie a few years later was doubtless taught
to Elizabeth. Latin and modern languages were an
invariable part of the usual school course. Though,
indeed, the two gifted daughters of Romer Visscher at
Amsterdam were not instructed in the dead languages,
the omission was commented on as something quite
unusual, and attributed to their father's hobby of
bringing forward his mother-tongue as a literary
medium.* Natural Science and Chemistry we know
Elizabeth studied, for a little later, when their school-
days were over, we read that she and her brother
Rupert delighted in chemical experiments and in
making collections of natural objects. f
Greek, indeed, formed no necessary feature of the
education of girls in Elizabeth's day, though the
Renaissance had made it quite the mode for a century
* Studies in Northern Literature , Edmund Gosse.
f L' Influence de Cartesianisme, Foucher de Careil.
52 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
past for those who aspired to higher culture than
ordinary. The great Queen of England, godmother
to our Elizabeth's mother, had learned it ; so, too,
had Lady Jane Grey and the talented daughters of
Sir Thomas More ; several ladies of the North family
were admirable scholars, and, if becoming a little un-
usual, it was far from being entirely neglected. Many
German and Dutch ladies understood it, and the
studious young princess, with her marked literary
tastes and facility for languages, was glad to avail
herself of the advantages which the University offered.
It does not appear that the younger sisters took it up,
but Elizabeth threw herself into the study with so
much zest, and had so great an enthusiasm for the
art and culture of the ancient Greeks, that the brothers
and sisters, who had a taste for inventing nicknames
for one another, dubbed her la Grecque, a name which
clung to her in family letters to the day of her death.
University professors attended to give her instruction
in this as they did for all the more masculine branches
of the education bestowed on the young princesses ;
but Heinz is surely in error in supposing her to have
received instruction in Philosophy from Descartes in
these early days, since he does not appear to have
taken up his abode at Endegeest till 1637,* at which
time the princess had finished her education and re-
turned some years to the Hague, and most authorities
represent him as making her acquaintance there for
the first time in 1640.
* Descartes, by T. P. Mahaffy, " Philosophical Classics for
English Readers."
EDUCATION 53
For any idea of the schoolroom life we are indebted
to the delightful reminiscences of the youngest Princess,
Sophie. Her school-days were not, indeed, coeval with
her elder sister's, as there were nearly twelve years
between the eldest and the youngest girl, and the
latter important little person had not yet been added
to the nursery party at the time Elizabeth joined it ;
but probably the same course was pursued, and the
lessons and rules would be much the same for the
successive sisters as they passed through the strict
hands of Madame de Plessen and her daughters.
Allowing for differences of temperament, which were
considerable, we may well picture the school-days of
Elizabeth and Louise from those of Sophie.
The arrangements made for the children, if strict,
were excellent. At the head were Monsieur and
Madame de Plessen, or Pies, as Sophie gives it, who
seem to have been well fitted for the post. It seems
odd that Mrs. Everett Green gives the name of Madame
Ketler, " formerly governess to the King of Bohemia,"
as having charge of Princess Louise (before the return
of Elizabeth) , and Sophie speaks of one of the daughters
as Mademoiselle de Quat. The probability is that the
good lady may have been married twice, and her
daughters by the first husband may have been Ketler,
shortened on the infant tongue to Ket or Quat. The
daughters were not young, for the critical pupil de-
clared them to look older than their mother and ugly
enough to frighten small children, and the mother she
considered must have been very old, since she had
educated her father. Though she makes merry over
54 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
their oddities and, childlike, resents their strictness,
she acknowledged there was essential goodness and
kindness of heart. " They brought us up," she says,
" to love God and fear the Devil," and though pleased
to be emancipated when her turn came, she admits
she parted with the good ladies with some regret,
and always retained an affectionate recollection of
them.
Sophie's description of the day's routine would
probably fit that of the elder sisters. She rose at
seven and repaired to the chamber of Mademoiselle
Marie de Quat, who made her say her prayers and
read the Bible, and afterwards repeat quatrains by
Pelrac while she herself cleaned her teeth, making
terrible faces the while, which left a more vivid im-
pression on the pupil's memory than did the lessons.
By half-past eight she was dressed, and from that
time till ten she took lessons from the various tutors
who attended — " unless indeed," says she, " the bon
Dieu sent me a cold to comfort me." This would
hardly have voiced the feeling of Elizabeth, who
loved her studies. At ten came the dancing-master,
very welcome to the lively child, who enjoyed prancing
under his instructions till eleven, when the boys re-
turned from the University, and dinner was served
with considerable ceremony at a long table in one of
the large and lofty rooms looking out upon the lime
trees and the canal. It will be observed there is no
mention of breakfast ; the early breakfast, or petit
dejetiner, was only just being introduced, and probably
was not allowed to these hardy children.
EDUCATION 55
Sophie's account of the formalities observed is
amusing : —
When I entered, my brothers were ranged opposite with
their Governor and Gentlemen-in- Waiting behind them.
I had to make a deep curtsey to the Princes and a little one
to the others ; a very deep one on taking my place, and a
little one to my Governess who with her daughters made
a very deep one to me on entering. I had to make another
on handing them my gloves and another to the gentleman
who handed the basin to wash my hands before Grace,
and the last on seating myself at the table. All was so
regulated that one knew on each day of the week what one
would eat, like in a Convent. On Sundays and Wednes-
days two ministers of religion, and two professors dined
with us. After dinner I rested until two o'clock when
tutors came again. I supped at six and went to bed at
half past eight after praying and reading the Bible.
These must have been the oddest Sunday parties :
the demure princesses, riotous enough by themselves
or when at play with their brothers, kept in primmest
order by their old governess and, though some were
mere babies, taught to pay and receive the strictest
observance of Court etiquette, as well as to entertain
their learned and perhaps elderly guests with suitable
topics of conversation. To the quicksilver nature of
the little one this was evidently a hard bondage, but
to Elizabeth, trained and disciplined as she had been
at Krossen, and possessed of a good deal of natural
gravity and dignity, these observances would come
more easily. In another point her early training may
have helped her. Religious instruction was made a
56 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
matter of great importance, and the Puritan tone
prevailed ; it was based on the principles of the
Heidelberg Catechism, which they had to learn by
rote in German without understanding it. Elizabeth,
however, we may be sure, understood it, for with her
earnest, inquiring mind she would ponder these
mysteries and ask about them. She accepted its
formulae as truths, and they formed the basis of those
Protestant convictions which remained unshaken in
after years by intercourse with the Catholic philosopher,
Descartes, and would not suffer her to make a Catholic
marriage. All her life she had a strong leaning to theo-
logical and philosophic speculations, and, if not too
shy, the earnest and sedate little maiden may have
asked explanations of the Catechism and discussed
deep questions with some of the Sunday guests.
We must not, of course, confound the religious
Puritanism, which was a leading characteristic of the
faith in which these children were bred, and of which
their father and uncles were the champions, with the
political Puritanism deprecated by the King in his
instructions for the education of his son. With ex-
treme Calvinistic views, the Protestant bodies of
Germany and Holland were rigid sticklers for Church
government. Much Bible reading, with evangelical
explanations and long sermons, were what the children
were brought up upon.
Unless Sophie's two hours of " rest " after dinner
meant play, as it most likely did, no exercise is
allowed for in the time-table, save the daily hour of
dancing, and no fresh air at all. The house, which
EDUCATION 57
had formerly been the Convent of St. Barbara,
probably possessed a good-sized garden, and besides,
since Holland at this time was free from war and
tumults, it is not impossible the children may have
been conducted for country walks in the spare hours
between dinner and the arrival of the afternoon tutors,
under the escort probably of some of the Gentlemen-
in-Waiting, for in those days ladies seldom took their
walks abroad without masculine protection. From
the Prinsenhof it was but a very short distance
across a couple of bridges to the raised causeway
along the banks of the Rhine, then, as now, diver-
sified by windmills and boat-building yards. These
were succeeded by a double row of shady trees,
and it became quite a country road along which the
younger children could trundle their hoops and toss
their balls, while the sedate elder walked beside her
governess. It was a road which was to become very
familiar to Elizabeth in after days, as it led to
Endegeest, the home of her friend Descartes.
Visits from the father and mother were not infre-
quent, and are mentioned now and then in Elizabeth
the elder's letters, or in those of friends from the
Hague, writing to England, but there is never any
special mention of one child or another. The children
were occasionally sent to the Hague to be shown to
visitors, as this is recorded of Sophie and Gustavus,
and was probably also the custom with the elders.
These occasional visits seem to have taken the place
of letters ; if Elizabeth wrote to her mother, the
letters have not been preserved, nor are there any to
58 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
her grandmother and aunt, as one would surely have
expected. One would give a good deal to know her
own impressions of those days, but Elizabeth, though
an admirable writer in the way of discussing subjects
that interested her, was no recorder of daily events or
current chit-chat.
One girl friendship Elizabeth had with a girl con-
siderably older than herself, Anna Maria van Schur-
mann, whose learning and accomplishments would
dazzle the studious Princess. This seems to have been
formed at this time, for Mademoiselle van Schurmann,
though educated at Utrecht, was frequently lecturing
at Leyden or holding disputations in the great hall of
the University. Perhaps Elizabeth sat with her in
the curtained pew, which was probably arranged for
her like the one she occupied at Utrecht. They had
a correspondence, but the letters which have survived
belong to a later period. Their friendship suffered a
long break, to be renewed in after years. The four
years between Elizabeth and her next sister were
enough to prevent their forming any very close com-
panionship, for Elizabeth was old for her years and
leaned to the company of elder folk, to which she had
always been accustomed ; while Louise remained
somewhat childish, and their tastes were always very
different.
We may picture the young Princess growing up in
these surroundings for many years, her mind and
time fully occupied, her taste for learning strengthened,
her manners being formed on the most approved
models, while at the same time she would get a little
Photo. Louis Fi iike, Her/ord
ELIZABETH AT THE AGE OF TWELVE
l-'roin a portrait by Kasfiar Barlcns
By permission of Herr Rector Normann of the Hcrford Museum
EDUCATION 59
shaken out of her natural soberness by forming one
of a large and merry family party. The portrait
painted of her by Kaspar Barlens about this time, if
not remarkable as a picture, is very interesting as a like-
ness ; it represents her with a round, sweet face and
high forehead, and a certain gravity and staidness ;
she wears a simple dress with a long pointed corsage,
the broad white collar and white cap and veil almost
seem to foreshadow the future Abbess, though no
such dignity was dreamed of for her for many years ;
an open book lies in her lap, and her slender hand —
a Stuart hand with long, pointed fingers — rests upon
the open page. The tame goldfinch perched on the
finger of the other hand suggests that she shared
her mother's love of pets. She was about twelve
years old when this was painted.
Formal though the education may have been ac-
cording to our modern notions, it was adapted to
its end ; the sisters were well equipped to take their
place in the world, and it was a very brilliant group
of princesses who surrounded the Queen of Hearts at
the Hague a few years later.
CHAPTER IV
YOUTHFUL DAYS
Elizabeth's return to the Hague — Death of Prince Henry — Swedish
campaign — Death of the King of Bohemia — Letter of condo-
lence from Elizabeth to her cousin on similar bereavement —
The Queen's high courage — Social position — House on the
Lange Vorhout — Marriage of the Stadthalter with Amelia de
Solms — Elizabeth's comradeship with Rupert — Negotiations for
her marriage — Her refusal to become a Catholic — Not anxious
to marry — Match suggested with Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar —
Admiration of Waldemar of Denmark — Her appearance and
portraits — Description of the sisters — Liveliness of the young
people — Masques and tournaments — Practical jokes — Visits of
Frederic William of Brandenburg — His attachment to Louise —
Life at Rhenen.
ELIZABETH must have remained five years
at Leyden, hardly longer, though M.
Foucher de Careil indeed speaks of her
having made the acquaintance of Anna
van Schurmann there when she was about fifteen ;
but a casual reference in a letter from her father to
his wife not many weeks before his death shows
her to have been living at the Hague at that time.
He is writing from Frankfort, where he was with the
King of Sweden, and says: —
I am surprised you should not rather have lodged
Dingley at the Commanderie where there is plenty of
room, than so near your daughter in the women's quarter :
60
YOUTHFUL DAYS 61
he might have been well content with the room Ashburn-
ham had.
In the spring of that same year M. de Plessen had
died, and this caused new arrangements to be con-
templated at the Prinsenhof : the good man, how-
ever, was not easy to replace, and in the end his
widow continued at the head of the establishment
there, a new Governor being appointed for the young
princes. The reference of the much-harassed king
to his death is rather pathetic ; he writes to his wife
from the Camp, 8th March, 1632 : " Le bon Mr. de
Plessen est heureux d'etre mort. Je souhaiterois de
pouvoir avoir quelqu'un qui fut aussi [word omitted]
pres les enfans." Elizabeth, then in her fourteenth
year, would be considered quite old enough to leave
school ; girls were looked upon as grown-up by that
age or sooner ; moreover, her father may have thought
it would be a comfort to her mother while he was
in the field to have her eldest daughter with her.
During her absence at Leyden a great sorrow had
befallen the family in the death by drowning of the
eldest brother Henry, the flower of the flock and his
father's pride and constant companion. In the winter
of 1629-30 he had gone with his father to the Zuyder
Zee to see the Spanish galleons taken by the Dutch
which had just been towed into the harbour. James
Howell, who relates the accident in a letter to Lord
Clifford (misdated 1623), said the King and Prince
were crossing " for more frugality " in the common
packet boat, other accounts state that they were in
the King's own yacht ; whichever it was, in the dusk
62 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
of the winter afternoon the vessel was run down ; the
King swam out and was rescued, the young Prince,
entangled in the wreckage, was half frozen half drowned
before he could get clear, and sank with the choking
cry, " Save me, father ! " a cry which the distressed
father could never forget. Possibly he felt that his
characteristic want of readiness and resource had
paralysed him till too late. It was a heart-breaking
sorrow to both parents, and fell very hardly on the
mother, who had barely recovered from the birth of
little Charlotte ; and no doubt it was a very grievous
blow to his eldest sister, just old enough to realise
the sadness of such a loss, and by temperament in-
clined to melancholy. Perhaps if she had been with
her mother at that time the two would have drawn
closer together in sympathy, for the elder Elizabeth
must have recalled her own sorrow for her eldest
brother snatched away in opening manhood.
The year that the young Elizabeth returned must
have been a time of feverish anxiety. The Swedish
King Gustavus Adolphus had come with a powerful
army and undertaken the leadership of the Protestant
cause, and Frederic had of course hastened to join
his standard. Besides the inevitable fears of a de-
voted wife for her husband's safety, the Queen was
distracted between hope and disappointment, for
the interests of the Palatinate were not the only or
the chief thing to be considered by the Swedes. For
her even the Swedish successes were fraught with
disappointment and disillusion, and with the death
of the champion on the field of Lutzen the hopes
YOUTHFUL DAYS 63
built upon his enterprise were utterly wrecked ; for
though the Swedes fought on, deprived of their head
they were no longer a match for Tilly and Wallen-
stein. Within a few weeks this blow was followed
by a far more crushing one in the death of Frederic.
If ever man died of a broken heart, the Winter King
surely did ; he was suffering from a fever of b}' no
means a serious nature, and when the fatal news was
brought him, he turned his face to the wall and made
no more effort to live ; in utter weakness and dis-
couragement he passed away, leaving a lost cause to
be fought for by his young sons and his desolate
Queen. Before her stood the further trial of bringing
another, fatherless boy into the world, for within two
months her thirteenth child, the fragile little Gustave,
named by his father's wish after the Swedish hero,
was born in winter and in sorrow.
Hers had been no mere political union, founded
though it had been on reasons of State and ex-
pediency ; every year had deepened the affection
the young pair felt for each other from the first,
and sorrow shared had but tightened the bond.
Together they had enjoyed the delights of the first
happy years at Heidelberg ; all Elizabeth's sweetest
memories were bound up with the young husband
whose one thought had been to give her pleasure ;
together they had gone forth upon their rash enter-
prise ; together they had endured failure and ruin,
and through long years of exile and of the sickness
of hope ever frustrated, she had stood loyally at his
side, uttering no reproach, consoling and supporting
64 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
his more despondent temper. When they were
apart almost daily letters were exchanged. Few
would have wondered if the widowed Queen had shut
herself up with her sorrow for the rest of her
days.
But Elizabeth was made of sterner stuff ; till she
recovered from the birth of Gustave she remained in
seclusion, then she rallied her forces, and with the
high spirit and fortitude characteristic of her race,
took her place once more in the world, using every
endeavour to forward the interests of her second son,
now through the death of his father and brother
become Elector Palatine, though as yet unacknow-
ledged by the Empire. In him was now centred all
his mother's ambition ; to him, ever her favourite,
she now transferred all her hopes, her pride, her
loyalty to the head of the House, and for him it
was eminently desirable that she should entertain,
should receive foreign guests of distinction who might
be able to forward his views, should make new friends
and keep up old, and use her own charm to bring
the almost forlorn enterprise of her son before those
who could aid him. She wore mourning indeed to the
end of her days, and kept her presence chamber always
hung with black velvet, as was noted by John Evelyn
on a visit to the Hague nine years later. He records in
his diary that he waited upon the Queen and Princesses
and saw also Prince Maurice newly come out of Ger-
many. He said it was a fasting day with the Queen
for the death of her husband, but it was not the day
of his death, for it was in July, and the King died the
YOUTHFUL DAYS 65
19th of November, but it was one of her anniversaries
which she always religiously observed.
So though it was under heavy shadow that the
young Princess's school-days closed, her new life at
the Hague was not to be a dull one. The only record
of her own sorrow on her father's death is in a little
letter of condolence written to her cousin Elizabeth
Louise of Zweibriicken three years later on a similar
bereavement. It is written in excellent, though
rather antiquated French. I give it in translation : —
Rhenen, 3/13 Oct., 1635.
I cannot refrain from telling you with what grief I have
learned the loss you have experienced in the death of your
father, which I feel as much on your account as for the
interest I have in it, certainly no little both in the honour
of belonging to him, and the particular favours I have
received from him. This, Mademoiselle, with the affection
I bear you obliges me to beg you as one of your servants,
to moderate the just sense you have of this affliction. I
know its greatness by experience, which is still fresh in my
memory. However, I will not trouble you by suggesting
all the reasons which you already know, but will pray the
Almighty to give you strength to bear it, which is the sole
remedy which one can have, which I wish you, as I do all
that could give you satisfaction, and should feel myself very
happy if I could serve you in anything of which you would
find me capable.*
This cousin became a very close friend of Eliza-
beth's in after years. On her return to the Hague
Elizabeth was placed under the especial charge and
* Briefe der Kinder des Winter Konigs, Heidelberger Historisches
Taschenbuch.
F
66 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
chaperonage of Lady Vere, one of her mother's English
suite. The house in which the exiled Court was now
settled was a fine mansion belonging to a banished
nobleman, Cornelius van der Myle.* They had at
first occupied a palace belonging to Prince Frederic
Henry, brother of the Stadthalter, the same in which
they had stayed when they passed through the Hague
on their bridal progress ; but when it appeared that
their residence was likely to be permanent, they were
moved into the one next door in which the wife of
van der Myle still had rooms. It stood at the corner
of the Lange Vorhout, then as now a long narrow
grove of trees, with a broad drive down the centre
and a promenade on either hand. The house, if not
entirely pulled down, has been so completely trans-
formed as to retain no recognisable features ; the site
is now occupied by the Ministry of Finance. The
long corridor with deep window-seats looking out
on a courtyard at the back may have been part of
the original building, but this is uncertain. Next to it
stood — and still stands — the ugly Calvinist church in
which Louise had been baptised, and in which the
Queen sometimes attended service, though she still for
some time retained her Anglican chaplain, Samson
Jonson.
For a while the Queen had seemed utterly crushed
by the sorrows which had fallen so thick upon her,
but hers was a buoyant nature ; mourning passionately
she was yet able to fling aside grief and throw herself
with zest into fresh enterprises, able, too, to be easily
* Green's Princesses of England.
YOUTHFUL DAYS 67
amused with the events of the passing hour. Writing
to her old friend Sir Henry Wotton, after enlarging
on some of her many perplexities and disappointments,
she adds : " Yet am I still of my old wild humour to
be as merry as I can." So though the Court was for
long in mourning, it was in a scene of comparative
gaiety that the young Elizabeth, with her graver
temperament, her more studious tastes, was to grow
up. She never seemed wholly in sympathy with
her mother ; not improbably she, with youthful
intolerance, may have judged her frivolous, even
heartless, as she saw her in no long time after her loss
re-enter the world, picking up once more the threads
of daily life, laughing heartily at the comic side of
things, at the pranks and jokes of her lively children
or the antics of her pet monkeys, and not least at the
oddities of some of those errant knights who came to
offer their swords in the service of " the Queen of
Hearts." " I am never without somebody to make
me sport," she writes ; " when one goes another
comes." Between her and her eldest daughter there
was occasional friction, and on one or two occasions
strained relations, yet they were good friends in the
main, and the mother was always proud of Elizabeth's
commanding talents and the high place she won in
the estimation of learned men. She herself was a
very cultivated woman, and enjoyed the society of
clever people, but her tastes and her daughter's
were in some points divergent ; she was an admirable
linguist and loved reading history, poetry, or drama,
but she had not the younger Elizabeth's gift for pro-
68 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
found and serious reflection, and we may believe
was sometimes annoyed at her absence of mind.
Though she had so tenderly sympathised with her
husband's morbid and gloomy moods, she could not
always make allowance for the melancholy tempera-
ment he had bequeathed to his eldest daughter.
The social position of the Queen of Bohemia at
the Hague was, for an exile, a singularly brilliant one.
She had always been a great favourite with her hus-
band's uncle Maurice, and during his lifetime, as he
was unmarried, was the principal lady at Court, and
took the lead in all social functions. With the ac-
cession of Frederic Henry and his marriage, this was
of necessity somewhat changed, but she and her
daughters were still treated with the highest considera-
tion.
The new Princess of Nassau had been Elizabeth's
own Lady-in-Waiting, and though of distinguished, was
not of royal birth. When Maurice lay dying he was
very anxious to secure a legitimate heir for the Stadt-
haltership, for though nominally elective, he was
desirous that by prescriptive right the succession
should become hereditary in his family. He well
knew that it would be hopeless to try to arrange an
ambitious alliance for his brother, for Henry's attach-
ment to Amelia de Solms was an open secret. Had
it not been for the fear of Maurice's disapproval he
would have declared himself long before. But now
the Stadthalter felt his time was short ; he wanted to
see his brother with a wife ; possibly his niece had
interceded for the lovers ; she had always a heart
YOUTHFUL DAYS 69
for such, and he not only withdrew all opposition,
but desired that the marriage should take place
without delay. So within a few weeks of Frederic
Henry's appointment as his brother's successor, the
former Maid-of-Honour found herself in a position
analogous to that of Queen.*
It speaks volumes for the temper of both ladies
that no shadow of rivalry seems to have clouded their
intercourse in their changed positions. Once indeed
it appeared both mothers were anxious to secure the
hand of Charles II of England for a daughter, but if
there were intrigue there was no rupture, and they
remained for years on terms of affectionate friendship,
Amelia's children growing up in cousinly intercourse
with Elizabeth's younger ones. At the time the
eldest Princess Palatine came home Amelia had been
some seven or eight years married, and her eldest
boy William was already betrothed to the little
Princess Royal of England. The little girls, who
were younger, were still in the nursery, and of course
not companions for the Princess, but were pets and
playthings, especially the eldest, Louise Henriette,
for whom she always had a warm affection.
She had for a little time the companionship of her
brothers, but not very long after her father's death
Charles, now Elector Palatine, was sent to his uncle
and godfather in England. He was at this time the
most accomplished of the young Princes, not a whit
behind Rupert in learning, and far before him in
* Court Life in the Dutch Republic, by Baroness Suzette van
Zuylen van Nyevelt.
70 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
social graces ; Sir Thomas Rowe, responding to the
mother's commendation of the lad' to his friendly
auspices, wrote : " It is not the first time your Majesty
has confessed to me your affection for the Prince
Elector, but now I must admire and approve your
judgment, for never was there fairer subject of love." *
The two half-grown boys, Rupert and Maurice, were
in the judgment of Clarendon when they first went to
England, somewhat rude and shy, especially Maurice,
and Rupert had at home won for himself the nickname
of Robert le Diable from his hot and hasty temper, f
With him Elizabeth had a great deal in common, and
either now or when he was at home for a time later
he and she worked together at the chemical experi-
ments referred to by De Sorbiere.
She was still very young when proposals of marriage
were made to her by Ladislas IV, King of Poland.
He had ascended the Polish throne in 1632, and had
that same year laid claim to that of Sweden in suc-
cession to Gustavus Adolphus, as the male heir of
the House of Vasa, but since no salic law obtained in
Sweden, that crown descended to Gustavus's daughter
Christine. Ladislas was already forty, and had been
married before, but acted like a hot-headed boy,
according to Langenich's History of the Prussian
Polish Provinces under Ladislas IV, from which
Madame Blaze de Bury quotes. In January, 1633,
he sent his deputy Zawadski to England to negotiate
the matter with Charles I, as the young lady's uncle
* Green, Princesses of England.
I Rupert, Prince Palatine, Eva Scott.
YOUTHFUL DAYS 71
and guardian, and received an encouraging response,
provided that she was permitted to retain her own
religion. Personally Ladislas would have been quite
willing to agree to this stipulation, nor would the Pope
have refused a dispensation, but there was the further
difficulty of the religion of offspring, and the question
was deferred until the Diet of Warsaw in November,
1635. The proposal provoked a most stormy scene,
the Poles violently refusing to receive a heretic.
The middle-aged lover protested and even wept in
vain ; the Poles were rigid, and no less rigid was
Elizabeth in her firm refusal even to consider a change
of religion. Not only was it the one she had practised
all her life, and in which she had found all the spiritual
influence she knew, but her family had ever been fore-
most in the Protestant cause, and for its sake her
father had lost crown and patrimony ; for her to
change would have seemed a treachery to his memory.
Her resolve had her mother's entire support, though
the Queen must have been anxious to see her
portionless daughters suitably settled. She had the
approval, too, of her eldest brother, who wrote from
England : " I am most infinitely glad to hear that your
Majesty is so pleased with my sister's behaviour.
I pray God she may never do otherwise."
The King of Poland, however, was not so easily
to be put off ; the next year he despatched Zawadski
once more to England with instructions to suggest
that Queen Henrietta Maria might invite her niece
on a visit and influence her in favour of the Catholic
faith. Whether the invitation was sent or not we
72 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
do not know, but if so it was not accepted, and Eliza-
beth would have been a difficult subject to influence.
Whether Ladislas had seen his proposed bride or had
fallen in love with the report of her wonderful attain-
ments, he showed considerable ardour, but without
the consent of his subjects he could not or dared not
act, and the long-protracted negotiations made her
relations in England doubt of the bona fides of his
intentions. Charles Louis wrote to his mother 16th
May, 1636 : —
Concerning the Polish business I know not what to
believe of it, for the K of P hath engaged himself so far in
it, both to the K my uncle and to your M that it were an
affront to you both and a shame to himself, if he now leaves
it, for, in all his letters to the K he still shews a great desire
to the match, and he needs not the States of Poland's
consent to do it ; but it seemeth he seeketh all means to
do it with their good will, and for that wishes she may be
of their religion.
In another letter he refers to the suggestion of
Henrietta Maria's intervention with the remark : " The
Q is so discreet she will not meddle with it." In June
he writes : " I see no reason why one should think the
K of Poland should not mean it really." *
But, despite his tears and protestations, Ladislas
would not venture to marry without the consent of
the Diet, and after long languishing the negotiations
were broken off. What Elizabeth's personal feeling
in the matter was we cannot tell, nor indeed whether
she had ever seen her proposed bridegroom. Many
* Royal Letters, Sir George Bromley.
YOUTHFUL DAYS 73
years later she referred to it in answer to a letter
containing a rumour that she had become a Catholic ;
she assures her correspondent there is no truth in the
report, adding with naivete, " Since I would not do it
when I might have secured a husband and a crown,
it is not likely I would do it now." Perhaps with
advancing years she felt her loneliness and lack of
position, and this was the only definite proposal that
was entertained for her. Matches were not easy to
arrange for the Palatinate Princesses ; their pretensions
were high, their fortunes low, and attractive as they
were, only one of the four made a good match. There
was indeed a suggestion made a few years later by
the Earl of Leicester that an alliance between the
young Elector Palatine and Bernard of Saxe- Weimar
might be cemented by Elizabeth's hand, but the fall
of Bernard carried the scheme into the limbo of lost
things, and no hint transpires of Elizabeth's feelings
in the matter. There was a young Count Waldemar
of Denmark who at one time paid her some attention,
but the only mention of this is in her mother's cor-
respondence with Sir Thomas Rowe, and it came to
nothing.
Elizabeth was not the type of woman for whom
marriage is the one end and aim of life ; if it is dis-
respectful to describe her as " a born old maid," one
may say of her that she was of those who have a
natural vocation for spinsterhood or the cloister ;
probably she was really happier in preserving the
independence of mind and life which suited her. She
does not seem to have either felt or inspired romantic
74 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
attachments, but she had not a little of her mother's
genius for friendships with men, and 'formed several
strong and lasting ties of this nature. If she lacked
the charm of a capricious woman, she had a steadfast
loyalty on which her friends could always count.
She is spoken of by contemporary writers as hand-
some, but what princess in her teens does not enjoy
that reputation ? Descartes, indeed, waxes eloquent
about her " angelic looks " ; but he is a biassed wit-
ness, being so dazzled with the charms of her mind.
The portraits that have come down bear conflicting
testimony. The one by Honthorst in the National
Portrait Gallery represents a decidedly handsome
woman with regular features, and a countenance of
much intellectuality and dignity. Those in the Heidel-
berg Castle Museum are markedly inferior ; one gives
her a set, wooden look, hardly consonant with the
spirituality of her mind : but probably the fault lay
with the artist rather than the sitter. The three por-
traits of the Princess here given show clearly the same
type of face at different periods of life.
She was very tall, and in her youth somewhat slim
and angular, growing stout in later life. Sophie says
she was considered handsome. " She had black hair,
bright complexion, brown and brilliant eyes, thick and
dark eyebrows, a good-shaped forehead, well-formed
and red lips, with very good teeth, her nose aquiline
and thin." Sophie has cruelly immortalised the red-
ness of this otherwise good nose ; never very strong,
and apt, from too great devotion to sedentary pur-
suits, to suffer from indigestion, in her young days
YOUTHFUL DAYS 75
Elizabeth's long nose was prone to take an unbecoming
tint, and it is a very human touch in this philosophic
Princess that she took it to heart so much. Sophie
relates that when Louise reminded her that it was
time to repair to the Queen's apartments, she would
ask in despair : " Would you have me go with this
nose ? " to which her saucy sister would make
reply, " Well, you can't wait till you can get another
one." * Her eyes, like her younger brother Edward's,
were a little too round for beauty, though full of in-
telligence ; and her thick, straight eyebrows gave her
a rather stern look which belied the gentleness of her
nature.
She was entitled to a heritage of good looks on both
sides ; the Palatinate princes had been noted for
beauty for many generations, and her father was no
exception. He and his Stuart bride were a singularly
handsome pair, but their eldest daughter, though
sufficiently comely, seems to have lacked that name-
less charm which her mother inherited in good measure
from her beautiful grandmother, the Queen of Scots,
and handed down to two at least of her four daughters.
It was charm of mind rather than of person that dis-
tinguished the eldest Princess and won her an enthusi-
astic admiration from such men as Descartes and her
cousin Frederic William.
Her sister Louise, who, though four years younger,
was emancipated from the schoolroom and followed
her to the Hague no long time after, was in many
ways a great contrast : not quite so tall, so dignified
* Memoiren der Herzogin Sophie, Kocher.
76 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
in carriage, nor so correct in feature, she was softer-
looking, more graceful and more pleasing, with great
charm both of countenance and manner, and a beauti-
ful complexion. Very merry she was too, and gifted
with a ready and witty tongue. According to Sophie,
she was wonderfully untidy, her clothes looking as if
they had been thrown on with a pitchfork, yet she
had that nameless grace so often denied to the orderly,
and, with her eye for form and colour, no doubt her
garments were harmonious if carelessly worn. Sociable
and lively, her devotion to her art kept her from be-
coming frivolous, for she painted at every available
moment with enthusiasm. Her gift for catching like-
nesses was remarkable, and she could paint excellent
portraits from memory ; her methods seem to have
been rather slapdash than painstaking, for her mother's
old friend, Lord Harrington, once compared her to the
painter of old of whom it is related that, exasperated
by his inability to paint the foam on the bit of a
champing horse, he flung his brush at the canvas and
achieved his effect by accident.
Henriette was very unlike both sisters, and seemed
to have cast back to her maternal grandmother Anne
of Denmark for her complexion of lilies and roses and
her fair hair of the tint which the French call blond
cendre. Her nose, which was well formed, was as
white as snow in the coldest weather, and her white
forehead was set off by dark, well-pencilled eyebrows.
The shape of her face was a perfect oval, her mouth
very pretty, and she had gentle, dovelike eyes. Her
hands and arms too were exquisitely shaped, and her
ELIZABETH WITH HUNTING SPEAR
From a painting of the School of Honthorst
By permission of the Librarian of the Bodleian, Oxford
YOUTHFUL DAYS 77
feet very small and slender. She was a gentle creature
of a most sweet disposition, and quite the beauty of
the family. Less gifted intellectually than her sisters,
her tastes were in other lines ; she excelled in needle-
work, and spent many contented hours at her em-
broidery frame or in the stillroom concocting compotes
and cakes and all manner of delicate confections.
Certainly not one of Elizabeth's daughters was idle ;
every one of the four inherited in some measure her
energy and vitality.
Little Sophie did not come home to complete the
party till 1641 ; she was then but eleven, and became
the pet and plaything of her sisters. In spite of the
strictures of the Princess of Nassau, she must have
been a pretty little creature, a slim sprite with fair
hair curling naturally, and a fair if rather pale com-
plexion. To her great joy she overheard some of her
mother's English guests predicting that she would one
day rival her handsome sisters. Altogether the four
must have formed an interesting and well-contrasted
group.
Of them all Louise was her mother's favourite ; less
shy than Elizabeth, with more readiness and aplomb,
and ever bubbling over with laugh and jest. She
would be the one to take the lead in getting up the
concerts, masques, and theatrical entertainments in
which they all delighted, devising costumes and
scenery which Henriette's clever fingers would help
to carry out. Elizabeth was always ready to join
and bear her part, but a little from a sense of duty,
her mind straying to her beloved books the while, for
78 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
Sophie says : " She was often very absent, which
made us all laugh at her" — good-natured laughter,
for the brothers and sisters were all excellent friends.
The performance of Jason and Medea in French has
been recorded both in the Queen's letters and in
Sophie's memoirs. It was a great event to her, for
she had but lately returned, and her elder sisters
thought her too young to be entrusted with a part.
So eager was she, and so retentive her memory, that
she learned the whole play by heart, and, having re-
peated it without mistake, was allowed to play Nerine,
which she did with great applause. Elizabeth, an ex-
cellent linguist and possessed of a good memory, would
be a useful and reliable member of the company, but
was probably too shy to shine as an actress.
The three elder boys spent much time at the English
Court, where their uncle Charles was anxious to do all
he could for his sister's children, short of plunging his
own country into the vortex of the Thirty Years' War.
They came and went, for there was a good deal of
intercourse between London and the Hague. When
they were at home the fun was fast and furious, for
they were wild, high-spirited lads, especially Maurice,
who on one occasion so disturbed the peaceable citizens
that he was requested to withdraw for a time, and the
Queen sent him with Philip to Paris to study there.
They were given to practical jokes, sometimes of a
rather unrefined nature, and at the carnival delighted
to run about masked and in disguise, talking to and
mystifying every one they met. There is a curious
little pencil drawing preserved in the Museum at
YOUTHFUL DAYS 79
Leyden, done by the Queen, of herself and her hus-
band and some of their suite masked, standing at the
corner of a street at the Hague. She entered into all
their amusements with a perhaps too indulgent temper.
It is related that a deputation of English Puritans
coming over in 1635 to offer to the Queen " a godly
condolence," retired deeply disgusted by the " songs,
dances, hallooings and other jovialities " of Charles,
Rupert, Maurice, and Edward.* A year or two later
the two eldest, having come over from England to
prepare for Charles's attempt to recover his patri-
mony, attended a tournament at the Hague, dressed
as Moors and mounted on white horses. By their
skill as well as by their striking get-up they outshone
all the company.
Dances were frequent at the Binnenhof under
Amelia's rule ; the palace in the woods had not yet
been built for her delight, and their summer resort
was at Hounslersdyk. An old print of a few years
later represents one of these Court functions at which
a minuet is being danced by the exiled English King
Charles II. No doubt our Elizabeth was well fitted
to pace with stateliness through galliard or pavane,
for dancing was then quite a serious business. Be-
sides the brothers, Elizabeth's favourite cousin,
Frederic William of Brandenburg, spent a good deal
of time with them. He was sent in 1634 to study at
Leyden, and especially recommended to the kindness
of his aunt, with whom he often stayed for weeks to-
gether. Some writers have imagined an attachment
* Rupert, Prince Palatine, Scott.
80 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
between him and Elizabeth, but there does not seem
to have been anything beyond a steady affection as of
brother and sister ; they were nearly the same age
and had spent much of their early childhood together,
and between them was remarkable community of
tastes and interest. He developed into a highly
educated and intellectual man, and in his plans for
his country Elizabeth would warmly sympathise.
For Louise Hollandine he seems to have felt a bud-
ding attachment, fostered by both mothers, but this
coming to the ears of the Elector George William,
roused great anger, he having no idea of a portion-
less bride for his heir. He took prompt measures to
stamp it out, recalling the young man at once to
Berlin, and a few years later Frederic William wooed
and won another Louise, Louise Henriette, daughter
of the Stadthalter, who was quite a child when he was
wandering in the woods and by the river, paying court
to Louise Hollandine.*
The summers were not spent in the town, but in a
charming country house which the King of Bohemia
had built only a few years before his death on the
banks of the Rhine at Rhenen, a small town or big
village, lying midway between Arnheim and Culem-
burg. Here life could be lived free of the burdensome
etiquette of the Court, and at a less expense. The
house stood upon the rampart just above the moat
which then encircled the town, close under the shadow
of the majestic church tower, separated from the
broad river by a few low-lying marshy fields, and
* Court Life — "Myevelt." Conf. Everett Green, Princesses.
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YOUTHFUL DAYS 81
raised well above the mists. Westward the shores are
flat, broken with the rows of Lombardy poplars
characteristic of Holland ; but eastward rise the
wooded hills towards Arnheim, with lovely varied
scenery of glade and thicket, affording scope for the
hunting in which the Queen still delighted, but in
which neither Elizabeth nor Sophie cared to take part.
All, however, loved the free open-air life, the boating,
the fishing, the swimming, the relaxation of all cere-
mony. Here they might roam at will in the fields or
along the raised causeway by the river without the
escort of governess or lady-in-waiting, with only the
protection of brothers or cousin, the party frequently
reinforced by some of the Nassau cousins from the
Hague.
Ceremony at any time does not seem to have been
very rigidly enforced to judge by two letters written
from Whitehall by Charles to his mother on the subject
of a certain Mrs. Crofts, a dismissed Lady-in-Waiting.
Whitehall, 24th May, 1637.
Madam, — Though I am assured your Majesty maketh
no doubt of my civil carriage towards Mrs. Crofts, because
she was your servant and you commanded it, yet I hear she
is not pleased with it, and hath sent her complaints beyond
sea. I do not know whether they are come to your
Majesty's ears, but I easily believe it, because she told my
Lord Craven that I used her like a stranger, and did not
speak to her before the King and Queen ; yet I think I may
truly say I spoke more with her since she came into Eng-
land than all my lifetime before. If your Majesty did
consider the ill opinion I had, both before and during my
sister's friendship, of her, besides the quarrel we had a
82 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
little before I went from Rhenen, about Cave and Home,
you would not think that I resented herJll carriage to your
Majesty, only since she is fallen out with my sister, who
now sees her error. . . .
This is followed by another about a month later : —
... I cannot tell your Majesty particularly what dis-
course Mrs. Crofts makes of them she left beyond sea, but
I heard the third or fourth night she was arrived, she gave
the characters of all of them at the Hague to my Lady
Carlisle ; which I heard by one who overheard them, but
would not tell me any particulars, only said most of them
were well-stitched and her censure sharp enough. I did
not hear what counsel she gave my brother Rupert ; but
he told me that the other day she would not look upon him.
It now is in your power never to be troubled with her any
more ; for (though I hear she promised you to the contrary)
if she once more returns, you will never be rid of her. As
for me I will do her all the help I can, if she will stay ; for
I wish her no other ill than that she may not return to
your M. : let her do here as much mischief as she can.
There is spread all over the town, and every one maketh
their judgments of it according to their several affections,
that my Lady Leveston hath given my sister a box on the
ear before twenty people in the Prince of Orange's garden,
and did not so much as ask her pardon for it. Your
Majesty, I believe, will not take it well of those that write
over every foolish thing that happens at your Court, for
here they always make the worst of it : I cannot but
believe it was in jest, seeing I heard nothing of it from
herself.*
The sister here referred to can hardly have been
Elizabeth ; neither the foolish and unsuitable friend-
* Bromley Letters.
YOUTHFUL DAYS 83
ship nor the great liberty taken with her seems con-
sonant with her age or character. She was at this
time in her twentieth year ; it seems more likely of
careless, easy-going Louise, four years younger and
never greatly standing on her dignity.
