Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia: The Philosopher Princess 1498568882, 9781498568883

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Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia

Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia The Philosopher Princess

Renée Jeffery

LEXINGTON  BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London, SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2018 The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jeffery, Renee, author. Title: Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia : the philosopher princess / Renee  Jeffery. Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, 2018. | Includes bibliographical   references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018032152 (print) | LCCN 2018039491 (ebook) | ISBN   9781498568890 (electronic) | ISBN 9781498568883 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Elizabeth, Queen, consort of Frederick I, King of Bohemia,   1596-1662. | Elizabeth, Queen, consort of Frederick I, King of Bohemia,   1596-1662—Philosophy. | Queens—Czech Republic—Bohemia—Biography. |   Princesses—Great Britain—Biography. | Bohemia (Czech   Republic)—History—1618-1848. | Palatinate (Germany)—History—Frederick   V, 1610-1623. Classification: LCC D244.8.E4 (ebook) | LCC D244.8.E4 J44 2018 (print) | DDC   943.71/0232092 [B]‌ —dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018032152 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

To the women I have the privilege of calling my colleagues and friends, and who, like Elisabeth, “also know stuff”!

Contents

Genealogy Charts   ix Acknowledgments   xxiii Introduction   1 1 The Angry Star   17 2 Princess Elisabeth: A Woman and a Scholar   41 3 Encountering Descartes   65 4 Diseases of the Soul   85 5 Virtue and the Passions   105 6 The Prince   125 7 Return of the Palatinate   143 8 The Abbess of Herford   165 Bibliography   189 Index   203 About the Author   209

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Genealogy Charts

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Figure 1:  Frederick V m. Elizabeth Stuart.

Figure 2:  Frederick V m. Elizabeth Stuart.

Figure 3:  The English Connection.

Figure 4:  The Dutch Connection.

Figure 5:  The Dutch Connection continued.

Figure 6:  The House of Wittelsbach.

Figure 7:  The House of Wittelsbach continued.

Figure 8:  The Division of the House of Wittelsbach.

Figure 9:  The Division of the House of Wittelsbach continued.

Figure 10:  Electors Palatine from Rupert to Frederick III.

Figure 11:  Electors Palatine from Rupert to Frederick III continued.

Figure 12:  Electors Palatine from Frederick III to Frederick V.

Figure 13:  The Marriage of Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine.

Acknowledgments

This biography of Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia has been many years in the making. It is a project I have pursued alongside the more conventional research on international relations that dominates my day job. Yet, as challenging as it has been to write a book in my so-called “spare time,” the subject material and importance of bringing the intellectual contributions of women like Elisabeth to light have sustained this project throughout the many years it has taken to complete. In writing this book, I have also been encouraged by a great number of colleagues and friends, both from the academic and non-academic worlds, who have listened with interest to my ideas about Elisabeth’s life and thought, read parts of the work, and assured me that this is a story worth telling. I greatly appreciate your interest in this work and, most importantly, in the bigger project of recovering the significant contributions that women like Elisabeth made to the histories of philosophy and political thought. My deepest thanks, however, go to Ian, Sadie, and Scarlett, for enduring my obsession with Elisabeth with such good humor and patience!

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Introduction

She bore a mind so truly royal, that amid all the reverses of fortune it remained unconquered. By her constancy and greatness of soul, by her singular prudence in the conduct of life, by her uncommon attainments in knowledge, learning far above her sex, by the respect of kings and the friendship of the illustrious, by the correspondence and admiring tributes of the learned, by the united regard and applause of the whole Christian world, but chiefly by her own admirable virtue, she attached undying honour to her name. —Inscription on the tomb of Princess Elisabeth of the Palatinate, Herford Abbey

On 11 February 1680, the Abbess of Herford, Princess Elisabeth of the Palatinate, also known as Princess Elisabeth Simmern van Pallandt of Bohemia, finally succumbed to the last of the long and painful illnesses that plagued her grief-stricken life. It was an agonizing death. Though her doctors were baffled by her persistent ill health, her demise was most likely caused by a form of internal cancer, the pathologies of which were poorly understood at the time. With her sister Sophie often by her bedside, Elisabeth faced her death in much the same way as she had lived her life: with a serious demeanor, unswerving faith, humility of spirit, and devotion to her family. To another of her sisters, Louise Hollandine, the Abbess of Maubuisson, she wrote farewell: “I am still alive, my dear sister, but it is to prepare for death.”1 Having bid her family “Adieu,” she finalized her will, calmly ordered her own coffin, and appointed Princess Elisabeth Albertine of Anhalt-Desseau her successor as the head of Herford Abbey.2 When her candle finally “guttered out” she was buried, as per her wishes, “quietly by night, without ceremony or funeral oration” in the choir stands of the Abbey church.3 It was 1

2 Introduction

a decidedly inauspicious ending to a life remarkable not only for its contribution to the development of western philosophy but its triumph over unrelenting adversity. Born on the day after Christmas in 1618, Princess Elisabeth was the third of thirteen children and eldest daughter welcomed into a family marked by wealth, power, and influence. Hers was a family connected, by birth and by marriage, to almost all the major Protestant powers of Western Europe. Elisabeth’s mother was the famed beauty, Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of King James VI of Scotland and I of England, and Anne, the second daughter of King Frederick II of Denmark. Her father, Frederick V, was the son of the Palatine Elector, Frederick IV, and Louise Juliana of Orange-Nassau, the daughter of William the Silent and Charlotte de Bourbon-Monpensier.4 Boasting an impeccable pedigree, an expansive fortune, and an extraordinary mind, Elisabeth’s life ought to have been one of comfort, splendor, and privilege. It was not.5 Rather, hers was an existence marked by poverty, illness, sadness, and grief. By the time of her birth, Elisabeth’s father, like his father before him, had assumed the role of Palatine Elector, one of the seven prince-electors responsible for appointing the Holy Roman Emperor. This honor, bestowed by the Golden Bull of 1356, made the Palatinate one of the most significant territories in all of Europe and Elisabeth’s family among the most powerful. While this elevated status brought with it influence and opportunity, it also furnished the Palatine Elector with temptations that proved too alluring to resist. Before Elisabeth had reached her first birthday, Frederick V had received an invitation too appealing to refuse, election as the new Protestant King of Bohemia. In 1619 he made the fateful decision to accept the position and, in doing so, set in train a course of events that unalterably reversed the family’s fortunes. While Frederick’s coronation afforded his wife and children the titles they kept throughout their lives, the family’s royal status came at a terrible price. By the time she was just two years old, Elisabeth’s father had been ousted as the King of Bohemia, implicated in the events that ignited one of the most catastrophic conflicts in European history, the Thirty Years’ War, and driven into exile in The Hague. By 1621, Frederick had been stripped of the Palatinate and its hereditary title, leaving the family dependent on the largess of their Dutch and English relatives. From here, things only seemed to get worse for the van Pallandts and their extended family: in 1629, Elisabeth’s eldest brother, Frederick Henry, was killed in a boating accident; in 1632 Frederick V died, leaving his family bereaved and poverty stricken; and in 1649, the English Civil War saw Elisabeth’s uncle, Charles I, meet an untimely end on the executioner’s block. And, as if this was not enough, Elisabeth’s brothers seemed intent on causing the family even more trouble.

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Between them they managed to be captured in battle and incarcerated for ransom, seduced and converted to Catholicism by a disgraced and unstable temptress, exiled for murder, and lost at sea. Always sensitive to her family’s fortunes, it is hardly surprising that Princess Elisabeth suffered depression, anxiety, and ill health throughout her life. Though hers was a life of sadness, grief, and distress, Elisabeth was far more than a tragic seventeenth century European princess. If anything, she styled herself as a sort of anti-princess. She abjured the trappings of aristocracy, found the obligations and social rituals of court life not just tedious but entirely pointless, and steadfastly refused to marry. Instead, she devoted herself to a life of scholarship, corresponded with some of the greatest philosophical minds of the time, and made her own contribution to the development of western philosophy. Among the most famous scholars to correspond with Elisabeth was the French philosopher and mathematician often attributed with formulating the fundamental foundations of modern philosophy, René Descartes (1596– 1650).6 Theirs was no unequal relationship between a philosophical master and a mere “learned maiden” but the coming together of two great minds. Descartes’ dedication to Elisabeth in his Principles of Philosophy should leave us in no doubt of the esteem in which he held her. “I’m right to use the word ‘incomparable,’ ” he wrote of her accomplishment, “yours is the only intellect I have encountered that finds everything equally clear … I see that everything required for perfect and sublime wisdom, both in intellect and in will, shines forth in your character.”7 Even the French Oratorian priest and philosopher Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715), who famously asserted that “everything abstract is incomprehensible” to women, praised both her virtue and her “genius.”8 By today’s standards, Malebranche’s unflattering assessment of women’s intellectual capabilities seems antiquated, inaccurate, and offensive. At the time it was in no way out of step with prevailing attitudes about the female mind. In the seventeenth century, Elisabeth and her female intellectual associates faced an uphill battle against the view that educating women was at best a pointless waste of time and, at worst, an inducement to unChristian behavior. Although these antediluvian ideas receded in the centuries that followed, the ideas of Elisabeth and her female contemporaries have remained routinely ignored, overlooked, and marginalized in most contemporary thought.9 In particular, the incredibly patronizing idea that Elisabeth was little more than a “learned maiden” who provided intelligent but unoriginal critiques of Descartes’ work has proven remarkably persistent.10 Elisabeth was one of Descartes’ most important supporters, advocates, and confidants. She critiqued the relationship between the mind and the body proposed by his new and increasingly popular dualist philosophy, encouraged

4 Introduction

Descartes to write his famous work on the passions, and, toward the end of her life, helped spread his theories—and her criticisms of them—in her native Germany. But to infer from these facts the notion that Elisabeth was merely Descartes’ promoter and muse is to do her own intellectual contribution a great disservice. In Elisabeth’s writings we find, not just a clever critique of Cartesian dualism but a dedicated attempt to better understand the relationship between the bodily experience of the emotions and the intellectual capacities of the mind.11 In particular, Elisabeth’s notion of the embodied mind constituted a significant adaptation of Cartesian dualism that contributed to Descartes’ more famous concept of the emotions and found partial form in Spinoza’s theory of the emotions.12 Elisabeth also countered the prevailing view that the emotions ought to be overcome or eradicated in the pursuit of virtue. She argued that the embodied, felt emotions could play a beneficial role in making moral judgments and living a virtuous life and, in doing so, began to develop an idea later popularized by the Scottish moral sentiment theorists including David Hume. Finally, Elisabeth also challenged common understandings of melancholy and sadness, began to reconceive the relationship between reason and the emotions that dominated seventeenth century thought, and encouraged Descartes to read Machiavelli’s The Prince. For Elisabeth, grappling with questions of how the mind and the body interact with one another—the so-called “mind-body problem”—and the manifestations of these interactions in the emotions was an endeavor driven as much by an intellectual interest in abstract philosophy as by personal experience. In many ways, Elisabeth represents the embodiment of the mind-body problem: hers was a life marked as much by her capacity for sophisticated reasoning as by emotional and physical turmoil. When she sought to understand how the physical manifestations of the emotions could alter the rational capacity of the mind she did so by combining the focused study of metaphysics with sustained introspection. That is, Elisabeth was, in body and in mind, her own experiment, a live subject on which to test new philosophical hypotheses as they emerged and reconsider the relationship between the body and the mind presupposed by dominant seventeenth century accounts of the passions. Yet, it is in part on these very grounds that Elisabeth continues to be characterized as a mere “learned maiden” in some contemporary works. In Daniel Garber’s assessment, Elisabeth “cannot be regarded as an important or original thinker,” or even as a philosopher in her own right. Rather, echoing the title, though not the argument of The Learned Maid, or whether a maid may be a scholar, written by Elisabeth’s friend and intellectual associate, Anna Maria van Schurman, Garber casts Elisabeth only as the former.13 According to his account, a learned maiden can be distinguished

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from a genuine philosopher by their greater interest “in the human reality of moral life, and the cultivation of the self, as opposed to the construction of systems.”14 Yet, as Lilli Alanen convincingly argues, “[i]‌f it is true of a learned maiden that she is not interested in abstraction and system,” then Elisabeth cannot be characterized as one, for we have ample evidence of her deep and abiding interest in abstract, systematic philosophy.15 What is more, the distinction between “genuine philosophers” and mere maids itself does not hold: as Alanen notes, plenty of “important and original philosophical thinkers” have been more interested in the realities of everyday morality than the construction of systematic philosophies.16 Indeed, Garber’s characterization of Elisabeth seems derived from an unnecessary narrow and rigid understanding of what philosophy entails (and entailed in the seventeenth century) and what motivates or inspires philosophical thought. That is, it denies one of the very points that Elisabeth was trying to make, about the contribution that the experienced relationship between the mind and the body might make to the development of a systematic account of the mind-body problem. Just as erroneous as the claim that Elisabeth was little more than a learned maiden is a more amusing trope, which emerged in the nineteenth century and sought to cast Elisabeth as Descartes’ great love interest. In 1909, Elizabeth Godfrey’s appallingly titled, A Sister of Prince Rupert, hinted at a frisson between Elisabeth and the middle-aged philosopher. “Had propriety permitted it,” she surmised, “no doubt Descartes would have preferred to receive the visits of his Princess alone.” Godfrey continued to lament the absence of any record of their private conversations, before concluding that we should allow our imaginations a “little play” here.17 Others have suggested that Elisabeth had a schoolgirl crush on Descartes and caused him considerable consternation by making inappropriate, uninvited visitations to his house, while in the 1920s Gustav Cohen concocted an entire story of forbidden love around their encounters.18 Descartes “was there, at Endegeest,” he wrote, “he had only to traverse the woods of Wassenaer and The Hague in order to arrive at her feet, but precisely because he was too close to her, because she had visited him in a too-small house, he was afraid, and the fact that it was he who first ran away from her is precisely the proof of his love.”19 Even in more recent scholarship, writers have continued to fantasize about a romantic relationship between Elisabeth and Descartes. In a chapter titled, “The Scent of a Rose” Andrea Nye paints Elisabeth as a shy dark-haired girl “burning with desire for knowledge and so much more.”20 She imagines Descartes, “a sober, rational man,” catching a “fleeting, tantalizing scent of romance.” “Might he have savored it,” she wonders, “as he would the odor of a particularly fragrant old rose?”21 Yet, however entertaining these romantic fantasies are, they are precisely that, fantasies. There is, as Carol Pal agrees,

6 Introduction

“absolutely no evidence of a forbidden romance between Elisabeth and Descartes.”22 Of course, alongside the fact that she was a woman, the other main reason why Elisabeth’s works have been overlooked in subsequent thought is that she never wrote a systematic philosophical treatise. Her ideas are found, instead, in her correspondence. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, women were still prohibited from attending university or practicing the learned professions. Unsurprisingly then, very few wrote philosophical treatises or published scholarly books.23 Like Elisabeth, female intellectuals were far more likely to engage in written correspondence with other likeminded scholars, both men and women. Elisabeth considered these letters, especially those she wrote to Descartes, to be private. They were not, she explicitly stated, for public consumption. This position is itself something of a curiosity, as most correspondence between scholars and intellectuals was seen at the time as being at least semi-public. Though lost for many years after her death, Elisabeth’s letters were discovered by an antiquarian bookseller, Frederick Muller, at Rosendael Castle near Arnhem in the Netherlands in the 1870s. Without them Elisabeth would be little more than a footnote in the history of western philosophy. The fact that all we have of Elisabeth’s thoughts are her letters is both a blessing and a curse. In one sense, it limits the extent to which we can understand her ideas. We do not have, nor can we really claim to piece together, the sort of systematic account of her philosophy we would have been able to had she written a treatise. In part this is because there are “gaps” in the correspondence and “abrupt” subject changes that cannot be accounted for: perhaps some letters are missing, or perhaps Elisabeth and Descartes simply dropped particular subjects of debate.24 At the same time, however, the fact that Elisabeth’s philosophical ideas were expressed in her private correspondence provides us with insights that would not have been afforded by a more formal work intended as a public statement. In particular, Elisabeth’s letters are infused with personal anecdotes and musings on her everyday life, including the trials and tribulations of her family. Through them we get a sense, not only of her thoughts, but her experiences and responses to them. We also get a sense of how her experiences influenced her thoughts and directed her scholarly interests, and an insight into the life of the female scholar at a time when women were struggling to be heard. But before we get too carried away and herald Elisabeth a great, unsung feminist heroine, I want to sound a note of caution. In recent scholarship several feminist scholars have sought to recast Elisabeth’s contribution to the history of modern thought in terms of her supposed existential—read emotional and bodily—crisis. It is true that Elisabeth was experiencing an existential crisis during the period she wrote her definitive letters to Descartes. But I do

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not want to go so far as to characterize her as a proto-feminist or to impose contemporary feminist notions of epistemology on her ideas. I do not want to go so far as to suggest that Elisabeth’s critique of Cartesian dualism was a reaction to the masculinization of reason or an effort to promote a feminine epistemology.25 To cast Elisabeth as the female protagonist in a rationalist/ masculine versus bodily/feminine dichotomy would be to overlook both the role that Descartes’ understanding of reason played in the intellectual emancipation of seventeenth century women—after all, it was Descartes who argued that all human beings, including women, possess reason—and Elisabeth’s own commitment to abstract reasoning.26 It would also strip her of all cognitive agency and render her a passive recipient of her bodily experiences. That, as we will see, was a long way from the truth. To characterize Elisabeth as a proto-feminist critic of Cartesian dualism would also be to oversimplify the more complicated and contradictory contributions that Cartesian thought had to the advancement of women, both in the seventeenth century and those that followed. As Jacqueline Broad notes, that relationship is marked by a significant paradox.27 On one hand, Descartes’ “egalitarian conception of reason,” together with what later scholars have termed his notion of the “genderless mind,” provided the “catalyst for a female intellectual awakening in the seventeenth century.”28 As Ruth Perry argues, “Cartesian assumptions and Cartesian method, ironic as it may seem, liberated women intellectually and thus physically, by making it possible for numbers of them to participate in serious mainstream philosophical discourse.”29 In particular, she notes that the separation of the body and the mind within Descartes’ dualism meant that physiological differences were now irrelevant to questions of reason. Women’s bodies, she argues, “could no longer be held against them if all minds were created equal and rationality was the cardinal virtue.”30 Yet, on the other hand, this very separation has lent itself to gendered interpretations that, in their most extreme forms, associate the mind with masculinity and the body femininity.31 As Broad thus argues, while “[i]‌t is undeniable that some aspects of Cartesian thought were inspirational for seventeenth century women,” and served to open up a space for female philosophers, it is also the case that Cartesian thought “threatens to render” their ideas “irrelevant.”32 I also do not want to suggest that Elisabeth’s correspondence with Descartes over a period of just six years captures all that was interesting or significant about her life. Prior to her engagement with Descartes, Elisabeth not only corresponded with other significant philosophical thinkers but was instrumental in the establishment of a network of female scholars centered around her friend, Anna Maria van Schurman. What is more, Elisabeth survived Descartes by more than thirty years, during which time she became involved in the politics of the Palatinate, assisted in the re-establishment of

8 Introduction

the University of Heidelberg, revived her earlier interest in mathematics, and began corresponding with and sheltering persecuted members of the Labadist and Quaker sects. To confine an account of her life to the short period during which she wrote to Descartes would be to once again put her in the shadow of a more famous man. This book details the entire course of Elisabeth’s life. Chapter 1 introduces the wider historical, intellectual, political, and ancestral contexts in which Elisabeth wrote. The chapter begins in 1618, the year the great comet, the “Angry Star,” lit the skies of Europe sparking superstitions and scientific advances in equal measure, the year in which Europe was plunged into thirty years of brutal war, and, of course, the year of Elisabeth’s birth. It details the world of politico-religious strife into which Elisabeth was born, the roles played by her family in the Reformation and the politics of the time, and the family feud that saw the House of Wittelsbach, from which they hailed, divided against itself with brutal and bloody consequences. In ­chapter  2 we meet the young Elisabeth, a studious child who made the most of the education afforded her while exiled in The Hague. It provides an account of court life, her sometimes fractious relationship with her mother, Elizabeth Stuart, and, most importantly, the circle of female scholars that emerged around Elisabeth and her friend, Anna Maria van Schurman. In this chapter we begin to see the formation of Elisabeth’s character, her development as a serious, studious girl who preferred her books to the social obligations of court life, and her decision to reject a marriage proposal from King Ladislas of Poland in order to devote her life to scholarship. In ­chapter  3, we see the expansion of Elisabeth’s intellectual circle to include the esteemed philosopher, René Descartes. This chapter introduces Elisabeth and Descartes’ correspondence, in particular the letters in which Elisabeth’s early contributions to the philosophy of the mind-body problem and to the development of algebraic geometry are found. In ­chapter  4 the first of Elisabeth’s many illnesses appears. This chapter details Elisabeth’s response to her chronic ill health, as well as Descartes’ interpretation of its cause. According to Descartes, Elisabeth’s physical ailments were caused by sadness, brought on by a series of further misadventures, scandals, and tragedies suffered by her family. In particular, Descartes prescribed a sort of “mind over matter” approach to Elisabeth’s illness and suggested that if she could better control her emotions, she would be cured of her bodily ailments. Elisabeth disagreed and began, instead, to develop a more unified understanding of the mind and body than Descartes had been willing to entertain. By drawing on her experience of the ways in which bodily illnesses interfered with her ability to think that Elisabeth was able to begin conceiving of the mind, not as separate from the body, but as embodied.

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Continuing on their quest to better understand the relationship between suffering and the achievement of a good life, in ­chapter  5 Elisabeth and Descartes are inspired by Seneca’s De vita beata. Its core message is that reason is the true source of happiness: even if we suffer bodily pain, we can achieve happiness and virtue by the correct use of reason. Descartes and Elisabeth both rejected Seneca’s argument, Descartes on the grounds that Seneca did not make the most effective argument in favor of reason possible, and Elisabeth because she disagreed with its content. As Elisabeth pointed out, some illnesses destroy our ability to reason, temporarily or permanently. In those cases, how are we supposed to reason our way to happiness or virtue? In doing so, Elisabeth began to challenge core understandings of the relationship between reason and the emotions that dominated seventeenth century thought. Contrary to Descartes, who associated the passions with the body and argued that they ought to be managed by the mind, Elisabeth conceived the emotions in hybrid terms, as being both cognitive and bodily, and saw a positive role for them in motivating good, virtuous actions. As she continued to debate these issues with Descartes, Elisabeth was moved to convince Descartes to write a treatise on the subject. The result was Descartes’ The Passions of the Soul, perhaps the most important early modern work on the nature of the emotions and their connection to the mind, a book that owes many of its central ideas to Elisabeth. Chapter 6 opens with Elisabeth staying with her aunt, the Electress Dowager of Brandenburg. She and her brother, Philip, had been forced to flee The Hague after Philip murdered a man in the street, defending the honor of his mother and one of his sisters. The first part of this chapter details another scandal in the family, the elicit relationship between the Elector of Brandenburg and Elisabeth’s younger sister, Louise Hollandine, and its eventual unhappy resolution. The chapter then turns to Elisabeth and Descartes’ discussion of Machiavelli’s The Prince. This was a reading that Elisabeth had suggested, not purely for the sake of intellectual engagement but because questions of power and politics were at the forefront of her mind. At the time negotiations were under way for the Peace of Westphalia, a peace agreement that would eventually see the Palatinate partially restored to her brother, Charles I Louis. For Elisabeth, studying The Prince provided the means of thinking through how her brother might establish his authority over a land he had barely even visited. At the beginning of ­chapter  7, Elisabeth has sunk into a deep depression. Her uncle, Charles I has been executed, the terms of the Peace of Westphalia have proven unfavorable to her family, the Palatinate has been laid waste, and Heidelberg Castle so badly damaged it is uninhabitable. Even more distressing for Elisabeth is the news that Descartes, her great confidant, died

10 Introduction

while visiting the court of Queen Christina of Sweden. Following Descartes’ death, Elisabeth’s brother Philip was killed in battle and her sister Henriette Marie died, just three months after marrying a Transylvanian prince. Amid this unending grief, Elisabeth returned to Heidelberg and set about assisting her brother, the Palatine Elector, in re-establishing the city’s intellectual life including, most importantly, its university. There she found herself in an intellectual community once more and came into contact with a number of prominent mathematicians who were intrigued by her attempt to solve Apollonius’ problem. But just as she was becoming settled in her new intellectual life, another disaster struck. Elisabeth’s brother, Charles I Louis attempted to enter a bigamist marriage, joined to both his wife and his mistress. Elisabeth took sides with Charles’ wife and as the scandal became increasingly acrimonious, her position in Heidelberg became untenable. At the beginning of ­chapter  8, Elisabeth is effectively homeless. Unwelcome at Heidelberg Castle, she went to live with her aunt once more but, after the dowager passed away, she was forced to consider where she would see out her days. In the end she found a place for herself at Herford Abbey, a home for upper class Protestant spinsters, and in time became its Abbess. She did not, however, retire from scholarship to lead a life of leisure at Herford. If anything, the independence from her family Herford afforded allowed her the time and space to renew her devotion to intellectual pursuits. During this period Elisabeth corresponded once again with some of the most important mathematicians of the age, became acquainted with several prominent Kabbalists, and forged a new relationship with Anne Conway, another of the century’s most significant female philosophers. What is more, Elisabeth used her position at Herford to shelter members of a persecuted Dutch religious sect, the Labadists, whose membership included her old friend, Anna Maria van Schurman. In the final years of her life, Elisabeth continued to host intellectually interesting and often persecuted individuals at Herford. Among the most famous of her visitors was the Quaker, William Penn, who went on to found the settlement of Pennsylvania. Like the Kabbalists and Labadists who had come before them, the Quakers also attempted to convert Elisabeth. Although sympathetic to their views, she remained steadfast in her Calvinist faith. Right up until the end of her life, Elisabeth also continued to reach out to the most prominent scholars of the day, engaging both Malebranche and Leibniz in discussions about their proposed alterations to Cartesianism. Such was the esteem with which he held her that Leibniz visited Elisabeth in her deathbed shortly before the end of her life in February 1680. In piecing together the details of Elisabeth’s life and thought, I have relied on a variety of sources. Much of what we know about Elisabeth’s life and thought is derived from her correspondence with Descartes. These

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letters were published in translation by Lisa Shapiro as The Correspondence between Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes (Chicago University Press) in 2007 and form the basis of much of the discussion in ­chapters  3 to 6. I have also drawn on correspondence between members of Elisabeth’s family and between members of the intellectual networks and circles with which she was engaged. These letters also provide key insights into Elisabeth’s thought, the wider reception of her ideas, and significant events in her life. They include English translations of correspondence between Descartes and various acquaintances published in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: Volume 3: The Correspondence, letters written in English and exchanged between Elizabeth Stuart and her associates, and correspondence published in French between Elisabeth’s sister Sophie and brother Charles Louis, as well as other letters, such as those exchanged between Princess Elisabeth and William Penn.33 Some details of Elisabeth’s life have also been drawn from the diary of her sister, published in English translation in 1888 as Memoirs of Sophia, Electress of Hanover, 1630–1680.34 Though written from one person’s perspective, Sophie’s diaries provide us with insights into Elisabeth’s childhood, descriptions of her character, and details of the most significant events in the life of their family. As the editor of the collection wrote in her introduction, although Sophie’s judgment was at times “biassed [sic] by private pique or party politics, she has never yet been convicted of willful misstatement of facts” and, as such, her accounts of what “she herself could see and hear” can be “undoubtedly relied on.”35 With this in mind, while drawing on some of her descriptions of individuals and events, I have exercised caution in relying too heavily on some of the more judgmental entries in Sophie’s memoirs. Perhaps the most interesting, and problematic, sources of information about Elisabeth’s life and thought have come in the form of existing biographies of Elisabeth and her mother. Two historical biographies of Elisabeth are available, both of which are more than one hundred years old. The first is Rose Blaze de Bury’s Memoirs of the Princess Palatine, published in 1853, while the second is Elizabeth Godfrey’s A Sister of Prince Rupert: Elizabeth Princess Palatine and Abbess of Herford, which appeared in 1909.36 In addition, Elizabeth Benger’s Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, Daughter of King James the First (1825) and Marie Hay’s The Winter Queen being the Unhappy History of Elizabeth Stuart, Electress Palatine, Queen of Bohemia: A Romance, (1910) both include lengthy discussions of Princess Elisabeth.37 All of these works, as the title of Hay’s book indicates, were written in the romantic style that was popular in nineteenth and early twentieth century writing and, as we have already seen, reported willful speculation about Elisabeth’s life as fact. On that ground alone it would seem reasonable to deem these works unreliable and dismiss them in their entirety. Yet, to do

12 Introduction

so would be to deny the value of the scholarship on which these biographies were based and to condemn them purely on the basis of their historical style. As Godfrey explains, her work was based on her study of a version of the correspondence between Elisabeth and Descartes that was, at the time, in the private possession of Madame La Comtesse Foucher de Cariel, as well as a collection of letters sent between members of the van Pallandt family that were made available to her by the Royal University Library at Heidelberg.38 Similarly, Hay notes that “though I have cast my history in the form of a romance, I here crave my readers’ kindness to believe that I … have the authority of ancient chronicles … [and] of the records of studious searches through many archives.”39 Among her archival sources she lists the papers of Lord Craven, Elizabeth Stuart’s friend and companion, as well as letters and documents from the Royal Library at Munich, the Bohemian Museum in Prague, and the University Library in Heidelberg. While these references to archival research do not, in and of themselves, provide evidence of the voracity of the research undertaken in producing these biographies, it is possible to verify the accuracy of some of their contents. By comparing evidence cited in these biographies, such as the correspondence between Elisabeth and Descartes, with newer and more reliable versions of the same evidence, we find that, aside from some minor differences in translation, the presentation of such evidence is largely accurate. On this basis we have little reason to assume that the same does not follow for those pieces of evidence for which we cannot access a verified version. In short, while some of the more fanciful and speculative aspects of these works ought to be understood in the context of the authors’ attempts to cast historical accounts as romantic narratives and treated with extreme caution, where primary evidence has been used to substantiate specific claims, these works ought to be seen as treasure-troves, detailing aspects of Elisabeth’s life that may not have been preserved had it not been for the demands of the romantic style. NOTES 1. Elisabeth to Sophie, in Elizabeth Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert: Elizabeth Princess Palatine and Abbess of Herford, (London & New York: J. Lane, 1909), 347. 2. Herford Abbey was a religious community for women established in 832 C.E. Originally Catholic, it converted to Lutheranism before becoming Calvinist. 3. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 351. 4. To avoid confusion, Princess Elisabeth’s name is spelled using the standard German spelling, while her mother is referred to as “Elizabeth.” 5. As Genevieve Lloyd notes, the story of Elisabeth’s family is “a contemporary fable of extreme reversals of Fate and Fortune.” Genevieve Lloyd, “Busy

Introduction

13

Lives: Descartes and Elisabeth on Time Management and the Philosophical Life,” Australian Feminist Studies, Vol. 21, No. 51, (2006), 203. 6. Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1946; Abingdon: Routledge, 1996), 517. 7. Descartes to Elisabeth, July 1644 in Lisa Shapiro (ed. and trans.), The Correspondence of Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). 8. In Jacqueline Broad, Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 10; Elizabeth Benger, Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, Daughter of King James the First, Volume 2, 365; Marie Pauline Rose Stewart Blaze de Bury, Memoirs of the Princess Palatine of Bohemia; including her correspondence with the great men of her day, and memoirs of the Court of Holland under the Princes of Orange, (London: Richard Bentley, 1853), vi & 112–113. 9. A small but concerted number of contemporary scholars have sought to rectify this situation. See, for example, Jacqueline Broad’s account of the contributions of Mary Astell, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, and Damaris Masham in Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century. See also “Project Vox,” being run out of Duke University which “seeks to recover the lost voices of women who have been ignored in standard narratives of the history of modern philosophy” and aims to “change those narratives, thereby changing what students around the world learn about philosophy’s history.” See projectvox.library.duke.edu/pg 10. Daniel Garber, “Elisabeth of Bohemia: Learned Maiden,” Paper presented at the Women and History of Philosophy Conference, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1998, in Deborah Tollefsen, “Princess Elisabeth and the Problem of MindBody Interaction,” Hypatia 14(1999): 60. 11. My argument here accords in part with those of Broad, Deborah Tollefsen, and Lisa Shapiro. Tollefsen, “Princess Elisabeth and the Problem of Mind-Body Interaction,” 59–77; Lisa Shapiro, “Princess Elizabeth and Descartes: The union of soul and body and the practice of philosophy,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 7(1999): 503–520. 12. Renée Jeffery, “The Origins of the Modern Emotions: Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and the Embodied Mind,” History of European Ideas 43(2017): 546–559. 13. Garber, “Elisabeth of Bohemia: Learned Maiden.” 14. Garber, “Elisabeth of Bohemia: Learned Maiden.” 15. Lilli Alanen, “Descartes and Elisabeth: A Philosophical Dialogue,” in Lilli Alanen and Charlotte Witt (eds.), Feminist Reflections on the History of Philosophy, (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2004), 211. 16. Alanen, “Descartes and Elisabeth,” 211. 17. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 99. 18. Carol Pal, Republic of Women: Rethinking the Republic of Letters in the Seventeenth Century, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 40–1. 19. Cohen in Pal, Republic of Women, 41. 20. Andrea Nye, The Princess and the Philosopher: Letters of Elisabeth of the Palatinate to René Descartes, (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 17.

14 Introduction

21. Nye, The Princess and the Philosopher, 20. 22. Pal, Republic of Women, 42. 23. One notable exception to this was Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673) who was not only a prolific author but published in her own name with her “portrait proudly engraved on the frontispieces of her works.” An “extravagant and eccentric” woman, Cavendish published 23 books during her lifetime, with her 24th work appearing posthumously in 1675. Cavendish moved in very similar intellectual circles to Elisabeth. She was acquainted with Thomas Hobbes, Kenelm Digby, Walter Charleton, René Descartes, Pierre Gassendi, and Marin Mersenne and, although it is unclear whether the two women ever met, Elisabeth knew Margaret’s brother-in-law, Charles Cavendish, personally. See projectvox.library.duke.edu 24. Lisa Shapiro, “Volume Editor’s Introduction,” in The Correspondence of Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007) 6. 25. For examples of these sorts of arguments see Susan Bordo, “The Cartesian Masculinization of Thought,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 11(1986): 439–56; Genevieve Lloyd, The Man of Reason: “Male” and “Female” in Western Philosophy, (London: Methuen, 1984), 2. 26. Tollefsen, “Princess Elisabeth,” 60. 27. Broad, Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, 7. 28. Broad, Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, 7; Catherine Gallagher, “Embracing the Absolute: The Politics of the Female Subject in Seventeenth Century England,” Genders, Vol.1, No.1, (1985), 34. 29. Ruth Perry, “Radical Doubt and the Liberation of Women,” Eighteenth Century Studies, Vol.18, No.4, (1985), 475; Hilda L. Smith, Reason’s Disciples: Seventeenth Century English Feminists, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982). 30. Perry, “Radical Doubt,” 473. 31. See Margaret Atherton, “Cartesian Reason and Gendered Reason” in Louise M. Antony and Charlotte Witt (eds.), A Mind of One’s Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993), 19–34. 32. Broad, Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, 5. 33. René Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: Volume 3, The Correspondence, ed. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Nadine Ackerman (ed.), The Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, Volume 1: 1603– 1631, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); Eduard Bodemann (ed.), Briefwechsel der Herzogin Sophie von Hannover mit ihrem Bruder, (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1885); Amelia M. Gummere, “Letter from William Penn to Elizabeth, Princess Palatine, Abbess of the Protestant Convent of Hereford, 1677, with an Introduction,” Bulletin of Friends’ Historical Society, 4(1912): 82-97; “Answer of the Princess Elizabeth to William Penn,” Bulletin of Friends’ Historical Society, Vol.4, No.2, (1912), 97. 34. Sophia, Memoirs of Sophia, Electress of Hanover, 1630–1680, ed. Sophia H. Forester (London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1888). 35. Sophia Forester, ‘Introduction’ in Memoirs of Sophia, x-xi.

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15

36. Bury, Memoirs of the Princess Palatine of Bohemia; Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert. 37. Benger, Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart; Marie Hay, The Winter Queen…Being the Unhappy History of Elizabeth Stuart, Electress Palatine, Queen of Bohemia: A Romance (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910). 38. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, vii. 39. Hay, The Winter Queen, vii-viii.

