The Story of the Queen Who Was Written Out of History by Centuries of Male Scholars

“The Triumph of the Winter Queen” Museum of Fine Arts (Boston)

“Whose stories are memorialized, and whose are erased?”

This was the question posed by the insightful “Monuments to Us” exhibit recently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.  The retrospective highlighted contemporary artwork culled from the museum’s permanent collection that focused on those groups and individuals who have been systematically ignored in the past:  minorities, immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community, women.  It examined the intersection of art and politics in the creation of historical narratives, and justly observed that while those in power often seek to exclude critical components of the past, visual art (the “Monuments” of the title) often survives as evidence of the truth.

If a visitor to the museum has any doubt of the relevance of exhibits like this one, he or she had only to climb the stairs to the “Art of Europe” gallery on the second floor.  There you find a monumental portrait entitled “The Triumph of the Winter Queen,” depicting the family of one of the most important women of the seventeenth century:  Elizabeth Stuart, known as the Winter Queen for only having ruled a single season. 

Like the subjects of the contemporary works in the exhibit below, the story of the Winter Queen has been deliberately written out of history by centuries of male scholars.   Yet the very existence of the painting testifies to the intensity of her commitment and her unwavering belief in her ultimate success.  And it is a success that can be measured in our own day, for it is through the brilliant politicking of Elizabeth Stuart and her youngest daughter, Sophia (pictured as a cherub flying over her mother’s head carrying a laurel wreath) that the current British royal family—the very same one that Meghan Markle will be marrying into in May—owes its position. 

The succession to the British Crown was by no means straightforward at the end of the seventeenth century.  There were numerous contenders for the throne, including the legitimate sovereign, James II, who had been betrayed and forced into exile by his own daughters.  In the end, though, it was Sophia, a skilled stateswoman in the tradition of her mother, who recognized her opportunity and leapfrogged over all the other candidates to secure the kingdom for her family through a private negotiation with William III of Orange. 

It is thus Elizabeth Stuart’s line that has continued in an unbroken legacy for the past three hundred years until today.  Netflix and PBS viewers of The Crown and Victoria, please take note:  without the Winter Queen and her daughter there would be no Elizabeth II or Victoria to binge-watch.

And what a story to have written out of the history books!  Elizabeth Stuart’s life was one thrilling, dangerous adventure after another.  Born in Scotland in 1596, her childhood was transformed from one of genteel poverty to immense wealth when her father, James I, inherited the throne of England in 1603.  She lived a fairy-tale existence of jewels and palaces until at sixteen she was married to Frederick V, elector of the Palatinate, a German count far below her rank, on the understanding that when the time came her father would help her husband gain a crown. 

That time came in 1618, when the predominantly Protestant kingdom of Bohemia rebelled against its Catholic sovereign, the Holy Roman Emperor, and instead invited Frederick and Elizabeth to Prague to assume the throne.  The emperor, a member of the powerful Habsburg family, chagrined at his rebellious subjects, raised an army of some 40,000 soldiers to take back Bohemia.  But when Frederick and Elizabeth called upon her father and England to provide the promised troops and support, James I reneged.  Left alone to face the imperial wrath, Frederick and Elizabeth nonetheless mobilized their own force, which was defeated at the famous Battle of White Mountain.   A seven months’ pregnant Elizabeth had to flee on horseback with her husband from the imperial soldiers swarming into Prague.  Thus began the tragedy of the Thirty Years’ War, a conflagration that killed millions of people and destroyed much of central Europe (and which, coincidentally, is having its 400th anniversary this year).

Frederick and Elizabeth were pursued across Germany by Imperial troops.  Fearing retaliation from the emperor, no one would take them in and Elizabeth was forced to give birth in an isolated, uninhabited fortress in the dead of winter.  They lost everything, including their castle and subjects in the Palatinate.  Finally, the Prince of Orange, a relative of Frederick’s, offered them shelter in Holland, and in 1621 they made their way to The Hague, just in time to participate in the explosion of art that characterized the glorious Golden Age of the Dutch.  

There, the deposed King and Queen of Bohemia settled and raised a large family.  They never gave up trying to reclaim their home in Germany, however, and when Frederick died in 1632 at the age of 36, Elizabeth, a single mother of thirteen children, carried on alone.  Through her efforts, her eldest son was restored to the Palatinate, and her youngest daughter claimed the crown of Great Britain.  The stunning family portrait, Triumph of the Winter Queen, is the tangible evidence of her drive and ultimate achievement.

And how amazing that this remarkable painting, which by rights belongs in the Royal Portrait gallery in London, or at The Hague, or in Prague, should have found its way to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where it serves as a timely and potent testament to the power of art to reclaim history.  Like its subject, it holds court in a foreign land and refuses to be ignored, or to surrender to an imposed political narrative.  Go see it.