More and more time seems to have been spent at
Rhenen, and letters are frequently dated thence. Of
the house where they spent those free and easy sum-
mers not one stone is left standing upon the founda-
tions, which can just be traced above the moat. The
site is now occupied by a restaurant, and, standing
on a broad balcony opening from one of the upstairs
rooms, the pilgrim finds himself looking away across
the orchards and clustering trees which fill the now
dry moat to the broad, shining Rhine, a scene on
which Elizabeth's dreaming eyes must many a time
have rested. One cannot but wish she had given some
description of it in her letters, or of the charming walks
up the steep village street that lay behind, to the hill
crowned with a windmill so old it may well have
stood there in her day. The inn which replaced her
home was for long called the " King of Bohemia,"
but its name has recently been altered to the " King
of Denmark."
It seems remarkable that this merry family life was
led under the ban of a long and almost hopeless exile.
Of all the children, only Elizabeth seems to have
realised or grieved over their position : their old home
not only out of reach, but devastated and destroyed,
their fortunes nil, prospects of worthy careers for the
boys or suitable matches for the girls more than
84 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
problematical. Moreover, during all these years the
Thirty Years' War was dragging out 'its interminable
length ; while from England disquieting news was
beginning to come of the threatened troubles so nearly
concerning them, for to their uncle there they looked
as a mainstay. Yet what an atmosphere of gay, easy
insouciance breathes through letters and memoirs !
When Sophie mentions their poverty, it is with a jest
that they frequently dined on pearls and diamonds,
as jewels had to be pledged to obtain the necessaries
of life. For a while, however, though remittances were
scanty, credit was still to be obtained, and they lived
like the grasshopper of the fable.
So, while hopes of restoration languished, these boys
and girls sang and acted, laughed and romped, as
though they had no more serious concern in life than
to pass the idle hours.
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CHAPTER V
AN INTELLECTUAL FRIENDSHIP
Introduction of M. Descartes at the Lange Vorhout — Literary
society surrounding the Queen of Bohemia — Sketch of Des-
cartes — His appreciation of the Princess — Attitude of the Queen
— Letter from Elizabeth — Visits to Endegeest — Rupert's aid
in study of chemistry — Correspondence with Descartes.
IN the winter of 1640 a new interest dawned
upon Elizabeth's horizon, one more consonant
with her serious bent than the round of amuse-
ment, the masques, the plays, the tourna-
ments in which her brothers and sisters took pleasure.
A visitor was one day introduced at the reception of
the Queen of Bohemia, M. Rene Descartes, not un-
known to the Princess by reputation. She had already
read some of his philosophical writings, and had found
in them a new principle which so appealed to her that
she declared she would cast aside all that she had
hitherto learned and begin to build anew from the
very foundation.
The Queen also was prepared to extend a cordial
welcome to the new-comer. She read everything and
could discuss everything, and Philosophy, particu-
larly in its new guise of Cartesianism, was rapidly
becoming the ruling fashion at the Hague. Her
drawing-room was the resort of many clever men :
85
86 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
Constantine Huyghens, Sieur de Zuylichem, secretary
to the Stadthalter, and an amateur poet of some
distinction, with his gifted son, a poet also, and an
astronomer, the discoverer of Saturn's rings, were fre-
quent visitors. He had but lately lost his charming
wife, a daughter of van Baerle. The two brothers,
Christopher and Achatius Dhona, were old friends and
adherents of the Palatinate House, and had followed
them into exile ; they were both distinguished scholars,
educated at Heidelberg University, studying later in
France and Italy. Achatius was a warm friend of
Descartes, and also of the Princess Elizabeth, keeping
up his friendship with her long after the death of the
Philosopher. Another disciple of the new Philosophy
was the Queen's chaplain, Samson Jonson, whose
enthusiasm led him to mix himself in the quarrel
between Descartes and the Calvinist divine Dr. Voet,
or Voetius, as he was called in learned circles. This
probably was at the bottom of the charges of socinian-
ism and atheism later brought against him when the
English Parliament demanded that the States-General
should require his dismissal. One writer ascribes the
introduction to him, one to de Pollot, Gentleman-in-
Waiting to Frederic Henry, a personal friend of Des-
cartes and a distinguished figure in society at the
Hague, another to the Dhona brothers. The question
is of no moment ; there stands the Philosopher,
making his bow before the Queen and her bevy of
handsome daughters, and forging all unconscious the
first link in a historic friendship which was to be the
eldest princess's highest title to honour.
AN INTELLECTUAL FRIENDSHIP 87
No Diogenes in his tub this : a man of breeding, a
soldier and a travelled citizen of the world, well able
to hold his own in any drawing-room. Goethe has
commented on the double nature, courtier and idealist,
which met in him. " A man of the world, he never
neglected any of the events that might happen in
society ; not a royal marriage or christening, not a
coronation, a jubilee, or a siege, but at all costs he
must witness it with his own eyes and be able to talk
of it with his equals. But this was counterbalanced
by his practice of retreat — Ruckkehr in sich selbst."
He had but lately come into the neighbourhood,
having bought the charming little property of Ende-
geest, some three miles beyond the north-western gate
of Leyden, and so short a distance from the capital
that it was quite easy to spend half a day there, re-
turning in the evening. He had been living already
some years in Holland, having come into that country
in search of a wider tolerance for the expression of
opinion than he could find at home, a quest in which
to some extent he was disappointed, for the Pro-
testant divines were no more tolerant of a free thought
that outran their own than were the Catholic school-
men ; and, though his personal freedom was not
meddled with, he had to endure scurrilous attacks
from the professor of Theology, Voetius, which he
was by no means inclined to endure with equanimity.*
His life up to his thirty-fifth year had been one of
great variety of experience. He came of a well-
descended family settled in Rennes, but not of Breton
* Descartes, Mahaffy.
88 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
ancestry, and himself enjoyed the title, had he cared
to use it, of Seigneur de Perron, from an estate he in-
herited in Touraine, but subsequently sold. His father
belonged to the rank known as Noblesse de Robe,
persons who held office in local administration, and
took rank between the Haute noblesse and the bour-
geoisie occupied in trade. Rene Descartes, as became
a philosopher, cared little for titles or distinctions, and
preferred to be known as plain M. Descartes. He was
educated at the Jesuit college of La Fleche, and always
retained a great respect for the fathers and a high
opinion of their merits as pedagogues. Being a sickly
and delicate lad, the customary early rising was not
in his case insisted on, and during the years he spent
at school he formed the habit of lying late in bed,
occupying his mind the while with serious philosophic
reflection ; he always said in after life he found no
such undisturbed time for fruitful meditation as those
quiet morning hours. His mental bias showed itself
at an early age, and before he went to school his father
dubbed him his young Philosopher. An event of his
school life which left a vivid memory was the murder
of Henri IV, the heart of the King being sent for in-
terment in the church of La Fleche, and he being one
of the twenty-four young gentlemen sent out on horse-
back to receive it.
Quiet and studious boy as he was, he might have
been expected to develop a vocation for the cloister,
but such was not his bent. The studies which in-
terested him most deeply were mathematics and
philosophy ; physical science he entered upon later.
AN INTELLECTUAL FRIENDSHIP 89
He had an absorbing taste for music, fostered, after
he had left La Fleche for Paris, by intercourse with
the eminent musician and mathematician, the Abbe
Mersenne, with whom he formed a close and lasting
friendship. In the restless period of opening manhood
he was fascinated by the mystical teachings of the
Rosicrucians, but they retained no long hold of his
clear and precise intellect.
Strangely divided between the contemplative and
the active life, and with health fairly re-established,
he left Paris to serve as a volunteer under Maurice of
Nassau, to whose standard many young men of
different nationalities flocked, since he was one of the
most distinguished commanders of the day. For two
years he performed garrison duty at Breda, then,
whether weary of the monotony or, as some said,
disgusted at the treatment meted to the Remonstrants,
and especially the execution of Barne veldt, he threw
up the service of the States-General and joined the
Imperial forces at the beginning of the Thirty Years'
War. Oddly enough he was in the army that be-
sieged Prague and drove out the Winter King, little
thinking how in future years he was to give his sym-
pathy and service to that unfortunate King's daughter.
Soldiering he had adopted principally as a means of
seeing the world and becoming familiar with the
manners and customs of various peoples ; in itself the
life did not appeal to him, and during the enforced
leisure of winter quarters at Neuburg he devoted him-
self to deep thought and study of the questions that
had always exercised his mind. This issued in the
90 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
discovery of that leading principle which became the
basis of his philosophy, and from that moment he
resolved to give up a military career and devote him-
self to working out and expounding his system.
Though remaining always a steadfast Catholic, if
not an entirely orthodox one, he realised that his
writings were almost sure to bring him into conflict
with his Church, a thing he was most anxious to avoid,
not, as some have thought, from insincerity or cowar-
dice, but because, like so many thinkers since his day,
he strove to reconcile the workings of his own inde-
pendent mind with loyal attachment to the faith in
which he lived and died. His declared intention was
to avoid the domain of Theology, but this, though
very well in theory, proved impossible in practice,
since he based his conception of the universe on the
intuitive knowledge of God, and fought against the
traditional assumptions of the old Scholasticism.
Holland seemed the safest place for him to take up
his abode in, for there the long arm of the Church
would not reach his person, and he seems to have
hoped that if he could avoid being silenced as Galileo
had been, he might with time get his views to prevail
and bring them into harmony with those of the Church.
His attitude with regard to the Astronomer was pecu-
liar : he avoided espousing his cause or admitting the
validity of his propositions ; neither did he deny them,
but rather blinked them by a quibble about the sta-
tionariness of a passenger in a moving coach, for he
was resolved not to come into conflict with his re-
ligious superiors. In fact, he rather skimmed than
Levy it ses Fils
RENE DESCARTES
From a painting by Bourdon in ilic Louvre
AN INTELLECTUAL FRIENDSHIP 91
studied Galileo's arguments, and gave them little
weight.* Somewhat to his surprise he found himself
branded as an atheist by his Calvinist antagonists,
and though he took to himself the consolation that
the indignation of the Protestants against him might
go far to reconcile his own Church to his views, he
felt acutely the unpleasantness of inimical surroundings
and withdrew to Endegeest, a peremptory order from
the Prince of Orange having failed to put his enemy
to silence for more than a short while.
At the time of his presentation to the Queen of
Bohemia and her daughters he was a man of forty-four,
lean and rather harsh featured, with piercing eyes
under bushy eyebrows ; though his appearance was
scarcely pleasing, his manners had the well-bred
suavity of a courtier, and he was always well though
plainly dressed. In the midst of the sparkling and
brilliant badinage, the swift interchange of compli-
ment and repartee which went on round the Queen
and her second daughter, the lively Louise, the Philo-
sopher did not fail to recognise the unusual intellectual
gifts of the elder Princess, retiring though she was.
In spite of her shyness she mustered courage to ex-
press to him some of the deep interest and admiration
she felt for his writings. Perhaps they withdrew a
little into the embrasure of a window overlooking the
shady trees of the Vorhout, where they could exchange
questions and explanations on the graver subjects
that interested both so deeply, and Elizabeth could
ask for fuller light on many things that puzzled her in
* Descartes, Mahaffy.
92 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
a philosophy then so new. Her very difficulties showed
him the grasp of her mind ; she was not one who could
accept the surface values of words nor assume com-
prehension when she was not verily certain ; she
must understand down to the very foundations and
make sure for herself of every step of the way before
she would let herself go. She would follow no man's
teaching blindly.
From the first Descartes appreciated fully this
attitude of mind in the young Princess. In a con-
fidential letter to his friend de Pollot, he speaks of
Elizabeth's " generous modesty joined to a breadth of
mind superior to that of Messieurs les Docteurs who
take the opinions of Aristotle for the rule of truth,
rather than the evidence of reason." He often said
of her that she seized, as it were, by intuition, and
what was more, thoroughly grasped, principles pre-
sented to her which would take him hours of laborious
explanation to make clear to a masculine intelligence.
She certainly combined in an exceptional degree the
swift intuition characteristic of a clever woman with
the solidity of a man's understanding. Descartes's
enthusiasm was, however, rather laughed at by his
contemporaries. De Sorbiere, physician to Louis XIV,
exclaims satirically in the gossiping memoirs he wrote
of his sojourn in Holland between the years 1642-7 :
" Bless the good man ! he thinks only one man and
one woman capable of entering into his doctrines, the
physician Regius and the Princess of Bohemia." *
The attraction was mutual, and the visits of Des-
* Sorbeyiaua.
AN INTELLECTUAL FRIENDSHIP 93
cartes to the Hague became frequent. M. Victor de
Swarte, who entitles his book on the friendship,
Descartes : Directeur Spirituel, suggests that it did
not altogether rind favour with the Queen of Bohemia,
but he quotes no authority for his view, and letters
do not lend it any support. The Queen herself had
too much experience of masculine friendships to sup-
pose there was necessarily any risk of her young
daughter of two-and-twenty forming an undesirable
attachment to this man of double her age, and there
was no appearance of what in modern times would be
called flirtation. Strong as the liking between them
grew, neither the Princess nor the Philosopher were
people of amatory tendencies, and their friendship
stood serene on a firm basis of respect and intellectual
sympathy.
The elder Elizabeth had done her best to make all
her daughters cultivated women, and she was proud
of the talent of the eldest and the recognition it won
from one of the cleverest men in Europe. Possibly
Elizabeth's absorption in her new friend and in the
pursuit of philosophy may have a little outrun her
mother's desires, but neither the evidence of letters
nor the probabilities deduced from the Queen's own
character and tastes render it likely she put any hin-
drance in the way. Lover of society and of admiration
as she undoubtedly was, she was not frivolous. A
clever woman, a great reader, and quite dans le mouve-
ment in all the newer thought of the day, she liked
nothing better than to adorn her receptions with men
of wit and learning, and would be proud of the un-
94 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
usual endowments which made her daughter so at-
tractive to a savant of European fame.
To her no doubt, as to the younger members of the
family, Philosophy was but the fringe of the garment
of life, one of many interests in a world crowded with
varied pursuits ; while to Descartes and his pupil it
was the deepest and most absorbing preoccupation,
and they would be lost to the world of laughter and
jest about them, in searching discussions and deep
studies, possibly sometimes to the annoyance of the
Queen, who well understood the maxim of the world —
" nothing in excess," and would have let her daughter
dabble rather than swim. Elizabeth, however, was of
those who hunger and thirst after knowledge as the
saints after righteousness, and she could not take her
philosophy in moderation ; she longed to read the
riddle of the universe, and if this man could teach her
she would sit at his feet oblivious of the calls to come
and take her part in dance or madrigal or in helping
to entertain her mother's other guests.
She did try to rouse herself from her dreaming,
however, and conscientiously bear her part in these
mundane duties, as a letter of hers to her friend,
written from Rhenen in June, 1643, shows : —
"The life which I am obliged to lead" (she writes in
apology) " leaves me hardly disposition nor time to acquire
the habit of meditation according to your rule. Sometimes
the interests of my family which I ought not to neglect,
sometimes conversations and complaisances which I cannot
avoid, lower this weak mind of mine with weariness or
vexation that it is rendered useless for a long while, which
AN INTELLECTUAL FRIENDSHIP 95
will I hope excuse my stupidity in not grasping the idea
by which we may judge how the soul (without extent and
immaterial) can move the body."
Sometimes visits were paid to the Philosopher's
home at Endegeest. De Sorbiere recounts with much
gusto that it became quite the fashion for ladies of
position at the Hague, amongst them the Princess
Palatine, to get up little parties to visit the savant at
his country house — " disguised as bourgeoises," adds
the gossip, but this probably means no more than that
they travelled simply by barge or sailing boat without
any ceremony ; coaches were usually in waiting to
convey them home again. De Sorbiere's attempt to
throw an air of scandalous intrigue over the visits is
manifestly absurd. The Princess Palatine was of an
immaculate discretion ; gossip, later busy with her
sister Louise, who had much of the mother's heedless-
ness, never save in this instance presumes to touch her.
Very probably the party included Elizabeth's official
chaperon, Lady Vere. Madame Huyghens, who
shared with her husband the warm friendship of
Descartes, and was a woman of considerable cultiva-
tion, would have been an ideal matron for the occasion,
but to the great grief of her family and friends had
died quite young only a few years before. It is doubt-
ful whether Mademoiselle van Schurmann would be of
the party ; she and the Philosopher were not the best
of friends.
It must have been a pleasant journey, whether by
road or river. The Rhine here is broad and silvery,
slow-moving compared with its rapid career through
9 6 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
the hill country of Germany ; wide pastures, where
the black and white cattle graze, stretch on either
hand, diversified with groves and thickets, and above
the trees the great sails of windmills are slowly turn-
ing. Endegeest lies a little off the road which leads
from Leyden to the sea-coast and the dunes at Katwijk.
The avenue which connects its wrought-iron gates with
the main road is shaded by pollarded oaks so old they
may well have witnessed the passing of Elizabeth to
visit her friend. The gates themselves, with their
delicate tracery, in which the name Endegeest is grace-
fully entwined, have all the appearance of sixteenth
or seventeenth-century work. The small, well-wooded
park is wonderfully unaltered, considering that an
asylum for the mentally afflicted has recently been
erected on the portion facing the road, leaving the
little chateau happily intact, just as it was when
Descartes received his friends there. The house is of
very simple design, with a round turret on each side,
a semicircular flight of steps leads up to the front door,
and a broad passage, with good-sized rooms on either
hand, cuts straight through to the garden front. Each
of these rooms has three windows, with a little balcony
to the middle one ; and what was probably the salon
is still hung with gobelin tapestry, said to have been
there in Descartes' time, its colours softened rather
than faded. Here we may picture Elizabeth seated
on the deep window cushions, looking out on the
flower garden and across the smooth, shining moat to
the peaceful landscape beyond, while she laid some of
her perplexities before her mentor. On the opposite
AN INTELLECTUAL FRIENDSHIP 97
side of the hall was the salle a manger, with a fine
ceiling panelled in wood. These were the reception
rooms. Descartes' own study was in one of the
turrets on the upper floor, commanding a view over
the woodland to the windmills by the river and the
towers of Leyden. Adjoining this was his laboratory,
where he used to point to his chemical retorts and
appliances for dissections, saying : " These are my
books." *
Perhaps refreshments were partaken of in the salle
a manger, or more probably, when the visits were in
summer time, a " refection," as it was called, consist-
ing of syrup, fruit, and manchets of white bread,
would be served in an arbour. This was the meal
which in the seventeenth century took the place of
our afternoon tea, and was a welcome interlude between
an eleven o'clock dinner and a late supper. Though a
recluse, M. Descartes was by no means an ascetic ;
his house was charmingly furnished and his household
served him well. De Sorbiere witnesses to the excel-
lence of his cook. All things, both in house and
grounds, were admirably ordered, and the master
seems to have had the gift of attaching his servants
to his person, for he rarely changed them. There were
orchards, and the park, with beautiful groups of
beeches, sloped down to the river ; while close to the
house was a small parterre laid out in Dutch fashion,
where the Philosopher liked to tend his favourite
flowers.
The valet who waited on him for many years, a man
* Descartes, Encyclopedia Britannica.
H
98 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
named de Gillot, became quite a companion and
secretary, and on his master's death set up as a teacher
of mathematics in Leyden.*
Had propriety permitted it, no doubt Descartes
would have preferred to receive the visits of his
Princess alone, for one of his reasons for establishing
himself in so retired a spot was the desire he had to
evade the intrusive attentions of curious visitors who,
attracted by his wide fame, took the freedom of calling
on him, and at Endegeest he was far enough from
the Hague to expect to escape society unless he sought
it himself. Solitude for much of his day was a neces-
sity for him. His study was never greatly in books ;
he was for so learned a man no great reader. His
principles were worked out in the processes of his own
mind, and the chief part of his knowledge acquired
at first hand by observation and experiment, and for
this form of study solitude was essential. Books in
themselves form a line of defence against intrusion ;
a man may bury himself in his books and be lost to
the world around ; but one apparently unoccupied is
the prey of interruption, and to meditate fruitfully
one must be much alone and not even distracted by
recent contact with other minds.
Would that a fuller record of these visits than de
Sorbiere's fleeting mention had survived ! How much
we should like to know on what lines the talk ran,
what part the Princess bore in it, who were the other
members of the company, and whether the Philosopher
showed himself more the deep thinker, the accurate
* Descartes, Mahaffy.
AN INTELLECTUAL FRIENDSHIP 99
expounder, exacting close attention and logical acumen
from his devotees, or whether on these occasions he
did not appear more as the kindly host, the agreeable
man of the world, drawing from the lighter store of
his learning for the entertainment of his visitors.
Well, we shall never know, and imagination here must
be allowed some little play.
At least, we know that Elizabeth became his pupil
and disciple, but whether in this informal way through
casual and friendly intercourse, or whether he attended
her in her home as a professor, giving her regular
lessons in Philosophy, is not clear. He seems to have
bestowed a good deal of precise instruction as to the
course of study to be pursued, as her letters occasion-
ally plead that the pressure of home engagements has
prevented her fulfilling the prescribed task. Two
studies he particularly recommended if she would be
able thoroughly to grasp his principles — mathematics
and physics — embracing botany, zoology, anthropology.
Here her brother Rupert* came to her aid, for he
shared her tastes on the more practical side. Not
long after her first acquaintance with Descartes,
Rupert was at home for a time, having returned from
his long captivity in Vienna, to the great joy of his
family. He got back in December, 1641, and remained
until February, and to this period probably belong
the joint studies and experiments to which de Sorbiere
refers, and he was at the Hague again for a while in
the summer, having escorted his aunt and his young
* L' Influence de Carte" sianisme sur les Femmes du XVII me Siecle,
Foucher de Careil,
ioo A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
cousin Mary when she came to marry the youthful
William of Orange.
Though so much of Elizabeth's childhood had been
spent with her elder brother Charles, her junior,
Rupert, seems to have held the warmest place in her
affection, and there is a more confidential tone in her
letters to him. It is a great pity so few of these have
survived. With all his undeniable virtues there was
a coldness and selfishness about the young Elector
Palatine, and of his behaviour she could not always
approve ; but Rupert's warm heart and steadfast
nature appealed both to the more reserved though
very affectionate temperament of Elizabeth and to
her high ideals of conduct ; he and she had much in
common in other domains than those of the intellect.
He threw himself with characteristic zest into his
sister's eager studies : anything practical appealed
to Rupert ; with the more meditative and theoretic
side of her researches he would not be so much in
sympathy, but his mathematical talent made him
fully competent to aid her in this science as well as in
experiments. Had not the life of a soldier claimed
him and absorbed his best years and strength, he
might well have made his mark either as savant or as
artist, and in his later years was devoted to study
and to perfecting the invention of mezzotint engraving,
of which the principle had been communicated to him
by a German soldier in his recent campaign.
Elizabeth must have felt considerable enthusiasm
to have been induced to attempt not merely chemical
experiments, but even dissections ; but she was be-
rho
•ZUtlU 7 >>« A.<
Heidttoert.
PRINCE RUPERT
From a painting by J'andyck
AN INTELLECTUAL FRIENDSHIP 101
fore all things thorough. Her learning, said de Sor-
biere, quoting from those who knew her better than
he did, was something very different from the super-
ficial following of the traditions of the schools ; it
was personal, vital, original, and in her earnest desire
to understand she would put aside her feminine pre-
judices.
When the family move was made to Rhenen a
correspondence was begun between the Princess and
her learned friend that became one of the prime
interests of her life, growing more confidential with
the passing of the years and ceasing only on his death.
M. Foucher de Careil speaks of " a tender and romantic
relation springing up between master and pupil," but
these are not love letters, but those of friendship pure
and simple. It is true the Philosopher sometimes
addresses to the Princess praises that sound fulsome
in our modern ears, but are quite in the taste of the
day in writing to women of rank, as when in a letter
of many compliments he speaks of " a discourse more
than human issuing from a body such as they ascribe
to the angels." But he adopts the same tone in
addressing the sisters when, Elizabeth being away
from home, they undertook to forward his letters, and
he compares their kind offices to " the mediation of
angels." He never forgets the respect due to her
position, and after the first letter or two slides into
a far simpler and more natural mode of address. On
her side she always signs herself : " Votre tres affec-
tionnee amie a vous servir."
The answers of Elizabeth are the letters thought to
102 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
have been lost, of which copies bearing every mark of
authenticity were recovered by the researches of
M. Foucher de Careil. Many of the earlier were written
from Rhenen, some from the Hague after Descartes
had left Endegeest and gone to the more northern
part of Holland ; the later ones were mostly from
Berlin and Krossen. At the first they were chiefly
concerned with the studies Descartes had recom-
mended her to pursue and the discussion of philo-
sophical questions ; frequently she propounds diffi-
culties for solution, and in so doing not seldom lays
her finger on the weak points in his argument ; some,
indeed, she brings forward which the philosopher is
hardly able to meet. If she saw difficulties she never
blinked them, and her outspoken comments seem
often to have helped her master to a more definite
and lucid expression, and to the clearing up of what
he had left vague. Her letters were always very
simple and direct ; in her style there were no useless
phrases nor unnecessary verbiage. She repudiated, as
did Descartes, the scholastic method of wrapping up
logical principles in a profusion of wordy expressions,
and he said of her that she would make the subject
on which she was writing emerge as a sculptor might
make Minerva emerge from a shapeless block of
marble. Using an analogy from another art he loved,
he praised in her style the harmonious translation of
thought into fitting phrase, like the progressions of
music. Modest she always remained in spite of the
compliments lavished on her from so high a quarter,
and in her letters frequently apologises humbly to
AN INTELLECTUAL FRIENDSHIP 103
him for her stupidity and slowness in understanding ;
whereas he said of her that she went straight to the
heart of a subject with the methodical precision of a
philosopher. Her difficulties were not such as came
from an incapacity to understand, but in her constant
desire for exact comprehension she submitted to him
every doubt as it arose in her mind in the course of
her reading.
As the correspondence goes on a more intimate and
personal tone comes in ; the Princess confides in him
as friend as well as intellectual guide, seeks his sym-
pathy in her troubles, his advice in ill-health or
perplexity. In a life by no means free from vexations
she evidently found much solace in his letters, and,
solitary as she often was in the midst of a large family
party, turned to him for the comprehension she could
not always find at home.
CHAPTER VI
LITERARY LADIES
Cultivation of women in the seventeenth century — Learned women
under the Renaissance — Literary guilds in Holland — Women
members — Anna and Tesselschade Visscher — Links with the
Hague — Anna Maria van Schurmann — Her treatise, The
Learned Maid — Her letters to English correspondents — Com-
parison with Princess Elizabeth — Constantine Huyghens — His
poems dedicated to the Princess Palatine — The Queen's album.
THOUGH this friendship with Descartes
was the deepest and strongest, it was by
no means the only influence that went to
form the mind of Elizabeth ; she grew in
an atmosphere of cultivation and one in which the
talents of women found full development. Not only
did she inherit intellectual traditions on both sides
of her family, but at the Hague she would find herself
in congenial surroundings. She was herself excep-
tionally gifted, but the education she and her sisters
enjoyed was that bestowed on all young ladies of rank
in her time, and if she carried her studies further
after she had left the schoolroom she was not the only
one who did so.
Holland was then at the zenith of its prosperity,
and the literary society in its thriving towns as bril-
liant as could be found in any of the capitals of Europe ;
104
LITERARY LADIES 105
and the two brothers, Maurice and Frederic Henry,
who were successively Stadthalters, were both gener-
ous patrons of art and learning, and themselves men
of taste. The fashion which had sprung up in Germany
in the early days of the Renaissance of forming literary
guilds or circles, " krantzen " as they were called, for
the encouragement of learning and setting a standard
of taste had taken root in Holland, and flourished in
every sufficiently populous centre. The aims of these
were partly literary, partly social, and in them women
played no inconsiderable part. In a very charming
book, Court Life in the Dutch Republic, the Baroness
de Nyevelt draws a most interesting picture of society
in the Netherlands, especially in Amsterdam, at a
period a little before the time that the Palatinate
family took up their abode at the Hague, describing
several of these guilds. The chief ornaments of the
circle at Amsterdam were the two charming sisters,
Anna and Tesselschade Visscher, daughters of Romer
Visscher, a Catholic merchant, himself a man of con-
siderable literary attainment. He had an especial
hobby for bringing in the fashion of writing poetry in
the mother-tongue instead of, as hitherto customary,
in Latin ; and for this reason, as was supposed, did
not have his clever daughters instructed in the learned
tongues, a course then thought very unusual, as they
were highly educated in other ways. Indeed, their
instruction was wonderfully complete in all modern
branches ; they were very carefully taught caligraphy
— then quite a fine art — drawing, modelling, music,
embroidery, lute-playing ; also to ride, dance, and swim.
106 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
A very full and interesting account of these sisters,
as well as of the " krantzen," which were such a
feature of their time, is also to be found in Mr. Edmund
Gosse's Studies in Northern Literature, well worth atten-
tion not only as individual portraits of two exceptional
women, but as showing the literary environment in
which their talents ripened. The younger sister seems
to have been a woman of singular charm, and her
delicate taste in poetry exercised a remarkable in-
fluence on the circle of clever men who surrounded
her father. She and her sisters are thus described by
a contemporary : —
Romer Visscher had three daughters, all of whom were
practised in very sweet accomplishments : they could play
music, paint, write, and engrave on glass, make poems, cut
emblems, embroider all manner of fabrics, and swim well,
which last thing they had learnt in their father's garden,
where there was a canal with water outside the city.
The middle sister, Gertrude, was of more domestic
tastes and less distinguished than the other two,
though educated in the same way. She married a
Protestant brewer, and withdrew to some extent from
the life of the circle.
Their father had much to do with the establishment
of one of the literary guilds in Amsterdam, and was
its first president ; its aim was to encourage the study
and writing of poetry, to debate various didactic or
humanistic subjects, and to submit the work of mem-
bers to the discussion and criticisms of their fellows.
A special object was to preserve the language in its
purity from becoming debased by the introduction of
LITERARY LADIES 107
French words and encourage its employment in works
of a purely literary nature. The various circles
adopted fanciful names and mottoes to distinguish
them, such as the Marigold, the White Lavender
Blossom, or the Fig Tree ; the one to which the
Visschers belonged was called the Eglantine, and its
motto was "Blossoming in Love." The meetings at
first were held in a house called Meerhuizen, by the
Utrecht gate, belonging to Spieghel, another member.
It had a garden with a summer-house perched in an
old linden tree, celebrated by the name of " the
Muses' Tower Court." When Spieghel left Amsterdam
for Alkmaar the literary club was removed to Viss-
cher's house on the Cingel. After his death his
daughters continued to exercise the same influence
over the literary circle which surrounded them, of
which Tesselschade remained the idol and inspiration.
Through her married life and widowhood she was still
the life of the guild and still wrote charming verse.
Her Wild and Tame Songsters has been compared,
both for the music of its rhythm and for its turn of
thought, to Shelley's Ode to a Skylark.
She belonged to a generation earlier than Elizabeth,
being five-and-twenty years her senior, and we do
not hear that they ever met ; but a link between the
circle at Amsterdam and society at the Hague was
found in Constantine Huyghens, Sieur de Zuylichem
and secretary to the Stadthalter Frederic Henry. He
was a member of the literary coterie called the Muider
Kring, himself a poet and an admirable classical
scholar, and frequently met the sisters at the house
108 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
of the poet Hooft in Muiden, where they were often
guests. They had been friends of old, and Tessel-
schade always brought her new poems to Hooft for
his criticism before she published them. He was a
wealthy man, son of a merchant prince of Amsterdam ;
he had no taste for commerce and had spent many
years abroad. On his return from Italy he had pro-
posed to Anna Visscher, but though she refused him
there was no break in his friendship for her and her
sister. In his youth Constantine Huyghens was num-
bered amongst Tesselschade's admirers, but he chose
for his wife one of her friends, Susanna van Baerle, a
member of the same literary guild, and a writer of
very charming verse. When settled at the Hague
he was a frequent guest at the Queen of Bohemia's
receptions, and his children, one of whom became a
very distinguished man, the discoverer of one of
Saturn's rings, were probably playmates and friends
of the little princes and princesses. They lived in a
house at the corner of the Plein.
The most celebrated name amongst the literary
ladies of Holland is that of Anna Maria van Schur-
mann, who came in time midway between the Visscher
sisters and Elizabeth ; she was the friend of the latter's
girlhood, and after a break the friendship was re-
sumed in old age. If she did not rival the Princess
in the powers of her mind, she excelled her in the
number and variety of her attainments. She was
several years older, being a young woman of about
four-and-twenty, delivering lectures in the University
while Elizabeth was still a schoolgirl. As a child she
Photo.
ANNA MARIA
From a print in the Herford Museum
Louis Fricfce, Herford
VAN SCHURMANN
By permission of //err Rector Normnnn
LITERARY LADIES 109
must have been precocious even for those days of
extraordinary infant maturity, for it is recorded of
her that she adopted definite Calvinistic principles
when she was between three and four years of age !
This is related in all seriousness, though what the
religious convictions of even an Anna van Schurmann
could be worth at that age it would be hard to say.
She was born at Cologne of German parentage, though
brought at a very early age to Utrecht, where she re-
ceived a wonderfully complete education, and was
permitted while quite a child to attend the lectures
at the University. Not only did she study the classical
tongues as well as logic and theology, but she made
herself mistress of Hebrew and Arabic. Besides these
severer studies she was accomplished in flower paint-
ing, portrait painting, wood-carving, engraving, and
tapestry. In the Epistle Dedicatory which Friedrich
von Spanheim prefixed to her treatise, The Learned
Maid, he writes in eulogistic vein : "If she hath a
vast understanding piercing into all things, she hath
also a skilful hand marvellously obedient to that
guide, executing and expressing in all materials what-
ever that commands."
This quaint little tract is now but little known
except to those who dabble in literary curiosities,
although a translation was published by John Red-
mayne in London, 1659, shortly after its appearance.
The English edition, besides Spanheim's dedication, is
ushered in by yet another Epistle Dedicatory — " To
the Lady A. N., by the translator, C. B.," in which the
piety and modesty of the author are enlarged upon.
no A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
The small pamphlet seems almost overweighted by its
accompaniments, to say nothing of the elaborate
title-page, which bears the inscription : The Learned
Maid, or Whether a Maid may be a Scholar ? A Logical
Exercise written in Latin by that Incomparable Virgin
Anna Maria a Schurmann of Utrecht. The motto is
for the subject somewhat strangely chosen ; it con-
sists of a sentence in Greek, taken from Ignatius :
' My Love is Crucified." But Anna approached her
theme from a religious point of view ; behind all her
zeal for learning, all her stiffness and pedantry, lay a
deep sense of religion, a strongly mystical bent which
came out in later years when she cast aside all worldly
attainments, burnt her poems, and gave her con-
science into the keeping of Jean de Labadie.
It is worth study, both as a specimen of the formal
logical disputation of that day and also for the parallel
it suggests with our own times. Not so very long ago
the battle now raging round the suffragettes was waged
on behalf of those who claimed that university educa-
tion should be open to women. The demand was then
considered startlingly new, but the very same ques-
tion was being debated in the seventeenth century,
if not earlier, and the very same objections were mar-
shalled and answered by the very same well-worn
arguments. Then, as later, several learned men
espoused the cause of the ladies. One of their cham-
pions, Jacob Thomasius, the distinguished Head of
the University of Leipsic, not only encouraged women
to study there, but permitted them to hold disputa-
tions under his presidency, a course already adopted
LITERARY LADIES in
in Holland, where, as we have seen, the learned Anna
disputed in the halls both of Utrecht and Leyden,
though concealed from view in a curtained pew. A
little later, about the year 1671, a treatise was put
forth by Sauerbrei, entitled De Fceminarum Eruditione,
in which the claims of women were supported by a
long list of distinguished names, including that of
Olympia Morata, who had been the pride of the
University of Heidelberg and the friend and corre-
spondent of Melancthon, and this Roll of Honour was
completed by the Princess Palatine and Anna Maria
van Schurmann.
But Anna did not require a man to fight for her ;
she took up the cudgels herself on behalf of her sex,
and brought out her pamphlet in which the whole
question was formally set forth and debated accord-
ing to the strict rules of logic. To judge from the
form, it was probably first produced as a thesis or
disputation, and afterwards published as a tract.
The thesis is set forth, and then the arguments mar-
shalled according to the rules of the game in the
following manner : —
Whether a Maid may be a Scholar ? We hold the
affirmative, and will endeavour to make it good.
Prsecognita on subject and predicate :
Maid or Woman, her that is a Christian.
Scholar : one given to the study of Letters Superior,
entitled Faculties, Tongues ; Inferior, Philosophy.
Whether she may be — convenient, viz. expedient, fit,
decent.
The question having been thus opened in order,
H2 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
the disputant proceeds to limit the subject, by de-
fining the kind of woman to whom it applies, and the
predicate, the kind of learning she is to receive, before
going on to her arguments. The repetition of formulae
becomes tiresome and would weary the modern
reader, though relieved by occasional oddities such
as the plea that all who have " a sublime countenance '
are suited to study. Maids as often have a sublime
countenance as men : ergo maids may study. But
most of Anna's arguments are based on plain good
sense. Study, she observes, is desirable for those who
need solid and continuous employment ; women of
the leisured class most experience this need, and they
are most free from public cares, therefore for them it
is most desirable. On this head she quotes a sentence
from a letter of Erasmus, describing the education of
the young daughters of his friend Sir Thomas More :
" Nothing takes so full possession of the fair temple
of a virgin's breast as learning and study." Against
the argument that women's wits are weaker than
those of men she urges that the exercise of the powers
of the mind strengthens the nerves, therefore those
whose nerves are weakest need it most ; and if it is
pleaded that women lack a taste for study, she answers
that taste cannot be discovered or developed without
trial. Further, she suggests that study may be pur-
sued at home, and therefore will prevent gadding ; as
" a wise and learned man is sufficient for himself," so
would be a wise and learned maid.
Her students must, however, be those who are
sufficiently free from household cares, either celibate
LITERARY LADIES 113
or provided with handmaidens, as, unlike some of her
successors, she puts piety and home duties in the fore-
front of her scheme. She also sets limits to the studies
to be pursued. To the axiom, " All honest discipline
or the whole circle and crown of liberal arts are con-
venient for the head of our Christian maid," she
appends degrees of importance. First come theology
and the moral virtues, next grammar, logic, and
rhetoric, for logic is the key of sciences ; then physics,
metaphysics, history ; lastly languages, especially
Hebrew and Greek. Mathematics (under which head
she counts music) may, with poetry and painting,
" obtain the place of pretty ornaments and ingenious
recreations." Those studies which pertain to the
practice of the law, military discipline, and oratory
in Church, Court, or University (despite her own feats
in this line), she judges less proper for a woman,
though she should not be excluded from scholastic
knowledge or politics.
She sums up that it becomes a perfect man to know
all that is to be known. Whatever perfects and adorns
man is good for woman ; and as all creatures tend to
their last and highest perfection, the adornment of
learning is good for woman.
To the English edition of this little book a few
letters are appended which are of interest as showing
the writer's position in the learned world and the
estimation in which she was held. One is to Gassendi,
the opponent of the philosophy of Descartes, depre-
cating the exaggerated praise which he had addressed
to her. Another is to Johannes Beverovicius, begging
ii4 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
him not to dedicate his treatise on the claims of
women to her, as he had proposed to do, lest the
jealousy of men be provoked. Several are to English
people ; her works seem to have been much studied
and liked in England, especially among the Puritans.
One in quite an affectionate vein is to Lady Moor,
expressing an earnest wish that they might be to-
gether : —
That we may be able in so great a conspiration of studies
and affections to excite each other unto virtue. . . . Here
sweetly passing away our time with the Muses, we erect
our minds to higher matters, and without impediment run
the course of philosophy. ... I have added my effigies,
done to the life with my own hand, that every way, so far
as I can I may make myself known unto you.
This looks as if the acquaintance were one by letter
only. If the " effigies " mentioned is the portrait pre-
fixed to the treatise it must be owned the artist made
no attempt to flatter herself.
It is interesting to find one letter addressed to Sir
Simond d'Ewes, a Puritan M.P., who left a curious
little autobiographical sketch. In this letter there is
an allusion to Mrs. Bathsua Makyns, the same who
kept a ladies' school at Putney and was sometime
governess to the little Princess Elizabeth, daughter of
Charles I. Mrs. Makyns was a woman of some dis-
tinction, and her notice evidently considered an
honour, for Mademoiselle Schurmann writes : —
As to what you write concerning the most learned matron
Madam Bathsua Makyns, that she so highly commendeth
LITERARY LADIES 115
my industry in the sublime studies, and that you were
upon that account inflamed with an incredible desire of
having conference with me : all this I impute to her un-
deserved affection for me. I am very much delighted
with the best and noblest things, though sometimes they
exceed my capacity.
The writer testifies a deep interest in the political
situation in England, then (November, 1645) becoming
acute, begging that her correspondent will keep her
informed of ' whatever may be achieved by your
honourable Assemblie either in peace or war." Though
she seems to have had a personal acquaintance with
Mrs. Bathsua Makyns, it does not appear whether she
had ever visited England. She had evidently much
sympathy with the Puritan party, and this, as well as
her great dislike to Descartes, may have been a cause
of her temporary alienation from her friend the
Princess Elizabeth, who naturally felt deeply for the
troubles of her uncle, in which her favourite brother
took so active a part. The little book ends with a
letter to Doctor Rivet, containing an enthusiastic
appreciation of Lady Jane Grey : —
Nothing in her life was so pleasant to her as the know-
ledge of the three learned tongues. Oh, sweet words !
pronounced not under the shade of the schools, but at
the last act of a most glorious martyrdom. Who would
not reverence this saying and take it for an oracle ?