Chapter 1

The Angry Star

Late in 1618, the year of Elisabeth’s birth, a great comet lit the skies of Europe. Visible to the naked eye, the comet was a source of fascination and fear, inspiring superstitions and scientific advances in equal measure. With its deep red coma and extended tail, the “Angry Star,” as it was known, became emblematic of the political, religious, and intellectual conflicts that marked the early seventeenth century. For Elisabeth, born shortly after the comet’s burning light had finally faded from view, these struggles over political power, religious freedom, and scholarly advancement would mark her entire life. Elisabeth’s story is an account of how one woman navigated the politicotheological conflicts of the age, sought to reconcile the “New Science” with an abiding faith in God, and forged a new intellectual path in which her familial, personal, and bodily experiences became inextricably linked to the development of sophisticated, abstract philosophical ideas. That is, rather than being a passive subject of the tumultuous times in which she lived, the contexts in which she found herself drove many of Elisabeth’s most significant philosophical inquiries. COMETS IN SCIENCE AND SUPERSTITION For proponents of the “New Science” who sought to promote scientific inquiry, loosen the grip that superstition held over the masses, and bring religious faith under the authority of reason, the Angry Star proved a turning point: it provided their first opportunity to observe a comet using telescopes.1 For their opponents, most of whom were wedded to older Aristotelian ideas about the universe, it marked the further rejection of the authority of the 17

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Church, the descent of modern science into falsehood, and the triumph of heresy. During the hundred years leading up to the Angry Star’s appearance, tremendous developments had taken place in the natural sciences and, in particular, astronomy. In 1514, Nicolas Copernicus (1473–1543) discovered that the earth revolves around the sun and, in doing so, inspired an entire scientific revolution.2 Up until then astronomy had been dominated by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 B.C.E–322 B.C.E). Aristotle believed that the entire universe could be divided into two realms: the terrestrial realm in which the earth resides, and the celestial realm, which he argued was eternal, immutable, and divine. At the center of this divided universe, he argued, was the earth, a fixed, unmoving body around which the celestial bodies—the moon and sun and stars and planets—revolved.3 Aristotle also posited, entirely theoretically, that comets were generated when gases rose up into the earth’s upper atmosphere and caught fire, ignited by sparks caused by the heavens moving around the earth.4 They were not celestial bodies themselves, he thought, but existed in the atmosphere between the earth and the moon. In the early medieval period Aristotle’s works were virtually unheard of. Scholars of Latin ceased routinely studying ancient Greek in around 600 C.E. and, as a result, Aristotle’s works were effectively lost. It was thus not until their rediscovery in the 12th century and the appearance of William of Moerbeke’s Latin translations in the 13th century that they began to enjoy a major revival. The individual responsible for the resurgence of Aristotelian philosophy was Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the most significant theologian of the medieval period. Aquinas cemented Aristotle’s place in the history of western thought by synthesizing elements of his philosophy and science with the key principles of Christian theology. Although he did not adopt his ideas in their entirety, Aquinas accepted Aristotle’s geocentric theory of the universe on account of the extent to which it seemed to fit with Biblical accounts of the earth’s place within the universe.5 By doing so, Aquinas established Aristotle as an intellectual figure of authority and precipitated the uptake of his ideas across a range of fields including physics, metaphysics, astronomy, politics, and ethics. By doing away with the idea that the universe is divided into two separate realms “governed by two very different types of principles, Copernicanism opened up the possibility of providing a unified mathematical account of the entire universe based on a single system of laws.”6 What Copernicus, Galileo, and others hoped was that, on the basis of their discoveries, future astronomers and mathematicians would be able to develop “a unique model of the entire universe.”7 But, the theological endorsement of Aristotelian scientific principles meant that Copernicanism could not be solely viewed as a challenge to



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Aristotle’s geocentric account of the universe. On the contrary, the centrality of Aristotelian ideas to Thomistic theology and their apparent alignment with Biblical teachings meant that any attack on Aristotle’s scientific principles was, in effect, an attack on the form of Christian theology favored by the Catholic Church.8 Although the initial publication of Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of Celestial Bodies) after his death in 1543 did not garner significant controversy, Galileo’s defense of heliocentrism at the beginning of the 17th century provoked the Catholic Church to take official action.9 In 1616 Copernicus’ work was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books for being “false and altogether opposed to Holy Scripture,” and in 1633, almost one hundred years after its publication, Galileo Galilei was charged with heresy and imprisoned for the rest of his life for refusing to recant his support for the Copernican thesis.10 At around the same time significant advances were also taking place in the study of comets. These developments not only supported the Copernican thesis but they overturned Aristotle’s entirely theoretical account of their nature and genesis. In 1577 the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, a man infamous for the fact that he had a brass nose—he had lost part of his nose in a duel over a mathematical formula in 1566 and wore a pasted-on brass nose for the rest of his life—discovered that comets exist at a higher altitude than the moon.11 His discovery, derived from measurements of the last great comet to appear in Europe before the Angry Star, was the last major astronomical finding to be based on naked eye observations.12 By the time the Angry Star appeared in 1618, Hans Lippershey had invented the telescope and Galileo had modified it to focus on the individual stars of the Milky Way. It did not, however, bring an end to the controversy over the nature and motion of comets: Tycho Brahe and his assistant, Johannes Kepler—the man responsible for discovering that planets do not orbit in circles but follow an elliptical path—used the telescope to confirm their earlier naked-eye observations, while Galileo held a position akin to Aristotle. In The Assayer he went so far as to argue that comets were “mere appearances” that existed between the earth and the moon.13 He was wrong. In many ways, the precise nature of the arguments presented by the protagonists in the debates provoked by the Angry Star was of secondary significance. More important was the fact that they marked the opening of a new intellectual world in which science and religion vied for supremacy, and the very nature of human existence was at stake. Although the role of the professional philosopher did not yet exist, philosophy was on the rise. Encompassing the physical and biological sciences as well as those matters of the mind we now understand to be the business of philosophers, seventeenth century philosophy was concerned with a range of issues including the relationship of the new science to faith in God, human perception and

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imagination, the logic of causation, the nature of virtue, the structure of human society, and the interactions of the mind and body, reason and the passions. While astronomers and philosophers were debating the nature and sources of comets in physical and mathematical terms, throughout the seventeenth century many ordinary and extraordinary people believed that comets were supernatural warning signs.14 Some saw them as guiding lights, others as marks of evil, signs that destruction was forthcoming. Elisabeth’s grandfather, King James I of England tended toward the latter explanation and was inspired to commit his musings on the meaning of the Angry Star to poetry: You men of Britaine, wherefore gaze yee so Uppon an Angry starr, whenh as yee know The sun shall turne to darknesse, the Moon to blod And then twill be to late for turne to good O be so happy then while time doth last As to remember Dooms day is not past And misinterpret not, with vaine Conceit The Caracter you see on Heaven gate. Which though it bring the world some news of fate The letters such as no man can translate And for to guesse at Gods Almightys minde Where such a thing might Cozen all mankind Wherefore I wish the Curious man to keep His rash Imaginings till he sleep Then let him dreame of Famine plague and war And thinke the match with spaine has caused this star Or let them thinke that if their Prince my Minion Will shortly chang, or which is worse religion…

Revealed in the King’s poetic words are the meanings commonly attributed to the Angry Star by his contemporaries. While some suggested its cause was the marriage treaty King James was negotiating with Spain—a union that had it taken place would have seen his son wed to a Catholic Hapsburg princess— others saw it as a sign of impending famine, plague, and war. Although the negotiations with Spain ultimately failed, by the time of Elisabeth’s birth in the last dark winter days of 1618, the more pessimistic interpretations of the comet’s meaning had begun to be borne out. By then a course of events had been set in train that would indeed bring devastation to much of Europe and would go on to shape Elisabeth’s entire life. That course of events was the Thirty Years’ War, a conflict in which as many as eight million people were killed in battle or died as the result of the famine, destitution, and disease it brought.15



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For Elisabeth’s family the Thirty Years’ War was not just an unfortunate set of historical events or a simple matter of current affairs to be observed from afar with detached concern. On the contrary, both the war itself and the events that prefigured it were matters with which they were intimately familiar and in which they were among the key protagonists. Some historians have even gone so far as to say that “[m]‌ore than any other single issue, the Thirty Years’ War was about the Palatinate and its ruling line.”16 Whether or not this view attributes too much causal significance to Elisabeth’s family remains a matter of debate. Less contentious is the notion that of the many factors that helped to precipitate the conflict, two were of greatest significance, for Europe in general and the Palatinate in particular.17 The first was the as yet unresolved issue of religious freedom precipitated by the Reformation. The second concerned the relationship of confessional conflict to the power politics of the day, in particular the influence of the Hapsburgs and the power of the Holy Roman Emperor as, at the time both King Philip of Spain, the most powerful state in Europe, and Emperor Ferdinand II were Hapsburgs.18 Elisabeth’s family was implicated in both, as defenders of the Protestant faith and as antagonists of the Hapsburgs. THE ROLE OF THE ELECTORS PALATINE IN THE REFORMATION At its heart, the Protestant Reformation demanded nothing less than the complete overturning of the institutions and practices of the Church in its contemporary form.19 Of particular concern to the Protestant reformers was the selling of indulgences by the Catholic Church, the authority of the Pope, the corruption of the Curia, and the merits of the Saints. Nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg on 31 October 1517, Martin Luther not only challenged the idea that sinners could buy remission from punishment for their sins in the form of indulgences, but he argued that it was by the grace of God alone, and not through good deeds, that the faithful receive salvation. In doing so, Luther challenged the authority of the Pope by arguing that the only source of religious authority was the Bible and suggested that the faithful did not require intercession on their behalf but could ask God directly for forgiveness for their sins. At the beginning of 1518 Luther’s Theses were translated into German from their original Latin and, with the aid of the newly invented printing press, began to be disseminated across Europe. The schism that resulted from Luther’s challenge to traditional Church authority brought the establishment of the first Protestant churches and provoked a confessional conflict that would remain unresolved for more

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than one hundred years. Initially fought between Lutheran reformers and Catholic authorities who were, unsurprisingly, determined to defend the medieval structure and doctrines of the Roman church, this religious conflict soon spread with members of the Reformed Church who followed John Calvin, as well as the more radical Anabaptists, joining the fury. Although they remained Catholics throughout the early years of the Reformation, it was to Calvinism that Elisabeth’s ancestor, the Palatine Elector, eventually converted in the 1560s. The confessional conflict that engulfed sixteenth century Europe was not, however, a simple ecclesiastical disagreement fought out between antagonistic religious authorities. With the Hapsburgs firmly siding with the Papacy, the politics of both Spanish imperial ambition and the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor became intimately entwined with the confessional conflict. This connection was perhaps most overtly played out in the case of the Netherlands, the homeland of Elisabeth’s paternal grandfather which was, at the time, under the control of the Hapsburg King Philip II of Spain. Although the Lutheran Reformation had failed to take hold in the Netherlands, there Anabaptism and Calvinism flourished. Determined to return the Netherlands to Catholicism, in 1566 Philip II launched a brutal inquisition during which thousands of Dutch Protestants were executed for heresy. In an attempt to quash the inquisition, the seven largely Protestant provinces of the north united, first under the leadership of Elisabeth’s greatgrandfather, Prince William of Orange, and then under his son, Maurice of Nassau.20 Their resistance was initially unsuccessful: William of Orange was declared an outlaw by Philip II and assassinated in 1580. In the end, however, the Dutch persisted and their Revolt, which lasted for more than eighty years (1566–1648), resulted in the defeat of the Spanish, the establishment of the mostly Protestant Dutch Republic, and its division from the Catholic southern provinces which later became Belgium and Luxembourg. In Germany, the Peace of Augsburg had attempted to bring an end to confessional conflict between its 224 states in 1555. Its terms confirmed that princes were free to choose the religion of their territory and to impose their choice on their subjects under the principle of cuius regio, eius religio. It also provided that Lutherans residing in a state ruled by a Catholic would not be required to renounce their faith, that Lutheran princes would be permitted to retain control over the territories they had taken from Catholics since the Peace of Passau in 1552, and that former Catholic prince-bishops who were recent Lutheran converts were to give their territories over to Catholic rulers (reservatum ecclesiasticum). While the settlement dampened tensions for a while, however, it ultimately failed to provide the stability it had intended. Particularly problematic was the fact that the Peace of Augsburg only recognized Catholicism and Lutheranism as legitimate religions, declaring all



The Angry Star

23

other faiths heretical. This proved a particular challenge for a succession of Electors Palatine who converted to Calvinism. For the ruling family of the Palatinate, Elisabeth’s ancestors, religious conflict was not simply a matter of confessional differences or state politics, but struck at the heart of a longstanding family feud within the dynastic House of Wittelsbach to which they belonged. From around 915 C.E. the Palatinate region of southwestern Germany was ruled by the Hohenstaufen family and the House of Welf. Until the early thirteenth century, leadership of the Palatinate was passed down between successive generations of male relatives in a traditional, uncomplicated fashion. Among the generation born into the House of Welf at the turn of the 13th century, however, no living male children were produced. In the absence of any brothers or male cousins, Agnes of the Palatinate (1201–1267) became the heiress of the House of Welf. But rather than her inheritance allowing her to rule in her own right, Agnes’ position as the head of the House of Welf meant that when she married, her husband took possession of the Palatinate. In 1222 Agnes wed a member of the House of Wittelsbach, Otto II of Bavaria (1206–1253), later known as Otto the Illustrious. With their nuptials, the Palatinate passed into Wittelsbach hands, giving the House of Wittelsbach control over both the Palatinate and Bavaria. The House of Wittelsbach was extremely powerful and by 1314 could boast the first Holy Roman Emperor to be elected from its ranks. Louis IV’s appointment as Emperor brought great prestige to the Wittelsbach line but ultimately saw the House of Wittelsbach divided against itself. In order to gain support from the Palatinate branch of the family, Louis IV split the House into two branches, one to control the Palatinate and the other to rule Bavaria. In doing so, the Emperor effectively gave the Palatinate back to the branch of the family that originated and resided in the region. Under the terms of the Treaty of Pavia in 1329, Louis IV decided that the electoral title associated with the Palatinate should alternate between the descendants of the Palatine and Bavarian branches of the family.21 In the Golden Bull of 1356, however, Louis’ successor, Emperor Charles IV permanently awarded the title to the Palatine branch. This caused a serious rift in the House of Wittelsbach that was still at play during Elisabeth’s lifetime. By then, however, it had also assumed a religious dimension: from the middle of the sixteenth century, the Palatine branch was predominantly Protestant, while the Bavarian Wittelsbachs remained resolutely Catholic. For much of the early Reformation, successive generations of Electors Palatine stayed out of the key religious debates that marked European politics. Like their Bavarian cousins they remained Catholics and, in the case of Louis V (Elector Palatine 1508–1544), allied to Emperor Charles V.22 Louis V was succeeded by his brother, Frederick II (Elector Palatine 1554–1556) who

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had a somewhat schizophrenic relationship to both the Holy Roman Emperor and the Reformation church. In 1546, Frederick II established the Lutheran church in the Palatinate and, in response, Emperor Charles V declared him an outlaw. In 1547, however, Charles V defeated the Schmalkadic League—a league established for the protection of Lutheran states—in what became known as the First Schmalkadic War.23 Seeing the writing on the wall, and in a blatant attempt to win back the Emperor’s favor, Frederick II rescinded his order establishing the Lutheran church, only to reverse his decision and restore Lutheranism to the Palatinate in 1553.24 The inconstant Frederick II married Dorothea of Denmark in 1535 but the union did not produce issue. Frederick’s title thus passed to his nephew and ward, Otto Henry, who served as Elector Palatine from 1556 to 1559. During that short period the foundations for lasting Protestantism in the Palatinate were finally laid with the appointment of several leading Lutheran and Calvinist scholars to the University of Heidelberg. Like his guardian, Otto Henry was also childless and so the title of Elector Palatine passed to Frederick III, the son of John II of Simmern and Beatrice of Baden. This line of succession stretched back five generations to a single common ancestor, Rupert (1352–1410), King of Germany and Elector Palatine Rupert III from 1398 to 1410. Of all the Electors Palatine, Frederick III (Elector Palatine 1559–1576) played by far the most significant role in the Reformation. Born a Catholic, Frederick III’s wife, Marie of Brandenburg-Kulmbach converted him to Lutheranism shortly after their nuptials in 1537. That said, throughout his life, Frederick III refused to call himself a “Calvinist” or a “Lutheran” but insisted instead that he simply followed the basic teachings of scripture.25 This decision to eschew Protestant doctrinal divisions came to a head in 1559 during an incident between two professors hired by Otto Henry to work at the University of Heidelberg. One of the professors in question was a Lutheran, the other a Calvinist, and the issue at stake was an interpretation of the Lord’s Supper. Lutheran doctrine dominant at the time maintained that Christ was present in the bread and wine of the eucharist through the mechanism of consubstantiation, while Calvinists argued that Christ’s presence was spiritual but not actual. The dispute over the correct interpretation became increasingly nasty and Frederick III, unsympathetic to doctrinal disputes, dismissed both men. They were replaced by two younger theologians, Caspar Olevianus and Zacharias Ursinus, both of whom would go on to make their marks on the history of Protestant doctrine. Hearing of his actions, Philip Melanchthon, the great Lutheran reformer primarily responsible for drafting the Augsburg Confession, and who had been embroiled in a dispute over the Lord’s Supper in the 1530s wrote a letter of support to Frederick in 1559. In it, he affirmed that he approved “the plan of the Most Illustrious Elector because he



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commanded silence on the part of those quarrelling on both sides in order that there not be a distraction in the young church and its neighbours.”26 For his part, Frederick III devoted himself to studying the issue of the eucharist and making his own determination of the correct interpretation. As Charles Gunnoe notes, “Frederick was an avid Bible reader” and, during this period is known to have read Luther’s “Short Confession on the Holy Sacrament.”27 During his period of contemplation, he became increasingly unimpressed by what he saw as intensifying Lutheran zealotry, concluded that the Calvinist interpretation of the Lord’s Supper was correct, and vowed to introduce Calvinism to his lands. In accordance with Calvinist doctrine, he ordered the removal of all objects of idolatry from the churches, including images of the saints, organs, and baptismal fonts, banned the wearing of vestments, and introduced the Calvinist variant of the eucharist which denied the possibility of consubstantiation. This was a risky move, as Calvinism was not recognized in the Peace of Augsburg as a legitimate religion. But Frederick was undeterred and commissioned Olevianus and Ursinus to draft the Heidelberg Catechism in 1563. The Catechism was designed to provide religious clarity, to “serve as a catechetical tool for teaching the children, as a preaching guide for instructing the common people in the churches, and as a form of confessional unity among the several Protestant factions in the Palatinate.”28 It went on to become one of the most influential summaries of Calvinist doctrine to emerge from the Reformation period. Indeed, throughout Elisabeth’s childhood, the Heidelberg Catechism stood at the center of her religious education. Like his mother, however, Frederick III’s son and heir, Louis VI (Elector Palatine 1576–1583) was a devout Lutheran who sought to re-establish the dominance of Lutheranism in the Palatinate by filling the universities, the churches, and the administrative councils with Lutherans. It was not until the reign of Frederick IV (Elector Palatine 1583–1610) that Calvinism was properly established in the Palatinate. Only then, with the assistance of Louis VI’s brother, John Casimir (1543–1592), were the Calvinist professors and administrators who Louis VI had removed returned to their positions.29 Feeling marginalized, not only for being a member of the Protestant political minority, but within Protestantism a Calvinist, Frederick IV proposed the establishment of a Protestant Union to protect Protestant estates in Germany.30 In the agreement establishing the Union, signed in Auhausen on 4 May 1608, the signatories agreed to a collective security pact: “If one or other of us or our subjects are attacked by enemy force, it will be as if we have all been attacked, and the remaining members of the Union shall immediately come to his aid with the entire quota of the Union, as necessity may demand.”31 What is more, the agreement provided that although the Elector Palatine was to lead the Union during peacetime, he “was not to interfere in the internal

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management of each member territory.”32 During times of war, each member of the Union was to retain control over their own territory. In response to the establishment of the Protestant Union, the Duke of Bavaria established a Catholic League “for the defence and maintenance of the true Catholic religion and the preservation of the common peace, quiet and welfare, as well as the rejection of danger and so…for the implementation of the Holy Imperial Recesses, religion and profane peace and other worthy customs of the Empire.”33 It too was a collective security agreement and Duke Maximilian of Bavaria was appointed commander of the League.34 With this the two branches of the Wittelsbach family were pit against one another, politically, religiously, and now militarily. In 1610 Frederick IV died, sparking a further religious dispute among the Counts Palatine. According to the terms of the Golden Bull of 1356, Frederick’s fourteen-year-old son, Frederick V (1596–1632), was to remain under the guardianship of his nearest male relative until he reached the age of eighteen. The only problem was that the individual in question, Wolfgang William, Count Palatine of Neuberg (1578–1653), was a Catholic. Frederick IV had possessed the foresight to plan for this eventuality and so, prior to his death, made provisions for Wolfgang William’s cousin, John II, Count of Zweibrucken (1584–1636), to be his son’s guardian instead. This led to a rather nasty dispute between the cousins that divided the family once more along religious lines. To make matters worse, not only were Wolfgang William and John II’s fathers, Philip Louis and John I brothers, but their mothers, Anna and Magdelene of Cleves, were sisters. And so the conflict pit cousin against cousin, brother against brother, and sister against sister. So acrimonious the conflict became that in the end Emperor Charles V was forced to intervene and allowed Frederick V de facto rule of the Palatinate prior to his coming of age. Once the controversy had died down, Wolfgang William went on to marry John II’s daughter, Catherina Charlotte, in 1631. She was the second of his three wives. In the meantime, Frederick V set about finding himself a wife. THE MARRIAGE OF FREDERICK V TO ELIZABETH STUART Famed as a great romantic icon across Europe, by the time she had reached sixteen years of age Elizabeth Stuart had already received and rejected several marriage proposals. She was not just a beautiful catch but her hand brought with it an alliance with the Stuart dynasty led by King James VI of Scotland and I of England, one of the most powerful Protestant monarchs in Europe. At the same time, of course, James sought to pursue politically advantageous



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alliances through the marriages of Elizabeth and her older brother Henry, Prince of Wales. In marrying his children to members of prominent Catholic royal families James was particularly keen to cast himself as the great unifier of the Christian faith. For Henry he became embroiled in lengthy negotiations concerning a proposed marriage to the Spanish Infanta Anne, and for Elizabeth he looked to France, Spain, Germany, and Sweden for a match and at one stage even considered the widowed King of Spain a possible spouse for his daughter.35 How odd would it have been had both Spanish marriage treaties been concluded? Elizabeth would have become her older brother’s stepmother! In the end, however, neither alliance eventuated, in part because Elizabeth and her brother had other priorities. Elizabeth and Henry were militant Protestants, both far more devoted to the Protestant cause than either of their parents. Elizabeth, in particular, was firm in the view that she would only marry a Protestant: “I would rather espouse a Protestant Count than a Catholic Emperor,” she informed her mother.36 Acceding in part to her wishes, James finally settled on Frederick V and entered formal negotiations with his family in 1611. Yet James’ approval of the match was driven less by a commitment to the Protestant cause than by political demands, both at home and abroad. Frederick V was the most important of the German secular princes and his marriage to Elizabeth united the great Protestant powers of Europe: England, the Palatinate, Denmark, and Holland. In May 1612, Frederick sent a representative to England to negotiate the contract for his marriage to Elizabeth. According to the terms of the treaty, James provided a dowry of £40,000 as well as an annual allowance. Frederick, in turn, agreed to give her “£1500 per annum, and provide for her a retinue of thirty-six men and thirteen women.”37 To protect the future hereditary line, James I also insisted that any children produced by the union would be required to seek consent of the British monarch before marrying. Although their marriage was first and foremost a political arrangement, by most accounts Frederick and Elizabeth, both aged 16, fell madly in love. Arriving in England on October 16, 1612, with an entourage of 420, Frederick’s barge had floated up the Thames to be greeted by an eightygun salute. He was introduced to his future bride and her parents in the Banqueting House of Whitehall. James embraced his future son-in-law, later praising Frederick’s “good and discrete carriage.”38 Even Queen Anne, who had thought Frederick beneath her royal daughter’s status—it was her view that Elizabeth should only agree to a marriage that would guarantee to make her a Queen—warmed to him. Unlike the usual “dull and cold” process by which eligible suitors traditionally wooed their intended spouses, Frederick was charming and attentive and made no effort to hide the fact that he was in love with Elizabeth.39 He turned

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down “invitations to play tennis or to ride with Prince Henry,” his future brother-in-law and James I’s heir apparent, preferring instead to devote his attention to Elizabeth.40 In the days and weeks leading up to their marriage, the love-struck teenagers dined together at court, took in performances of Shakespeare’s plays, and were celebrated both with a firework display and a mock naval fight staged on the River Thames. Despite the obvious success of the match, Elizabeth and Frederick’s courtship was not an unreservedly happy time. In November 1612 tragedy struck when Prince Henry died of typhoid fever at the age of 18. For James I, the death of the Prince of Wales was personally, politically, and financially devastating. Although Henry was keen to marry a Protestant, James remained determined to consolidate his power and position as the great European peacemaker by securing a successful inter-confessional match for his son. What is more, the princes of Europe had entered into a bidding war over Henry’s hand in marriage: the Duke of Savoy offered 700,000 crowns (210,000 pounds) for Henry to wed his daughter, while Henry IV of France was willing to pay 800,000 crowns for a marriage to his daughter, the six year old, Princess Christine.41 But instead of a lucrative union for his son, James I was left with the expensive business of marrying off his daughter. As the family mourned the young prince’s passing, Elizabeth’s marriage to Frederick, initially proposed to take place in December, was postponed. Prince Henry’s body lay in state for four weeks before being buried on December 7. Though still officially in mourning, Elizabeth and Frederick were finally betrothed in the banqueting room at Whitehall Palace on December 27, 1612. Despite the grief that marked their courtship, the wedding of Frederick to Elizabeth was anything but somber. In the end, the ceremony took place on the most romantic of days, St. Valentine’s Day, 1613. It was an extravagant affair. Elizabeth’s gown was studded with diamonds and so heavily embroidered in silver she could barely walk. The train alone required thirteen attendants to assist her down the aisle. Her waist-length amber hair was woven with chains of gold, pearls, diamonds and rubies, and upon her head she wore “a crown of refined gold studded and embossed with giant pearls, and diamonds.”42 The service was traditional and dull, save for the fact that Elizabeth broke with convention by promising to love, honor, and cherish Frederick, but not to “obey” him. With the formalities taken care of, the marriage celebrations began in earnest. The festivities lasted several days with ballets, masques, and poems, including John Donne’s “An Epithalamion,” dedicated to the newlyweds. It is even thought that the masque in Act 4 of Shakespeare’s The Tempest may have been added to the work in honor of Elizabeth and Frederick’s wedding. The extravagance of the marriage did not end once Elizabeth and Frederick departed England’s shores. Elizabeth was greeted by the people of the



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Palatinate with all the pomp and splendor of a royal bride. Her “way was strewn with roses, and the houses were so decked with green or flowering branches that the city seemed a very bower.”43 The lavishness displayed during the festivities was a sign of things to come for the Palatine court.44 Both Elizabeth and Frederick were passionate supporters of the arts. Frederick V assembled and maintained one of the finest court orchestras of the seventeenth century while Elizabeth established her reputation as a great patron of theatrical productions.45 Keen to ensure his new wife felt at home in her new surrounds, Frederick also began work on adding an “English Wing” to Heidelberg Castle, complete with a grand ballroom, a purpose built theatre, a menagerie and a monkey house, and commissioned a new garden for his wife. Although it was never completed, the Hortus Palatinus became known as the “Eighth Wonder of the World” and, later, as the greatest German example of a Renaissance garden. In the early years of Elizabeth’s marriage to Frederick, Heidelberg Castle was: superb beyond description: the ceiling was painted al fresco, the walls were hung with tapestry; and a suite of ten rooms, including the knight’s hall, the royal saloon, the silver chamber, and the ante rooms, formed a complete Gothic palace.46

Paintings by Rubens adorned the walls, Turkish carpets covered the floors, and the furniture, upholstered in thick velvets and silks was inlaid with ivory and gold. Among Elizabeth’s English entourage who joined her in Heidelberg were two tapestry curators and two valets who specialized in the hanging of tapestries, thus signaling her intention to continue building the Palatinate’s already impressive tapestry collection. And build it she did, acquiring a collection so great that by 1619 she needed to appoint a tapissier de cour as well as a courtier responsible for the administration and preservation of the collection. On the first day of the New Year, the happy couple welcomed their firstborn son and heir, Frederick Henry, into the world. His birth and baptism on the 6th of March was celebrated in England and Germany alike. One prominent German broadsheet offered its congratulations, printing a portrait of the young prince propped up by what appears to be a large stuffed bear and a poem, which read in part: Grow Blessed babe who in thy ages prime Has bred such Joyful Hops into all Harts That thow art held for wonder of ourtime And all resounds thy praises in all parts.47

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The happiness of the Palatine family was short lived. On the 26th of August, 1614, Frederick had turned 18 and with his coming of age assumed full control over the Palatinate. Like his father before him, Frederick V sought to style himself as a great Protestant leader and so arranged to attend a meeting of the Protestant Union shortly after his birthday. During the course of the meeting Frederick became very ill with a fever. It is said that the illness profoundly altered his personality: from that time on the once charming, bright young man was described as being melancholy, even depressed. Perhaps more significant for the fortunes of his family, however, by 1618 Frederick had set himself on a path that would see him elevated to the Bohemian throne, deposed as King just one year later, stripped of the Palatinate, and sent, impoverished, into exile in Holland. Yet however severe the suffering endured by Frederick’s own family may have been, their trials and tribulations paled into insignificance when compared with the wider devastation to which his actions contributed. Although he did not singlehandedly cause the Thirty Years’ War, Frederick’s actions were one of its major precipitants. THE BOHEMIAN REVOLT As was the case in much of Europe, sectarian conflict was threatening political stability in Bohemia. Under the system of dualist government, power in Bohemia was shared between the prince and the estates.48 This meant that although it was part of the Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia was also an elective monarchy. It also meant that the balance of power was divided along religious lines: the Hapsburg dynasty remained devoutly Catholic, while the increasingly powerful estates were Protestant. From 1526 Bohemia had been ruled by the Hapsburgs and, from 1555, its king was also the Holy Roman Emperor. Under the rule of Emperor Rudolf II and his successor, Matthias, a certain degree of religious freedom had prevailed in Bohemia. In 1609 Rudolf II issued a “Letter of Majesty” in which he agreed to preserve religious freedom in return for support for his leadership. Protestant rights had been protected, the Protestant nobility had been allowed to exercise their faith and they had been permitted to establish a Protestant Bohemian state church. Despite this freedom, however, a large number of Protestant nobles feared that the Hapsburgs would transform Bohemia into an absolute monarchy and, with this, forcibly reconvert it to Catholicism. These fears were only heightened with the election of the ultra-Catholic Jesuit trained absolutist, Ferdinand (later Emperor Ferdinand II) as Matthias’ successor in 1617. By the time representatives of the Emperor arrived in Prague to demand that the



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Protestants cease building churches on the Stifts (lands donated by the estates for the establishment of a church), the mood for revolution had intensified. In particular, Protestant members of the Estates believed that the Emperor’s demands were in breach of the “Letter of Majesty.” Their response was played out with the somewhat comical “Defenestration of Prague” during which a group of Protestant noblemen seized four Catholic regents and threw them out of a window at Hradschin castle.49 With this act of rebellion the Bohemian Revolt began. Less than a year later, Matthias was dead and the process of electing a new Holy Roman Emperor was initiated. Of the seven electors, three were Catholics (the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne) and three were Protestants (the Dukes of Saxony and Brandenburg and the Palatine Elector). The Kingdom of Bohemia, the Estates of which refused to recognize Ferdinand as their King and hoped instead to find a suitable Protestant candidate, held the seventh vote. Although the religious division was almost even, the vote was far from simple. Despite being a Lutheran, the Duke of Saxony was willing to vote for Ferdinand on the understanding that he would make good the settlement outlined in the Peace of Augsburg, and the Brandenburg elector could be counted on to follow Saxony’s lead.50 This left Bohemia and the Palatinate as the remaining hold-outs. As the interests of Protestant Bohemia and the Palatinate began to align, Frederick V emerged as a possible Bohemian monarch. Yet although Frederick “entered into negotiations to become king of Bohemia, while trying to stall the inevitable election of Ferdinand as emperor,” it was by no means given that the Palatine Elector would accept the Bohemian crown.51 Both the Protestant Union and Frederick’s father-in-law, James I, were against the idea, fearing it would lead to full-scale religious war. James, in particular, was said to be “furious with his son-in-law for accepting the crown of Bohemia— in his mind Frederick was complicit with the Bohemians in committing an act of rebellion against their rightful sovereign—and foresaw that it would start a quarrel ‘that would never be ended.’ ”52 What is more, Frederick’s actions put James in a difficult political position. At the time he had been attempting to negotiate the marriage of his second, surviving son, Charles, to a Spanish princess as a means of creating a peaceful alliance between Catholic and Protestant powers. With his son-in-law now openly fighting the Hapsburgs, this would be considerably more difficult.53 In the end, however, Frederick V accepted the role. His wife was keen to fulfill her destiny and become a Queen in her own right and, more seriously, as a leader of the Protestant cause, Frederick felt a sense of duty to the Bohemian Protestants. It was, he said, “a divine calling, which I must not disobey. My only end is to serve God and His church.”54 Had he not accepted his “divine vocation,” Frederick wrote, he “would have been blamed, especially

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by the adherents of the Evangelical religion, for all the subsequent bloodshed and destruction of their lands.”55 Describing the sort of violence he hoped to bring an end to, Frederick wrote: …we have no doubt that everything without and beyond the Empire is sufficiently aware of the wretched and dangerous state into which the ancient and worthy kingdom of Bohemia, that most prominent member of the Holy Roman Empire, has fallen, together with its incorporated lands and other neighbouring states, and what suffering, tribulations, and hostilities have been occurring for some time with unceasing robbery, murder, arson and ruination of the territory, as well as spilling of much innocent Christian blood, violation of honourable women and virgins, hacking of suckling babes and the like inhuman, barbarous excesses, maliciousness and atrocities.

Together with a heavily pregnant Elizabeth and their son, Frederick Henry, the presumptive heir to the Bohemian throne, Frederick travelled to Prague in a convoy of 153 wagons, leaving the Palatinate under the leadership of Johann Casimir of Zweibrucken. Frederick and Elizabeth’s second son, Charles I Louis (1617–1680) and their eldest daughter, Elisabeth, were left in the care of their grandmother, Louise Juliana of Orange-Nassau. The trip was a precarious one: “A landslide en route almost removed the future Prince Rupert from history as a rock landed on Elizabeth’s lap.”56 Nonetheless, the party arrived safely and Frederick was crowned on November 4, 1619. In an open letter accepting the Bohemian crown dated 7 November 1619, Frederick wrote the he was “firmly resolved” that during his reign no one would be “molested or oppressed on account of religion, nor hindered in his traditional religious practice, not even those who still confess in the Roman Church.” What is more, he determined “to strive with the highest seriousness and enthusiasm, and to do [his] utmost to see that not only is the noble peace restored and all difficulties of war set aside in our kingdom of Bohemia… but also that greater trust is sown in the Empire itself, and further danger is pre-empted and averted.”57 Less than four weeks later, on November 28, 1619, Elizabeth gave birth to her third son, Rupert, named after the only Elector Palatine who had also served as the Holy Roman Emperor. His birth was cause for great celebration in Bohemia: “the ladies of the country presented him with a cradle of ivory, embossed with gold, and studded with precious stones, and his whole outfit was probably the most costly he ever possessed in his life.”58 But the joy was short-lived and murmurings of discontent were even discernable at Rupert’s extravagant baptism. Frederick’s rule as the King of Bohemia was a disaster. Early in his reign propagandist pamphlets depicting him as the “Winter King” began



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to appear, mocking his abilities and predicting that he would last just one winter.59 By naming him the “Winter King,” the pamphleteers further insulted Frederick by associating him with the “mock kings of Christmas, Epiphany or Carnival.”60 In doing so they managed to “connect the idea of a temporary king to a real royal person.”61 Even worse than his bruised ego, however, was the fact that Frederick managed to upset even his strongest supporters among the Protestant nobility by insisting that the much-loved icons and relics they had retained from their old religion be removed from the Protestant churches. And, of course, by seizing the Bohemian throne, Frederick had raised the ire of the Hapsburgs who were intent on removing him by force. Indeed, it quickly became clear that Frederick had “acted rashly” in accepting the throne without first establishing sufficient support to protect his position.62 Even James I refused to support his son-in-law, leaving him without any significant supporters. The joke at the time was that Frederick “would be saved by the Danes who would send 1,000 pickled herrings, the Dutch would supply 10,000 boxes of butter, while James would dispatch 100,000 ambassadors.”63 Meanwhile, Frederick’s absence had left the Palatinate “almost defenceless.” A small force of volunteers attempted to protect the fortresses of Mannheim and Frankenthal, while German and Dutch forces defended Heidelberg.64 But their efforts were mostly to no avail. In August 1620, the Spanish General Don Ambrosio Spinola led the Army of Flanders from Brussels to take the Lower Palatinate. In an attempt to garner assistance from England, Elizabeth wrote to her brother Charles, then the Prince of Wales, on 25 September 1620: My only dear brother, I am sure you have heard before this, that Spinola hath taken some towns in the Lower Palatinate, which makes me to trouble you with these lines, to beseech you earnestly to move his majesty that now he would assist us; for he may easily see how little his embassages [embassies] are regarded. Dear brother, be most earnest with him; for, to speak freely to you, his slackness to assist us doth make the Princes of the Union slack too, who do nothing with their army; the king hath ever said that he would not suffer the Palatinate to be taken; it was never in hazard but now, and I beseech you again, dear brother, to solicit as much as you can, for her that loves you more than all the world, I doubt not but you will do it, since you have hitherto solicited his majesty for us, where you do shew your affection to me, which I beseech you to continue to her that is ever, my only dear brother.65

Assistance was not forthcoming and worse was yet to come. Drawing on the forces of Frederick’s German adversary, Maximilian of Bavaria, Ferdinand II defeated Frederick at the Battle of White Mountain on November 8, 1620. With this the pamphleteers’ prediction that Frederick would hold the throne for just one year was fulfilled. It is said that Frederick and Elizabeth fled

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Prague in such a hurry that Rupert, whom they had been unable to locate in their rush to depart, was thrown into one of the trailing carriages at the last minute, only to join his mother toward the front of the convoy later in the journey. Again the pamphleteers were ruthless: if their accounts are anything to go by, it would seem that Frederick lost his garter as he fled, running to his carriage with his stockings falling down. The party initially travelled to Breslau and then on to the home of Frederick’s brother-in-law, George William, the Elector of Brandenburg.66 Like his English in-laws, however, George William had little sympathy for Frederick’s cause and, moreover, had no desire to become involved in an issue that would ultimately require him to oppose the Emperor. Although his reception was “cold” however, George William showed some compassion for Elizabeth who was in the late stages of pregnancy and lent her Custrin castle to see out her confinement. On 11 January 1621, she gave birth to her fourth son in miserable conditions: Damp, bare and comfortless was the castle in which this child first saw the light, and mournful was the welcome he had from his mother. “Call him Maurice,” she said, “because he will have to be a soldier!” So Maurice the boy was named, after the warlike Prince of Orange, the most celebrated general of the day.67

After realizing that his loss at the Battle of White Mountain could not be avenged, Frederick continued on to The Hague where his eldest son, Frederick Henry, had already been sent. Within six weeks of Maurice’s birth, Elizabeth had outstayed her welcome. Taking just Rupert with her, she began the journey to join her husband in Holland. Her other children, including her newborn baby, she left with her mother-in-law in Berlin. Despite his efforts in establishing a government in exile in The Hague, Frederick’s attempts at recovering his ancestral lands and title were ultimately futile. On January 29, 1621, Emperor Ferdinand issued a decree charging Frederick with treason and breaching the peace and announced that he had, forthwith, forfeited his lands and titles within the Holy Roman Empire. In the deed of enfeoffment by which Emperor Ferdinand assigned Frederick’s electoral title to Maximilian of Bavaria, he wrote: On the twenty-ninth of January in the year 1621, we publicly declared and placed Frederick Count Palatine of the Rhine, the then Elector, under our and the Holy Imperial Ban for having, in the years immediately preceding, been the principal instigator and ringleader of the most disgraceful and dangerous rebellion, the like of which has never been seen nor experienced in the Empire of the German Nation…and thereby according to the law deprived him of his electorate of the Palatinate, together with the office of Arch Seneschal and the associated electoral title, as well as his other principalities and lordships,



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regalia, fiefs, dignities, rights and jurisdictions that he held from us and the Holy Empire.68

The future of the Palatinate now rested in the hands of three mercenary forces, including one led by Christian of Brunswick, the Administrator of Halberstadt, known as the “mad Halberstadter.” With the forces looking unlikely to succeed, however, in March 1623 Frederick V sent a message from The Hague instructing the mercenary armies to “conceded the last great Palatine fortress at Frankenthal.”69 By then the Palatinate had been awarded by Imperial Edict to Maximilian of Bavaria as a reward for the Catholic prince’s efforts in ridding Bohemia of Frederick’s rule. The Emperor wrote: Since His Highness high-born Duke Maximilian of Bavaria etc. made himself worthy to us and the Holy Empire by displaying due loyalty and constant obedience to us as the embattled and insulted overlord, emperor and lord throughout the entire duration of the above mentioned rebellion, and willingly, bravely and successfully provided his person, property and blood, as well as his land and people…we have decided to enfeoff the aforementioned Duke of Bavaria with the Palatine electoral title…left vacant through the proscription of the abovementioned Count Palatine Frederick.70

LIFE IN EXILE Thus began, not just a life in exile for the van Pallandt family but the Thirty Years’ War that devastated Europe. By the time of his death many years later, commentators not only continued to hold Frederick V responsible for starting the war but they implicated the Angry Star in the devastation it brought. One obituary read: The life of this Prince was a mere Medley, and like a Picture with many faces, His entry into the Electorate was glorious, his beginning happy, his Vertues eminent, and courted hee was by the whole Empire. His Alliance, and his friends within and without Germany, the consideration of his House, of his Dominions, and the great Bodie that depended on his direction, were the cause of his election to the Crowne of Bohemia, which was fatall to him, and all Germanie, which felt the sad accidents that attended this Comet, and was forthwith invaded by an universall Warre in her heart, and all her quarters, which hath never since forsooke her, having engaged all the Imperiall States and Provinces, every one whereof to this day carries her markes. 71

The connection forged here between the war in Europe and the comet was not an unusual one. In 1633 the first volume of the Theatrum Europaeum, a journal devoted to the history of the German speaking parts of Europe,

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published a tract which specifically linked the comet to the war in Bohemia and, by implication, to Frederick’s role in it. It read: Around the start of our destruction, that is not only already well underway in Bohemia, but is appearing elsewhere, a dreadful comet with a long burning tail appeared in the sky causing terror throughout most of Europe…including here in Frankfurt am Main. With this terrible torch God Almighty signaled his place as a preacher of atonement at the high alter of heaven, so that people could see how he would punish them for their sins and had decided to bring his punishment rod over them, and thereby gave ample warning of damage and admonished them in times of grace to abstain from sin and plead for divine mercy.72

Later the Historiographer Royal to Charles II wrote, along similar lines: “the European world is all in pieces….that direful Comet of the year 1618 appear’d in the heavens, some malevolent and angry ill-aspected star hath had the predominance ever since, and by its maligne influxes, made strange unusuall impressions upon the humors of subjects, by inciting them to such insurrections, revolts, and tumults.”73 The comet, it seemed, was clearly to blame for the insurrections, tumults, and revolts that marked European history during the seventeenth century and cast a shadow over the young Princess Elisabeth’s life. NOTES 1. Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 11; James Doelman, “The Comet of 1618 and the British Royal Family,” Notes and Queries 54(2007): 30. 2. Nicolas Copernicus, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of Celestial Bodies). 3. Aristotle, De Caelo (On the Heavens), trans. J.L. Stocks (1994) available at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/heavens.html, 1.2; 268b. 4. Tofigh Heidarzadeh, A History of Physical Theories of Comets, From Aristotle to Whipple, (Dordrecht: Springer, 2008), 16. 5. For example, Psalm 104:5 states that “the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved,” while Ecclesiastes 1:5 maintains that “the sun rises and sets and returns to its place” thereby suggesting that it is not fixed. 6. Michael Friedman, “Descartes and Galileo: Copernicanism and the Metaphysical Foundations of Physics” in Janet Broughton and John Carriero (eds.), A Companion to Descartes, (Oxford: Wiley, 2011), 72. 7. Friedman, “Descartes and Galileo,” 72. 8. Daniel Garber, “On the Frontlines of the Scientific Revolution: How Mersenne Learned to Love Galileo,” Perspectives on Science 12(2004): 157.



