Beschreibung:

ELIZABETH, Queen of Bohemia (1596-1662, daughter of James I). Series of nine autograph letters signed ('your most affectionate frend (sic) Elizabeth' to Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland, The Hague, 18 August n.y. [1636] - 16 November n.y. [1637?], 10½ pages, folio , address leaves, seals, contemporary endorsements (tear in upper right corner of one letter with loss of several words, slight fading of occasional words without loss of legibility). An interesting series of letters, including several written at length and anxiously about her sons (Charles Louis and Rupert), begging Holland to intercede on their behalf with her brother (Charles I); expressing her gratitude for Holland using his influence on behalf of her secretary, Sir John Deneley and 'making his peace with the king'; asking him to assist Sir Jacob Astley (Prince Rupert's former tutor) who is going on business (to buy land) to obtain money promised by the king, and others; reporting 'the ill newes of the death of the brave Landgrave of Hesse'; giving news of mutual acquaintances in various services (Hesse, Sweden and Weimar); generally commenting on political and military developments and wishing 'to heere the conclusion of the treatie with France', and in one letter thanking him warmly for a horse. 'What can I counsell my sonne [Charles Louis] to doe, if he shoulde stay still in England or heere and not be in action, all the worlde in a manner being so, for his cause you may easilie iudge what dishonneur it were to him, and to live and be a vollontier in an armie or under others service, it would be no smale dishonnour to my Brother ... the king did promiss 10000 pound a month to the king of Sweden, some such monthlie allowance to the Landgrave, and monie to my sonne to raise some troopes to goe ioine with him were not much to my Brothers cost ... I pray use all your best power to persuade the king to this. I ame so confident of you as I say no more'. 'I have at last the horse you sent me ... I have tried your nagg, I never ridd one that I have liked better and do not wonder that Charles [her son] was not hastie to send him, the rogue is lazie and likes easie going horses but he shall never have this againe'. Elizabeth of Bohemia, 'the Winter Queen', had by 1636 been widowed for four years. She fled Bohemia after only one winter there when the brief rule of her husband Frederick V, the protestant Elector Palatine, was ended by the invasion of the Emperor Ferdinand and the Catholic League in 1621. The royal exiles thereafter lived at Leiden or in The Hague. Prince Rupert and his elder brother, Prince Charles Louis, visited England in February 1636, staying some 15 months, while various ideas for their occupation were considered and discarded. (9)