Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1825 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PALATINE FAMILY. There are few women who have inspired in their contemporaries so strong an interest as Elizabeth, the daughter of James the First, better known by the appellation of "the unfortunate Queen of Bohemia." Born to experience the vicissitudes of fortune, she was destined also to be the primum mobile of the most extraordinary and long protracted war that had ever arisen in Modern Europe; but of which the results were no less salutary than the origin had been calamitous. If the German matrons had cause to mourn for those hostilities which the ambition or enthusiasm of the British princess vOL. i. u had kindled, their sons might rejoice in the religious freedom and toleration which were thus nobly purchased for themselves and their children. As the history of Elizabeth's life is indissolubly connected with that of her wedded consort, it appears necessary to prefix a brief account, of the family into which she was by marriage transplanted, and which has since given a new dynasty to the British throne. The Palatine princes gloried in a descent which, if certain courtly antiquaries might be credited, was derived from a royal stock that flourished in Bavaria three hundred years before the era of Charlemagne.* By modern historians those extraordinary * (See the extract from Stowe at the end of the volume.) The more accurate Shannat, in his Histoire Abr DEGREESgde de la Maison Palatine, traces the descent to a family that flourished under the Carlovingian princes. "It would argue extreme ignorance of history," says Spanheim, in his Memoires de l'Electrice Louise Juliane, " not to know that the Palatine House is one of the most antient and honourable in Europe...".
