Elizabeth Stuart married Prince Elector Frederick, a member of the Protestant branch of the Wittlesbach dynasty.
Elizabeth Stuart, Princess of Scotland and England and Queen of Bohemia, was born on 19 August 1596. She was born in a royal palace in Scotland at a time when her father was King of Scots. That ruler – James VI. Stuart – also became King of England in 1603, succeeding his cousin Elizabeth I, who had no descendants. By the time her father came to the English throne, thus uniting the whole of Great Britain under her rule, Elizabeth Stuart was only six years old.
In 1613, she married the Elephant prince Frederick, a member of the Protestant branch of the Wittlesbach dynasty that ruled the German lands in the Rhineland (the Catholic branch of the Wittlesbach dynasty ruled at the same time in Bavaria). The bride and groom were only 16 years old at the time of the wedding. They moved into his castle in Heidelberg, a culturally and historically extremely important German city. Near the castle in that city they erected a magnificent park called Hortus Palatinus, which was reputed to be one of the wonders of the world.
In 1619, the Czech classes offered Frederick the position of king in Bohemia because they wanted to overthrow the Habsburg dynasty from the throne in that country. Frederick accepted and moved to Prague with his wife. There he and Elizabeth were crowned Czech king and queen in November 1619. Elizabeth thus became Queen of the Czech Republic at the age of 23, but the rule of her and her husband in that country did not last long. Namely, the Habsburgs, led by Emperor Ferdinand III. they went to war against the Czech Protestant nobles and defeated them in the bloody Battle of White Mountain in 1620. Elizabeth and Frederick had to flee the Czech lands, and because of the shortness of their reign there, they were given the title of Winter King and Winter Queen. Catholic forces also occupied their estates in the Rhineland, so the deposed king and queen had to seek refuge in the Netherlands as refugees. Elizabeth gave birth to a total of thirteen children during her lifetime, and in exile she still bore the title of Czech Queen. She died in 1662 in London, at the age of 65 years. Her grandson George I became King of Britain in 1714, precisely through her line of succession.