The very extraordinary attainments of this young
lady called forth very extraordinary compliments from
the learned men with whom she came in contact at
n6 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
the various universities at which she lectured, or who
entered into correspondence with her about her poems
or her disputations. Not content with apostrophising
her in Latin verse as the fourth Grace or the tenth
Muse, they addressed her as " Virago," evidently in-
tending a high compliment, the expression not having
acquired the significance which it now has. A prettier
name bestowed upon her was " The Torch of Learn-
ing," and some called her " The Dutch Minerva."
Possibly this adulation a little turned her head.
Though a deeply religious woman and essentially
modest, she had neither the simplicity of character
nor the respect for the opinions of others that kept
Elizabeth so humble ; Anna at least laid herself open
to the reproach of pedantry. Descartes, who had no
love for her, referred to her in a letter to his friend
Mersenne as " the greatest pedant in the world."
Nor was she gifted with the personal charm which
enabled Tesselschade Visscher to wield so lasting an
influence over the men of her day. Anna was a very
plain woman, and did not recommend herself by any
suavity of manner or address ; in fact, she seems to
have been somewhat overbearing. " She smells of
the Schools," was Pieter Hooft's dictum ; " she can-
not hold a rose to our Tesselschade." Certainly such
specimens of her poems as have survived stand no
comparison with the music and sweetness of thought
and expression which adorned those of her rival ; they
are rather learned exercises.
\;\ Descartes might be a somewhat prejudiced witness,
for she was the pupil — nay, more, the disciple — of his
LITERARY LADIES 117
arch-enemy Voetius, and learned from her master to
consider the Philosopher quite an atheist. They had
a passage-of-arms on one occasion when, calling on
her, he found her engaged on the study of Hebrew,
and instead of expressing surprised admiration, as
she doubtless expected, rather teasingly inquired why
she wasted her time on such trivialities. She replied
that she wished to be able to study Genesis in the
original, and was deeply scandalised at his asserting
that he did not consider it worth the trouble, for he
found Moses could throw no clear light on the origin
of the universe. Very likely the Sage was not above
saying this expressly to shock her, and he certainly
succeeded, for she seriously tried to detach Elizabeth
from his doctrines. One of her earliest letters to the
Princess consists almost entirely of a eulogium of
the Scholastic Philosophy, not without a side-hit at
some who would not, like the scholastics, suffer them-
selves to be guided by " the two great stars of science,
divine and human, St. Augustine and Aristotle, whose
light can never be obscured, whatever fogs and chaos
of error certain thinkers might attempt to oppose to
their brilliant light." * Though Descartes is not
named, it is easy to see who was in her mind, and
the letter was probably in reply to something Elizabeth
had written in his praise. Unlike most of those who
surrounded her, Descartes thought but lightly of her
learning, and said of her : —
Voetius has spoilt Mademoiselle de Schurmann. She
* L' Influence de Cartesianisme sur les Femmes du XVII"" Steele,
Foucher de Careil.
n8 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
had the most excellent genius for poetry, painting, and
the arts generally ; and now since five or six years he is in
such complete possession of her mind that it is taken up
only with theological controversies ! This quite deprives
her of the conversation and society of the worthy folk of
everyday life.
Considering the way in which they regarded each
other, it is hardly likely that she made one in those
pleasant little parties to Endegeest. He expressed a
wish notwithstanding to be present at one of her dis-
putations at Utrecht, if he might be permitted to
conceal himself behind the curtains of her pew. This
pew or tribune, in which the lady might be heard
without being seen, has now disappeared ; it was
probably situated in the gallery which commands the
dais at the upper end of the aula.
Various universities, notably Leyden, invited her to
deliver lectures, and it may very probably have been
on one of these occasions that she made the acquaint-
ance of the Princess Elizabeth, then a girl of fourteen.
Anna Maria must have been at least four or five-and-
twenty, and it is easy to imagine the enthusiasm which
the studious Princess would conceive for so eminent
a scholar of her own sex. It is tantalising that of the
letters exchanged between them only a few of Anna's
have survived, and these are occupied entirely with
serious subjects. Here are no girlish outpourings of
enthusiasms, still less any confidences about lovers or
amusements, but grave warnings on Anna's part lest
her young friend should be dazzled and led away
from the old safe paths. It was probably this differ-
LITERARY LADIES 119
ence of opinion about the intercourse with Descartes
which was growing to be so much to Elizabeth that
estranged the two friends and caused the correspon-
dence to drop, only to be resumed many years later,
when Descartes was no more than a memory.
Writing many years later, when seeking Elizabeth's
protection at Herford, Anna thus refers to their
youthful friendship : —
She honoured me with a special kindness. Forty years,
I think, must have passed since, despising the frivolities
and vanities of other princesses, she raised her mind to the
noble study of the most lofty science ; she felt herself
drawn to me by this community of tastes and interests,
and testified her favour as well by visits as by her gracious
letters. Since then my frequent changes of residence,
the obstacles I encountered in the mode of life which I had
chosen, my retirement from the world and things of the
earth, my association with other pious persons had been
reported to her for good or for evil. But the remembrance
of my past life woke in her the old friendship, and she could
not believe me capable of things disturbing to the public
tranquillity, and without allowing herself to be stopped
by calumny, wrote, offering me an asylum.
The two shared a European reputation. When
Marie de Gonzaga, Queen of Poland, was passing
through Holland in 1645 she stayed at the Hague
with the object of seeing Elizabeth, for, wrote her
secretary, de Laboureur, " the whole North resounds
with her fame." Not improbably also she may have
had a curiosity to see the woman who from religious
motives had declined the position she herself occupied.
120 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
She was not received, however ; most likely because
of the unwelcome alliance Edward was just on the
point of forming with her sister Anne, and, foiled in
this, she travelled to Utrecht to see the other star of
whom she had heard so much, and went away " full
of astonishment and quite dazzled by so much talent."
If Cartesianism failed to attract Mademoiselle de
Schurmann, with her strong Calvinistic bias, it made
an appeal to most of the thoughtful and well-read
women of the day, and they were amongst the most
ardent disciples of the new doctrine, as has been
pointed out by M. Fouchei de Careil in his treatise on
the influence of Cartesianism on the women of the
seventeenth century. He says : —
Repoussee par l'ecole, sa philosophie fut bien acceuillie
par les salons. Les femmes qui y exercaient alors un
empire souverain furent des premieres a l'adopter, et
Malebranche, qui n'est qu'un Descartes plus chretien et plus
tendre, avait coutume de dire que les femmes plus degagees
de prejuges que les savans, comprenaient mieux ses lecons.
If philosophy were the preoccupation of such
thoughtful souls, literature of a lighter kind flourished
and was appreciated in the society around them.
Books, music, pictures abounded in Elizabeth's home
and in that of her great-uncle, the Stadthalter. Good
plays were by no means rare ; the English companies
of strolling actors frequently gave performances of
the plays of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Ben Jonson.
Though the Princess walked in more solitary paths,
on loftier heights than some of those who surrounded
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CONSTANTINE HUYGHENS WITH HIS CHILDREN
From a painting by Adrian H anneman in the Mauritzhuis, the Hague. By permission
LITERARY LADIES 121
her, she enjoyed in her home an atmosphere of culti-
vation as well as of wit. She had a book of a lighter
type dedicated to her than the deep philosophical
work of M. Descartes, for the Sieur de Zuylichem
placed her name in the forefront of his new volume
of verse, an honour for which she thanks him in a
very graceful little note : —
Should another have shown the book which you have
sent, I could not but have admired the excellence of your
poetry ; but you have given me another subject of admira-
tion in the excess of your politeness : the former merits
praises, the latter thanks ; and the great number of
estimable and remarkable qualities which you possess,
although you slight your muse, renders panegyric an
impertinence : although it is composed by one who can
do it with no other ornament than truth.
A curious little album preserved in the British
Museum, once belonging to the Queen of Bohemia,
seemed to promise some interesting autographs ; but,
alas ! by the time that Princess Elizabeth had joined
her mother's salon and was attracting the homage of
such men as Descartes and Huyghens, it had been
presented to the favourite son, and by him carried off
to England, so neither Elizabeth's signature nor those
of her especial friends are to be found in it. It has
all the intimate charm of amateurishness, containing
mottoes, little borderings of conventional design, some
quite badly done, coats-of-arms, and one or two quaint
little oval landscapes ; the very smudge of red paint
against one of the signatures seems to bring it near.
One entry, that of Christian of Brunswick, holds a
122 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
fragrant memory like a dead rose : " Tout pour Dieu
et ma tres chere Reine. Christian." The faded red
velvet cover is adorned with a crown and a Tudor
rose very crookedly stamped. Rightly it holds no
place in this chapter, but to handle it seems to bring
across the centuries something of the atmosphere
surrounding the Queen and her daughters.
With such men as Huyghens and his clever son, the
brothers Dhona, the courtly de Pollot, the Queen's
friend, Lord Craven, and perhaps occasional visits
from the philosophical young Englishman, Charles
Cavendish, to say nothing of the brothers coming and
going, there can have been no lack of brilliant con-
versation, and in such a sunny atmosphere Elizabeth's
talents could not but ripen, though guidance in deeper
matters she sought from the sage at Endegeest.
CHAPTER VII
THE TEACHINGS OF DESCARTES
Position of the learned world in his day — Novelty of his doctrine —
Its appeal to Elizabeth — His fundamental principle — His own
account of its inception — Objections of adversaries — Princess
Elizabeth's questions — His dedication of the Principia — Sum-
mary of his doctrine — Heinz' s estimate of it — Attitude of
Descartes to religion — Elizabeth's advice to her master — Her
help in translating from English.
TO estimate fairly the influence of Carte-
sianism on its age it is needful that we
place ourselves by an effort of imagina-
tion in the mental environment of the
contemporaries of Descartes, so as to realise in some
measure what it meant to them. Looking back at it
from our own standpoint, now that what was then
daring has become to us commonplace, and what was
in his day a fruitful and suggestive hypothesis is left
behind as an antiquated superstition, we may perhaps
fail to perceive its value and importance as a stage in
philosophic thought. In the second quarter of the
seventeenth century the thinking world was begin-
ning to shake itself free from the scholastic tradition,
and venturing to regard the universe with unpre-
judiced eyes. The forces of the Renaissance were
not spent, but from stimulating an interest in ancient
123
124 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
literature were passing on to arousing a zest for
new and practical knowledge : those of the Reform-
ation were still fresh, and were giving a more and
more individualistic bent to the workings of men's
minds. The theories of Galileo and the methods of
Bacon were but new ; while the discoveries of Newton
had not yet dawned on the horizon. The last century
had seen the opening up of a whole new continent
beyond the sea, and people were just realising that
the world was round. The cultivated world was
keenly interested, not only in exploring new heavens
and a new earth, but no less in the changing aspects
of philosophy, now in the light of new knowledge
opening up questions hitherto undreamed of, and was
ready to welcome with ardour any theory which
offered fresh solutions of the age-long problems of
existence.
For any comprehensive survey of the method of
Descartes readers who are not students of philosophy
may be referred to the article on Cartesianism in the
Encyclopedia Britannica, or to Professor Mahaffy's com-
pendious little handbook on Descartes ; all that is here
attempted is such a summary view of the system as
may help us to some idea of its influence on Elizabeth.
As already noted, it had a great vogue among the
clever women of the day, but she was not one to be
swayed by fashion to adopt a philosophy, as did the
Precieuses, as though it were a new style of lapdog,
a becoming toy ; to her, at least, it made a genuine
appeal. There was something in Cartesianism that
answered to her need and enabled her to view the
THE TEACHINGS OF DESCARTES 125
universe with new eyes. The systems of philosophy
she had hitherto studied had been grounded on certain
assumptions, on traditional rules derived from the
thinkers of antiquity, more especially Aristotle. The
keystone of the method of Descartes was the going
back to first principles and building anew on inward
perception. He would brush aside the antiquated
assumptions of the schoolmen, would endeavour to
go behind even the testimony of the senses and get
to the most elementary ground of knowledge ; he
would retrace the unconscious process by which we
become aware of the world of sense, would unweave
the web of experience and begin afresh with the one
absolute inward certainty, the consciousness of self.
We think ; therefore we know we are : Cogito, ergo
sum. From this base, by logical sequence, Descartes
would deduce the rest and gradually unfold the
scheme of the universe.
From the consciousness of self he infers the existence
of a God infinite and perfect : the being who thinks is
aware of limitations ; to be aware of limitations is to
transcend them. A finite being could not conceive the
infinite if there be no infinite ; an imperfect being
could not conceive perfection unless there be in him
the reflection of a perfection existing somewhere :
the infinite cannot be derived from the finite, but the
finite presupposes the infinite. Hence he derives a
clear certainty of God. From these perceptions, which
he calls innate ideas, he proceeds to build up step by
step his conception of the whole scheme of things.
Both mind and matter, he asserts, exist in God : He
126 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
is mind, but is the Creator of matter. One science,
Descartes found, gave results with absolute certainty,
the science of mathematics, and he endeavoured to
apply its laws rigidly to the working out of his system.
Descartes' own account of his discovery of his
great root principle is given in brief by Professor
Mahaffy. From this I will take the liberty to quote : —
After I had spent some years in studying the book of
the world (in contrast to the books of the learned), and in
thus striving to gain some experience, I determined one
day to study within myself, and to employ all my mental
force in choosing the paths which I ought to follow — in
which I succeeded, I think, far better than if I had never
left my country or my books. I was then in Germany on
account of the wars, and as I was returning from the
coronation of the Emperor to the army, the commence-
ment of winter stopped me in a quarter where, finding no
conversation to entertain me, and fortunately having
neither cares nor passions to trouble me, I remained all
day alone shut up in a warm room, where I was at perfect
leisure to occupy myself with my own thoughts.
He resolved to work on wholly independent lines,
to free himself from the prejudices gained from books,
and to seek in the depths of his own mind for the sure
foundations on which he must build. Perceiving
the absolute certainty of mathematical demonstrations,
he concluded that, were the premises equally secure,
it would be possible by following strict logical sequence
to attain equal certainty in all domains of the intellect.
This scheme required long preparation before he could
perfect it by rooting out false opinions imbibed in
THE TEACHINGS OF DESCARTES 127
previous study, and by collecting data by observation
and experiment, but he was satisfied he was on the
right road, and hoped to be able to apply it to all
branches of knowledge. The epitaph written for
his tomb by his friend Chanut thus sums up what he
aimed at accomplishing : " Comparing the mysteries
of nature with the laws of mathematics, he dared to
hope that the secrets of both could be unlocked with
the same key."
This wonderful discovery, this inventum mirabile,
as he enthusiastically styled it, wrought him into a
state of exaltation in which he saw dreams and visions
like a mystic entranced rather than a sober philosopher,
and in this excited frame he vowed a pilgrimage to
Loretto — " on foot from Venice, if it be convenient
and the usual custom, if not at least as devoutly as is
any one's wont." This vow he duly carried out, but
not until four years later. The saving clause was
eminently characteristic of the man ; capable of an
untiring devotion to an ideal aim, he was always held
in check by a foundation of cool common sense.
When after a time he published his Discourse on
Method, the novelty of his ideas attracted a good deal
of attention. Some saw in the stress he laid on experi-
mental physiology and the importance he ascribed to
his laboratory a likeness to the great English philoso-
pher, Francis Bacon, but he was no disciple of Bacon ;
his method was essentially different, deductive rather
than experimental, his experiments were for verifica-
tion, in his scheme the working out of logical mathe-
matical law counted for far more. He was very willing
128 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
to submit his work to the fullest criticism, and rather
courted objections, sending preliminary copies to his
friend the Abbe Mersenne, in Paris, in order that he
might show them to the most learned men, and gather
counter-arguments, which might be published with
the book, together with his refutations. The com-
ments thus provoked did not show any very sound
grasp of his position. Gassendi, in reference to his
first principle, Cogito, ergo sum, remarked that it
would be as valid to say Ambulo, ergo sum, to which
Descartes made answer that thinking is a continuous
act or state, and therefore a proof of a totally different
nature to the exercise of an occasional faculty. The
objections brought forward by Arnauld were more
weighty, but to those of the English thinker, Hobbes,
he was not inclined to pay much attention, since
they were couched in a somewhat sarcastic vein.
It was reserved for the Princess Elizabeth to advance
difficulties which were considered by the Philosopher
worthy of his serious attention, and it was with
astonishment that he recognised that she had laid her
finger on the weak spot in his system.
The root principle appealed to her, based as it was
on inward perception, but in the working out she en-
countered difficulties on which, without the least
intending criticism, she simply asked to be satisfied.
In one of her earliest letters she brings forward one
of these, which shows how thorough had been her
study. She had read both the Meditations and
Discourse on Method, and in neither did she find the
connection between soul and body, between the im-
THE TEACHINGS OF DESCARTES 129
material and the material, perfectly clear. A letter
which she wrote from Rhenen, having just missed a
visit from her friend, propounds her difficulty.
Monsieur Descartes, — I have learned with much
pleasure and regret the intention you had of seeing me a
few days ago, and was equally touched by your kindness in
wishing to converse with one so ignorant and indocile, and
by my misfortune in losing so profitable a conversation.
The latter feeling was much increased by M. Palotti repeat-
ing to me the solutions you had given him of some of the
obscurities in the Physics of M. Rhegius, about which I
should have been better instructed by your own mouth, as
also on a difficulty which I proposed to the said professor
when he was in this town, who referred me to you to
obtain the satisfaction I needed.
Shame at displaying to you a style so imperfect has
hindered me till now from asking this favour by letter.
But to-day M. Palotti gave me such assurance of your
kindness to every one and especially to me that I have
driven from my mind all other considerations than that of
begging you to tell me how the soul of man can determine
the motions of the body to perform voluntary actions
(being but a thinking substance). For it seems that all
determination of movement comes from the force exer-
cised on the thing moved by that which moves it, or by
the qualification and figure of the superficies of this latter.
Touching is essential to the two first conditions and exten-
sion to the third. You exclude entirely from the former
the notion which you have of the soul, and the latter
appears to me incompatible with a thing immaterial.
Therefore I ask for a more particular definition of soul
than is contained in your metaphysics, that is to say, of
substance separate from its action, thought. For whilst
we suppose them inseparable (which would be difficult to
K
130 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
prove in the womb of the mother or in swoons) like the
attributes of God, we might by considering them apart
gain a clearer idea. Recognising you as the best physician
for mine, I lay bare to you all its weaknesses and specula-
tions, trusting that, according to the oath of Harpocrates,
you will prescribe remedies without publishing them, which
I beg you to do, and to permit the importunities of
Your very affectionate friend to serve you,
This 6 of May (1643).* Elizabeth.
The definition of matter as that which has extension,
i.e. which occupies space, seemed to Elizabeth to
exclude the soul as acting on matter. The difficulty
showed her to have a fundamental grip of the subject,
and was more just and deep than the many frivolous
objections and quibbles brought forward by savants
or divines. She had in truth laid her finger on the
weak spot in Descartes' chain of reasoning, and he
evidently felt that it was so, for he tried to evade the
issue, even while complimenting her on her clear
sight and promising to satisfy her. This, however,
he failed to do, for the solution he offered was in truth
no solution, and Elizabeth was still unsatisfied,
though inclined to attribute it to her own failure to
understand. She wrote again : —
Your kindness is shown, not only in pointing out and
correcting the faults of my reasoning, as I had expected,
but also to render their recognition less vexatious you try
to console me — to the prejudice of your judgment — by
undeserved praises, which might have been necessary to
encourage me to work at remedying them, if my being
* Descartes, La Princesse Elizabeth et la Reine Christine, par
A. Foucher de Careil.
THE TEACHINGS OF DESCARTES 131
brought up in a place where the ordinary style of conversa-
tion had not accustomed me to hearing of them from
people incapable of estimating them truly, and made me
presume myself safe in believing the contrary of what they
said, and by rendering the consideration of my own im-
perfections so familiar that it gives me no further emotion
than the desire of improving myself. This makes me
confess without shame having found in myself all the
causes of error which you have remarked in your letter,
and not being able to banish them entirely, since the life
which I am obliged to lead leaves me neither disposition
nor time to acquire the habit of meditation according to
your rule. Sometimes the interests of my family which
I ought not to neglect, sometimes conversations and com-
plaisances which I cannot avoid, lower this weak mind of
mine with vexation or weariness, so that for long it is useless
for anything else, which will serve, I hope, to excuse my
stupidity in not being able to understand the idea by
which we judge how the soul (without extent and im-
material) can move the body. . . .
She enlarges on the topic in a manner which shows
that Descartes had not met the real difficulty, and
adds : —
I own it would be easier to me to concede matter and
extension to the soul than the capacity of moving a body
and being moved by it to an immaterial being. . . . But
as you have undertaken to instruct me I assure myself that
you will explain to me the nature of immaterial substance
and the manner of its action and passions in the body, as
well as all the other things which you would teach me. I
beg you to believe that you could not do this kindness to
any one who would be more sensible of the obligation than
Your very affectionate friend,
This 10 of June. Elizabeth,
132 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
The rather involved sentence near the beginning of
the letter contains an evident reference, not without
a touch of bitterness, to the candid criticisms of her
own family.
The letters of this summer were chiefly occupied
with the discussion of this subject, and perhaps it
was Elizabeth's absorption in it that led Descartes
to warn her of the dangers of an excessive study of
metaphysic. He declared, with a touch surely of
exaggeration, that he never devoted more than a few
hours a year to those meditations which occupied
the faculty of pure reason. To quote his own words : —
Je puis dire avec verite que la principale regie que j'ai
tou jours observee en mes etudes, et celle que je crois
m' avoir le plus servi pour acquerir quelque connaissances,
a ete, que je n'ai jamais employe que fort peu d'heures par
jour au pensees qui occupent l'imagination, et fort peu
d'heures par an a celles qui occupent l'entendement seul, et
que j'ai donne tout le reste de mon temps au relachement
des sens et au repos de l'esprit. C'est ce qui m'a fait retirer
aux champs, encore que dans la ville la plus occupee du
monde je pourrois avoir autant d'heures a moi que j'en
emploie maintenant a 1' etude.
He was especially emphatic on the risks of too much
of this kind of study for women who are by nature
prone to lean too much on their faculty of intuition,
and to indulge in mystical speculation, and enjoined
on Elizabeth, as an antidote, a careful and precise study
of geometry and algebra, setting her problems, her
solution of which filled him with astonished admiration.
Elizabeth's doubts and questions certainly had
THE TEACHINGS OF DESCARTES 133
value in inducing the Philosopher to define and develop
his doctrine, and in some cases to make clear what he
had left vague and obscure, and, far from resenting
them, he proved his appreciation of the justice and
clearness of the objections she propounded in a very
substantial manner by dedicating to her the great
work to which his earlier writings had led up, the
Principia Philosophies, published by Elzevir at Amster-
dam in the year 1644. The dedication was embodied
in a highly eulogistic epistle prefixed to the work, in
which he professes that the greatest advantage he had
derived from his previous writings was their having
given him occasion for becoming acquainted with the
Princess, whom he holds up as a model of learning and
modesty. The epistle is too lengthy and wordy to
quote entire, and much of it is couched in a strain of
high-flown compliment in vogue at that day, but after
circling round in a long preamble the pith of the praise
comes in very genuine expression : —
I have never met any one who could so thoroughly
understand all that is contained in my writings. For there
are many, even amongst the best and most highly instructed
minds, who find them obscure, and I observe that almost
all those who understand readily those things that pertain
to mathematics are not capable of comprehending those
that belong to metaphysics, and I can say with truth that
I have met none except your Highness to whom both are
equally easy, which justifies me in regarding your Highness
as incomparable.
There is a ring of sincerity in this passage, and
certainly Elizabeth well deserved the encomium he
134 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
bestowed in the concluding passage upon her mag-
nanimity and gentleness, and upon her constancy
under repeated strokes of fate. She was never, he
averred, irritable, never ill-humoured, depressed some-
times, but always patient.
She must have been greatly gratified at this high
praise from one whose good opinion she valued so
much; one, too, whose fame would carry it among
the learned throughout the civilised world, but her
modesty made her deprecate it with a touch of irony :
' The pedants will say," she wrote, " that you will be
forced to construct a new morality to make me worthy
of it." That she was worthy was proved in that it
woke in her no vanity ; she never assumed the airs of
a precieuse.
In this work Descartes gathers up the gist of all his
previous writings, and it is the one by which he is
best known. In the first part he re-states the doc-
trines of extension as the property of matter and
thinking as the property of soul, of innate ideas as
the basis of knowledge, and of the universal application
of the laws of mathematics as already expounded in
his Meditations and Discourse of Method, adding only
some elucidations, very probably those which Eliza-
beth's strictures had shown to be desirable. The
second part contains the substance of a work he had
had long in hand on the material universe, a work
which did not appear complete till many years after
his death, when it was published as a treatise On the
World. This had been set aside on account of the un-
easiness caused him by the condemnation of Galileo,
THE TEACHINGS OF DESCARTES 135
but the principles of it he embodied with caution
in this new work. He here enters on the nature of
matter, on the reality of extension and the im-
possibility of a vacuum, and introduces his theory
of physics, reducing all the phenomena of nature
to variations in size, figure, and motion in the
minute particles of a perfectly homogeneous sub-
stance. He gives special laws of motion, as he
holds it to be always the same in quantity
throughout the universe, having been originated at
the beginning by the Creator, and, like matter, im-
perishable. The third part enters on the theory of
the solar system, the nature and origin of the fixed
stars, and, assuming three elements of various density
in degree (by reason of the varying minuteness and
roundness of their parts), explains the whole universe
by the theory of vortices or circular movement.
(Tourbillon is the expression he makes use of.) This
theory of his, now superseded by a more exact know-
ledge, was in his time a bold hypothesis, not without
considerable value and significance. Part IV treats
of the earth and its formation. This portion was left
of necessity unfinished ; for its completion it would
require an exhaustive study of physiology, and an
entire knowledge of the nature of plants, of animals,
and of man. A treatise on Man was included, but
that on plants is wanting and also that on medicine,
which the author promised later, having made con-
siderable study of the theory, though never practising
it. The principles of Ethics he reserved for fuller
treatment in a later book, which he afterwards pro-
136 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
duced as a treatise on the Passions, but he pointed
out that the rational conception of Ethics grows
naturally out of a clear perception of the unity of the
world with the soul of man.
This little summary of the work — very needful if
we are to understand its influence on the mind of
Elizabeth — is gathered from Professor Mahaffy's use-
ful little handbook. Dr. Max Heinz also, in his article
on the Princess Palatine in the Heidelberger Jahr-
biicher, gives an illuminating view of its scope. He
says : —
In this book Descartes, the father of modern Idealism,
far outreaching the experimental philosophy of Francis
Bacon, excluding all supernatural causes, aims at deducing
by severe method exact knowledge on the ground of exact
observation of organic as well as inorganic nature from a
few principles. ... a work now but little known or read,
but much ridiculed on account of some extravagant
hypotheses. The theory of tourbillons, popularised by
Fontenelle, was accepted for a time, so also was the hypo-
thesis of the meeting point between soul and body. The
superseding of these things by more exact science should
not blind readers to the worth of the Natural Philosophy
it contains.
The Principia, we perceive, contains the sum and
gist of the doctrine of Descartes in its most adequate
form. The main characteristic of his philosophy, as
it is lucidly summed up in the article on Cartesianism
in the Encyclopedia Britannica, lies in this, that it
asserts and exhibits the unity of the intelligible world
with the mind of man. From the starting-point of
THE TEACHINGS OF DESCARTES 137
the self-evident existence of the Ego it derives innate
ideas of God and of the immateriality of the soul ;
through the doctrine of the extension of matter it
arrives at the phenomena of the material universe,
and with hardly a break in the chain of reasoning
attains to the foundation of ethics. What gave it its
remarkable vogue was that it was the earliest move-
ment of philosophy on modern lines. The doctrines
and hypotheses of Descartes have been superseded
by those of later writers, but the glory of the pioneer
is his. His immediate followers, Malebranche, Leib-
nitz, and Spinoza, carried his teaching much farther.
Spinoza indeed developed from it a system of Pan-
theism to which its author did not seem aware that
it tended. Malebranche, on the other hand, gave a
more definitely Christian bias to his doctrine.
The attitude of Descartes in respect to revealed
religion is not a little singular. His speculations were
never permitted to interfere with his acceptance of
the dogmas of the Church, neither were they to any
appreciable extent shackled by them. In the begin-
ning he expressly resolved to abstain from intruding
into the domain of things spiritual, but to this he
could not entirely adhere, and later in defence of his
doctrine of physics, against which some objections
had been urged by divines, he ventured to handle
with some freedom such sacred mysteries as the mode
in which Transubstantiation takes place. These theses,
though condemned informally by several Jesuit writers,
did not till long after draw down on him the condem-
nation of the Church, nor were they withdrawn from
138 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
publication. By independent methods he arrived at
such fundamental doctrines of religion as the existence
and goodness of God and the immortality of the soul,
and it seems to have escaped notice that in placing
the source of knowledge in innate ideas he was taking
up a fundamentally Protestant position, subversive
of the authority of the Church. The enmity of the
Calvinist divines of Holland, notably Voetius, did him
service at the Vatican, as he had foreseen, and without
doubt diverted suspicion of the danger lurking in his
doctrine. It may seem strange that he should have
encountered enmity where he did instead of where
it might have been expected, but Protestantism,
though based on Free Thought, and issuing in Free
Thought, had built itself a half-way house entrenched
behind such formulae as the Confession of Augsburg,
the Heidelberg Catechism, or the Westminster Cate-
chism, and was quite as rigid as the ancient Church
in stamping out all independent deviation. So the
Philosopher was left undisturbed, following the prac-
tices of his Church, and remaining within her fold in
very genuine attachment.
It was no less singular that his favourite pupil and
closest friend should have been so strictly Protestant
a Princess as Elizabeth ; but at least she was no bigot,
and refused to close her mind to his teaching at the
bidding of Anna Schurmann. It was indeed a high
honour for her to have been selected for the dedication
of the life-work of one of the foremost thinkers of the
day, and it was one of which she was not unworthy.
She entered with warm sympathy into the discussions
THE TEACHINGS OF DESCARTES 139
with other savants which followed the appearance of
the book, and expressed her astonishment that the
learned world should not have grasped his arguments
more clearly, so as at the least to have offered more
intelligent objections. She writes : —
My surprise increases each time that I read the objec-
tions that have been made against you that it should be
possible for those who have employed so many years in
meditation and study to fail to understand matters so
simple and so clear, the most part not seeming able to
distinguish the true from the false, and that M. Gassendus,
whose reputation for learning stands so high, should have
made, after the Englishman, the least reasonable objec-
tions of any. This shows you how much the world has need
of the Treatise on Erudition which you formerly intended
to make. I know you are too kind to refuse a thing so
useful to the public, so I need not remind you of the
promise you gave to
Your very affectionate friend to serve you,
Elizabeth.
The Englishman referred to was, of course, Hobbes,
who would be no stranger to her ; her brother Rupert
had probably already made her acquainted with
his writings, and he was also the friend of Lord
Charles Cavendish, who was an occasional visitor at
the Hague. This accomplished young nobleman was
a brother of the Duke of Newcastle, and one of the
suitors for the hand of Dorothy Sidney, known as
" Sacharissa." He had a great taste for philosophy,
and when he was making the grand tour he had an
introduction to Mersenne in Paris, who showed him
140 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
some of the writings of Descartes, with which he was
so much struck that he returned through Holland on
purpose to visit the Philosopher, and begged that
Mersenne would send him everything his friend should
write. Moreover, on his return to England he begged
the King to offer some comfortable post or sinecure
to M. Descartes, which showed the genuineness of his
interest. Without doubt he would pay his respects
to the Queen of Bohemia, by whom all young English-
men were made welcome, and probably talked Car-
tesianism to the philosophic Princess, but unluckily
no record of such conversation survives.
As Elizabeth's reliance on herself was strengthened
by Descartes' commendations, her attitude insensibly
changed, by degrees the letters become less those of
master and pupil than of comrades interested in the
same pursuits. Indeed on occasion Elizabeth does
not hesitate to offer sensible advice to her mentor,
though she still frequently confided her own troubles
to him, and looked to him for counsel. But when his
judgment was clouded by the natural irritation caused
him by the attacks of Voetius and the scurrilous abuse
levelled at him by the partisans of the latter, so that
he threatened to leave Holland and take up his abode
elsewhere, she pointed out to him that in so doing he
would be giving his adversary the advantage, and
taking the very course his opponents were trying to
force on him. He would better consult his own dignity
and show his confidence in the goodness of his cause
by ignoring their spite.
In other ways she was able to be useful to him.
THE TEACHINGS OF DESCARTES 141
He knew no English, and Elizabeth, who spoke and
wrote her mother's language with as much ease and
fluency as she did German or French, translated for
him Sir Kenelm Digby's book on The Immortality of
the Soul, with which he was anxious to make himself
acquainted. His warm thanks must have gratified
her. He wrote : —
How grateful I am for the trouble your Highness has
taken to bring to my knowledge the book of Sir Kenelm
Digby, which I should otherwise be utterly unable to
appreciate unless it were rendered into Latin, which Mr.
Samson Jonson, who was here just now, assures me it will
be shortly.
For the ten most active and formative years of
Elizabeth's life this friendship and correspondence
was the strongest influence that developed her very
remarkable intellect, and it was no less powerful in
moulding her character. Descartes's eminently sane
views checked her tendency to morbidness on the
lower plane and mysticism on the higher, and fostered
the sound sense which was at the basis of her nature.
For she was never too transcendental to be sensible,
and this balance in her preserved her from the danger
of becoming pretentious or pedantic, despite her pre-
occupation with learned topics. Her letters, whether
to her relations or to the learned, are always simple
and ring true.
CHAPTER VIII
HOME AFFAIRS
Increasing troubles — Money difficulties — Rupert at home — Affairs
in England — Visit of Queen Henrietta Maria, bringing her
daughter — Elizabeth not unamiable — Letter to Sir Thomas
Rowe — Visit of M. de Schooten — The younger sisters — The
kindness of Lord Craven — The five brothers — Rupert and
Maurice in England — Attitude of Charles -Louis — Edward's
marriage and conversion — Distress of his sister — Philip's em-
ployment — The Queen encourages d'Epinay — Disapproval of
her sons — Duel — d'Epinay slain by Philip — Indignation of the
Queen — His banishment — Elizabeth's sympathy with him —
The brothers intercede for him — Departure of Elizabeth to
Brandenburg.
THE years which brought Elizabeth this
valued friendship were chequered ones
for her. Troubles of many kinds over-
shadowed the much-tried household in
the Lange Vorhout, of which increasing money diffi-
culties, though not the worst, must have been amongst
the most trying and vexatious. Light-hearted Sophie
might jest of having to sup on pearls and diamonds,
but her more serious sister could not take things so
easily, and probably, herself a good manager, as she
showed in later life when in a responsible post, was
fretted by her mother's total incapacity for economy,
and not allowed to interfere. The Queen's very virtues
made retrenchment the harder to her. The large
142
HOME AFFAIRS 143
household inevitably cost much to keep up, and to
diminish expenses she would have had to part with
old and faithful servants who had stood by her through
years of difficulty and exile, and she was always loyal
to those who served her. So long as she was backed
by her brother, who had come to her aid and paid
her debts again and again, unlimited credit was to be
had, but the menacing position of affairs in England,
better understood at the Hague perhaps than at
Whitehall, made the wary Dutch tradesmen reluctant
to trust the Queen, whose dowry was in arrears,
the payment of which was growing more and more
problematical.
All ready money had been swallowed up the summer
before Descartes' first visit by the rash and misguided
attempt of Charles Louis to recover his patrimony,
and the mother and sisters had not only the grief and
disappointment of his utter and hopeless failure, but
anxiety for his fate and that of his brothers, who were
taken prisoners, Rupert being retained at Vienna until
the next winter, though in a sort of honourable cap-
tivity. Fond as Elizabeth was of all her brothers,
Rupert was her special comrade, sharing her tastes
and pursuits and brightening her often low spirits,
for he was a long way yet from his period of gloom,
and she must have missed him greatly, and longed for
news, which came but seldom. When at length he
returned, hurrying home, eager like the boy he was
to forestall the letter Sir Thomas Rowe had written
to announce his release, he brought cheerfulness to
all, and especially to Elizabeth, whom he helped with
144 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
her chemical experiments and the studies in physics
Descartes had enjoined, but she did not enjoy his
company for long ; he was not one who could
stay idling at home when trouble threatened those
who had been kind to him. When his aunt, Queen
Henrietta Maria, returned to England, with what aid
in men and money she could muster, he went with her,
and so did Maurice, both eager to draw the sword on
their uncle's behalf. She had come to Holland to
bring her daughter Mary to be married to the young
William of Orange. Her visit is described in a few
graphic touches by Sophie, who was old enough to
be taken by her mother to greet her little cousin on
her arrival. Always ready to criticise, she professed
herself much disappointed in the English Queen, of
whose beauty she had heard so much, when she found
her thin and sallow, with projecting teeth. Anxiety
had told on Henrietta more than on her much-tried
sister-in-law, and had robbed her of the delicacy of
complexion and youthful grace which had hidden
defects and dazzled beholders when she married sixteen
years before. Nor did the young princess find more
favour with the little critic. Cold and shy, Mary
did not recommend herself to her cousins, though
from the first she attached herself warmly to her
fascinating aunt. She was but a child, coming in age
between pretty Henriette and little Sophie, and may
well have stood somewhat in awe of the philosophic
reputation of her eldest cousin, next whom she sat at
the banquet which greeted her arrival.
It is hard, however, to understand why Elizabeth
HOME AFFAIRS 145
should have been set down as unamiable. Two letters
belonging to this period of her residence at the Hague
show her in a most gentle and friendly aspect. One
is to her mother's old friend Sir Thomas Rowe, whose
health was failing and spirits depressed.
Sir Thomas Rowe, — I see many reasons in your last
letter why you should be weary of the world and willing
to leave it, but there are none that show you useless to it,
or the same fit to want you. If physicians are necessary in
sickness, counsellors in distractions, friends in afflictions
and calamities, certainly in general depravities there is as
much need of honest men, though unable to correct the
manners, at least to mitigate the punishments. There
was no danger for Sodom till Lot went out of it, and since
the point of honour obliges men to hazard their life for
their country, there must be a yet stricter law to make
them preserve it for the same cause. Do not therefore
flatter yourself into a despair of amendment which will
bring you to neglect the means. If this air were not more
hurtful than our physicians can be profitable, I would
counsel you to follow your first design, but now methinks
France should be the better place for your health. I have
not spoken all this while of our own interest in your con-
servation, lest you should believe we were not yet satisfied
with the good we have received, and would disturb you,
as Saul did Samuel, in your very grave. But I assure you
we are all loth to lose so generous a friend, and would pur-
chase his continuance at any rate. My own sickness
hindered me three weeks from telling you this truth, and
desiring the continuance of your friendship to
Your most affectionate friend,
Elizabeth.
146 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
The illness to which she referred was an intermittent
fever, accompanied by a dry cough. She would
rally for four or five days, and then the fever would
return, and she seemed unable to shake it off. Her
physicians recommended her to try the Spa waters,
which were at first brought to her, but since change
of air and scene were likely to do more for her than the
waters, she went there, it appears, and spent some
months. In the winter she was again at home, and
writes to her friend, M. Descartes, describing, not
without a little touch of satire, the visit of a young
man, son of an old friend of his, on whose behalf he
had asked her kind offices, as he wanted to obtain his
late father's post as Professor of Mathematics and
Military Fortifications. She writes : — >,
Monsieur Descartes, — The son of the late Professor
Schooten brought me yesterday the letter you wrote me
on his behalf to prevent my promising to favour his rival.
And as I testified to him that I not only had no intention
of injuring him, but was anxious to serve him as much as
I could since you had asked me to be helpful to him, he
begged me to recommend him to the curators, of whom I am
only acquainted with two, Messieurs Wineman and Berren,
the latter being out of town ; so I spoke to the former, who
promised to interest himself for the said M. Schooten, the
more as there had been an intention of abolishing this
professorship as superfluous, which seems the difficulty he
will have to contend with, the other competitor being
hardly considered in comparison, except by some scrupulous
consciences who fear the latter may introduce the errors
of the Arminian religion into his mathematical lessons.
If he had given me time to beg him to return to learn the
HOME AFFAIRS 147
success of my recommendations I should have been able to
inform him of some things I think might serve his cause,
but he was in such haste to depart that I was obliged to
follow him to the very door to ask to whom I was to address
my solicitations for him. I know if he had only thought
of me as your friend without considering titles, which are
embarrassing to those who are not used to them, he would
have behaved differently, knowing well that I should act
with more than ordinary prudence in any matter that
would be agreeable to you. And I beg you to believe I
would never lose an opportunity of testifying to you
that I am indeed
Yours very affectionately to serve you,
Elizabeth.
Perhaps the younger sisters were present also on
this trying visit, and helped to add to the shy young
man's confusion. The dazzling fairness of Hen-
riette and the satirical looks of the sixteen-year-old
Sophie may well have alarmed him, gentle and en-
couraging though the elder might be. For Sophie,
as she relates of herself, delighted in mocking at the
various visitors, and would even make merry over the
oddities of Lord Craven, kind though he was to her.
Amongst themselves the young people dubbed him
' the little mad mylord," though they were not above
dipping into his pockets and availing themselves freely
of the liberality he was always ready to extend to
the children of " the Queen of Hearts." Very likely
he was something of a crank, but they all really loved
him, and Sophie gratefully records how on many oc-
casions he furnished her with means for the presents
she was obliged to make when her own pockets were
148 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
empty. He always had refreshments standing ready
in his rooms when they visited him, and gave away
numbers of little ornaments such as young folk love.