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9. Thomas F. Mayer, “The Roman Inquisition’s Precept to Galileo (1616),” British Journal for the History of Science 43(2010): 327. 10. Decree of the General Congregation of the Index, 5 March 1616, trans. Finocchiaro, 1989,148–9. 11. In 2010, a team of archaeologists led by Jens Vellev exhumed Brahe’s body. While visual examination found green coloration around the nasal area, tests conducted on a sample of his nasal bone found traces of copper and zinc, thereby confirming the story that he had worn a brass nose. “Tycho Brahe,” 16 January 2017, http://projekter.au.dk/tycho-brahe/pressneleases/ mercury-poisoning-ruled-out-as-cause-of-tycho-brahes-death/ 12. Tabitta Van Nouhuys, The Ages of Two-faced Janus: The Comets of 1577 and 1618 and the Decline of the Aristotelian World View in the Netherlands, (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 3; Gary W. Kronk, Cometography: Volume 1, Ancient-1799: A Catalogue of Comets, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), vii. 13. Heidarzadeh, A History of Physical Theories of Comets, 62. 14. James Doelman, “The Comet of 1618 and the British Royal Family,” Notes and Queries 54(2007): 30. 15. David Lederer, “The Myth of the All-Destructive War: Afterthoughts on German Suffering, 1618–1648,” German History 29(2011): 380. 16. Derek Croxton, The Last Christian Peace: The Congress of Westphalia as a Baroque Event, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 269. 17. As Andreas Osiander notes, “the history of the Thirty Years’ War is a complicated one, and cannot be told here in a way that does justice to its complexity.” Rather, what is presented here is intended to give a broad overview of the main issues at hand and the place of Elisabeth’s family within them. Andreas Osiander, The States System of Europe, 1640–1990: Peacemaking and the Conditions of International Stability, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 16. 18. Myron P. Gutman, “The Thirty Years’ War,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18(1988): 749. 19. Alister E. McGrath, Reformation Thought: An Introduction, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 2. 20. Martin van Gelderen, “Introduction” to The Dutch Revolt, ed. Martin van Gelderen, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), xi; see also Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477–1806, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). 21. Andrew L.  Thomas, A House Divided: Wittelsbach Confessional Court Cultures in the Holy Roman Empire, (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 12. 22. James D. Tracy, Europe’s Reformations 1450–1650: Doctrine, Politics and Community, (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), 117. 23. R. Ward Holder, Crisis and Renewal: The Era of the Reformations, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 216; Christopher W. Close, The Negotiated Reformation, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 241. 24. Tracy, Europe’s Reformations, 118. 25. Lyle D. Bierma, “The Purpose and Authorship of the Heidelberg Catechism,” in Lyle D. Bierma with Charles D. Gunnoe, Karen Y. Maag, and Paul W. Fields, An

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Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism: Sources, History and Theology, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 1542. 26. Melanchthon to Frederick, 1 November 1559 in Lowell Green (ed.), Melanchthon in English: New Translations into English with a Registry of Previous Translations: A Memorial to William Hammer (1909–1976), (St. Louis: Centre for Reformation Research, 1982), 66. 27. Charles D. Gunnoe, Thomas Erastus and the Palatinate: A Renaissance Physician in the Second Reformation, (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 74. 28. Bierma, “The Purpose and Authorship of the Heidelberg Catechism,” 1541. 29. Tracy, Europe’s Reformations, 119. 30. Peter H. Wilson, The Thirty Years War: A Sourcebook, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010), 43. 31. The Protestant Union, Auhausen, 4 May 1608, Article 6 in Peter H. Wilson, The Thirty Years War: A Sourcebook, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010), 47. 32. Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 47. 33. The Catholic League, Munich, 10 July 1609, Article 1 in Peter H. Wilson, The Thirty Years War: A Sourcebook, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010), 49. 34. The Catholic League, Article 11, 51. 35. Alan Stewart, The Cradle King: A Life of James VI & I, 246. 36. Benger, Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart, Vol.1, 105. 37. Stewart, The Cradle King, 246. 38. In Stewart, The Cradle King, 247. 39. Benger, Vol. 1, 134. 40. Kimberly Nichols, “The Queen of Hearts and the Rosicrucian Dawn,” Newtopia Magazine, July 19, 2013. 41. Harris, Rebellion, 128. 42. Hay, The Winter Queen, 14. 43. Hay, The Winter Queen, 21. 44. Sara Smart, “On the Diverse Duties of the Servants of Princes: Lorenz Beger (1653–1705), Librarian, Antiquarian and Court Poet in Heidelberg,” The Modern Language Review 94(1999): 1033. 45. Smart, “On the Diverse Duties,” 1033. 46. Thomas Patrick Campbell and Elizabeth H. Cleland, Tapestry in the Baroque: New Aspects of Production and Patronage, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 105. 47. In John Roger Pass, The German Political Broadsheet, 1600–1700: Volume 1 1600–1615, (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1985), 308. 48. Andreas Osiander, “Sovereignty, International Relations and the Westphalian Myth,” International Organization 55(2001): 253. 49. Peter Hamish Wilson, The Thirty Years’ War: Europe’s Tragedy, (London: Penguin, 2009), 4. 50. Lisa Roser and John Theibault, A Short History of Europe, 1600–1815: Search for a Reasonable World, 76. 51. Roser and Theibault, A Short History of Europe, 76.



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52. Tim Harris, Rebellion: Britain’s First Stuart Kings, 1567–1642, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 189. 53. Harris, Rebellion, 187. 54. In Roser and Theibault, A Short History of Europe, 77. 55. Open letter from Frederick V regarding his acceptance of the Bohemian Crown, 7 November 1619 in Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 89. 56. Peter H. Wilson, Europe’s Tragedy: A New History of the Thirty Years War, ebook. 57. Open letter from Frederick, 91. 58. Eva Scott, Rupert Prince Palatine, (Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co; New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900) available at http://www.gutenberg.org/ files/39426/39426.txt. 59. See Elmer Adolph Beller, Caricatures of the “Winter King” of Bohemia from the Sutherland Collection in the Bodleian Library, and from the British Museum, (London: Oxford University Press, 1928). 60. Marc Jacobs, “King for a Day. Games of Inversion, Representation, and Appropriation in Ancient Regime Europe,” in Jeroen Deploige and Gita Deneckere (eds.), Mystifying the Monarch: Studies on Discourse, Power, and History, (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006), 127. 61. Jacobs, “King for a Day,” 127. 62. Sutherland, 614. 63. Wilson, Europe’s Tragedy. 64. Henry Kamen, Spain’s Road to Empire: The Making of a World Power 1492– 1763, (London: Penguin, 2002), ebook. 65. Elizabeth to Charles, Prince of Wales, Prague, 25 September 1620 in Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 93. 66. Frederick’s sister Catherine was married to George William. 67. Scott, Rupert Prince Palatine. 68. Deed of enfeoffment from Emperor Ferdinand II, 25 February 1623 in Wilson, The Thirty Years War, p.141. 69. Joachim Whaley, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire: Volume I: Maximilian I to the Peace of Westphalia 1493–1648, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 575–6. 70. Deed of enfeoffment from Emperor Ferdinand II, 141. 71. Anon, Posthumous judgment on Frederick V and the origins of the war, 1633, in Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 117. 72. Theatrum Europaeum, 21 volumes (Frankfurt, 1662–1738), Volume 1, p.100– 101 in Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 53. 73. In Melvin Jonah Lasky, Utopia and Revolution: On the Origins of a Metaphor, (New Brunswick: Transaction 2004), 228.

Chapter 2

Princess Elisabeth: A Woman and a Scholar

During her parents’ short-lived reign in Bohemia and their early years in exile, Princess Elisabeth and her brothers, Charles I Louis and Maurice, were left in the care of their grandmother, Louise Juliana of Orange-Nassau, in Berlin. Louise Juliana had, by this time, fled the Palatinate and taken up refuge with her daughter Elizabeth Charlotte and son-in-law, George William of Brandenburg. It was there that Elisabeth remained until the age of nine and formally began her education under the watchful eye of her grandmother, a woman renowned for the dedication with which she undertook the pious education of her children and grandchildren.1 Elisabeth, it seems, was forever marked by the time she spent with Louise Juliana during her early childhood. Not only has her serious demeanor been attributed to her equally austere grandmother but several writers have noted that the foundations for her later intellectual accomplishments were laid during her time in Berlin.2 EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION By the time Elisabeth was called to join her family in The Hague, several more Palatine princes and princesses had been born. Elizabeth and Frederick’s first child to be born in Holland was named Louise Hollandine (1622–1709) as a mark of respect to the family’s hosts. Louise’s birth was followed by the arrival of Louis (1624–1625), Edward (1625–1663), Henriette Marie (1626– 1651), Philip (1627–1650), Charlotte (1628–1631), Sophie (1630–1714), and Gustavus (1632–1641). If Sophie’s memoirs are anything to go by, despite her obvious fecundity, it would appear that Elizabeth Stuart was indifferent toward her offspring, “preferring the sight of her monkeys and dogs to that of her children.”3 While we know from the correspondence of Sir Dudley 41

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Carleton, the English Ambassador in Holland, that Elizabeth possessed at least “sixteen…little dogs and monkeys,” Sophie’s assessment was probably not entirely fair.4 One possible reason for the children’s separation from their parents was the fact that the house Prince Maurice and the States General had provided for Frederick was not very large and, with a new baby arriving almost every year, there simply was not enough room for the whole family to live together. And besides, the education of young princes and princesses apart from their parents was customary at the time. Whatever the reason, each of the children remained at Leiden until they were grown up. Upon finishing their education the young princes left to travel while the princesses one by one joined their mother in The Hague. Court life in Leiden was rigid and regimented. The children were raised according to strict Calvinist doctrine: they knew the Heidelberg Catechism by heart in German and rose every morning at dawn to pray and read the Bible.5 From half past eight until their midday meal, the children received their lessons, returning again to their books in the afternoons. Social order was strictly adhered to. Sophie often lamented in her memoirs the number of curtseys she was required to perform just to sit down for her lunch: On entering the dining-room I found all my brothers drawn up in front, with their governors and gentlemen posted behind in the same order side by side. I was obliged by rule to make first a very low curtsy to the princes, a slighter one to the others, another low one on placing myself opposite to them, then another slight one to my governess, who on entering the room with her daughters curtsied very low to me. I was obliged to curtsey again on handing over my gloves to their custody, then again on placing myself opposite to my brothers, again when the gentlemen bought me a large basin in which to wash my hands, again after grace was said, and for the last and ninth time on seating myself at table.6

Raised in the same household, we can readily assume that Elisabeth was also required to perform these detailed social rituals. We certainly know from the letters she wrote to Descartes later in her life that, like Sophie, Elisabeth found the social demands of court life at best trying and at worst exasperating. While the social expectations of court life, both in Leiden and later in The Hague, were a source of irritation to Elisabeth, throughout her life she found sanctuary in her studies. With a love of learning instilled in her from a young age by her grandmother, Elisabeth was a dedicated scholar who took full advantage of the tutelage provided her at court. Like her siblings, Elisabeth studied Latin, French, English and German, logic, mathematics, politics, philosophy, and the sciences. Elisabeth and her brothers, Frederick Henry and Rupert were especially taken with recent developments in mathematics, philosophy, and the natural sciences and relished any opportunity to perform



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surgical experiments and conduct dissections. Yet, in her early years at least, it was Elisabeth’s proficiency in Greek for which she was best known. Although Greek had long been back in vogue, it was not often considered an essential subject for the education of upper class girls. But Elisabeth was a talented linguist and became so well versed in Greek that her siblings gave her the nickname “La Greque.”7 This moniker stayed with her for much of her life, her siblings continuing to use it in their correspondence well into adulthood. Such were Elisabeth’s scholarly talents that the French physician, philosopher, and translator, Samuel Sorbière (1615–1670), who spent time in Holland in the 1640s, wrote: Wonders were told of this rare personage; it was said, that to the knowledge of strange tongues she added that of abstruse sciences; that she was not to be satisfied with the mere pedantic terms of scholastic lore, but would dive down to the clearest possible comprehension of things; that she had the sharpest wit and most solid judgment; that she enjoyed listening to Descartes and studied his works till far into the night; that she liked surgical experiments, and caused dissections to be made before her eyes…8

As was customary for girls of their social standing, Elisabeth and her sisters also received instruction in music, dancing, and painting. Along with their mother, the Palatine princesses were taught to paint by Gerard Honthorst (1592–1656), the famous portrait artist of the Dutch Golden Age responsible for painting the majority of pictures depicting members of the Palatine family. Although Elisabeth was not blessed with artistic talent, her younger sister Louise Hollandine went on to become an extremely accomplished painter. In fact, Louise emulated Honthorst’s style with such accuracy that several of her paintings were later erroneously attributed to him. It has often been said that Elisabeth’s lack of interest in the arts, fascination with the sciences, and general scholarly demeanor was a source of irritation for her mother who regularly teased her for her obsession with philosophy. According to Benger’s biography, Elisabeth was: addicted to sedentary pursuits…unskilled in music, and in general preferred reading, writing, or intellectual society, to any other amusement. Her mental attainments were such as she would have rendered any woman illustrious. For the languages she had equal aptitude; and her supreme delight was meditation, or, as it was called, philosophy. These studies were little congenial to the habits of her mother’s household; and the disparity in intellectual endowments was probably the cause why so little sympathy existed between them.9

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As Marie Hay recounts, Elizabeth Stuart once remarked “My daughter Elizabeth may learn a whole library, but she’ll ever be a wearisome woman.”10 Later, Hay reports that on at least one occasion Elizabeth is said to have called upon her companion, Lord Craven to “Look…at Elisabeth setting the world by a theory!” “Alack,” she continued, “But her deep thoughts have made her nose red, and yet they cannot assuage her sorrow at this unwelcome colouring.”11 While these statements may well be accurate, given Elisabeth’s love of learning, it is not possible to verify whether her mother did, in fact, tease her in this way. The issue of Elisabeth’s nose is one that many early commentators seem inordinately fixated upon. The blame for this obsession seems to lie with her lively younger sister Sophie. In her Memoirs Sophie described Elisabeth as having “black hair, a dazzling complexion, brown sparkling eyes, a wellshaped forehead, beautiful cherry lips, and a sharp aquiline nose, which was rather apt to turn red.”12 It seems, at least in Sophie’s view, that Elisabeth was troubled by the unattractive hue of her nose and at times refused to leave her room until the color had subsided. If the many portraits painted during her lifetime are anything to go by, however, it seems that Elisabeth was a handsome though not beautiful woman with an entirely unremarkable proboscis. It is also not the case that Elizabeth Stuart lacked sympathy for her eldest daughter, nor, as is often implied, that the Queen was a frivolous woman, uninterested in intellectual pursuits. On the contrary, Elisabeth’s mother enjoyed the company of scholars and routinely invited them to dine at her court. Although it lacked the riches and splendor of Heidelberg Castle, the Palatine court in exile became a vibrant hub for artists and scholars alike. Where mother and daughter diverged was in the emphases of their interests: while the younger Elisabeth was devoted to philosophy in the broadest sense, her mother was more interested in history, poetry, and drama. Godfrey suggests that while her sisters mostly sided with their mother, enthusiastically engaging in the production of plays for their mother’s amusement, Elisabeth begrudgingly took part in these spectacles on occasions but really preferred to be left alone with her books.13 TWO FAILED ATTEMPTS TO RECOVER THE PALATINATE Although Frederick had not managed to gain any ground in recovering the Palatinate, life in exile was reasonably comfortable even if it was not the extravagant existence he and his wife had been accustomed to. In 1629 he had sufficient funds to commission the design and construction of a summer house in Rhenen. Built by Bartholoeus van Bassen on the banks of the Rhine,



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the house at Rhenen provided respite from the burdensome etiquette of court life and an opportunity for the family to pursue outdoor pursuits. Although Elisabeth and Sophie did not share their mother’s enthusiasm for the hunt, at Rhenen the Palatine princesses could roam freely in the fields and spend time with their brothers and cousins in a relaxed setting. More importantly, life at Rhenen was decidedly less expensive than it was in The Hague, an issue that soon became even more pressing for the family. Before the house was completed, however, tragedy struck. On January 17, 1629, Frederick V and his son, Frederick Henry travelled to Amsterdam to view a Spanish fleet laden with gold and treasure from Mexico that the Dutch West India Company had captured. Some have suggested that the purpose of their journey was to claim a share of the spoils owed to Elizabeth who had been bequeathed shares in the company by Stadtholder Maurice on his passing in 1625.14 Whatever the reason for their excursion, Frederick and his son were only able to afford to make the journey on a small, overcrowded packet boat. While crossing the Haarlemmermeer their boat capsized, possibly run-down by a larger vessel. Frederick suffered injuries so severe it would take more than a year for him to recover. Frederick Henry drowned. Accounts of the incident record that the last that was heard from the young prince was an anguished cry of “Help me, father!” before he disappeared under the water. The death of his son and heir at just fifteen years of age left Frederick so grief-stricken it is said he was never the same again. He sank into a deep depression from which he never recovered. Frederick Henry’s death was also politically disastrous. Frederick and his English in-laws had hoped to soon negotiate a marriage treaty that would see Frederick Henry wed to a Spanish princess. If such a match could be secured, Frederick hoped that his relationship with the Hapsburgs could be at least partially restored and that the Palatinate would be returned, if not to himself then at least to his son and heir.15 In a final attempt to recover his ancestral lands and title, Frederick turned to King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden for help. In June 1630 Gustavus’ forces had entered the Thirty Years’ War by invading Pomerania. Sweden’s entry into the war was driven, first and foremost, by Gustavus Adolphus’ fear that if Emperor Ferdinand gained control over northern Germany and, in particular, managed to raise an imperial navy, Sweden might lose control of its Baltic coast. A secondary consideration was the plight of German Protestants. Although the electorate of Brandenburg, ruled by Elector George William, a brother-in-law of both Gustavus Adolphus and Frederick V, proved resistant to Swedish plans for an alliance, forces loyal to Sweden were making good gains. They defeated the Catholic forces that divided the electorate of Brandenburg, and went on to push the Catholic army out of Saxony

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and invade Bavaria, although Gustavus Adolphus was unable to convince Maximilian to rescind his alliance with Ferdinand II.16 Frederick hoped that, given the extent to which Gustavus’ forces had managed to completely change the path of the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, the Swede would be willing and able to help him regain control over the Palatinate. Gustavus was not averse to Frederick’s proposal but insisted that he would only help on two conditions: first, the Palatinate would not be wholly independent but would be a fief of the Kingdom of Sweden, and second, Lutherans residing in the Palatinate would be afforded equal rights to Calvinists. Frederick rejected these conditions and began his journey back to The Hague. He never made it. In October 1632 Frederick was struck down with an infection. His physicians were unable to find a cure and he died in Mainz on November 29 the same year. Less than two weeks earlier, Gustavus Adolphus had been struck down at the battle of Lutzen. Colonel Dalbier’s account of his death reads as follows: …the king sustained a wound on his arm, was covered in blood and shouted to the Duke of Lauenburg: “Please my cousin, give me assistance, I am badly wounded and I need to retire from here.” Upon hearing this, the duke of Lauenburg went to give the king assistance. As he got hold of the royal horse’s bridle to turn him around, an enemy came up behind the king and fired his pistol through the king’s back. The king fell off his horse. A gentleman named Luchart who was following the Duke of Lauenburg killed the man who shot the king.17

Gustavus Adolphus’ death was a disaster. Although he had, through his intervention in the war, “clearly saved German Protestantism,” his passing brought an effective end to “the grand designs of Swedish overlordship” in Germany.18 Frederick’s death was also a disaster, for it left his wife and children in dire economic straits. In her Memoirs, Sophie playfully remarked that their poverty was so great that they “frequently dined on pearls and diamonds, as jewels had to be pledged to obtain the necessities of life.”19 Jokes aside, Frederick’s death meant that Elizabeth Stuart would now face the unending humiliation of having to rely on the charity of her British relatives and the largess of her Dutch hosts to finance the upkeep of herself, her daughters, and her court. From the time of their arrival in The Hague, Frederick and his family had relied on financial support from the States of Holland and from Elizabeth’s brother, King Charles I. Although their Dutch benefactors had been generous in the beginning, providing the family with multiple lodgings and sufficient income to establish a modest court, it seems that as time went on they became less and less impressed with having to support the family indefinitely.



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Impatient with Frederick for his inability to provide for his own family, they began to gradually reduce the amount of pecuniary support offered. In the wake of Frederick’s death they withdrew even further and, in the end, the amount of money Elizabeth received was barely enough to cover the basic needs of her household.20 What is more, with her brother, Charles I’s position in England becoming increasingly precarious, her dowry was well in arrears.21 For Elizabeth Stuart this was an unbearable state of affairs, her life of privilege and riches reduced to one of relative poverty. Yet she remained resolute in her determination to stay in Holland. Although Charles I offered her and her children a place in his court, Elizabeth was unwilling to return to England. She resolved, instead, to remain loyal to her husband’s wishes and work toward having the Palatinate restored to her son, even if this meant enduring a diminished standard of living. Barely eighteen years of age, however, Charles I Louis and his younger brother Rupert accepted their uncle’s offer in the hope of gaining the English King’s support in their attempts to recover the Palatinate. In 1633, Swedish forces had reached the Palatinate and forced the surrender of Heidelberg. With this, Charles Louis was briefly restored as the nominal heir to the Palatinate, although his uncle, Louis Philip, Count Palatine of SimmernKaiserslautern, acted as his regent and the Swedish Chancellor, Oxenstierna, actually ruled the land. Less than a year later, however, the Palatinate had become “the battle-ground for Swedes, Imperialists, Bavarians and French.”22 It was a brutal theatre of the Thirty Years’ War: “No horror was lacking, from the nameless mishandling of townsmen and peasants to the cannibalism of a starving people.”23 With little hope of recovering the Palatinate themselves, Charles Louis and Rupert were welcomed into Charles I’s court and both played significant roles in the lead up to the English Civil War. While Rupert was firmly on the side of the Royalists and would go on to be made a Knight of the Garter, the Earl of Holderness, and the Duke of Cumberland, Charles I Louis harbored sympathies for the Parliamentarians. With his relationship with his uncle growing ever more distrustful, and having failed to make significant headway in garnering English sympathy for the plight of the Palatinate, Charles I Louis returned to The Hague to plan a fateful expedition to recover his lands and title. This is not, however, to say that Charles I made absolutely no effort to help his nephew recover his electoral title. On the contrary, in 1636, Charles I sent the Earl of Arundel and Surrey “to petition the emperor to reinstate the elector Palatine.”24 In his diary, Arundel’s secretary, Thomas Howard, told of the destruction his party witnessed on their journey up the Main:

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From Cologne to Frankfurt all the towns, villages and castles are battered, pillaged and burnt and every one of our halts we remained on board [the boat], every man taking his turn on guard duty.25

Unsurprisingly, the party found it impossible to persuade the emperor to return the Palatinate to the van Pallandt family.26 Support for Charles Louis’ expedition came instead in the form of William Craven (1608–1697), later the first Earl of Craven. Craven was an English nobleman and soldier who had fought alongside Frederick V in his attempt to win back the Palatinate. After Frederick’s death, Craven remained in The Hague as a loyal servant of Elizabeth and, some accounts claim, her lover. Although there is no substantive evidence to corroborate it, some have even gone so far as to suggest that the pair were married in secret.27 In her Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart, Elizabeth Benger concedes that no one has been able to “arrive at any satisfactory conclusion” regarding the rumored romance. She seems to suggest that the relationship was platonic. Craven’s actions, she concludes, were driven by the “spirit of chivalry” and made him a great example of “nobleness, generosity, and magnanimity.”28 Whether Elizabeth and Craven were romantically linked remains unclear, but what we do know is that the Queen of Bohemia relied heavily on Craven—who also supported her brother, Charles I, from afar during the English Civil War—for financial and emotional support.29 Whatever his precise relationship to their mother, Craven was determined to assist Charles Louis and Rupert in their attempt to recover the Palatinate. He raised £30,000, enough for Charles Louis to hire a small army and set off on a “crazy raid into North Germany.”30 The campaign was an utter failure. The Palatinate forces were defeated at Westphalia in 1638. Prince Rupert and Craven were taken prisoner, and Charles Louis lost everything but his life trying to cross the Weser in a six-horse coach as he fled to Hamburg and then on to The Hague.31 With substantial financial resources at his disposal, Craven was able to buy his way to freedom. The same could not be said for Rupert. What is more, with the all the family’s remaining money spent, all hope of regaining its patrimonial lands seemed lost.32 A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL The fact of the family’s poverty has often been suggested as a reason for Princess Elisabeth’s failure to marry. Some have argued that despite her title, her lack of dowry would have made her a less-than-attractive prospect for potential suitors.33 Although it is almost certainly the case that Elisabeth was effectively dowerless, her failure to marry can be more readily attributed to



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her militant Protestantism. This was amply highlighted during the negotiations that surrounded the most serious marriage proposal she ever received. In 1633 King Ladislas IV of Poland sent his deputy, Zawadski, to England to propose a marriage treaty between Ladislas and Elisabeth. In her father’s absence, Elisabeth’s uncle, Charles I assumed responsibility for the negotiations and thought the match acceptable, on one condition: Elisabeth must be permitted to keep her own religion. Although Ladislas was not averse to this condition, the issue of what religion their offspring would be proved an immovable barrier to the union. At the Diet of Warsaw in November 1635 Ladislas’ constituents made their position clear: the Poles would not accept his marriage to a heretic. There were only two options available. Either Ladislas would have to abandon the marriage proposal or Elisabeth would have to convert to Catholicism. Elisabeth refused to convert. In 1637 Ladislas attempted to propose once again but Elisabeth was firm in her refusal to convert. In a decision reminiscent of her mother’s proclamation that she would not marry a Catholic, even the Holy Roman Emperor, Benger writes that Elisabeth determined to renounce “throne, crown and royal splendour, rather than abjure the faith she believed to be the true one.”34 In the end, the dissolution of the proposed marriage treaty was acceptable to both intended parties: Elisabeth was not required to renounce her Protestant faith and Ladislas avoided what would have been, in a predominantly Catholic country, a politically unpopular marriage to a Protestant princess. Elisabeth’s relief is well-documented: That Elisabeth sincerely rejoiced at her deliverance from regal pomp in barbarous Poland, is, however, to be inferred from the eagerness with which, immediately after the termination of this treaty, she proclaimed her unalterable resolution never to renounce her virgin liberty for any prince, whether Protestant or Catholic; and to dedicate her future days to letters and philosophy.35

And so it was that, at the age of nineteen Elisabeth dedicated her life to scholarship. THE FEMALE SCHOLAR In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the Netherlands was one of the most significant intellectual epicenters in Europe. There formal education flourished, literacy was spreading, and a “general regard for learning had become…deeply rooted” in Dutch culture.36 Its universities attracted scholars and students from all over the continent, making Holland one of the most international intellectual communities in the world. Religious toleration and

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pluralism made it an attractive place for scholars facing persecution in their home countries, while the combination of the Dutch Republic’s relative social freedom and its burgeoning book trade meant that writers were able to publish books in Holland that would not have passed the censors in other parts of Europe.37 Together with its vibrant salons, these factors made for an exciting intellectual atmosphere, which Elisabeth yearned to be a part of. Elisabeth’s decision not to marry and to pursue, instead, a life of scholarship would not have been an easy or uncontroversial choice to make. Putting aside the practical need for housing and material support afforded by marriage, at the beginning of the seventeenth century the life of the female scholar was a decidedly precarious one. Not only were women prohibited from attending—much less teaching at—academic institutions or practicing the learned professions, but they were often forced to justify why time and resources should be spent on furthering their education.38 The education of so-called “learned maidens” was commonly viewed as being, at best a pointless waste of time, and at worst a source of social disorder.39 Not only was the female acquisition of knowledge seen as a threat to the maledominated status quo, but the notion that women might speak publicly, even in the context of scholarly debate within an academic institution, was thought to violate expectations surrounding female chastity.40 The latter view was perhaps best summed up by the English scholar, Bathsua Makin (c.1600–1675), a woman best known for campaigning for the rights of women and girls to an education, when she said that “A Learned Woman is thought to be a Comet, that bodes Mischief, when ever it appears.”41 One partial exception to the exclusion of women from the academy was Elisabeth’s colleague, mentor, and friend, the highly accomplished Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–1678). I say “partial” because even among those who accepted her as a scholar in her own right, recognition of her intellectual talents often came with a poisoned barb. For example, one eulogist suggested that she ate spiders, while another remarked that she must be “a miracle or monster,” such was the impossibility of simply accepting that a woman could display such remarkable erudition.42 Though clearly not heaven-sent nor a freak of nature, Schurman was unusual for the sheer breadth of her intellectual expertise. Although she initially studied at the French school in Utrecht, Anna Maria’s education was primarily undertaken privately under the instruction of her father and a series of tutors who had been employed to also teach her brothers. Whether intentionally or otherwise, this arrangement allowed her to undertake studies usually restricted to boys.43 However, as Anna Maria wrote in her Eucleria, her teachers “paid as much attention to what she ought to study as to what was to be avoided, so as not to ‘assault her maiden’s virtue.’ ”44 That is, despite being



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granted a boy’s education, she was still treated like a girl, to be cosseted and protected from worldly knowledge that might jeopardize her virtue. Concerns over her virtue aside, Anna Maria studied theology, philosophy, and medicine, and became proficient in at least fourteen languages—Dutch, German, French, English, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Samaritan, Persian, and Ethopian—and went on to write the first book on Ethiopian grammar. Such was her reputation that by the early 1630s, Anna Maria had become known as the “Tenth Muse” or the “Minerva of the North.” What is more, unlike Elisabeth, she also demonstrated aptitude for the customary pursuits of noblewomen—embroidery, paper cutting, engraving, and painting—and was admitted to St. Luke’s painters’ guild in Utrecht. Like Elisabeth, Anna Maria was an avowed life-long spinster who devoted her life to scholarship. Somewhat curiously, however, it seems that Anna Maria’s chastity was not entirely her own decision but was preserved at the insistence of her father. It is said that on his deathbed, the elder Schurman warned his daughter of “the inextricable, extremely iniquitous worldly shackles of marriage” and made her promise never to marry.45 Whether Anna Maria’s father feared for her daughter’s Christian purity or worried that she would not be able to use her intellectual talents to their full if she married is unclear. Either way, she remained unmarried and childless until her death in 1678. Alongside her many talents, Anna Maria is perhaps best known for her pioneering efforts on the education of women. Her dedication to this cause first came to the fore at the opening of the University of Utrecht in 1636, a momentous event, attended by all the major dignitaries residing in the area. Sitting in the front row were none other than the Princes of the Palatinate, Maurice, Edward, and Philip of Bohemia. Although Elisabeth was already acquainted with Anna, there is no record of her attending. On the contrary, the attendance of an eighteen-year-old girl at such a ceremony would not have been deemed appropriate. For Anna Maria, however, it was this event that catapulted her into the public sphere, earning her fame across Europe. The opening ceremony was centered on an inaugural address or sermon, delivered by the Dutch theologian Gisbertus Voetius (1589–1676). Voetius was an orthodox Calvinist theologian, an Aristotelian, and a proponent of scholasticism who would later become famous for his public dispute with René Descartes over the fact that he managed to convince the senate to suppress Cartesian philosophy at the University of Utrecht. Voetius had become Anna’s Greek tutor in 1634, teaching her the writings of the great Greek historians and philosophers as well as the Greek New Testament.46 To accompany his sermon, Voetius asked Anna to compose two poems in Latin, one in response to the sermon, the other as a general celebration of the

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University’s opening. Seizing her opportunity, Schurman used the second poem to highlight the injustice of the university’s refusal to admit women: Anna Maria van Schurman congratulates the honourable and famous city of Utrecht with its recently established university. You who powerfully dominate the city and its surroundings according to law and extend your mighty towers to the stars: your highest goal is to shine with the luminance of intellect and to banish slowness and stupidity with Pallas’ weapons… …But, you may ask, what is bothering you? Well, these sacred halls are inaccessible to women! For everyone, they sow and harvest here so that the peace-loving and nourishing Themis may exclude the discordant Chaos from the world, and divine knowledge may radiate with suitable adoration and an altar for the highest God may burn everywhere. This is my goal, I here conclude: it is sufficient that I gave signs of joy in the midst of the world’s celebrations. Greetings to you, hope of the nation, commencement of a better human race, that as the first recipient has been illuminated by the Sun of Justice. Greetings to you again, Light that has risen so recently over the century that appears to have been struck by thunder. May the Sun of Justice never set over you!47

Anna Maria argued that if the Sun of Justice (God), referred to in the University’s motto Sol iustitiae illustra nos (Sun of Justice, illuminate us), did in fact shine on everyone then it must shine on women as well as men.48 What is more, Anna Maria suggested in her poem that if it continued to exclude women, the University and therefore the town of Utrecht would risk a return to barbarism. With her public role in the opening ceremony establishing her fame throughout Europe, the University relented and granted Schurman permission to attend lectures. That said, her presence was heavily circumscribed: she was forced to sit behind a curtain, out of sight from her fellow students, lest the sight of her might excite the young male scholars. This was as much a requirement of Christian virtue as it was one of social control. The Christian virtue of modesty, “the public performance of a woman’s private virtue,” was not only good in and of itself, but “a modest woman could avoid inciting men to unchaste thoughts and immoderate actions.”49 For this reason it is highly unlikely that Anna Maria would have been permitted to take part in the disputations, student debates that took place under the guidance of a professor. After all, the risk that her wit and intelligence might provoke carnal



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fantasies among the young men was far too great. Despite her shrouding, however, Schurman was, as far as anyone can attest, the first female university student, not just in the Netherlands, in all of Europe. Although some biographies have claimed that Elisabeth also attended lectures at the University of Leiden, little evidence of this actually exists.50 Rather, it is more likely that Elisabeth’s intellectual development took place in private, as was customary at the time. In fact, relatively little is known of her scholarly pursuits in her early twenties. What we do know is that she studied mathematics under the instruction of the Dutch mathematician Jan Jansz de Jonge Stampieon, although, whether she had direct contact with him or simply used his textbook remains unclear. Stampieon had moved to The Hague in 1638 to become the mathematics tutor to William II, later Prince of Orange, and taught Christiaan Huygens who went on to be one of the most eminent mathematicians and scientists of the late seventeenth century. As Elisabeth was not only related to William II but her family was well acquainted with the Huygens’s, it is highly probable that she knew Stampieon personally. Just as her education took place in private, so too were Elisabeth’s intellectual engagements with other scholars exclusively private. Thankfully for Elisabeth, the court of her mother, the Queen of Bohemia, provided a “protected and productive space” in which she could entertain scholars of repute and establish an intellectual network.51 At the time, the scholarly world was experiencing yet another major change, this time in the language of intellectual engagement, with a shift away from Latin and toward French and other vernacular languages taking place. While the universities still lectured in Latin and refused to stock books written in other languages in their libraries, the languages of everyday philosophical debate were far more varied. Accompanying this move was the spread of philosophical engagement. Where once the discussion of great intellectual ideas had been confined to the academy and religious institutions, now it routinely took place in the courts, coffee houses, and salons of Europe.52 That is, intellectual debate not only included a wider range of individuals but it took place in private, among individuals known and, to some extent trusted by one another. As a consequence, unprecedented numbers of women, especially those of the educated upper classes, engaged for the first time in intellectual conversations among themselves and with the most eminent philosophers of the age.53 Not only that, but within this realm women became the drivers of scholarly debate, acting as salonnières, inviting guests and determining the terms of debate. Although by the eighteenth century the women of the salons had become “mediators and facilitators for male discourse,” in the seventeenth century they used the salons and other private networks to discuss their own ideas.54

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Among the women to establish these sorts of intellectual gatherings in The Hague were Elizabeth Stuart and her daughter, Princess Elisabeth. Theirs was not a court established in the typical mold of a salon and neither the Queen nor the Princess Palatine sought to style herself as a salonnière. Rather, Elizabeth Stuart enjoyed presenting a sophisticated court at which the latest developments in philosophy, music, and the arts were discussed. In particular, Elizabeth Stuart established herself as one of the most important patrons of the Hartlib Circle, a prominent group of Protestant scholars centered around the figure of Samuel Hartlib (1600–1662). This circle, as we will see, became instrumental in the development of her daughter Elisabeth’s reputation in the middle of the seventeenth century. INTELLECTUAL CIRCLES IN THE 17TH CENTURY Although the Hartlib circle boasted several prominent supporters in England, their most important patron was Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia.55 It was at her invitation that John Dury came to be present at court and contribute to the intellectual network that surrounded Princess Elisabeth. Indeed, the association of the Hartlib Circle with Elisabeth’s family highlights not only the important role that intellectual networks and circles played in the dissemination and promotion of new ideas in the seventeenth century, but the contributions that prominent patrons like Elizabeth played in supporting scholarly advances. Although the intellectual world of the early seventeenth century was one of dynamism, excitement, and change, it was also a world in which the life of the philosopher remained precarious. Those suspected of spreading, or even sometimes just thinking heterodox ideas were in constant danger of inquisition, exile, or even execution. In 1619, the Italian freethinker Lucilio Vanini (who went by the name Julius Caesar Vanini) had his tongue cut out before being strangled and burned at the stake in Toulouse for the blasphemous suggestion that humans and animals possess equivalent, mortal souls, and in 1624 a student, a university teacher, and a physician/alchemist were “convicted…exiled, and ordered never to teach again in Paris” for proposing to “refute the philosophy of Aristotle and defend a variety of atomism.”56 In part, these acts of suppression were the result of the church’s attempt to retain its influence in the face of its rapidly receding power. At the same time, however, they were also born of a genuine fear that new ideas would bring such severe instability to Europe that the states, already mired in politicoreligious conflict, would be unable to control it. As Aristotelian ideas underpinned theology, law, and medicine at the time, any attack on it was viewed “as an attack on the very institutions of the state, the government, the courts,



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the church, and on the learned professions that support those institutions.”57 That is, it was viewed as a threat to society as a whole. Driven, in part, by the looming spectre of threats to life and liberty, philosophers of the early seventeenth century established intellectual “circles” as a relatively secure means of disseminating their findings and debating new ideas. With the institutional structure of the churches no longer boasting a monopoly on legitimating new ideas, and with the universities yet to assume this role, these intellectual circles provided the means of communicating new discoveries, debating their merits, and establishing their legitimacy. Formed by groups of scholars who met in person on a regular basis or corresponded with one another, intellectual circles were highly significant, tightly defined social groups. Their members by no means held identical views on the key intellectual issues of the day—in fact some of the circles became so influential precisely because of the strong disagreements that took place between their members—but they were all known to each other and, to some extent, trusted by one another.58 Among the most significant scholarly patrons of the time was the French Jesuit priest, Marin Mersenne (1588–1648), whose eponymous circle became one of the most important intellectual epicenters of the seventeenth century. Its origins were as a circle of correspondents. From 1623 Mersenne had begun writing to a select group of leading philosophers and scientists including Galileo, Pierre Gassendi, Thomas Hobbes, and Descartes. In time, the Mersenne Circle took on the function of an intellectual “clearing house,” announcing scientific and mathematical discoveries and defending their authors. Although Mersenne had initially rejected Galileo’s natural philosophy, by the end of the 1620s he had actively sought to bring Galileo’s work to the attention of his Circle’s members and correspondents.59 In particular, although Mersenne could not accept Galileo’s anti-Aristotelianism, he appreciated and defended his accounts of mechanics and mathematics. The other main function of the Mersenne Circle was to make unpublished manuscripts available to its members. As we will see, it was through the Mersenne Circle that Descartes’ unpublished manuscripts were initially circulated and Elisabeth became acquainted—through correspondence—with its members. This practice of circulating papers and letters within defined intellectual circles ultimately led to the publication of the first academic journal. On 5 January 1665, the Journal des sçavans (later known as the Journal des Savants) was published by the French writer and lawyer Denis de Sallo. Twelve pages long, its introductory comment explained the purposes of the Journal as follows: “Eminent scholars who die will be memorialized, their works catalogued, and biographical details given. Experiments in physics and chemistry, discoveries in the arts and sciences, such as machines or curious or useful inventions, and astronomical observations, and new findings in

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anatomy, all such matters will be included. There will be also some account of the chief decisions of secular and ecclesiastical courts, both French and foreign; and in these ways an effort will be made to record all events worth of the curiosity of men of letters, so that the Journal may be truly comprehensive.” de Sallo envisaged that, for the “working scholar” the Journal would be “an opportunity to establish contact with other, whether claiming priority or asking for advice.” Prior to then, the philosopher had to make do with his patrons, networks, and circles.60 In Britain, among the dominant intellectual circles of the time was that of Samuel Hartlib. Born in Elbing, Poland, Hartlib was a Protestant refugee who relocated to England in 1628. Dedicated to the Protestant cause, he devoted himself to charity work, “collected money for Protestant refuges from Poland, Bohemia and the Palatinate,” and set about devising a utopian model of the perfect Christian society, called the Macaria, based on Francis Bacon’s understanding of the unity of knowledge.61 Hartlib believed that “a whole world of such [useful] knowledge was at hand, if only men would seek it, and that it could be applied, if only they would distribute it.”62 To that end, Hartlib established himself as “the great intelligencer of Europe,” a man known, not for the originality of his own thought, but as the intermediary through whom the dominant Protestant scholars of Europe would have their works distributed and promoted in England. By 1630 the Hartlib circle had been established to perform this function; by 1660 it had been transformed into the Royal Society of London, the oldest learned scientific society in the world. Hartlib’s two most famous colleagues were the fellow refugees Jan Comenius and John Dury. Comenius was a minister in the pietist Church of the Bohemian Bretheren who had fled Bohemia after the Hapsburgs had regained control and begun the forcible reconversion of the population in 1621. He would later go on to become the chaplain to Mary, Princess of Orange, the daughter of King Charles I who had married Prince William of Orange. Dury was also from Elbing and, like Hartlib, had been forced to leave during the “Jesuit reconquest” of the town.63 Dury was a militant defender of Protestant unity and argued that the Protestant Union ought to intervene in the affairs of the Palatinate to reinstate Elisabeth’s family to their rightful position. “Protestant unity,” he wrote, “will be more worth to the Prince Palatine than the strongest army that His Majesty can raise him.”64 In this endeavor, Dury presented himself at the service of Gustavus Adolphus before heeding the advice of his friend, Hartlib, to travel to England. Also joining the ranks of the Hartlib Circle were John Wilkins and Theodore Haak, “a refugee from the Palatinate.”65 While Wilkins would go on to become Charles I Louis’ chaplain, Haak would later be appointed his secretary and would serve as a crucial link between the Hartlib circle and Protestant scholars, including Elisabeth, on the continent.66



