The Winter King and Queen of Snow by Gerald Watts Contents Map of the Holy Roman Empire 1618 Part One The Marriage of Thames and Rhine, December 1612 - January 1614 Part Two A Habsburg Plans his Succession, March 1616 - September 1617 Part Three A Rebellion in Bohemia, March - June 1618 Part Four Failure of Negotiations, Preparations for War, June - October 1618 Part Five The Conflict Spreads, April - October 1619 Part Six The Bohemian Campaign, November 1619 - August 1620 Part Seven A Decisive Battle, September - November 1620 Part Eight The Aftermath and the Beginning of a New Phase, April - July 1621 Biographical Details of Major Figures Part One December 1612 - January 1614 The Marriage of Thames and Rhine Frederick, Elector of the Palatinate, marries Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of the King of England, and they move to Heidelberg. The Betrothal 27 December, 1612. Banqueting House, Whitehall, London. Frederick of the Palatinate is betrothed to Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of King James and Queen Anne. At the betrothal, giggling. The solemn vows translated so poorly into French and spoken by Sir Thomas Lake as if he were chewing a mouthful of beef. The young couple have to break their gaze and clench their teeth. Sixteen years old, they make their Christian vows standing on an infidel carpet. He in purple velvet laced with gold. She in black satin sewn with silver. And in her light brown hair a little plume of feathers, dove-white, debonair. What does it signify, this plume? Virginity? Or is it a gesture of defiance to her absent mother who thinks him handsome and polite but lacking in stature? 'He handles a fork,' she says, 'as deftly as any Frenchman. But a crown would make him taller.' Or is the plume about their passion for the hunt, a tracking sign between the two? Her feathers flicker through the crowd like the flash of a departing doe. In London, within a week, the price doubles. So many plumes. As if all the birds of peace had been plucked to satisfy the fashion. Frederick and Elizabeth Betrothed The Eve of the Wedding 13 February, 1613. The River Thames near Whitehall, London. Before the wedding, fireworks and a mock naval battle. The forces of St George against the Turks, enemies of Christ and Christendom. The Royal party watches from Whitehall. Large crowds cheer from banks and bridges as galleys are boarded, Turkish colours struck. The Thames glows with gunpowder and torches. The clever talk is of love. One courtier, bolder than he ought, says the betrothed are like fireworks and that tomorrow night they will surely light each other, being so well-matched. He speaks the truth. Masques, plays and games are their delight but their bodies are hard packed with youth and they can smell each other's sulphur. Meanwhile, on cold, uneven water, a war of slapping canvas, leaping ropes. Two boats come together sharply; a sailor loses both his hands. Sparks from too much saltpetre blinds another. Pretence and reality collide. There are casualties. The lovers applaud, hearing the cannon but not the cries. The Wedding 14 February 1613. Whitehall Palace Chapel, London. The marriage of Thames and Rhine. Her dress is a shoreline of silver, sleeves pebbled with diamonds and pearls. Her fair hair flows over her shoulders and the jewels fixed in her hair shine like sunlight playing on water . She is the day to his dark night of curls on this feast day of St. Valentine. Or so the poets write. The occasion inspires them. Their quills are dipped in honey. To them the bride and groom are birds, stars, creatures of myth, Fortune's favoured pair. They burnish their words, shine them like trumpets, ring them like bells. They offer and answer their own question: Does this mark a new age of chivalry? A different question from the rhymsters of the gutter. How could such a fleshy-nosed, droopy-eyed, lolly-tongued, shit-a-bed King have sired such a beautiful daughter? The Spanish ambassador moves forward like a dark-sailed skiff, his sword a rudder. He is thinking of his next despatch., For bloodlines are like rivers and marriages change maps. The Wedding Procession The Day After 15 February 2013. Whitehall Palace, London. Ladies in waiting breathless and flustered. The bed still warm. Stains still damp upon the mattress. The King arrives and everybody bows, as royalty requires smallness in others. He eyes the bed. His big tongue protruding from his mouth like a fat eel from a thin crevice. He takes his son-in-law aside, asks questions about locks and keys and whether doors were fully opened. Frederick blushes, mumbles a reply. No court guide indexed this indignity. Hands hard with rings pat