Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Hearts

Abstract This book presents a biography of Elizabeth Stuart, one of the most misrepresented and underestimated figures of the seventeenth century. Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James VI and I, was married to Frederick V, Elector Palatine in 1613. The couple were crowned King and Queen of Bohemia in 1619, only to be deposed in 1620 and exiled to the Dutch Republic in 1621. Elizabeth then found herself at the epicentre of the Thirty Years War and the Civil Wars, political and military struggles that defined seventeenth-century Europe. Following her husband’s death in 1632, Elizabeth fostered a cult of widowhood and conducted a long and fierce political campaign to regain her children’s birthright. On returning to England in 1661, Elizabeth Stuart found a country whose people still considered her their ‘Queen of Hearts’. This book reveals the impact Elizabeth Stuart had on the Stuart kingdoms and Europe, demonstrating that she was more than just the grandmother of George I.