" He needed these attractions," she somewhat un-
kindly adds, " to make him agreeable, and enable
us to tease him a little in private." Other butts of
Sophie's wit were the young Prince of Tarentum, the
lover of her cousin Louise Henriette of Nassau, and
Harry Vane from England, with his long chin. But
the witty Sieur de Zuylichem was a match for her,
and avenged them by teasing her, which her mother
encouraged, " in order to sharpen her wit " — sharp
enough already.
The grave and gentle Elizabeth endeavoured to
exercise some check on the sometimes risque pranks
and jokes of her juniors, and so did Louise Hollandine,
for Sophie says of herself : " My manners and behaviour
had been so carefully watched over by my two elder
sisters that I was even more commended for conduct
than for beauty." Elizabeth's discretion was always
beyond reproach, but Louise, strict though she may
have been with her little sister, was not always cir-
cumspect herself.
Of all the five brothers there was not one who during
this time was not a cause of anxiety of one sort or
another. The three elder were hardly escaped from
the perils of their own campaign before they were in-
volved in the troubles in England. Three most
promising young men they were. Sir Thomas Rowe's
praise of Charles for good looks, manners, and ac-
complishments has already been quoted, and though
HOME AFFAIRS 149
on their first arrival in England Rupert and Maurice
were considered somewhat rude and shy, that soon
wore off, and they were now distinguished amongst
the cavaliers. Of Maurice, who had sowed a plentiful
crop of wild oats in his boyhood, Lord Leicester
wrote : —
For besides that he hath a body well-made, strong and
able to endure hardships, he hath a mind that will not let
it be idle if he can have employment. He is very temper-
ate, of a grave and settled disposition, but would very fain
be in action, which with God's blessing and his own endeav-
ours will render him a brave man.
Loyal and grateful, these two flung themselves
whole-heartedly into their uncle's quarrel, and for
the mother and sisters anxiety must have been con-
stant, for they were ever in the forefront of danger.
But the attitude of their brother Charles must have
been a cause of much deeper concern. Whether from
natural bent or from early upbringing by his Calvinist
grandmother, he was more in sympathy with the
Puritan party, and, forgetful of the generous kindness
he had received from his uncle, not only refused to
draw the sword on his behalf, but intrigued with the
Parliament, obtaining as a reward for his complaisance
an offer to pay his mother's dowry under conditions
which the high-spirited Queen indignantly refused to
comply with. She would neither acknowledge their
right to negotiate while in rebellion against their
sovereign, nor would she disavow the action of her
younger sons, for which their brother made a grovelling
150 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
apology. While they fought he returned for a time
to the Hague ; but finding small sympathy at home,
went again to England, where he lived under the pro-
tection of the Parliament, and even sat at his own
request in the Westminster Assembly. So tolerant,
not to say indifferent, in matters of religion as he
showed himself in later life, suffering his own daughter
to make a Catholic marriage from motives of ambition,
it is difficult to see anything but self-interest in the
line he took. Whoever was most likely to be able to
forward his claims on the Palatinate effectively would
have his support. As the King put it, he was acting
so as to have one chicken the more in his dish. To
his mother and to his eldest sister his disloyal and un-
grateful action was bitter.
Edward was out of these troubles, and had taken
up his abode in Paris ; but during the sad winter of
1645, when affairs in England were marching steadily
to their tragic conclusion, he caused his family a grief
which was hardly less acute. He had become enam-
oured of Anne de Gonzague, a sister of the Queen of
Poland, and a fervent Catholic, and under her in-
fluence resolved to abjure the Protestant religion
in which he had been bred, and was received into the
Catholic Church. Anne was a clever, eager, almost
brilliant woman, a few years his senior, and ambitious
of playing a part in politics ; but for religion the match
would not have seemed unsuitable, and was indeed
more advantageous than might have been looked for
by a landless prince. But to Elizabeth, as to her
mother, his defection from the family tradition seemed
HOME AFFAIRS 151
treason against his father's memory, and against the
whole position and attitude of the family. He was
no longer one of them ; to her it seemed worse than
if he had died. She took the matter deeply to heart,
and could not even give him credit for sincerity of
motive. She was so used to pouring out her troubles
unreservedly to her friend, that, ignoring that he was
himself a Catholic, she wrote bitterly to Descartes.
After apologising for leaving his last letter so long un-
answered she goes on : —
It is with shame that I confess the cause, since it has
overthrown all that your lessons seemed to have estab-
lished in my mind. I believed that a strong resolution
only to seek happiness in the things which depend on my
will would render me less sensitive to those which come
from without, before the folly of one of my brothers made
me feel my weakness. For it has disturbed the health of
my body and the tranquillity of my soul more than all
the misfortunes which have yet happened to me. If you
take the trouble to read the gazette you must be aware
that he has fallen into the hands of a certain sort of people
who have more hatred to our family than love of their own
worship, and has allowed himself to be taken in their
snares to change his religion and become a Roman Catholic,
without making the least pretence which could impose on
the most credulous that he was following his conscience.
And I must see one whom I loved with as much tenderness
as I know how to feel, abandoned to the scorn of the world
and the loss of his own soul (according to my creed). If
you had not more charity than bigotry it would be an
impertinence to speak to you of this matter, and if I were
not in the habit of telling you all my faults as the person
most able to correct them.
152 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
She was troubled because concrete fact refused
to come into line with philosophic theory, and be-
wailed to her mentor her utter failure to reconcile
freewill with the decrees of Providence. In his reply
Descartes endeavoured to allay rather than meet some
of her difficulties, but he, as a Catholic, could not but
reproach her gently with a narrow-mindedness un-
worthy of her in taking so prejudiced a view of her
brother's conversion. She seems indeed to have
taken her eldest brother's view of the matter in
questioning Edward's sincerity, for his own letter
setting forth his reasons for the step was very sensible
and temperate, and did not deserve Charles's gibe
that it was dictated by " Pfaffen," and the latter's
own arguments were singularly futile and beside the
point. We might have looked for a letter from Eliza-
beth to the young brother for whom she felt so much
concern, but none such is forthcoming.
Next year a fresh trouble befell. The youngest
brother Philip was at home for some time while ne-
gotiations were going forward to provide some suit-
able occupation for him. He undoubtedly was
the brother of whose illness Elizabeth speaks in
one letter : —
For a week past the ill-humour of a sick brother has
prevented my making this request (an answer to some of
her difficulties), by keeping me always beside him so as to
induce him by the complaisance he always shows me to
submit himself to the doctor's orders, or to testify my own
by trying to amuse him since he persuades himself I am
able to do so.
HOME AFFAIRS 153
Here again is a picture far from unamiable of Eliza-
beth sitting beside the couch of a cross brother, en-
deavouring to solace his weary hours and induce him
to "be good." She was occupied also in correspon-
dence about his affairs, as she writes later : —
The treaty which my brother Philip has concluded with
the Republic of Venice has given me ever since your depar-
ture an occupation much less agreeable than that which
you left me touching a matter of which I have very little
knowledge, to which I am only called in order to help out
the impatience of the young man to whom it was addressed.
This treaty was concerned with a proposal made at
the Congress of Miinster, then beginning its sittings,
through the Plenipotentiary Contarini, that Prince
Philip should be employed to raise troops at Hamburg
for the service of the Venetian Republic, and transport
them through Holland. The suggestion required a
good deal of consideration. There were several ob-
jections. Philip was but young for so responsible
an undertaking, and of a less settled and steadfast
character than his brother Maurice, who had been so
early entrusted with a somewhat similar command.
Moreover, it was exactly the kind of employment the
Queen of Bohemia always deprecated for her sons —
" I will not have any of my sons a soldier of fortune,"
she had proudly said when a kind of rajahship in
Madagascar was proposed for Rupert, but that was
just what all her sons, except the Elector Palatine,
became. For what else was to be done with an eager
and warlike young prince with no prospects nor any
154 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
inheritance ? There was no longer any opening in
Germany nor in the Low Countries. ' The dying fires
of the Thirty Years' War were about to be put out,
and the sole hope of recovering the Palatinate lay
in the lengthy negotiations proceeding at Miinster.
Nothing was to be hoped any more from England,
where the King, having suffered hopeless defeat at
Naseby and Marston Moor, was languishing in prison,
Rupert and Maurice still fighting sporadically or
pausing for futile negotiations, while Charles Louis
was paying court to the strongest side. It really
seemed the best thing Philip could do to embrace the
occupation which offered rather than waste time in
idleness at home. The career of a Condottiere was
practically the only one open to him. No doubt his
mother's aversion to the proposal threw a good deal
of the correspondence into the hands of Elizabeth.
It was some time yet, however, before he could depart
on his enterprise. Delays and hindrances of many
kinds arose, and summer found him still at the Hague,
for this year, as ill-luck would have it, the usual move
to Rhenen had not been made.
He was not much over eighteen at this time, a
high-spirited, hot-tempered lad ; but though he may
have been to blame for the impulsive hasty action he
took in the unhappy affair in which he became in-
volved, his attitude was by no means to be con-
demned, and he was upheld by both his elder brothers
and by Elizabeth. He showed indeed right feeling
and an eager, if boyish, desire to play the protector
to his mother and sisters in the absence of his elder
HOME AFFAIRS 155
brothers. The Queen, with the easy, careless self-
confidence which characterised her, had allowed her-
self and her younger daughters to be drawn into a
very undesirable intimacy with a handsome and fas-
cinating young Frenchman, Jaques d'^pinay, Sieur de
Vaux, who had recently appeared in society at the
Hague, and, being witty and accomplished as well as
good-looking, had contrived to ingratiate himself at
the Court in the Lange Vorhout. And this despite
his having no very good reputation. It was rumoured
that he had left France in consequence of a quarrel
with his patron, Gaston, Duke of Orleans, whom he
had supplanted in the affections of the notorious
Louyson Roger. Certainly hardly the man to have
been received by a widowed Queen, and suffered to be
on terms of intimacy with her and her bevy of young
daughters. But with all her unquestioned virtue,
the Queen of Bohemia was indiscreet, unsuspicious,
easily dazzled by such brilliant qualities as the young
Frenchman possessed. Her eldest daughter was not
dazzled, and we may easily imagine, annoyed her
mother by her aloofness and disapproving attitude,
even if she did not venture on any word of
warning.
It is possible that Elizabeth may have spoken of
the matter with Philip, the only brother then at home,
with whom, as we have seen, she was on terms of
affectionate intimacy ; but that she, with her scrupulous
tender conscience, could have actually counselled any
deed of violence is simply unthinkable. The position
was quite as strongly disapproved of by Charles Louis,
156 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
and when a few months earlier he had been on a visit
at the Hague he had not scrupled to show his opinion
very plainly. One afternoon he met his mother walk-
ing with d'Epinay in the long promenade, and per-
ceiving him to be covered on account of a shower which
was falling, promptly knocked his hat off, though he
had the Queen's permission to wear it. She was
annoyed, but seldom disapproved openly of anything
her eldest son chose to do. He had returned to England
before the affair assumed its more serious aspect, but
he had seen enough to give him grounds for his defence
of Philip.
Gossip inevitably sprang up, and worse than gossip,
for d'Epinay himself was heard to boast of his " bonnes
fortunes " with both the Queen and her second daugh-
ter. Scandal assumed very ugly proportions, and the
worst construction was put upon a visit of Louise to
Leyden. Philip, naturally infuriated, challenged the
man, who dared to repeat his insults, and they met one
evening in the Lange Vorhout, but were separated
before either had got the advantage. As to what
followed there is much discrepancy, as there usually
is concerning any deed of violence, causing confusion
and dismay when even bystanders hardly know
exactly what they see. The French account is that
Philip had his antagonist waylaid by eight or ten men
next day as he was coming from the house of the
French Ambassador, where he had dined, and foully
done to death, overcome by numbers, though he
defended himself bravely. The more credible ac-
count, current among the Dutch and Germans, and
HOME AFFAIRS 157
recorded in the Theatrum Europce* is that Philip
encountering him the day after the futile duel, instead
of challenging him to its continuance, as by all laws
of chivalry he should have done, overcome with rage,
rushed upon him before any of his attendants could
stay him, and plunged his hunting knife into his neck.
This version is far more consonant both with the
character of the young prince and with the attitude
taken by his elder sister and brothers than any tale
of assassination planned in cold blood.
Which story was carried to his mother we do not
know ; but filled with indignant compassion for
d'Epinay, whom she had liked, and furious at the im-
putations cast upon her own good name and that of
her second daughter, which Philip's rash deed had
rather deepened than dispersed, she refused to listen
to a word in his defence, and declared she would never
see him again. Elizabeth, presuming to intercede
for him, found herself in the same condemnation,
though it is not likely that the Queen believed the
reports bruited about, originating at the French
Embassy, that the Princess had actually instigated
the crime. She must have known her daughter too
well ; but it is highly probable that Elizabeth's attitude
of disapproval throughout had incensed her. The
French story goes on to say that Elizabeth, too, was
banished, never again to be readmitted to her home,
but this is a palpable exaggeration, since she did not
at once leave home, and then only for a visit intended
to be of six or seven months' duration, though other
* Life of the Princess of Bohemia, Blaze de Bury.
158 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
circumstances caused it to be much more prolonged,
and she did not again take up her permanent residence
under her mother's roof. Indeed, as regards Philip
himself, the sentence of banishment was after a time
relaxed, as he is mentioned as at the Hague with
Rupert and Maurice in 1648, and being on that occasion
invited with them by his cousin Mary Princess of
Orange to meet her two brothers, Charles and James,
at a banquet.
A very dignified but respectful remonstrance on
Philip's behalf was addressed to the Queen by her
eldest son. In it he refers to another from Rupert.
This shows how her sons regarded the occurrence.
Madam, — My brother Rupert sending this bearer to
your Majesty about his business, I cannot omit to accom-
pany him with my humble request in favour of the suit he
hath to you in my brother's behalf ; which, since he can
more fully represent it to your Majesty, and that I have by
the last post acquainted you with it, I will not be farther
troublesome therein. Only, Madam, give me leave to beg
your pardon in my brother Philip's behalf, which I should
have done sooner if I had thought that he had needed it.
The consideration of his youth, of the affront he received,
of the blemish had lain upon him all his lifetime if he had
not resented it ; but much more that of his blood, and
of his nearness to you, and to him to whose ashes you have
ever professed more love and value than to anything upon
earth, cannot but be sufficient to efface any ill impression
which the unworthy representation of the fact by those
whose joy is in the divisions of our family, may have made
in your mind against him. But I hope I am deceived in
what I hear of this, and that this precaution of mine will
HOME AFFAIRS 159
seem but impertinent, and will more justly deserve for-
giving than my brother's action ; since I will still be confi-
dent that the good of your children, the honour of your
family, and your own, will prevail with you against any
other consideration : and thus I rest
Your Majesty's
Most humble and obedient son and servant,
Charles.
This 10th of July, 1646.
What the effect of this letter was on the Queen's
mind we do not learn, but had she relented, it was
impossible for Philip to remain at the Hague. He
had in fact mounted his horse and ridden to the coast
immediately it was found his enemy was dead, and
on 4th July a proclamation was made by order of
the States of Holland summoning Prince Philip and
those of his suite concerned in the crime for trial. No less
could be done under the circumstances ; legal measures
were due, and demanded by the French Embassy, and
the Queen was not desirous to use her influence with
the Court of Nassau to obtain indulgence for her son.
The proclamation was repeated on the ninth of the
same month, but no attempt was made to pursue
the fugitive, and he proceeded straight to Hamburg,
via Denmark, to raise his levies for the Republic,
and was there on the 21st, as was mentioned in a letter
of the King of Poland to M. de la Thuillerie. The
King, however, expressed his belief that the Venetians
were not in earnest, and intended to let the scheme
drop. In August Contarini, who had been instru-
mental in arranging the plan, wrote : " There is every
160 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
appearance that the levies of Prince Philip will go off
in smoke." They did come into existence, however,
for two years later there is mention in the corre-
spondence of Brasset and Mazarin (Bibliotheque Na-
tionale) of a proposal for making one regiment of the
two raised by Prince Philip for Venice. No great
success attended his effort. Whether he was too
young and inexperienced, or whether the rumours
about him and the enmity of France injured him, his
career was broken ; he made no name for himself ;
he took service in the Spanish army, and fell at the
head of a regiment of cavalry at the siege of Rethel in
1650.
The whole affair was the greatest distress to the
affectionate heart and sensitive temperament of
Elizabeth, in whom philosophy never quenched the
essential womanliness of her nature. There must
have been painful tension between her and her mother
and sister for some time, and if the reports as to her
own share set about by the French Embassy reached
her, she must have been deeply wounded. It was
currently said that " this black deed was concerted
by the counsels of the Princess Elizabeth, and that
the Queen drove away both her son and her daughter,
and would never see either again." * It was at any
rate desirable that the latter should go away from
home for a time, and she resolved on a visit of some
months' duration to her relations in Brandenburg,
where so much of her childhood had been passed,
and thither she repaired in the autumn.
* Blaze de Bury.
CHAPTER IX
THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY
Elizabeth has need of her friend — He leaves Endegeest — Her letters
on her illness and troubles — He urges distraction of mind —
Contrast of his temperament with that of the Princess — He
proposes the consideration of Seneca's Treatise, De Vitd. Beatd —
The three moral laws deduced — Elizabeth's estimate of Seneca
— Her questions on Egotism and Altruism — Interruptions at
Ryswick — Perplexities of fate and free-will — She begs for the
continuance of his letters.
THROUGH these many troubles Elizabeth
had need of all the support and aid that
friendship or philosophy could afford her,
and it must have been an added trial
when in the spring of 1643 Descartes left Endegeest,
whence he could so easily have come to visit and con-
sole her, and though not quite out of reach, was beyond
the possibility of frequent meetings. Always restless,
he had tired of his charming little chateau and re-
moved to one at Egmont, near Alkmaar, where he
had a garden in which he took great delight. She
must have missed him sorely, yet perhaps, after all,
his regular and bracing letters were a more precious
and lasting possession, containing as they did a com-
plete branch of his philosophy of life. The, gist of
this correspondence was subsequently incorporated
m 161
162 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
by him in his Treatise on the Passions of the Soul, and,
together with her replies — those letters found at Rosen-
dal — form so complete a sequence that it seemed best
to gather some leading passages from them into a
separate chapter, showing the spirit in which Elizabeth
envisaged her troubles, rather than break up the
narrative by quoting from them as they occurred,
though this involves retracing our steps a few years.
Not very long after his departure Elizabeth appears
to have had an illness of much the same nature as that
to which she refers in her letter to Sir Thomas Rowe.
On that occasion no letters were exchanged, as Des-
cartes came himself to the Hague and thought he had
done her a great deal of good, as he refers to this when
she had a more serious attack of low fever lasting three
or four weeks, and he, having written to his friend
de Pollot for particulars, offered to repeat his visit
and cure her as he had done the summer before, be-
lieving that her ailment was as much of the mind as
of the body. With her sensitive temperament no
doubt the one reacted on the other. The proposal
was communicated by de Pollot, who at the same
time told her how much Descartes himself was in
need of quiet, so she wrote dissuading him from under-
taking the journey on her account : —
Monsieur Descartes, — I perceive that the charms of a
solitary life have not robbed you of social virtues, but I
should be sorry if the generous kindness you show to your
friends and have testified by the care you show for my
health should induce you to make the journey, since M. de
Palotti has told me that you believe repose to be necessary
THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 163
for your preservation. And I assure you that the doctors
who see me every day and examine all the symptoms of
my illness have not discovered the cause nor ordered such
salutary remedies as you have done from afar. If they
had been clever enough to suspect the share which my
mind had in the disorder of the body, I should not have had
sufficient frankness to avow it. But to you, Monsieur,
I do so without scruple, assuring myself that a simple
recital of my faults will not rob me of the share I have in
your friendship, but will confirm it to me all the more as
you will see what need I have of it.
Know then that I have a body imbued with a large share
of the weakness of my sex, quick to feel the afflictions of
the soul and without strength to rally from them, being of
a temperament subject to depression and living in an air
which easily affects those who cannot take much exercise ;
it does not need long oppression of the heart by sadness to
act on the spleen and infect the body with vapours. I
imagine that the low fever and dry cough which have not
yet left me, although the warmth of the season and the
walks I have had have brought back my strength a little,
proceed from that. This makes me consent to the advice
of the physicians to drink the Spa waters (which can be
brought here without spoiling), having found from experi-
ence that they do good. But I will not take them without
knowing your opinion, since you are so good as to wish to
cure the body with the soul.
I will go on to confess to you that even now, when I do
not place my happiness in things which depend on fortune
or on the will of others, and do not esteem myself absolutely
miserable though I should never see my House restored
nor my family out of poverty, I cannot but consider the
injurious accidents that befall them as an evil nor the
useless efforts which I make to help them without an
164 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
anxiety that is no sooner calmed by reason than a fresh
disaster provokes fresh trouble. And -I think if my life
could be entirely known to you, you would find it stranger
that a spirit so sensitive should be preserved so long and
through so many crosses in a body so weak without counsel
but that of its own reason nor consolation but that of
conscience, than you do the causes of this illness. I spent
all last winter in such troublesome affairs that they hin-
dered my availing myself of the permission you gave me
to lay before you the difficulties I might meet with in my
studies, and gave me others which I should need more
stupidity than I have to disembarrass myself of. I only
found leisure just before my illness to read the Philosophy
of M. le chevalier Digby, written in English, whence I
thought to draw arguments to refute yours since the
summary of chapters showed me two places where he pro-
fessed to have done so, but when I reached them I was
astonished to find that he had understood nothing less than
that which he approved of your sentiment on reflection nor
of that which he denies on refraction, and not considering
why a soft body which yields retards the one and that a
hard body only resists the other. Part of what he says
on the action of the heart is more excusable if he has not
read what you wrote to the physician at Louvain. Dr.
Jonson said he would translate these two chapters for you,
and I think you will have no great curiosity about the rest
of the book, for it is of the calibre and follows the method
of the English priest who calls himself Albanus, although it
contains some fine meditations, and one could hardly expect
more from a man who spends the best part of his life in the
pursuit of love or ambition. I shall follow no pursuit more
ardently nor more constantly than that of remaining all
my hie Your very affectionate friend to serve you,
This 24th of May. Elizabeth.
THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 165
Reading over what I have told you about myself I see
I have forgotten one of your maxims, which was to write
nothing which might be misinterpreted by less charitable
readers. But I trust so entirely in the care of M. de Palotti
that I know my letter will reach you safely, and to your
discretion that you will save it by fire from the risk of
falling into evil hands.
The translation which Descartes wished for, Eliza-
beth eventually made for him herself, as mentioned in
a previous chapter.
In his reply he prefaces his exhortations to courage
and cheerfulness by a wise sympathy, writing : —
The obstinacy of the fate which has dogged your House
has given you continual subjects of vexation, and it is only
the strength of your virtue which can render your soul
content amidst the buffets of fortune. . . . The difference
between great souls and those which are low and vulgar
consists principally in this : that the vulgar give way to
their passions, and are happy or miserable according to
whether the things that happen are to them agreeable or
displeasing ; while the others have reasoning powers so
firm and so elevated that, though they also have passions
and often stronger ones than the common herd, yet reason
remains always the mistress and makes their afflictions
serve them and even contribute to the perfect felicity they
enjoy in this life. . . . Though performing all that lies
in their power to render fortune favourable, they esteem
it (i.e. this mortal life) so little in comparison with eternity
that they consider its events almost as we do those of
stage plays. And like the sad and lamentable histories
which we see represented in the theatre, they may give us
often as much entertainment as those which are gay,
166 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
though they draw tears from our eyes. As devotion to a
sick friend, even exposing oneself to death to save him, is a
praiseworthy and virtuous act which gives magnanimous
souls more joy than the sadness which rouses their compas-
sion can give them pain . . . and as the greatest favours
of fortune do not intoxicate them nor render them insolent,
so the greatest adversities cannot subdue them nor render
them so sad as to make the body sick to which they are
joined.
To prevent physical effects of sorrow by an exercise
of will was a counsel of perfection hard to follow for
one of Elizabeth's temperament, prone, like her father,
to nervous depression ; but, if difficult, it was all the
more salutary. In his next he advises her that the
best remedy for her malady lay in diverting her atten-
tion as much as possible from it and considering her
symptoms only when prudence dictated it, as she will
only derive benefit from the waters while she with-
draws her mind from sad thoughts ; she should occupy
her mind and senses with pleasant themes : —
imitating those who, looking at the greenness of a wood,
the colour of a flower, the flight of bird, and such things as
require no attention, persuade themselves that they are
thinking of nothing. This is not to waste time, but to
employ it to the best advantage, because it gives hope of
recovery to perfect health.
This seems to have been addressed to her when in
the country, whether at Spa, where some of her bio-
graphers think she passed some time in the summer,
or at the family home at Rhenen. He told her how
THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 167
much benefit he derived from the pleasures of his own
garden, and quotes his personal experience as one who,
having been condemned by the doctors to an early
death, had always accustomed himself to look at
everything which presented itself from its pleasantest
side, and thus making the best of things, had found
that the sources of his chief contentment lay within
himself. Though his health had remained always
delicate, his was a temperament far removed from the
sensitiveness which characterised Elizabeth. He ac-
knowledged that he found neither sorrow nor danger
had the power of depriving him of sleep or appetite ;
under the greatest afflictions his sleep was sound, his
hunger that of a dog ; only under the excitement of
great joy did he find that he could neither eat nor
sleep. This was not a normal experience, and it was
a height of stoicism which no effort on Elizabeth's
part could enable her to attain. Still, she did her
best, and no doubt was the better for the effort. His
friendship and sympathy were sweet to her, his counsel
bracing. Her next letter shows her more responsive : —
Monsieur Descartes, — Your letters always serve as an
antidote against melancholy, even when they do not in-
struct me, turning my mind from the disagreeable subjects
which occur every day to make it contemplate the happiness
which I possess in the friendship of a person of your merit,
to whose counsel I can confide the conduct of my life.
Could I but conform to your last precepts, no doubt I
should promptly cure myself of all maladies of body and
weaknesses of soul. But I own I find it hard to detach
my senses and imagination from the things which are con-
168 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
tinually brought before them by discourse or by letters
which I cannot avoid without failing in my duty. I admit
that by effacing from the idea of an affair all that makes it
vexatious to me (which I believe is represented solely by my
imagination) I should judge more sanely and find remedies
as quickly as the affliction I draw from it. But I have
never been able to practise this till after passion has played
its part. There is a something of surprise in misfortune,
though foreseen, which I am never able to master till after
a lapse of time during which my body becomes so dis-
ordered that it takes more months to recover than ever
pass without some new subject of trouble. Besides that,
I have to govern my mind with care to give it agreeable
subjects ; the least failure makes it fall back on those things
which afflict it, and I fear if I do not employ it while I am
taking the waters of Spa, it will become more melancholy.
If I could profit as you do by all that presents itself to my
senses, I could divert myself without trouble. It is just
now that I feel the inconvenience of being a little sensible,
for if I were not so at all I might find common pleasures in
the midst of which I must live to take this medicine with
profit, and if I were so to the point you are I should be able
to cure myself as you have done. With this the curse of
my sex forbids me the pleasure I should have had in a
journey to Egmont to learn all the wisdom you draw from
your new garden. At any rate I will console myself with
the permission you give me to ask sometimes for news in
the character of
Your very affectionate friend to serve you,
Elizabeth.
This 12/22 of June.
I learn with much pleasure that the Academy of Gronin-
gen has done you justice.
THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 169
Her friend would not hear of her accusing herself of
feebleness of will or deficiency of reasoning power.
He assures her : —
I remark always in your letters thoughts so clear and
reasoning so cogent that I could hardly persuade myself that
the mind capable of conceiving them is lodged in a body
so feeble and sick. . . . Consider all the advantages which
may be drawn from the thing which yesterday appeared
so irremediable a disaster, and turn your attention from
all the evils which have been imagined or forecast. For
there are no events so fatal nor so absolutely bad that a
person of intelligence cannot regard them from some side
which will make them appear favourable. And your
Highness may draw this general consolation from the
buffets of fortune, that they perhaps contributed to make
you cultivate your mind to the point which you have
attained, and that is a good which might outweigh an
empire. Great prosperity often dazzles and intoxicates
to that degree that it rather possesses those that have it
than is possessed by them ; and although that does not
happen to minds of the stamp of yours, it furnishes always
less occasion to exercise its virtue than does adversity.
And I believe that as there is no good in the world which
one can absolutely call good except good sense, so there
is no evil from which, having that, one cannot draw some
good.
Evidently the summers in those days were no more
to be relied on than in our own, for, writing in July,
Descartes deplores the untimely cold with its depress-
ing effect on Elizabeth, fearing the waters may fail
to do her the good they should have done in warmer
weather. He promises to miss no opportunity of
170 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
writing since she takes so much pleasure in his letters,
and her doctors advised her to occupy her mind with-
out the fatigue of serious study, and adds : —
Mine are not letters that will cause you any emotion,
and even before reading them you need not apprehend
finding in them any such disquieting news as the malignity
of fortune has so often accustomed you to receive.
He now bethought himself of a new occupation for
her mind, less exacting than the problems in mathe-
matics he used to set her, and proposed to embark on
the discussion with her of the Treatise of Seneca,
De Vitd Beatd, thinking it would suggest many topics
of interest to her and pertinent to her need. With the
book he sent several reflections thereupon, premising
first of all that in considering what constituted a
happy life, a clear distinction must be drawn between
good fortune or luck (l'heur) and beatitude, a higher
thing. For, he writes —
Luck only depends on things outside ourselves, from
whence it comes that those are esteemed more happy than
wise to whom some good fortune has befallen beyond their
own power to procure, instead of which happiness con-
sists, it seems to me, in a perfect contentment of spirit
and an interior satisfaction, which those most favoured
by fortune do not ordinarily acquire, and which the sages
enjoy without fortune's favour.
He lays down three moral laws for the gaining of
tranquillity of spirit. First, wisdom to use the in-
tellect to discover what ought or ought not to be
done in all the occurrences of life ; secondly, a firm
THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 171
and constant will to execute all that reason points
out, unswayed by passion or appetite ; thirdly, the
mastery of desire, that a man should accustom him-
self not to wish for anything which is out of his power
to obtain. He had written three letters on the topic
before Elizabeth's answer reached him ; she evidently
took time to study the book before writing. Her
letter is misdated April, but M. Foucher de Careil
gives the probable date in August, so it was doubtless
written from Rhenen, where, being with the rest of
the family, she would have less leisure for study, and
she refers in it to having been much occupied with the
illness of her brother. She was, as appears, not alto-
gether enamoured of the author chosen : —
Monsieur Descartes, — I have found, in examining the
book you have recommended to me, many fine periods
and well-imagined sentences, giving me a subject for agree-
able meditation, but not much instruction in that of which
it treats, since they are without method and the author
does not follow out that which he proposes to himself.
For instead of pointing out the shortest way to beatitude,
he contents himself with showing that riches and luxury
do not make one incapable of it. I was bound to write
this to you lest you should think I was of your opinion by
prejudice or laziness. I not only ask you to go on correct-
ing Seneca because your manner of reasoning is more
remarkable, but because it is the most natural that I have
met with, and seems not so much to teach me new things
as to draw out of my mind knowledge which I had hitherto
not perceived. Thus I cannot yet free myself from a
doubt whether one can attain the beatitude of which you
speak without the aid of that which does not depend
172 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
absolutely on our will, since there are maladies which take
from us the power to reason and consequently that of
enjoying a reasonable satisfaction, and others which
diminish our strength and hinder us from following the
maxims good sense would have forged, and make the most
moderate man liable to be carried away by his passions
and incapable of disentangling himself from the accidents
of fortune which require prompt resolution. . . .
In reply to his next letter, which was occupied with
a comparison of the philosophies of Seneca, Epicurus,
Zeno, and Aristotle, she writes : —
I think you will have seen by my last of the 16th that
yours of the 4th had reached me. And I need not add
that it gave me more light on the subject of which it treats
than any I could have gained by reading or meditation.
You know too well what you do, what I am capable of
and what others have done, though by an excess of gener-
osity you would ignore the obligation you place me under
by giving me so useful and pleasant an occupation as that
of reading and pondering your letters. Without the last
one I should not have understood what Seneca means by
beatitude as well as I think I do now. I attribute the
obscurity to be found in his book, as well as in most of the
ancient writers, to a manner of explaining quite unlike
ours, so that the same things which are problematical
amongst us may pass for hypotheses with them, and the
want of connection and order which he observes to the
design of gaining admirers by astonishing the imagination,
rather than disciples by informing the judgment ; that
Seneca uses fine phrases as others poetry or fable to attract
youth to follow his opinion. The manner in which he
refutes Epicurus confirms this. He preserves from the
THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 173
said philosopher quam nos virtuti legem dicimus, earn Me
dicit vohiptati, and a little before he says in the name of
these sectaries : ego enim nego quemquam posse jucunde
vivere nisi simul et honeste vivat. Whence it clearly appears
that they give the name of pleasure to the joy and satisfac-
tion of mind which the writer calls consequentia summum
bonum. And nevertheless in all the rest of his book he
speaks of this Epicurean pleasure more as a Satyr than a
philosopher, as if it were purely sensual. But I owe him
much since he has been the cause of your taking the
trouble to explain their opinions and reconcile their
differences better than they could have done for themselves,
and thereby removing a powerful objection against the
search for the Sovereign Good which none of these great
minds have been able to define, and against the authority
of human reason, since it has not enlightened these excellent
persons in the knowledge of that which was most necessary
and nearest their heart. I hope you will continue with
what Seneca has said or what he ought to say to teach me
the means of fortifying my understanding so as to choose
the best in all the actions of my life, which appears to me
the main difficulty, since it is impossible not to follow the
good way when one knows it. I beg you will tell me
frankly if I abuse your kindness and ask too much of your
leisure for the satisfaction of
Your very affectionate friend to serve you,
Elizabeth.
Her next, written probably still from Rhenen, early
in September, answers something he had said of the
peculiarities of her education, being obliged, as she
says, to exercise her judgment early in the conduct
of a life narrow and devoid of the pleasures and flat-
teries which would have made her think much of
174 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
herself, while she was in subjection longer than was
usual to the rule of a governess. An interesting passage
in this letter seems as though it must refer to the rash
and foolish though well-intentioned action of her
parents, which had entailed on themselves and their
children such long years of expiation. It runs : —
It is not always prosperity, nor the flattery which accom-
panies it, which I hold absolutely capable of depriving
well-born souls of fortitude and hindering them from
receiving change of fortune philosophically. But I am
persuaded that the multitude of accidents which may
surprise persons governing the public, without giving them
time to examine the most useful expedient, may often
carry them away (however virtuous they may be) to
commit actions which may cause afterwards a repentance
which you would say was one of the principal obstacles to
beatitude.
The rest of the letter is occupied with carrying on
the discussion in the form of the pursuit of content-
ment. At the end she refers to a probable move to a
house belonging to the Prince of Orange at Ryswick,
lent them while their own was being cleaned. She
seems to have found society there rather tiresome
after the quiet of Rhenen, and in reference to some
pronouncements of Descartes on the wisdom of weigh-
ing the value of benefits bestowed against sacrifice en-
tailed in the matter of altruism, she writes quaintly : —
Since I have been here I have had a vexatious experience
of it, for I was hoping to profit by a sojourn in the fields
to employ more time in study, and I have found incompar-
ably less leisure than I should have enjoyed at the Hague
THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 175
by the diversions of those who have nothing to do, and
though it is very unjust to deprive me of real benefits to
bestow imaginary ones on them, I am constrained to yield
to the established laws of civility, impertinent though
they are, lest I make enemies. Since I have been writing
this I have been interrupted more than seven times by
these intrusive visits.
Hers was an unselfish nature, far more likely to
take a morbid pleasure in self-immolation than to
trample on the claims of others for her own ends ;
she needed the reminder that it is not wise to sacrifice
a great good for ourselves to a trivial gratification for
another ; reason should rule even the impulse of
generosity.
Elizabeth still remained dissatisfied with Seneca
and pleaded that Descartes should give her rather
his own principles of morality, and in answer to this
request he wrote her one of his most important letters,
one which has been described as a noble essay of
spiritual ethics. In this he lays down three sure
foundations of right conduct and contentment — the
goodness of God, the immortality of the soul, and the
greatness of the universe. For right conduct is needed
knowledge of truth and the habit of acquiescing in it
when known. Since God alone knows all things, it is
enough that we understand those which lie imme-
diately about our path, receiving in good part all
things which happen to us as being expressly sent by
God on whom all things depend, whose perfections
are infinite, whose power is boundless, and whose
decrees are infallible. Of the immortality of the soul
176 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
as a source of happiness he says the nature of the soul,
since it can subsist without the body, is more noble,
and capable of enjoying an infinite number of satis-
factions which are not to be found in this life, the
implicit deduction being that these powers of enjoy-
ment, since they exist, must find their fulfilment
elsewhere. The extent of the universe affords him
another ground of hope, unlike those whose faith is
shaken by finding this earth is not the centre of all
things. " This earth is not our chief abode, nor this
life our best life." On these three things he would
found a quiet confidence. To quote his own words : —
Man would be in the councils of God, and undertake
with Him the charge of guiding the world, a fruitful source
of vain disquiet and vexation. After we have recognised
the goodness of God, the immortality of the soul; and the
greatness of the universe, there is yet another truth of
which the knowledge seems to me most useful, which is
that although each one of us is an individual separate from
others, and consequently possessing interests in some
measure distinct from those of the rest of the world, one
ought always to remember, though one may know one
exists alone, we are indeed part of the universe, and more
particularly part of the country, of the state, of the family
to which one is attached by dwelling, by oath, or by birth.
And hence that we should always prefer the interest of the
whole of which we form a part to that of the particular self.
On this foundation, a more reasoned one than that
of Seneca, as Elizabeth acknowledged, he would build
the Summum Bonum, the Sovereign Good after which
she sought. Her answer is interesting, showing the
THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 177
points on which she was still unsatisfied. Her diffi-
culties arose from actual experience in a life very
unlike the philosophic calm and solitude which en-
vironed her master : —
Although your observations on the sentiments of Seneca
on the Sovereign Good rendered the reading more profit-
able than I could have found it by myself, I am not sorry
to exchange it for truths so necessary as those which com-
prise the means of strengthening the understanding to
discern the best in all the actions of life, especially if you
will add the explanation which my stupidity needs touch-
ing the utility of the knowledge which you propose. That
of the existence of God and of His attributes might con-
sole under the misfortunes which may happen in the ordi-
nary course of nature and the order of which He has estab-
lished, such as losing property by storm, health by the
infection of the air, friends by death, but not those which
are imposed by men whose choice appears free, unless we
had faith which could persuade us that God takes care to
rule the wills and has determined the fortunes of each one
before the creation of the world. The immortality of the
soul and the knowledge that it is more noble than the body
is capable of making us seek death as well as despise it,
since we cannot doubt that we should live more happily
exempt from the maladies and passions of the body. And
I am surprised that those who say they are persuaded of
this truth and live without revealed law, should prefer a
painful life to an advantageous death. The great extent
of the universe, which you have displayed in the third
book of your Principles, is useful to detach our affections
from that which we see, but it also divides the particular
providence which is the foundation of theology from our
idea of God. The consideration that we are a part of the
N
178 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
Whole the advantage of which we ought to seek is indeed
the source of all generous actions, but I find a difficulty in
the conditions you prescribe. How measure the evils one
gives oneself for the public good against the good to be
attained without their seeming the greatest, inasmuch as
the idea of them is more distinct ? And what rule should
we have for the comparison of things which are not equally
known to us ? Like our own merit and that of those with
whom we live. An arrogant nature would always make
the balance incline to his own side, and a modest one esteem
himself less than he deserved. To profit by the particular
truths of which you speak one ought to know exactly all
those passions and those circumstances of which the
greater part are unknowable.
The next letter carries on the discussion of the
same topics and begs for further enlightenment. She
continues : —
I believe you will clear up all these doubts. ... I should
not venture to ask you if I did not know that you leave no
work incomplete and that in undertaking to instruct any
one so stupid as I am you will be prepared for the incon-
veniences it will bring. This is what makes me continue
to tell you that I am not yet persuaded by the reasons
that prove the existence of God and that He is the un-
changeable cause of all the effects which do not depend
on the free choice of man and also of those which do depend
on it. From His sovereign perfection it follows of necessity
that He must be so, that is to say, that He could not have
given free-will to man ; but since we feel we have it, it
seems to me repugnant to common sense to think it de-
pendent in its operations as it is in its being. If one is
persuaded of the immortality of the soul, it is impossible
THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 179
to doubt that it would be happier after its separation from
the body (which is the origin of all the discomforts of life,
as the soul of its highest pleasures) without the opinion of
M. Digby (whose writings you have seen), who was made to
believe in the doctrine of purgatory, being persuaded that
the passions which had dominated reason during life must
leave some vestiges in the soul after the decease of the
body which they had tormented, so much the more as they
found no means of satisfying themselves in a substance so
pure. I do not see how that accords with its immateriality.
But I in nowise doubt that if life is not evil in itself, it
ought to be abandoned for a condition known to be better.
By the particular providence which is the foundation of
theology I understand that by which God has from all Eter-
nity foreordained means as wonderful as His Incarnation
for a part of creation so inconsiderable in comparison with
the rest, as you represent this globe in your Physics, and that
in order to be glorified therein, which seems an unworthy
end for the Creator of this great universe. But I offer
this rather as the objection of our theologians than my own,
having always believed it a thing impertinent in finite
creatures to judge the final cause of the actions of an
infinite Being. ... I have always been in a condition
which renders my life very useless to those whom I love,
but I seek to preserve it with far more care since I have had
the happiness of knowing you, because you have shown me
the means of living far more happily than I had done before.