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Indeed, the significance of this introduction to the Hartlib circle for the dissemination of Elisabeth’s ideas cannot be understated. Through its members, Elisabeth’s ideas were circulated, in letter form, to a wide circle of scholars in England. We know, for example, that another esteemed woman of the age, Anne Conway, came into contact with Elisabeth, both through the Hartlib Circle and their mutual associate, Francis Mercury van Helmont.67 A NETWORK OF FEMALE SCHOLARS The other central figure in the establishment of the network of female scholars that was established at the Palatine court in exile was the French Calvinist theologian, Andre Rivet. In 1632 Rivet had left his post at the University of Leiden to take up employment as a tutor to William II, later Prince of Orange. Other accounts suggest that he may also have been appointed as chaplain in Elizabeth of Bohemia’s court. Whatever his status at court, it was Rivet who introduced Princess Elisabeth to Anna Maria van Schurman. Ever the confident young lady, by the early 1630s Anna Maria had begun writing to Rivet in Latin and French, poetry and prose about her favorite cause, the education of women. One letter in particular, written in 1632, became the basis for her Dissertatio De Ingenii Muliebris ad Doctrinam & meliores Litteras aptitudine, which was completed in 1641. In it, Anna Maria provided a series of syllogisms to refute the prevailing view that women should not be educated because they are “less naturally gifted than men.”68 She also demonstrated the inaccuracy of the claim that education is “inappropriate for Christian women” and presented a series of logical arguments against the idea that education is wasted on women because they cannot “fulfill the civil and ecclesiastical offices for which education was required preparation.”69 In taking apart these arguments, Schurman demonstrated that “education was appropriate for women, in general, for exactly the same reasons as it was appropriate for men.”70 The work was later translated into English as The Learned Mind or Whether a Maid May be a Scholar, in which the term “maid” meant a Christian woman who had the means to educate herself. Although he became one of her great patrons, Rivet thought that Schurman’s position was far too radical. Women like her, he argued, were a “huge exception,” called to the scholarly life “by a special instinct.”71 “Most women,” he thought, “should get married and have children.”72 Nonetheless, upon his arrival at the Palatinate court in exile, Rivet set about introducing all the “exceptions” he knew to one another. It was thus at his introduction that Elisabeth became acquainted with Anna Maria van Schurman. In a letter to Anna Maria dated 1 March 1632, Rivet wrote: “I handed over your French

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verses to Princess Elisabeth, and she read and praised them in my presence and promised that she would render thanks in her own hand.”73 Precisely when the two women finally met in person is unclear. Some have suggested that they may have become personally acquainted when Anna Maria visited court to take painting lessons from Gerard Honthorst, however there is little evidence that this is the case. What is clear is that shortly after Rivet’s intervention, a relationship was formed between the women that would last throughout their lives. As Pal notes, eighteen months after Rivet had informed Anna Maria that he had given Elisabeth her French verses, Schurman wrote to him of her new friendship: “Here you have also our Princess, whose friendship I enjoy, and I do not know anything could ever feel more blessed to me than the great inspiration of her genius.”74 In addition, Rivet also introduced his niece, Marie du Moulin to the group. Schurman in turn became du Moulin’s mentor, taking the young woman into her residence and persuading her protégé to learn Hebrew, the subject in which she became a renowned scholar.75 At the same time John Dury was also residing at court. It was through Dury and the Hartlib Circle that Elisabeth began meeting and corresponding with other significant female scholars of the day. Dury himself provided an entrée to the group for the woman who would later become his wife, Dorothy Moore. Moore was an Irish widow and accomplished linguist who was proficient in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, and, possibly Ethiopian. It was through her contact with Samuel Hartlib that she came to know John Dury who she wrote to in 1641 to ask about the possibility of having her sons taught by Professor Voetius. Later in the same year, Moore travelled to the Dutch Republic and, in 1642 was appointed governess to the eleven-year-old Princess Mary Stuart who was living in The Hague in exile. Precisely when Moore became known to Schurmann is also unclear; what is not is that they corresponded with one another, in Latin and Hebrew, and met in person in 1641. Three other women, Marie de Gournay, Bathsua Makin, and Lady Ranelagh corresponded with the group who met at the Palatinate court in exile. Marie le Jars de Gournay was a “self-appointed women’s champion in France,” whose treatise, De l’égalité des hommes et des femmes is “regarded as the first feminist treatise in European history which actually argues for equality.”76 Schurmann was a great admirer of Gournay’s work and argued that her treatise was “as witty as it was learned.”77 From this it seems that Schurmann had initiated contact with the Frenchwoman. Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh was not only a close associate of Samuel Hartlib but had married the cousin of Dorothy Moore’s first husband. Though most commonly known as the sister of the more famous scientist, Robert Boyle, Lady Ranelagh was “one of the most remarkable women in seventeenth-century England,” a political commentator with a “strong interest in medical and chemical matters” as well as in education, ethics, and



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religion.78 Samuel Hartlib wrote of her that she was a woman of “piety and parts, with power and interest, which she hath and will always have with all the great ones, let them change never so often.”79 Makin also boasted several connections to the group. As the governess of the English Princess Elizabeth, the younger sister of Princess Mary, it is likely that Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia knew of her. In addition, as Moore also had “connections with the English royal family” she might have provided the initial introduction. Finally, Makin’s brother-in-law, the mathematician John Pell (1611–1685), not only knew Makin but held chairs in mathematics at the Universities of Breda and Amsterdam between 1643 and 1652 and may therefore have been part of the wider intellectual circles in which the young women moved.80 Later, through members of the Hartlib circle and in particular, the intermediary Haak, Elisabeth’s contribution to mathematics would come to be of interest to Pell. However it was that they became known to one another, correspondence was at the center of these women’s engagement with the intellectual affairs of the day. Alongside their face-to-face meetings with one another, they corresponded with each other and it is through their letters that we can get a sense of their relationships and the topics of interest they discussed. In particular, it is from their correspondence that we learn of Anna Maria’s role as one of Elisabeth’s early mentors. A MENTOR AND FRIEND In 1639 the then twenty-one-year-old Elisabeth wrote to Anna Maria asking for advice on her course of study. At the time, many of those acquainted with Elisabeth had begun to voice concerns over the breadth of her studies. Not only had she embraced the “New Science” and applied its methods to experimentation in the sciences and medicine, but she was keen to understand the widest possible range of viewpoints in the fields of philosophy and theology. Such was her willingness to consider “an enormous range of spiritual and philosophical positions, that rumours had begun to circulate about her possible flirtations with heresy.”81 Concerned for Elisabeth’s well being, Rivet urged Anna Maria to provide guidance to the young scholar. Schurman, in turn, agreed to encourage Elisabeth to exercise “proper moderation in her studies.”82 In her reply, Anna Maria advised Elisabeth to focus her studies on the classics. Studying the past, she argued, allows the scholar to avoid “partiality” and “bias toward a faction,” two potentially dangerous pitfalls associated with Elisabeth’s current program of study.83 What is more, she argued:

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We can see in such works all the past centuries as in a clear mirror and make fairly accurate conjectures concerning those that are to come. As a result we will succeed to that perfect state of regarding nothing on the earth as new, and we shall say with the wisest of kings: “What has been done is what will be; and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.”

To that end, Anna Maria recommended that Elisabeth read Xenophon for his description of the first Persian monarch, Cyrus, Curtius for his depiction of Alexander the Great, and Plutarch “who presents to us illustrious men as in a perfect tableau while drawing a serious and very beautiful comparison between the Greeks and the Romans,” as well as Suetonius, Tacitus, and Scipione Ammirato. In terms of the method by which the writings of the ancients should be applied to the contemporary world, Anna Maria suggested the work of the more recent philologist, Justus Lipsius (1547–1606). Lipsius had been almost single-handedly responsible for the revival in neo-Stoicism in the late sixteenth century and it was to his method, taught to her by Voetius, that van Schurman adhered. In suggesting Lipsius’ work, Anna Maria presumably attempted to direct Elisabeth to the straight and narrow path of neo-Stoic thought, and away from the newer and more controversial ideas she was attracted to. As far as the natural sciences went, Anna Maria suggested that “[p]‌hysics is a little dry if we limit ourselves to its bare speculation.” She preferred instead the study of “natural magic,” which, since the term was first used by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa in 1526, was conceived as a combination of astrology, alchemy, astronomy, chemistry, and botany. This, she thought, was a “more pleasant” subject of inquiry because it “unites with experience some works wonderful to the eye and nevertheless remains within the bounds of laudable curiosity.” That said, Anna Maria made sure to distinguish between astrology, which she thought had a tendency to degenerate into superstition and therefore ought to be avoided, and astronomy, “a noble science…very worthy of our contemplation.” Whether or not Elisabeth heeded all of Anna Maria’s advice remains unclear. What we do know is that she read very widely, examined and rejected the neo-Stoic methods espoused by Lipsius, and adopted, in part, a Cartesian understanding of philosophy and metaphysics. While this point of intellectual divergence, and the bitter public feud that erupted between Descartes and Voetius in later years soured their relationship somewhat, the foundations had been laid for an enduring friendship that would eventually see Anna Maria and Elisabeth reunited in the final years of their lives.



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NOTES 1. James Anderson, Ladies of the Reformation: Memoirs of Distinguished Female Characters, Belonging to the Period of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century: Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, and Spain, (London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and New York: Blackie and Son, 1857), 188–189; Andrew L. Thomas, A House Divided: Wittelsbach Confessional Court Cultures in the Holy Roman Empire, c.1550–1650, (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 165. 2. Bury, for example, speaks of the “tone of mind” set during her time in Berlin, Memoirs of the Princess Palatine, 124. 3. Sophia, Memoirs of Sophia, Electress of Hanover, 1630–1680 (1888), trans. Sophia H. Forester (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1888), 8. 4. Sir Dudley Carleton to his sister, Lady Sedley, 9 February 1622 in Mary Anne Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England, from the Norman Conquest, Volume 5 (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1857), 384. 5. Sophia, Memoirs of Sophia, 4. 6. Sophia, Memoirs of Sophia, 5–6. 7. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 52; Nadine Akkerman (ed.), The Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, Volume 1 1603–1631, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 95; Shapiro, “Editor’s Introduction,” 11. 8. Memoirs of Samuel Sorbière in de Bury, Memoirs of the Princess Palatine of Bohemia, 112–113; Samuel Sorbière, Sorberiana: ou Bons mots, rencontres agreables et pensées judicieuses (Paris 1699), 85–6 in Pal, Republic of Women, 36. 9. Benger, Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart, 356–7. 10. Hay, Winter Queen, 349. 11. Hay, Winter Queen, 381. 12. Sophia, Memoirs of Sophia, 14. 13. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 67. 14. Scott, Rupert Prince Palatine. 15. In 1626, the Duke of Buckingham had also visited the family with the intention of taking up the Palatinate cause. To secure his assistance, Buckingham proposed a marriage between Frederick Henry and his daughter, Mary Villiers. While Frederick was receptive to the idea, Buckingham was assassinated before a treaty could be agreed. 16. Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 241. 17. The Battle of Lutzen, 16 November 1632: Colonel Dalbier’s account, in Wilson, The Thirty Years’ War, 247. 18. Thomas Munck, Seventeenth-Century Europe: State, Conflict and Social Order in Europe 1598–1700, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005), 20. 19. Sophia, Memoirs of Sophia, 27. 20. Bury, Memoirs of the Princess Palatine, 128. 21. For an account of the financial strife the family found themselves in see Green, Lives of the Princesses of England, p.394, 480, and 518. 22. J. H. Clapham, “Charles Louis, Elector Palatine, 1617–1680: An Early Experiment in Liberalism,” Economica 7(1940): 384.

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23. Clapham, “Charles Louis, Elector Palatine,” 384. 24. Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 345. 25. “Foreign Observation: The Earl of Arundel’s Trip along the Main, 1636” in Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 365; see Francis C. Springell (ed.), Connoisseur and Diplomat: The Earl of Arundel’s Embassy to Germany in 1636 as Recounted in William Crowne’s Diary, (London: 1963), 59–60. 26. Craig Ashley Hanson, The English Virtuoso: Art, Medicine and Antiquarianism in the Age of Empiricism, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 26. 27. On this matter Elizabeth Benger wrote: “Of the marriage, if it ever took place, no document appears to exist; it is unauthenticated by contemporary writers; and is simply one of those popular traditions, of which the existence may be accounted for by the munificent friendship which Lord Craven displayed to the Palatine family…. That Elizabeth should have submitted to become the mistress of Lord Craven is a suspicion which the purity of her character repels, and which it would betray the grossest ignorance of the moral and religious state of society in Holland at that period to conceive to be possible. To the marriage itself no legitimate objection could have existed: unequal alliances were not unprecedented, and it was unworthy of Elizabeth’s character to conceal the union, if it actually took place. But the question is far less important to her character than to that of Lord Craven. Regarded as the husband of Elizabeth, he appears eminently amiable; but as her faithful friend—her generous, disinterested protector—he becomes one of the most interesting personages that history has ever presented, or romance produced.” Benger, Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart, xv–xvi. 28. Benger, Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart, xvi. 29. After Charles Louis had recovered the Palatinate in 1648 and the Restoration had seen her nephew, Charles II, ascend to the English throne, Elizabeth retired back to London where she resided with Lord Craven. Such was his devotion to her that he built two houses for her, Ashdown House in Wiltshire and Hampstead Marshall, a mansion designed to rival the best European palaces. Elizabeth never saw either house completed: she died before Ashdown was finished and Hamstead Marshall was begun. Jane Lark, “Ashdown House and the Love Story of William Craven, 1st Early of Craven and Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, the Winter Queen,” (8 October 2012) available at www.janelark.wordpress.com. 30. Clapham, “Charles Louis, Elector Palatine,” 386. 31. Clapham, “Charles Louis, Elector Palatine,” 386. 32. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 143. 33. Margaret Atherton, Women Philosophers of the Early Modern Period, (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), 9. 34. Bury, Memoirs of the Princess Palatine, 134. 35. Benger, Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart, 364. 36. Cook, “The New Philosophies in the Low Countries,” 116. 37. Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 97; Pal, Republic of Women, 24. 38. Merry E. Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 144–145.



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39. Wiesner writes: “The suggestion that women should share in…[scholarly] advances was viewed as at best impractical and at worst dangerous. Why should parents forgo the help of their daughters in the household while they learned things they would never use in later life…?” Women and Gender, 145. 40. Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, “The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: Introduction to the Series” in Joyce L. Irwin (ed.), Anna Maria van Schurman, Whether a Christian Woman Should Be Educated and Other Writings from Her Intellectual Circle, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1998), 14. 41. Pal, Republic of Women, 2. 42. Pal, Republic of Women, 3. 43. Joyce Irwin, “Introduction: Anna Maria van Schurman and Her Intellectual Circle,” in Joyce L. Irwin (ed.), Whether a Christian Woman Should be Educated and Other Writings from Her Intellectual Circle (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1998), 24. 44. Cornelia N. Moore, “Anna Maria van Schurman, 1607–1678,” caans acaen XI(1990): 26. 45. Pieta van Beek, The First Female University Student: Anna Maria van Schurman, (Utrecht: Igitur, 2010), 24. 46. By 1640 Rene Descartes would write to Marin Mersenne that Voetius had “ruined” Schurman, while in response to concerned correspondence from Christian Huygens, her other mentor, Andre Rivet would reply: “Mons. Voetius burdens her spirit so heavily, and cuts her off from the world so much, that she is his alone, and to be frank with you, I am afraid that he is overwhelming that mind that wants to know everything, and know it exactly.” Yet Pal argues that all three were mistaken in their concerns over the influence that Voetius had over Schurman. In Pal, Republic of Women, 130–131; Rene Descartes to Marin Mersenne, Paris, 11 November 1640, in The Philosophical Writing of Descartes. Volume III, 154. 47. In van Beek, The First Female University Student, 49. 48. van Beek, The First Female University Student, 51. 49. Pal, Republic of Women, 8. 50. Lisa Shapiro, “Volume Editor’s Introduction,” 12. 51. Pal, Republic of Women, 24. 52. Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 82. 53. Broad, Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, 1. 54. Faith Evelyn Beasley, Salons, History, and the Creation of Seventeenthcentury France: Mastering Memory, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 182. 55. John Matthews, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment Revisited, (Lindisfarne Press, 1999), 223. 56. Daniel Garber, “On the Frontlines of the Scientific Revolution: How Mersenne Learned to Love Galileo,” Perspectives on Science 12(2004): 138. 57. Garber, “On the frontlines of the scientific revolution,” 157. 58. Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 528. 59. Garber, “On the Frontlines of the Scientific Revolution,” 135–163.

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60. Harcourt Brown, “History and the Learned Journal,” Journal of the History of Ideas 33(1972): 368–9. 61. Hugh Trevor-Roper, “Three Foreigners: The Philosophers of the Puritan Revolution” in Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century: Religion, the Reformation and Social Change, (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001), 149–50. 62. Trevor-Roper, “Three Foreigners,” 149. 63. Trevor-Roper, “Three Foreigners,” 150. 64. In Trevor-Roper, “Three Foreigners,” 150. 65. Trevor-Roper, “Three Foreigners,” 171. 66. Shapiro, “Editor’s Introduction,” 13; Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, The Forbidden University: The Occult Origins of Science and the Search for the Mind of God, (Skyhorse Publishing, 2011) book. 67. Sarah Hutton, Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 154. 68. Desmond M. Clarke, “Anna Maria van Schurman and Women’s Education” in Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’étranger 138(2013): 347. 69. Clarke, “Anna Maria van Schurman,” 347. 70. Clarke, “Anna Maria van Schurman,” 347. 71. Andre Rivet to Anna Maria van Schurman, March 1, 1632 in Schurman, ed. Irwin, Whether a Christian Woman Should be Educated, 60. 72. van Beek, The First Female University Student, 33. 73. Andre Rivet to Anna Maria van Schurman, March 1, 1632 in Schurman, ed. Irwin, Whether a Christian Woman Should be Educated, 60–1. 74. In Pal, Republic of Women, 85. 75. Mirjam de Baar, “God Has Chosen You to Be Crown of Glory for All Women! The International Network of Learned Women Surrounding Anna Maria van Schurman” in Suzan van Dijk, Petra Broomans, Janel van der Meulen, and Pim van Oostrum(eds.), I Have Heard about You: Foreign Women’s Writing Crossing the Dutch Border, ed. Suzan van Dijk, Petra Broomans, Janel van der Meulen, and Pim van Oostrum, (Hilversum: Verloren 2004), 125–6. 76. de Baar, “The Network Surrounding Anna Maria van Schurman,” 114. 77. In de Baar, “The Network Surrounding Anna Maria van Schurman,” 115. 78. Michael Hunter, Boyle Studies: Aspects of the Life and Thought of Robert Boyle (1627–91), (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015), 12; Sarah Hutton, Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 138. 79. In Hunter, Boyle Studies, 12. 80. de Baar, “The Network Surrounding Anna Maria van Schurmann,” 124. 81. Pal, Republic of Women, 85. 82. van Schurman in Pal, Republic of Women, 85. 83. Anna Maria van Schurman to Elisabeth, September 7, 1639 in Irwin (ed.), Whether a Christian Woman Should be Educated, 77–80.

Chapter 3

Encountering Descartes

In 1642 René Descartes’ Meditations became the focus of Elisabeth’s studies. Not only did they provide welcome relief from what Elisabeth considered the dull and pointless frivolities of court life, but it so happened that their author lived nearby and was already acquainted with the family. In a letter to Alphonse Pollot, a French gentleman in waiting to the Prince of Orange, dated 6 October 1642, Descartes expressed his satisfaction upon learning that Elisabeth had read and approved of his Meditations. He wrote: I had before now already heard so many marvels concerning the excellent mind of Mademoiselle the Princess of Bohemia, that I was hardly surprised to learn that she reads works of metaphysics, since I consider myself fortunate in that having deigned to read those written by me, she gives evidence that she does not disapprove of them; and I think more of her judgment than that of those Doctors who, for laws of truth, prefer the opinions of Aristotle to the evidence of reason.1

Descartes asked Pollot to arrange a meeting with the Princess, but it seems Elisabeth was too unwell at the time to receive Descartes in The Hague.2 Fortunately for us, they began their communication instead in writing, beginning a six-year-long conversation that was only terminated by Descartes’ death in 1649. While some of their discussions took place in person, we can be thankful that they more regularly took the form of written correspondence. Two main themes are evident in Elisabeth’s correspondence with Descartes. The first, and most obvious, is the dominance of philosophical debate in their letters. These exchanges were intellectual exercises, born of the commitments of both thinkers to better understand the workings of the human mind. At the same time, however, there is a second, more affectionate theme revealed in Descartes’ repeated attempts to comfort Elisabeth in times of distress. Elisabeth, it seems, suffered from melancholia (depression) as well as a 65

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number of other physical illnesses. Her depressed mood has been widely interpreted, including by Descartes, as being the function of the perpetual trials and tribulations faced by her family. Of these there were many, starting with her father’s defeat and the loss of the Palatinate in 1620 and followed by the death of her brother, Frederick Henry and, later, her father. As we will see, these sorts of unfortunate events continued to mark the rest of her life. And yet, it was precisely her experience of sadness, grief, and distress, combined with her interest in philosophy, that drove some of Elisabeth’s most significant contributions to seventeenth century philosophical thought. In particular, her experience of sadness led her to challenge Descartes’ theory of the unity of the body and the soul and, from that starting point, to begin conceptualizing the relationship between the cognitive and bodily elements of the passions. RENÉ DESCARTES During his lifetime Descartes famously refused to have his birthdate published on account of his abiding fear that someone might use it to cast an unsolicited horoscope. Such was his aversion to horoscopes that on January 29, 1640, he wrote to Mersenne claiming that a young man had been killed as the result of one: When Hortensius was in Italy a few years ago he found out how to make horoscopes. Back in this country he told two young acquaintances that he would die in 1639 and they wouldn’t live long beyond that date. Now, as you know he did die last summer, and this struck fear into the two young men—so much so that that one of them is dead and the other (who is Heinsius’s son) is so sad and so languishing that he seems to be doing his best to save astrology from being a liar. What fine science that is—bringing death to people who otherwise might not even have been ill!3

This view was by no means an oddity for a man with quite a number of interesting quirks. We now know that René Descartes was born in the French town of La Haye—now Descartes—on 31 March 1596.4 A sickly child, Descartes suffered from a persistent cough throughout his childhood and adolescence, most likely caused by tuberculosis. In 1606 he was sent to the new Jesuit college of La Flèche in Anjou, established by King Henry IV two years earlier. Due to his illness, Descartes was excused from rising at 5 am with the other students and permitted instead to remain in bed until 11, a habit he continued throughout his life.



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Though weak of body, the young Descartes was certainly not weak of mind. On the contrary, he was an excellent student “with a deep love of mathematics.”5 He studied a wide range of subjects including all the major branches of mathematics, classics, logic, Aristotelian philosophy, and music, before going on to study law at the University of Poitiers. Rather than taking up a career as a lawyer upon graduation in 1616, however, he “entirely abandoned the study of letters.” Some years later he explained his decision in his Discourse on Method: Resolving to seek no knowledge other than that of which could be found in myself or else in the great book of the world, I spent the rest of my youth travelling, visiting courts and armies, mixing with people of diverse temperaments and ranks, gathering various experiences, testing myself in the situations which fortune offered me, and at all times reflecting upon whatever came my way so as to derive some profit from it.6

His aim, he claimed, was to “collect diverse experiences” and to “prove himself ‘in the encounters that fortune set before [him].’ ”7 Among the militaries Descartes visited was the Army of Breda, led by Elisabeth’s relative, Maurice of Nassau, which he joined in 1618. As a volunteer, Descartes studied military engineering and enjoyed an arrangement by which he was only required to engage in combat if he actually wanted to.8 In any case, Descartes had joined a peacetime army. By the time he arrived in Breda, a town just north of the border with the Spanish-controlled Netherlands, Spain and the Netherlands had entered the ninth year of their Twelve Year Truce agreed in 1609. In the absence of any actual fighting, Descartes’ time in Breda was spent furthering his studies. It was there that he met the Dutch natural philosopher Isaac Beeckman (1588–1637). Beeckman was a candlemaker, engineer, physician, philosopher, and teacher who became best known for his contribution to the natural philosophy of atomism and, as his reputation grew, became personally acquainted with Marin Mersenne and Pierre Gassendi.9 Prior to that time, however, he took a particular interest in Descartes. He discussed mathematics with the young Frenchman and set him challenges in physiomathematics, a combination of mathematics, musicology, kinematics, and hydrostatics.10 This interaction led Descartes to write his first book in 1618, the Compendium musicae, which he dedicated and presented to Beeckman. The work, which examined the mathematics of music, was not published until 1650 but became “one of the most widely-read texts on the mathematics of music in the second half of the seventeenth century.”11 Precisely what Descartes did next is a matter of some conjecture. In 1619 he left Breda to attend the coronation of Emperor Ferdinand II in

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Frankfurt and to join the army of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria. Of course it was Maximilian’s army that, just over a year later, defeated Frederick V at the Battle of White Mountain. This coincidence has led many historians to suppose that Descartes fought in the battle, ultimately contributing to the downfall of Elisabeth’s family. Despite the prevalence of this claim, there is no evidence to suggest that Descartes actually fought in the battle.12 At best it seems that he may have been in Prague at the time of battle, although some have questioned whether he visited Prague at all.13 Even Descartes’ own notes make no mention of it. Almost exactly one year earlier, Descartes had experienced what was, in his own terms, an “intellectual epiphany.”14 One night during the winter of 1619 Descartes found himself shut “alone in a stove-heated room” in the town of Neuberg. Whether the heat of the room was a significant factor in what happened next remains unclear, but according to Descartes’ own account, he experienced three visions. These visions he interpreted as revealing the possibilities for an entirely new system of philosophy.15 This system or method was based on the idea that the best works are “carried out by a single individual” rather than on the basis of collaboration or the conglomeration of ideas over time. Scholars, he thus thought, ought to free their minds from the influence of everything they have been taught, “make a clean sweep” of their existing assumptions and ideas, and build knowledge afresh “from the foundations” up.16 Descartes wrote down these dreams and one year later wrote in the margin: “11 November 1620. I began to understand the foundation of the wonderful discovery.”17 This annotation, three days after the Battle of White Mountain, suggests that at the very least Descartes’ mind was far from the violence that took place in Prague. Another, perhaps more plausible, explanation for why Descartes may have been in Prague around the time of the Battle of White Mountain suggests that he had gone to visit Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler and view their scientific instruments.18 Either way, we know that Descartes continued on in the service of Maximilian and Ferdinand II until around 1620 and, in the years that followed by his own account “did nothing but ‘roam here and there in the world, trying to be a spectator more than an actor in all the comedies that play there.’ ”19 Between 1620 and 1625, he spent time in Bohemia, Hungary, Germany, Holland, France, and Italy, before finally returning to Paris. It was there that he renewed an earlier association he had forged with Marin Mersenne and became part of the Mersenne Circle. By 1628, however, Descartes had tired of Parisian intellectual life and decided to move to the Dutch Republic. He later explained that he had left Paris for the Netherlands to satisfy his need for “solitude to work, away from the demands of Paris intellectuals and chatty country neighbours alike.”20 Others have suggested that, with his solitary tendencies and past associations



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with the German mathematician, Joann Faulhaber, he was in danger of being accused of being a Rosicrucian.21 Perhaps a more plausible explanation is that Descartes moved to Holland to seek fame in the well-established intellectual circles of Leiden, Utrecht, and The Hague and to benefit from the freedoms afforded scholars there. In any case, Descartes’ move allowed him to reconnect with his old friend, Beeckman, although their relationship was irrevocably damaged when Descartes learned, via their mutual acquaintance Marin Mersenne, that Beeckman had been passing off Descartes’ discoveries as his own.22 Nonetheless, Descartes became part of an intellectual scene that included eminent mathematicians such as Hortensius and Christiaan Huygens, Huygens’ father, Constantijn, and great intellectual women of the age, such as Anna Maria van Schurman and Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia. What is more, life in Holland provided ample time for scholarship. From various residences in Amsterdam, Leiden, Deventer, and Utrecht he composed La recherché de la vérité par la lumière naturelle which remained unfinished and unpublished until 1701, Le Monde (The World), his first work of natural philosophy which, on learning of Galileo’s fate, he decided not to publish, and L’Homme (Man). In 1637, however, he published two works, his Discours de la méthod (Discourse on Method), and La Géométrie (Geometry) in French. Fastidious about the quality of the publication, Descartes spent an entire year in Leiden supervising the preparation of the wood blocks for his Discourse to ensure that the “whole text” was “printed with very fine characters and on very fine letters.”23 Once he was satisfied with the publication process he settled in Egmond where in 1640 he composed his Meditationes de prima philosophia (Meditations on First Philosophy), this time in Latin. Prior to its publication, Descartes sent the work to Mersenne who solicited a series of objections from members of his circle, including the Dutch theologian Johannes Caterus, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, the French theologian and mathematician Antoine Arnauld, the Jesuit Pierre Bourdin, and the French philosopher Pierre Gassendi. Mersenne also composed his own objection. The work, as well as the objections and Descartes’ replies to them, was published in Paris in August 1641, and then again in Amsterdam by Louis Elzevier in May 1642. That same year, Elisabeth began to study it in detail. THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM Elisabeth and Descartes’ early correspondence was dominated by discussion of the so-called mind-body problem, the question of how the soul (what we think of today as the mind) could interact with the body within a Cartesian

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understanding of metaphysics. To understand the source of this problem, we need to delve a little further into Descartes’ thought, if only briefly. Descartes’ new philosophy was driven by a set of inter-related theological and scientific concerns. In particular, Descartes sought to reconcile his belief in reason as the means of attaining the truth and his sympathy for the challenges posed to the authority of the Catholic Church with his devout Catholicism. Dedicating his Meditations to the faculty at the Sorbonne— thereby seeking approval from the most significant Catholic theologians of the time—Descartes’ aims were two-fold: he sought to prove the existence of God and demonstrate the immortality of the human soul through the use of reason. As he noted in the Dedication to the work: “I am aware that most of the irreligious deny the existence of God, and the distinctiveness of the human soul from the body, for no other reason than because these points, as they allege, have never as yet been demonstrated.”24 That is, Descartes argued that although reason is the source of the truth—and in doing so refuted the very notion of skepticism—faith in mathematics had led some thinkers to deny the immortality of the soul and the existence of God on the grounds that it could not be proven using a mathematical formula. Instead, Descartes sought to demonstrate the existence of God using three syllogistic proofs based on the assumptions of the “Great Chain of Being”— the idea that everything that exists must have an ultimate cause. He concluded that “the mere fact that I exist and have within me an idea of a most perfect being, that is, God, provides very clear proof that God indeed exists.”25 That is, Descartes’ argument proposed that because imperfect human beings are capable of conceiving of a perfect God, God must exist: that is, it is only from that perfect being, who caused us to exist, that our idea of perfection can be derived. As we will see, these arguments caused Descartes a considerable amount of trouble during his lifetime and even after his death caused claims of atheism to continue to be leveled at Cartesian thought. At the same time, Descartes also aimed to replace Scholastic “final cause” explanations for behavior with mechanistic explanations derived from geometry. Based on the Aristotelian idea of telos, the final cause explanations favored by Scholastic thinkers maintained that everything that exists can be defined by its natural end. For example, every aspect of every organism is designed to contribute to the achievement of the end for which it was created, each of its individual functions has a purpose defined by its overall end goal, and its natural behavior can be explained in terms of the pursuit of its natural end. According to Descartes, final cause explanations did not make sense because they imputed mental qualities to non-mental entities such as inanimate objects and non-human animals. A dropped stone, he argued, does not fall to the ground because it seeks to fulfill its natural end; rather, in the absence of a mind, the stone simply obeys the laws of gravity.



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At the heart of Descartes’ thought, as presented in his Meditations, was thus a metaphysical distinction between substances that are physical or material and those that are mental or immaterial. According to this fundamental division, the mind or soul is immaterial and “unextended”: it is defined by its capacities for thought and free will. By contrast, the body is “extended” and material and, unlike the mind, is governed by the laws of physics.26 Driving this metaphysical distinction was Descartes’ devotion to the mechanical philosophy that had gained traction with the discoveries of Copernicus and, in particular, Galileo. Mechanism, a term coined for mechanical philosophy by the Dutch historian of science, Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis, proposed that all phenomena in the universe could be explained using the laws of physics. Accompanying its rise to popularity during the Renaissance and early modern period was renewed interest in the construction of automata designed to simulate and thus explain movements, actions, and interactions of humans and other animals.27 Among the most famous automata of the time were the robots of the French Royal Gardens that used hydraulic systems to move and create realistic expressions.28 Descartes’ fascination with automata is well documented if, perhaps, a little exaggerated. It was said, from the eighteenth century onward, that in the final years of his life he travelled with a life-sized mechanical doll. Named after his illegitimate daughter, Francine, Descartes is reputed to have used the automata to demonstrate that the bodies of humans and animals are “nothing more than particularly intricate machines.”29 Although this story is probably fanciful, it serves to highlight Descartes’ fervent belief that the function and behavior of the human body can be explained in mechanical terms. Despite its popularity in the early modern period, mechanical philosophy was not without its problems. In particular, although its proponents went some way toward explaining the actions of the physical human body, they were unable to similarly explain the nature and functions of the mind. Descartes, for one, believed that what distinguishes human beings from other animals is that in addition to a mechanical body, we also possess an immaterial soul or mind. This, in large part, is what drove his dualistic understanding of what it is to be human. The suggestion that the mind and the body are made of different substances raised serious questions about how they interact with one another. For although Descartes argued that they were distinct, he also maintained that the body and the mind are unified: Nature teaches me, through these sensations of pain, hunger, thirst and so on, that I (a thinking thing) am not merely in my body as a sailor is in a ship. Rather, I am closely joined to it—intermingled with it, so to speak—so that it and I form a unit. If this were not so, I wouldn’t feel pain when the body was

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hurt but would perceive the damage in an intellectual way, like a sailor seeing that his ship needs repairs.30

Having observed that the mind and body are united, Descartes offered multiple explanations for how this might occur. In some instances he argued that “the mind can interact with any part of the body by means of what he called ‘animal spirits’ (minute particles of blood), which carry messages to various parts of the body.”31 In doing so, he combined Galen’s suggestion, made in the 2nd century A.D., that “nerves function by means of the animal spirits contained within them,” with William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of blood published in 1628.32 On other occasions, Descartes suggested that “[t]‌he mind is not immediately affected by all parts of the body but only by the brain” or, in particular, by that part of the brain associated with “common sense,” the pineal gland.33 The connection between the mind and the body works as follows. Among the primary functions of the body is its sensory role. When the body perceives a sensation, it sends signals to the brain. For example: …when I feel a pain in my foot, physiology tells me that this happens by means of nerves distributed throughout the foot right up to the brain. When the nerves are pulled in the foot, they in turn pull on inner parts of the brain to which they are attached, and produce a certain motion in them; and nature has laid it down that this motion should produce in the mind a sensation of pain, as occurring in the foot…and so it will come about that the mind feels the same sensation of pain.34

It was this peculiarly mechanical explanation of how the mind and the body interact that Elisabeth challenged when she asked Descartes in her first letter how material and immaterial substances—such as the body and the mind—can “push” each other. Combining elements of the two explanations, Descartes also proposed that when we experience a sensation, the animal spirits flow out of trapdoors located in tubules within nerve fibers thus allowing them to have an impact on the pineal gland. In return, the pineal gland could then send the spirits back down through these same tubules and trapdoors to the parts of the body that had been stimulated. This tubule theory was, however, disproven by the Danish bishop, scientists, and anatomist, Nicolaus Steno, in 1669.35 ELISABETH’S FIRST CRITIQUE Elisabeth initially articulated a version of the mind-body problem raised by Descartes’ Meditations in her very first letter to the philosopher, dated 6 May



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1643. She asked Descartes to please explain “how the soul of a human being (it being only a thinking substance) can determine the bodily spirits, in order to bring about voluntary actions.” 36 As Elisabeth saw it, the challenge raised by Descartes’ dualist philosophy was to explain how an immaterial soul could possibly move a material body, given that “physical contact” is impossible for something immaterial. To meet this challenge, Elisabeth asked Descartes to provide a better definition of the nature of the soul than he had done in his Meditations.37 In his reply, Descartes praised Elisabeth, flamboyantly and profusely, for having written to him: The favour with which your Highness has honoured me, in allowing me to receive her orders in writing, is greater than I ever would have dared to hope, and it is more consoling to my failings than what I had hoped for with passion, which was to receive them by mouth, had I been able to be admitted the honour of paying you reverence, and of offering you my very humble services when I was last in The Hague.38

However, Descartes continued to write that it was probably just as well that he and Elisabeth were communicating in writing. Had he had the opportunity to talk with her in person, he suggested, he would be awestruck by her many marvels, especially her “superhuman discourse emerging from a body so similar to those painters give to angels.”39 Having offered the requisite flattery, Descartes then turned to Elisabeth’s question and wrote that the “principal aim” of his Meditations had been to “prove the distinction between the soul and the body” and to make the “fact that it thinks….better understood.”40 That is, at least in his initial response, Descartes deflected Elisabeth’s critique by claiming that his intention had not been to explain how the soul is united to the body. Rather than delve into these theories in his initial reply to Elisabeth, however, Descartes suggested that Elisabeth was seeking the wrong sort of explanation for the interactions of the body and the soul. When we look for a way to explain how the soul moves the body and, conversely, how the body causes passions and sensations in the soul, he argued, we tend to make the mistake of assuming that the soul acts on the body in the same way as the body acts on other bodies. To elucidate what he meant, Descartes presented Elisabeth with the following analogy: For example, in supposing that heaviness is a real quality, of which we have no other knowledge but that it has the power to move a body in which it is toward the center of the earth, we have no difficulty in conceiving how it moves the body, nor how it is joined to it; and we do not think that this happens through a real contact of one surface against another, for we experience in ourselves that we have a specific notion for conceiving that; and I think that we use this

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notion badly, in applying it to heaviness, which, as I hope to demonstrate in my Physics, is nothing really distinct from body. But I do think that it was given to us for conceiving the way in which the soul moves the body.41

Elisabeth was not convinced by this explanation. She wrote, in characteristically forthright terms, that she did not see how our misperceptions about the nature of weight could possibly help us to understand how the soul moves the body.42 The problem, Elisabeth reiterated, lay in conceiving the soul as being immaterial, for that which is by definition immaterial cannot “have any communication” or enter into causal relationships with matter.43 For her, and as David Hume would later argue, causation required contact. It would be easier, she suggested, “to concede matter and extension to the soul than to concede the capacity to move a body and to be moved by it to an immaterial thing.”44 She was not alone in this view: both Thomas Hobbes and Pierre Gassendi had argued in their critiques of the Meditations that the soul is extended. Elisabeth was almost certainly familiar with these ideas although, as we will see shortly, she did not go as far as Hobbes’ reductionist materialism.45 Like Hobbes and Gassendi, Elisabeth not only challenged Descartes’ immaterial/ material understanding of the mind/body distinction but his explanation of how the spirits carry messages through the body to the mind. In short, she argued that if the spirits performed the function Descartes proposed, they would have to be able to think. Yet, according to Descartes’ understanding, the body and its constituent components is a mechanical device incapable of thought. Again, Descartes’ response to Elisabeth’s critique was not very satisfactory. In essence it was two-fold. First, he argued that at the core of the mindbody problem is an issue of perception. The problem, Descartes suggested, was that “the human mind is [not] capable of conceiving” the fact that the soul is distinct from the body, or that it is unified with the body.46 Second, he also argued that although it might make sense to conceive the mind in material terms to explain its union with the body, when we do so the matter we ultimately “attribute to this thought is not the thought itself.”47 This, of course, was not an answer Elisabeth’s question but a restatement of the idea that the body is material while the mind and its thoughts are not. According to Descartes, what was hampering understanding of the mind-body problem was the way in which intelligent people, such as Elisabeth, approached it. Rather, Descartes wrote, it is “those who never philosophize and who use only their sense [who] do not doubt in the least that the soul moves the body and that the body acts on the soul.”48 If Descartes thought he could get away with answering a different question to the one Elisabeth had posed, however, he was sorely mistaken. The issue, she reiterated, was not the idea “that the soul moves the body”: our senses,



