At no time before or after have the English taken a more genuine interest in Bohemia and her affairs than during the events which followed the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War. Their concern over what was happening in Bohemia at that time was due, mainly, to two reasons. The first was that an Englishwoman, a daughter of the reigning family, had been elevated to the dignity of queen of that country. The second motive was a religious one. Bohemia lay in the direct zone of the conflict raging between Catholicism and Protestantism and Protestant England could not but be gravely concerned over the fate of Protestant Bohemia. Money was collected and troops were raised to sustain the cause of the Stuart Queen in Prague and incidentally of Protestantism and it has been said that if James had given his daughter the support which she and her husband expected from him, Bohemia’s position might have been wholly different today. But “King James,” a historian tells us, “never stood greatly affected, either to this war, or to the cause thereof and thereupon some regiments of inexperienced volunteers going over, instead of a well composed army, it was one reason, among many others, that not only Bohemia, but the Palatinate were also lost....”
Elizabeth graced the Bohemian throne only for a few months between 1619-1620, but she insisted upon bearing the title of Queen of Bohemia to the end of her days (1596-1662). Likewise her husband, Frederick, (1596-1632) “was resolved to foregoe not the title of the King of Bohemia that he hath allreadie gotten.”
All Britain rejoiced when Elizabeth the “Pearl of the Stuarts” was wedded to Frederick of the Palatinate. John Taylor, the Water-Poet, wrote a poem about the “beloved Marriage of the two peerelesse Paragons of Christendome.” Historians have dutifully chronicled the event of “the most blessed and happie marriage betweene the High and Mightie Prince Frederick the Fifth, Count Palatine of the Rhein, Duke of Bavier, etc. And the most Vertvous, Gracious and thrice excellent Princesse, Elizabeth, Sole Daughter to our dread Soueraigne, James by the grace of God, King of Great Britaine, France and Ireland, etc., celebrated at White-Hall the fourteenth of Februarie, 1612.”
In 1619, the Bohemian Protestant Estates deposed their King and offered the crown to Frederick, in the hope that the “King of England would, out of his three kingdoms, send such a continued stock of men to the Palatinate, that the crown of Bohemia should be established on the head of the Elector Palatinate and that by no course sooner than by virtue of the English arms.”
We read of the “Departure of the high and mightie Prince Frederick King Elect of Bohemia: With his royall and vertuous Ladie Elizabeth: And the thryse hopefull yong Prince Henrie, from Heydelberg towards Prague, to receive the Crowne of that Kingdome. Whereunto is annexed the Solempnitie or maner of the Coronation.”
On another page the reader will find a quaint account of the coronation ceremonies in Prague written by an eyewitness, presumably John Harrison.
On the 8th day of November, 1620, near Prague, on the slopes of the White Hill (Bílá Hora), was fought a fateful battle between the Imperialists (Austrians) and the Bohemian Army.
Referring to this catastrophal battle, which cost Bohemia her independence, Sir Charles Montagu, English Ambassador stationed at Vienna wrote to his kinsman, Sir Edward Montagu: “To begin with the worst first, there is news come now of more certain truth than heretofore from Bohemya, which is that the King’s army hath had a great overthrow, and Prage is lost, but the King and Queen are at a strong place called Presslaw in Selecya, and the King of Hungary and he have met and they both intend to raise a far greater force to set on them (the Imperialists) suddenly; God give them better success.”
The King of Bohemia, as subsequent events proved, did not meet with better success. In a day or two after that fatal 8th day of November, when Bohemia was going to her destruction, he left Prague precipitately with his queen, never to return to that capital....