She was still, however, far from satisfied ; the in-
soluble problem how to reconcile free-will in those
whose actions troubled her with the ruling of Provi-
dence, in which she sought to trust, still baffled her,
and she was unable to free her mind from the pessi-
mistic views to which she was prone. This comes out
180 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
in the last part of the letter she wrote on the conver-
sion of her brother Edward : —
I confess to you that while I cannot understand that the
independence of free choice is no less repugnant to the idea
which we have of God than its dependence to its liberty, it is
impossible to adjust them, since it is equally impossible
for the will to be at the same time free and bound by the
decrees of Providence and for the Divine Power to be both
infinite and limited at once. I do not see the compat-
ibility of which you speak, nor how this dependence of the
will can be of another nature than its liberty unless you
take the trouble to explain to me. With regard to con-
tentment, I confess that present possession is much more
assured than the expectation of the future, on whatever
good reason it may be founded. But I can hardly persuade
myself that we have more good in life than evil, for man
has more occasions to receive displeasure than pleasure,
there are an infinite number of errors for one truth, so
many ways of wandering for one that leads the right way,
so many people with both will and power to injure for the
few who love to serve : in short, all that depends on the will
and course of the rest of the world is capable of troubling
us ; and according to your own sentiment there is nothing
which depends absolutely on ourselves sufficient to give a
real and lasting satisfaction. For prudence in that which
concerns human society I do not expect an infallible rule,
but I should be glad to see that which you would give to
one who living only for himself in whatever profession he
might have, would not cease to work for others, if I dared
ask more light after having employed so ill that which you
have already given to
Your very affectionate friend to serve you,
Elizabeth.
THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 181
The last three letters and that about M. de Schooten
were written from the Hague in the winter of 1645.
All next spring and summer Elizabeth was much en-
grossed with her brother Philip, first with the negotia-
tions with the Venetian Republic, and later with the
fatal affair of the Comte d'Epinay ; her letters, there-
fore, were briefer and fewer than usual. In July, her
journey to Berlin having been decided upon, she wrote
a short letter in the hope of seeing Descartes before
her departure. He was at this time contemplating
his visit to Paris.
Monsieur Descartes, — Since your journey is fixed for
the 3/13 of this month (July) I must remind you of the
promise you made me of quitting your agreeable solitude to
give me the happiness of seeing you before my departure de-
prives me of the hope of it for six or seven months, which
is the longest time which the permission of the Queen my
mother and my brother, and the opinion of the friends of
our family prescribe for my absence. But it would seem
too long if I were not assured you would continue the kind-
ness of letting me profit by your meditations in your
letters, since without their assistance the cold of the north
and the calibre of the people with whom I shall have to
associate would extinguish the little ray of common sense
which I have by nature and learn to cultivate by your
method. They promise me leisure and tranquillity enough
to be able to study in Germany, and I shall take with me
no greater treasure nor one from which I shall draw more
satisfaction than your writings. I hope you will permit
me to take the one on The Passions, though it has not yet
been able to calm those which our last misfortune has
excited. Your presence must bring the cure which neither
182 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
your maxims nor my reasonings have been able to apply.
The preparations for my journey and the affairs of my
brother Philip, joined to a becoming complaisance for the
entertainment of my aunt, have hindered me till now from
sending you the thanks I owe for the benefit of this
visit, and beg you to receive them now from
Your very affectionate friend to serve you,
Elizabeth.
I am obliged to send this by a messenger because its
despatch is of more consequence to me just now than its
safety.
From this it would seem that one of her aunts,
either the Electress Dowager or the Princess Catherine,
must have travelled from Brandenburg to fetch her,
or very probably the former may have come for the
marriage of her son with Louise Henriette of Nassau,
which took place this same summer, and naturally her
niece would avail herself of the escort on her long
journey. This would put the fixing of its date out of
her own power, but it is to be hoped she did not miss
the meeting with her friend on which her heart was
set, since, little as either could have foreseen, it was
the last opportunity of seeing one another they were
ever to have. ,,.,,,,
i Mil//
on
CHAPTER X •
BRANDENBURG
Society in Berlin — Elizabeth welcomed by her relatives — Study
of Macchiavelli — She discusses his book with Descartes — The
waters of Hornhausen — Illness of Henriette — Pedantry of the
Berliners — Elizabeth decides to remain in Brandenburg during
the Treaty of Westphalia — She has the smallpox — Peace signed
— The restoration of the Palatinate — Execution of the King of
England — Descartes writes to condole— Comments of. Anna van
Schurmann — Disappointed of return to Heidelberg — Sadness of
the Queen.
<d moil r, Hod
LIZABETH did not, after all, find her stay
in Brandenburg by any means such exile
as she had anticipated, though as an in-
m *T tellectual centre Berlin was at this date
far behind the Hague. It had been the home of her
childhood, and she found an affectionate circle ready
to extend a warm welcome. The grandmother who
brought her up had died two years before, but her
aunt Catherine was still living there ; and Char^
lotte, the Electress Dowager, was extremely fond
of her brother's children, and especially of Elizabeth,
who had been so much in her own nursery. The harsh
and unfriendly George William was dead, and his son
Frederic William, Elizabeth's contemporary, her play-
fellow in the nursery, her friend and companion in
183
184 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
student days at Leyden, was reigning in his stead and
was already setting about winning for himself the
title of " the Great Elector." He had but lately
married her favourite cousin Louise Henriette, daugh-
ter of Frederic Henry of Nassau, who had been almost
like another younger sister to her ; they had been
much together at the Hague and at Rhenen in the
days when Frederic William was studying at the
University and making boyish love to Louise Hollan-
dine while his future bride was but a little girl. Then
there was his sister Hedwig, afterwards married to
the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, just growing into
womanhood and developing much intellectual pro-
mise which her cousin delighted to foster, reading with
her, forming her mind, and directing her taste. Eliza-
beth's first letter to Descartes from her new surround-
ings was in a more cheerful tone than she had been
able for long to command : —
Monsieur Descartes, — You are right in thinking that
the entertainment I find in your letters is different to that
which I had on the journey, since they give me a much
greater and more lasting satisfaction; although I found
in it all that the affection and caresses of my relations
could afford me, yet I regard these as things which may
change while the truths which your letters teach me leave
impressions on my mind which will always contribute to
the contentment of my life. I have a thousand regrets
that I have not brought the book which you took the
trouble to examine and give me your opinion on, by land,
being persuaded that the luggage which I sent to Ham-
burg by sea would be here sooner than ourselves, but it
had not come when we arrived on the 7/17 September
Photo.
C. M. Dewald.tht Hague
FREDERIC WILLIAM, ELECTOR OF BRANDENBURG, WITH HIS WIFE
LOUISE HENRIETTE OF NASSA1
From a painting by Honthorst in the Mauritzhuis. By permission
BRANDENBURG 185
last. This is why I can only recall the maxims of the author,
as well as a very bad memory will furnish, from a book
which I have not seen for six years. But I remember
that I then approved some not as good in themselves,
but because they would cause less evil than those made
use of by a number of ambitious, imprudent people I have
known, which only tend to embroil matters and leave
the rest to fortune, while those of this author tend to
establishment.
The book she refers to is Macchiavelli's Prince, on
which she had asked the opinion of Descartes. The
reader cannot but see in this discussion of his prin-
ciples that what Elizabeth had in mind were the many
confused and unsuccessful attempts for the recovery
of the Palatinate which had distracted her early years.
Out of her own experience also she endorses his re-
commendation of severity, for, as she says, violence
is more supportable to a people than the long misery
civil war brings in its train. Of this misery she had
seen enough, since her life had synchronised with the
Thirty Years' War just drawing to a close. She re-
volted naturally from the opinion of Caesar Borgia,
quoted with approval by Macchiavelli, that the Prince
should employ for his harshest measures some minister
whom he can afterwards disavow and sacrifice to the
hatred of his people. She " would prefer the condition
of the meanest peasant in Holland to that of the
minister who would execute such orders or the Prince
who would give them." The discussion is somewhat
lengthy and academic. At the end she refers to a
principle laid down in the preface that only those
186 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
familiar with public life can understand the science of
government, saying : —
I find the rule you observe in his preface to be false be-
cause he has known no one so clear-sighted in all these
matters as you are, and consequently from your private
retirement, out of the distractions of the world, capable
nevertheless of instructing princes how they ought to
govern, as your writings show. For myself who enjoy
but the title, I only try to put in practice the rule you lay
down at the end of your letter, trying to take pleasure in
present things as much as I can. Here I find little diffi-
culty, being in a house where I have been cherished from
my childhood, where every one conspires to caress me,
although they sometimes distract me from more useful
occupations. I easily bear with this inconvenience for
the pleasure of being beloved by my relations. This,
Monsieur, is the reason that I have not had leisure sooner
to send you an account of our successful journey, which
passed without any inconvenience and with the prompti-
tude which I mentioned above, nor of the miraculous
fountain of which you spoke at the Hague. I have been
at Cheuningen [sic], only a league distant, where we met
a whole family who were returning thence. The Elector
would have taken me there to see it, but since the rest
of our party decided for another amusement I could
not contradict them and contented myself with seeing
and tasting the water, of which there are different springs
and different tastes, but two are principally used, of which
the first is clear, salt and purgative, the other slightly
whitish with a taste like milky water, and is said to be
refreshing. They talk of a number of miraculous cures
which have been made, but I have not heard of them
from anybody worthy of credence. They say truly that
the place is full of poor people professing to have been
BRANDENBURG 187
born deaf, blind, lame, or deformed, who have found cure
in the fountain. But since they are mercenary folk in
a nation credulous of miracles, I do not think this ought
to persuade sensible people. Of all the Court of my
cousin the Elector, only his Master of the Horse found
any benefit in it. He had a wound under the right eye
and lost the sight on that side from a little skin that grew
over the eye, and the salt water of this fountain being
applied to it dissipated the skin so much that he can now
distinguish people with the left eye shut. Besides, being
a man of full habit, the purge did him no harm and does
good to many. ... I have here so little leisure for
writing that I am obliged to send you this patchwork, in
which you may see by the difference of the pen how many
times I have been interrupted. But I would rather ap-
pear before you with all my faults than let you believe
I have a vice so far removed from my nature as to forget
my friends in absence, especially one whom I could not
cease to love without ceasing to be reasonable, as you,
Monsieur, to whom I shall be all my life,
Your very affectionate friend to serve you,
Elizabeth.
Berlin, this 30th of September.
uoj 9rn bfioe
1 : oiidq iaoiaar. >i ssanbjsa
The waters referred to were those of Hornhausen,
about which Descartes had made inquiry, q ILe
November found her still equally content with her
surroundings, and writing in the same pleasant vein.
Descartes had written under cover to Sophie, who for-
warded his letters, congratulating her on her cheerful-
ness and reminding her that good spirits would do
more than anything to preserve bodily health. He
adds : —
188 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
And I even think that the things one does with gaiety of
heart and without any inward repugnance are much more
apt to succeed happily — even games of chance where
only good luck rules — on joyful days than on days of
sadness ; I believe that Socrates' Familiar Spirit was
nothing else than his following interior inclinations and
believing that what he undertook would succeed when
he had a secret feeling of gaiety, and would fail when he
was sad.
So he exhorted her to make herself happy in the
affection that surrounded her, resting in the present,
and refusing to think of business save when the courier
was ready to depart. He thought it as well she had
not the volume of Macchiavelli with her, for the cruel-
ties and perfidies dealt with would but distress her,
and he was anxious she should keep her mind on
pleasant things. In answer to a suggestion not to
ask too much of fortune she replies : —
I am not so used to the favours of fortune as to expect
any extraordinary ones ; it suffices me when she does not
send me too often accidents which would give cause of
sadness to the greatest philosopher on earth, and since
none such have happened to me during my stay here,
where all present objects are agreeable to me and the
air of the country suits my constitution fairly well, I
find myself in a condition to practise your lessons of gaiety,
though I hardly hope for such effects in the conduct of
my affairs as you have experienced in games of chance
because the luck you have found when you were other-
wise disposed to joy probably proceeded from the freedom
of all the faculties which ordinarily make for success,
but if I were able to dispose of myself I should not rest
BRANDENBURG 189
so easily on the chance of being in a place where I have
found contentment rather than in that whence I came,
and for the interests of our House I have long abandoned
them to destiny, seeing that prudence itself unless aided
by other means must lose its labour. It would need a
Genius stronger than that of Socrates to work at it with
success, for since it did not enable him to avoid imprison-
ment and death, it was not much to boast of. I have
also observed that the things in which I followed my own
impulse have succeeded better than those in which I
let myself be guided by the advice of those wiser than
myself. But I do not attribute this so much to the
felicity of my Genius, but having more concern for the
things which affected me than others, I better understood
the courses which would injure or advance them than
those on whose judgment I relied. If you want me to
allow some share to the occult quality of my imagination,
I believe you do it to accommodate me to the temper
of the people of this country and especially the learned,
who are even more pedantic and superstitious than any
of those I knew in Holland, because the whole population
is so poor that no one studies except to make a living by
it. I have had ah 1 the trouble in the world to deliver
myself from the hands of the physicians, not to suffer
from their ignorance — not that I have been ill, only the
change of air and diet gave me some whitlows on my
fingers ; whence these gentlemen opined there must be
some evil matter too coarse to be got rid of but by severe
measures and bleeding, but feeling myself otherwise so
well that I am growing visibly fatter, I opposed obstinacy
where reason failed and have taken none of their remedies.
After giving a little more information about the
waters of Hornhausen and reverting to Macchiavelli,
she goes on : —
igo A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
This study has not occupied me so much as to trouble
me, for I employ the little time that remains to me after the
letters I must write and the complaisances I must exchange
with my relatives in re-reading your works, in which I
profit more in an hour than I should in all my life from
other reading. But there is no one here with sense enough
to understand them, though I have promised them to
the old Duke of Brunswick, who is at Wolfenbiittel, to
adorn his library. I doubt if they will much adorn his
rheumy old brains, already stuffed with pedantry.
I must not go on with the pleasure of talking to you
without remembering that I cannot do it without in-
juring the human race by wasting the time you would
employ in its service with reading the follies of
Your very affectionate friend to serve you,
Elizabeth.
This 29/19 November.
Elizabeth was a little severe on the pedantry and
ignorance of the would-be learned of Berlin, but,
according to Guhrauer, the general level of culture
there at this time was certainly low. There was not
any bookseller established in the town, and the few
printing presses which had been set up had not issued
a single scientific or serious work. The very name of
Descartes was almost unknown until the Princess in-
troduced it, but there were a few with whom she
could enjoy the kind of conversation she cared for
Besides Dr. Weiss, to whom she refers in her next
letter, there was the learned Professor Knesebeck, who
always professed great admiration for her talents ;
indeed, the accomplished Princess created quite a
sensation in Berlin society, which was not accustomed
BRANDENBURG 191
to see a woman taking part in discussions of problems
of philosophy with doctors and divines. No doubt
she found a stimulating influence in the company of
her cousin the Elector ; he had always been fond of
her, and she had considerable influence over him.
Years later her sister Sophie remarked : " He is very
docile and E. very free with him." Not only would he
enjoy talks about books and interchange of opinions
with her, but would like to talk over with her his
scheme, still in embryo, for a university at Duisburg,
in Cleves. This did not take shape till some eight or
nine years later, but we may trace Elizabeth's in-
fluence in the strongly Cartesian complexion of its
scholarship.
In the following February, when her seven months'
leave of absence was up, there was still no talk of her
returning before the summer, and she was well
content to stay. Her sister Henriette had joined her
and had had a severe illness, of which Elizabeth
writes : —
My sister Henriette has been so ill we thought we should
have lost her. This is what prevented my replying sooner
to your last, as I was obliged to be constantly beside her.
Since she has been better we have had to follow the Queen
Mother of Sweden every day on sleighing parties and in
the evenings to banquets and balls, amusements very
tiresome to those who would like to devote themselves
to better things, but which trouble one less when one can
pursue them in company with those whom one has no
reason to mistrust. That is why I have more pleasure
here than at the Hague. All the same I would rather
have employed my time in reading the book byRegius
ig2 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
and your comments upon it. If I do not return to the
Hague this coming summer, which I cannot be sure of,
though I have not changed my mind, because it depends
partly on the will of others and on public affairs, I shall
try to have it sent by the vessels which go from Amster-
dam to Hamburg, and I hope you will do me the favour
to send the latter by the ordinary post. Every time I
read your writings I cannot imagine that you can regret
printing them, since it is impossible that in the long run
they should not be accepted and be valuable to the public.
I have lately met with one man here who knew something
of them. It was a Doctor of Medicine named Weiss, very
learned. He told me that Bacon first made him suspicious
of the philosophy of Aristotle, and that your method
induced him entirely to reject it, and convinced him of
the circulation of the blood which destroys all the ancient
principles of medicine, which he confessed he parted with
with regret. I have now lent him your Principiz, and
he has promised to tell me his objections : if I find them
worth it, I will send them, that you may judge of the capa-
city of the most sensible among the learned of this place,
for he is capable of appreciating your arguments, but I
assure you no one is able to esteem you more highly than
Your very affectionate friend.
Finding that she had missed a visit Descartes paid
to the Hague before departing for Paris, she had no
longer any reason to hasten her return, and was will-
ing to yield to the wishes of her aunt and prolong her
stay. She wrote in April : —
I never regretted my absence from the Hague till you
told me you had been there, and I felt myself deprived
of the pleasure I should have had in your conversation
BRANDENBURG 193
while you stayed there. It seems to me that the repose
I find here amongst those who are fond of me and esteem
me much more highly than I deserve surpasses all the good
I might find elsewhere, so I can neither promise to return
within many months nor to say how many, for I see that the
Electress my aunt is not in the mood to let me go, and I
would not press it before the return of her son, which, so
far as he can see, will not be before September ; his affairs
may oblige him to come sooner or to delay yet longer.
So I may hope but cannot assure myself of the happiness
of seeing you about the time you propose returning from
France. I hope you may find all the success in this
journey which you look for, and if I had not experienced
the constancy of your resolutions I should be afraid your
friends might induce you to stay there. I beg you to
give your address to my sister Sophie that I may have
news of you which will be a pleasure to me, however long
it may be on the road. After Easter we are going to
Krossen, the domain of the Electress on the borders of
Silesia for three weeks or a month, where the solitude
will give me more leisure for reading, which I shall employ
on those books you were so good as to send, for which
accept my thanks.
The remainder of the letter is occupied with the
annoyance Descartes had endured from Regius, once
his favourite pupil, and his difficulties with the Faculty
of Theology at Ley den. With regard to his threat of
leaving Holland, she gives very sound advice in her
next letter : —
It would be unworthy of you to give place to your
enemies, and would look as though you had been banished,
which would be more prejudice to you than all that the
theologians could do. . . . This is the price people pay
o
194 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
for freedom of speech, and the theologians being privileged
everywhere have no restraint in a -democratic State.
Therefore it seems to me you would be right to be content
if you obtain that which your friends in Holland advise
you to demand, and the resolution you have taken is
more becoming a free man sure of his cause. But if you
continue that of leaving the country I shall give up mine
of returning unless the interests of my House should recall
me, and shall rather await here the issue of the treaty
of Miinster or whatever other conjuncture may bring me
back to my country. The domain of the Electress is in
a situation which suits my constitution well, two degrees
nearer the sun than Berlin, surrounded by the river Oder,
and the soil is very fertile. The people there have already
recovered the effects of the war better than they have
here, though the armies were there longer and there was
more damage by fire. In some of the villages there has
been such a plague of the flies they call cousins that
many men and animals have been stifled and rendered
deaf and blind ; they come in a cloud and go away in the
same manner. The inhabitants attribute it to sorcery,
but I account for it by the unusual floods from the river,
lasting till April, when it was very warm.
Though Guhrauer imagines her to have returned for
a time to the Hague, there is no trace of her having
seen Descartes again before his departure for Sweden ;
and in the autumn of 1648 she was still in Berlin and
had been suffering from the smallpox, of which she
writes to her brother Charles : —
You will have learned by the last post the reason that
has hindered my paying my duty to you since I have
been persecuted by this wretched illness, and though the
BRANDENBURG 195
fever has left me and with it the peril of my life, I am still
quite covered with it and can use neither my hands nor
my eyes. They feed me like a little child, but the doctors
would persuade me I shall not be disfigured, which I leave
to their faith, having none of my own on the subject ; but
at the worst I console myself that the illness will only
have the effect of three or four years, at the end of which
age would have rendered me ugly enough without its aid.
It has not prevented my reading your two letters of the
14 and 22 of September, though I have not been able to
read anything else. I will only at this time reply to the
last, thanking you humbly for the care you have taken
of my little affairs. I am promised by M. Laurens that
he will realise and put them on a better footing when
they shall be delivered from the hands of the great im-
postor. I do not know what sort of present would be
agreeable to him, nor of what value it ought to be, so I
humbly beg you to order it as you think good and pay it
out of what may be received of my revenue. You have
not sent the power of attorney which I ought to give to
whoever you appoint as my receiver, but it is not necessary,
since there is no one here who could transcribe it in English,
so I send you a blank one signed and sealed.
This letter was written not long before the con-
clusion of the Treaty, and evidently referred to the
little property that should come to Elizabeth. Stipu-
lations had been made for a provision for the Pala-
tinate princesses, but for the most part remained on
paper. The whole thing was a great disappointment
to the Palatinate family, whose hopes had through long
discouragement remained so high, and must have been
a strain on the spirits of Elizabeth, weakened with
illness as she was. To gain better terms was hopeless,
196 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
and Charles Louis, in whom high spirit and prudence
were oddly blended, consented to accept his patri-
mony, clogged though it was with galling conditions.
The signing of the Peace of Westphalia in October,
1648, at length opened to him the homeward road.
It must have been with very mixed feelings that
the long-looked-for Restoration was received. The
Electorate was shorn of its dignity and precedence ;
no longer was the Elector Palatine the first in the
empire, next the Emperor himself. Only the Rhenish
Palatinate was restored ; the Upper Palatinate passed
to Bavaria, the Bergstrasse to Mayence, and it was
only in the spirit of the homely proverb that half a
loaf is better than no bread that the proud young
Elector could bring himself to accept so poor an in-
stalment of his rights. That Elizabeth felt the dis-
appointment is to be gathered from a letter of Des-
cartes, in which he applauds the wisdom of Charles
Louis in submitting to the inevitable.
That winter fell the unlooked-for blow of the execu-
tion of Charles I at the hands of his rebellious subjects.
Hopes of his restoration had dwindled to zero as his
long captivity grew more and more severe ; but that
he should be tried for his life before a tribunal of his
own subjects, condemned, and executed came like a
thunderclap. The shock to Elizabeth was so great
that she became seriously ill ; she wrote from her bed
to pour out her horror and distress to her unfailing
confidant. In this letter she told him how strangely
the exaltation of emotion had wrought with the weak-
ness of her body to inspire her to write poetry, a thing
BRANDENBURG 197
she had not before attempted. His comment on this
curious psychological manifestation is interesting : —
Your Highness tells me of your strong wish to make
verses during your malady, and I am thereby reminded
of what Plato recounts of Socrates, who, whilst in prison,
was pursued by a similar desire. I believe that this in-
clination for verse proceeds from an agitation of the animal
spirits strong enough in weak heads to overturn entirely
the whole economy of the imagination, but that in firm
and generous natures it merely predisposes towards
poetry ; and I hold it a sure sign of a mind stronger
and more elevated than those of ordinary mortals. If
I did not know in how great a degree your nature rises
above others, I should have been seriously alarmed at
the effect likely to be produced in you by the conclusion
of the tragedies in England ; but I build upon the fact
of your Highness being well used to fortune's frowns,
and I recognise that the danger of death, whence you
have yourself so newly escaped, must diminish in some
measure your surprise and horror at the catastrophe of
so near a relative. You must necessarily be less struck
down by it than if affliction were a stranger to you. . . .
Although the death we speak of, being so violent, may
seem at first far worse than that which is met in a man's
bed, yet, if all be well considered, in how much is it more
glorious and more sweet ! This should console your
Highness. It is surely something to die in a way which
commands universal pity — to leave the world, praised
and mourned by whoever partakes of human sentiments.
It is undeniable that without his last trial the gentleness
and other virtues of the dead king would never have been
so remarked and so esteemed as they will be in future
by whoever shall read his history. I am likewise persuaded
that in the last hours of his life, his forgiving conscience
198 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
caused him far more satisfaction than his indignation
(alleged to be the only weakness observable in him) ever
caused him pain. As to what regards his mere bodily
sufferings, I do not account them as anything, for they
are so short that, could assassins use a fever or any of
the ills that Nature employs to snatch men from the world,
they might with reason be considered much more cruel
than when they destroy life with the short sharp blow
of an axe. I dare not however prolong my reflections
upon this fatal subject, but I will add that at all events
it is infinitely better to be completely delivered from
every shadow of false hope than to be perpetually and
uselessly fostering a delusion.*
Descartes understood well the type of mind with
which he had to deal. Some might have felt the letter
cold and hard, on too high a plane for comfort, but
Elizabeth's soul would lift itself to the contemplation
of the higher issues it unfolded, and truly it was
written in a prophetic spirit. The nobleness, the
courage, the martyr spirit in which the King met his
death washed out the remembrance of the errors of
his life, the blunders of his administration, and gave
him a secure and exalted place upon the roll of honour.
How different was the note in which Elizabeth's
sometime friend, Anna van Schurmann, commented
on the same event. She was at the Hague at the
time, but there is no record of any condolence offered
to the Princess. In a letter to her father she touches
on the mourning of the Princess of Orange, and adds
a cold reflection that it would be a lesson to rulers
* L' Influence de Cart/sianisme, Foucher de Careil. Life of the
Princess of Bohemia, Blaze de Bury.
BRANDENBURG 193
not to tamper with the religious liberty of subjects.
It is not to be wondered at that the friendship between
her and Elizabeth should have languished ; the won-
der rather is that in later days she should have ap-
pealed to that ancient friendship and magnanimity,
nor found it fail her.
Whether Elizabeth had been at home for a time is
not clear, but she must have been in Berlin the follow-
ing summer, or she could hardly have missed seeing
Descartes when he lingered in Holland on his half-
reluctant way to Sweden. Probably she returned
there when it became apparent that there was to be
no joyful family reunion at Heidelberg. More than
the mere signing of the Treaty was involved before
Charles Louis could take possession of his inheritance ;
many minor matters had to be arranged, and it was
not until October, 1649, just a year after the con-
clusion of the Peace, that he set out for the Palatinate,
having stopped by the way at Cassel for his betrothal
with Charlotte Elizabeth, sister of the Landgrave of
Hesse-Cassel, who was already connected with him
by marriage, the wife of the latter being Hedwig, sister
of Frederic William of Brandenburg, and his mother
a granddaughter of William the Silent.
But among the matters to be arranged were none
concerning the Queen's return to her old home, which
was continually postponed on one excuse or another.
First there was the damp and ruinous condition of
the interior of the castle — boards rotting, roof letting
in the rain, and a lack of funds for the most necessary
repairs : the bride even must be housed at first in
200 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
the town. Then Frankenthal, the Queen's dowry,
though nominally restored, could not- be got out of
the hands of Spain. Charles wrote anent it two years
later : —
Heidelberg, this 3rd of May, 1651.
Madam, — Secretary Maurice will show your Majesty
the K of Spain's power to his Ambassador at Vienna
about the delivery of Franckendal, which is subject to
several ifs and ands ; so as it is to be feared they only
seek, according to their laudable custom, to protract
time for to gain another summer. So that I am much
confirmed thereby in my belief, that as long as Philips-
burg is in the French hands, or the war continues between
that crown and Spain, they will not quit Franckendal.
Moreover, there was the impossibility of the Queen
leaving the Hague with her debts unpaid, and her
son's unwillingness or inability to pay them.
So neither mother, brothers, nor sisters shared his
entry into his dominions ; alone he went home, and
alone he entered upon his wasted patrimony. Did he
remember, or did Elizabeth, the hurried flight from
Heidelberg with their grandmother and aunt when
they were but babies ? Did either recall the merry
games at Leyden when Henry was still at the head of
the little band, and they used to pretend they were
travelling home to " dear Heidelberg " ? Elizabeth
had been Charles's companion sister in those days,
and she must have longed to be beside him, but no
word survives of her disappointment. Still more
* Bromley Letters.
BRANDENBURG 201
pathetic was that of the Queen, slowly learning that
she was to have neither part nor lot in the longed-for
restoration. Years before she had said, " My son is
more to me than all my daughters." All her efforts,
all her ambitions had for years been devoted to set-
ting him in his father's former place, and now to see
him there and find he did not want her must have
been a bitter cup to drain.
Doubtless there are excuses for him ; with a cur-
tailed patrimony and diminished resources he had to
repair the waste of years. He knew his mother to be
generous and extravagant ; he felt his first duty was
to his country, and until the fatal negotiations with
France, which issued in the Orleans War, it must be
admitted he well fulfilled it. Later he offered a home
to two of his sisters, but for the present, both to his
mother and to Elizabeth, who was old enough to re-
member something of the tragedy of thirty years ago,
the situation must have been fraught with bitterness
and disappointment.
CHAPTER XI
QUEEN CHRISTINA
Descartes is brought to the notice of the Queen of Sweden by
Chanut — He is invited to Stockholm — Idea of interesting her on
behalf of the Princess Palatine — Sketch of the young Queen —
Descartes writes to Elizabeth about her — His wish to show her
Elizabeth's letters to him — Indiscretion of the Queen Mother of
Sweden — He goes to Stockholm — Fails to interest the two
ladies in each other — His death — Chanut asks again for the
letters.
WHILE Elizabeth's philosophy was being
thus put to the test by finding how far
the reality fell short of the golden hopes
built on her brother's restoration, her
friend was far away, beyond even the frequent and
regular interchange of letters which had been such a
solace to her, and occupied with a new interest, a new
disciple. During his stay in Paris he had been drawn
into an indirect correspondence, through his old friend
Chanut, with the brilliant daughter of Gustavus
Adolphus, now at eighteen reigning independently
over Sweden. Her reputation for learning had won
her the title of Pallas Nordica and had spread far be-
yond her own dominions. Chanut, who was French
Ambassador at Stockholm, had already introduced to
her notice the writings of Descartes, having read
passages aloud to her, and she was so much charmed
202
QUEEN CHRISTINA 203
with them that she desired to make the personal ac-
quaintance of the writer and to induce him to pay a
visit to her Court. Undoubtedly the Philosopher was
flattered by her wish, and de Thuillerie, who had
preceded Chanut at the French Embassy, painted her
talents and accomplishments in very glowing colours.
He hesitated, shrinking from the long journey, from
the severe climate, and from the gay and distracting
life of the Court of a young Queen, but he coquetted
with the idea. He wrote to Chanut, enclosing a copy
of his Meditations for the Queen's acceptance, as he
said he had heard of the interest she took in serious
studies. He evidently thought it worth while to enlist
her on his side in the controversies that had been
raging against him amongst the Protestants, for,
referring to the accusations of atheism levelled against
him in many quarters, he expressed the hope that
highly placed persons who had the power might accord
him their protection, adding : —
I have heard so much to the credit of this Queen, that
although I have often complained of those who would
make me acquainted with great people, I cannot but thank
you for having commended me to her. I have seen M. de
Thuillerie since his return from Sweden, who has described
her qualities to such advantage that her being Queen ap-
pears to me the least of them ; I could not have believed
half had I not seen in that Princess to whom my Principia
Philosophice is dedicated that persons of high birth in
either sex need not attain a great age to surpass many men
in virtue and erudition. But I fear lest the writings that
I send are not worth her stopping to peruse them, and that
she will not thank you for making them known to her.
204 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
After a dissertation on the subjects of which the
book treats, he goes on to testify his 'warm friendship
for his correspondent : —
I should be happy could I discuss these matters with you,
but I doubt whether I shall ever visit the place where
you are, nor that you should return to this country, but
I may hope that after some years, in travelling towards
France, you would do me the pleasure to stay a few days
in my hermitage, and that I shall be able to entertain
you with open heart. One may say many things in a
short time, and I do not find that frequent meetings are
necessary to bind close friendships when they are founded
on virtue. From the first hour I had the honour of meeting
you, I have been entirely yours, and have ventured ever
since to assure myself of your kindness, so I beg you to
believe that I could not be more yours than I am, had I
passed the whole of my life in your company.*
Elizabeth was much in his thoughts, as this letter
shows, not only in the sentence that directly refers
to her, but in that about friendship in absence ; and
besides the desire he had to make personal acquaint-
ance with the dazzling young lady whose interest in
his writings flattered him, he cherished the hope of
effecting an introduction between the two and in-
ducing the young Queen to intervene in the counsels
at Miinster on behalf of the Palatinate family. Per-
sonal considerations apart, it was no wild or improbable
idea. Christina was the only child and representative
of Gustavus Adolphus, who had placed himself at the
head of the Protestant interest in Germany and given
* Descartes, Directeur Spiritual, Victor de Swarte.
QUEEN CHRISTINA 205
his life to the cause. He had been one of the suitors
of the Queen of Bohemia when she was Princess Royal
of England, and always retained a warm admiration
for her, and was also the personal friend and comrade-
in-arms of the unfortunate King. Christina was also
connected with the Palatines through her mother,
she being sister to the Elector of Brandenburg, George
William, their uncle by marriage. Since her widow-
hood the Queen Dowager had taken up her abode
in Berlin, as was mentioned in Elizabeth's letters
thence. The young Queen had the credit of interest-
ing herself greatly in the negotiations for putting an
end to the Thirty Years' War, and one of her bio-
graphers, Professor Bain, attributes to her considerable
influence in the cause of peace.* All this pointed to
her being a very fit person to forward the restoration
of the Palatinate, but though she had written to the
son of her father's old ally to promise to do her best
for him, she really does not seem to have exerted her-
self at all on his behalf. The truth was it was the
interest of France to prevent the Elector Palatine
from regaining the power and prestige of his prede-
cessors and the intrigues of French diplomatists won
over Sweden rather to induce the Elector to accept
poor terms than to help him to gain better.
In endeavouring to interest Christina personally for
the Princess Palatine, Descartes showed himself less
of a judge of individual human nature than he was of
humanity in the abstract. Learned the young Queen
might be, but, inordinately vain and jealous of her
* Christina Queen of Sweden, F. W. Bain.
206 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
prestige, she would be little likely to view with a
favourable eye the pretensions of one whose acquire-
ments were so solid as were those of Elizabeth, still
less when they were recommended to her by the
encomiums of a distinguished savant whom she wished
to regard as devoted to herself. She was delighted to
receive the Philosopher at her Court, and lent most
flattering attention to his discourse, but Elizabeth's
troubles and those of her family she tacitly ignored.
Showy as she was, a brilliant talker when she chose,
and of more than average intelligence, she easily
blinded such men as Descartes and Chanut to the
shallowness of her mind, and the excitable and un-
balanced character on which no reliance could be
placed. She was much to be pitied : a spoilt child,
yet missing a mother's love ; the kind of spoiling she
had met was that which ministers to vanity. Her sex
was a bitter disappointment to her parents, who had
naturally set their hearts upon a son to inherit the
Swedish crown, and when a little girl — ugly, dark, and
hairy — made her unwelcome appearance, her mother
turned from her in disgust and handed her over to
the care of her aunt and her attendants. Had she
made up by lavish fondness for the cold reception the
baby found elsewhere, the spoiling would not have
been so harmful, but she was a vain, silly woman,
highly neurotic and self-centred, and she only woke
to a remorseful affection for her daughter when it was
too late to gain any influence over that self-willed
young woman. From her cradle the child was sur-
rounded with flatterers; she early displayed a pre-
QUEEN CHRISTINA 207
cocious intelligence, cared little for play, solitary child
as she was, and nothing at all for dolls, but learned
readily whatever was taught her. For this she was
praised, and for her daring and audacity. The only
reproach she ever met was that she was not a boy,
so it was little wonder she tried to make herself as
like one as possible. With more reason than most
little girls who indulge the idea, she wished herself
one, and cared only for boyish sports and games.
They called her a " garcon manque." Her chief play-
mate was her little cousin, Charles Gustavus, the son
of her father's sister ; a match was suggested between
the two, and they looked upon each other in child-
hood as little husband and wife. As she grew up,
however, marriage did not appeal to Christina ; she
preferred her independence on a solitary throne, but
she always promised her cousin she would marry no
one else, and she kept her word, and on her conversion
to the Catholic Church abdicated in his favour.*
Her father might have exerted a better influence
upon her ; but during her early childhood he was
absent at the Thirty Years' War, and she was but six
when he fell at Lutzen, leaving her and the kingdom
in the charge of a Council of Regency, well knowing
her mother incapable of managing either. The child
developed quickly, and was soon ready to take the
reins into her own hands. At eighteen she was de-
clared of age, and had been governing for some few
years when Descartes made her acquaintance.
The descriptions of her at this time vary widely
* Princesses et Grandes Dames, Arvede Barine,
208 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
between the enthusiastic eulogiums of Chanut, dazzled
by her undoubted brilliancy, as well 'as by her prefer-
ence for all things French, and the caustic and some-
times scandalous reports which her wild conduct
occasionally gave rise to. It should not, however, be
difficult, knowing her later history, and comparing
these conflicting accounts, to understand the kind of
character she developed. Not without unusual mental
gifts, if they were overestimated by her entourage,
nor lacking in generous impulses, but vain, jealous,
excitable, inheriting not a little of her mother's
hysterical temperament, in spite of her masculine pro-
clivities, though capable of understanding affairs of
State and forming swift decisions, quite incapable of
self-command or of the balanced, well-reasoned judg-
ment needful in such a position as hers.
At eighteen she had grown into a handsome girl,
though small and very dark, with a deep voice like a
man, which Chanut said could soften with her mood.
She cared nothing for dress, even appearing sometimes
with dirty hands and torn linen. She took no care of
her complexion, despising the protection of either veil
or mask — the latter being much worn by ladies in the
seventeenth century to preserve the skin from sun or
wind. Often she went without any head covering, and
seldom wore her hair dressed. " A comb and a ribbon
was all the coiffure she employed," says Chanut in his
description of her. For riding she would wear a felt
hat with plumes like a man, and affected a mannish
taste in dress, preferring a redingote to the laced
stomacher worn by women in her day. She rode
QUEEN CHRISTINA 209
divinely, could shoot a running hare with a single
ball — and swore like a trooper, says one biographer.*
It is not wonderful that she disliked women's society
and never felt at ease in it, though she is said to have
been kind and considerate to her ladies-in-waiting and
generous in gifts, notwithstanding that she could scold
roundly on occasion. She would much rather talk
with the officers of her army or with her sage and
elderly councillors than sit at her embroidery frame
with her maids-of-honour round her.
She had been highly educated ; she knew eight
languages — German, French, Italian, Spanish, Finnish,
and Danish, besides Latin, and had begun Greek.
She also dabbled in Hebrew and Arabic, and could
read them a little. Hitherto she had not studied
much philosophy. She was fond of history, and de-
lighted in Tacitus ; she was familiar with ancient
mythologies, and had even read a good deal in the
Fathers, but liked best poetry, either ancient or
modern. She had already many eminent men at her
Court : Isaac Vossius, who taught her Greek ; Sal-
masius, whose treatise, De Eruditione Feminarum,
showed his high estimate of women's capacity ;
Freinsheim, who afterwards went to Heidelberg ;
Couring, and Bochart the Orientalist.
Some said she loved luxury, but certainly not in the
form of eating and drinking, for she drank water and
ate but little, and that with reluctance, and slept only
five hours at night, taking an hour's rest in the after-
noon. She was morbidly fond of talking about herself,
* Arv6de Barine.
210 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
having been made the centre of attention from her
babyhood. She said of herself that she was distrustful
and suspicious, ambitious to excess, hot-tempered,
proud, impatient, contemptuous, and satirical, and
in this she showed a fair knowledge of her own pro-
clivities. The maxims she collected and wrote in a
little book show her right-thinking in the main, but
they are but commonplace, and had they been written
by any but a Queen would hardly have been deemed
worth preserving.
Such was the Royal lady between whom and his
gentle, philosophic Princess Descartes fondly thought
to knit up a friendship. When he passed through the
Hague on his journey to France, Elizabeth still linger-
ing in Germany, he wrote to her : —
Not being able to have the honour to receive your com-
mands and pay my respects to you, it seems I must write
these lines to assure your Highness that my zeal and
devotion to your service will never change, though I
change my residence.
After relating how he had received from Chanut a
question on which the Queen of Sweden desired his
opinion, he goes on : —
The portrait which Chanut draws of the Queen and the
discourse he reports have given me such a high esteem
for her, that it seems to me you and she would be worthy
of each other's conversation ; and since there are so few
of the rest of the world who are worthy of it, it would not
be unpleasant to your Highness to enter on a close friend-
ship with her, and that besides the contentment of spirit
you would find in it, it might be desirable for many reasons.
QUEEN CHRISTINA 211
He proposed that in the letters he wrote to Chanut to
be shown to the Queen he might suggest the desirability
of this friendship — unless the Princess should forbid
it, but to this Elizabeth made no response. There is
not a word in her letters to show how this new friend-
ship affected her ; it is rather by what she does not
say that we gather an idea that she may have been
wounded at finding a rival in his regard, and, with her
self-depreciating tendency, have feared to see herself
supplanted by a younger, happier, perhaps more
brilliant woman. Possibly it was in consequence
of a vexation that would not find expression that
next month brings news of an attack of illness, for
which Descartes prescribes diet and regular exercise,
with a reminder that the condition of the mind tells
much on that of the body, suggesting that he traced
some depression of spirit in her account of bodily
illness.