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she recognised, show us that. Rather, the issue was that of “the way in which” the soul moves the body, something of which the senses tell nothing.49 This distinction, according to Elisabeth, suggested that there are properties of the soul that were not yet understood and, more significantly for Descartes, that these properties may even “overturn” his dualist doctrine.50 By this stage, however, Descartes had become preoccupied with a dispute with the Calvinist minister and professor of theology at the University of Utrecht, Gisbertus Voetius, and apologized to Elisabeth for not giving her his full attention. In much of the literature on Elisabeth’s correspondence with Descartes, this intervention is cited as the reason why their discussion of the mind-body problem came to an abrupt end.51 Yet, as Deborah Brown suggests, there may in fact be another reason for the “gap in their correspondence on the question of mind-body union,” that is, that they had reached a “stalemate” on the subject.52 By implying that Descartes realized he could not convince Elisabeth to accept his position, this explanation gives more weight to Elisabeth’s contribution to this debate. Indeed, although Descartes explained that had this “chicanery” not distracted him he would have written “a longer discourse in which…[he] would have tried to clarify all at once the difficulties of the question asked,” even once their correspondence resumed, this did not eventuate. 53 Even so, it is difficult to know for certain whether Descartes felt defeated or was simply distracted by other events. What we do know is that Descartes had been summonsed by the magistrate of Utrecht to verify two letters he had written, his “Letter to Dinet,” which was published in the second edition of his Meditations, and his public “Letter to Voetius.” Neither letter cast Voetius, a man Descartes believed had “slandered” him “very indignantly” in a favorable light.54 The dispute between Descartes and Voetius was sparked by Descartes’ disciple, the self-avowed Cartesian professor of theoretical medicine at the University of Utrecht, Henricus Regius (1598–1679) and was fundamentally concerned with the University’s decision to ban the teaching of Cartesianism. At the forefront of the disagreement was Descartes’ proof of the existence of God, his claim that the existence of God cannot be proven using the laws of physics—which, of course, was not to deny the existence of God, only that being a perfect spiritual substance, God is not subject to the laws of physics— and his account of free will articulated in his Fourth Meditation.55 Descartes had, perhaps naively, thought that the University would be “a favourable ground for the propagation of his doctrine” and believed that it would “come up against less resistance there than at the old Sorbonne.”56 What he had not bargained on was the extent of the “violent hostility” to his ideas expressed by Voetius and others or, indeed, Voetius’ ability to have Cartesianism removed from the syllabus.57 Descartes was incensed and “launched a violent personal attack on Voetius.”58

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In response, Voetius and Martin Schoock argued in The Admirable Method (1643) that Descartes was “actually an atheist who rejects the traditional proofs for the existence of God to substitute one so weak that anyone reading his works will be led into atheism” and compared him to Vanini throughout the book.59 This was a grave insult to Descartes. Not only was he accused of “deviously trying to make people into atheists” but Vanini “had been burned at the stake as much for homosexual acts as for his heretical theology.”60 In the course of the dispute “Voetius made the mistake of writing to Mersenne in the hope of enlisting his support against Descartes. But Mersenne was on Descartes’ side, and forwarded Voetius’ letters to him.”61 Descartes to Mersenne: Thank you for your news of Voetius. I find nothing strange in it except his not knowing that I am your friend; everyone here who knows me at all knows about that. He is the most openly and completely pedantic fellow in the world, and he’s bursting with rage because there is a professor of medicine in their University of Utrecht who openly teaches my philosophy, and even gives private lectures in physics which in a few months equip his pupils to make fun of the old scholastic philosophy as a whole. Voetius and the other professors have done their best to get the magistrates to forbid him to teach, but the magistrates allow him to continue. This Voetius has also ruined Mlle de Schurmans: she had excellent gifts for poetry, painting and other fine arts, but these last five or six years he has taken her over so completely that all she cares about are theological controversies, so that no decent people want to talk to her…62

Not that Mersenne’s support was of any help to him. In his 200 page open letter to Voetius, Descartes argued, among other things, that Voetius was stupid and had committed slander. He wrote: Even if the philosophy that you are raging agaist were unsound—which you haven’t shown and never will—how could it possible be bad enough to require that its author be slandered with such atrocious insults?63

Then later in the same letter: I have read many of your writings, but have never found any reasoning in them, or any thought that isn’t base or commonplace—nothing that suggests someone who is intelligent or wise.64

In the end, the magistrate determined that Descartes had libeled Voetius but, as he lived in Holland, not Utrecht, little became of the charge. In the end, the Prince of Orange intervened on Descartes’ behalf and the libel charge was quietly dropped.65 Martin Schook was hauled before officials at



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the University of Groningen to answer to the charges he had made against Descartes and, in the end, Descartes won the case in 1645. Descartes wrote of the incident in a letter to his friend Chanut several years later: If only I had been as wise as they say savages think monkeys are, that is, savages imagine that monkeys could talk if they wanted to, but they don’t so no one will put them to work. Since I have not had the same prudence to abstain from writing, I don’t have at all as much leisure and repose as I would have, had I had the wit to keep quiet.66

Elisabeth’s response to Descartes’ predicament was sympathetic, but reserved. She wrote: “I see that you have not received as much inconvenience from my esteem as for your instruction and the desire to avail myself of it, as from the ingratitude of those who deprive themselves of it and would like to deprive the human species of it.”67 That said, this was not the last that Descartes and Elisabeth would hear of the matter: even after Descartes’ death, Elisabeth would continue to debate the merits of Descartes’ proof of the existence of God with other eminent philosophers, such as Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz and Nicolas Malebranche, who sought to modify Cartesianism and in doing so overcome the charge of atheism. ELISABETH’S CONTRIBUTION TO MATHEMATICS During the latter part of 1643, Elisabeth and Descartes’ correspondence was focused on mathematics. It is here that we see for the first time, the extent of Elisabeth’s mathematical expertise. The particular subject of discussion was a problem that Descartes had proposed to Elisabeth. Known as Apollonius’ problem, it states: “given three circles in a plane, find a fourth circle that touches each of them.”68 This problem was the subject of considerable interest in 1643 and, as yet, no solution to it had been published. It was known to be such a difficult problem that Descartes, in a letter to Alphonse Pollot, expressed concern that perhaps he had pushed Elisabeth to consider a problem that was beyond her abilities. He wrote: “I regret having proposed the question of the three circles to the Princess of Bohemia, since it is so difficult, that it seems to me that even an angel who had no other instruction in algebra than that which St[ampioen] had given her couldn’t solve it without a miracle.”69 To assuage his guilt, Descartes sent his solution to Elisabeth via Pollot less than a month later:

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Having learned from M. de Pollot that your Highness has taken the trouble to consider the problem of three circles, and that she has found the way to solve it by supposing but one unknown quantity, I thought that my duty obliged me to set out here the reason why I had proposed using several unknown quantities and in what way I solve for them.70

But within days Elisabeth had sent Descartes her own solution. She had not, she lamented, been able to “arrive at a theorem” but, nonetheless, Descartes was impressed with her solution.71 He was, he wrote to her, “surprised from astonishment at seeing it.”72 The praise and flattery continued: Experience has taught me that most minds who have the facility to understand the reasoning of metaphysics are not able to understand that of algebra, and reciprocally that those who easily understand the latter are ordinarily incapable of other sorts of reasoning. I see no one but your Highness for whom all things are equally easy.73

What was “remarkable” about the solution that Elisabeth proposed was that unlike other solutions that relied on geometrical techniques using a ruler and compass, it used algebraic geometry, which was not only a “very advanced mathematical skill” but a “relatively new technique.”74 Although Elisabeth did not manage to find a general solution to the problem—neither, for that matter, did Descartes—her approach gave Descartes cause for thought. In fact, Elisabeth’s solution led Descartes to rethink his own approach to geometrical problems and “contributed positively to Descartes’ own understanding of the relation between the aims and techniques of solving geometrical problems by algebra.”75 This exchange thus marked a significant turning point in Elisabeth’s relationship with Descartes. As Bos notes, “the second letter is different in tone from the first: Elisabeth is now addressed as a fellow mathematician rather than a prospective pupil.”76 It was also one of the exchanges that established Elisabeth’s reputation as scholar in her own right. As we will see in Chapter 7, for several decades, Elisabeth’s attempt at solving Apollonius’ problem was a topic of discussion among some of the world’s most eminent mathematicians, including John Pell, the man responsible for some of the most significant developments in algebra in the seventeenth century. NOTES 1. Descartes to Pollot, 6 October 1642, in The Philosophical Writing of Descartes: Volume 3: The Correspondence, ed. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,



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1991), (hereafter CSMK III), 214; Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Charles Adams and Paul Tannery, (Paris: Cerf, 1897–1913; Paris: Vrin, 1964–1971), (hereafter AT) III, 577–578. 2. C. F. Fowler, Descartes on the Human Soul: Philosophy and the Demands of Christian Doctrine, (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1999), 340. 3. René Descartes to Mersenne, 29 January 1640, in CSMK III, 142; AT III, 4. 4. Stephen Gaukroger, Descartes: An Intellectual Biography, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 16. 5. Michael Gillespie, “Descartes and the Question of Toleration” in Alan Levine (ed.), Early Modern Skepticism and the Origins of Toleration, (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1999), 107. 6. René Descartes, Discourse on Method, in René Descartes, Select Philosophical Writings, ed. and trans. John Cottingham and Robert Stoothoff, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 24. 7. Genevieve Rodis-Lewis, Descartes: His Life and Thought, trans. Jane Marie Todd, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 33. 8. Richard Watson, Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of Rene Descartes, (New Hampshire: David R. Godine, 2002), 104. 9. Harold J. Cook, “The New Philosophies in the Low Countries” in Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich (eds.), The Scientific Revolution in National Context, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 128. 10. Gary Hatfield, The Routledge Guidebook to Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), no page numbers. 11. Bertrand Augst, “Descartes’s Compendium on Music,” Journal of the History of Ideas 26(1965): 119; B. Wardhaugh (ed.), The “Compendium Musicae” of Rene Descartes: Early English Responses, (Turnhout: Brepols 2013) 12. Gillespie, “Descartes and the Question of Toleration,”107. 13. Rodis-Lewis, Descartes, 51. 14. A.C. Grayling, Descartes: The Life of Rene Descartes, (London: Simon and Schuster, 2005), 66. 15. Timothy J. Reiss, “Descartes, the Palatinate, and the Thirty Years’ War: Political Theory and Political Practice,” Yale French Studies 80(1991): 113. 16. Grayling, Descartes, 67. 17. Grayling, Descartes, 68. 18. Rodis-Lewis, Descartes: His Life and Thought, 51. 19. In Hatfield, The Routledge Guidebook. 20. Hatfield, The Routledge Guidebook. 21. Frances A. Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, (London: Routledge 1972). 22. Jean Garland, “The Birth of Scientific Publishing—Descartes in the Netherlands,” in Einar H. Fredricksson (ed.), A Century of Science Publishing: A Collection of Essays, (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2001), 8. 23. In Garland, “The Birth of Scientific Publishing,” 8–9. 24. René Descartes, Dedication to Meditations on First Philosophy in Frank Sewall (ed.), The Method, Meditations and Philosophy of Descartes, translated from the Original Texts, (Washington: M. Walter Dunne, 1901), 153.

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25. René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, in Select Philosophical Writings, ed. and trans. John Cottingham and Robert Stoothoff, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), Third Meditation, 73. 26. Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Sixth Meditation, 83. 27. Derek J. de Solla Price, “Automata in History: Automata and the Origins of Mechanism and Mechanistic Philosophy,” Technology and Culture 5(1964): 9–23. 28. Paul Bloom, Descartes’ Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human, (New York: Basic Books, 2005), xii. 29. Gaukroger, Descartes, 1; Bloom, Descartes’ Baby, xii. 30. Descartes, Meditations, Sixth Meditation, 85. 31. Robert C. Solomon, What Is an Emotion? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 20. 32. Ian McDonald, “Impulses Good and Bad,” Brain 128(2005): 228; Domenico Ribatti, “William Harvey and the Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood,” Journal of Angiogenesis Research 1(2009): 1–4; William Harvey, De Motu Cordis (On the Motion of the Heart and Blood); See also, Thomas Wright, Circulation: William Harvey’s Revolutionary Idea, (London: Chatto & Windus, 2012); Sidney Ochs, A History of Nerve Functions: From Animal Spirits to Molecular Mechanisms, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Harvey was also physician to James I and Charles I. 33. Descartes, Meditations, Sixth Meditation, 86. As Robert Solomon notes, at this time, the function of the pineal gland was “entirely unknown,” raising serious questions about why Descartes thought it played the role he did. Solomon, What Is an Emotion?, 20. 34. Descartes, Meditations, Sixth Meditation, 88. 35. McDonald, “Impulses Good and Bad,” 228; Stefano Miniati, Nicholas Steno’s Challenge for Truth: Reconciling Science and Faith, (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2009), 164. 36. Elisabeth to Descartes, [The Hague] 6 May 1643, 62. 37. Elisabeth to Descartes, [The Hague] 6 May 1643, 62. 38. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond du Hoef, 21 May 1643, 63. 39. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond du Hoef, 21 May 1643, 63. 40. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond du Hoef, 21 May 1643, 63, and 65. 41. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond du Hoef, 21 May 1643, 66. 42. Elisabeth to Descartes, [The Hague], 10 June 1643, 68. 43. Elisabeth to Descartes, [The Hague], 10 June 1643, 68. 44. Elisabeth to Descartes, [The Hague], 10 June 1643, 68. 45. Tollefsen, “Princess Elisabeth and the Problem of Mind-Body Interaction,” 73. 46. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond du Hoef, 28 June 1643, 70. 47. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond du Hoef, 28 June 1643, 71. Descartes’ attempt to provide a solution to the mind-body problem has been a significant source of controversy and debate. In particular, while David Yandell has argued in favor of Descartes’ “primitive notion” of the mind-body union, many others suggest that “Descartes cannot claim that notions of union, of mind, and of body are primitive in the same sense” and that his concept of union “cannot play the role required for



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the primitive notion.” David Yandell, “What Descartes Really Told Elisabeth: MindBody Union as a Primitive Notion,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Vol.5, No.2, (1997), p.254. For example, Daisie Radner argues that Descartes could not answer the problem posed by Elisabeth because his argument was in effect circular. She wrote: “Descartes’ notion of the union of mind and body arises in response to the problem of how the mind and the body can causally interact. Since the union of mind and body is meant to account for the possibility of interaction between the mind and the body, it cannot be explained in terms of that interaction.” Daisie Radner, “Descartes’ Notion of the Union of Mind and Body,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 9(1971): 162. See other arguments in Janet Broughton and Ruth Mattern, “Reinterpreting Descartes on the Notion of the Union of Mind and Body,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 16(1978): 23-32. According to Daniel Garber’s interpretation, Descartes’ response was “blatantly inconsistent with other well entrenched aspects of the Cartesian system.” He argues that instead of using the heaviness analogy or suggesting the mind-body interaction is unintelligible, Descartes should have argued that “[m]‌ind-body interaction must be basic and intelligible on its own terms since if it were not, then no other kind of causal explanation would be intelligible at all; to challenge the intelligibility of mind-body interaction is to challenge the entire enterprise of causal explanation.” This, he implies, would have stopped Elisabeth’s argument in its tracks and allowed Descartes to remain consistent to other elements of the Cartesian system. While this argument, and Deborah Brown’s response to it, may provide interesting insights into Descartes’ philosophy, it is not especially relevant for our understanding of Elisabeth’s thought (remembering, of course, that Garber is entirely dismissive of Elisabeth’s contribution). Whether Descartes was, in his letters to Elisabeth, consistent with other aspects of Cartesianism or not, is of little significance; what is important is the actual content of the letters and Elisabeth’s responses to them. Daniel Garber, “Understanding Interaction: What Descartes Should Have Told Elisabeth,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, 21(1983): Supplement 15-31. See also, Roger Ariew, “Mind-Body Interaction in Cartesian Philosophy: A Reply to Garber,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, 21(1983): Supplement 33-7; Deborah Brown, “Understanding Interaction Revisited” in Stewart Duncan and Antonia LoLordo (eds.), Debates in Modern Philosophy: Essential Readings and Contemporary Responses, (New York: Routledge, 2013), 54–63. 48. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond du Hoef, 28 June 1643, 69. 49. Elisabeth to Descartes, [The Hague], 1 July 1643, 72. Emphasis added. 50. Elisabeth to Descartes, [The Hague], 1 July 1643, 72. 51. Gaukroger, Descartes, 387. 52. Deborah J. Brown, Descartes and the Passionate Mind, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 18. 53. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond du Hoef, 28 June 1643, 71. 54. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond du Hoef, 28 June 1643, 71. 55. Underpinning the dispute were two wider intellectual conflicts, one philosophical and the other theological in nature. The first concerned the challenge posed to Aristotelianism, which theologians like Voetius continued to adhere to, by Descartes’

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mechanistic philosophy. The second was a wider theological conflict in Holland over the nature of predestination and its relationship to human free will, fought between proponents of the Remonstrance and their opponents, the contra-Remonstrants. The Remonstrance was a statement composed by Jan Uytenbogaert in 1610, which outlined the views of the followers of the Dutch theologian, Jacobus Arminius. The Remonstrants challenged the Calvinist doctrines of divine grace and predestination and argued for the convocation of a synod to reconsider the Heidelberg Catechism. In particular, Arminius and his followers rejected the notion of absolute or double predestination, “the thesis that God had, at the beginning of time, selected a fixed number of people for salvation, all the rest being condemned independently of merit.”According to the Arminian view, “the doctrine of double predestination turned God into the author of sin, as he predestined the reprobate to be doomed,” indeed, “ordaining that they would sin.”In response they composed five new articles of faith: i) grace is universally prevenient; ii) election is conditional on faith; iii) the atonement provided by Jesus’ death was intended to be unlimited and universal; iv) God’s grace can be resisted; v) perseverance in faith is not certain, and therefore falling from grace is possible.These articles were challenged by orthodox Calvinists, known as the contraRemonstrants, led by Franciscus Gomarus, who defeated the Remonstrance at the Synod of Dort in 1618–1619. Nonetheless, Arminianism persisted in some parts of the Netherlands and, due to its emphasis on free will, became associated with elements of Cartesianism. For Voetius, the connection between Arminianism and Cartesian thought was personal. As a follower of Gomarus, Voetius had been a delegate at the Synod of Dort and was a defender of orthodox scholastic Calvinism. What is more, as powerful members of the Remonstrant movement in his home town of Hensden had attempted to prevent his nomination as a minister, Voetius felt personally slighted by anyone associated, however tenuously, with Arminianism. Grayling, Descartes, 212; Martin van Gelderen, “Arminian Trouble: Calvinist Debates on Freedom” in Quentin Skinner and Martin van Gelderen (eds.), Freedom and the Construction of Europe, Volume I: Religious Freedom and Civil Liberty, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 28; Renee Jeffery, “Remonstrance,” Daniel Patte (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 1071. 56. Garland, “The Birth of Scientific Publishing,” 9. As early as 1640 Descartes had begun to think he would have to “go to war” against the Jesuits who were challenging his new philosophy. In a letter to Huygens dated 31 July 1640 he wrote: “I think I am about to go to war against the Jesuits. Their mathematician in Paris [Bourdin] has publicly attacked my Optics in his thesis…I have known for years that it’s better not to stir up adversaries, but I make an exception of this case: they will be angry with me whatever I do, and I can’t avoid this anger; so I think it is better to face them all in one big battle rather than waiting for individual skirmishes that would go on forever.” In CSMK III 150; AT III, 750. Yet, at the same time, he still hoped for approval from the Sorbonne. In a letter to Mersenne he wrote, “I haven’t had my five or six sheets of metaphysics printed, though they have been ready for some time. I delayed because I don’t want them to fall into the hands of pseudo-theologians…before they



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have been read and approved by various learned men and if possible by the Sorbonne as a whole.” CMSK III, 150; AT III, 119. 57. Garland, “The Birth of Scientific Publishing,” 9. 58. Watson, Cogito, Ergo Sum, 225–226. 59. Watson, Cogito, Ergo Sum, 226. 60. Watson, Cogito, Ergo Sum, 226. 61. Grayling, Descartes, 216. 62. Descartes to Mersenne, 11 November 1640, in CSMK III, 156; AT III, 240. 63. Descartes to Voetius, May 1643, in CSMK III, 220; AT VIIIB 1. 64. Descartes to Voetius, 160. 65. See also Erik-Jan Bos, “Descartes’s Lettre Apologétique aux Magistrates d’Utrecht: New Facts and Materials,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 37(1999): 415–433. 66. Descartes to Chanut, 1 November 1646 in CSMK III, 298; AT IV, 534. 67. Descartes to Chanut, 1 November 1646 in CSMK III, 298; AT IV, 534. 68. Erik-Jan Bos, “Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and Descartes’ Letters (1650– 1665),” Historia Mathematica 37(2010): 485–502. 69. In Vlad Alexandrescu, “What Someone May Have Whispered in Elisabeth’s Ear” in Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, Volume 6, ed. Daniel Garber and Donald Rutherford, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 2. see Descartes to Pollot, 21 October 1643. 70. Descartes to Elisabeth [Egmond], 17 November 1643, 73. 71. Elisabeth to Descartes, [The Hague], 21 November 1643, 77. 72. Descartes to Elisabeth, [Edmond], 29 November 1643, 78. 73. Descartes to Elisabeth, [Edmond], 29 November 1643, 78. 74. Alexandrescu, “What Someone May Have Whispered,” 2; Shapiro, “Volume Editor’s Introduction,” 37. 75. Henk Bos, “Descartes, Elizabeth and Apollonius’ Problem” in Descartes, ed. Theo Verbeek, Erik-Jan Bos, and Jeroen van de Ven, (Utrecht: Zeno Institute, 2003), 211. As Bos (210) notes, “When he received her letter and her report on her investigation into the problem of the three circles he was much impressed and even adjusted his own view on choosing indeterminates.” 76. Bos, “Descartes, Elizabeth and Apollonius’ Problem,” 210.

Chapter 4

Diseases of the Soul

By the middle of 1644, Elisabeth’s ill health had begun to appear as an on-going topic of conversation in her correspondence with Descartes. It provided a new, specific context in which she and Descartes explored the mind-body problem and, in particular, the problems that the passions posed for Descartes’ theory. In July of that year Descartes wrote to Elisabeth, having learned that she was suffering from stomach troubles. At the time, Descartes was in France to settle his father’s estate and visit his scholarly associates in Paris. The “most precious thing” he had received while in France was, he wrote, a letter from Princess Elisabeth, although he was concerned that the illness that had plagued her while he was still in The Hague continued to give her trouble.1 Although Descartes approved of the physical remedies Elisabeth had sought—namely, diet and exercise—he wrote that the best remedies of all are those of the soul. The soul, he argued, “has, without a doubt, a great power over the body, as is shown by the great changes that anger, fear, and the other passions excite in it.”2 In particular, Descartes suggested that the soul can conduct “the animal spirits to the places where they can be useful or harmful” but not through a direct act of will. On the contrary, it is “only in willing or thinking of some other thing” that the animal spirits can be put to good use.3 That is, Descartes advocated a sort of “mind-over-matter” approach, but one in which the patient’s thoughts were to be directed away from their illness. As we will see shortly, Descartes expanded on this argument in the following year when he suggested that Elisabeth’s illness was caused by her “sadness.”4 Descartes concluded the letter by imploring Elisabeth to apply her thought to the task of her recovery. He wrote: “I know of no other thought more proper to the conservation of health than a strong conviction and firm belief that the architecture of our body is so good that, once one is healthy, one 85

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cannot easily fall ill, unless one does something remarkably excessive, or else the air or other external causes harm us.”5 Revealing his fear of horoscopes once more, he continued to argue that “[t]‌his conviction is without doubt much more true and more reasonable than that of certain men, who, under the influence of an astrologer or a doctor, make themselves believe that they must die in a certain amount of time, and by this alone become sick and even die often enough, as I have seen happen to different people.”6 The message then was clear: think yourself well! THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY Before Elisabeth and Descartes returned to the problem of her illness and the challenges to the mind-body union it posed, Elisabeth received a copy of Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy, which he had dedicated to her. Much of the dedication took the form of a soliloquy on the nature of truth and virtue. While true virtue and even wisdom is possible for those who “are by nature somewhat backward intellectually” but who “make a firm and faithful resolution to do their utmost to acquire knowledge of what is right, and always to pursue what they judge to be right,” he wrote that “they will be left behind by those who possess not merely a very firm resolve to act rightly but also the sharpest intelligence combined with the utmost zeal for acquiring knowledge of the truth.”7 Descartes continued: That such zeal is abundantly present in Your Highness is clear from the fact that neither the diversions of the Court nor the customary education that so often condemns young ladies to ignorance has been able to prevent you from studying all the worthwhile arts and sciences. And the outstanding and incomparable sharpness of your intelligence is obvious from the penetrating found who has completely understood all my previously published works. Many other people, even those of the utmost acumen and learning, find them very obscure; and it generally happens with almost everyone else that if they are accomplished in Metaphysics they hate Geometry, while if they have mastered Geometry they do not grasp what I have written on First Philosophy. Your intellect is, to my knowledge, unique in finding everything equally clear; and this is why my use of the term “incomparable” is quite deserved. And when I consider that such a varied and complete knowledge of all things is to be found not in some aged pedant who has spent many years in contemplation but in a young princess whose beauty and youth call to mind one of the Graces rather than gray-eyed Minerva or any of the Muses, then I cannot but be lost in admiration.8

In her reply, Elisabeth seemed almost embarrassed at the extent of Descartes’ praise. In particular, she worried that Descartes would retract his



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assessment of her ability when he found out she had not fully understood his accounts of quicksilver or the particles that together form magnets. 9 Rather than rejecting her intellect, however, Descartes responded by heaping even more praise on Elisabeth and admitting that his explanation was probably confusing because he had not “examined the nature of this metal enough.”10 Without the work in front of him, however—Descartes was still travelling and thought he would not return to The Hague for another two or three months—he was unable to engage in this line of discussion any further. FAMILY MISFORTUNES In May 1645, Descartes and Elisabeth returned to the mind-body problem and began, in earnest, their discussion of the passions. Descartes had heard from a mutual acquaintance, Alphonse Pollot, that Elisabeth had been “ill for a long time.”11 The nature of the illness was “a low-grade fever, accompanied by a dry cough, which lasted three or four weeks” before abating for five or six days and then returning again repeatedly.12 Although he acknowledged that he was not a doctor, Descartes suggested that the “principal cause” of her malaise was “sadness.” This, he contended, was totally understandable: sadness, grief, and distress were, he wrote, normal responses to “fortune’s stubborn persistence in persecuting your family.”13 Indeed, fortune had been particularly unkind to Elisabeth’s family. In addition to the distress caused by the loss of the Palatinate, her father’s death, the family’s humiliating poverty, and the increasingly dangerous political situation faced by her relatives in England, Elisabeth’s brothers were a significant source of stress for the princess and her mother. In the late 1630s, as we have already seen, Charles-Louis and Rupert launched an expedition to win back the Palatinate. Rupert was, by all accounts, a towering man who had become renowned for his adventurous nature and military prowess during his time at Charles I’s court. In 1637 he even managed to convince his uncle of the benefits of colonizing Madagascar, an expedition Rupert would presumably have led. Unfortunately for Rupert, however, the “necessary funds never materialized” and the project faded away. Elizabeth Stuart was relieved. Fearing for Rupert’s safety, she had pleaded with Rupert’s superiors, including Sir Thomas Roe, the former ambassador to the Mughal court, to, as she phrased it, put “such windmills out of Rupert’s head.”14 It is said that Elizabeth declared with forthright conviction that no son of hers would “roam the world as a knight-errant,” a claim that seems to have been rather amusing to her son.15 In her letter to Roe, she wrote “As for Rupert’s romance of Madagascar…it sounds like one of Don Quixote’s conquests, where he promised his trusty squire to make him king of an island.”16 In time Roe wrote

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back to Elizabeth that “The dream of Madagascar, I think, is vanished, and the squire must conquer his own island.”17 What is more, Rupert had caused his mother and sister great consternation by consorting with several prominent Roman Catholic women. The fear was that he would fall in love with one of them and be converted to Catholicism. With the expedition off the cards and King Charles looking unwilling and unable to effect the return of the Palatinate, Rupert agreed to join Charles Louis, who had by then assumed his father’s title, in attempting to recover their ancestral lands. Nonetheless, during the invasion of Westphalia in 1638, Rupert was captured and imprisoned under the instructions of Emperor Ferdinand III and, more directly, Archduke Leopold. News of his capture and imprisonment was a source of great distress for Elisabeth: not only was Rupert’s fate uncertain, but news had reached the family in The Hague that he would not be released until a ransom could be raised, a sheer impossibility due to their dire financial straits. His period of confinement was relatively comfortable and, among the more popular details of this time is the fact that he was given two poodles, one black and the other white, as companions by the daughter of his jailer, a girl with whom Rupert shared a great deal of affection. Yet, the negotiations led by Charles I to securing Rupert’s release took more than two years, during which time he remained in captivity, for the most part in Austria. It is said that once the negotiations were complete, Rupert was instructed to “appear, as if by chance” at a hunt organized by the Emperor. As the story goes, Rupert managed to kill a boar with his spear, winning the praise of the Emperor who agreed to his release. The price of Rupert’s freedom was a promise never to fight against the Emperor again. Desperate to arrive in person before news of his release had reached his family, Rupert hurried to The Hague. Yet, however relieved Elizabeth Stuart was to have her son returned to her, she was at a loss to know what to do with him now. She did not have the means to support him and, more importantly, there was little suitable employment for him in The Hague. In the end, Elizabeth determined to send Rupert back to England, even though doing so would risk his being converted to Catholicism. Rupert and his poodles went to the court of his uncle, first on a brief visit to thank him for securing his release and to promise, in return, to take up arms on Charles I’s behalf should the need arise, and later on a more permanent basis. Once the English civil war was under way, Rupert and one of his dogs, Boye, made names for themselves as fierce fighters whom some members of Parliament believed were possessed of magical powers.18 Motivated by both superstition and his reputation, political opposition to Rupert was extreme with many parliamentarians calling for him to be captured and punished for his support of the King. While one might be forgiven for thinking that his life was imperiled by this demand, in the end Rupert was simply banished from England in 1646—he returned



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after the Restoration under Charles II in 1660. The same, however, could not be said for Charles I who lost, not only the English Civil War but, as a result, his head at the block in 1649. Although we do not have a letter from Elisabeth to Descartes on the subject, Descartes wrote of her extreme grief “on learning the fatal conclusion of the tragedies of England.”19 Owing to her concerns over Rupert’s capture and Charles-Louis’ involvement in his attempted release, Elizabeth Stuart decided to send her younger sons to be educated in Paris, thinking they would there be out of harm’s way. In 1645, however, this plan backfired when Elisabeth’s younger brother Edward controversially converted to Catholicism before secretly marrying Anna Gonzaga, a French princess of Italian descent. Not only had Anna’s Catholicism inspired Edward’s conversion but she was said to have previously embarrassed herself by secretly marrying her cousin, Henry II, Duke of Guise, in 1639, before disguising herself as a man and running away with him! In the end, Henry tired of Anne and even denied that their clandestine marriage ceremony had any official status. Anne retaliated by launching a lawsuit against him demanding that he recognize her as his wife. By this stage, however, Henry had already married another woman, although the validity of that marriage was also a matter of some contention, argued over for more than thirty years. In an act that also raised eye-brows, at the relatively advanced age of 29 Anne eventually married the nineteen-year-old, fortuneless, Prince Edward of the Palatine. The conversion and marriage was a source of great distress to Edward’s family, a family of significant social status and one that was so outwardly dedicated to the Protestant cause. In a letter to Descartes in November 1645, Elisabeth explained the impact that her brother’s actions had on her: His folly has troubled the health of my body and the tranquility of my soul more than all the misfortunes that have already come my way. If you take the trouble to read the newspaper, you could not fail to know that he has fallen into the hands of a certain group of people who have more hatred for our house than affection for their religion, and he has let himself be taken in by their traps to such a degree as to change his religion and make himself a Roman Catholic, without having made the least grimace which might have persuaded the very credulous that he did so for the sake of his conscience. I must see someone whom I loved with as much tenderness as I know how to have, abandoned to the scorn of the world and the loss of his soul (according to my belief).20

For what it is worth, Descartes dealt with Elisabeth’s distress gently, despite being himself a devout Catholic. He acknowledged her indignation while pointing out that many people, him included, would view Edward’s actions as being excusable, if not good. In addition, he also suggested that perhaps

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Elisabeth was a bit paranoid in thinking that Edward’s conversion was an attack on their entire house.21 Regardless of whether or not the threat to her family posed by Edward’s conversion was exaggerated or not, Elisabeth’s troubles did not end there. As we will see, in 1646, another of her brothers, Philip, killed a man in the street, ostensibly defending his mother’s honor. It seems that Elisabeth defended his actions—or at least the intention that drove them—and, as a result, was sent with Philip to Berlin for her own protection. And of course, in the same year, Rupert was banished from England for his role as a Royalist commander in the English civil war. Yet, however unpleasant these events undoubtedly were, it was Elisabeth’s experience of sadness, grief, and distress coupled with her interest in philosophy that motivated her discussions of the passions with Descartes. In particular, her experience of sadness led her to challenge Descartes’ theory of the unity of the body and the soul and, from that starting point, to begin conceptualizing the relationship between the cognitive and bodily elements of the passions. OVERCOMING SADNESS Throughout her trials and tribulations Descartes remained confident that Elisabeth would be able to overcome her sadness and illness. The source of his confidence was, he revealed, the fact that Elisabeth was in possession of a “great” soul. “[V]‌ulgar souls,” he argued, “give themselves over to their passions and are happy or sad only according to whether those things that happen to them are agreeable or unpleasant.”22 Great souls, by contrast, possess “reasoning so strong and so powerful that, even though they too have passions, and often even more violent ones than most do, their reason nevertheless remains mistress and makes it such that even afflictions serve them and contribute to the perfect felicity which they can enjoy already in this life.”23 As “the most noble and the most upstanding soul” Descartes knew, he was confident that Elisabeth would be able to use her powers of reasoning to push aside her “losses” and be “content with her own goods.”24 If only she would “cast her eyes on that which is right under her,” Descartes was convinced she could be truly happy.25 This was not the first time Descartes had offered this sort of advice. In 1641 Descartes wrote to his friend Alphonse Pollot to offer comfort upon hearing that his brother had died. As it so happened, Descartes had recently endured the deaths of his daughter, Francine, and his father within weeks of each other.26 With grief and sadness at the forefront of his mind, he wrote to Pollot:



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Not long ago I suffered the loss of two people who were very close to me, and I found that those who wanted to shield me from sadness only increased it, whereas I was consoled by the kindness of those whom I saw to be touched by my unhappiness. So I’m sure that you will listen to me better if I don’t try to check your tears than if I tried to steer you away from a feeling that I consider quite justified. Still, there should be moderation in our feelings; while it would be barbaric not to be distressed at all when one has good reason to be, it would also be feeble to abandon oneself completely to grief: we do ourselves no credit if we don’t do our best to free ourselves from such a troublesome passion.27

That is, Descartes understood that the passions were a normal, healthy part of human existence but maintained that they ought to be controlled or moderated lest they take us over. This, as we will see, remained a constant refrain throughout his works on the passions. What is more, it is in the same letter to Pollot that Descartes began using the term “emotion” and associated it with a form of “internal disturbance.” Although we usually attribute our feelings of affliction to the reasons we believe caused them, he argued, they can more readily be attributed to the “emotion and internal disturbance which nature arouses within us.” For this reason, Descartes thought it is only when we manage to quell our emotions that “we no longer feel upset,” even though the original reasons for our affliction remain unchanged.28 Descartes believed wholeheartedly that Pollot was capable of moderating his emotions. “The loss of a brother,” Descartes argued, “is not unlike the loss of a hand.” As Pollot had “already suffered the latter without…being overwhelmed”—he lost his right arm at the siege of Bois-le-Duc in 1629— Descartes was in no doubt he could cope with his brother’s death.29 Elisabeth would undoubtedly have already been familiar with the sort of advice Descartes offered her and Pollot. EMOTIONS AS DISEASES OF THE SOUL At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the notion that the emotions were diseases of the soul that manifested themselves in physical ailments but could be cured by moral philosophical reflection was commonplace. This claim was the result of a curious conglomeration of Hippocratic, Galenist, Epicurean, and Stoic ideas and was thus in many ways symptomatic of the state of intellectual thought at the time. Even before the ancient Greeks, the idea that the emotions could cause disease was widely accepted in popular culture. Among the earliest accounts of this connection was the story of a “Hittite king who developed paralysis and speech loss after a frightful thunderstorm.”30 The king in question was Mursili who described his condition as follows:

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Thus speaks My Sun Mursili, the Great King: I travelled to Til-Kunnu…A storm burst forth and the Storm God thundered terrifyingly. I was afraid. Speech withered in my mouth, and my speech came forth somewhat haltingly. I neglected this plight entirely. But as the years followed one another, the cause of my plight began to hound me in my sleep. And in my sleep the god’s hand fell upon me, and my mouth went sideways. I consulted the oracles and, and the Storm God of Manuzziya was ascertained (as responsible for my plight).31

Thus although Mursili’s illness was, as was common at the time, “attributed to evil forces or divine wrath,” the assumed connection between his emotional state—fear—and his physiological affliction—possibly a stroke—was clear.32 It was not until the Greek physician often referred to as the father of western medicine, Hippocrates (c.460–c.370 B.C.E.), that the idea that diseases are not the result of superstitions or the will of the gods but have natural causes emerged. Alongside the Hippocratic Oath, among Hippocrates’ most significant contributions to medicine was the idea that different emotions and temperaments are caused by different imbalances in the four humors. While an excess of blood caused the patient to be sanguine, black bile caused melancholia, yellow bile led to a choleric temperament, and phlegm caused phlegmatic behavior. The specific term, melancholic, emerged later as a “combination of melan, Latin for ‘black’ and choler, or bitter bile” and signified the idea that the melancholic individual was “gloomy and bitter.”33 Hippocrates listed melancholia as a disease in his Aphorisms, a work devoted to maximizing the prognosis for unwell patients and that was, in this endeavor, obsessed with diet, bodily excretions, and purging.34 The causes of melancholy were, according to Hippocrates, fear and sorrow: “If fear and sorrow remain for a long period, they denote the approach of melancholy.”35 What made melancholy particularly dangerous, he thought, was that it predisposed the patient to “apoplexy, convulsions, mania or blindness.”36 Hippocrates’ recommended treatment for melancholia was two-fold. In physical terms, he advocated “purging freely the melancholic by stool.”37 At the same time, however, he also prescribed a philosophical cure: “You ought not to attempt to sure the body,” he wrote, “without the soul. The cure of many diseases is unknown to physicians because they disregard the whole.”38 That is, Hippocrates posited a connection between the mental aspects of the emotions and physical health. Following Hippocrates, Galen (129–c.200/216 C.E.) argued that a “balance of the ‘passions’ was ‘essential for physical health’ because the emotions had the capacity to ‘interfere with the normal functioning of the body.”39 Galen went so far as to suggest that severe emotional responses could cause strokes, birth defects, asthma, ulcers, and, in extreme cases, death.40 In doing so, Galen argued that there is no separation between the mind and the body: his



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most famous work titled, That the Best Physician Is Also a Philosopher, further developed the idea first articulated by Hippocrates that the treatment of physical ailments required the treatment of the body and the mind. Together with Hippocrates, Galen remained the dominant medical authority in both western and Arabic medicine well into the medieval period.41 Despite their enduring popularity, however, Hippocratic and Galenist ideas about the relationships between the body and the mind, and between the emotions and physical health, had to contend at various junctures with serious objections posed by both the Epicureans and the Stoics. Although only fragments of his works exist, 69 pages in total, supplemented by a poem by his follower, Lucretius, Epicurus (341–271 B.C.E.) is best known for his claim that the key to the good life lies in the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain. As he wrote in a letter to Menoeceus addressing the question of “how to live a happy life”: Everything we do is for the sake of freedom from pain and anxiety. Once this is achieved, the storms in the soul are stilled. Nothing else and nothing more are needed to perfect the well-being of the body and soul. It is when we feel pain that we must seek relief, which is pleasure. And when we no longer feel pain, we have all the pleasure we need.42

For Epicurus, the “greatest pleasure was defined by the removal of all pain.”43 However, as his discussion of anxiety in his letter to Menoeceus reveals, he did not only conceive pain in physical terms but as an affliction of the soul conceived in emotional terms. For Epicurus and his followers, who lived together in a community known as “The Garden” outside Athens, one of the keys to the good life “was to understand the emotions and to manage them properly in oneself.”44 Thus while the Epicurean community “practiced economic self-sufficiency within the walls of its garden,” the Epicurean man was committed to cultivating his “inner self-sufficiency, a contentment in his own physical and mental states, and a suppression of unnecessary desires.”45 For the Epicureans, the life of inner self-sufficiency was a rational life and one for which the emotions simply caused trouble. As such, they advocated “extirpating” the emotions or, as they recognized that the emotions are difficult to “switch off by pure deliberation” once they have taken hold, avoiding them altogether.46 Although their philosophy was markedly different from the Epicureans, the Stoics—who we will discuss in more detail in the following chapter— also adhered to the idea that the emotions were to be controlled and, if possible, eradicated. Stoic writers such as Cicero argued that the passions were “ ‘diseases’ (morbi) or rather ‘distempers’ (peturbationes) of the soul.”47 Emotions were, he wrote, “Commotions of the mind rebelling against

