Artwork Title: Princess Elizabeth

Princess Elizabeth, 1606

Robert Peake

Elizabeth Stuart (1596–1662), aged about 10 years old. Princess Elizabeth, later Queen of Bohemia, 1606; her grandson inherited the English throne as George I. James I's daughter Elizabeth was also a valuable marriage pawn. She too was offered to Savoy, as a bride for the Prince of Piedmont, the heir of Charles Emanuel. The exchange of portraits as part of royal marriage proposals was the practice of the day and provided regular work for the royal painters and their workshops. Prince Henry commissioned portraits from Peake to send them to the various foreign courts with which marriage negotiations were underway. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Peake_the_Elder) Stuart (1596–1662) Elizabeth was given a comprehensive education for a princess at that time. This education included instruction in natural history, geography, theology, languages, writing, history, music, and dancing. She was denied instruction in the classics as her father believed that "Latin had the unfortunate effect of making women more cunning". By the age of 12, Elizabeth was fluent in several languages, including French, "which she spoke with ease and grace" and would later use to converse with her husband. She also was an excellent rider, had a thorough understanding of the Protestant religion, and had an aptitude for writing letters that "sounded sincere and never stilted". She also was extremely literary and "several mementoes of her early love of books exist". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Stuart,_Queen_of_Bohemia) lizabeth Stuart (1596–1662) was the charismatic daughter of King James VI of Scotland (later James I of England) and Anna of Denmark. She married the Calvinist Frederick V, Elector Palatine, at age 16, and lived happily in Heidelberg, Germany, for six years before being crowned Queen of Bohemia at 23 and moving to Prague. Although she was deposed by Catholic forces after barely a year in power and experiencing only one winter in Prague – hence the soubriquet ‘Winter Queen’ – she never relinquished the title, establishing a court in exile in The Hague, Holland. From here, the outlawed couple fought frantic military and diplomatic campaigns to regain the Palatinate, their lands in Germany which had been overtaken by the Spanish. Although she lived out most of her life in exile, only returning to England in May 1661, her grandson would later ascend the British throne as George I. ...According to the household accounts of her childhood, Elizabeth spent 8 shillings and 3 pence on ‘strewing herbs, and cotton to make beds for her grace’s monkeys’, ‘mending parrot’s cages’, and ‘for shearing her grace’s rough dog.’ ....Guy Fawkes and his cronies weren’t just trying to assassinate King James and Henry, Prince of Wales. Their plan involved abducting Elizabeth, marrying her off, and turning her into a Catholic puppet queen. ...She wrote hundreds of letters in cipher code, employing at least seven keys during her lifetime, encrypting her letters herself with hieroglyphics and polyalphabetic substitution systems. Cipher codes were meant to protect her letters from prying eyes – she did everything in her power to stop her father, the Duke of Buckingham, and later her brother from reading the bellicose plans she was devising to undermine the Stuart Crown’s conciliatory tactics. (https://blog.oup.com/2015/11/ten-things-elizabeth-stuart-winter-queen/)
Uploaded on Nov 19, 2017 by Suzan Hamer

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