Wise man though he was, he showed masculine
tactlessness in praising one woman to another, failing
to understand, as men generally do, that jealousy
could come in where the relation was one of friendship,
not of love. Just there lies one of the fundamental
differences of sex ; a man is as jealous as a woman
where wife or mistress is concerned : his friend may
have many other friends. With a woman it is differ-
ent. However platonic, however detached her feeling
may be, she always wants exclusive prerogative, and
when that is threatened she will suffer. But Descartes
soon gave his friend another and deeper cause of
offence.
212 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
In November he wrote that Christina, having heard
a discourse at the University of Upsala on the Sove-
reign Good, was very anxious to learn his views, and
had commanded Chanut to request him to send her
something on the topic. His treatise On the Passions,
in which occurred a dissertation on the Sovereign
Good, had been in large measure founded on the con-
fidential correspondence he had had with Elizabeth
when she, ill and out of spirits, had poured forth
unreservedly her griefs and perplexities. His letters,
of which apparently he had kept copies, he sent to
Chanut for the Queen's perusal, apologising that he
could not send those to which they were an answer
without the permission of the writer. This permission
he was little likely to obtain ; the request, indeed,
must have cut Elizabeth's reserved soul to the quick.
Most women would have reproached him ; Elizabeth
passed over the matter in dead silence, making no
reference to the Queen of Sweden in her reply ; and
probably Descartes understood her reluctance, though
unexpressed, for at his death he left her letters in
Chanut's charge with the proviso that he was to suffer
them to pass into no other hands.
Her letter of December, 1647, is occupied with the
books he had sent her and with an attempt to per-
suade him to publish a treatise on Erudition which
he had long had in contemplation and which they
discussed together, and of which she said the world
had need. This he refused to produce, fearing to
draw down upon him again the enmity of the Schools,
for the controversies he had lately been engaged in
QUEEN CHRISTINA 213
in Holland had so worried him and told upon his
spirits that he declared, since he could not have the
happiness of being in the same place as her Highness,
he might as well settle in his own country or in some
other place — doubtless Sweden was in his mind's eye.
After a delay caused by an injury to her arm, an un-
skilful surgeon having cut a nerve in bleeding her,
Elizabeth responded, thanking him for his generous
regret on leaving Holland on her account ; for the
benefit of his conversation, she adds,
is the greatest good I look forward to and the only thing
that makes me dream of returning there, which the accom-
modation of affairs in England and the despair of seeing
such in Germany might have rendered possible.
In 1648 one of the many abortive treaties was in
consideration in England. The tone of this letter
shows her to have overcome any resentment she may
have felt, but she did not respond to any effort to
make her acquainted with the Queen of Sweden, and
not unnaturally appeared somewhat hurt at learning
incidentally through the indiscretion of the Queen
Dowager that her friend was really going to Sweden.
It is odd how she avoids the mention of Christina by
name. She had learned the news, she writes,
through the mother of the Personage to whom your friend
gives your letters. She is not a good person to choose
for managing a secret which she can never keep. She
performed the rest of her commission with considerable
passion.
214 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
Twice in this letter Elizabeth refers to " the good
woman " in a satirical tone. She ends her letter with
the promise of writing again on the subject of his
dedication of the French edition of the Principia : —
Assuring myself that in changing your abode you will
always keep the same charity for your very affectionate
friend to serve you, Elizabeth.
The visit to Paris proved in many ways a disap-
pointment to Descartes ; the war of the Fronde
breaking out set everything in confusion, and caused
the offered pension to vanish in smoke. It was, said
he, like being invited to an entertainment and finding
that the servants had struck and the kitchen fire gone
out. There was little to be hoped from a sojourn
under such distracted conditions, and having visited
his estates in Poitou and Brittany, he resolved on
returning to Egmont. There fresh and more urgent
invitations arrived from Christina, who even sent an
admiral to convoy him, but he still hesitated and
appeared to shrink from the undertaking.
Christina had, through Chanut, placed before him
certain questions on the nature of Love and Hate,
and whether natural light sufficed to teach the Love
of God ; and having read the answers he had sent,
professed herself most anxious to discuss these sub-
jects with him in person. She had been studying his
books most diligently, Chanut reported ; he had him-
self read much of them aloud to her, and since he
could not resolve all her perplexities she had engaged
Freinsheim, the learned Professor of Philosophy from
QUEEN CHRISTINA 215
Upsala, to give her regular instruction. She showed
a decided faculty for philosophy, and in another letter
he said, " unbent her mind with philosophic discussion
after fatiguing it with the affairs of her kingdom."
All these flattering invitations and the desire of the
brilliant young Queen to sit at his feet presently over-
came Descartes' reluctance, and at length, but not
until the October of 1649, ne departed for Stockholm,
where he was to be the guest of his friend Chanut.
On his arrival he wrote to Elizabeth to assure her of
his devoted service — " that she might know that no
change of air nor of country could diminish either his
devotion or his zeal." He had seen Christina but
twice, and said : —
I found that she has no less merit and more virtue than
report has credited her with. With the generosity and
the majesty which shine in all her actions one sees a
gentleness and kindness which make all those who love
virtue and have the honour of approaching her, en-
tirely devoted to her service. One of the first things she
asked me was if I had news of you, and I did not hesitate
to tell her what I thought of your Highness, for remark-
ing the strength of her mind, I had no fear lest it should
give her the least jealousy, as I am assured your Highness
would not feel on reading the sentiments I have freely
expressed about this Queen.
Christina, he said, was devoted to reading, and had
collected many ancient books ; she was even interested
in Greek, but as she had as yet read nothing of Greek
philosophy it was impossible to judge of the taste she
might show for it. He goes on : —
216 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
In any case the virtue which I observed in this princess
makes me always prefer utility in her service to the de-
sire of pleasing her, so that I am not hindered in telling
her frankly my opinions, and if they fail to be agreeable
to her, which I hardly think, I shall at least have the
satisfaction of having done my duty, and have the oppor-
tunity of returning all the sooner to my solitude, out of
which it is difficult for me to advance in the research of
truth ; and that is my principal satisfaction in this life.
Monsieur Freinsheim has arranged with her Majesty that
I should only go to the castle at the hours when it will
please her to give me audience ; thus I shall not have
the trouble of paying my court, which accords little with
my humour. After all never-the-less though I have so
great a veneration for her Majesty, I do not think any-
thing would avail to keep me longer in this country than
till next summer ; but I cannot answer for the future.
I can only assure you that I remain all my life yours, etc.
This letter appears to have been the last Elizabeth
ever received from her friend ; if so, the long silence
of the winter must have been very sad to her after
the constant correspondence which had cheered her
hitherto through her prolonged sojourn in Branden-
burg. Did she brood over it, fancying he might be
finding a younger, quicker mind more responsive ?
There is nothing to tell. His letters had always been
her chief solace, and he could hardly have realised
how anxiously she looked for them, or he would have
written though he had nothing satisfactory to com-
municate with respect to her affairs. For as regards
interesting the Queen on behalf of the Princess Pala-
tine his visit was quite a failure. After the first civil
QUEEN CHRISTINA 217
inquiries for her on his arrival Christina troubled her
head no more about Elizabeth, and Descartes' un-
willingness to confess his non-success may have kept
him silent. Possibly difficulties of communication in
winter were too great.
Meanwhile he was not, as Elizabeth may have
fancied, greatly enjoying the society of the young
Queen. She liked to talk philosophy with him when
she had nothing better to do, but she was whimsical
and inconsiderate, unaccustomed to think of the con-
venience of any one but herself, and frequently sum-
moned him to attend her in her cabinet when she first
rose, before she entered on the business of the day ;
and he who in a far milder climate was used to lying
in bed till midday found himself obliged to rise and
dress between five and six in the morning and repair
to the castle, through the rigours of a Swedish winter,
before daylight. He probably found Christina's sharp,
though not deep or thoughtful, questions a poor com-
pensation for the quiet morning hours of meditation
he always valued so much, and far less stimulating to
fruitful thought than the interchange of opinion with
Elizabeth he had heretofore found so helpful. The
complete derangement of all his old habits seriously
shook his health, never very robust, and an attack of
pneumonia, probably following influenza — for his host
had had an illness with precisely the same symptoms
just before — terminated fatally on nth February,
cutting short his days in his fifty-fourth year.
Elizabeth's last letter to him is affectionate and
quite unreproachful. She refers in grateful terms to
his, announcing his arrival in Sweden : —
218 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
It is a proof of the continuance of your kindness to me,
which assures me also of the happy success of your journey,
since the object was worth the trouble, and you find still
more marvels in the Queen of Sweden than her reputation
had announced. But it must be confessed you are more
capable of discovering them than those who have been
till now occupied in proclaiming them. And I seem to
know more about her from the little you have told me
than by all that I have heard elsewhere. [Is there here
a faint touch of sarcasm, or was all this said in good faith ?]
Do not believe that so advantageous a description could
give me cause for jealousy, but rather that I esteem my-
self more highly than I did before having the idea of so
accomplished a person to free our sex from the imputation
of weakness and folly which Messieurs the pedants would
fasten upon it. I am quite sure when she has once tasted
of your philosophy she will prefer it to their philology.
But I marvel that this princess should be able to apply
herself to study as she does, and to the affairs of her
kingdom also, two occupations so different, each of them
demanding the whole mind. The honour which she did
me in remembering me in your presence I attribute en-
tirely to her desire to please you in giving you the occasion
to exercise the charity you have so often testified, and I
owe this advantage, as also the obtaining a share of her
approbation, to you, and may preserve it the better
as I am unknown to her Majesty except as you have
represented me. I feel however capable of a crime against
her service in rejoicing that your veneration for her will
not detain you long in Sweden. If you leave this winter
I hope it may be in the company of M. Kleist, which will
afford the opportunity of giving the happiness of seeing
you again to your very affectionate friend to serve you,
Elizabeth.
QUEEN CHRISTINA 219
The answer to this desire of seeing her friend once
more came in the dreary month of February from the
hand of Chanut : —
February 19, 1650.
A Madame Elizabeth Palatine.
The duty which I herewith tender to your Royal High-
ness is the very last by which I should have desired to
testify my humble respects ; but I think myself obliged
to give an account of a person whom you so greatly es-
teemed for his rare merit, and to inform you, Madame,
with incredible grief that we have lost M. Descartes. We
were both he and I attacked almost at the same time by
a similar malady, a continuous fever with inflammation
of the lungs ; but since his fever was in the beginning
more internal, he did not believe it dangerous, and would
not allow himself to be bled for several days, which ren-
dered the illness so violent that all our trouble and the
continual care which the Queen of Sweden took in sending
her own physicians could not hinder his decease on the
ninth day of his malady. His end was gentle and peaceful,
like his life.
Since he did me the honour of residing with me, I have
been obliged to take charge of all that he has left, and to
have an inventory made of all that was found in his
boxes.
In April M. Chanut wrote further, in answer to a
request of hers about her letters : —
Madame, — I obey the order which it has pleased your
Royal Highness to give me, and have placed this packet
in the hands of the Ambassador of Brandenburg in which
I have enclosed all the letters of your Royal Highness
that I could find among the papers of the late M. Des-
220 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
cartes, as confusedly as they were found, without being
touched otherwise than to fold them together more con-
veniently. It is not that I do not believe, Madame, that
in this you are doing an injustice, not only that the rela-
tions of this illustrious man would have an interest in
retaining some proofs of the honour which he enjoyed in
your approbation, but also that some of his private letters
should justify to the world that which he has written
in the Epistle Dedicatory to his Principia ; for it may
one day happen that, envy being extinct, there will be
no more doubt of the foundations of his discoveries in
the structure of the world ; time and experience will but
confirm this doctrine which seems to us so extraordinary ;
but it will always seem incredible that a person of the age
and condition of your Royal Highness should have been
the first, and for a long time the only one to comprehend
these truths. Therefore, Madame, it seems to me that
to clear the memory of my friend from all suspicion of
flattery, it would be just that you should permit some of
your letters to be seen to serve as a mathematical demon-
stration of that which he has written in this Epistle ; for
though they were not studied with the design of displaying
the light of your intelligence, they are none the less images
all the more naif that they represent the purity of your
reason acting in the search for truth. What makes me think
this is that M. Descartes two or three years ago, giving
me copies of six letters he had written to your Royal
Highness on the subject of the Sovereign Good, told me
at the same time that he had others on the same topic
which he did not send because they could not be under-
stood without those of your Royal Highness, which he
could not communicate without your permission ; but
he would ask you one day, and I might then offer to read
them to the Queen of Sweden, for whom I had particularly
desired letters on the subject. I do not doubt that amongst
QUEEN CHRISTINA 221
his papers I might find notes of those which he postponed
giving me. These would however be useless, since they
depend for their sense on those of your Royal Highness ;
instead of which, if we had the suite of what you have
thought on this high meditation there would be something
to make an acceptable present, if not to the public, at
least to the Queen of Sweden, who knows how to value
works of such high merit, and seeing virtue without envy,
would be much pleased to be confirmed by her own judg-
ment in the singular esteem she has formed for the person
of your Royal Highness. We could adjust these rare
letters with those which he wrote to me two years ago
on the same question of the Sovereign Good, and the two
others, equally important, which I proposed to him, her
Majesty having thus desired. Your Royal Highness sees
that without venturing to beg, I represent weighty reasons
to persuade you to give us copies of those letters which
particularly concern the Sovereign Good, which could not
justly remain private, since they treat of a subject which
concerns all men.
It remains, Madame, that I satisfy your desire of knowing
more touching the last days of M. Descartes. The fever
mounted to his brain and took from him the understanding
of the seriousness of his illness, without otherwise clouding
his discourse until the end, so that for the first seven days
he did not believe he had the fever. At the end of the
seventh, the heat leaving his head and extending through-
out his body, he recognised that he had been mistaken
and of his own accord had himself bled twice within a few
hours, which he had till then refused. But he believed it
was already too late, and on the eighth day told me that
during the night he had made his account and was resolved
to leave the world without grief and with confidence in
222 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
the mercy of God. He added some other firm and pious
discourse worthy of a man, not only philosophic but
religious, who gave us all an example of purity and probity
in his life, and who a month before had performed the
duties of a true Catholic. We were nevertheless deceived,
both he and I, in the estimation of his strength, the end
was nearer than we thought : the following night the
oppression of his chest increased so as to hinder his breath-
ing. He felt his end approaching without trouble and
without fear ; and not being able to speak, made signs
many times repeated that he departed content with life
and with men, and trusting in the goodness of God. I
believe, Madame, that had he known the day before,
while he could still speak, that his end was so near, he
would have commended to me many of his last wishes,
and would particularly have desired me to tell your
Royal Highness that he died with the same respect he had
always held for you during his life, which he had often
testified to me in words full of reverence and admiration.
And since I know he would have charged me to render
for him all the obedience and respect possible, I hold my-
self engaged more than other men to remain all my life
with ardour and affection,
Your Royal Highness's most humble, etc.*
Elizabeth was too human, too much a woman to
accede to the request urged upon her in this letter ;
she could keep silence on what wounded her. She could
not give her heart and her confidence to serve as a
lesson in philosophy for the Queen of Sweden.
* Descartes, Directeur Spirituel, Victor de Swarte.
CHAPTER XII
THE ELDER SISTER
Difficulty of marrying the Palatinate princesses — Louise and Sophie
— Proposal from Transylvania for Henriette — The suitor —
Henriette sent to Krossen — Charles Louis makes objections —
His letter to the Queen — Letters from Elizabeth — Arrange-
ments for the wedding — Elizabeth busy with trousseau and
suite — Difficulties and delays — Wedding day fixed — Death of
Philip — Postponement — Marriage takes place in May — Hen-
riette's letters to her brother — Her happiness — Her illness and
death.
PRETTY, witty, portionless, and backed by
no considerable political influence, the four
sisters of the Elector Palatine had small
opportunity for making desirable alliances.
While the family were under the ban of the empire
it had been doubly difficult, and it must be owned
their mother was far more ardently concerned for the
welfare of her sons than for that of her daughters ;
so when the restoration of the Palatinate came there
were the four princesses between the ages of twenty
and thirty-two, all attractive — and all unmarried.
The two abortive proposals for Elizabeth were in
the far past, and for long there had been no matri-
monial project on her behalf ; but for the future of
her sisters she showed an anxious and motherly con-
223
224 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
cern. She had left girlhood far behind her, and at
thirty was a mature woman, self-possessed, dignified,
already developing a middle-aged stoutness — she wrote
from Berlin to Descartes, " Je m'engraisse visible-
ment." She had thought much and suffered much,
and had endured considerable ill-health, and her con-
cern now was for others rather than herself. Very
unlike her was Louise Hollandine, merry, careless
Louise, devoted to her art, yet not so much wrapped
up in it as to keep her from indulging in many im-
possible flirtations, and by her easy manner and foolish
indiscretions laying herself open to more than one
scandalous report, and unhappily giving a handle to
the legends industriously spread by the Protestants
after her conversion to the Catholic Church.*
For her a project was entertained, suggested by the
English refugees who flocked to the Hague after the
murder of the King, of wedding her to the Marquis of
Montrose and making him viceroy of Scotland. This
remained a castle in the air, and what the two princi-
pals felt in the matter does not appear ; but Sophie
alludes to the plan in her Memoirs with a broad hint
that she herself was the attraction, counting Montrose
amongst those who " sought their fortune in her
service." But then Sophie was rather apt to make
herself the centre of every picture.
For Sophie her mother was ambitious, dreaming of
uniting her with Charles II of England, believing
firmly in his eventual restoration to his kingdom, and
as a Protestant viewing with no disfavour the marriage
* Memoirer der Herzogin Sophie, Kocher.
THE ELDER SISTER 225
of first cousins. Sophie, however, was shrewd, and
very soon perceived the self-interested nature of the
regard with which the young King honoured her.
They had always been on the best of terms as cousins
and playfellows, but one day he joined her walking
in the Vorhout, the fashionable promenade, and began
to ply her with extravagant compliments, telling her
she was handsomer than Mrs. Barlow, for whom his
admiration was notorious. Her suspicions were
aroused by these overdone compliments, and she
soon perceived his object was to get her to obtain
a loan for him from Lord Craven. She proceeds : —
I was highly offended, but the Queen, who had noticed
his Majesty's marked attentions, was just as much de-
lighted, and blamed me for not going to the promenade
on the following evening. I made the excuse of a corn
on my foot, which prevented me from walking. My real
reason, however, was to avoid the King, having sense
enough to know that the marriages of great kings are not
made up by such means.
Proposals of a more genuine if of a less brilliant
nature were now addressed to the Elector Palatine
for the hand of his third sister Henriette, the least
distinguished, but the most beautiful of the four, the
only one, indeed, entitled to be called absolutely
beautiful. Her exquisite fairness and graceful form
have been immortalised both by her sister's pen and
by the brush of Honthorst in the portrait at Combe
Abbey. Though less intellectual than her sisters, her
disposition was lovely to match the lovely face : very
modest, gentle, and retiring, always anxious to please,
Q
226 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
and very sensitive to blame. She had not the talents
of the two elder, nor the gay spirits and aplomb of
the youngest, who came to be described in later years
as the best-bred woman in Europe, but she had a
tender charm, and was clever in her own chosen pur-
suits. Never idle, she delighted in doing exquisite
needlework or dainty confectionery, and very likely
the meagre wardrobes of the sisters were eked out by
her skilful fingers. Though timid, she, like the rest,
must have been a lively child, for years later, after
her early death, when the merry and attractive little
daughter of Charles Louis was brought to the Hague
to visit her grandmother, the Queen wrote : " Her
shape and humour make me think of my poor Hen-
riette."
It is not a little remarkable that so sweet and pretty
a creature should have remained so long unwooed,
especially considering how much the sisters went into
society. A letter of Rupert's, quoted by Miss Scott
from the Rupert Transcripts, dated 30th September,
1648, refers to Maurice spending a little while at the
Hague, occupied in visits of compliment, walking be-
hind his mother and sisters when they were invited
to meet distinguished visitors in the gardens of the
Prince of Orange ; but Henriette was so shy and
retiring she may well have been overshadowed and
eclipsed by the brilliance of Louise and Sophie, neither
of them so beautiful in feature or colouring, but the
elder possessing charm and wit, the younger animation
and high breeding in no common degree.
It seems in character that it should have been with
HENRIETTE, PRINCESS PALATINE
From a painting by Honthorst at Combe Abbey. By permission of Messrs. Gonpil
THE ELDER SISTER 227
Henriette's portrait that her suitor from afar fell in
love. He was Siegmund Rakoczy, second son of
George Rakoczy, Prince of Siebenburgen in Transyl-
vania, by his second wife, Susanna Lorantfy.* The
Rakoczy had won a brilliant position in Eastern
Europe during the struggles with the Turks in the
earlier part of the century, and George II, elder brother
of Siegmund, had pretensions to the Polish throne.
Through the marriage of Bethlen Gabor, the old ally
of the Winter King, with the sister of George William,
Elector of Brandenburg, the two families were already
connected, and it was natural the Princess Dowager
Susanna should bethink herself of the Palatine prin-
cesses when she looked for a fitting match for her
younger son. He was now about seven-and- twenty,
so Henriette, just four years his junior, seemed the
most suitable, and a trusted envoy, George Mednyan-
ski, was despatched to Heidelberg to treat with the
newly restored Elector Palatine for the hand of his
third sister. No very definite answer was returned,
but her portrait was sent to Sarospatak, and if it were
the one by Honthorst it is not wonderful that the
young man's choice fell upon her. There were others
on the tapis ; a daughter of Count John of Nassau
had been suggested, and a nearer neighbour, the
heiress of the Voivode of Moldau. Each of these young
ladies could bring a dowry in her hand ; but in a family
council held at Sarospatak, Prince Siegmund empha-
* Die Heirath der Prinzessin Henriette Marie von der Pfalz,
Anna Wendland. Neue Heidelberger J ahrbiiche* ', Jahrgang xiv.
Heft 2.
228 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
tically declared his preference for the portionless
original of the lovely portrait, and mother and elder
brother were wise enough to let him have his way.
There was more, however, to be said to it ; the
Elector Palatine proved somewhat hard to deal with,
and the negotiations dragged on for a long time.
For many reasons it seemed desirable that these
should be conducted through the Electress Dowager
of Brandenburg ; she had already had much to do
with the marriage of Bethlen Gabor with her hus-
band's sister, and she was also extremely fond of her
nieces and anxious for their welfare. Moreover,
Krossen, on the borders of Silesia, was far more con-
venient than either Heidelberg or the Hague for the
coming and going of despatches. Elizabeth was still
with her, so in the summer of 1650 Henriette was
sent to her care.
The Elector, however, was not disposed to let his
aunt and sister have a free hand in the matter ; his
ambition was unsatisfied, and though not willing to
break it off altogether, he did not wish to proceed
definitely. In September he wrote to his mother : —
* By the former post I sent to Maurice a copy for your
Majesty's use of what I sent to the Electress concerning
the Transylvanian business ; if it can be brought higher,
it will be so much the better. The Ambassador that is
here and pretended to treat with me about it, though
he have no sufficient power, I have with a civil answer
of neither aye nor no, referred to the Electress to whom
* Briefe der Kinder des Winterkonigs, Haucke. Heidelberger
Jahrbiicher.
THE ELDER SISTER 229
his communication is directed (having only brought me
letters of credence from the Prince regnant (George) and
his mother), as also your Majesty's consent. But for
my part I like the other match proposed to her much
better, though this will be more profitable for her for
matter of money. I have written to Vienna to inform
myself how things stand with him, and whether the
Emperor gives him the title of Prince, which he pretends,
because (as the Ambassador says) the Principality is by
the State entailed upon the family.
This other match is unmentioned either in Frau
Wendland's article or in that by Mrs. Green on the
Queen of Bohemia ; it must have been rather in the
clouds. The Queen seems to have made no objection
to Prince Siegmund, though Elizabeth had written : —
All my fear is lest the Queen, when all is done, will not
consent out of crossness, and there is none but the Electress
can hinder this.
In the midst of all the discussions stood the poor
little bride, whose feelings in the matter, according to
the custom of the day, were consulted by no one,
though her aunt wrote tenderly of her in describing
to Charles the reception of the envoy from Sieben-
biirgen : —
I wish your Highness could have seen the dearest niece
when her name was mentioned, turning pale and the tears
coming into her eyes.
Elizabeth more cheerfully assures him that if
Henriette had sensible people about her who would
keep her from despair or from losing her courage —
230 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
" as you know is her habit," she adds — she is sure
she would be willing to do whatever would be of
service to her brother the Elector. Henriette sends a
pathetic little message to the same effect in her sister's
letter : —
If she sacrifices herself for her relations, she feels sure
they will be too kind to abandon her, should she have
need of them. These words were accompanied with such
torrents of tears that they made me pity her.
Nevertheless the tears did not weigh with any one
as a reason for breaking off the match, dearly as they
all loved her. Her brother's objections were more
concerned with the question of the princely rank of
the suitor and whether his wealth were sufficient to
ensure the dowry and dignity of his widow should she
survive him ; while to the Electress and her son —
who himself came to Colin on the Spree to receive the
envoy with due honour — the proposals seemed quite
acceptable. The latter wrote : —
Since the conditions appear so favourable I do not
hesitate to recommend it to your Highness's best con-
sideration, and I must say if it were not so far off it would
be in my opinion an excellent thing.
Elizabeth's own letters to her brother on the sub-
ject are so characteristic that, though somewhat
lengthy, they are well worth quoting. In the first
she meets his objections very fully and fairly : —
The two things which you urge against the Transyl-
vanian marriage are that he is not esteemed a prince,
THE ELDER SISTER 231
and that one must trust to his honesty to observe the
conditions. For the first we have the testimony of all
those who have served in the Swedish army, of Comenius,
and now of Courland, which I send you herewith, and I
think the authority is quite as good as that of Lesley.
One may well believe that in a Court where they try to
lower the Palatinate House they do not want it to make
good alliances. Besides, the Ambassadors of the Prince
of Transylvania would not have ventured to give a false
title to his brother if it did not belong to him, and we have
the original of that which they sent you written in their
own hand. On the second point I do not think you can
bring forward a single instance of a marriage where the
dowry was advanced before the death of the husband,
and if one believes one is dealing with people without
honesty one should not give them a daughter. . . .
If the Elector Palatine did not wish the said marriage he
should have informed his relations here, who could have
refused with a better grace than by demanding conditions
quite unheard of. . . . It was necessary to say yes or
no, for the distance is not so small as to admit of many
journeys to and fro. For the equipment we should soon
complete it if we only had the money or if your Highness
would give us credit for what is necessary for linen, clothes
and liveries. The horses I believe the Elector of Branden-
burg will give them, the Queen of Bohemia gives her coach,
and that of the ladies-in-waiting will only cost 150 Rd.
(rix- dollars). We do not ask more than you would judge
necessary, but 1000 fl. is as good as nothing ; the wedding
dress will cost more than that, without reckoning that of
the bridesmaids. If you would rather pay the rest in
three years we might be able to obtain credit till then,
and she assures me she will not press for more if only she
may be furnished with a trousseau that will not put her
nor her relations to shame, that she may be respected
232 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
from the start; and she begs to send humble thanks to
her papa for the care he has had for her, but since the thing
has gone so far she cannot draw back with dignity, and
hopes he will continue his kindness in the way mentioned.
She would write herself but is so melancholy she cannot.
I forgot to tell you that I have not shown what you said
about the full power to the Electress, knowing that it
would vex her. One should not cavil at a thing done,
but try to draw all the advantage possible from it.
It will be observed that the younger princesses
called their eldest brother Papa ; and Henriette's
own little submissive and ill-spelt letter, written when
she thought he wished her to accept her suitor, is
addressed to " the highly honoured Elector and
gracious Herr Vater." Expressing her willingness to
do whatever he judged best for the family, she adds :
" It seems rather too far away to be pleasant, and
though I might have a little more money by it I do
not love myself so much that for the sake of that I
would go so far from all my relations ; besides, I am
used to doing with a little." It seemed hard on her
that when, to please others, she had brought her mind
to it and got reconciled to the idea she should be
called upon to draw back, and she was afraid if she
did so it would be thought she had been in such a
hurry to be married as to catch at the first oppor-
tunity. A great fuss had been made as to whether
she should be allowed to accept a watch set round
with diamonds which the envoy had brought from
the suitor ; Mednyanski declared he could not take
it back, so she was permitted to keep it " not as a
THE ELDER SISTER 233
wedding gift, but a friendly offering." A little later
Prince Siegmund ventured to address a letter to his
intended bride, conveying something of the warmth
of the sentiment inspired by her portrait : —
I envy the fate of this letter, which will see your charming
countenance sooner than I shall ; though there are no
words which would translate my feelings fully, I comfort
myself that this will be the interpreter of my love.
In December Elizabeth writes, in reply to an invi-
tation to Heidelberg, rather quaintly in the third
person, as she sometimes did : —
The Elector Palatine does Elizabeth too much honour
in thinking of offering her a lodging which would be too
good for her, and she will try to repair thither as soon as
possible, but she cannot yet make an assignation with
my lord . . . while the Electress is so out of temper
with him she dares not propose the journey, but his last
letter has somewhat softened her. ... I only wish
Princess Catherine were a hundredth part as reasonable,
but she is governed by her feelings and I cannot bear to
hear her fulminate against the Elector Palatine. She
rages merely from the part of his letter the Electress
showed her.
Much of this letter and of the two following recapitu-
late the arguments in favour of the Prince she had
already urged. On Christmas Eve she writes : —
We have received no letters from you this week, the
post from Leipsic not having arrived when that from
Berlin went out. The roads are so bad now that the frost
has broken that they are almost impassable. I believe
234 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
that is what hinders the Elector of Br from coming here.
Nevertheless I have written to Prussia for horses, and so
soon as I can learn when they will be here I will give an
assignation to my lord. The Elector has promised some
to Princess Henriette, but they will be of a different breed
and price to mine.
I believe a copy of the paper the man brought from
Hungary to be signed has already been sent you, but
not having heard you have received it, I send it herewith,
together with a panegyric, by which you will see the titles
the princes enjoyed in the lifetime of their father. If it
it is too large for this packet I will send part next week ;
I stole it from a Frankfort professor, who has asked to
have it back. The Duke of Courland by the last post
assured me again that the title given to Prince Siegmund
is that which is accorded him by every one. There is a
man here who spent six weeks with him in a castle in which
he is now living apart from his mother — I have forgotten
the name. He keeps always two hundred men-at-arms
and fifty gentlemen in his suite, and his household is served
on vessels of silver ; this man also spoke of the number
of strong fortresses he owns independently. I will tell
you more particulars another time because I have not
yet spoken with him myself, but I have it on the word
of a man in whom I place every confidence and see his
words confirmed on every side. There was in the neigh-
bourhood the funeral of the wife of the Baron de Brumnitz,
Governor of Lusitania, to which the Electress sent one
of her people to represent her. He told me that in this
assembly, which was very great, the marriage was spoken
of and every one considered it very advantageous and
by the Silesians from the frontier he was considered the
richest and most desirable match that could be found
amongst the Protestants (Evangelicals).
THE ELDER SISTER 235
Poor Elizabeth found herself between hammer and
anvil, the aunts, to whom she felt so much gratitude
was owing, being very angry at the threatened frustra-
tion of their kind efforts, and her brother accusing
her and them of meddling and precipitation. She
writes much hurt : —
If you had told me not to meddle in the matter I would
have obeyed you gladly, for it is not my humour to push
myself into affairs ; I am too used to being charged with
the faults of others in such business to seek it, but not
having your orders for an excuse I could not oppose myself
to the desire of the Electress that I should be present at
all that was done — but enough of this matter.
A fortnight later she says : —
The reason I did not answer you last week was that
your example showed me the wrong one may do by writing
in a passion, and one must be more apathetic than a stoic
to receive such cruel reproaches from the person one loves
best in the world without an extreme perturbation. Still
my sense of what you do to me is not so great and afflicts
me much less than the harm you do yourself by your
passions, and if you do not accustom yourself to control
them or at least not to make decisions while they possess
you, I foresee that you will not only lose success but
health of body and mind. Consider, I beg you, that all
those who have maintained or advanced their interests
by conduct and not force of arms have been people of
moderate passions, the Duke of Bavaria, old William
(the Silent) and Prince Henry (of Orange), the Count
de Schwartzenberg and numbers of others, while on the
contrary those whom they ruined were the slaves of
their passions or those of others. For my own part I
236 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
would not only willingly bear the imputation of all your
faults and past misfortunes, but make the journey to
Heidelberg to take upon me those you have or may have
in the future if that could ease your mind, but whilst I
am here there is no means of verifying your accusations
touching the marriage, since all who have assisted know
my innocence. My only fault has been to speak the bare
truth as I learned it, and it is with regret that I will cor-
rect myself, but I will do it from the respect I owe you.
My former letters have amply answered the things you
accused me of, so I will not weary you with a repetition,
but only beg you to read them over in cold blood, and
you will see I could not have acted otherwise. ... I
have not shown your letter to the Electress for fear of
vexing her, believing that you did not intend to reproach
her, but only me.
The objections of Charles Louis were at last over-
come, and the wedding was fixed for 25th March, 1651.
Contrary to her daughter's expectations, the Queen of
Bohemia signed the contract without any difficulty ;
to her, remembering the old alliance with Bethlen
Gabor, his visits to Prague and his standing godfather
to Rupert, it did not seem so outlandish as to her son,
and her accompanying letter referred to the ancient
friendship. The matter once made sure, Elizabeth
could go forward with preparations, and she busied
herself with motherly care in seeing that her young
sister was duly provided with all things fitting her
station — servants, horses, carriages, outfit ; and for
all these necessaries money was hard to obtain, for
the Elector Palatine had but little and parted un-
willingly with that little ; while the bride's mother
THE ELDER SISTER 237
had at this time hardly bread to put into her mouth
and had completely exhausted her credit at the
Hague ; but for the generosity of her aunt and cousin
Henriette must have gone almost as a beggarmaid to
her husband. Elizabeth herself did as much as she
could, though her own means were but small, and the
provision promised the princesses at the Peace of
Westphalia was not forthcoming. She managed all
as economically as possible, seeking out the cheapest
markets ; lace she ordered from Holland, where it
cost less than in Germany ; silver passementerie for
the wedding gown and gold lace for the liveries she
asked the Elector Palatine to procure from Frankfort-
am-Main, where it could be had cheap. She was
continually obliged to make representations to him of
the necessities of the case. She had to remind him
that though a coach and six would be furnished by
the bridegroom to transport the bride, nothing had
been provided for the suite : —
for whom your Highness's ministers have omitted to order
anything, believing apparently that they are so light they
can travel upon wings. . . . Your daughter says that
if your Highness would give her a little something that she
may appear among strangers without shame, she hopes
not to be obliged to importune you any more, and she
will repay it at a future time, for if she had sufficient
without she would never be any expense to her family.
Something was sent, but the trousseau, after all,
was but meagre ; the bride seems to have had but six
nightgowns and a dozen chemises, two dozen pocket-
handkerchiefs in a bag, and a few other little things,
238 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
including embroidered cravats. Besides the wedding
dress with a train, there were only three other gowns
and a " tragerlin " to wear in the morning, probably
a species of teagown. For the bridesmaids who were
to carry her train dresses of silver moire were pro-
vided, and a black satin for the Mistress of the Robes.
Two silver candelabra were ordered, with a silver
hand-basin and ewer, these being counted by Eliza-
beth as amongst " barest necessaries." A list of
needful attendants was drawn up : —
A Chamberlain over the household, with three servants
for himself.
Two Ushers, with each one servant.
A Court Preacher, with a servant.
A Physician, with a servant.
A Secretary, with a servant.
Two Pages.
Two Lacqueys.
A Tailor.
Four Coachmen.
Two Footmen.
A Groom.
A Cook, with two underlings.
A Mistress of the Robes, with a maid.
Four Maids-of-Honour, with two maids.
Two Princely Ladies' Maids.
A Sewing Maid.
Two Laundresses.
The Chamberlain was to be permitted four horses,
the Ushers two each, and it was agreed the household
might be either German or English. The former was
THE ELDER SISTER
239
an important functionary, and the choice exercised
Elizabeth considerably. She thought he should be
old, but was obliged to content herself with one re-
commended by the Electress, who was but thirty-four
and looked younger, because he had a competent
knowledge of languages and was acquainted with the
country, besides knowing the world.
Preparations were advanced and the date for the
wedding drawing near when a fresh delay arose. News
came that Philip, who, his undertaking for the Vene-
tian Republic having come to naught, was fighting
for Spain, had fallen at the siege of Rethel on 16th
February. This was a great grief, and to none more
than to the two sisters at Krossen. He was nearest
in age to Henriette, sharing her nursery recollections,
and his eldest sister loved him tenderly, all the more
for having espoused his cause when he was in trouble
and suffered on his behalf. Charles Louis also felt
his death keenly, as may be gathered from his aunt
Catherine's letter of condolence, she having put aside
her indignation and written to him as head of the
family on the sad occasion. It should have drawn
them all together; but it did not, however, prevent
his sending more reproaches, which vexed Elizabeth,
for in writing of Philip's death she refers to the con-
tinued anger of kk (the Elector) against the innocent
BB (herself). Resuming her letter next day, she
adds : —
I wrote the accompanying last night and afterwards
fell asleep again for some time, having had no sleep for
several days, for the image of my dear brother Philip was
240 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
continually before my eyes. On waking I found the two
despatches of the 5th and 13th January together on my bed,
which caused me fresh emotion by the narrative of his
death which prevents me now answering the said letters,
though one part has been answered in advance.
She goes on with some explanations not very clear
to the reader, who does not know to what they refer,
and then, suddenly dropping into English from the
French in which the greater part of the letter was
written, says : —
If you would prefer that this should come from others
rather than yourself, you need give but the least hint of
it and your will shall be fulfilled, and do not put yourself
into passion to vex you and your friends, both have afflic-
tion enough. . . .
I hope that for my brother's sake you will keep his tall
page named Craven in attendance on you. He has served
his master well and his family are in need. The Electress
wants to have the body of Prince Philip brought to Sedan.
At length all hindrances were overcome, and the
marriage ceremony was to take place. The Elector
Palatine could not be present, but intended sending his
brother Edward, who was with him at Heidelberg, to
represent him ; this, however, was given up on the score
of expense. The Electress Dowager spared no pains
to make the occasion a brilliant one, and was warmly
seconded by her son Frederic William, who sent a
guard of honour to conduct " our dear and well-
beloved cousin, Princess Henriette," to Siebenbiirgen.
This was considered a special mark of favour, as his
THE ELDER SISTER 241
mother took care to inform the Elector Palatine.
Some anxiety seems to have been felt lest his wedding
gift and the money the latter had promised should
not arrive in time ; but by 3rd May they had come,
and Henriette wrote him a most grateful letter of
thanks for both presents and congratulations, and
eagerly assures him he need send her nothing more —
she is abundantly content. She followed up this
letter by another within a few days, fearing lest she
had not expressed herself with sufficient deference and
gratitude.
On the evening of the 13th the proxy for the Prince,
Franz Rhedey, accompanied by George Mednyanski
and Michael Esterhazy, with many other noblemen,
arrived ; three musicians and two cooks were in their
train, but the wedding feast was provided by the
Elector of Brandenburg. On the 14th the religious
ceremony took place, and on the next afternoon
wedding gifts were presented — " costly trifles, pearls,
chains and princely garments." So Henriette had her
wish of appearing suitably adorned and unashamed
when she should be handed over to her bridegroom.
The last act was the signing of her resignation of all
claims on the Palatinate during the lifetime of her
brothers and their heirs. This document, having to
be gone through in Latin and then in German, took
time, and the evening was concluded by Hungarian
singing and dancing. Next day a service with a fare-
well sermon was held in the church, and it was not
until the 17th that the bridal train departed, travelling
by Breslau.
242 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
On the route Henriette wrote to her brother in her
usual dutiful strain, apologising for having been un-
able to do so from Krossen since the wedding. Their
rate of progress was slow, but she found her new ser-
vants most attentive to her every need, and declares
that the nation who had been described to her as
barbarous showed her every imaginable civility. Yet
she must have felt very lonely, having parted with
her beloved sister and aunt, and not yet met her
stranger husband. It was no wonder she shrank and
cried at the prospect ; the wonder was that she now
went to meet her fate with so much calm and cheer-
fulness.
And the issue befooled her fears and transcended
her hopes. She found a devoted lover in her young
husband, and both he and his mother fell at once
under the spell of her charm and sweetness ; it seemed
they could not make enough of her nor sufficiently
testify their pleasure in her. How fain would we read
the intimate confidential letters she must have penned
to her aunt and the sister who had been like a mother
to her. These unhappily have not survived, though
some of those to her brother have been preserved.
That there were such we know, as the Electress occa-
sionally quotes from them in writing to her nephew
such details as would gratify his pride : that Prince
Siegmund was very stately, and drives always with
six horses. The Princess sent the following description
of her reception to her " gracious Herr Father " : —
I cannot miss the opportunity of the return of your
Highness's messenger without expressing my humble
THE ELDER SISTER 243
thanks for all your kindness. Would to God I could
for once be so happy as to be able to repay it with my
humble service, and express the gratefulness of my heart.