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Reason.”48 The Stoic cure for the afflictions of the passions was thus the right application of reason and, as such, the Stoics promoted the “ideal of constantia through rational self-discipline.”49 That is, like the ancient Greeks, the Stoics promoted the “care of the soul” as the key purpose of philosophy. Unlike Hippocrates and Galen, however, they compartmentalized the body and the soul, thereby allowing reason to master and overcome the emotions: hence, we understand someone who is Stoic to be able to avoid experiencing or showing their emotions. Stoicism, and with it the ideal of constantia, enjoyed a significant revival in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, aided by the works of Justus Lipsius (1547–1606), Pierre Charron (1541–1603), and Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592). In particular, through Lipsius’ work De Constantia (On Constancy), the key foundational text of the neo-Stoic movement published in 1584, the idea that the emotions were diseases of the soul to be tamed and controlled by reason took hold.50 At around the same time, Epicureanism was also gaining popularity, largely due to the efforts of Pierre Gassendi, a French philosopher, cleric, and member of the Mersenne Circle. As it had been in the ancient world, seventeenth century Epicureanism was bitterly opposed by the (now neo-) Stoics who “believed that the passions were the enemies of reason and the virtuous life.”51 Yet, while accepting that “emotional excesses were…essentially destructive for human beings,” Gassendi maintained that the passions had an important role to play in perceiving pleasure and pain.52 What is more, as “God uses pleasure and pain as the providential devices for carrying out his eternal designs without having to interfere miraculously in the natural process,” Gassendi also conceived a role for the passions in the pursuit of Christian virtue.53 In doing so, Gassendi sought to overcome the most damaging problem of Epicureanism in its original form: the claims that “the gods take no interest in human affairs,” that death is not to be feared, and that there will be no judgment after death.54 These views were repellant to centuries of Christian writers starting with Augustine of Hippo. Rather than eradicating the passions, Gassendi argued that reason “can correct the perception of the senses so that it will not accept a sign from the senses unless it has been corrected and at last it deliberates or reaches a judgment of the thing.”55 Thus Gassendi thought it was possible for humans to exercise virtue, even when they were “driven by the desire for pleasure.”56 At the same time, however, Galenism remained popular and underpinned a number of popular works on the emotions that appeared in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Among the earliest of them was the work of the English Jesuit, Thomas Wright, The Passions of the Minde in Generall which first appeared in 1598 and had been through five editions by 1630.57 Like the Galenists who had come before him, Wright argued that “Sorrowes to men diseases bring.”58 In particular, he sought to establish an empirical



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connection “between painful emotions of the mind and physical disease.”59 For example, he argued that emotions like “excessive and irrational fear and sorrow” are associated with “black bile in the blood and the vomit” as well as “trouble of the bowels and of the heart.”60 Similarly, melancholia was conceived as “a pathological form of emotion; it was persistent, excessive and unreasonable.”61 For example, Wright argued that “The cause why sadness doth so move the forces of the body, I take to be, the gathering of much melancholy blood about the heart…the which humour being colde and drie and make it wither away.”62 Thus Wright adhered to the typical Galenist idea that “inordinate passions either occasion or intensify illness.”63 He wrote: all Physitians commonly agree, that among divers other extrinsicall causes of disease, one and not the least, is the excesse of some inordinate passion…The Physitians therefore knowing by what Passion the malady was caused, may well inferred what humour aboundeth, and consequently what ought to be purged, what remedy to be applied; and after, how it may be prevented.64

Like other writers of the time who were less interested in explaining the emotions in medical terms than understanding their place in moral thought, Wright sought a place for the emotions in the pursuit of virtue. He thus believed that the passions in general could be “stirred up for the service of virtue” but doubted the function of sadness. Sadness was a passion so harmful, he thought, that it was unclear it “could in fact be marshaled positively.”65 Also “working from Galenist medical premises,” Robert Burton argued in The Anatomy of Melancholy that curing melancholy “required both physician and philosopher.”66 For him, melancholy was the result of excess emotions that remained ungoverned by reason. Drawing on the common early modern idea of the melancholic genius, Burton argued that “the intense concentration required to produce adust brilliance” was a “hazard for the melancholic” and prescribed “recreation of the spirits” in the form of study as its most effective treatment.67 In his own case, writing about melancholy was itself a cure for his melancholic state.68 Alongside Wright, Burton, and Nicolas Coeffeteau was the English writer, Edward Reynolds whose Treatise of the Passions first appeared in 1640. 69 Like his contemporaries, Reynolds also conceived the emotions as being predominantly moral problems rather than physical ailments and, as a result, was primarily concerned with the pursuit of virtue and the moderation of the passions. His particular focus was what he called the “middle passions,” those emotions that are neither “mere impulses, as in ‘brute creatures’ nor ‘intellectual passions.’ ”70 Rather, the middle passions were, Reynolds believed, “capable of being subdued by reason.” In their tempered form they could

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contribute to the “enlivening of virtue” but “beyond their bounds” could be “tumultuous and tyrannical.”71 Thus, rather than adopting the Stoic treatment for the emotions, Reynolds recognized that their completed eradication was not desirable and prescribed, instead, a number of “emotional therapies, including driving one passion out with another.”72 The work was still “a common undergraduate text at Oxford to the end of the seventeenth century.”73 Moreover, the work was dedicated to Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia! The dedication read: To her Highness the Princess Elizabeth, Princess Palatine of the Rhine, Duchess of Bavaria, and eldest daughter to her Majesty the Queen of Bohemia. May it please your Highness; What the great philosopher has observed of men’s bodies, is, upon so much stronger reasons, true of their minds, by how much our intellectual maturity is more lingering and sluggish than our natural, that the too early conceptions and issues of them do usually prove but weak and useless. And we shall seldom find, but that those venturous blossoms, whose over-hasty obedience to the early spring does anticipate their proper season, and put forth too soon, do afterwards for their former boldness suffer from the injury of severer weather, except at least some happy shelter, or more benign influence redeem them from danger. The like infelicity I find myself obnoxious unto at this time. For I know not out of what disposition of mind, whether out of love of learning (for love is venturous, and conceives difficult things easier than they are) or whether out of a resolution to take some account from myself of those few years wherein I had then been planted in the happiest of all soils, the Schools of Learning; whether upon these, or any other inducements, so it has happened, that I long since have taken boldness in the minority of my studies to write this ensuing treatise: that before I adventured on the endeavour of knowing other things, I might first try whether I knew myself. Least I should justly incur the censure, which that sour philosopher passed upon the grammarians: that they were better acquainted with the evils of Ulysses than with their own. This hasty resolution having produced so untimely an issue, it happened by some accident to be like Moses in his infancy exposed to the seas. Where I made no other account, but that its own weakness would there have revenged my former boldness, and betrayed it unto perishing. But as he then, so this now, has had the marvellous felicity to light on the view, and fall under the compassion of a very gracious Princess. For so far has your Highness vouchsafed (having happened on the sight on this tractate) to express favour thereunto, as not only to spend hours in it, and require a transcript of it, but further to recommend it by your gracious judgement unto public view. In which particular I was not to advise with my own opinion, being to express my humblest acknowledgement to your Highness. This only petition I shall accompany it withal unto your Highness’ feet, that since it is a blossom which put forth so much too soon, it may therefore obtain the gracious influence of your Highness’ favour, to protect it from the severity abroad which it otherwise justly fears. God Almighty make your



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Highness as great a mirror of his continual mercies, as he has both of his graces and of learning. Your Highness’ most humble servant, Edward Reynoldes.

Not only can it be assumed from this dedication that Elisabeth had read and commented on Reynolds’ work, but it provides us with the first hint of Elisabeth’s fascination with the passions, an interest that would eventually see her convince Descartes to write The Passions of the Soul. ELISABETH ON THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM In any event, Elisabeth was unsure of Descartes’ diagnosis of her troubles and his prescribed remedy. It is in her reply that Elisabeth’s own take on the mind-body problem began to appear. “I have a body,” she wrote, “imbued with a large part of the weaknesses of my sex, so that it is affected very easily by the afflictions of the soul and has none of the strength to bring itself back into line.”74 Although she was primarily referring to her own condition and seemed to imply that it was at least exacerbated by having been born female—some commentators have debated whether Elisabeth was being a bit sexist here or whether she was being sarcastic—Elisabeth’s point was a general one. As Amy Schmitter explains, Elisabeth argued that there are some “bodily conditions that interfere with the mental activities of reasoning and willing and make us more prone to the passions.”75 By extension, the mental effects of these bodily conditions make it difficult to apply the sort of treatment that Descartes had recommended. That is, Elisabeth did not simply view her physical ailments as the result of her depressed mental state—on this she argued that in people like her “who cannot exercise much, it does not take a long oppression of the heart by sadness to obstruct the spleen and infect the rest of the body by its vapours”—but believed that the disorders of the body could limit the powers of the mind.76 This understanding of the connection between illness, reason, and the emotions shared important elements with Spinoza’s later conceptualization of sadness as a passion that brings with it a decline in capacity, although Elisabeth and Spinoza came to very different conclusions about whether the emotions ought to be tamed as a result.77 As we will see in Chapter 7, Elisabeth and Spinoza were certainly acquainted with one another, though we do not know whether they discussed this particular idea. Elisabeth therefore agreed with her physician’s advice to seek a physical cure to her illness, although she noted that even if he “had been smart enough to suspect the part that my mind plays in the disorder of the body” she would “not have had the frankness to admit it.”78 That cure entailed drinking the waters of Spa—a town in what is now Belgium—that were purported to help

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remove obstructions. Though, she added that she would not actually take the waters until Descartes had approved this course of action. Alongside her critique of Descartes’ understanding of the relationship between the mind and the health of the body, Elisabeth also took issue with the suggestion that she had let her happiness depend on fortune or the actions of others. On the contrary, she wrote: “I do not judge myself to be absolutely wretched knowing I will never see my house in order or those near to me from misery.”79 Elisabeth did, however, question how she could possibly put aside the “evil” harms that were inflicted on her family and to avoid becoming anxious in response. No sooner, she wrote, is this anxiety “calmed by reasoning than a new disaster produces another anxiety.”80 In fact, such was the impact that these events had had on her body and her mind that Elisabeth was surprised that her “sensitive mind” had managed to conserve “itself for so long amidst so many difficulties, in a body so weak, with no counsel but that of her own reason and with no consolation but that of her conscience.”81 Having discussed her health and bemoaned the fact that she had “spent all of last winter performing the most annoying tasks” which had prevented her from concentrating more fully on her studies, Elisabeth turned to the work she had most recently read: Kenelm Digby’s (1603–1665), Two Treatises: The Nature of Bodies and Of Man’s Soul, which had come out in 1644. Digby was a colorful character. A looming giant of a man with bright red hair, he was known for his particular versatility as an alchemist, scholar, courtier to Charles I, man of adventure, and pirate. His father, Sir Everard Digby, was drawn and quartered for his role in the gunpowder plot when his son was just three years old and Kenelm too had a varying relationship with the powers of the land. Although a member of Charles I’s Privy Council, in 1635 he went into voluntary exile in Paris on account of his unpopular Catholicism—for political reasons he had converted to Anglicanism for a time but ultimately returned to the Catholic faith. In Paris, Digby became friends with Thomas Hobbes and Marin Mersenne and started corresponding with Descartes and Galileo. His most famous work, the Two Treatises was, alongside Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy, the “first fully considered attempt at a mechanistic system.”82 As the “earliest fully worked-out system of mechanical philosophy in English,” it was “one of the first (if not the first) to introduce Descartes to English readers.”83 Descartes was naturally very interested in Digby’s approach to mechanistic philosophy. The problem was, he could not read English. Luckily for him, Elisabeth could and was determined to write a summary of the work for Descartes and to arrange for two key chapters to be translated for him.84 In doing so, she concluded that Digby had not managed to improve upon Descartes’ account. In his reply, Descartes thanked Elisabeth for her efforts but said nothing further about Digby’s ideas.



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Rather, Descartes’ next letter was almost entirely concerned with Elisabeth’s health once more. Descartes not only accepted that the sorts of “unpleasant things” which were “continually presented” to Elisabeth were, indeed, “difficult to overcome” but acknowledged that sometimes “they are of such a nature” that even reason cannot “chase them away.”85 The remedy he prescribed for this state of affairs was similar to that found in Edward Reynolds’ work: that is, he advocated overcoming sadness, grief, and melancholy by “diverting one’s imagination and one’s senses as much as possible.”86 That is, he prescribed replacing one set of sensations with another. To illustrate his point, Descartes asked Elisabeth to consider two individuals. The first is “a person who otherwise has all sorts of reasons to be content, but who sees continually represented before her tragedies full of dreadful events, and who occupies herself only in considering these objects of sadness and pity.” Although the tragedy at hand may be entirely fictitious, the emotions it elicits could still have physiological effects: the heart would close itself up, “the circulation of the blood would be blocked and slowed, and the largest particles of the blood, attaching one to the other, could easily grind up the spleen by getting caught and stopping in its pores, and the more subtle particles, retaining their agitation, could alter her lungs and cause a cough, which in the long term would give good cause for fear.”87 The second person, by contrast, “has an infinite number of true sources of displeasure” but ensures that she only thinks of them “when practical matters oblige her to,” spending the rest of her time considering “those objects which are capable of bringing her contentment and joy.” Although her initial sadness may have already caused the ill health of her heart, lungs, and spleen, Descartes argued, her efforts in positive thinking “would be capable of bringing her back to health.”88 This, he thought, would only be enhanced by taking the medical remedies prescribed to clear obstructions. For this reason, Descartes approved of Elisabeth’s plan to drink the waters of Spa but added that for them to have their full effect she should clear her mind entirely, not only of “unhappy thoughts,” but of all “serious meditations concerning the sciences.” Rather than spending her time studying and thinking about philosophy, Descartes thought Elisabeth should imitate those who spend their time “looking at the greenery of a wood, the colors of a flower, [or] the flight of a bird,” that is, things that take no thought to appreciate.89 Descartes’ prescription was not simply one he advocated for Elisabeth but, he believed, was the reason for his own improved health. As we saw earlier, Descartes was a sickly child. His mother died shortly after he was born and it was thought that he suffered the same lung condition that she had succumbed to. As Descartes wrote in his letter to Elisabeth, he believe that the reason he was spared an early death was that he had always been inclined to look on

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the situations with which he was presented from “the most favourable perspective” and to make his “principal contentment depend” on himself alone.90 This positive outlook, he believed, had allowed his illness to dissipate, little by little over time. While grateful for his letters—“the antidote to melancholy”—and his concern, Elisabeth was, once again, not entirely convinced by Descartes’ prescription. If, she wrote, it was as simple as Descartes had made it out to be, of course she would have used the power of positive thinking to cure herself “promptly of maladies of the body and weaknesses of the mind!”91 But, Elisabeth wrote, it was not that simple: not only is it impossible to remove from one’s thoughts issues that are “continually represented…in conversation and in letters” but once a particular passion is in place, the body becomes “so strongly disordered,” it is difficult to remedy.92 That is, Elisabeth argued that the emotional responses that gripped her body must have receded and her body be restored before reason could restore her mind. The problem, as she saw it, was that before her body had been restored each time, a new source of trouble emerged, provoking another emotional and bodily response and leaving her unable to overcome her melancholy. What is more, Elisabeth expressed the fear that if she did not use her mind at all while taking the waters of Spa, she would only become “more melancholy.” After all, study was her only sanctuary from the distresses of family life. Elisabeth finished her letter with two short quips. In the second, she wrote: “the curse of my sex keeps me from the contentment of a voyage to Egmond, where I might learn of the truths you draw from your garden, would have brought me.” In doing so, she betrays the understandable frustration she undoubtedly felt at the restrictions placed on her as a woman. The first, however, is more interesting. In it Elisabeth wrote: “And if I were as rational as you, I would cure myself as you have done.”93 According to Lisa Shapiro’s interpretation of the correspondence, putting aside her natural self-deprecating humility, Elisabeth was not here suggesting that she was less rational than Descartes because she was a woman: Descartes for one would not have accepted that argument anyway. Rather, she argues that this seemingly throw-away line hints at Elisabeth’s developing theory of the relationship between the body and the mind. This train of thought would ultimately lead her to think that the fact that an individual who is ordinarily capable of complex reasoning can become confused or unable to think straight when they are ill was evidence against Descartes’ version of dualism. But Elisabeth was also reluctant to adopt the alternative dominant metaphysic of the time, the reductionist materialism that Thomas Hobbes promulgated. That is, although she argued that the body may influence the mind, she did not go so far as to suggest that “everything, including thought, is material” and, by extension, that when we are ill our inability to think properly is a straightforward



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material issue of brain function.94 Rather, as Shapiro suggests, Elisabeth proposes a third option that is neither dualist nor materialist, but which states that although the mind is autonomous, its ability to engage in independent thought is dependent on the state of the body in which it is located.95 This, according to Shapiro, was “a unique philosophical position” and stands at the center of Elisabeth’s contribution to the history of philosophy.96 Not only did it reveal a “unique approach to substances” but this notion of the embodied, yet autonomous mind later informed both Elisabeth and Descartes’ understandings of the nature of the passions and the emotions.97 In his response, Descartes acknowledged that it is often difficult to resist the immediate emotional responses that misfortunes provoke in us. But, he said, “the following day, when sleep has calmed emotions in the blood that occur in such circumstances, one can begin to get one’s mind in order and make it tranquil” by considering all the positives to be drawn from what originally appeared to be a negative event. For, Descartes argued, “there are no events so disastrous, or so absolutely bad in the judgment of people, that a reasonable person could not look at them from an angle which will make them appear favourable.” This, he thought, Elisabeth would not have trouble achieving.98 Descartes concluded this letter by accepting that, for Elisabeth, study could provide exactly the sort of diversion she required. To that end, in his following a month or so later, Descartes suggested they begin studying Seneca’s De vita beata together.99 And so they did. NOTES 1. Descartes to Elisabeth, Paris, 8 July 1644, 81. 2. Descartes to Elisabeth, Paris, 8 July 1644, 81. 3. Descartes to Elisabeth, Paris, 8 July 1644, 81. 4. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 18 May 1645, 86. 5. Descartes to Elisabeth, Paris, 8 July 1644, 82. 6. Descartes to Elisabeth, Paris, 8 July 1644, 82. 7. René Descartes, “To the Most Serene Princess Elizabeth, Eldest Daughter of Frederick, King of Bohemia, Count Palatine, and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire,” in Principles of Philosophy, in CSM I, 128. 8. René Descartes, “To the Most Serene Princess Elizabeth,” in CSM I, 128–9. 9. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 1 August 1644, 83. 10. Descartes to Elisabeth, Le Crevis, August 1644, 84. 11. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 18 May 1645, 86. 12. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 18 May 1645, 86. 13. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 18 May 1645, 86.

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14. In Kevin P. McDonald, “ ‘The Dream of Madagascar’: English Disasters and Pirate Utopias of the Early Modern Indo-Atlantic World,” in Chloe Houston ed. New Worlds Reflected: Travel and Utopia in the Early Modern Period, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 105. 15. Scott, Rupert Prince Palatine. 16. Elizabeth to Sir T. Rose, April 6, 1637 in Green, Lives of the Princesses of England, 541. 17. In McDonald, “ ‘The Dream of Madagascar’ ”, 105. 18. Mark Stoyle, The Black Legend of Prince Rupert’s Dog: Witchcraft and Propaganda During the English Civil War, (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2011). 19. Descartes to Elisabeth, 22 February 1649. 20. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 30 November 1645, 127. 21. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, January 1646, 129–130. 22. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 18 May 1645, 87. 23. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 18 May 1645, 87. 24. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 18 May 1645, 88. 25. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 18 May 1645, 88. 26. Descartes had an illegitimate daughter, Francine, with one of the servants in his house. Although she was born out of wedlock, Descartes acknowledged the girl and is named on her birth certificate. 27. Descartes to Pollot, January 1641, in CSMK III, 167; AT III, 278. 28. Descartes to Pollot, January 1641, in CSMK III, 167; AT III, 278. 29. Descartes to Pollot, January 1641, in CSMK III, 167; AT III, 278. 30. Esther M. Sternberg, The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions, (New York: Macmillan, 2001), 8. The Hittite empire existed from around 1600 B.C.E. to about 1180 B.C.E. 31. In Trevor Bryce, Life and Society in the Hittite World, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 167–8. 32. Bryce, Life and Society in the Hittite World, 168. 33. Sternberg, The Balance Within, 9. 34. Hippocrates, The Aphorisms of Hippocrates, translated into Latin and English by Thomas Coar, (London: A.J. Valpy, 1822), 57. 35. Hippocrates, Aphorisms, 170. 36. Hippocrates, Aphorisms, 186. 37. Hippocrates, Aphorisms, 71. 38. Hippocrates in Kim R. Lebowitz, “Cardiac Behavioral Medicine: MindBody Approaches to Heart Health” in Stephen Devries and James E. Dalen (eds.), Integrative Cardiology, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 135. 39. Janice K. Kiecolt-Glaser, Lyanne McGuire, Theodore F. Robles, and Donald Glaser, “Emotions, Morbidity and Mortality: New Perspectives from Psychoneuroimmunology,” Annual Review of Psychology 83:(2002), 84; Jeremy Schmidt, Melancholy and the Care of the Soul: Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Madness in Early Modern England, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 34. 40. Esther M. Sternberg, “Emotions and Disease: From Balance of Humors to Balance of Molecules,” Nature Medicine 3(1997): 264–267.



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41. Simo Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 94. 42. Epicurus to Menoeceus, paragraph 128, available at http://www.epicurus.info/ etexts/Lives.html#140. 43. Frederick Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill, (New York: Routledge, 2003), 17. 44. Keith Oatley, Emotions: A Brief History, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 42. 45. Geoffrey Scarre, “Epicurus as a Forerunner of Utilitarianism,” Utilitas 6(1994), 222. 46. Oatley, Emotions, 42 and 43. 47. Sorana Corneaunu, Regimens of the Mind: Boyle, Locke and the Early Modern Cultura Animi Tradition, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2011), 49. 48. Cicero in Corneaunu, 49. 49. Schmidt, Melancholy and the Care of the Soul, 30. 50. Schmidt, Melancholy and the Care of the Soul, 30. 51. Lisa T. Sarasohn, Gassendi’s Ethics: Freedom in a Mechanistic Universe, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 63. 52. Sarasohn, Gassendi’s Ethics, 63. 53. Sarasohn, Gassendi’s Ethics, 63. 54. Augustine, The City of God Against the Pagans, ed. R.W. Dyson, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), Book XVIII, Chapter 41, 880. 55. Gassendi, Logic, in SP Opera, 1:81; Selected Works, 333. 56. Sarasohn, Gassendi’s Ethics, 129. 57. Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, 94. 58. Thomas Wright, Passions of the Mind in General, (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, [1604]/2010), 61. 59. Schmidt, Melancholy and the Care of the Soul, 31. 60. Schmidt, Melancholy and the Care of the Soul, 31. 61. Schmidt, Melancholy and the Care of the Soul, 32. 62. Wright, Passions of the Mind, 32. 63. Stephen Pender, “Subventing Disease: Anger, Passions, and the Non-Naturals,” in Jennifer C. Vaught (ed.), Rhetorics of Bodily Disease and Health in Medieval and Early Modern England, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 194. 64. Passions of the Mind, p.4; in Pender, “Subventing Disease,” 194. 65. Erin Sullivan, “A Disease unto Death: Sadness in the Time of Shakespeare” in Elena Carrera, Emotions and Health, 1200–1700, (E. J. Brill, 2013), 181. 66. Schmidt, Melancholy and the Care of the Soul, 29; Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) (New York: New York Review of Books, 2011). 67. Laurinda S. Dixon, The Dark Side of Genius: The Melancholic Persona in Art, ca. 1500–1700, (Philadelphia: Penn State University Press, 2013); Stephanie Shirilan, Robert Burton and the Transformative Powers of Melancholy, (London: Routledge, 2016), 101. 68. Angus Gowland, The Worlds of Renaissance Melancholy: Robert Burton in Context, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 2. 69. Nicolas Coeffeteau, Tableau des passions humaines (1620).

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70. In Pender, “Subventing Disease,” 206. 71. Edward Reynolds, Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soule of Man (1640), 6:37. 72. Pender, “Subventing Disease,” 206. 73. Pender, “Subventing Disease,” 206. 74. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 24 May 1645, 88. 75. Amy M. Schmitter, “Descartes on the Emotions,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (2010), 2. 76. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 24 May 1645, 89. 77. Baruch Spinoza, “The Ethics” in The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza, trans. R. H. M. Elwes, Vol.II (New York: Dover 1955), 249; David West, “Spinoza on Political Freedom,” Political Studies XLI(1993): 294. 78. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 24 May 1645, 88. 79. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 24 May 1645, 89. 80. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 24 May 1645, 89. 81. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 24 May 1645, 89. 82. John Henry, “Atomism and Eschatology,” British Journal of the History of Science 15(1982), 225. 83. Henry, “Atomism and Eschatology,” p.225; Paul S. MacDonald, “Introduction” in Kenelm Digby’s Two Treatises, ed. Paul S. MacDonald, (Woking: The Gresham Press, 2013), 10. 84. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 24 May 1645, 90. 85. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, May or June 1645, 91. 86. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, May or June 1645, 91. 87. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, May or June 1645, 91. 88. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, May or June 1645, 92. 89. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, May or June 1645, 92. 90. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, May or June 1645, 92. 91. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 22 June 1645, 93. 92. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 22 June 1645, 93. 93. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 22 June 1645, 94. 94. Lisa Shapiro, “Princess Elisabeth and Descartes: The Union of Soul and Body and the Practice of Philosophy,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 7(1999), 508. 95. Shapiro, “Princess Elisabeth and Descartes,” 508, 505. 96. Shapiro, “Princess Elisabeth and Descartes,” 505. 97. Broad, Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, 15. 98. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, June 1645, 95. 99. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 21 July 1645, 96.

Chapter 5

Virtue and the Passions

In the middle of 1645, Descartes wrote to Elisabeth suggesting they read Seneca’s De vita beata (On the Happy Life) together. On the face of it, Descartes’ recommendation was driven by his belief in the value of studying what the ancients had to say about felicity.1 Across the various schools, the ancients were of course preoccupied with the question of how to live a good life. Within that context, discussions of the passions and emotions and, in particular, their contributions to the achievement of a good, virtuous life featured heavily. For the Aristotelians, the emotions were considered neither good nor bad per se in the pursuit of the good life. Rather, they could be judged as “good or bad according to their appropriateness” to any given situation.2 For the Epicureans, the key to a happy life lay in determining which emotions are consistent “with the stable (‘pleasant’) psychophysical state” that they regarded “as the supreme fulfillment of human nature.”3 As such, they advocated extirpating those emotions that did not contribute to the achievement of pleasure or the avoidance of pain. The Stoics, by contrast, were totally unequivocal and thought that “all emotions…are bad.” For them, all emotions were “passions” or “affective states” which could “overwhelm and disrupt human rationality,” the core, defining feature of human nature.4 When Descartes determined that he and Elisabeth should read an ancient text, it was the work of a prominent Stoic he chose. The significance of this is two-fold. First, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Stoicism was undergoing a major revival. Justus Lipsius’ De constantia was “an international best-seller” and Stoic texts had begun to be printed, in Greek and Latin, and in translation into modern European languages.5 Among the original Stoic works that Lipsius published was an edition of Seneca’s writings. It thus made sense that Descartes and Elisabeth would want to engage with what was “one of the most vibrant currents” in contemporary humanist 105

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thought.6 Second, Stoic thought, and the neo-Stoic doctrines that emerged as part of its revival, “offered a set of personal therapies for troubled times,” based on the human capacity for reason.7 For this reason, it was attractive to Descartes who also located reason at the center of his understanding of human nature and imbued it with therapeutic value. Although Descartes was not himself a Stoic—as we will see, in arguing that “the passions are not bad in themselves” and therefore ought not to be wholly eradicated, and that “morality is not entirely based on reason” he diverged significantly from Stoicism8—he was, nonetheless, influenced by Stoicism and clearly thought its central precepts would be of benefit to Elisabeth.9 In particular, it is clear that in leading Elisabeth to read Seneca, Descartes hoped, once again, to convince her that she could overcome sadness using her superior ability to reason. As it transpired, however, Seneca’s work provided a starting point for the development of their own positions on virtue and the will, reason and the emotions, and it prompted Descartes to attempt to “overhaul” the subject of moral philosophy.10 SENECA ON THE HAPPY LIFE Stoicism originated with Zeno (335–263 B.C.E.), a native of the Phoenician city of Citium on what is now the island of Cyprus, who went to Athens to study under Crates the Cynic and others, and who eventually established his own school. When Zeno died in 263 B.C.E. he was replaced as the head of the school by Cleanthes (331–232 B.C.E.), a former boxer, who was himself succeeded by Chrysippus of Soli (c.280–207 B.C.E.).11 Together Zeno, Cleanthes, and, in particular, Chrysippus, laid the foundations of Stoic thought. Spreading to the Roman Empire, Stoicism became the “leading philosophical movement of the ancient Greco-Roman world” and was eventually adopted as the “semiofficial creed of the Roman political and literary world.”12 Like all the philosophical schools of the time, the Stoics aimed to teach their pupils how to live a “good” life: that is, a life “free from the forms of distress and moral failure that the Stoics though ubiquitous in their societies.”13 For Chrysippus, and the Stoics who followed him, the goal of human existence was to live “in accordance with nature.” What distinguished humans from the other animals, the Stoics thought, was the capacity for reason. In this vein Seneca wrote: Man is strong; so is the lion. Man is comely; so is the peacock. Man is swift; so is the horse. I do not say that man is surpassed in all these qualities. I am not seeking to find that which is greatest in him, but that which is peculiarly



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his own. Man has body; so also have the trees. Man has the power to act and to move at will; so have the beasts and worms. Man has a voice; but how much louder is the voice of the dog, how much shriller that of the eagle, how much deeper that of the bull, how much sweeter and more melodious that of the nightingale! What then is peculiar in man? Reason. When this is right and has reached perfection, man’s felicity is complete.14

As human nature was defined by the capacity for reason, he argued that “life in accordance with nature” was “life in accordance with reason.”15 That is, following Chrysippus, the early Stoics insisted that “the human mind or soul” is “wholly rational.”16 Not only that, they argued that because human nature could be characterized in terms of reason, virtue, defined in terms of reason, “is the only genuine good, and it is sufficient for happiness.”17 Although he was not a slavish follower, the Chrysippean version of Stoicism—as we will see, Seneca had some sympathy for Epicurus’ ideas—Seneca did, nonetheless, adhere to these basic tenets of Stoic thought. Seneca was born in the Spanish city of Cordoba in either 1 or 4 C.E. to a wealthy Roman equestrian family. Such little evidence of his early life exists that few of his biographers have “resisted the temptation to eke out knowledge with imagination” in retelling the story of his childhood, meaning that much of what is written about Seneca the boy is probably fanciful.18 What we do know, from Seneca’s own writings, is that he was brought to Rome by his aunt as a small boy and, once grown, began there to establish himself in society.19 By 41 C.E. however, Seneca had fallen foul of the emperor, Claudius (10–54 C.E.), and was exiled to Corsica on the trumped up charge of having committed adultery with Julia Livia, the sister of the former emperor, Caligula (12–41 C.E.). There he remained for eight years, until another of Caligula’s sisters, Agrippina, married her uncle, the emperor Claudius, and recalled Seneca to Rome to take on the “unenviable job of tutor to her son, the future emperor Nero.”20 Nero’s father, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus had died when Nero was two and, after his mother married Claudius, the emperor adopted him and named him as his heir, ahead of his own son Brittanicus. In 54 C.E. Nero became the Roman Emperor. Nero, it is well known, was a volatile man who, as his reign extended proved increasingly “hard to handle.”21 Although his advisors managed to moderate his behavior in the early years, as time went on Nero became increasingly violent. For Seneca, who had continued to act as one of the emperor’s advisors, this state of affairs became unbearable after Nero organized the deaths of Agrippina, Brittanicus, and Octavia, his step-sister and wife. In an attempt to distance himself from the emperor, Seneca tried to resign on at least two separate occasions but on both his former student rejected his pleas for release. In the end, Seneca—along with the poet Lucan

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and the novelist Petronius—was sentenced to death, by his own hand, for his suspected role in a failed coup known as the Pisonian conspiracy. Nero’s instability continued: perhaps his most repulsive act was the murder of his pregnant wife Poppaea, whom he kicked to death for daring to complain that he was home late from the races one day. Seneca’s chosen method of suicide was bleeding and, if we are to believe Tacitus’ account of his passing, he endured a Stoic death modeled “on that of Socrates, discoursing calmly about philosophy with his friends as the blood drained out of his veins.”22 The reality was probably not so edifying. Seneca dutifully severed his veins but as he was “so old and emaciated” very little blood escaped.23 He then asked for hemlock—the poisonous herb by which Socrates chose to die—but it had little effect. In the end, Seneca’s slaves moved him to a hot bath where the heat of the water opened his veins enough to allow him finally to bleed to death. During his life Seneca was a devoted and self-avowed Stoic. As such, at the center of his thought was the Stoic prescription for the good life, reason, the only requirement of a happy life. Of course, this understanding of happiness is markedly different from its contemporary meaning. For the ancients, “perfect happiness,” also known as the “sovereign good,” was not an individually experienced sentiment but “a supreme goal” equated with wisdom and virtue and judged by others.24 For example, Seneca argued that if a “sage is tortured and bears it stoically, he should be regarded as ‘happy,’ ” as happy as if he had not been tortured even, because “excellence, or virtue, is the sufficient and only capable cause of happiness.”25 For us, the idea that someone being tortured could be happy is simply ludicrous; for Seneca it was nothing of the sort. Just as the tortured sage could be happy, Seneca thought, so too was it not necessarily the case that good fortune would bring happiness. This was the key theme of On the Happy Life. Seneca himself was born into a wealthy family and this, it seems, raised the ire of his many critics. In 58 C.E. Suilliud Rufus effectively called Seneca a hypocrite for being wealthy and yet espousing Stoic philosophy—never mind the fact that he led an ascetic existence throughout his life. In response to this charge, and the suggestion that he had a “predilection for sex with ‘boys past their prime,’ ” Seneca composed On the Happy Life.26 It was a work focused on “moral conduct in times of good fortune,” although presumably Descartes thought that its precepts could also be applied to times of bad fortune, as Elisabeth continually experienced.27 In common with all the Stoics, Seneca argued that the happy life was one lived “in agreement with its own nature.”28 That nature, he thought, is one imbued with the capacity for reason. A happy person is thus someone who, “owing to the gift of reason…feels neither desire nor fear.”29 For Seneca,



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the first part of this claim was most important. Cattle, he pointed out, “lack fear and sadness, but no one would call them happy on that account.” On the contrary, as they lack reason, and therefore have “no comprehension of happiness,” they cannot be happy.30 Reason, then, is the true source of happiness and must itself be cultivated. Like his Stoic predecessors then, Seneca also maintained that the passions only detract from the ability to reason and, by extension, achieve a happy life. For him, the passions were comprised of two judgments. Take for example the passion of anger. According to Seneca, the first judgment involved in anger is “that there has been an injustice.” That is, he argued that anger is the emotion we experience when we judge that an injustice has been committed. The second judgment is that “it is appropriate to react” and this is a matter of the will.31 That is, “[t]‌here is an act of will to the effect that it is appropriate for me to be revenged since I have been harmed, or that it is appropriate for him to be punished since he has committed a crime.”32 This understanding of the passions was a development on that of Zeno, who argued that emotions occur “on the occasion of judgments” and Chrysippus who proposed that they were in fact comprised of two separate judgments.33 But, as both Chrysippus and Zeno argued, in different ways, the judgments entailed by our emotions are almost always wrong: only rationality is right and good. Seneca agreed. What is more, Seneca took on the Epicureans—in anticipation of their likely objections—in On the Happy Life but, curiously, not Epicurus himself. On the contrary, although he did not accept Epicurus’ argument that the key to the happy life was the pursuit of pleasure and freedom from pain, he approved of the foundations on which Epicurus based it. That is, Seneca wrote that “Epicurus’ teachings are sacred and right” because they are based on nature and, in doing so diverged significantly from his Stoic predecessors who rejected Epicureanism in its entirety.34 However, Seneca thought that the Epicureans who had followed Epicurus had corrupted what is actually a “sobering” way to live: “being devotees of the vices,” he argued, “they conceal their luxury in philosophy’s lap and make a beeline for where they hear pleasure is praised.”35 That is, the Epicureans had missed the point of Epicurus’ teachings. That said, Seneca did not believe that pleasure and virtue were incompatible. This, of course, went to the heart of the claim that he was a hypocrite for arguing that all that was required to achieve happiness was the perfection of reason when he had the benefits of fortune. In response, Seneca presented two arguments. His first, general response to the accusation, “You speak in one way and live in another,” was to point out that this criticism, made by “spiteful creatures, bitter enemies of the best” was also leveled against Plato, Epicurus, and Zeno, the founders of the three great schools of ancient philosophy. But, Seneca pointed out, they did not speak of “how they themselves

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were living but how they themselves ought to live.” In much the same way, Seneca also saw himself on the journey to perfection: “I will live as I ought,” he wrote, “as soon as I can.”36 Second, and more specifically, however, Seneca also pointed out that the possession of wisdom does not preclude the possession of wealth. “[S]‌top forbidding philosophers to have money,” he retorted, “No one has sentenced wisdom to poverty.”37 His point, rather, was that the search for happiness in riches is futile. TRUE CONTENTMENT Although he had been the one to set Seneca’s work as the next topic of discussion in his letters to Elisabeth, upon actually reading On the Happy Life properly Descartes came to regret his choice. Alongside his rejection of Seneca’s approach—he, unsurprisingly, thought that Seneca should have approached the subject as a philosopher like he would have done—Descartes thought that sovereign contentment could be divided into two main sorts: “those which depend on us, such as virtue and wisdom, and those which do not depend on us at all, such as honors, riches, and health.”38 True contentment—that is, contentment of the second kind—can be achieved, Descartes argued, if a person follows the three rules of conduct he had previously set out in his Discourse on Method: The first is that he always try to make use of his mind as well as he can, in order to know what must be done, or not done, in all the events of life. The second is that he have a firm and constant resolution to execute all that reason advises him to do, without having the passions or appetites turn him away from it. It is the firmness of this resolution that I believe ought to be taken to be virtue…. The third is that, while he so conducts himself as much as he can in accordance with reason, he keep in mind that all the goods he does not possess are, each and every one of them, outside of his power.39

Nothing, he continued, can prevent us from being content except for “desire and regret or repentance.” But, Descartes argued, “if we always do all that our reason tells us, we will never have any grounds to repent.”40 That is, Descartes reiterated once more his view that “virtue alone is sufficient to render us content in this life” and that virtue comes not from the pleasures, appetites, and passions but from the “right use of reason.”41 Unlike the passions that tend to exaggerate the goods or evils entailed by any possible course of action and thus lead virtue astray, the right use of reason “prevents virtue from being false.”42 This, Descartes concludes his letter, is what Seneca



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should have taught; had he done so, his work would have been “the best and most useful that a pagan philosopher could have written.”43 While Elisabeth agreed with Descartes that Seneca’s teachings were somewhat lacking, she did not accept Descartes’ alternative, especially the distinction he drew between the two types of contentment. In raising doubts about Descartes’ claim that true happiness depends exclusively on the mind, Elisabeth further explained her understanding of the relationship between the body and the mind. She wrote: I do not yet know how to rid myself of the doubt that one can arrive at the true happiness of which you speak without the assistance of that which does not depend absolutely on the will. For there are diseases that destroy altogether the power of reasoning and by consequence that of enjoying a satisfaction of reason. There are others that diminish the force of reason and prevent one from following the maxims that good sense would have forged and that make the most moderate man subject to being carried away by his passions and less capable of disentangling himself from the accidents of fortune requiring a prompt resolution. When Epicurus was struggling to convince his friends that he felt no pain from his kidney stones, instead of crying like the vulgar, he was leading the life of the philosopher and not that of a prince or a captain or a courtier. For he knew that nothing could come to him from outside that would make him forget his role and cause him to fail to rise above his circumstances according to his philosophy. On these occasions regret seems to me inevitable, and the knowledge that to err is as natural to man as it is to be sick cannot protect us.44

