Frederick V, Elector Palatine

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Frederick is shown wearing the rarely-seen Crown of Saint Wenceslas, and other Bohemian Regalia. He is shown wearing the ceremonial collar of the exclusive Order of the Garter and holding the Sovereign's Orb. On the table is the Cap representing his separate office as Elector of the Palatinate. Painted by Gerrit von Honthorst in 1634, two years after Frederick's death.

Frederick V (German: Friedrich V.) (August 16, 1596 – November 29, 1632) was Elector Palatine (1610–23), and, as Frederick I (Czech: Fridrich Falcký), King of Bohemia (1619–20, for his short reign here often nicknamed the Winter King, Czech Zimní král). He was the son and heir of Frederick IV and of Louise Juliana of Nassau, the daughter of William I of Orange and Charlotte de Bourbon-Monpensier.

Frederick V, Elector Palatine

Born at Jagdschloss (Hunting Lodge) Deinschwang near Amberg in the Upper Palatinate, Frederick V succeeded his father as Prince-Elector of the Rhenish Palatinate in the Holy Roman Empire in 1610. In 1619 the Protestant estates of Bohemia rebelled against the Roman Catholic Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II and offered the crown of Bohemia to Frederick, selecting him since he, an intellectual, a mystic, and a Calvinist, was an influential member of the Protestant Union, an organization founded by his father for the protection of Protestants in the Empire.

Frederick duly accepted the crown, an act that is frequently cited as the final impetus for the outbreak of the Thirty Years War, but his father-in-law James I of England opposed the takeover of Bohemia from the Hapsburgs. Additionally, Frederick's allies in the Protestant Union failed to support him militarily by signing the Treaty of Ulm (1620). His brief reign as King of Bohemia ended with his defeat at the Battle of White Mountain on November 8, 1620 — a year and four days after his coronation. This earned him the derisive nickname of 'the Winter King'. After this battle, the Imperial forces invaded Frederick's Palatinate lands and he had flee to Holland in 1622. An Imperial edict formally deprived him of the Palatinate in 1623. He lived the rest of his life in exile with his wife and family, mostly at the Hague, before passing away in Mainz in 1632.

His eldest surviving son Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine returned to power in 1648 with the end of the war. His daughter Princess Sophia was eventually named heiress presumptive to the British throne, and was the founder of the Hanoverian line of kings.

[edit] Ancestry

[edit] Family and children

He married Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of James I of England and of Anne of Denmark in the Chapel Royal, Whitehall on February 14, 1613 and had the following children:

1. Frederick Henry (1614–1629)—(drowned)
2. Charles Louis (1617–1680), became Elector Palatine in 1648
3. Elisabeth (1618–1680)
4. Rupert (1619–1682) of English Civil War fame.
5. Maurice (1620–1652) who also served in the English Civil War.
6. Louise Hollandine (1622–1709)
7. Louis (1624–1625)
8. Edward (1625–1663)
9. Henrietta Maria (1626–1651)
10. John Philip Frederick (1627–1650)
11. Charlotte (1628–1631)
12. Sophia (1630–1714), married Elector Ernest Augustus of Hanover; heiress of England by the Act of Settlement, 1701
13. Gustavus Adolphus (1632–1641)

[edit] References

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[edit] External links

A declaration of the cavses, for the which, wee Frederick, by the grace of God King Bohemia, Covnt Palatine of the Rhine, Elector of the Sacred Empire, & c. haue accepted of the crowne of Bohemia, and of the covntryes thereunto annexed. [1]

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Frederick V, Elector Palatine