:''This is an article about the daughter of
Charles I of England. For other people called Princess Elizabeth, see
Princess Elizabeth (disambiguation)
'Princess Elizabeth Stuart' (
1635 –
1650) was the second daughter of
Charles I of England and
Queen Henrietta Maria. Elizabeth was born on
28 December 1635 at
St. James's Palace, and was baptized there on
2 January the next year by
William Laud, the
Archbishop of Canterbury.
Failed betrothal
In
1636,
Maria de' Medici, Elizabeth's maternal grandmother, attempted to have the infant princess betrothed to the son of the
Prince of Orange, the future
William II of Orange. Despite the fact that
Charles I thought the marriage of a Princess of England to a
Prince of Orange beneath her rank, the king's loss of fortunes forced him to send Elizabeth's sister,
Princess Mary, the
Princess Royal, to marry him instead.
Civil war
On the outbreak of the
English Civil War in
1642, Princess Elizabeth, along with her brother
the Duke of Gloucester, was placed under the care of
Parliament.
Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, acted as their guardian. When Parliament removed Elizabeth's
household, she wrote a letter of appeal against the decision;
The Lords were sympathetic and condemned the Commons for presuming to intervene with the Royal Household, and the decision was overturned. However, the Commons demanded that the royal children be brought up strict Protestants; they were also forbidden to join the Court at
Oxford, and were held virtual prisoners at
St. James's Palace. The young Duke of Gloucester was even, at one point, considered as a possible replacement king, who would have been groomed as a strictly
constitutional monarch.
In
1643, Elizabeth broke her leg, and soon moved to
Chelsea with her brother, the Duke of Gloucester. She was tutored by the great female scholar
Bathsua Makin until
1644, by which time she could read and write in
Hebrew,
Greek,
Italian,
Latin and
French. Other prominent scholars dedicated works to her, and were amazed by her flair for religious reading.
After guardianship of the king's younger children was given to
the Earl of Northumberland in
1642, their brother,
Prince James, Duke of York, the future James II, came to visit, but was supposedly advised to escape by Elizabeth, who was concerned about him being around the king's enemies for any length of time. Finally, in
1647, Elizabeth, the Duke of York and the Duke of Gloucester were permitted to travel to
Maidenhead to meet the King, and spent two days with him. A relationship was established, and after the King was forcibly moved to
Hampton Court Palace, he visited his children under the care of the Northumberlands at
Syon House. This quickly came to an end when the king fled to
Carisbrooke Castle on the
Isle of Wight; Elizabeth supposedly helped the Duke of York escape once again, dressed as a woman.
When the king was captured for the final time and sentenced to death by
Oliver Cromwell and the other judges in
1649, Elizabeth wrote a long letter to parliament requesting permission to join her sister
Princess Mary in
Holland. However, this request was refused until after the execution had taken place. On the night before the execution, a highly emotional final meeting occurred between Elizabeth, the Duke of Gloucester and her father. After the execution, however, the royal children became unwanted charges. Joceline, Lord Lisle, the Earl of Northumberland's son, put a case to parliament for the removal of Elizabeth and her brother from the Northumberland's care. Parliament, however, refused to allow them to go to
Holland, and instead placed them in the care of Sir Edward Harrington; however, Harrington's son successfully pleaded that they be looked after elsewhere.
Commonwealth
The next residence for Elizabeth and her brother was
Penshurst Place, under the care of
Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester and his wife
Dorothy. Parliamentary instruction was that the children should not be indulged; however, the Countess of Leicester treated Elizabeth with great kindness, and was the recipient of a jewel from the Princess's own collection. The valuable jewel was later the centre of conflict between the Countess and Parliamentary commissioners appointed to oversee the late king's personal estate.
In 1650, Elizabeth's brother, the now ''
de facto''
Charles II journeyed to
Scotland to be crowned king of that country. Elizabeth was moved to the
Isle of Wight as a hostage, and placed in the care of Anthony Mildmay with a pension of £3000 a year. This move from Penshurst was probably the cause of her untimely death. The Princess complained that her health was not equal to moving, but it went ahead anyway; she caught a cold, which quickly developed into
pneumonia, and died on
8 September 1650. She was buried at St. Thomas's Church,
Newport, on the
Isle of Wight.
Following her death, her grave was largely unmarked until the 19th century, with the exception of her carved initials: E[lizabeth] S[tuart].
Queen Victoria, who made her favourite home at
Osborne House on the
Isle of Wight, commanded that a suitable monument be erected to her memory.
Ancestors
References
★ ''M. A. E. Green'', Lives of the Princesses of England (1849 – 1855)
★ ''Gordon Goodwin'',
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Princess Elizabeth Stuart.
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