In his reply, Descartes picked up on Elisabeth’s short discussion of Epicurus and, in particular, the three different ways in which the three dominant ancient schools of philosophy conceived the sovereign good. Epicurus, he explained, “claimed that it was all pleasure; Zeno wanted it to be virtue; and Aristotle made it consist of all the perfections, as much those of the body as those of the mind.”45 Having dismissed Aristotle’s understanding, Descartes argued in favor of combining elements of Zeno and Epicurus’ treatments, which, of course, is exactly what Seneca had done. Zeno, he argued, was “quite right to say that the sovereign good consists only in virtue” while Epicurus was “not wrong” in considering “true happiness” to consist in pleasure in general. As such, Descartes concluded that “true happiness consists only in the contentment of the mind, that is, in contentment in general.” This, he believed, was what both Epicurus and Seneca had understood by the relationship between pleasure and contentment. And while some sorts of contentment do, indeed, rely on the body, Descartes concluded, true, “solid” contentment that is derived from virtue and associated with a “firm and constant will” is exclusively that of the mind.46

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REASON AND THE PASSIONS It was not until Descartes’ next letter, written on August 18th 1645 that he finally addressed Elisabeth’s account of the relationship between bodily health and the ability to reason—it seems that Descartes composed his previous letter before he had received Elisabeth’s reply to the one before that, leaving their topics of discussion slightly out of sequence. Descartes was willing to concede Elisabeth’s point that “there are some diseases that destroy altogether the power of reasoning and by consequence that of enjoying a satisfaction of reason.”47 He even went so far as to suggest that “it is less upsetting to lose one’s life than to lose the use of reason.”48 “No fear,” he continued, “is more upsetting to it than that of being joined to a body that entirely takes away its freedom.”49 In fact, in Descartes’ following discussion we see a significant development in his thought, the origins of which are found in Elisabeth’s earlier letter. In contrast to his previous distinction between pleasures of the body and pleasures of the mind, Descartes now acknowledged that the two types of pleasures are “those which pertain to the mind alone” and those “which pertain to the human being, that is, to the mind insofar as it is united to a body.”50 Thus, Descartes was willing to concede that the mind is vulnerable to disruption from the body, leading to confusion and error. But Descartes maintained that in most cases illnesses do not completely prevent us from reasoning: rather, they make us more inclined to experience extreme passions. These extreme passions, he argued, can misguide our judgments, choices, and actions by making “us believe that certain things are much better and more desirable than they are.” For example, he wrote: …anger can sometimes excite in us desires for vengeance so violent that it makes us imagine more pleasure in punishing our enemy than in protecting our honour or our life, and we will expose ourselves imprudently to losing both the one and the other for this end. On the other hand, if reason examines what is the good or the perfection on which this pleasure is draw from vengeance is founded, it will find none other there but that it makes us imagine that we have some sort of superiority and some advantage over those on whom we seek vengeance.51

The concluding section of Descartes’ letter to Elisabeth revealed in stark terms how he understood the relationship between reason and the passions. Although he had already hinted at this notion, here Descartes made explicit the claim that reason is what enables us to evaluate what is right and good and, by extension, choose the best course of action. Reason, according to this understanding, was defined, at least in part, in terms of the absence of



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passion: “the true use of reason in the conduct of life,” Descartes wrote, “consists only in examining and considering without passion the value of all perfections…in order that…we will always choose the best.”52 Yet, although Descartes conceived reason and the passions in opposition to one another, and maintained that reason should dominate the passions, he did not go so far as to suggest that we should overcome or eradicate our emotions, as the Stoics and neo-Stoics did. On the contrary, he argued that “[i]‌t suffices that we render them subject to reason, and when we have thus tamed them they are sometimes the more useful the more they tend to excess.”53 That is, although they may distort our judgments, the passions remain of use to us in experiencing and understanding the world around us. Returning to his discussion of contentment, Elisabeth could see the logic in Descartes’ argument: “It is true,” she wrote, “that a habit of esteeming good things according to how they can contribute to contentment, measuring this contentment according to the perfections which give birth to the pleasures and these pleasures without passion will protect them from a number of faults.”54 But, she said, if we are to “esteem these goods in this way,” we need perfect knowledge of them, “an infinite science.” In particular, we need to know whether any given action will be simply useful for us individually, or whether it will “render us still more useful to others.” This second option, Elisabeth noted, is more often found in those “with an excess of a humor that torments itself for others, and the former by those who live only for themselves.”55 That is, Elisabeth argued that those who suffer from the negative emotions often do so because they chose to act in ways that benefit others or show concern for others. Elisabeth thus also disagreed with Descartes’ understanding of the relationship between reason and the emotions and argued that sometimes we act in ways that reason endorses—that is, in ways that are good and virtuous—because of a feeling. Though driven by passion, these actions are not only endorsed by reason but are highly valued in society. In thus arguing, Elisabeth challenged both Descartes’ claim that virtue requires us to “tame” our passions and the idea that emotions do not drive virtuous behavior. That is, she questioned Descartes’ distinction between reason and emotion and, underpinning it, the division that he proposed to exist between the thinking mind and the feeling body. In fact, Elisabeth’s dissatisfaction with Descartes’ explanation of the relationships between the mind and the body, and between reason and emotion, provoked her to ask him to provide a better definition of the passions. If, she argued, the emotions were simply “mental disturbances,” then it might be possible to accept the idea that what makes the passions powerful is the fact that they can overwhelm and disrupt our ability to reason.56 However, Elisabeth’s own experience told her that

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“there are passions that do carry us to reasonable actions,” thereby refuting the underlying premise of this argument.57 In short, Elisabeth conceived the emotions as being, at least in part, bodily phenomena: that is, she thought that we feel them. Whether she also understood emotions to have a cognitive component, as Descartes would later elaborate, is unclear but it seems likely, given her refusal to accept a hard and fast distinction between the body and the mind, that she entertained a hybrid— bodily and cognitive—understanding of the emotions. Through her embodied understanding of the mind, Elisabeth was thus able to argue that the emotions can disrupt reason in ways that reason cannot always overcome. In crude terms, she maintained that what we feel can have an impact on how we think; that the physical body can influence the mind. However, in Elisabeth’s view it did not follow from this that the emotions ought always to be overcome. On the contrary, rather than conceiving reason as being normatively superior to emotion, she recognized that both reason and emotions are capable of driving virtuous behavior, and in doing so extended Reynold’s suggestion that the passions may contribute to the enlivening of virtue. Elisabeth’s understanding of the relationship between virtue and the emotions was revisited in the eighteenth century, first by Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Earl of Shaftesbury, who argued that a person who lacks the capacity of reason remains “capable of Virtue” and possessing “a Sense of Right and Wrong” on account of their social passions, and then by Francis Hutcheson and David Hume, who further developed the theory of moral sentiments.58 Elisabeth closed her letter by suggesting to Descartes: “I assure myself that you will shed more light on this subject, when you explicate how the force of the passions renders them even more useful when they are subject to reason.”59 Although Descartes did not rise to this challenge immediately— some writers have interpreted his delay as evidence of the extent to which her questions challenged his theory—his later letters and, of course, The Passions of the Soul did indeed shed more light on his understanding of the passions. In the meantime, Elisabeth and her family moved to Riswyck so the house in which they lived in The Hague could be cleaned, and she and Descartes carried on their conversation about Seneca. In response to Elisabeth’s claim that the ability to make perfect reasoned choices requires perfect knowledge, Descartes suggested that “only two things are required to be always disposed to judge well: one is the knowledge of the truth, and the other is the habit of remembering and acquiescing to this knowledge every time the occasion requires.”60 But, Descartes acknowledged, “only God knows all things perfectly” and so we humans must simply be content “in knowing those things that are most useful to us.”61 In doing so, Descartes argued “[i]‌t is always necessary to prefer the interests of the whole, of which one is a part, to those of one’s person in particular,



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though with measure and discretion.”62 Indeed, an essential part of human existence is recognition that we cannot simply “subsist alone” but exist as part of our universe, earth, state, society, and family. For this reason, when we consider ourselves as “part of the public” we take “pleasure in acting well toward everyone” and do not “fear even exposing one’s life for the service of others when the occasion occurs.” That is, Descartes wrote, “one would lose one’s soul, if one could, in order to save others.”63 However virtuous these selfless actions might be, however, a danger lies in acting in the interests of others on the basis of our passions. “All our passions,” Descartes argued, “represent to us the goods that incite us to seek as much greater than they actually are.” Thus, he recommended that “when we sense ourselves moved by some passion, we suspend our judgment until the passion abates…so that we do not allow ourselves to be easily deceived by the false appearance of the goods of this world.”64 While Elisabeth agreed with Descartes that viewing ourselves as part of a whole helps us to choose generous courses of action, she did not agree with his calculus: “How is one to measure the evils that one brings upon oneself for the sake of the public,” she asked, “against the good which will accrue to the public, without the evils seeming greater inasmuch as our idea of them is distinct?” An “arrogant person,” she reasoned, “will always tip the balance in his favour, and a modest one will esteem himself less than he is worth.”65 As far as Elisabeth could see, in order to make this sort of judgment, “it is necessary to know exactly all the passions we feel and the prejudices we have.”66 In thus arguing, Elisabeth seemed to further convince Descartes to write a more detailed account of the passions. Elisabeth’s letter ends with a complaint about the inconveniences of life at Riswyck. Although she had hoped that her time away in the country would afford her more time than usual for her studies, she found that she had less time than ever “because of the distractions of those who don’t know what to do with themselves.” And while she thought it was “very unjust of them to deprive…[her] of real goods,” she felt “constrained to abide by the impertinent established laws of civility” so as to avoid acquiring enemies. “Since writing this letter,” she despaired, “I have been interrupted more than seven times by these annoying visits.”67 CONCEIVING THE EMOTIONS Descartes’ and Elisabeth’s early discussions of the passions reveal one of the greatest challenges associated with attempting to conceptualize them: namely, that they “seem to be split between the mind and the body.”68 This dual—cognitive and bodily—character is particularly evident in Descartes’ descriptions

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of the passions in his later letters to Elisabeth. On some occasions he described the emotions as “feelings of physical agitation and excitement” and attempted to explain the physiology associated with the experience of an emotion. For example, in his description of fear he suggested that “the blood rushes out of the heart…and the animal spirits move from the brain to the limbs, disposing us for flight.”69 In descriptions such as this, Descartes appeared to conceive emotions in purely bodily terms and thereby explain them in mechanical terms. At other times, however, Descartes appeared to conceive the emotions as mental phenomena associated with perceptions, desires, and beliefs. For example, he argued that “hatred arises from the perception of a thing’s hurtfulness and involves a desire to avoid it.”70 In doing so, he appeared to also adhere to a cognitive understanding of the emotions. Like Elisabeth—and perhaps at her prompting—however, Descartes ultimately attempted to bring these two aspects of the emotions together in the context of trying to explain, once again, the nature of the mind-body union. To start his examination of the passions Descartes therefore returned to his earlier explanation of mind-body interaction. In particular, he reiterated the claim that “the action of the soul…has some force for changing the impressions of the brain” and, conversely, that “these impressions have the force to excite thoughts in the soul that do not depend on its will.”71 From this starting point, Descartes distinguished between active and passive occurrences and, correspondingly, between actions and passions. What we generally call the passions, he wrote, “are all the thoughts that are excited in the soul…without the concurrence of its will, and by consequence, without any action coming from it, but only from the impressions in the brain. For everything that is not an action is a passion.”72 That is, Descartes conceived the passions as phenomena that affect the soul passively: they are experiences the soul is subjected to without actively choosing them. However, as Descartes’ letters were the written equivalent of thinking aloud, he quickly revised this initial definition on account of it being too broad. In ordinary language, he reasoned, passions are thought to be distinct from other perceptions and sensations such as “colours, odors, lights, smells, hunger, thirst, pain and similar ones.”73 What was thus needed was a narrower definition of the passions that distinguished them from other perceptions. The result was his second definition of the passions as stemming “from some particular agitation of the spirits…of which we sense the effects in the soul itself.”74 As Descartes continued his initial explanation of how our perceptions and thoughts generate the passions he went some way toward presenting a straightforwardly cognitive account of the emotions. His example of the emotion of fear is particularly interesting in this regard. A town, he wrote, has heard that it is about to be besieged by an enemy. Upon hearing the news, the inhabitants of the town immediately make a judgment about the possible



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harms that may be inflicted on them. This judgment, Descartes explained, “is an action of their soul, not a passion.”75 It is only after this judgment has been made that the soul receives “the emotion in which alone the passion consists.”76 In response, the soul then evokes a bodily response, the felt emotion: [I]‌ t determines the spirits which go from the brain via the nerves to the muscles, to enter into those muscles which tighten the openings of the heart. This tightening retards the circulation of the blood, from which it follows that the whole body becomes pale, cold, and trembling, and the new spirits which come from the heart to the brain are agitated in such a way that they cannot aid in forming any other images but those which excite in the soul the passion of fear….And so with all other passions there is some particular agitation in the spirits that come from the heart.77

That is, Descartes proposed that the bodily sensations associated with the emotions are generated by judgments or the imaginings of the mind. They are of cognitive derivation but are manifested bodily. It was at this point in their correspondence that Descartes confessed to Elisabeth that he had not gotten any further than this in producing the detailed explanation of the passions he had intended to present to her. It was not until the following year that Elisabeth received the manuscript of The Passions of the Soul, a work that her questions inspired and her understanding of the mind-body problem influenced. In the meantime, Elisabeth pressed Descartes once again over the role that the emotions play in making judgments and motivating actions. Unlike Descartes, who thought that judgment and hence the pursuit of virtue is exclusively a function of reason, Elisabeth conceived a role for the passions in this endeavor. For example, she argued that if we were to eliminate remorse on account of its negative impact on our happiness, we would risk losing the desire to make right the wrongs we have caused as well as the impetus to improve our behavior.78 Her point was an important one: reason may pass judgment on the passions but the passions also pass judgment on our passions, reasons, and actions (in her example, remorse is the judgment passed on mistaken actions driven by the passionate desire for what reason tells us will make us happy). What is more, Elisabeth argued that it is only when the passions are experienced in excess that they become harmful and require tempering by reason. In Elisabeth’s view, this posed a problem for Descartes’ explanation of the relationship between reason and emotion. In his previous letter, Descartes had written that “when the passions are subject to reason, the more excessive they are, the more useful they are.” Elisabeth doubted this was actually the case. According to her understanding, the “passions can never be both excessive and subject to reason.”79 The logic

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that seems to underpin her argument is that an excessive passion is harmful precisely because it cannot be subjected to reason. What is more, precisely how an excessive passion is useful remained unclear in Descartes’ writings at this point. As such, Elisabeth challenged Descartes to explain how the “agitation of the spirits serves to form all the passions we experience” and, how the passions corrupt reason.80 These challenges he took up in The Passions of the Soul. In a style typical of the time, The Passions of the Soul is largely a work of taxonomy, designed to outline the causes, effects, and functions of the passions. The first, definitional part of the work, basically repeats and elaborates upon Descartes’ initial answers to Elisabeth’s questions as they appeared in his letters. A passion, he started, reiterating his earlier argument, is distinct from an action. Where the soul is concerned, this distinction can be applied to thought, the defining function of the mind. Actions of the soul, Descartes argued, are volitions or “acts of the will,” thoughts generated independently by the soul and seemingly “depend on it alone.”81 In their most general sense, the passions of the soul include all the “various perceptions or modes of knowledge” we receive passively.82 These perceptions can themselves be divided into two main types: those that are caused by the body and those that are caused by the soul. That is, Descartes argued that the soul can actively generate a passion: the process of willing it is active while the soul’s perception of that action is passive. One way we do this is by using our imaginations to generate images and ideas. At the same time, however, Descartes also maintained that the body can generate passions: for example, when we dream (or, Descartes’ thought, daydream) our body is generating images that our soul perceives and reacts to passively, thus provoking a passion. As in his letters, however, Descartes moved quickly to further narrow his definition of the passions to focus, in particular, on the passions of the soul. The passions of the soul, according to Descartes, are “perceptions, sensations, or emotions of the soul which we refer particularly to it, and which are caused, maintained, and strengthened by some movement of the spirits.”83 Of these, Descartes argued, they are best known as “emotions of the soul.” The passions of the soul are best known as emotions or commotions, he argued, because they “agitate” the soul.84 In thus arguing, Descartes moved toward the understanding of emotion associated with agitation that became popular in the 1660s and, like his later contemporaries, correlated it with particular types of physical disturbances. Descartes did not, however, think that these physical disturbances, or passions, were the same as emotions but recognized that they are distinct phenomena that occur concurrently. In brute terms, Descartes therefore suggested that while the passions are “absolutely dependent on the actions which produce them and can be changed by the soul only indirectly,



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except when it is itself their cause,” emotions or “inner commotions” can be produced by the soul “unaided.”85 Because of the “close alliance between the soul and the body,” he suggested, it is easy for us to confuse our passions with our emotions.86 Of course, in later discourse, as the term “emotion” overtook “passion” as the more popular term, Descartes’ notions of both passions and emotions became subsumed under the single title of emotion. It is in Descartes’ explanation of the temporal and proximate causes of the passions that we see perhaps his most embodied understanding of the soul. The soul, he argued, “is really joined to the whole body, and we cannot properly say that it exists in any one part of the body to the exclusion of others.”87 That said, he still attempted to identify its “seat” in the body, rejecting his earlier idea that the soul does its work in both the heart and the pineal gland and settling instead on the latter as the sole seat of the passions. We will recall that Descartes had long believed that it is through the pineal gland that the soul interacts with the body. For example, Descartes thought that when the passions of anxiety, fear, or terror are aroused in our soul by a perceived threat, the spirits move from the pineal gland to “the nerves which serve to turn the back and move the legs in order to flee” and to the “nerves which expand or constrict the orifices of the heart.”88 That is, Descartes argued that the function of the passions is to “move and dispose the soul to want the things for which they prepare the body.”89 They are generated by perceptions of goods and harms but they do not constitute judgments themselves (for judgments are active, not passive). Finally responding to Elisabeth’s objections, Descartes argued that the reason the soul does not always have full control over its passions is found in the relationship between their cognitive and bodily components. Although the passions are not located in the heart, they are almost always “accompanied by some disturbance which takes place in the heart and consequently also all through the blood and the animal spirits.”90 Descartes believed that even when our mind objects to or fights against our passions we experience a time lag before we are rid of their bodily effects. What is more, during the time it takes for the body to rid itself of the commotion that accompanies the passions, the mind continues to perceive them. In this way Descartes attempted to explain Elisabeth’s experience of the ongoing bodily and mental effects of sadness, even in the face of concerted cognitive attempts to overcome it. Yet, Descartes’ assessment of the ongoing effects of the passions was not all negative. On the contrary, he suggested that it was precisely their ability to sustain thoughts that are good for us that make the passions useful. What makes the passions harmful, Descartes thought, is their ability to strengthen and preserve thoughts that are excessive or that are never good to have.91 For this reason Descartes concluded that the passions are all “by nature good, and that we have nothing to avoid but their misuse or their excess.”92 In fact, Descartes

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went so far as to suggest that it is only in the connection between the body and the soul facilitated by the passions that we are “capable of enjoying the sweetest pleasures of this life.”93 Virtue, according to Descartes, thus lies in controlling those passions that prolong negative thoughts while allowing those that preserve good or useful thoughts to flourish. In the remainder of the work, Descartes outlined the nature of the passions themselves, ultimately arguing that there are six basic passions from which all others are derived: wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy, and sadness.94 Of these, Descartes’ account of wonder attracted the most attention from his contemporaries, including Elisabeth. Wonder, according to Descartes, is the only passion that does not involve the heart or the blood. It is, he thought, “a sudden surprise of the soul which brings it to consider with attention the objects that seem to it unusual and extraordinary.”95 The bodily manifestations of wonder thus include the “movement of the spirits” to ensure that the sense organs remain focused on the object of the wonder, but do not result in elevated heart rate. Although The Passions of the Soul was not completed until 1649, Elisabeth received and reviewed an early draft of the manuscript in 1646. Her initial response was overwhelmingly positive. “[T]‌ he order, definition, and distinctions you give to the passions,” she wrote, “surpass all that anyone has ever said on this subject.”96 However, Elisabeth remained unconvinced by Descartes’ explanation of the physiology of the passions. In particular, she asked how we can know which of the “diverse movements of the blood… cause… the five basic passions” given that they rarely occur in isolation.97 For example, Elisabeth noted that we usually experience love, not by itself, but alongside desire and joy. How then, she asked, can we attribute the physiological symptoms of the passions to any one passion? What is more, Elisabeth also questioned Descartes’ account of wonder, implying that if one of its external signs is laughter, brought about in mechanical terms by the rapid expansion of the lungs, then the heart must play a role in producing this effect.98 Descartes agreed with Elisabeth that his physiological explanations for the passions was lacking. Fully explaining their physiology was, he freely admitted, “something so difficult that I would not yet dare to undertake it.”99 However, he did outline the process of correlation by which he arrived at his descriptions of the five basic passions and their physical manifestations. If it was the case, Descartes argued, that we only ever experienced love in conjunction with joy, then it would indeed be impossible to distinguish between the bodily changes they bring (Descartes thought that love produces heat and joy causes dilation around the heart). But sometimes, he continued, love is accompanied by sadness. In these circumstances we experience heat but not dilation, leading him to conclude that “the heat appertains to love and the



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dilation to joy.”100 Where wonder is concerned, Descartes suggested that it is not wonder itself but joy caused by the experience of wonder that causes laughter. ELISABETH RETURNS TO GERMANY In the months that followed, Elisabeth and her younger brother Philip were sent to live in Berlin for their own safety after Philip killed a man in the street. The man in question was one Jacques de l’Epinay, “a French nobleman said to have attained a previous notoriety by his successes as a squire of dames.”101 De l’Epinay was an influential member of Elizabeth Stuart’s court who enjoyed the attention of the Queen and her twenty-fouryear-old daughter, Louise Hollandine. Yet, when rumors began circulating that he had boasted of bedding both the Queen and her daughter, the family was incensed. In an attempt to defend the honor of his mother and sister, Prince Philip killed de l’Epinay in the public marketplace with a hunting knife, severing his jugular after a short struggle. Philip fled across the border, leaving his family to deal with the consequences of his actions, including the rumor that Elisabeth “had instigated her unhappy brother’s deed.”102 In part for her own protection, Elisabeth was sent to live with her aunt, the Electress of Brandenburg, in Berlin, for an initial period of six or seven months. Thus in July 1646, Elisabeth wrote to Descartes asking him to continue their correspondence. With a promise of more leisure time and tranquility for study in Germany, Elisabeth hoped she would be able to devote further consideration to Descartes’ work on the passions.103 NOTES 1. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 21 July 1645, 96. 2. Christopher Gill, “The Emotions in Greco-Roman Philosophy” in Susanna Morton Braund and Christoper Gill (eds.), The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 5. 3. Gill, “The Emotions in Greco-Roman Philosophy,” 9. 4. Gill, “The Emotions in Greco-Roman Philosophy,” 5. 5. Christopher Brooke, Philosophic Pride: Stoicism and Political Thought from Lipsius to Rousseau, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), xiii. 6. Christopher Brooke, “Stoicism and Anti-Stoicism in the Seventeenth Century,” Grotiana 22/23(2001–2002): 93. 7. Brooke, “Stoicism and Anti-Stoicism,” 93. 8. Martina Reuter, “Freedom of the Will as a Basis of Equality: Descartes, Princess Elisabeth and Poullain de la Barre,” in Quentin Skinner and Martin van

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Gelderen (eds.), Freedom and the Construction of Europe, Volume II: Free Persons and Free States, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 70. 9. The extent to which Descartes was influenced by the Stoics is a matter of some debate, although most commentators agree that, although he settled on a divergent position, Stoic ideas did, nonetheless, impact his thinking. Lisa Shapiro, “Descartes’s Ethics” in Janet Broughton and John Carriero (eds.), A Companion to Descartes, (Oxford: Wiley, 2011), 450. Stephen Menn expresses the alternative view that “Descartes had no particular interest in Stoicism.” Stephen Menn, Descartes and Augustine, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 270–1. 10. Reuter, “Freedom of the will,” 70; Rebecca May Wilkin, Imagination and the Search for Truth in Early Modern France, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 204. 11. Brooke, “The Emotions in Greco-Roman Philosophy,” xii. 12. Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum, “Seneca and His World” in Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Hardship and Happiness, trans. Elaine Fantham, Harry M. Hine, James Ker, and Gareth D. Williams, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), ix. 13. Admis, Bartsch, and Nussbaum, “Seneca and His World,” xii. 14. Seneca, Epistles, LXXVI. http://www.stoics.com/seneca_epistles_book_2. html#%91LXXVI1 15. Josiah Gould, “Reason in Seneca,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 3(1965), 13. 16. Steven K. Strange, “The Stoics on the Voluntariness of the Passions” in Steven K. Strange and Jack Zupko (eds.), Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 32. 17. Brooke, Philosophic Pride, xii. 18. Miriam T.  Griffin, Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), 34. 19. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Consolation to Helvia, trans. Gareth D. Williams in Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Hardship & Happiness, trans. Elaine Fantham, Harry M. Hine, James Ker, and Gareth D. Williams, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 19.2, 70. 20. Mary Beard, “How Stoical Was Seneca?” New York Review of Books, October 9, 2014. 21. Beard, “How Stoical Was Seneca?” 22. Asmis, Bartsch, and Nussbaum, “Seneca and His World,” ix. 23. Asmis, Bartsch, and Nussbaum, “Seneca and His World,” xi. 24. Paul Veyne, Seneca: The Life of a Stoic, (New York: Routledge, 2003), 39. 25. Veyne, Seneca, 34. 26. James Ker, “Introduction” to Lucius Annaeus Seneca, On the Happy Life, trans. James Ker in Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Hardship & Happiness, trans. Elaine Fantham, Harry M. Hine, James Ker, and Gareth D. Williams, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 237. 27. Ker, “Introduction,” 238. 28. Seneca, On the Happy Life, 3.3, 242. 29. Seneca, On the Happy Life, 5.1, 244.



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30. Seneca, On the Happy Life, 5.1, 244. 31. Richard Sorabji, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 42; Seneca, On Anger, 2.4.1. 32. Sorabji, Emotion and Peace of Mind, 42. 33. Sorabji, Emotion and Peace of Mind, 34 and 29. 34. Seneca, On the Happy Life, 13.1, 250. 35. Seneca, On the Happy Life, 13.1, 250; 12.4, 250. 36. Seneca, On the Happy Life, 18.1, 255. 37. Seneca, On the Happy Life, 23.1, 259. 38. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 4 August 1645, 97. 39. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 4 August 1645, 98. 40. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 4 August 1645, 98. 41. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 4 August 1645, 99. 42. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 4 August 1645, 99. 43. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 4 August 1645, 99. 44. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 16 August 1645, 100. 45. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 18 August 1645, 104. 46. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 18 August 1645, 104. 47. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 16 August 1645, 100. 48. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 4 September 1645, 107. 49. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 4 September 1645, 107. 50. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 1 September 1645, 108. 51. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 1 September 1645, 108. 52. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 1 September 1645, 109. 53. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 1 September 1645, 109. 54. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 13 September 1645, 110. 55. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 13 September 1645, 110. 56. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 13 September 1645, 110. 57. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 13 September 1645, 110–111. 58. Shaftesbury, “An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit,” I.III.III.25; Renee Jeffery, Reason and Emotion in International Ethics, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 59. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 13 September 1645, 111. 60. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 15 September 1645, 111. 61. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 15 September 1645, 111. 62. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 15 September 1645, 112. 63. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 15 September 1645, 112. 64. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 15 September 1645, 113. 65. Elisabeth to Descartes, Riswyck, 30 September 1645, 115. 66. Elisabeth to Descartes, Riswyck, 30 September 1645, 115. 67. Elisabeth to Descartes, Riswyck, 30 September 1645, 115. 68. Solomon, What Is an Emotion?, 21. 69. Solomon, What Is an Emotion?, 21. 70. In Solomon, What Is an Emotion?, 21.

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71. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 6 October 1645, 118. 72. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 6 October 1645, 118. 73. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 6 October 1645, 118. 74. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 6 October 1645, 119. 75. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 6 October 1645, 119. 76. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 6 October 1645, 119. 77. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 6 October 1645, 120. 78. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 28 October 1645, 123. 79. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 28 October 1645, 123. 80. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, 28 October 1645, 123. 81. René Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: Volume 1, ed. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, Volume I, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), (hereafter CSM I), 17, 219. 82. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, in CSM I, 17, 219. 83. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, in CSM I, 27, 221. 84. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, in CSM I, 28, 221. 85. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, in CSM I, 41, 224. 86. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, in CSM I, 28, 221. 87. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, in CSM I, 30, 221. 88. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, in CSM I, 36, 223. 89. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, in CSM I, 40, 224. 90. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, in CSM I, 46, 225. 91. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, in CSM I, 74, 231. 92. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, in CSM I, 211, 260. 93. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, in CSM I, 212, 260. 94. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, in CSM I, 69, 229. 95. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, in CSM I, 70, 229. 96. Elisabeth to Descartes, [The Hague] 25 April [1646], 133. 97. Elisabeth to Descartes, [The Hague] 25 April [1646], 133. 98. Elisabeth to Descartes, [The Hague] 25 April [1646], 133. 99. Descartes to Elisabeth, May 1646, 135. 100. Descartes to Elisabeth, May 1646, 135. 101. Adolphus William Ward, Collected Papers: Historical, Literary, Travel and Miscellaneous, Vol.1, 387. 102. Ward, Collected Papers, 387. 103. Elisabeth to Descartes, The Hague, July 1646, 138–139.

Chapter 6

The Prince

In the spring of 1646, Elisabeth heeded her mother’s advice and travelled to Berlin to stay with her aunt, Elisabeth Charlotte, the Electress Dowager of Brandenburg. Elisabeth Charlotte was one of Frederick V’s four sisters. In 1616 she married George William who, in 1619, became the Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia. Following George William’s death in 1640, his only son with Elisabeth Charlotte, Frederick William, inherited the title of Elector of Brandenburg. Just two years younger than his cousin, Frederick William had been Elisabeth’s playmate in the nursery at their grandmother, Louise Juliana’s house. During his youth, Frederick William had also spent time studying at the University of Leiden and become a close friend and companion of Elisabeth’s, spending time with the family in The Hague and visiting them at their house in Rhenen during the summers. It was during these visits that Frederick William fell madly in love with Elisabeth’s younger sister, the teenage Louise Hollandine. If Elizabeth Godfrey’s work is anything to go by, the attraction was mutual and Frederick spent the summer of 1637 “making boyish love” to Louise.1 So hot was the illicit relationship between the teenagers that Frederick was called back to Berlin in 1638 while formal negotiations over a possible marriage treaty took place. In her letters, Louise’s mother, Queen Elizabeth, revealed that she was not opposed to the match and wrote, as late as 1642, that official negotiations were taking place.2 However, the match was not to be: the young lovers’ grandmother, Louise Juliana did not approve the match, nor did the Elector of Brandenburg’s advisors. Although some have suggested that Louise Juliana was concerned about the possible implications of consanguinity—Frederick and Louise were, after all, first cousins—it is more likely that the negotiations failed because the Palatine Princess had no dowry.3 125

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Still nursing his broken heart, in 1646 Frederick William was forced to marry the wealthier, and therefore more suitable, Louise Henriette, the daughter of Frederick Henry of Orange-Nassau and Amalia of SolmsBraunfels.4 Frederick William was still in love with Louise Hollandine who, along with her sisters, attended the wedding in The Hague. Louise Henriette was no more impressed by the union. She was in love with her cousin, Henri Charles de la Trémoille, the Prince of Talmant, but had been forbidden from pursuing a romance with him on account of his lowly status. It was only after an attempted marriage treaty between Louise Henriette and another of her cousins, Charles II of England, failed that she was forced to marry the future Elector of Brandenburg. Louise Henriette was Elisabeth’s “favourite cousin” and although her union to Frederick William had caused her sister, Louise Hollandine, considerable grief, her presence in Berlin meant that Elisabeth had an amiable companion.5 In her first letter to Descartes from Berlin, she wrote of her contentment at life back in her childhood home: “Here I do not encounter much difficulty, being in a house where I have been cherished since my childhood and where everyone conspires to take care of me. Even though some of these efforts distract me sometimes from more useful occupations, I easily support this inconvenience through the pleasure there is in being loved by those closest to one.”6 In the same letter, however, she also expressed frustration at not having a copy of Machiavelli’s The Prince to hand. Without a copy of the book, her discussion of its contents would have to rely on her memory. Although the letter is missing, it seems from Descartes’ correspondence that Elisabeth asked for his opinion on The Prince, a work Descartes had not previously read. NEGOTIATING THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA Elisabeth’s interest in The Prince was not purely intellectual. On the contrary, her turn to the works of Machiavelli took place in the context of her family’s latest attempt to recover the Palatinate. As early as 1628, the first halting negotiations between the parties engaged in the Thirty Years’ War had begun.7 According to the terms of the Treaty of Munich, reached in that year, Maximilian had agreed to “accept the Upper Palatinate and the electoral title as compensation for the vital military assistance he had provided” to the Emperor in defeating Frederick V in Bohemia.8 For his part, the Emperor had agreed that if Maximilian was later “forced to surrender the Upper Palatinate” he would personally reimburse Maximilian’s military expenses, an enormous sum of 13 million gulden. As the cost involved was so astronomical, the Emperor’s pledge effectively ensured that whatever the outcome of future



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peace negotiations, Maximilian would keep the Upper Palatinate. Put simply, any other outcome would be far too costly. By the mid-1640s this issue had been brought to bear in the negotiations over what would eventually become the Peace of Westphalia. Among the key issues at stake in the negotiations were the territorial boundaries of the conflict’s main protagonists, the power of the Holy Roman Empire and its relationship to the princes, and the matter of religious freedom, which the Peace of Augsburg had attempted to resolve in 1555. And, of course, the main parties to the settlement, the Holy Roman Emperor, Spain, France, Sweden, the Dutch Republic, and the German princes, all vied for as much political advantage as they could muster from the agreement. Spain was keen to reach a peace agreement with the Netherlands but to keep on fighting in its other theatres of war. France proposed the institution of a French-led federation that would see the power of the emperor destroyed and replaced by its own influence. In territorial terms it also vied for most of Alsace, parts of Lorraine, and considerable swathes of Spanish territory. The German princes, by contrast, feared simply replacing Imperial overlordship with domination by either France or Sweden and so only wanted to curtail the overwhelming power of the emperor. And Sweden had long preferred a hasty end to the conflict. On this issue Queen Christina famously remarked: “This German war, I don’t know what it is, only that we pour out blood here for the sake of reputation, and have naught but ingratitude to expect…we must let this German business be left to the Germans, who will be the only people to get any good of it (if there is any), and therefore not spend any more men or money here, but rather try by all means to wriggle out of it.”9 That said, Sweden would only accept a peace in which it retained control of the Baltic Sea ports and the Hapsburgs had been stripped of control over Germany.10 In all, 176 representatives of 196 rulers were involved in the negotiations. Just as control over the Palatinate had been a key factor in the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, so too was it at the center of the negotiations of territorial control that ended it. In return for the loan of 30 ships, in 1637 Louis XIII had promised Charles I not to conclude a settlement “that did not involve the restoration of the Palatine family to their lands and titles.”11 When negotiations resumed in the 1640s, however, the question at hand was not whether or not the Palatinate would be restored in full to Frederick V’s descendants: at best the Palatine family could hope to wrest back control over the Lower Palatinate. Rather the key issue was whether or not the electoral title would be returned to Frederick V’s son, Charles Louis. In the initial negotiations, the Emperor proposed that Bavaria and the Palatinate “alternate exercising a vote in Imperial elections” and, in doing so, reignited the much earlier dispute that had ultimately seen the House of Wittelsbach split into its two branches.12 If accepted, the Emperor’s suggestion would see Maximilian finally recover

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the electoral title he believed had been unfairly taken from his ancestors. The French, however, argued that the electoral title should remain with Bavaria and suggested that an eighth electorate be formed for Frederick’s heirs.13 Although Sweden had originally supported the idea of an alternating electorate, by the middle of 1646 its key negotiator, Chancellor Johan Oxenstierna had “accepted the principle of an eighth electorate.”14 However, Swedish support for the French proposal came with a caveat: “Charles Louis would inherit all of his father’s lands in the Upper as well as the Lower Palatinate, excepting only the small country of Cham that would be annexed to Bavaria.” The Swedes later added that if an eighth electorate was to be formed, it should go to Bavaria, leaving the Palatinate with its existing title.15 By the time Elisabeth turned her attention to The Prince it seemed likely that the Palatinate would be restored to the family, if only in part. For her brother Charles Louis, this eventuality would bring with it the challenges, not only of rebuilding a society that had been crushed during the Thirty Years’ War, but of ruling, establishing authority, and exercising control over the territory and its people. It was to Machiavelli that Elisabeth turned in search of guidance on her brother’s behalf. MACHIAVELLI Born in Florence on 3 May 1469, Machiavelli was “a committed, lifelong republican and Florentine patriot” who served the republic as Secretary to the Second Chancery from 1498 to 1512.16 At the time, Florence was in a state of considerable tumult. For sixty years, Florence had been ruled by three successive generations of the Medici family, Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo de’Medici. Although they were not the official, elected representatives of the Florentine people, as one of the wealthiest families in Florence—they controlled Europe’s largest bank, the Medici bank—they wielded considerable power. In 1478, however, the family’s rule came crashing down—though, as we will see, their break from power was only temporary. During the Easter Sunday service at the main cathedral in Florence, “a band of conspirators” tried to murder Lorenzo de’Medici and his younger brother, Giuliano.17 Backed and led by a wealthy rival banking family, the Pazzi, the conspirators murdered Giuilano—in fact, it was Francesco Pazzi who plunged his dagger into Giuliano’s body—but failed to kill Lorenzo and a “bloodbath” of reprisals followed.18 Although Lorenzo had survived the attack, the family’s fortunes continued to decline. In 1492, Lorenzo’s death saw his son, Piero take his seat on the Council of Seventy with disastrous consequences. Such was his political incompetence that in 1494 Piero and his brothers were



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driven into exile after he unwittingly agreed to assist Charles VIII of France in his plans to invade Italy. In the absence of the de’Medici family, Florence was dominated first by the Dominican preacher Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498) and then ruled by a new republican government, led by Piero Soderini (1450–1522). It was under Soderini’s rule that Machiavelli’s political career took place. As a diplomat Machiavelli met some of the most powerful rulers of the time, such as Cesare Borgia, Louis XII of France, and the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. He noted, on his diplomatic travels, that Florence seemed to count for “very little…in the new politics and warfare of the early sixteenth century.” While other states around it were “making themselves more powerful,” Machiavelli thought, the once great and glorious state of Florence was in decline.19 The fall of the Florentine Republic was, according to Viroli, “due, in part, to the fact that the good and honest Piero Soderini,…refused to take exceptional measures against the enemies of the Republic because he did not want to incur the reputation of being an ambitious and unjust man.”20 Machiavelli believed and translated into policy, the idea that “a good citizen should be prepared to do evil, or what is considered to be evil, to save the liberty and the life of his country.”21 In part, this was the driving force behind Machiavelli’s decision to raise a citizen army to protect Florence. Unlike a mercenary force, he argued, “only a citizen army would fight loyally to the end.”22 In 1512 his theory was put to the test. After fourteen years in obscurity, the Medicis backed by Pope Julius II and Spanish troops, made a bid to regain control of Florence. In August 1512 they came into contact with Machiavelli’s citizen army for the first time in the city of Prato. Contrary to Machiavelli’s prediction, the citizen army did not stand and fight but “had turned tail at the first contact with the enemy.”23 Prato was abandoned “to be sacked and pillaged” and, what followed was the fall of the independent Florentine Republic.24 Soderini was driven into exile and Lorenzo de’Medici II (1492–1519) was installed as the ruler of Florence. For Machiavelli, this course of events was not only a painful embarrassment, but it put him in a difficult position. His relationship with the Medicis was complicated to say the least.25 In his favor was the fact that he was a long time friend of Giuliano di Lorenzo, Lorenzo de’Medici’s third son. Against him, however, was the prominent role he had played in the Soderini government. In the end, the weight of distrust won out: on February 18, 1513, he was arrested under suspicion of plotting to overthrow the new regime. Although he was periodically tortured, Machiavelli refused to confess and, in the end, was released. Though not found guilty, he “remained under a cloud of suspicion. He was barred from government service, the only one he had ever known.”26

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With his career lost and a family to feed, Machiavelli desperately needed to win favor with the Medicis. “Men who are anxious to win the favour of a Prince” he wrote, “nearly always follow the custom of presenting themselves to him with the possessions they value most, or with the things they know especially please him.”27 What Machiavelli had to give was his experience as a diplomat and policy maker, his “acquaintance with contemporary affairs and…continuous study of the ancient world” and so he set about writing a manual on statecraft for Lorenzo de’Medici.28 He saw himself in this task as a “physician of the state:” just as the doctors diagnose the ills of the body, so too would Machiavelli diagnose the ills of the state and prescribe a cure. It surely was, as Miles Unger notes, “one of the most ill-advised job applications of all time. Attempting to ingratiate himself with his would-be bosses by offering to give them a quick tutorial in the secrets of statecraft was presumptuous and unlikely to win over even the most self-effacing lord.”29 As it was, Machiavelli was never restored to political life and lived out his days at his country house, writing works of politics, history, and fiction before his death in 1527. Although it had not achieved its intended aim of securing Machiavelli’s re-entry into Florentine politics, The Prince took on a life of its own. It was a controversial work. In it, Machiavelli argued, among other things, that the prince ought to appear faithful to his word but should break his promises if keeping them is detrimental to his rule.30 Where necessary, he suggested, the prince should not just ignore ecclesiastical principles that do not suit his interests but he should make good use of religion, to persuade and deceive, and to “instill fear and obedience” in the population.31 What is more, Machiavelli advocated the use of cruelty and violence in establishing the new prince’s rule: …when he seizes a state the new ruler must determine all the injuries he will need to inflict. He must inflicte them once and for all, and not have to renew them every day, and in that way he will be able to set men’s minds at rest and win them over to him when he confers benefits. Whoever acts otherwise, either through timidity or misjudgment, is always forced to have the knife ready in his hand and he can never depend on his subjects because they, suffering fresh and continuous violence, can never fell secure with regard to him. Violence must be inflicted once for all.32

And later: …a prince must not worry if he incurs reproach for his cruelty so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal. By making an example or two he will prove more compassionate than those who, being too compassionate, allow disorders which lead to murder and rapine. These nearly always harm the whole



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community, whereas executions ordered by a prince only affect individuals. A new prince, of all rulers, finds it impossible to avoid a reputation for cruelty, because of the abundant dangers inherent in a newly won state.33

Almost immediately after his death, Machiavelli was denounced as “an enemy of the human race” for the views he expressed, most forcefully, in The Prince.34 In 1559 The Prince was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books, making Machiavelli one of the first writers to receive the honor of Papal prohibition. As Unger writes, “Machiavelli’s inclusion on the Index reflected a growing consensus that he was a wicked man advocating wicked behavior.”35 Ironically, though, the Index also inadvertently “provided free publicity” for the titles it listed and “guided Protestant printers toward authors, such as Machiavelli, who could be advertised as forbidden fruit.”36 Thus, while Machiavelli’s “name was disappearing from books” from 1560, with the Roman Inquisition making intellectuals far more cautious about the writers they referenced, his works survived prohibition and eventually went on to find sympathy with later writers who were interested in republicanism, particularly as discussed in later work, The Discourses.37 In this context, Elisabeth’s decision to read Machiavelli was a daring risk. Although some intellectuals had begun to embrace his republican defense of liberty and freedom, for most he remained a vile, repugnant, heretic. Indeed, from as early as the sixteenth century the notion that to be “Machiavellian” was to be especially evil or amoral was widespread. The “Machiavel” was commonly conceived as an “amoral teacher of force and fraud, cunning and deception” and was thus depicted in broadsheets, pamphlets, and even Shakespeare’s plays.38 In The Third Part of Henry VI the Duke of Gloucester, the future King Richard III says he will: Torment myself to catch the English crown; And from that torment I will free myself, Or hew my way out with a bloody axe. Why, I can smile, and murder while I smile; And cry, content, to that which grieves my heart; And wet my cheeks with artificial tears, And frame my face to all occasions. I’ll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall; I’ll slay more gazers than the basilisk; I’ll play the orator as well as Nestor: Deceive more slily than Ulysses could; And, like a Sinon, take another Troy: I can add colours to the chameleon; Change shapes with Proteus, for advantages; And set the murd’rous Machiavel to school.