Because your Highness has bidden me to give an account
of my position here I must say that both the Frau Mother
and the reigning Princess (the wife of the elder brother,
George II) have greatly caressed me, as the former still
does, and my lord is very good to me and sees that I have
nothing to complain of except being so far from all my
relations. I wish I could have been so happy yesterday,
that your Highness might have seen me in my Hungarian
dress ; I looked so pretty in it, my lord's mother could
not express how delighted she was. Yet it is not at all
a splendid dress, but quite burgerlich, and all the women
have one like the peasants, which would not please your
Highness, but the men are very fine and mostly very
courteous people, amongst whom my lord is not the least
well bred, as some had said and written of him. I wish
my lord could be so happy as to be known to your Highness,
for I feel sure you would like your brother-in-law, and
would see that people had spoken more lies than truth
in their reports to your Highness. Forgive me that I
keep you so long with my chatter, and let me continue
to enjoy your gracious affection.
To know her so happy and appreciated in her new
home must have been a solace to the hearts that
loved her and missed her, but their joy was brief.
Within three months came news of her illness ; she
had been seized with fever, which did not at the first
seem dangerous. She was to go with her husband to
meet Prince George and his wife at Tasnad, and it
was hoped the change of air would restore her ; but
as she grew worse the Princess Dowager hastened to
244 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
take her back to Sarospatak. One more little letter
she wrote to her brother to assure him how tenderly
careful of her were both her husband and his mother,
and again she expressed her earnest desire that he
might meet her husband : —
" I find no fault in him," she writes, " but that he loves
me too much. ... I am so weary," the letter ends,
" that I can scarcely support myself upon my legs, and
must beg leave to end this."
Two days later she attempted another letter, left
unfinished. Soon she was too weak to hold a pen, and
visits to health resorts were not only unavailing, but
wasted her waning strength. On 18th September,
between eight and nine in the morning, her gentle
life closed with a peaceful death.
Her young husband was stricken down by the blow.
A month later he wrote : "I hold my life for nothing
worth." He only survived her a few months. After
roaming restlessly, heartbroken, from place to place,
he died of fever 4th February, 1652.
CHAPTER XIII
HEIDELBERG ONCE MORE
Elizabeth returns to her old home — State of the town and castle —
— Sophie and Edward find her altered — State visit to Stuttgardt
— Restoration of the University — Learned men in Heidelberg —
The Diet at Ratisbon — Character of the young Electress Palatine
— Her jealousy — She confides in Elizabeth — Elizabeth's letters
to her brother — Rupert returns — Death of Maurice — Quarrels
of the brothers — The divorce — Elizabeth departs for Cassel.
MORE than thirty years had passed away
since Elizabeth, then a baby of two
years old, had been carried in haste
along the Bergstrasse by way of Darm-
stadt and Frankfort to Berlin, and at length, a sad-
dened woman of middle age, she found herself travelling
back by the same road. Did any recollection linger of
that hurried flight, or of the castle rising stately on
the wooded hill above the river when after so long a
time she came in sight of it ? The changes had been
terrible in the interval, but were already being re-
paired ; new houses were rising and ruins cleared
away, but still there were grass-grown lanes where
once there had been streets ; woods had been cut
down and burnt, and much of the castle was still
ruinous. Repairs, however, were in progress ; towers
had been rebuilt, walls and roofs made whole and
245
246 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
sound, but for the exquisite decorations of former
days there was now no money. On his first return
the Elector Palatine had been forced to take up his
abode in a house in the town known as the Commis-
sariat House ; thither he had brought his bride, and
there a year later his sister Sophie had joined them ;
but by the time of Elizabeth's visit it appears they
had removed and occupied that part of the castle
that had been made habitable, though the courtyard
could hardly yet have assumed the distinguished
appearance shown in the print of 1680.
Elizabeth found two brothers and a sister to wel-
come her, for Sophie, always her eldest brother's pet
and plaything, and growing more and more into his
companion and confidante, had been summoned to
Heidelberg so soon as he was established, and they
had been lately joined by Edward from Paris. The
invitation of the preceding winter, sent when Elizabeth
was at Krossen, and just then too much occupied
with the arrangements for Henriette's marriage to
leave, had been repeated by Sophie's hand at her
brother's wish, and now, the wedding over and her
young sister gone to her distant home, she was no
doubt glad to avail herself of the invitation. Sophie
writes in her Memoirs : —
I wrote for my sister Elizabeth, whom the Elector had
always greatly esteemed, and at my request she con-
sented to undertake the journey. Before doing so how-
ever, she had made up the marriage of our sister Princess
Henriette and Prince Rakoczy, at which the Elector was
displeased, thinking it a mistake to send our sister so
far for so poor an alliance.
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X ~^-
a*<
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HEIDELBERG ONCE MORE 247
Princess Elizabeth arrived at Heidelberg while our
brother, Prince Edward, was there. He had awaited her
arrival with great impatience, as it was long since they
had met. Her stay at the Court of our aunt, the Electress
of Brandenburg, had done her no good. We thought her
much changed, both in mind and person. Looking at
her, Prince Edward whispered to me : " Where has her
liveliness gone ? What has become of her apt tongue ? "
(Qu'a t'elle fait avec sa belle bouche ?) The Electress
also thought her disagreeable ; and the Elector, who
still bore her a grudge for the marriage of our sister Hen-
riette, was infected with his wife's dislike. The Electress
made much of me from dislike of my sister, and Elizabeth
at once asserted such authority over me that I began to
prefer Madame, who could be charming when she pleased ;
for at times she had some very gracious moments, by which
I benefited. Still I was greatly to blame for not sub-
mitting to a sister who had evidently much more sense
than myself. (She was twelve years Sophie's senior.)
My friends on the other hand were well pleased to foster
my ill-humour in order to draw me closer to themselves.
It is easy to understand the unfavourable impres-
sion made by Elizabeth. Sensitive to every shade of
dislike or misunderstanding, yet too reserved to give
any expression to hurt feeling, save by silence and an
aloofness of manner to which in uncongenial society
she was always prone, feeling the contrast between the
clinging, submissive affectionateness of the young
sister from whom she had just parted and the pert
criticisms of the one she had newly rejoined, her
coldness and low spirits would but increase her isola-
tion. How could she be joyful when she had but just
248 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
come through such heavy sorrows ? It was but three
months since her much-loved brother Philip had lost
his young life at the siege of Rethel, and almost at the
same time she had learned of the death of her closest
friend, whose influence and advice had been her sup-
port through so many troubles. Of this loss she seems
never to have spoken, but with this mourning in her
heart how could she make merry and bear her part
in the frivolous amusements of the Electress Char-
lotte's Court, never at any time much to her taste,
and now quite out of tune with her feelings ?
In the course of that year she had to accompany the
Electoral family in a state visit paid to the Duke of
Wurtemberg at Stuttgardt, of which Sophie gives a
lively account : —
We were received outside the gates with great pomp
by the Duke and all his Court. My uncle, the Duke
of Simmern (Philip Louis, her father's brother), was there
with his sons ; also the Margrave of Baden Durlach,
and a young prince of Holstein. The number of princesses
too was very great, consisting of the Duchess of Wiirtem-
berg with her daughters and two sisters-in-law, the Prin-
cesses Antonia and Anna Johanna, and two cousins,
the Princesses Faustine and Floriane. The number of
counts, countesses, and other nobility also present was
beyond computation.
The procession on our arrival was so enormous that
the Duke took a fancy to make it pass several times
through the streets ; and we were tired not only by this,
but also by a large and very lengthy supper-party which
lasted till midnight. That however did not prevent our
hosts from waking us early next morning to go hunting ;
HEIDELBERG ONCE MORE 249
but just as we were nearly ready they remembered that
the hunt might perhaps not be advisable after the fatigues
of our journey, and it was accordingly given up. As
compensation for the disappointment, we remained nearly
the whole day long at table, the men vying with each
other who should drink most, while the old princesses
opened cray-fish for us. The remainder of our time at
Stuttgardt was spent in balls, concerts, wirthschaft (a
species of mumming,* a favourite entertainment at that
day), hunting (which Elizabeth and Sophie both hated),
and walking. It was all very magnificent, but seasoned
with little politeness, and therefore not at all to my taste.
The gentlemen kept apart from the ladies, who were all
very solemn.
This last feature would be little to the taste of the
admiration-loving Sophie, and still less would the
whole function, in which the more barbarous side of
German manners was displayed, accord with the
humour of Elizabeth, accustomed as she was to in-
tellectual society and the conversation of clever men.
Moreover, besides the sore heart she must have carried
to the festivity with two sad losses fresh in her always
constant mind, about this time she must have learned
with grief of the death of her young sister after but
a few months of marriage. She, we may be sure,
would not have been so easily distracted from her
mourning as was her sister-in-law, who received the
news of her mother's death during this visit and was
diverted by Sophie, who writes in her Memoirs : —
* Something between a masquerade and a fancy fair, Sophie
Duchess of Hanover, by A. W. Warde.
250 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
The Duke of Holstein had a gentleman with him who
bowed every time he caught my eye. I made the Electress
laugh at this in order to console her for her mother's
death, the news of which having just arrived brought
our visit to a close, by no means to my regret.
None of them would regret the return to Heidelberg,
with its many interests and reviving intellectual life.
Charles Louis was just turning his attention to the re-
establishment of the University, a scheme most
congenial to his eldest sister, and one in which her
excellent sense and scholarship could be of real service.
Her high reputation would be an additional inducement
to the men of learning whom he was inviting to take
up their residence in Heidelberg and fill the newly
created Chairs, and trying to attract by every promise,
not only of complete religious toleration in their own
practice, but a free hand in their teaching.
Professor von Spina, who had saved the archives
in the sack of the Bibliotheca Palatina, had returned
and was lending his aid. At first only seven Chairs
were endowed, but the Elector succeeded in filling
them all with men of renown. Blomius was invited
from Hamburg, and the great Samuel Puffendorf ;
Freinsheim, who had been in Sweden and there en-
joyed the acquaintance of Descartes ; the Orientalist
Hottinger from Zurich ; Tossanus, Heinrich David,
Chuno, and Jakob Israel. The Librarian was Ezekiel
Spanheim, and he was despatched by the Elector
Palatine to Rome to endeavour to negotiate for the
return of the books and MSS. Altogether a distin-
guished company.
HEIDELBERG ONCE MORE 251
The reopening of the University took place in the
Aula on 1st November, 1651, whence the Elector and
the new professors went in procession to the Church
of the Holy Ghost, where a solemn inaugural service
was held, and afterwards a great banquet was given
in the castle. Elizabeth's name is not mentioned in
connection with these proceedings, but it is recorded
of her, on the authority of Guhrauer, that she took
an active part in the dissemination of the Cartesian
philosophy in Heidelberg and had great discussions of
his doctrines with the learned men assembled there,
and we may well believe this function would be very
much more congenial to her than the wearisome feast-
ings at Stuttgardt. With Freinsheim she must have
deeply enjoyed speaking of her old friend Descartes,
and hearing all that he could tell of the last months
of the philosopher's life.
In the autumn of the next year the Elector Palatine
was summoned to meet the Emperor Ferdinand III
at Prague, and on the White Mountain, where his
father had been defeated, was received with such dis-
tinguished honour that it was said that he had gained
there more advantage than his father had lost. If
this were a hyperbole, at least the interview was
highly satisfactory and showed that the Elector Pala-
tine had established himself in a secure position, and
this was recognised at the ensuing Diet at Ratisbon.
The Electress Charlotte was so much annoyed that
her husband could not take her with him to Prague
that he, being still much enamoured and anxious to
please her, promised that she and his two sisters
252 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
should accompany him to the Diet. This resolution
was strongly disapproved by Sophie, much as she
always liked being with him and seeing him honoured.
She wrote in her Memoirs : —
I saw that his jealousy on the one side and Madame's
affectations and conceit on the other could not fail to
produce a bad effect in so crowded an assemblage. How-
ever the Elector's desire always to have his beloved wife
by his side caused us to undertake the journey in the
middle of winter, attended by a large retinue. We made
our solemn entry into Ratisbon, escorted by numerous
foot and horse guards, to the sound of trumpet and kettle-
drum. That evening the Emperor and Empress sent to
welcome us, and after a few days' rest the Elector had
an audience of the Emperor, and the Electress of the Em-
press, who did her the honour to cross several ante-cham-
bers to receive her at the head of the staircase, giving
us her hand in German fashion. We followed her to
the state-room, where she seated herself in an armchair
under a canopy. Opposite to her was placed an arm-
chair for the Electress, and high-backed chairs for my
sister and myself.
The importance of this attention paid to the family
of the Elector Palatine was considerable, since there
was great significance in the assignment of fauteuils
or tabourets on occasions of ceremony, and the rank
of the two princesses was acknowledged by the high-
backed chairs. The memoir goes on : —
The next day her Majesty honoured the Electress by
returning this first visit, and was received at the carriage
door and reconducted to it by the Electress. On later
HEIDELBERG ONCE MORE 253
occasions when we went to pay our respects Court eti-
quette was relaxed, and her Majesty made us play cards
with her. The Emperor also entertained us with an
Opera, a Carnival and a Wirthschaft, in which their
Majesties acted as host and hostess. Every one was
splendidly dressed, but the dancing was like that of Ger-
man peasants.
Elizabeth's own account of these junketings in a
letter to her cousin Elizabeth Louise, Abbess of Her-
ford, shows her in a new light : —
Next week (my brother) will answer your letter, for
just now it is Carnival and no one has time to do anything
and little enough to write. I have already danced my
feet to bits, such a rushing about as I never saw in my
life. I never left the dancing room, but went from one
partner to another till we left. There was a peasant's
wedding at the Fiirstenbergs, a Wirthschaft given by
the Emperor, an entertainment at Count Curtz's with a
stately comedy after the Italian manner, which must
have cost 20 thousand thalers.
Her correspondence with her cousin from Ratisbon
was frequent, for under the new constitution of the
Reichstag, brought about by the Peace of West-
phalia, the question of the representation of Herford
seemed a little uncertain, and Elizabeth was anxious
that her brother the Elector should represent the
Abbess, who had a voice but not a personal seat in
the deliberations of the empire. She wrote at the
beginning of the sittings : —
I received your letter of the 14th two days ago and will
observe your commands with diligence, and perhaps be-
254 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
fore this letter is finished shall be able to let you know
what the completed protectorate is worth. The Chan-
cellor Bohn is here and also Dr. Bosching as deputy for
the town of Speyer, but I have not yet been able to
learn where he lodges as I only got your letter in
the evening of the day before yesterday, and yesterday
was Sunday and her Majesty the Empress spent all the
afternoon with us, so that I could do nothing. I sent to-
day but have not yet got an answer. I think, however,
that the said doctor cannot well represent your Grace
in the Council of Princes, as he belongs to the Town Council,
which often holds its sittings at the same time as the
Princes, and he cannot be in two places at once. But if
you would give your voice to my brother you would suffer
no prejudice, and what was for your interest would be
forwarded with more force, because he is himself on the
spot and would have more weight with the other repre-
sentatives than a mere doctor. ... It would also show
the Herforders and others with whom you have to do
that you are supported by the Head of your Family.
At this time Elizabeth had not yet realised how
much the question would come to concern her per-
sonally.
The Electress, who had been so eager for the visit
for the sake of displaying her beauty before the large
concourse gathered at Ratisbon, and had even got a
celebrated coiffeur from Paris to dress her hair, found,
alas ! that her pains were in vain, for as ill-luck would
have it her figure was not at its best and her looks
much impaired. She vented her ill-humour on the
Elector, who not unnaturally often took refuge in his
sister's rooms to escape from her tongue. Matters
HEIDELBERG ONCE MORE 255
were growing more and more strained between them,
and the husband, who at the first had been passion-
ately in love, was beginning to weary of his wife's
coldness and violent outbursts of temper. When first
he went a-wooing to Cassel, Charlotte's mother, the
Landgravine Amalie Elizabeth, a sensible but some-
what severe woman, had seriously warned him of her
daughter's evil temper ; but he, fascinated by her
beauty, which in early life was striking, and not im-
possibly piqued by her openly declared preference for
another suitor, had resolved to win her and would
not be deterred. Her hand he won, but not her love ;
and, indeed, it may be doubted whether she had any
to bestow except on herself. Cold yet jealous, in-
different to her children, though making a favourite
of the boy out of opposition to her husband, who
dearly loved his little girl, vanity was her one passion,
and, badly as she was treated eventually by her hus-
band, it cannot be denied there was excuse for him.
In the beginning his devotion was only too marked,
according to his sister, who declared she was quite
ashamed to see him kiss his wife in public and even
kneel at her feet. His jealousy, too, was quickly
stirred, but in him it arose from warmth of feeling
and the consciousness that she did not care for him
as he did for her ; hers was merely the suspiciousness
of an exacting woman. Sophie graphically painted
the situation between them in the early years of their
marriage in the following passage : —
The Elector, believing that Madame could not look at
any one without lessening her affection for himself, often
256 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
made accusations which she received with great indignation,
and which were indeed very ill-founded. It was from a
certain weakness of mind, and not from any evil design,
that she loved to attract attention. There was more folly
than evil in her ; but the Elector, having great delicacy
of feeling, wished her to be all in all to himself and nothing
to others. The slightest word from him on the subject
put her into a frightful rage, which usually lasted the whole
day. The Elector then employed a thousand little loving
wiles to mollify her, but this treatment made her all the
more rebellious, for she resembled her uncle Frederic,
who was only submissive when ill-treated.
She never really incurred any just suspicions ; her
overweening vanity craved admiration, not love, and
she cared more for her wardrobe than for any lover.
On Sophie's first Sunday at Heidelberg, when she
repaired to her sister-in-law's rooms to accompany
her to church, she found* her with all her fine clothes
laid out upon a table, enumerating whence they came
and how long she had had them. This seemed very
absurd to the young Princess Palatine, who had had
but little occasion for indulging in such vanity. At
her home they had something else to think of than
their clothes, and at the Hague, she remarked, it
was the fashion to have but few dresses and renew
them often. A former chapter has shown with how
modest a trousseau Henriette was equipped. The
Electress Charlotte reckoned up her lovers in much
the same spirit as she did her best dresses, and scan-
dalised the devoted little sister by declaring she had
been forced against her will to marry " a jealous old
man " (the Elector was about thirty- three). The
HEIDELBERG ONCE MORE 257
indignant Sophie wished herself back at the Hague,
where, as she averred, any complaint on the part of a
woman against her husband was held a crime, and
where " such foolish creatures were thought ridicu-
lous." On Charlotte's first introduction to her sister-
in-law she was too sulky to speak, simply because the
wedding carriage which her mother had presented
was rather less handsome, or so she fancied, than the
one bestowed upon her sister. Sophie, always an ex-
cellent hand at description, gives a vivid portrait of
her appearance : —
She was very tall, with an admirable complexion and
most beautiful bust. Her features were irregular, and
her eyebrows, which were dyed black, struck me as forming
too violent a contrast with her beautiful flaxen hair ;
besides, in raising them she gave a kind of twist to her
high forehead which had a very odd appearance. To
make up for these defects she had beautiful sparkling
eyes, full pouting lips, and very fine teeth ; altogether
she would be called a handsome woman.
These details are borne out by her portrait in the
Castle Museum, with the exception of the flaxen hair,
which there appears dark, suggesting that the hair
as well as the eyebrows may have owed something to
art, and changed with the changing fashion. She
certainly did not shine as a mother ; for her second
child, the charming little Liselotte, she seems to have
cared not at all, and though out of perversity she was
sometimes inclined to spoil the Electoral Prince
Karellie, a sickly, timid, and rather ill-conditioned
child, she showed him but little genuine affection.
258 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
Moreover, her husband always considered she had
endangered his life and injured his constitution by
her obstinate and selfish indulgence in hunting before
he was born, a thing which had already cost her a
dangerous illness and the life of her first baby.
It may well be believed that with her elder sister-
in-law she would have less in common than with
Sophie, who had at least the gaiety of youth, though
considerably more good sense than Charlotte ; but
when troubles came it was in Elizabeth that she
found a warm and steadfast partisan. It was as
early as the Ratisbon visit that Elizabeth first found
occasion to intervene and try to avert trouble, and
though her action was much misunderstood and mis-
represented by her sister, it is easy to read between
the lines what really occurred. Sophie was taking the
opportunity to have singing lessons from an Italian,
Domenico del Pane, one of the Emperor's orchestra,
and her brother, who had all the Stuart love of music,
used to like to go to her rooms and listen to the lesson.
In the evenings supper was served privately to the
Elector and Electress and his two sisters, and they
were waited on by the maids-of-honour. On these
occasions Madame must needs observe that Mistress
Carey, Sophie's favourite lady-in-waiting, poured wine
for the Elector oftener than did the others, which set
light to her easily inflammable jealousy and made her
imagine that it was the attractiveness of this young
lady that drew him so often to his sister's apartments.
Elizabeth, to whom she confided her uneasiness,
assured her that he came solely out of affection for
HEIDELBERG ONCE MORE 259
his youngest sister, in whose society he had always
delighted, without a thought, we may be well assured,
that Charlotte's bristling jealousy would be up in
arms at the notion of a sister having so much more
influence with him than she had. Sophie's idea that
Elizabeth deliberately made mischief out of jealousy
of the Electress's preference is obviously absurd.
Henceforth, having found a listener, which was what
she wanted, Charlotte waived her former dislike of
Elizabeth and poured into her ear a long string of
complaints of the Elector's suspiciousness — he, in fact,
giving her nothing else to complain of. She tried to
forbid his visits to Sophie, but he by this time was
becoming restive, and went all the more.
Several letters from Elizabeth to her brother when
he was absent from Heidelberg show how anxious she
was to put things in as pleasant a light as possible,
and make and keep peace between the pair. In
September, 1652, she writes : —
Madame the Electress continually occupies herself in
some little business for the house or for herself, in which
she takes pleasure. I should never have believed she would
be so little bored by her solitude nor so punctual in follow-
ing out your orders; for fear of contravening them we
separate every evening at nine o'clock.*
•
It appears that Mademoiselle Louise von Degenfeld,
daughter of an old Suabian family with ancient ties
to the Palatinate House, had just obtained a post in
the Electoral household, for in the same letter Eliza-
beth goes on : —
* Brief e der Kinder des Winterkanigs, Heidelberger Jahrbiicher.
260 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
Mile. Degenfeld is two fingers taller than she (the Elec-
tress), wears no liege (cork heels ?) and calls herself of
an age when she may still grow. Her face is not disagree-
able, but her manner is very bad ; I do not think she
knows enough Italian to be able to teach it to us. . . .
The children have been at Lord Stafford's ; I don't think
if you had been here, you would have allowed them to go,
for it does more harm to them than good to him.
They were certainly over-young for visiting if the
date of this letter is correct — the elder under two, the
baby not six months old !
A month later it would seem there had been some
little complaint of Charlotte's behaviour, for Elizabeth
writes, anxious to pacify. She begins her letter in
French, then drops suddenly into English, a custom
with them all : —
For the going a-gossiping to foolish women, it had not
been if Charlotte had guessed you would not like it. For
as yet she hath been very careful to observe your orders,
but because you commanded her to go to the prophetess
I judged myself you did it to divert her ; but this hath
not been all her employment, for the most part she acted
the housewife in cutting linen for the house and for her-
self ; the visits were made commonly on Sunday in the
afternoon. I have not been with her in all, being forced
to keep my chamber for a hurt upon the knee, but she
hath been only with Rocheploure the chamberlain and
Streithagen, and now the round is done there will be no
more.
She had the horses brought into the field last Thursday
because she would try your sorrel, but she went from him
presently and did not like him, so there will be no riding
HEIDELBERG ONCE MORE 261
neither. As for the discourses, they are as you know,
but everybody can witness that she speaks but seldom
to any men. She kept her gravity well enough to the
Duke of Wurtemberg's Master of the Horse that was sent
to invite you both to the christening. I hope she will
do the like to Beneburg, who is expected here from Cassel
for the same purpose, but to mend her discourse she must
have the example of some who neither despiseth nor
envies, and if we shall go to the Diet (which as yet I cannot
believe) we must all disaccustom ourselves of laughing
at unusual clothes or grimaces, for when we do it in private
we mind it also in public and make others mark it, and
those that are offended by it may revenge themselves of
our follies on you.
This little touch recalls the old days of the brothers
and sisters at the Hague, and how they used to make
merry over the oddities of their mother's visitors.
The rest of the letter is taken up with business matters
of no moment. Charles in a letter to Rupert refers
to this invitation to the christening at Cassel with the
comment, " but I do not love to go a-gossiping." *
In the following June Elizabeth writes from Augs-
burg to announce the birth of Charlotte's third baby,
who died, Charles being at the time at Ratisbon for
the coronation of the King of Rome. Her next letter
speaks of Charlotte's very serious illness, and urges
that as soon as she can be moved the Elector should
come and take them back to Heidelberg. Her letters
to her brother during his frequent absences were very
regular ; they certainly betray nothing of the mischief-
* Rupert, Prince Palatine, Eva Scott.
262 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
making propensities that her sister credited her with,
but are full of good sense and kindly feeling.
About the same time her old friend Anna van
Schurmann was on a visit to Cologne, her birthplace,
and Elizabeth, hearing of her being comparatively
near, expresses a wish to see her again, recalling plea-
santly her learning and her virtues, and forgetting the
differences which had divided them. The meeting,
however, was not destined to take place till both were
growing old women.
In the short, wintry days of February Heidelberg
was gay with company ; the Margrave of Baden and
the Duke of Liineburg, brother of the man who after-
wards sought the hand of Sophie, came on a visit.
To entertain these distinguished guests a ballet was
got up by the students of the University and four
young noblemen. Elizabeth was present, and briefly
mentions the fact in a letter to her cousin the Abbess
of Herford. In the same letter she speaks of a pro-
jected journey to Worms, but declares that for her
part she would far rather stay at home in her accus-
tomed surroundings, where she was so comfortably
lodged.
In this year there seems to have been a serious idea
that the Queen of Bohemia would really come to take
up her abode in Heidelberg. In the treaty just con-
cluded between Cromwell and the States-General there
was some provision secured for her that would enable
her to pay her creditors and leave the Hague if she
were so minded, and her son actually wrote to know
which rooms in the castle she would choose to occupy ;
HEIDELBERG ONCE MORE 263
whether the Otto-Heinrich wing, with the great hall
for herself and the rooms above for her women, or
the upper rooms " in my grandfather's building (the
Friedrichbau) , which are upon one floor with the
ruined Hall of Mirrors." * This shows him to have
been really expecting her coming, and incidentally
suggests the condition of the castle at this time and
the amount of repair it had undergone. The English
wing, later utterly demolished, had been restored and
was occupied by the Electress. Elizabeth refers to
this intended move as an almost settled thing in one
of her letters to her cousin the Abbess, saying that
Louise cannot be spared to pay her a visit until her
mother comes to Heidelberg, as she was her constant
companion, but that from thence she may very well
travel to Herford via Cassel.f The journey was, how-
ever, again postponed, and the Queen still remained
at the Hague.
It must have been a great happiness to Elizabeth
when Rupert joined them, though a happiness not
unmixed with grief. He came back from his long and
adventurous voyage with health shattered, fortunes
broken, a landless man ; and, alas ! he came back
alone. Maurice's ship had been lost off the Virgin
Islands in the hurricane which had destroyed Rupert's
fleet, and there was every reason to fear he had
perished. Moreover, between the brothers relations
quickly became strained ; Rupert claimed a younger
son's portion, and Charles, who not only was by nature
* Royal Letters, Bromley.
| Briefe der Kinder des Winterkonigs, Heidelberger Jahrbiicher,
264 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
disinclined to part with property, but also had seen
the mischief of continually weakening the Palatinate
by division, declined to make any adequate provision
for him. In June came a rumour which agitated the
brothers and sisters with hope ; it was reported that
the year before Maurice had been seen alive in the
hands of the Turks at the galleys. Charles writes to
his mother, 17th June, 1654 : —
As for my brother Maurice, my brother Rupert (who
is now here) thinks the way by the Emperor's agent at
Constantinople too far about for his liberty (if the news
be true) ; but that from Marseilles we may best know the
certainty, as also the way of his releasement.
Elizabeth refers to this in one of her letters to her
cousin with her characteristic want of sanguineness : —
We know nothing certain of brother Maurice ; some say
he is in Algiers, taken by pirates ; they have sent to make
enquiry, but I cannot believe it unless I should see it in
his own hand.
She, we may be sure, would sympathise rather with
Rupert's anxious haste to be reunited with his best-
loved brother than with the Elector Palatine's cautious
and leisurely arrangements. The news, however,
proved untrue ; it was too evident Maurice had in-
deed perished in the wreck of " The Honest Seaman."
Worry always told upon Elizabeth's health, and that
summer she speaks of trouble with her eyes and an
intention to try " the waters " — whether at Spa, which
had done her so much good before, or at Ems, much
nearer the Palatinate, she does not say.
HEIDELBERG ONCE MORE 265
She was not to find a lasting home in Heidelberg ;
the crisis in her brother's domestic affairs, which was
assuming a very serious aspect, before long drove her
forth again. Charlotte, always her own worst enemy,
having so often cried " Wolf ! " with so little cause,
when her position was seriously menaced, obstinately
shut her eyes until too late. She had wearied out her
husband's affection with her tempers and suspicions,
and at length he did in truth seek consolation else-
where. The young maid-of-honour, Mademoiselle von
Degenfeld, of whom Elizabeth made somewhat slight-
ing mention in a letter already quoted, presently
attracted him, not merely by her soft beauty and fair
colouring, but no less by her gentleness and sweet
temper. She tried, poor girl, to behave with discre-
tion, but it was hard for her not to respond to the
advances of the Elector, who took her part when the
Electress treated her with harshness ; she did the
wisest thing she could in begging for her dismissal
when she found that his kindness meant something
more serious, but Charlotte, with suicidal obstinacy,
refused to grant it. It was extraordinary that her
easily aroused suspicions should in this case have been
lulled, but it was not until a complication was brought
about by Rupert that her eyes were opened. He too
was attracted by the gentle and feminine charm of
Louise, and wrote her a love-letter which by some
accident was appropriated by the Electress. Greedy
of admiration as she was, she readily believed it in-
tended for herself, and on their next meeting gently
chid him for having ventured so to address a sister-
266 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
in-law. Dismayed and embarrassed, with many
blushes Rupert confessed for whom the letter was
destined, and found he had stirred up a hornets' nest.
Charlotte was infuriated by mortified vanity which
she could scarcely conceal ; she searched Louise's
room, and breaking open a little casket, the gift of
the Elector, found letters not from Rupert, but, what
was far more serious, from her husband, in one of
which he offered, if Louise would listen to him, to
arrange for a divorce and make her his wife. There
was, of course, a terrible explosion, and the Elector
Palatine formally took Louise under his protection,
renewing the promise he had made, as neither she nor
her family would consent to any but a legitimate
connection.
Protestant opinion on the sanctity of the marriage
tie was very lax, and Charles Louis took the same way
as had his great-grandfather, William the Silent. He
assembled a council of lawyers and divines, who being
of his own appointing were pledged to carry out his
wishes, and got them to declare his marriage with
Charlotte Elizabeth of Hesse-Cassel null and void on
the ground of his wife's conduct, which throughout
their wedded life had been " contradictory, dis-
obedient, obstinate, sulky, and rebellious." Accord-
ingly he conceived himself free to contract another
alliance, and he made a morganatic marriage with
Louise von Degenfeld, celebrated according to the
Lutheran rite. Her children could not inherit, but
the rank of Raugrafin was bestowed upon her, and
she regarded herself, and was by most of her husband's
LOUISE HOLLANDINE, PRINCESS PALATINE AND ABBESS OF MAUBUISSON
From a painting by Gerard Honthorst at Burg Rhcinstein.
By permission of His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Prussia
HEIDELBERG ONCE MORE 267
subjects regarded, as his lawful wife. Charlotte, how-
ever, refused her consent to the divorce, which with-
out it was not valid, and continued to reside in
Heidelberg, being one of those unfortunate people
whose only idea of upholding their rights is to make
themselves as unpleasant as possible.
All this was the greatest distress to Elizabeth ; she
had little personal sympathy with Charlotte, but still
less with the injustice with which she was treated.
She upheld her so far as she could, but no one had
much influence with the Elector Palatine, and when
the affair was absolutely concluded she found her own
position in Heidelberg untenable. She could not
recognise the Raugrafin, nor did she wish to make
an open breach with her brother by refusing to do so.
Even Sophie, who sympathised with him far more
than she did and whose standards were not quite so
high, felt the same difficulty when in Heidelberg ;
but for her the knot was cut by her marriage and re-
moval to Hanover ; for Elizabeth there was nothing
but another exodus. Her cousin Hedwig, of whom
she was so fond, who had been her companion and
pupil at Krossen, was married to Charlotte's brother,
the Landgrave of Hesse, so to Cassel Elizabeth with-
drew, earnestly counselling Charlotte to do the like,
feeling that the position of the discarded wife in
Heidelberg was no longer for her own dignity and only
increased the scandal. It was some years before she
could induce her to take this obviously prudent step
and live under the protection of her own family.
Before she left she had the further pain of seeing
268 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
the quarrel between her brothers reach an acute stage,
embittered no doubt by the Elector's knowledge of
Rupert's unrequited feeling for Louise, though osten-
sibly still on the question of property. In the end
Rupert shook the dust from his feet and went away
in a rage, vowing that never again would he set foot
in his brother's dominions. So the remnants of the
family, which had gathered in their old home, were
scattered once more, and Elizabeth found herself
again an exile, amongst affectionate relatives, it is
true, but a mere visitor with no home which she could
call her own.
CHAPTER XIV
SISTER AND COUSIN
Elizabeth concerns herself for Louise Hollandine — Writes to her
cousin the Abbess of Herford — Suggestion of making Louise
coadjutrix — A visit proposed, but postponed — Importance of
genealogy — Descent not from Queen Elizabeth of England —
Louise leaves her home — Becomes a Catholic and takes the veil
— Scandalous reports set about — The King of England and
Duke of York visit her — She is made Abbess of Maubuisson —
Her character — Elizabeth at Cassel — She announces to her
brother the death of the Electress Dowager — Death of Princess
Catherine — Letter to Prince Rupert — Visit to Marie Eleonora,
Princess of Simmern.
yA FTER having brought the marriage of her
/ % sister Henriette to a successful issue,
/ ^^ Elizabeth began to concern herself for
the future of the one next herself in age,
Louise Hollandine, who, nearing thirty, was still un-
wed, and much of her correspondence during the
years she spent in Heidelberg was concerned with the
project formed on behalf of Louise. The spinster-
hood of the latter was by no means due to want of
attractiveness ; by many she was considered the most
fascinating of the sisters, but her careless gaiety and
love of fun, in which she resembled her mother, her
easy manners and want of prudence, had involved
her in more than one undesirable flirtation with men
269
270 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
whose pretensions as suitors could not be seriously
regarded, besides the unfortunate scandal which had
mixed her name in the d'Epinay affair. After that
it was more than ever desirable that some arrange-
ment should be made for her future. She had a small
provision in the annuity settled on her by her god-
fathers the States-General, and having a constant
occupation and interest in her devotion to painting,
which she pursued with zeal at every possible moment,
she seemed for her own part quite content to remain
at the Hague with her mother.
For her it was not a match that was sought by the
prudent elder sister, but the dignified retirement of
the cloister. Their cousin on their father's side,
Elizabeth Louise of Zweibriicken, was, as has already
been mentioned, Abbess of Herford, an ancient in-
stitution which at the Reformation had been pro-
testantised, and was still found an acceptable refuge
for the daughters of noble or princely families, and it
occurred either to Elizabeth or to the aunts (aunts
also to the Abbess) that here might be found a suit-
able home for Louise if, as then seemed probable, her
mother should take up her abode at Heidelberg.
Whoever first mooted the idea, it was Elizabeth who
approached her sister on the subject, as may be
gathered from the tepid letter of acceptance Louise
wrote to her cousin : —
I have not before taken the liberty of troubling your
Grace * with my worthless writing, but now as I under-
* " Euer Liebden," an untranslatable expression rendered by
Miss Scott literally " your Belovedness." It was much used be-
tween near relations of rank.
SISTER AND COUSIN 271
stand from my sister in Berlin that you have the kindness
to wish me to have a place in your institution, for which
I am very highly obliged to you, and wish nothing better
than to deserve such a favour from your Grace, and to
receive your commands. And meanwhile I beg you would
further do me the kindness to let me know how I should
pay over the three hundred rix thalers which one must
give to purchase a position in the institution, and I would
not delay to send the money as your Grace may command.
While making no objection to the scheme, Louise
opposed to it a passive resistance on the ostensible
ground that it was impossible for her to leave her
mother alone while she remained at the Hague. The
event showed that neither that reason nor any objec-
tion to a conventual life weighed with her, but she
did not mean to bind herself by entering Protestant
Herford. In the summer of 1653 the matter was still
pending, and Elizabeth writes anent a proposed ex-
perimental visit : —
Concerning my sister's stay at Herford, your Grace
might see by the letters it was no resolved affair, but only
a matter to be discussed between us on which each one
might give his opinion, and because they said she ought
to go to Herford to make herself known to the Capitular
Body and win them to her side, which my brother does
not think such a little time as a fortnight would be sufficient
for and therefore would rather pay her board, but nothing
was resolved without hearing your opinion. You would
greatly oblige me if you would give it me with your usual
candour, and may assure yourself it will never be taken
amiss by us.
We have been here three weeks and thought to stay
272 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
only eight or ten days more, but my brother's wife mis-
calculated again and brought a son into the world who
only remained a few hours, having been injured at birth
but otherwise a healthy child. Now we must remain
three weeks longer while my brother goes to Ratisbon
for the coronation of the King of Rome, whence he will
return to take us back to Heidelberg.
This letter was written from Augsburg, so too was
the next, referring to the serious illness of Charlotte
and also to the oppressive heat. A good deal of the
correspondence is occupied with sympathy and advice
on the difficulties which the Abbess experienced with
the town authorities of Herford, but this is somewhat
tedious, and without the corresponding letters not
easily comprehensible. There had always been a
certain amount of friction between the rival powers,
and the new constitution of things the Peace had
brought was as yet not quite understood. In a letter
from Heidelberg the following winter Louise's claims
are referred to : —
The Electress writes to me that your Grace has it in
mind to appoint a coadjutrix, but I hope you would not
pass by your own blood ; I heard in Neustadt that you
were going to take a Lutheran, which I can hardly believe,
for then no support could be looked for, as you yourself
wrote. Let me know whether you receive my letter
and write quite openly what is in your mind, that we may
understand how to act, by which you would oblige us far
more than by leaving us vain hopes. I want to hear
also how the quarrel ended and whether the town obeyed
the Elector's mandate, but especially news of your health
which concerns me most, for I am truly sorry to get letters
SISTER AND COUSIN 273
so seldom, and especially that in this place I have no means
of showing my works and without empty compliment
how much I am yours, &c.
After this seems to have followed a little misunder-
standing, because the Abbess believed a report that
had got about that Elizabeth was about to turn
Catholic. Her aunt, the Electress Dowager, explained
her cousin's silence, and Elizabeth wrote : —
If I had any desire to do such a thing I should have
done it when there was a crown to be won by it ; now
nobody would give me a peppercorn for it. As to the
arguments, I have long known them all and do not fear
lest any one should bring forward new ones, still less
shrink from talking with priests nor to esteem and like
them when they have any good in them, as I have done
all my life and would if they were Turks and Heathens.
Though both principals seemed disposed to let the
matter of Louise's appointment drop, Elizabeth con-
tinued to keep it in remembrance and from time to
time try to forward a visit, and a year later she
writes : —
I must tell you that the Queen my mother will certainly
come here this spring, and then if you see fit, and the
above proposition pleases you, my sister could wait upon
you for a day or for four days, and bring letters of recom-
mendation, but if it is inconvenient or your Grace should
have other views so that you do not wish it, write to me
openly, for you know Else well that she cannot act other-
wise than candidly and does not like others to act differ-
ently to her.
274 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
In March she writes that the visit must be post-
poned till May, for the Queen of Bohemia will not
come to Heidelberg till then and cannot be left alone
so long ; moreover, it will be easier for Louise to
travel to Herford via Cassel — that is, she adds with
evident misgiving, if the Abbess is in earnest in offer-
ing her the position of Coadjutrix, believing she would
not put her cousin off with a denial so late in the day.
In another year matters had got so far that the ques-
tion of a suitable house for Louise in Herford was
debated, and a serious inquiry was made into her
ancestry, a certain number of arms and quarterings
being necessary for eligibility to the Abbey ; and a
doubt had been thrown on the descent of the Queen
of Bohemia on account of her father, James I, having
succeeded Queen Elizabeth, whose birth was held on
the Continent as of more than doubtful legitimacy.
Princess Elizabeth writes to clear up the point with
some indignation : —
I understand that the said Deaconess has told her aunt
that my sister cannot establish her ancestors on the mother's
side. I confess there are two princely coats of arms amongst
the eight not to be deciphered if that is necessary, but
the other six are royal and one might go further without
finding among them any so mean as her (the deaconess's)
best. You mean perhaps because the mother of Queen
Elizabeth was a bad woman, but that has nothing to do
with us, we come from Henry VII, whose wife was a king's
daughter of the same house as himself, and so was the
Stuart a sister's son, also Mary of Scotland.
SISTER AND COUSIN 275
These questions of descent were made of consider-
able importance by the great Imperial Abbeys (Reichs-
abtei as they were called), which with their voice in
the councils of the empire possessed quite as much
political as religious significance — more since the
Reformation. Another point raised in the same letter
was a report which Elizabeth had heard from Jungfer
Kolbin, one of the Herford sisterhood now in attend-
ance on herself, who subsequently became governess
to her little niece Liselotte. On her authority it was
affirmed that the " ladies of the Mountain," that is,
the members of the daughter community at the
Stiftsberg, had said God forbid they should be placed
under so flighty an Abbess ; but though Louise had
certainly laid herself open on occasion to such accusa-
tion, it appeared that the notion was set on foot by
a rival candidate for the same post. These difficulties
were disposed of, yet the negotiations languished.
