Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/245

 'betwixt Delft and Delft's haven,' a letter from the king was delivered to her which attempted to delay her journey, but she answered that she could not go back now, but would stay no longer than the king should think fit. She went 'with a resolution to suffer all things constantly,' but with no intention to 'do as poor neece.' At the same time she wrote to Clarendon desiring his help (see her letter to Prince Rupert, ap., pp. 188-9, misendorsed 1655). In England no ceremony greeted her arrival about the end of May, and instead of being lodged at court she took up her abode at the mansion hospitably offered her by the Earl of Craven, with its beautiful gardens, in Drury Lane. Charles seems not to have been lacking in politeness towards her. He granted her a pension, and promised that if possible her debts should be paid by parliament. She frequently appeared with the court in public, being on these occasions usually attended by Lord Craven, who acted as her master of the ceremonies (see, Diary, s.d. 17 Aug. 1661; cf. ib. 2 July 1661. Pepys had waited on the queen at the Hague, 17 May 1660, when he thought her 'a very debonaire, but a plain lady,' and witnessed her farewell to Charles II, 23 May, when before sailing for England he rechristened the Naseby by his own name). With the elector palatine she appears to have had some unpleasant correspondence concerning their respective rights of property in his father's furniture ({{sc|Bromley, pp. 222-4); but clearly Prince Rupert, who now enjoyed great popularity in England, continued to show an affectionate interest in his mother. She seems to have had no thought of again quitting England, for on 8 Feb. 1662 she removed to a residence of her own, Leicester House in Leicester Fields. Here she died within less than a week, 13 Feb. 1662, and four days afterwards Evelyn recorded that 'this night was buried in Westminster Abbey the Queen of Bohemia, after all her sorrows and afflictions being come to die in the arms of her nephew the king.' Her will named her eldest surviving son as her heir; but the residue of her jewellery (after memorial bequests to each of her children) was bequeathed to her favourite, Prince Rupert, while the papers and family portraits belonging to her she bequeathed to her faithful servant Lord Craven, by whom they were placed at Combo Abbey, which became his own property by purchase.

A closer study of the life of the queen of Bohemia fails to leave the impression that she was a woman of unusual refinement or of unusual depth of character, but in other respects accounts for much of the charm exercised over so many of her contemporaries. As is proved by the numerous letters remaining from her hand, she was a woman of considerable mental vigour and of inexhaustible vivacity, who seems never to have either felt or provoked weariness. She was tenacious both of her affections and of her hatreds; her husband and children found in her a devoted wife and mother, whose life was one long self-sacrifice to their interests. In return, though many princesses have been admired with equal ardour, none has ever been served with more unselfish fidelity than she; it was one thing to excite an enthusiasm such as that which on the morrow of the Bohemian catastrophe is said to have led thirty gentlemen of the Middle Temple to swear on their drawn swords to live or die in her service, and another to inspire a life-long devotion of deeds in champions so different from one another as Christian of Halberstadt and Lord Craven. Lastly, amidst all the untoward experiences of her career she remained consistently true to the protestant cause which was dear to the great majority of the English nation, and of which that nation long regarded her as a kind of martyr. And it was their attachment to principles thus steadfastly maintained by their ancestress which raised her descendants to her father's throne.

Among the numerous family portraits by Honthorst, the Princess Louisa Hollandina, and others bequeathed by the queen of Bohemia to Lord Craven and still preserved at Combe Abbey, those of herself, in many varieties of size and costume, but all displaying the same marked features, are the most striking and interesting. The picture, however, which is said to represent her and her husband as Venus and Adonis, shows no likeness to their portraits, and is probably misnamed. Other portraits of her are to be found in the National Portrait Gallery, at Herrenhausen and elsewhere; those in the first named are by Mireveldt and Honthorst. The best collection of engraved portraits of her is stated by Mrs. Green to be in the illustrated Granger in the print-room of the British Museum.

{{smaller block/s}}[It is very probable that the papers bequeathed by Elizabeth to Lord Craven and now the property of his descendant would throw additional light upon many passages of her life, although they are known to contain no evidence of any secret marriage between the queen and the earl. In the meantime the biography of Elizabeth by Mrs. Everett Green, forming part of her Lives of the Princesses of England (1849-61, reprinted 1854), is an admirable piece of work, based almost entirely upon documentary evidence, {{hws|in|including}} {{Smaller block/e}}