Elizabeth Stuart: The could-have-been queen

We examine the extraordinary life of the Scottish princess, Elizabeth Stuart, that the Gunpowder Plotters tried to place on the throne

Words by Kirsten Henton

The only surviving daughter of King James VI of Scotland and Queen Anne of Denmark, Elizabeth Stuart, renowned for her beauty and intelligence, remains strangely in the shadows of Scottish – and British – history. An educated woman of conviction, her life was shaped by political and religious events at home and overseas, yet she was much admired across Britain and the continent. 

Born on 19 August 1596 at Dunfermline Palace, Fife, Elizabeth was sister to James’s heir, Henry Frederick, who died of typhoid in 1612, and the would-be Charles I. 

Named after Elizabeth I, her father’s predecessor and cousin twice removed, who was on the throne when she was born, Elizabeth Stuart initially grew up in Linlithgow Palace. However, following the death of her namesake and the Union of the Crowns in 1603, young Elizabeth was placed in the care of Lord and Lady Harrington at Coombe Abbey, Warwickshire. 

Brought up away from court, she’s believed to have had a pleasant childhood. Lord Harrington was a great nature lover, something he encouraged with Elizabeth, who would maintain multiple menageries throughout her life. 

In his book The Royal Stuarts, Allan Massie writes that Elizabeth ‘learned French and Italian, and spent the afternoons…on horseback.’ Meanwhile, in her book The Gunpowder Plot, Lady Antonia Fraser writes: ‘Elizabeth Stuart fulfilled the happiest expectations of what a young female royal should be.’ 

The plot thickens

Increasingly renowned as a distinguished young woman who Fraser says had already ‘proved herself capable of carrying out royal duties’ at a young age, Elizabeth Stuart unwittingly caught the attention of the conspirators behind the now-infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605. 

Robert Catesby, Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, John Wright and Guy Fawkes were determined to reinstate Catholicism in England by blowing up Parliament and killing the king, along with his heir, Henry Frederick. Their audacious scheme was supposed to create enough chaos for notable Catholics to rise and support a religious revolution.

Unbeknownst to her, the plotters saw that as third in line  to the throne, Elizabeth offered potential legitimacy beyond what Fraser says they planned as her ‘ceremonial role.’ 

As we know, their plans unravelled and they, along with many supporters, were either killed while being apprehended or executed, their attempts doing immeasurable damage to religious cohesion between Catholics and Protestants. 

However, it begs the question: would Elizabeth have gone along with it if they’d succeeded? Dr Nadine Akkerman, Professor of Early Modern Literature & Culture at Leiden University, author of Elizabeth Stuart: Queen of Hearts, says that she ‘definitely would not.’

She adds that while Elizabeth ‘mightn’t have objected to being turned into a Catholic, as she was raised in a Catholic household until the age of seven (even though in later life she was virulently opposed to Catholicism),’ she would ‘have objected to her father and beloved brother being assassinated.

Practically speaking, little changed for Elizabeth after the plot, apart from when she was briefly whisked to safety in Coventry when her protector Lord Harrington got wind of the plot to kidnap the young princess. The revealing confession of Guy Fawkes acknowledged the plan to place Elizabeth on the throne, which might not have played out as the conspirators had hoped. ‘Elizabeth Stuart was extremely popular with Catholics and Protestants alike, and thereby could have neutralised domestic conflicts,’ Akkerman says.

A marriage of more than convenience

King James VI, by now also I of England, busied himself trying to sow the seeds of peace between Catholic and Protestant factions across Europe through the tactical marriages of his children. Both Henry and Elizabeth Stuart were tantalising bargaining chips with no shortage of potential spouses. Charles, a weak, sickly child, was less of a catch.

Following the death of Henry, unfortunate Charles, with his stunted growth and issues with walking owing to childhood illness, became heir apparent. It appears that Elizabeth was overlooked in part because she was a woman – despite Elizabeth I having dispelled the myth that women couldn’t successfully reign – and because James had settled on a union that would appease Protestants and take her into central Europe. 

However, Akkerman states that while those who recognised her ability and strength as a Scottish-born, Catholic-raised woman ‘may have lamented that she didn’t succeed James,’ Elizabeth didn’t rally support to challenge Charles’s position.