Louise herself was but lukewarm in the matter ; the
event showed why.
In 1658 one late December day at seven o'clock in
the morning Louise left her home on foot and alone
and travelled to the sea-coast. One account relates
that she made pretence of going for the day to Sche-
veningen, but it is hardly likely she would have
announced an intention of doing any such thing in
the depth of winter ; silently she departed and never
came back, and when, in astonishment and uneasiness,
search was made, a letter which she had left for her
mother was found, confessing that she had become a
convert to the Catholic Church, and in dread of her
276 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
mother's indignation and the expostulations she knew
she would have to encounter, she had taken flight,
driven to a sudden decision for fear of being obliged
to receive the Holy Sacrament on Christmas Day
according to the Protestant rite, or to declare herself,
for which she had not the courage. She did not reveal
whither she was going, but promised to write as soon
as she was settled.*
The Queen was stunned at the news. Louise had
always been her favourite daughter and for years her
sole companion ; she had not gone with her sisters
to Heidelberg because she would not leave her mother
alone. The step was utterly unexpected, though she
had always had a great affection foi her brother Ned,
the next her in age, and was a good deal influenced
by him, although he was younger than herself. It was
remembered that for a few months past she had
seemed silent and brooding, unlike her usual merry
self ; but the dullness which had crept over the former
gaiety of her mother's Court, the poverty and anxiety
which were closing in more and more, were enough to
excuse any lack of spirits, and no notice was taken.
The Princess had occasionally accompanied a Catholic
friend of hers and her brother Edward's, the Princess
of Hohenzollern, daughter of Count Henry of Bergen-
op-Zoom, and wife of Eitel Friedrich, Prince of Hohen-
zollern, to Mass, but the Queen had never objected,
probably thinking Louise hardly seriously minded
enough to be moved to such a step, though she might
enjoy the music and symbolism of a worship that
* Lives of the Princesses of England, Vol. VI, Green.
SISTER AND COUSIN 277
would appeal to her artistic tastes far more than the
bareness and coldness of the Reformed Church.
The States-General were appealed to for aid to find
the Princess and restore her to her mother, and under
their sanction a M. de la Bocage, who was known to
have brought the Princess a letter on the eve of her
departure, was arrested, and search being made among
his papers, two letters from the Princess of Hohen-
zollern were found containing two plots for the escape
of Louise. The Queen, indignant at the betrayal of
trust on the part of one whom she had considered her
friend, wrote a vehement letter of reproach, to which
she replied that she had not been the instigator but
solely the confidante of the step Louise had taken,
and as a Catholic considered herself bound to aid her.
Louise also wrote vindicating her friend, and taking
upon herself what she had done.
It would have been wise to have dropped the matter,
so far at least as the lady's part was concerned, but
the Queen was so incensed that she urged the States
to take measures of vengeance, which they did by
revoking some of the privileges she enjoyed as heiress
of Bergen-op-Zoom, provoking her into making re-
prisals in the shape of cruel and unwarrantable in-
sinuations as to the true motives of Louise's flight.*
Rupert, always his mother's stand-by, took the matter
up and wrote to the States, thanking them for aid
already given in the matter, and begging them to put
a stop to the slanders against his sister's honour.
For these there appeared absolutely no foundation,
* Memoir of the Princess of Bohemia, Blaze de Bury.
278 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
unless colour were lent them by the somewhat in-
discreet conduct of Louise on a former occasion. She
had been met at Delftshaven by a boat, which con-
veyed her to Bergen-op-Zoom and thence to Antwerp,
where she took up her abode for a time in the Carmelite
Convent. Of a lover there was no smallest trace. Her
brother Edward wrote, encouraging and supporting
her, and also endeavoured to pacify the Queen and
mitigate her wrath against the Princess of Hohen-
zollern. "Ned is so wilful," the Queen wrote: "he
will not believe anything against the P. of Q." *
Moreover, the King of England, who was with his
sister at Breda, visited the delinquent, having ascer-
tained that his aunt would like him to do so. The
Queen wrote to Rupert from the Hague, 4th March
(1659 ?) :-
The King and my niece and my other nephew (James
who was her godson and always devoted to her) were at
Antwerp and went to see Louyse in the monastery. I
sent the copy of Sir Th. Berkley's letter to Broughton,
and my nephew and niece did write to me before they
saw her to know if I would be content they should see
her, which I told them would be too much honour for
her ; but since the P. of Q. had told so base lyes of her,
they would do a very good action to see her, to justify her
innocence. The P. of Q. did go to Antwerp twice and
spoke with L. I have not yet the particulars neither
in general. L. writes to Merode they parted upon very
ill terms. I hope we shall have what passed betwixt
them. By my next you shall have it. The P. of Q. at
her return hither made many believe that she had brought
* Probably Z. Zollern.
SISTER AND COUSIN 279
me letters from the King, my niece, and Louysa to justify
her, and that she had herself given them to me, and talked
two hours with me ; which is a most impudent lye. . . .
I forgot to tell you that the King and my niece did chide
Louysa for her change of religion and for leaving me so
unhandsomely ; she answered that she was very well
satisfied with her change, but very sorry that she had
displeased me. Just now the French letters are come.
. . . The Bishop of Antwerp hath written a letter to
your brother Edward where he clears Louysa from that
base calumny ; yet Ned is so wilful as he excuses the P.
of Toleme [sjc].*
A month later she writes : —
Your sister Louyse hath arrived at Chaillot. . . . Ned
doth acknowledge his error in having too good an opinion
of the P. of Q.
Soon afterwards Edward met her at Rouen and
brought her to Paris, where she was lodged for a time
in the apartments of Queen Henrietta Maria at Chaillot
and subsequently received into the convent of Maubuis-
son, of which she was shortly made Abbess.
Her niece Liselotte, Duchess of Orleans, was very
fond of her when in later years she was living in Paris,
and wrote of her in a letter to her aunt Sophie : —
One cannot believe how pleasant and playful the Prin-
cess of Maubuisson was. I always visited her with pleasure ;
no moment could seem tedious in her company. I was
in greater favour with her than all her other nieces, be-
cause I could converse with her about everything that
she had gone through in her life, which the others could
* Royal Letters, Bromley.
280 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
not. She often talked to me in German, which she spoke
very well. She told me her comical tales. I asked her how
she had been able to habituate herself to a stupid cloister
life. She laughed and answered : "I never speak to the
nuns except to communicate my orders." She had a
deaf nun in her room, that she might not speak. She
said she had always liked a country life, and fancied she
lived like a country girl. I said : " But to get up in the
night and go into the church ! " She answered laughing
that I knew well what painters were ; they liked to see
dark places, and the shadows that the light caused, and
that this gave her every day fresh taste for painting.
She could turn everything this way that it should not
seem dull.
Louise continued to a late age to occupy herself
with painting, and adorned her own and many neigh-
bouring churches with sacred pictures. She died at
the age of eighty-eight. Calumny sticks fast, and
even yet adheres to her name, partly from the pre-
judice of Protestant writers of the last century against
nuns, partly from a misunderstood passage in one of
the letters of her niece the Duchess of Orleans, quoted
by Madame Blaze de Bury in justification of her un-
founded assertion that Elizabeth never had any sym-
pathy or intercourse with her sister. This was to the
effect that she used to swear " by the fourteen children
she had borne ! " and gloried in her shame. Apart
from the fact that history knows nothing of the
existence of any such children, it is glaringly out of
harmony with all Liselotte's other affectionate men-
tions of her aunt. If genuine, it probably refers to
her predecessor, about whom there really had been
SISTER AND COUSIN 281
scandal ; if actually spoken of Louise, the reference
may have been to jesting words of old bygone reports
when they had ceased to rankle, in the questionable
taste of that day in which both the Abbess of Mau-
buisson and her niece were too prone to indulge. As
a matter of serious testimony by Monseigneur Bossuet
and others who had known her well, she had the
credit of having restored the discipline of her convent,
which before her day had grown extremely lax.
That her change of faith was a great distress to her
eldest sister as well as to her mother is not to be
questioned. We have seen how deeply Elizabeth felt
it in the case of Edward, regarding it, as she did, as in
some sort treason against their father's memory and
the family tradition ; and though she had perhaps
grown more liberally minded since that day, the cruel
reports to which it gave rise cannot but have bitterly
aggravated the shock. It is significant that she never
refers to it in her letters to her cousin : where Eliza-
beth felt most she said least. That she bore her sister
no grudge and continued to correspond with her is
shown not only by the touching and affectionate letter
she wrote her from her deathbed, but by a letter of
Edward's to Charles Louis, in which he says : —
I send you a copy of the Papal Brief to the Princess
Louise with the letter of the Cardinal Nephew. She still
lives in her retreat with the greatest satisfaction and
declares that for herself and for the nuns who are passion-
ately attached to her, she has never been so content as
now. La Grecque (Elizabeth) has written to ask her
for the Rule of the Convent and for a pattern of the habit.
282 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
I don't know whether it is to make a similar foundation
in the place where she is with Catherine, but I doubt if
they could live in such harmony as ours do.
The conversion of Louise took place at the end of
the same year in which Elizabeth had found herself
obliged to leave Heidelberg, and for the next few years
the latter had no settled home. Much of her time she
spent at Cassel with her favourite cousin Hedwig, now
wife of the Landgrave, helping her with the educa-
tion of her little son, who afterwards did credit to his
upbringing, becoming a man of distinguished attain-
ments and an excellent ruler. She was, as always, a
welcome visitor at Krossen or Berlin, and some time
in 1660 her favourite brother Rupert was there with
her, his visit being mentioned in one of the Queen of
Bohemia's letters. He was occupying his enforced
and unwelcome idleness in his old hobby of engraving,
and took lessons from le Vaillant. He was also study-
ing and experimenting in his new method of mezzotint
engraving, the secret of which he had had from a
German soldier while on campaign many years before,
but himself brought to perfection. Elizabeth no
doubt would take as sympathetic and helpful an
interest in his experiments as he had done in hers
when she was studying chemistry for Descartes.
These two were always excellent friends and good
comrades, and a year or two later we find him spend-
ing several weeks with her at Cassel. Though, as
Sophie avers, he sometimes laughed good-naturedly
at his studious and serious elder sister — " Rupert se
SISTER AND COUSIN 283
raille," writes she, " de la Signora Grecque " — the
warm affection between this brother and sister was
never broken by any misunderstanding or strife ; her
letters to him have always a tone of easy confidence
lacking in those to her eldest brother. During these
years her correspondence is scanty, and details have
to be gleaned here and there.
The spring of 1660 she spent at Krossen nursing
her favourite aunt and second mother, the Electress
Dowager Charlotte, whose death in April was a deep
grief to her. She announced it in a letter to her
brother, the Elector Palatine : —
Krossen, 20, 30 April, 1660.
It is my duty to inform you that God has withdrawn
the Electress our aunt from this world the 16/28 April
between eight and nine o'clock in the evening, giving her
a death as peaceful as her life had been virtuous. Her last
action was to look towards her sister (who had asked if
she wished prayers to be made), smiling, then she closed
her eyes as if to sleep and gave up her spirit without any
emotion. Never was any one so regretted ; they weep for
her in all the neighbourhood and in the towns belonging
to the Emperor as if she were the protector of the country.
I will not weary you with my grief, knowing that yours
will not be wanting, for you have lost a relative who was
an ornament to the family of which you are Head. . . .
[Some torn off.] The Elector here has sent us full mourning
by the Baron de Lewen, assuring us he will do all he can
for us, and has also ordered that the house should be kept
up in the same way as during the lifetime of his mother,
and I do not doubt his good will towards us, but as he is
already at considerable charges for his wife's relations
284 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
and will be still more if it be true that Prince Radzivil is to
marry Mademoiselle Marie of Orange (daughter of Henry
Frederic of Nassau) I believe you will be too honourable
to add the charge for your relations to this, but you will
order it as you please and I hope at least you will approve
my desire to undertake nothing without your sanction.
The custom of the day for all mourning to be pro-
vided by the family of the deceased was a heavy tax,
and Elizabeth showed nice feeling in her suggestion
to her brother, though it may have been somewhat
unwelcome to him. To her cousin, the Abbess, she
wrote the sad news a week later : —
I do not doubt your Grace will have heard already of
our sorrow and see by your letter of the 20 that your heart
had already warned you. I ought to have let you know
myself, but my head was so bewildered with long watching
that I really could not write. I had not been to bed for
nights and by day had rested so little that my sleep was
completely gone from me, but now it begins to return.
We can never sufficiently lament our beloved Electress,
I mean our own loss, for her Grace has found a blessed
exchange, and a more peaceful end I never heard of.
Five years later, at the same season of the year, a
like sorrow fell again upon her in the death of her
remaining aunt. In a letter she wrote to her cousin
Duke Friedrich Ludwig of Zweibriicken, to condole
on the loss of an infant son, she makes touching
reference to her desolation. She had expressed a hope
that God would bless his other children, that they
might make up to him for his loss, and adds : —
SISTER AND COUSIN 285
My loss will not be so soon repaired, for there will be
no one on earth to love me as the Princess Catherine did.
She died on Saturday 25 February (old style) it is thought
of an internal abscess which broke the day before her
death, after she had paid her debts, given her people their
wages, made alms and attended to other little matters
of business ; when they begged her to rest she answered
she would not rest till seven o'clock next evening when
she would enter the eternal rest, and that was the hour
when God took her from the world. She had put her
Will into the hands of the Elector of Brandenburg, and
I have sent a copy to my brother the Elector, begging him
to communicate it to you. I am made residuary legatee,
but she has left legacies to all her next of kin.
A little later she wrote to Rupert from Berlin touch-
ing his legacy. The letter is included in the Bromley
correspondence, being there misdated 1655 instead of
1665, and in Foucher de Careil's collection is strangely
supposed to be addressed to the Elector Palatine, to
whom it refers under the family nickname of " Timon."
It was directed to Rupert at Rhenen, which had been
bequeathed to him by his mother : —
Dear Brother, — If you knew how much joy your letters
afford me, I am sure you would have the good nature to
let me receive them oftener than I do. Your last makes
no mention of the copy of my aunt Princess Catherine's
Will which I sent you. There is a ring for you. Let me
know how you would have me dispose of it. I will send
you the best she left, which is not very good. The Elector
(of Brandenburg) hath put all in my hands ; but Timon
is so vexed at the six thousand rix-dollars he is to pay me
out of a clear debt, that he will not send me my annuity,
286 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
and hath commanded Geeles de Fek [sic] not to pay the
pension which my aunt had in Poland : but our Elector
will force him to it. I believe Timon would willingly
force me to put my pretensions into the Elector of Mentz's
hands (as his wife is like to do) and then he may have
just reason to complain. I shall not do it until I see that
all is lost, but then I will have my share. I am now very
rich in pretensions, for my aunt has now ninety thousand
rix-dollars due, for thirty years exile, in which she received
not a penny out of her country. I shall engage the King
if I can to write for me to the Emperor, who is to pay me
and never disavowed the debt. I would willingly let fall
half the sum to get the rest : and wish much more to
know you still prosperous in this and all other under-
takings.
Everybody here wonders that so many ships stay before
havens, and do not rather go into the Indies where there
is more to be got ; but everybody understands his own
business. I go to attend mine at Cassel, and leave this
place within a fortnight, where the Elector obliges me
more than I can express. I hope you will find some
occasion to thank him for it. So farewell, dear Brother.
I am more than all the world besides,
Yours Elizabeth.
Now that she no longer had her own aunts to go to,
Elizabeth when at Berlin was the guest of her aunt by
marriage, Marie Eleonora, widow of her uncle, Philip
Duke of Simmern. This lady, plain even in youth,
but, as her brother-in-law said of her, " tres bonne
femme," shared her niece's learned tastes, and was
one of the many women who in those days followed
the fashion of studying Hebrew in order to make
themselves acquainted with the Old Testament in the
SISTER AND COUSIN 287
original. It was said to be at her instigation that
Coccejus, Professor of Theology at Ley den, compiled
his Hebrew-German dictionary, which remained the
standard work on the subject throughout the eighteenth
century. This he dedicated to his patroness, and
through her he became acquainted with the Princess
Palatine, to whom he paid the compliment of in-
scribing his translation of the Song of Solomon with a
commentary. So Elizabeth had still a pied-d-terre in
Berlin, and the learned society to which she was ac-
customed ; but as years passed on she realised more
and more her practical homelessness, and began to
long for a home and an established position of her
own.
CHAPTER XV
A HAVEN
Elizabeth is suggested as coadjutrix at Herford — Misunderstandings
with her cousin the Abbess — Difficulty of finding fees — Appeals
to Charles Louis for aid — She is appointed to succeed Elizabeth
Louise — History of the Abbey — Death of the Abbess — En-
thronement of Elizabeth.
NOT long after the defection of Louise
Hollandine it would appear the sugges-
tion had been made (whether by the
Abbess, the aunts, or Elizabeth herself
is not clear) that the latter should become a candidate
for Herford in the room of her sister. She wrote a
very characteristic letter on the subject, from which
we may gather that she had a reputation for liking
to keep up a certain state and dignity which her
cousin was a little afraid might involve the Abbey in
expense, and also a talent for management which
need not have been feared from her easy-going sister.
The Abbess had evidently put forward certain objec-
tions. Elizabeth writes : —
I quite appreciate the favour your Grace does me in
speaking so candidly, for it is certainly the greatest proof
of friendship any one can give, and I beg you not to take
amiss my answering in the same spirit, and believe that if
288
A HAVEN 289
I came to the Institution I should never have the pre-
sumption to think of reforming anything which your
Grace could not do, nor of keeping a greater state than
you have done so as to bring the Abbey into debt. God
forbid I should have such an idea, which would be not
only a foolish rashness but an unpardonable theft and far
enough removed from the wisdom with which you are
so good as to credit me — undeserved as it is. Also I
readily agree that the Abbey needs such an Abbess as
would be content with its present income (unless she could
herself bring an increase to it) and would seek peace rather
than wealth. Solomon gave a good rule when he said
we should be neither wise nor righteous overmuch, for
he knew that we have not all the power to keep the bridle
on our understanding, still less accommodate it to circum-
stances that we may not bring ourselves into difficulties.
You may also believe that if you should accept me as an
inmate I should not think of succeeding you ; you are but
five years older than I am and have had far less misfor-
tune which naturally tends to shorten life. If I should
die first I will take with me that satisfaction of having been
no useless member of the body nor unfaithful servant to
my gracious Abbess, so far as she will permit ; if other-
wise I will think that God has so ruled and be content
with my Creator's infallible will. If your Grace should
continue in your good mind towards me, I would only ask
the assurance that another Abbess should not be put over
me. As regards the revenue of the Abbey I do not fancy
it higher than to furnish me with the same number of
people as your Grace is able to keep. I have no desire
to make great banquets which is not fitting for any Abbess ;
I can add 1000 thalers yearly, and if God grants me more
(from the claims I have on the English and Imperial
Courts) I will use it to secure my favour ? (mihr einen
guhten Tag zu machen). Since I have no posterity to
u
290 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
care for I get nothing, but can be content with little and
with God's help keep a cheerful heart. He has led me
wonderfully all my youth and will not forsake me in my
age ; in Him I place all my confidence.
It was claimed both for Elizabeth and for Louise
Hollandine that their entry into the cloister entitled
them to the dowry promised by the Peace of West-
phalia to the daughters of the Winter King ; the
claim, however, was not allowed. In the next letter,
which is very similar, she promises to maintain the
interests of the Abbess as her own and to regard her
as a real sister. " If you knew me aright," she adds,
" you would know that I have no ambition and ask
no more than retreat for my old age, which I may
perhaps find at Herford." In the following she sug-
gests that writing lends itself to misunderstandings,
and suggests that either she shall visit her cousin at
Herford the next summer, when she will be at Hanover
staying with her sister Sophie, or that it might do the
Abbess good and disperse her melancholy to make a
journey to Cassel. Her sister also, she adds, would
be pleased to welcome her at Hanover, " where she
is very happy ; no small joy to me."
A year later no final decision had been arrived at.
The Abbess seems to have been of a somewhat difficult
temper and a little inclined to be suspicious of any
possible successor. Elizabeth writes from the sick-bed
of her aunt, the Electress Dowager, saying how much
both she and the Elector desired to see her established
at Herford, proposing to send the customary three
hundred thalers and the genealogy when it can be got
A HAVEN 291
at. This she supposes can raise no difficulty, being,
as she says, on the one side the same as that of the
Abbess herself, and on the other that of the Royal
Family of England, a matter of history and not of
research in libraries. The next, written very shortly
before the death of the Electress, shows Elizabeth's
characteristic love of solitary independence : —
7/17 April, 1660.
As your Grace has assured me in your honoured letter
of 22 March that you will accept me as Canoness, I have
sent full powers to General-Major Ellert and placed the
300 thalers in the hands of Antattin who will send them
you. As regards my wish to live in Herford, I thoroughly
explained to our Electress and cannot understand how
you could get such an idea in your head, for you must
know Else better than to suppose she would willingly
take on her unnecessary bonds, and could do all service
in her power, both to your Grace and the Abbey, from a
distance, but to live there constantly under the rule of
an Abbess would not be in her line (Ihres Handels nicht).
My ancestry you shall have later ; it was made out for
sister Louise and put away so safely at the Hague that it
cannot be found.
That the Abbess was not quite easy to live with is
shown by her continual strife with the town as well
as with her Chapter, on which Elizabeth has some
sage remarks to offer : —
I am heartily sorry for the disagreement with the
Chapter, and cannot but blame the Canonesses who fo-
mented it ; it is a bad trade to stir up strife, but to restore
peace and order is the part of wisdom and brings the best
292 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
repute. It was a pity your Grace signed the capitulation
so hastily, but now it is done it seems to me in vain to
resist, for it cannot help your Grace if you wish to alter it
as you could not depart from your own sign and seal if
you would, and will only cause bitterness without doing
any good. Christ says that a kingdom divided against
itself cannot stand, and I think there is nothing in the
world more vexatious than living in strife with those to
whom one is bound. I would advise that your Grace
got the Elector or his people to mediate so that the quarrel
may be ended, and it would be brought to the proof which
had most power better than if it were settled by your
own act. I only suggest this because the affair is not
so well understood by me and I may be mistaken, but
your Grace knows Else well that she gives her opinion
frankly when asked for it, but is no less ready to serve
your Grace as you may direct. However nothing can be
done till we are in Berlin again.
This was written from Krossen, and so was the next,
a rather lengthy letter on the same subject. It was no
wonder Elizabeth's relations desired to see her estab-
lished at Herford with the prospect of succeeding to
the office of her cousin, who, though not aged, was in
rather feeble health. Not only was the position very
desirable for her, but Elizabeth was eminently fitted
for it ; with her clear head, her administrative capa-
city, and innate sense of justice she would be able to
deal with the difficulties of a critical situation created
by the new constitution of affairs at the Peace, and
no doubt her cousin the Elector felt she would add
to the stability and importance of the abbey ; and at
length, but not until October, 1660, the Abbess wrote
A HAVEN 293
to her brother, the Duke of Zweibriicken, to announce
that she had appointed " Bass Liesbeth " coadjutrix
and that she had been spending ten days with her at
Herford. Difficulties, however, were not yet quite at
an end. Elizabeth's appointment required confirma-
tion by the Chapter and also from the sisters, and
this seems to have given rise to a rather serious mis-
understanding. A very indignant and excited letter
from the Abbess accuses Elizabeth of having used
undue influence with the Elector of Brandenburg to
bring pressure to bear on the votes, a certain " Fraulein
Lissgen," who had been appointed to the office for-
merly promised to Louise, having refused her com-
pliance. Apparently some mischievous influences had
been at work to stir up strife between the cousins, for
Elizabeth reproaches the Abbess with lending an ear to
false reports. She too lost her temper and answered
in a rather incoherent epistle, in which she passionately
averred " my honesty is more to me than goods and
gear," and in a postscript sarcastically asks whether
the Abbess missed anything after her visit to Herford.
A few days later she sent a calmer and more tem-
perately worded defence, in which the position is
made much clearer : —
28 November
8 December, 1660.
Madame, — If your Grace would listen to your memory
rather than to the false reports of those who (as you your-
self are aware) would gladly see us in mistrust of each
other so as to take from me the power of serving you,
you would not suppose that the loss of Fr Lisgen's vote
294 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
would drive me to such extremities as should do injury
to the Institution, for I have done nothing but what your
Grace and I in the presence of Herr Geheimrath Ellert
and Dr. Schlipstein agreed together, namely that I should
do my best to obtain the consent of the assembled sisters
to my having the office of coadjutrix, as you yourself
had asked them by letter, and if the Elector or other good
friends could be helpful to me in it, it could not possibly
be any prejudice to your Grace, because they asked nothing
from the sisters collectively but what was in accordance
with your own writing. It robs the Institution of no
freedom, for in asking anything from any person the liberty
to give or withhold is implied, and why should it not be
permitted me to employ my good friends to influence
the sisters to carry out your wishes, as to Fr Lisgen to
induce hers to work against them and return an unfavour-
able answer ? Would your Grace be served thereby, as
you certainly wished to make me coadjutrix as sister
Louise Sacrist ? You know that Dr. Schlipstein (who
thoroughly understands the rules and usages of the In-
stitution) said in your presence that if I were made co-
adjutrix without the consent of those interested, namely
of the Chapter and the sisters, or at least a majority of
them, it could not help me in the future succession, and
then where would be the use ? Though I wish to claim
nothing at present on the ground of succession to your
Grace, I must once more beg you would not give your
enemies so much advantage as to be able to affirm such a
palpable falsehood against so near a blood-relation of
your Grace. If they do, the work will reward its master
before long, but I hope better things and believe it is a
mere misunderstanding and that your Grace is misled
by some who from the first have tried to sow dissension
between us. Perhaps there may be others in Berlin who
do not rightly understand my wishes, and suggest more
A HAVEN 295
to your Grace than I ask, for if your Grace of your own
accord proposes to me on the said conditions to retire
from the Institution, I will not press it upon you, if you
have changed your mind, that as you have proposed me
to the Chapter as coadjutrix and asked the consent of
the sisters, it would be far more to my prejudice (should
God take your Grace to Himself) than if I had never been
named, which I must guard against so far as I can. If
you protest against it I must suffer it, but should have
cause to complain to my relations that my upright in-
tention of serving your Grace was so ill requited, but I
will do nothing to the injury of the Order and will observe
my oath as well or better than others, for I hold a good
conscience beyond all the treasures of the world, Also,
not fearing that your Grace would be against me in this,
I ask you to show this letter to my aunt and my dear
cousin of Courland that they may see whether I have
made any unjust demands upon your Grace, or done any-
thing to make you doubt that I am in truth yours, &c.
The Abbess accepted this explanation with some
murmurings of protest, but in a letter to her brother,
thanking him for the offer of pecuniary help " en pere
de famille," Elizabeth refers to the inconstant and
capricious temper of her cousin, who had raised
difficulties that were only disposed of by the inter-
vention of her ever kind friend the Elector of Bran-
denburg, who declared he would do nothing for the
Abbess unless she kept her word to Elizabeth. More-
over, this good cousin had made her a present of a
coach and six horses, knowing she would need it to
transport herself and her goods to Herford, so she
begs her brother to send her by Easter, when she
296 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
must change her mourning, liveries for two coachmen,
two footmen, and a page, for which she sends measure-
ments. She reminds him he has had no expense on
this score since she left Heidelberg, since her late aunt
had supplied her servants with liveries similar to her
own. Charles evidently thought he had done enough,
for when Elizabeth found she would have to pay fees
for her election (which would not have to be repeated
when she succeeded as Abbess) she wrote to Sophie,
then on a visit to Heidelberg, to intercede with " her
papa " for the loan of six hundred thalers, to be re-
paid when she became Abbess, or out of her jewels
should she die in the meantime. These presents, with
the journey and expenses of the departure from Cassel,
would leave her, as she said, practically nothing to
live on for that year. There was also the furnishing
of a house for her in Herford to be considered, and in
Sophie's Memoirs there is mention of her wish to sell
the great pearl pendant her brother had given her,
since in her new life she would have small need for
jewels ; she evidently wished her sister would buy
it, that it might not go out of the family.
In May her mother sailed for England, and one of
her letters to the Abbess mentions that news had been
received of the Queen's safe arrival at Gravesend. It
seems a suggestion had been made that Elizabeth
should accompany her mother, probably when it
appeared as if the coadjutrixship might fall through,
but that difficulty had been safely tided over, and
Elizabeth would be far better in an independent
position. The proposal is not mentioned in the
A HAVEN 297
Queen's letters nor in Elizabeth's ; it was probably
quite in the clouds. The Queen writes to Rupert
from " betwixt Delft and Delftshaven " that she had
seen Sophie, who looked well, and that Elizabeth was
appointed coadjutrix at Herford. Mother and daughter
had been very little to each other for many years past.
So at last Elizabeth was settled in a secure home
with a definite provision for the future, and she and
her cousin appear to have got on with tolerable har-
mony, though on one occasion, when the Abbess was
seriously ill and Sophie on a visit to Herford, she
maliciously declared she believed the Abbess was
shamming that she might see how her successor would
look. Like most elderly people, she had a suspicious-
ness of whoever was to come after her, and this no
doubt was the cause of all the misunderstanding.
In spite of her protest earlier, Elizabeth raised no
difficulty about taking up her abode in Herford, and
though she made occasional visits to Cassel or to
Berlin, henceforward the little Westphalian town was
her abode until the close of her life.
The Abbey of Herford* occupied a unique position
in Protestant Germany. At the Reformation it had,
through interest, escaped the suppression and spolia-
tion which were the lot of most foundations of the
kind, probably owing to political rights and privileges,
which it would be highly inconvenient to extinguish,
possibly also to the fact that the Reformation took
possession of Herford almost unopposed, for other-
wise its ancient dignity and venerable traditions would
* Kleine Chronik von Herford, Wolff.
298 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
not have saved it. Its history reaches back to very
early times. In the ninth century, in the days of
Charlemagne, a little township already existed at a
ford where two rivers, the Werna and the Hardna,
the warm and the cold — now known as Werre and Aa —
met, enclosing a little space of fertile land. This was
under the lordship of the Saxon hero Wittekind, and
when he was subdued by Charlemagne and converted
to the Christian faith, Herford found itself incor-
porated in the Christian Empire. Shortly after, one
of Wittekind's nobles, Waltgerus, or Walther of
Ravensburg, following the example of his liege lord,
embraced Christianity, and in token of devotion
founded in Herford a nunnery for fourteen damsels of
noble birth, placing at its head his kinswoman Suala.
Soon a little wooden church was built, and a chaplain,
together with sacred relics, was brought over from
England. In 815 Walther, who could not do as much
for his foundation as he wished, placed it under the pro-
tection of Ludwig the Pious, who raised it to the rank
of an Abbey and endowed it with certain lands in
the vicinity. Ten years later the Abbess Swanhild built
a stone basilica in place of the small erection of wood
which had served its earliest needs, and by many
gifts and grants of privilege it grew in importance till
in the year 1220 it was raised to the rank of an Im-
perial Free Abbey (Reichsabtei), with jurisdiction over
a small surrounding territory. A daughter convent
soon sprang up on a neighbouring hill, called the Stift-
berg, dedicated to St. Mary, the church being built on
a site pointed out in a vision. A shepherd on the hill
A HAVEN 299
saw the Blessed Virgin in the form of a white dove
sitting on a tree, so round about that tree the church
was built, and in the midst of it the tree still stands,
enclosed in a reliquary behind the High Altar, and
preserved as religiously by its Lutheran custodians as
it was by the earlier worshippers.
The position of Abbess of Herford became one of
considerable importance, equal to that of a princess in
her own right, since by a privilege bestowed by the
Emperor Conrad she was entitled to be represented
at the Reichstag, though she does not appear to have
attended its deliberations in person. Early in the
thirteenth century the great Minster church was
begun by Abbess Godesta, and finished by Abbess
Pinnosa in 1271, the former stone basilica being pre-
served and used as the private chapel of the convent
and called the Walthercapelle. While the church
was in building another important undertaking was
carried out. In 1255 Abbess Ida surrounded the
" Liberty " belonging to the Abbey by a fortified wall,
enclosing also the suburb of the Radewich, in which
was situated the Frater Church of St. James of Com-
postella. Herford had become so full of religious
foundations and places of pilgrimage that in the
Middle Ages it was called " Hillige Herford," Holy
Herford. To these were added later a strong body of
the Brothers of the Common Life.
Fortifications were a necessity, for strife with the
town was not infrequent. The limits of the two juris-
dictions were not well defined, and Herford had grown
in dignity and importance, becoming a member of
300 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
the great Hanseatic League in the division of Cologne ;
in witness a whale's rib, the Hanseatic symbol, was
preserved in the Church of St. James. It claimed to
be reckoned as one of the Free Cities, but to this
dignity it was not entitled, though possessing many
of the special privileges, as well as the duty of furnish-
ing one horseman and fifteen foot to the Imperial
defences.
The Reformation* very quickly took root in Her-
ford. The Brothers of the Common Life, with their
uncloistered existence and zeal for education, were
quick to embrace new ideas, and many of them,
especially Montanus, entered into correspondence with
Luther and with Melancthon. Lutheran preachers
were introduced into several of the churches with the
goodwill of the town, and hymns and psalms began
to be sung in the vernacular. The Abbess Anna von
Limburg clung to the old ways, and for long forbade
any changes being introduced into the worship at the
Minster ; but she was not a strong woman, and tried
to evade responsibilities for which she felt herself un-
equal by resigning her authority into the hands of
the suzerain Duke of Julich and Cleves. He was more
for Erasmian doctrine and temporised, but the swell-
ing flood was not to be kept out. The Abbess en-
deavoured to close the Minster against evangelical
preachers who had been appointed, but when she saw
herself threatened by the Town Council in solemn
procession coming from the market-place, with the
* Reformationsgeschichte dev Stadt Herford, Professor Dr. L.
Holscher.
A HAVEN 301
executioner in his scarlet in their train, she fled through
the garden to her own property of Sundern, where she
spent the remainder of her days. The shock was so
great that she never recovered from a trembling of
the head which it caused her.
It is rather remarkable that after this the Abbey
should have escaped suppression ; probably its political
importance saved it, and its princely patrons saw that
it might provide a dignified retreat for their unmarried
sisters and aunts, whose voice in public affairs might
be made useful. The nine commissioners appointed
to inquire into and close religious foundations were
evidently anxious to put an end to this foundation as
well as to the Brotherhood of the Common Life ; but
many members of the latter body were personal friends
of Luther, and to him they appealed on their own behalf
and on that of the Abbey, under the protection of
which they had been established. He gave his judg-
ment in favour of continuing both under a Protestant
constitution, and himself wrote in his own hand, and
later by that of Melancthon, to the Abbess. She, poor
lady, submitted to the inevitable, and as a dowry was
settled on her it seems probable she withdrew to her
own estate and took no further part in the adminis-
tration. Some of the sisters had probably already
accepted the Reformed doctrines, and those who had
not either gave way or retired.
In the succession strife of Julich and Cleves the
protectorate of Herford passed to the Elector of
Brandenburg, and by the Treaty of Westphalia the
town lost its independence and was incorporated in
302 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
his dominions. The Chapter, however, retained its
independent connection with the empire, being recog-
nised as third amongst the four female ecclesiastical
Principalities, and was permitted to exercise its two
votes in the Reichstag. These rights were guaranteed
to the Abbess and confirmed by a formal declaration
to the Princess Palatine, executed by the Elector of
Brandenburg in 1669. In all legal acts and documents
the style and title of the Abbess of Herford was
" Princess and Prelatess of the Holy Roman Empire."
After all these strange vicissitudes the Abbey had
settled down into comparative quiet, only occasionally
disturbed by disputes with the town, when the Princess
Palatine was appointed to assist her cousin in its
administration. This was no sinecure ; not only was
there a large household of noble ladies to rule over,
with the oversight of good works amongst the poor,
but beyond the colony of servants and dependents
gathered round the Abbey there was jurisdiction over
a small territory of some seven thousand souls, and
considerable business to be transacted with the large
incomings from farms, vineyards, mills, and factories.
The two ladies appear to have worked together very
harmoniously, in spite of the misunderstandings and
dissensions which had preceded the appointment of
Elizabeth as coadjutrix.
In her new preoccupations Elizabeth had not ceased
to feel an interest in family affairs, and suggested a
marriage fc between her niece and the son of her favourite
cousin, the Elector of Brandenburg. It came to
nothing, however ; Liselotte was but fifteen, and her
Photo. Louis Frickc. 11,
ELIZABETH, ABBESS OF HERFORI)
From an old print in the H 'erford 'Museum. By permission of Herr Rector Nermann
A HAVEN 303
father in no haste to part with her. Perhaps at that
time it hardly satisfied his ambition for her. Far
better had it been than the fatal French alliance.
Sophie wrote of it to her brother, saying that Eliza-
beth was on good terms with the ministers, and could
doubtless bring it about if he wished it. " If the
Electress dies," she wrote (she was in consumption at
the time), " E. will have something to say in it ; the
Elector is very docile and she very free with him." *
In 1667 the death of the Abbess Elizabeth Louise
placed the Princess Palatine at the head of the Abbey,
and she was solemnly enthroned in the Minster church
in the presence of all her Court and her vassals, of the
Councillors of State and magistrates of Brandenburg,
and of the clergy and dignitaries of Herford, and
recognised by a delegate from the Emperor.
Here, then, was Elizabeth, after nearly fifty years
of exile and dependence, established in a secure and
dignified home of her own, with occupation for her
administrative capacity, scope for her large charity,
and undisturbed tranquillity for the study in which
she still took delight. A contemporary description
pictures the portly dame seated in the courtyard
during the whole forenoon, her knitting in her never
idle fingers, hearing and adjudging causes that were
brought before her, like the prophetess Deborah under
her oak tree.
Though the great Abbey has disappeared, its site
now occupied by a police-station and a factory for
agricultural implements, the little town in its busy
* Briefwechsel der Herzogin Sophie von Hannover, Bodermann.
304 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
quiet is wonderfully unchanged since the days when
the heavy coach of the Abbess used to rumble over
its paved streets and out to the wooded hill when she
visited her other daughters at the Stiftberg. Herford
prides itself on its industries and its exports, but it is
denied by few or no great factory chimneys ; its two
narrow, bustling streams turn its wheels and work
its looms, and its factory hands dwell for the most
part in the same old gabled houses with carved barge
boards on which her eyes may have looked ; and still
the tradition lingers of the charities and good works
of the Abbess Elizabeth. The town is very green ;
many of the houses even in the streets are festooned
with vines, their fresh foliage showing bright against
the red-tiled or black house fronts ; and where the
stream has but just escaped from driving the carpet-
loom, weeping willows trail over it and lave their soft,
long fingers.
For more than a century after Elizabeth's death her
Abbey kept on its quiet and useful course, but in 1803
it was secularised, and in the re-constitution of Europe
that took place under the treaties of 1815 the Abbey
lost its independence, and both it and the town be-
came merged in the kingdom of Prussia. The Abbey
lands were soon after sold and the ancient buildings
pulled down.
CHAPTER XVI
RELIGIOUS LIFE IN A PROTESTANT NUNNERY
Elizabeth's tendency to mysticism — Anna van Schurmann asks for
an asylum for the Labadists — Career of Jean de Labadie — Evil
reports — Elizabeth invokes the protection of the Elector of
Brandenburg — Persecution by the burghers of Herford — Visit
of Prince Charles and his tutor — Paul Hackenberg's narrative —
Departure of the Labadists — Visits from Quakers — Correspon-
dence with Robert Barclay — Visit from William Penn — His
letters — His description of the Abbess.
IT might have been expected that the friend and
disciple of Descartes, the philosophic princess
who had been so forward in advising the found-
ing of the University at Duisberg, where her
master's tenets reigned supreme, would, when the
power lay in her own hands, have made of her Abbey
the home of Cartesianism ; but Elizabeth's point of
view had imperceptibly shifted with advancing years,
and now the mystic tenets of the friend of her youth,
Anna van Schurmann, appealed to her more strongly
than the colder teachings of philosophy. She was
still a seeker after truth, but she sought it rather in
some of the newer developments of Protestantism
which in the later years of the seventeenth century
were springing up on all sides. She had endured many
sorrows, and as age crept on she turned more and
x 305
306 A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT
more from speculative thought to the consolations of
religion.
She had been but a little time at the head of her
Abbey when she received a letter from her old friend,
begging for an asylum for herself and a small band of
Labadists, who were being persecuted if not maligned,
as the Quakers in England were persecuted by their
fellow Protestants. Accounts of the founder of this
little sect, Jean de Labadie, vary so widely that it is not
easy to tell whether he were in truth mystic or char-
latan, or a little of both. He was, at any rate, a man
of unbalanced mind, an enthusiast if not a fanatic,
gifted with a power of personal influence which made
him erect himself into a kind of Pope over his fol-
lowers, and imagine himself possessed of special
illumination. He was born a Catholic and educated
at the Jesuit Seminary at Bordeaux, but adopting
Jansenist opinions, he withdrew from the Order and
went to Paris to join the Abbe de St. Cyran. Soon
he became noted as an eloquent preacher, and began
to draw around him a little band of adherents,
and it presently was reported he was preaching
heretical doctrines : a breach with his Church be-
came inevitable, and in 1650 he declared himself a
Protestant. But it was a Protestantism of his own
invention he desired to set up, and he would in no-
wise submit himself to the rigid rule of the Reformed
Church in Amsterdam, whither he had gone. His
religious views were founded on a belief in interior
illumination — at least, in that vouchsafed to himself ;
to the Protestant appeal to the Bible he replied that
LIFE IN A PROTESTANT NUNNERY 307
religion existed b 