his back, pat his backside. Fingers pinch his thighs. His flesh is dough; the King a common cook. That afternoon from a Banqueting House window, Elizabeth watches her husband exercise a fine, high-stepping horse. He rides well, holding an easy bridle even as he makes the filly sweat. He's showing off his rhythm in the saddle. The ladies garland her with compliments. Even her mother is impressed. She is a wife, complete as God intended. Two become one remain two. She's read the similes: mortar and pestle, bow and arrow, pair of compasses. She knows her womb will now grow hot, loosen, begin to wander unless his cold seed dowses its fire, moors it up for childbirth. Her sex aches. She blows him a kiss. King James I of England and VI of Scotland James I of England and his wife Queen Anne of Denmark Departure and Transit 28 April - 7 June 1613. Frederick and Elizabeth travel from London to Heidelberg, Lower Palatinate. A barge from Greenwich; from Margate a warship, The Prince Royal, a fleet of smaller ships sailing in its wake. Forty-nine servants, a chaplain, a monkey for court jester, dogs and parrots for play, her collections of gold-fringed neck crepes, of combs and dolls, a crossbow inlaid with mother-of-pearl. They land at Flushing, oars beating to the sound of trumpets, and, her choice, go on foot to greet the crowds. Gracious, glowing, she is an Anglican Princess with a German, French-speaking husband among Calvinist, republican Dutch. Maurice Count of Nassau presses her hand, How many English soldiers might she be worth? Three weeks later they are on the Rhine. A special ship. Fortune figures the stern, the bows crowned by a thick-maned lion. The river becomes his. Over thirty barges and four thousand men tell him so. But the plague has spilled out like floodwater fish. They are waved on, the smell of vinegar rising from jetties. They are infected by love. Each succumbs to the other. Whence can come the harm? The fever is not just in their coupling but in sleeping and waking up so warm. She calls him Jason, Apollo. She is Helen, Diana. They play act Ovid's odes. Their lutist sings of the sun and the moon, and how they command harvests and tides. In Heidelberg from 7th June 2013. Heidelberg, on the River Neckar, Lower Palatinate. Over the seven-arched, roof-covered bridge, under three ornamental arches, through speeches, cheers and gun salutes, up to the great red castle in a red-lined coach. The music of harness and hoof. The juice of presented fruit drips down her chin. He smiles, tells her there is meat and wine to come. A fourth arch in the castle courtyard appears as massive, wall-high masonry but is canvas stretched hard over wood and painted cleverly. It is gone in a week. Heidelberg settles back to the pace of the River Neckar, the Palatinate to the rhythms of work on grain and grape, sheep and timber. Frederick sits in the Council Chamber surrounded by men with paunches and grey beards. The same who served his father loyally (though they did not staunch the flow of wine into his throat). They discuss the security of the Rhine, and the seven bastion citadel being constructed at Mannheim. His tutor, Tilenus, had told him 'Charlemagne casts both shade and shadow.' It's true. Electorates, Landgraviates, Archbishoprics, Margaviates, Duchies, Free Cities and hundreds more estates sit within the bounds of that inheritance, enjoying rights and liberties but oath-bound to Imperial command. The Holy Roman Emperor prays in Latin. Some Empire Protestants have formed a Union, the Palatinate its cornerstone. The council's oak-frame table is covered with vellum and paper, penmanship as fine as any brushwork, the signatures of rulers and advisors written in full title, sealed with wax. Heidelberg in the Early 17th Century Pregnancy and Childbirth June 1613 - January 1614. Heidelberg, Lower Palatinate. She dances and hunts; kills a stag from the saddle; laughs when her monkey snatches someone's hat; lets her servants slack but keeps her dressmakers busy. Her retinue swells itself with drink. Von Schonberg, her factotum, balls his fists and tells his wife the Electress does not think beyond tomorrow. Her parrots make more sense. He plans a cull; draws up a list: the pie-handed, backstairs fumblers, the braggarts, the moist-mouthed, red-lipped tale-tellers. She demurs. 'Not her. She is so pretty. And he is such a wit. Will you leave me no English friends, Colonel?' Her smiles are like confetti. He puffs his cheeks, refuses to rescind. He writes her a set of instructions, costumes them up as advice. 'Your purse, Electress, is too easily opened by tears.' ' Dresses you wear but claim not to like must yet be paid for.' And so on.