Elizabeth & Frederick

400 years marriage of the Winter Queen and Winter King

Available from now onwards

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400 years ago, on Valentine’s Day 1613, Elizabeth Stuart, Princess Royal, married Prince Frederick V, Elector Palatine. They were both sixteen and had no idea of the impact their alliance would have on the course of European history. They were chosen to rule over Bohemia, but were forced to flee Prague after reigning for just one winter. Known henceforth as the Winter King and Queen they spent the rest of their lives in Holland. They were the first royal couple to reside in The Hague and enhanced the courtly culture that had begun to flourish under Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, and his wife Amalia van Solms.

The exhibition features the first showing of

• Princess Sophia’s Portraits. Daughter of the Winter King, mother of George I of England, Sophia commissioned a series of portraits of her family, Having spent 350 years in the private collection of the Princes of Hanover, they can be shown now in full – restored – splendour, for the first time.
• Portrait miniatures from the private collection of King Charles I – brother of the Winter Queen.
• Personal letters of the Winter Queen, deciphered and described.
• A Dutch Design impression of Queen Elizabeth’s boudoir.
• Contemporary lace accompanied by lace from seventeenth-century portraits.
• Historical objects, such as Prince Rupert’s drops, coins and medals.
• Paintings, prints and Dutch Design objects from private collections.