Instead, she was prepped for marriage with the Protestant Frederick V, Elector Palatine of the Rhine in the Holy Roman Empire, who was the same age and said to ‘delight in nothing but her company and conversation.’

Aged 16, they married at Whitehall Palace, London, on Valentine’s Day 1613. A young, attractive and capable pair, they were set to be the power couple of Europe.

Their marriage was seen as a great coup for the Palatinate, Prince Frederick V’s constituent state within the Holy Roman Empire and, happily, it appears to have been one of love and affection. Frederick went out of his way to settle his new wife, transforming Heidelberg Castle with an English wing, a menagerie and an ornate garden: the Hortus Palatinus.   

The winter royals

For the next few years, the couple lived in harmony, Elizabeth giving birth to the first three of their 13 children (although only six would outlive their mother). However, change was in the wind. By the early 17th century, the centuries-old Holy Roman Empire, long headed by the Hapsburgs, was,
as Massie writes, ‘an agglomeration of quasi-independent states’ with, he continues, ‘no uniformity, not even of religion.’

One such state was the Kingdom of Bohemia – today largely Czechia – an elective monarchy (not hereditary) and influential part of the empire whose seat was in Prague. Although Ferdinand II, a zealous Catholic and avid Counter-Reformationist, had been crowned king there, Bohemia’s Protestant nobles rebelled as it became evident he planned to curb their religious rights. They formed new alliances and offered Frederick, the only senior Protestant prince seemingly willing to risk certain war with imperial forces, the throne.

In September 1619, Frederick, Elizabeth, and their growing family moved to Prague and in November they were crowned King and Queen of Bohemia for what would be a short-lived reign. Bohemia was already half ravaged by war, debt and poverty. The royals were quickly alienated as neither spoke Czech and machinations including new treaties and broken alliances soon left Frederick out in the cold.

Following the disastrous Battle of White Mountain on 8 November 1620, in which the royals lost to imperial forces and lit the fuse on the catastrophic Thirty Years’ War, the family fled. They were stripped of all lands and became refugees, eventually securing sanctuary in The Hague.  

Massie writes: ‘They became known as the Winter King and Winter Queen. The glorious promise of their marriage had turned to dust.’

Life in exile

Frederick made futile attempts to reclaim his lands over the following years, establishing a Palatinate government-in-exile from the Netherlands. He died of pestilence, mid-negotiations in Mainz, Germany, on 29 November 1632.

Grief-stricken though Elizabeth was, Akkerman writes, ‘She took on a prominent role ruling over the Palatine government-in-exile’ as their son, Charles Louis, was just 15.  

Akkerman continues: ‘Her court-in-exile turned into an alternative Stuart court on the continent, attracting hundreds of political and religious refugees during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms… She was one of the most politically active royal women of the period.’

Elizabeth survived on a pension from her brother, Charles I, although this ceased with the coming of the English civil wars. But, Massie says, ‘she had a lot of friends…her charm was legendary’ and ‘her spirit was indomitable,’ if uncompromising (her motto was ‘I rather break than bend’).

She spent much of her time writing letters drumming up support and trying to negotiate marriages for her children, with whom she had fraught relationships, her daughter Sophia once claiming that ‘her dogs and monkeys mattered more.’

Even after Charles regained the Electorate of the Palatinate in 1648, she remained in the Netherlands for 13 more years. It wasn’t until the Restoration of the British monarchy that she returned to England, where she died of pneumonia on 13 February 1662, aged 65. 

Queen of Hearts

Elizabeth Stuart was buried in Westminster Abbey without much ceremony. But her place in history was secured: the 1701 Act of Settlement (extended to Scotland in 1707) ensured that her daughter, Electress Sophia of Hanover, would take the throne following the death of the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne. 

As Anne outlived Sophia by a matter of weeks, the throne passed to Sophia’s son, Elizabeth’s grandson, Prince George of Hanover, in 1714. Today, King Charles III is a direct descendant of George I, surely the greatest legacy the enigmatic Elizabeth Stuart could have hoped for.

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