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Can I do this, and cannot get a crown? Tut! were it further off, I’ll pluck it down.39

Whether Shakespeare had actually read Machiavelli’s works is unclear; nonetheless, he utilized the idea of the deceitful, amoral Machiavellian prince as “an actor, capable of adopting new roles according to changing circumstances.”40 That is, of Machiavelli as an amoral actor, willing to do just about anything to secure his interests. Presenting a similar Machiavellian view, a sixteenth century author wrote: The better to betray, be false; Lie, cheat, and try to hide the facts; Always wear your sheep’s disguise; And never shun hypocritical acts. Flatter and follow only the great; Study Man, his plans and his deeds; Worship not the soul but the State, And God—when it suits your needs. Demand peace when there is no peace; Make friends with the Turk if you can; Protect and arm the heretic; But remember Machiavelli’s your man. Of Providence, finally, don’t bother to ask; Just never discard your political mask.41

Thus caricatured, Machiavelli was blamed for inspiring “the persecution of French Protestants by Valois kings” and encouraging the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572 in which as many as 30,000 people were killed, most of them Huguenots (French Calvinists).42 In Holland, “Machiavellian” became a well-established pejorative term during the Dutch Revolt. For the Dutch insurgents fighting to overcome Spanish rule, “peace seemed impossible because the Spaniards, who followed the maxims of the pope and Machiavelli, would not keep a treaty.” For them, the Spaniards, and especially the brutal Duke of Alva, “were all ‘Machiavelliques.’ ”43 At the same time, William of Orange accused Philip II of exercising “a tyranny worthy of Machiavelli.”44 Even after the establishment of the Dutch Republic, Machiavelli continued to be “a symbol for everything bad in politics.” Across the political and religious spectrum, intellectuals from the mathematician Simon Stevin to the historian Daniel Heinsius praised Machiavelli’s “sharp intellect” but criticized his deceitfulness and “wickedness.”45 Precisely how or when Elisabeth first encountered Machiavelli’s works and ideas is unclear. Perhaps she learned of him through reading the works



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of English authors who had been “familiar with Machiavelli’s writings from an early date” or maybe it was via her knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays.46 Or perhaps it was simply the broader discussion of his ideas in Dutch intellectual circles that alerted Elisabeth to his work. Whatever its genesis, however, Elisabeth’s suggestion that she and Descartes read The Prince was a bold move. Not only were Machiavelli’s works banned but they had been implicated in the German quest for liberty in the negotiations over the end of the Thirty Years’ War. In particular, The Prince had been associated with the controversial views of the Swedish royal historian, Bogislaw Philipp Chemnitz (1605–1678). Chemnitz had presented the “radical theory that, inside the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, the emperor was no more than an office holder by appointment of the imperial estates as the politics constituting the empire.” That is, he argued that “the estates were the exclusive bearers of sovereignty in the empire, and the emperors had no sovereign rights of their own.”47 While most Protestant writers were sympathetic to the idea of German liberty, they did not favor a radical change to the status quo: rather, they wanted a return to the balance of powers between “emperor and Reich’’ that had long been the basis of the German political system.48 What is more, they did not support Chemnitz’s claim that the Reich was a “pure aristocracy”—that is, his claim that religion was unimportant to the Reich—and viewed this as a teaching adopted directly from Machiavelli.49 The result was that Machiavelli’s works were not only banned but “publicly burned by the hangman” in many parts of Germany.50 In part, the controversy surrounding Machiavelli’s works explains Elisabeth’s concerns over the security of her letters to Descartes. It also gave further weight to Descartes’ reluctance to comment on politics. READING THE PRINCE Descartes was famously reluctant to comment publicly or, indeed, in his private letters about politics. For one, Descartes thought that politics was not a subject of philosophy: philosophy, by his reckoning, was concerned with reason, while politics was a matter of experience and prudence. In a letter to Elisabeth on the subject he wrote that “[s]‌ince in all worldly affairs there are some reasons for and some against, one should consider principally those that make one approve of what happens.”51 In an earlier letter he had written to Elisabeth attempting to prescribe how one should conduct a life of public service would be no “less impertinent than the philosopher who wanted to instruct on the duty of a captain in the presence of Hannibal.” On the contrary, he concluded that in these matters “it is better to regulate oneself in this regard according to experience rather than according to reason, since we have

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rarely come across people who are as perfectly rational as all men ought to be, to the extent that one could judge what they will do solely by considering what they ought to do.”52 Secondly, Descartes also drew a firm distinction between private individuals and public figures, namely, sovereigns. Not only did he believe that sovereigns were subject to different moral standards to ordinary people—he adhered to a version of the reason of state—but he also “subscribed to the ‘divine right’ theory of sovereignty.”53 Finally, unlike other major Enlightenment thinkers, Descartes did not believe that the scientific advances of the age would bring about improvements in politics. Curiously, he “prophesied a scientific revolution with unparalleled social ramifications without drawing the slightest inferences for politics.”54 As a corollary of these views, Descartes believed that only sovereigns should be concerned with politics or the reform of society. In response to Machiavelli’s claim that “to get a good sense of the duties of a prince one must be a private citizen,” Descartes wrote to Elisabeth that “the principal motives and actions of princes are often such particular circumstances that one can imagine them only if one is a prince oneself, or perhaps if one has been party to their secrets for a very long time.”55 For that reason, he continued, “I would deserve to be mocked if I thought myself able to teach something to your Highness on this matter.”56 But, as it happened, Descartes did make a few, albeit relatively brief, comments about politics in his Discourse on Method and in his later correspondence with Elisabeth, starting with his letter on The Prince. In Descartes’ view, Machiavelli’s work contained many good precepts, among them, the advice: “that a prince must always avoid the hate and contempt of his subjects, and that love of the people is worth more than fortresses.”57 However, this was as far as his praise for The Prince went. First, Descartes argued that Machiavelli had failed to make a firm enough distinction between “princes who have acquired a state by just means, and those who have usurped power by illegitimate means.” What is more, his precepts seem tailored to the latter. This, Descartes’ argued, is mistaken: “For just as in building a house on foundations so bad that they cannot support high and thick walls, one is obliged to make those walls thin and low, so too those who have begun by establishing themselves through crimes are ordinarily constrained to continue to commit crimes and would not be able to maintain themselves in power were they to want to be virtuous.”58 That is, Descartes outwardly disapproved of Machiavelli’s separation of politics from ethics. Descartes also argued that by starting from the shaky foundations of rule acquired by criminal means, Machiavelli is led to offer “very tyrannical precepts” for his prince. Foremost among them were, in Descartes’ view:



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that one should ruin a whole country in order to become master of it; that one should exercise great cruelty, so long as it is done promptly and all at once; that one should try to appear to be a good man, but that one should not be one truly; that one should keep one’s word only for so long as it will be useful; that one should dissimulate; that one should betray; and finally that to rule, one should strip oneself of all humanity, and that one should become the fiercest of all the animals.59

Even worse, Descartes noted, these precepts cannot, by Machiavelli’s own admission, guarantee the security of the prince or his rule. As such, Descartes argued that Machiavelli should have proposed a different, just, set of maxims to the new prince: that deception is only appropriate when dealing with one’s enemies; that the prince ought to keep his word to his allies; that he should avoid the hatred and contempt of common subjects; and that “he should be immovable and inflexible…about those things he has shown himself to be resolved on, even if they are harmful to him.”60 For, he maintained, the consequences of being immovable “cannot be as harmful as the reputation of being light and variable.”61 Continuing his critique, Descartes also disagreed with the claim that “as the world is very corrupt, it is impossible that one will not ruin oneself if one always wants to be a good man, and that a prince, in order to maintain himself, must learn to be wicked when the occasion requires it” and responded by arguing that “thinking that a good man is he who does everything true reason tells him to, it is certain that the best thing is always to try to be one.”62 Finally, Descartes also disapproved of Machiavelli’s claim that “one can be hated just as much for good actions as for bad ones.” This could only be the case, Descartes retorted, if “envy is a species of hate.”63 In all, Descartes seemed to think rather little of Machiavelli’s advice to a new prince. Elisabeth’s take on The Prince was not nearly so negative, being based, as it was, on more pragmatic considerations of princely rule. In attempting to teach the prince “how to govern a state,” she wrote, Machiavelli chose the most difficult example: the case in which “the prince is a new usurper, at least in the opinion of the people.”64 In instances such as this, she argued, it may be the case that “a great violence causes less evil than a small one, because the latter offends as much as the former and gives occasion for a long war, while the former destroys the courage and means of the great ones who would undertake such a war.” What is more, she added, violence that “comes promptly and all at once…annoys less than it surprises” and is more readily supported “by the people than a long chain of miseries that civil wars bring.”65 In thus arguing, Elisabeth suggested, Machiavelli was teaching by the example of Cesare Borgia, his idea of the model, though not perfect, politician.66 The particular lesson at hand was that rather than committing the

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necessary “great cruelties” himself, the prince should employ a minister to do his dirty work for him, “one who he can afterward sacrifice to the hatred of the people.”67 Although this might seem unjust, Elisabeth argued, she had no sympathy for people “who want to be employed as executioner of a whole people so barbaric and unnatural.” People like that, she said, “do not merit any better treatment.” In fact, she went so far as to say that she would rather be the “poorest peasant in Holland,” than the minister who chooses to obey such orders, or the prince who feels “constrained to give them.”68 What is more, with regard to whether the prince should keep his promises to his allies, Elisabeth again maintained that Machiavelli is outlining the most extreme example, in which “it is necessary either to lose an entire republic or to break one’s word to those who keep it only so long as it is useful to them.”69 And finally, Elisabeth pointed out that as it was Descartes who said that “virtue consists in following right reason,” he could not very well expect those who had come before him to define it in that way. LIFE IN BERLIN As always, Elisabeth’s letters were littered with news of the family and of her health. On this instance she recounted to Descartes a trip she had made with Frederick William’s family to Cheuningen near the springs at Hornhausen. These waters, which Elisabeth saw and tasted, were famed for their curative powers—Elisabeth wrote that the place was “full of poor people who claim to have been born deaf, blind, lame, or hunchback and found their cure in this spring”—although she remained skeptical about their powers.70 Finally, Elisabeth commented on a code that Descartes had sent her, presumably to disguise their correspondence with one another. Although she thought his attempt was “very good” she concluded it was “too long to write a whole thought.” A better approach, Elisabeth thought, would be to “make a key of words by alphabet and then to mark a distinction between the numbers that signify letters and those that signify words.”71 Although we do not have any earlier correspondence on the code, it seems likely it signified their ongoing concerns over the security of their letters. In his reply, Descartes expressed happiness at learning of Elisabeth’s contentment in Berlin and exhorted her to maintain her present state by “keeping her mind only on present things and by never thinking of business except in those hours when the courier is about to leave.”72 What is more, he thought it a good thing that her books had not yet arrived. In particular, Descartes thought that “reading that book by the Physician of Princes, who represents only the difficulties princes have in maintaining themselves and the cruelty or perfidy he recommends they undertake” is more likely to “bring on sadness”



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than to “engender gaiety.”73 But, since she had already raised its contents, Descartes engaged her interpretation of The Prince, albeit very briefly. In short, despite despising its fundamental precepts, Descartes seemed to agree with Elisabeth’s assessment that the work was being so extreme because it was based on the actions of Cesare Borgia. “His principal precept,” Descartes wrote, “which is to eliminate one’s enemies entirely or else to make them one’s friends, without ever taking the middle way, is without a doubt always the surest.” But, he continued, “when one has nothing to fear, this is not the most generous way to proceed.”74 In the last section of his letter, Descartes turned to Elisabeth’s observations about the supposed restorative powers of the spring. “It is certain,” he wrote, “that there is no remedy at all which can be used for all maladies.” The only reason why people thought the waters were a universal curative was that those who had not been restored by it did not talk about their experiences publicly. And besides, he added, as the waters in one of the springs probably passes through “deposits of antimony or mercury which are two awful drugs,” he would not “advise anyone to drink from them.”75 In her reply, Elisabeth noted that although she had not used the waters of the spring—she had decided to heed Descartes’ advice—her health had markedly improved. The only ailment she currently suffered were “some abscesses” on her fingers which, she had been told, would need treatment by bleeding and purges.76 She also expressed the hope that she would “never be in a state” where she needed to “follow the precepts of the Physician of Princes” because, she thought, violence and suspicion were contrary to her nature.77 Even so, she concluded that she could only “blame the tyrants” for the unjust ways in which they “usurp a country.” After that, she thought, “the path which established them in power, however harsh it is, will always lead to less public harm than would a rule contested by battle.”78 The letter ends with an interesting little quip. Throughout her early letters from Berlin, Elisabeth bemoaned the status of intellectual life in Germany. She found very few scholars capable of understanding Descartes’ philosophy to the extent that she did. One exception was Professor Thomas Knesebeck, one of the most learned men of the day, who had served as a privy councilor in the Brandenburg court during the reign of John Sigismund. Knesebeck’s “admiration of [Elisabeth] knew no bounds” and together they seem to have discussed the possibility of establishing a new university at Duisberg.79 Although their plans took another nine years to come to fruition, by 1654 Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg had agreed to found the University of Duisberg in Cleves. Upon its opening in 1655, the theologian and philosopher Johannes Clauberg (1622–1665) was appointed the inaugural rector of the university. Under his leadership the University of Duisburg became one of the foremost institutions for the study of Cartesian philosophy

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in Germany.80 Despite his, and Elisabeth’s efforts, however, “Cartesianism was slow to spread” in Germany.81 In particular, Elisabeth found the “learned” in Germany to be “even more pedantic and superstitious” than those she had known in Holland. The reason for this pedantry and superstitiousness, she argued, was poverty: the people in Germany were so poor, she thought, that “no one studies or reasons except about what is required to live.”82 This, of course, meant they had little time to come to grips with the intricacies and permutations of contemporary debates in metaphysics. With no one else around who was “reasonable enough to understand” Descartes’ work, she devoted her time to rereading his works in order to “cultivate [her] reason.”83 This, she said, was despite the fact that she had promised to give the books to the “old duke of Brunswick…in order to adorn his library.” She continued, with characteristic impatience for those not devoted to intellectual pursuits, “I do not believe that he will use them to adorn his feeble brain, as it is thoroughly occupied with pedantry” before apologizing for “sinning against the human race by wasting” Descartes’ time with tales of such silliness.84 Descartes was not surprised that Elisabeth could “not find any learned men” in Germany who were not “entirely preoccupied with the opinions of the Schools.” This state of affairs, he said, was replicated across Europe and even marked intellectual life in Paris. So dire was the state of the scholarly world in his view, Descartes wondered why he had ever bothered to publish anything. His one consolation, he said, was that although the men of the Schools criticized him continuously, they had not yet had his works entered on “the list”—that is, on the Index of Prohibited Books.85 However, Descartes was far more interested in discussing Elisabeth’s medical treatment. He wrote that her decision to avoid the treatment of the physicians—purging and bleeding—was right. If, he said, she was still suffering the same condition by the beginning of spring, then she should “chase it away with some light purgatives or with a refreshing broth to which there is nothing added but some herbs used in cooking, while refraining from eating meat that is too salted or otherwise spiced.” Descartes also advised that unless Elisabeth was accustomed to being bled, she should avoid the practice as it “involves some danger and the frequent use of it shortens one’s life.”86 The problem Descartes saw in the remedies of the chemists in particular was that even the slightest change in their preparation could cause something medicinal to become something poisonous. The chemist’s tinkering with medicines was akin, Descartes thought, to the trend by which scientists who did not know the subject matter well enough had, in attempting to correct existing knowledge or add to it, made it “into a mistake.”87 This blunder had been committed most recently, Descartes argued, by one Henricus Regius, whose most recent book had just been



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published. Although he clearly wanted to critique Regius’ work, Descartes refrained from doing so because he knew that Elisabeth did not have a copy of it—Regius, it seems, had decided that Berlin was too far to send a copy and was waiting for her to return to The Hague to give her one.88 NOTES 1. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 184. 2. Elizabeth to Roe, 6 January 1642, in Nadine Akkerman (ed.), The Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, Volume II 1632–1642, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 1034. 3. This is depicted in a painting titled Choice Breeds Fear by Jan van Goyen and Jacob Franz der Merck. See “Forbidden Love Affair Revealed” at www.hoogsteder. com. 4. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 184. 5. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 184. 6. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 10 October 1646, 146. 7. Joachim Whaley, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, Volume I: Maximilian I to the Peace of Westphalia 1493–1648, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 619. 8. Derek Croxton, Westphalia: The Last Christian Peace, 269. 9. In Geoffrey Parker, The Thirty Years’ War, (London: Routledge, 1984), 139–140. 10. Parker, The Thirty Years’ War, 140. 11. Parker, The Thirty Years’ War, 146. 12. Croxton, Westphalia, 270. 13. Croxton, Westphalia, 270. 14. Croxton, Westphalia, 271. 15. Croxton, Westphalia, 271. 16. Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, Fortune is a Woman: Gender and Politics In the Thought of Niccolo Machiavelli, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 4. 17. Lauro Martines, April Blood: Florence and the Plot against the Medici, (Oxford: Oxford University Press,), 1. 18. Angelo Poliziano, “The Pazzi Conspiracy” trans. Elizabeth B. Welles, in Benjamin G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt (eds.), The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1978), 312. 19. Anthony Grafton, “Introduction” to Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. George Bull, 5th ed. (London: Penguin, 1999), xviii. 20. Maurizio Viroli, Machiavelli, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 8. 21. Viroli, Machiavelli, 8. 22. Grafton, “Introduction,” xviii.

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23. Miles J. Unger, Machiavelli: A Biography, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011), 1. 24. Unger, Machiavelli, 2. 25. John M. Najemy, “Machiavelli and the Medici: The Lessons of Florentine History,” Renaissance Quarterly 35(1982), 552. 26. Unger, Machiavelli, 3. 27. Machiavelli, “Letter from Niccolo Machiavelli to the Magnificent Lorenzo de Medici” in The Prince, trans. George Bull, 5th ed. (London: Penguin, 1999), 1. 28. Machiavelli, “Letter from Niccolo Machiavelli to the Magnificent Lorenzo de Medici,” 1. 29. Unger, Machiavelli, 215. 30. Machiavelli, The Prince, XVIII, 56–7. 31. Kahn, “Machiavelli’s Afterlife,” 240. 32. Machiavelli, The Prince, IX, 31. 33. Machiavelli, The Prince, XVII, 53. 34. Unger, Machiavelli, 9. 35. Unger, Machiavelli, 343. 36. Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) 196. 37. Paul F. Grendler, “The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540–1605,” The Journal of Modern History 47(1975): 54. 38. Victoria Kahn, “Machiavelli’s Afterlife and Reputation to the Eighteenth Century” in John M. Najemy (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 246. See, for example, Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III. 39. Shakespeare, Third Part of King Henry VI, in Shakespeare, (Edinburgh: Morrison and Gibb, 1883), Act III, Scene II, 375. 40. Kahn, “Machiavelli’s Afterlife,” 246. 41. In Donald R. Kelley, “Murd’rous Machiavel in France: A Post Mortem,” Political Science Quarterly 85(1970): 545. 42. Kelley, “Murd’rous Machiavel in France,” 546. 43. Eco Haitsma Mulier, “A Controversial Republican: Dutch Views on Machiavelli in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries” in Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner and Maurizio Viroli (eds.), Machiavelli and Republicanism, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 249. 44. Mulier, “A Controversial Republican,” 249. 45. Mulier, “A Controversial Republican,” 249. 46. Markku Peltonen, Classical Humanism and Republicanism in English Political Thought, 1570–1640, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 73. 47. Harald Kleinschmidt, People on the Move: Attitudes toward and Perceptions of Migration in Medieval and Modern Europe, (Westport: Praeger, 2003), 215. 48. Whaley, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, 626. 49. Whaley, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, 622. 50. Whaley, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, 622. 51. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, September 1646, 144.



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52. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, May 1646 (A), 137. 53. Quentin Taylor, “Descartes’ Paradoxical Politics,” Humanitas XIV(2001): 78. 54. Taylor, “Descartes’ Paradoxical Politics,” 86. 55. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, September 1646, 143. 56. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, September 1646, 143. 57. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, September 1646, 139–140 (italics in original). 58. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, September 1646, 140. 59. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, September 1646, 140 (italics in original). 60. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, September 1646, 141–142. 61. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, September 1646, 142. 62. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, September 1646, 142. 63. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, September 1646, 142–3. 64. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 10 October 1646, 145. 65. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 10 October 1646, 145. 66. John T. Scott and Vickie B. Sullivan, “Patricide and the Plot of The Prince: Cesare Borgia and Machiavelli’s Italy,” American Political Science Review 88(1994): 887. 67. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 10 October 1646, 145. 68. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 10 October 1646, 145. 69. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 10 October 1646, 145. 70. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 10 October 1646, 147. 71. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 10 October 1646, 147. 72. Descartes to Elisabeth, November 1646, 149. 73. Descartes to Elisabeth, November 1646, 149. 74. Descartes to Elisabeth, November 1646, 149. 75. Descartes to Elisabeth, November 1646, 150. 76. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 29 November 1646, 151. 77. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 29 November 1646, 152. 78. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 29 November 1646, 152. 79. Bury, Memoirs of the Princess Palatine, 257/278. 80. Andrea Strazzoni, “A Logic to End Controversies: The Genesis of Clauberg’s Logica Vetus et Nova,” Journal of Early Modern Studies, 2(2013): 123-149; Leen Spruit, Species Intelligibilis: From Perception to Knowledge: II. Renaissance Controversies, Later Scholasticism, and the Elimination of the Intelligible Species in Modern Philosophy, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995), Chapter 12, 1.2.3, 436–440. 81. Ann Blair, “Natural Philosophy” in Roy Porter, Katherine Park, and Lorraine Daston (eds.), The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 3, Early Modern Science, p. 399. 82. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 29 November 1646, 151. 83. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 29 November 1646, 152. 84. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 29 November 1646, 152. 85. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, December 1646, 153–4. 86. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, December 1646, 153. 87. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, December 1646, 153. 88. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, December 1646, 153.

Chapter 7

Return of the Palatinate

By the time Elisabeth wrote her next letter to Descartes in February 1647, her abscesses had cleared and she had vowed, once again, not to seek remedies for “all the little ailments” that beset her.1 In any case, Elisabeth’s attention over the previous weeks had not been with her own health but with that of her younger sister, Henriette. The twenty-year-old Henriette had recently joined Elisabeth in Berlin and had been so ill that her family feared she might not survive. Although she did eventually recover from her illness, Elisabeth had spent so much of her time caring for her sister that she was not able to write to Descartes for some weeks. “It is this,” she wrote, “that prevented me from responding sooner to your last letter, as I needed to be near her all the time.”2 The other drain on Elisabeth’s time during this period was the fact that the Queen Mother of Sweden was currently visiting. The Queen Mother, Maria Eleanora, was Frederick William’s aunt on his father’s side, although relations with the Swedes had not always been cordial. During the Electorship of George William, the population of Brandenburg had been decimated and its farmland laid waste at the hands of Swedish—and Polish—forces. At the Peace of Prague in 1635, George William allied himself to the emperor after it became clear that the Swedish invasion of Pomerania had put an end to his hope of concluding a treaty that would see him inherit the territory from the childless Duke Bogislav.3 This animosity was only exacerbated when, in 1637, the Swedish occupation of Pomerania meant that George William was unable to take control of the territory. However, relations with Sweden took a turn for the better after the death of George William. Less than a year after becoming the new Elector of Brandenburg, Frederick William proposed a separate peace treaty with Sweden. After the death of his father’s key advisor, the dictatorial Count Schwarzenberg, in March 1641, Frederick William sent his envoys to Stockholm to negotiate the treaty.4 143

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However, the timing of Queen Mother of Sweden’s visit to Brandenburg was not simply a function of alliance politics. On the contrary, in the decades that had passed since she had married Gustavus Adolphus, Maria Eleanora’s behavior had grown increasingly erratic, so erratic in fact that George William had refused to allow her to visit her childhood home. Her story is really rather sad. It is well established that Maria Eleanora suffered from multiple miscarriages and the death of at least one infant in her attempts to provide the King of Sweden with an heir and grew ever more distressed as each pregnancy failed. When she finally managed to carry a fetus to term, predicted to be a boy by the astrologers, the child she bore was reputed to have ambiguous genitalia. On the day of the birth, it was announced that the Queen had been delivered of a son, but by the next day the midwives had decided that the baby was a girl. When Maria Eleanora was told of the mistake she is said to have screamed, “Instead of a son, I am given a daughter, dark and ugly, with a great nose and black eyes. Take her from me, I will not have such a monster!” Gustavus Adolphus accepted that his heir would be a girl and set about raising Christina like a boy. Christina’s relationship with her mother—who may have been suffering from post-natal depression or even psychosis—never improved. When Gustavus died, Christina was just six years old, and Maria Eleanora suffered a complete mental breakdown. She shut “herself and her daughter in a room, blackening the windows” and forced Christina to sleep with her father’s embalmed heart suspended above her bed.5 For ten months after his body was returned to Stockholm, Maria Eleanora insisted on keeping his open coffin in her room, ignoring the putrification process and insisting that he could not be buried until she could be buried with him. It was not until June 1634 that Gustavus Adolphus’ body was finally interred in Riddarholm church, although even then Oxenstierna had to “post guards after [Maria Eleanora] tried to dig it up.”6 By 1636 concerns over her ability to raise the young Queen Christina were so great that Maria Eleanora was banished to Gripsholm Castle. From there she sought refuge in the court of King Christian IV of Denmark after her brother, George William of Brandenburg refused to receive her. It was thus not until 1641 that she was able to return to Brandenburg, although even then Frederick William insisted that Sweden provide a pension to cover her expenses. It was not until 1648 that she was finally reunited with her daughter, having spent seven years in Brandenburg. However strained the relationship between Maria Eleanora and her daughter were at the time, Queen Christina was one of the key players in negotiating the end of the Thirty Years’ War and, as such, held a great deal of power over the future of the Palatinate. At the time, Swedish negotiators were holding fast to the view that if an eighth electorate was established, it should go to the Bavarian branch of the Wittelsbachs, and that the existing



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electorate should remain in the hands of the Palatinate.7 Thus while Elisabeth complained that she was expected to spend every day in the “train” of the Queen Mother, and “the evenings at festivities and balls,” she did so with less frustration than usual and noted that these “very annoying distractions… annoy less insofar as one does it for and with those people whom one has no grounds to resent.”8 That is, Elisabeth seems to have come to terms, for the first time, with her social obligations quite apart from her need to act diplomatically for political reasons. Thus although Maria Eleanora probably had no influence over the negotiations over the end of the Thirty Years’ War, it was still in Elisabeth’s interests to maintain good relations with Sweden. Nonetheless, Elisabeth said, she would much rather be reading Regius than performing her social duties. In his reply, Descartes told Elisabeth not to bother reading Regius’ work. In fact, he goes so far as to say that it is a waste of time: “It contains nothing concerning physics, unless you include my claims, improperly ordered and without their true proofs, so that they appear to be paradoxes, and so that what is put in the beginning cannot be proven except by what is near the end.”9 In the same letter he promises Elisabeth that he will send her a copy of M. de Hogeland’s new book as well as the French version of his own Meditations via their intermediary, Elisabeth’s sister Sophie. He also notes that he will shortly travel to France to handle some private matters.10 The books that Descartes promised to send Elisabeth did not arrive with her until May 1647. By then, Elisabeth had accepted that she would not be able to return to The Hague as soon as she would have liked—her aunt was “not in the mood to permit [her] return”11—and had agreed to go with the family to Crossen for three weeks or a month after Easter. From Crossen she wrote to Descartes declaring that if he left Holland permanently—as he had threatened to do in response to yet another theological dispute he had become embroiled in12—she would reverse her decision to return there, unless the interests of her family demanded it. On that issue she was waiting, she said, to hear the outcome of the negotiations at Münster.13 A DISAPPOINTING SETTLEMENT In the intervening months before the Peace of Westphalia was concluded, Elisabeth and Descartes returned to discussions of philosophy, health, and Descartes’ burgeoning relationship with Queen Christina of Sweden. In June 1647, Descartes wrote to Elisabeth and told her of a letter he had received from Swedish Resident in France on behalf of the Queen. Descartes was excited by this contact and proposed to Elisabeth that brokering a friendship between herself and Christina “could be desirable for diverse reasons.”14 As

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such, Descartes vowed to “always try to put in” his letters to Queen Christina, “something that will give her reason to hope for friendship” with Elisabeth.15 Whether Elisabeth acceded to Descartes’ plan at this stage is unclear— the next surviving letter we have was from Descartes to Elisabeth in late November 1647. In that letter Descartes explained that he had been asked by Queen Christina—through their intermediary, Descartes’ friend Chanut, who was in Uppsala at the time—for his opinion on the subjects of erudition and the sovereign good.16 Thinking this an opportunity not to be neglected, Descartes not only wrote a letter to the Queen outlining his position, but sent Chanut copies of the letters he had written to Elisabeth on Seneca’s De vita beata, and a transcription of his Treatise on the Passions for her to peruse, if she so desired. He decided, however, not to use Elisabeth’s name in his correspondence again, out of concern that the nature of her character might be misinterpreted by his interlocutor. Descartes resolved instead to wait until he could communicate with Queen Christina directly to introduce Elisabeth’s name once more.17 In her reply, Elisabeth thanked Descartes for the copy of the French version of the Meditations she had received and revealed that she had been studying the text, and the objections that had been appended to it. On the objections, Elisabeth concluded that those of Pierre Gassendi and “the Englishman,” Thomas Hobbes, were the “least reasonable of all.”18 In fact, the clarity of Descartes’ prose, compared with the relative clumsiness of the objections, led her to believe that Descartes should not just write a letter to Queen Christina on the subject of erudition, but that he should compose the “Treatise on Erudition” he had once indicated he wanted to write.19 Descartes, however, was not interested in taking up this project. Doing so, he said, would be impossible without arousing his enemies—the “men of the Schools”—in their hatred of him. Not only this, but Descartes believed he had already touched on this issue in part in the Preface to the French edition of the Principles and was reluctant to revisit them. Most importantly however, he revealed that he had started another work on “the function of animals and of man” and was determined to focus on that, rather than take on a new project.20 Descartes never finished his Description of the Human Body; it was only published posthumously. By the beginning of 1648, Elisabeth was gravely ill once again, this time with smallpox. In a letter to her brother, Charles Louis, she complained of being “persecuted by this wretched illness.” Although the fever had left her and, with it, the danger it posed to her life, she wrote: I am still quite covered with it and can use neither my hands nor my eyes. They feed me like a little child, but the doctors would persuade me I shall not be disfigured, which I leave to their faith, having none of my own on the subject;



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but at the worst I console myself that the illness will only have the effect of three or four years, at the end of which age would have rendered me ugly enough without its aid.21

By the time Elisabeth was able to write to Descartes once more, in June 1648, she had also suffered at the hands of a surgeon who had severed a nerve in bleeding her, leaving her with a severely inflamed arm.22 By now, however, Elisabeth’s main concerns centered on the unfolding political affairs in England, which was embroiled in civil war, and Germany, where the settlement of the Thirty Years’ War was being negotiated. Despite her recent illness, it also seems from her letters that Elisabeth was planning to join the Queen Mother of Sweden on her journey to visit her daughter in Stockholm, if her family sent “the necessary money.” What is more, Elisabeth also indicated that she had received a letter from Queen Christina “full of goodwill and protestations of friendship, but which makes no mention at all of your letters, or of that which has been said above.”23 In the end, however, Elisabeth did not travel to Sweden but resolved, instead, to remain where she was until “the state of affairs of Germany and England, which seem now to be in crisis” had become more clear.24 By September 1648, Elisabeth and her family had come to accept that the settlements being negotiated at Münster and Osnabrück would not provide all they had been hoping for. Of particular concern at this late stage in the negotiations were the provisions to be made for Elisabeth and her sisters, which still “remained on paper” and seemed unlikely to be realized. With no hope of gaining “better terms,” “Charles Louis, in whom high spirits and prudence were oddly blended, consented to accept his patrimony, clogged though it was with galling conditions.”25 The Peace of Westphalia was comprised of two treaties signed on 24 October 1648: the Treaty of Münster between the Holy Roman Emperor, France, and their allies, and the Treaty of Osnabrück, which concerned the Holy Roman Empire, France, Sweden, and their allies. It was to be a “Christian, universal and perpetual peace,” underpinned by a comprehensive amnesty which granted “perpetual oblivion and amnesty to all” involved in the conflict.26 At the heart of the settlement were three principles. First, enacted to address the underlying religious causes of the Thirty Years’ War, the signatories agreed to accept the principle of cuius regio, eius religio established in the 1555 Peace of Augsburg, according to which each prince had the right to determine the religion of his realm and the education of children within it.27 Second, the treaties recognized the legitimacy of Calvinism and granted “[t]‌hose of the Reformed religion…equal status with Catholics and Lutherans in the imperial constitution.”28

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Third, and finally, through the efforts of France and Sweden, the hegemonic powers of the Hapsburg family were curtailed by splitting “the complex that united Spain, the Empire, and various territories throughout Italy and central Europe.”29 In the Treaty of Münster, Emperor Ferdinand III “renounced his right to provide assistance to Spain, with whom France was still at war,” formally disavowed his imperial ambitions and those of his successors, and “granted both Sweden and France the right to intervene in imperial affairs to enforce this undertaking.”30 In order to finally bring an end to “imperial hegemonic possibilities,” the Treaty of Osnabrück sought to establish the “rights of the individual units of the Empire and to provide for their control over imperial foreign policy,” through an early (implied) articulation of the concept of sovereignty.31 Article LXIV of the Treaty reads: And to prevent for the future any Differences arising in the Politick State, all and every one of the Electors, Princes, and States of the Roman Empire, are so establish’d and confirm’d in their antient Rights, Prerogatives, Libertys, Privileges, free exercise of Territorial Right, as well Eccleisastick, as Politick Lordships, Regales, by virtue of this present Transaction: that they never can or ought to be molested therein by any whomsoever upon any manner of pretence.32

Among the specific restitution terms of the treaty were those that stipulated that Charles Louis would regain possession of the Lower Palatinate while the Upper Palatinate would be permanently annexed to Bavaria.33 Bavaria agreed to relinquish its claim that the emperor refund its war expenses and retained the electoral title, ranked fourth in order of precedence, previously held by the Palatinate.34 As compensation, the Palatinate was awarded a new electoral title, ranked eighth in order of precedence, and the right to reclaim the fourth title if the Bavarian branch of the Wittelsbachs should die out.35 In financial terms, the emperor agreed to pay Charles Louis a defined sum of money “annually for four years from 1649 to enable Elector Palatine [Charles Louis] to discharge his obligations to provide for his brothers.”36 Finally, the emperor also agreed to make a “one off payment…to the elector Palatine’s widowed mother” as well as one to each of his sisters if they married.37 In all, the settlement was a grave disappointment to Elisabeth’s family. Although Charles Louis had recovered some of the Palatinate, he had been forced to concede the loss of the Upper Palatinate and his electoral title. With this, the Bavarian branch of the Wittelsbach family had won their long running dispute.38 The Palatinate had been recovered but it only scarcely resembled all that had been lost. Just as Elisabeth and her family were coming to terms with the disappointment of the Westphalian settlement, they were dealt another, altogether more brutal blow. On 9 February 1649, her uncle, Charles I was executed at the



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block, bringing the crisis in England to a bloody head. Such was her distress at the news that Elisabeth became seriously ill. By 22 February, Descartes had learned, not only of the news from England, but of Elisabeth’s health and composed a letter intended to console her. If he did not know that she was in possession of a strong and graceful soul, he wrote, “I would fear that you were extraordinarily afflicted by learning of the disastrous conclusion of the English tragedies.” But, he continued, “being accustomed to the disfavor of fortune, and having seen herself so recently in the greatest peril of her life, would be neither so surprised nor so troubled to learn of the death of one of her relations as she would have been had she not previously received other afflictions.”39 Descartes was in no doubt that Elisabeth would find a way to cope with this latest source of distress, being so accustomed to bad news as she was. Descartes also attempted to console Elisabeth over the manner of Charles I’s death. Although his was an extraordinarily violent death, Descartes wrote, it was a glorious death that would make him “universally pitied, praised, and missed by all those who have any human feeling.”40 Daring not to “rest for a long time on a subject so disastrous,” Descartes changed the topic back to his correspondence with Queen Christina. The Swedish monarch had, it seems, written back to Descartes “in her own hand” to thank him for sending his treatise on the passions. Christina also informed Descartes that she had commissioned someone to read his Principles on her behalf, such that she might understand them without actually having to read the work herself. Missing from her letter was any mention of the letters that Descartes had sent via Chanut, letters originally written to Elisabeth. From this omission Descartes inferred “that, as the conditions of the German peace were not as advantageous to your house as they might have been, those who contributed to this fact are in doubt as to whether you wish them ill, and restrain themselves for that reason from expressing friendship toward you.”41 On the matter of the peace settlement, Descartes expressed unease at the fact that he had not heard whether or not Charles Louis intended to take up his title. Although the provisions pertaining to the Palatinate were not all that the family had hoped for, Descartes argued that they should, nonetheless, be thankful that they received what they did: “The smallest part of the Palatinate is worth more than the whole empire of the Tartars or the Muscovites,” he wrote, “and after two or three years of peace, a stay there will be as agreeable as one in any other place on earth.”42 As it turns out, Charles Louis agreed with Descartes. In October 1649 Charles Louis began his journey to Heidelberg to take possession of his inheritance. Before he got there, however, he stopped in Cassel to marry Charlotte Elizabeth of Hesse-Cassel—by then he already had one illegitimate son, Ludwig von Seltz (1643–1660) to an unknown woman. Charlotte’s brother, William VI was married to Charles Louis’

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cousin, Hedwig, the sister of Fredrick William, the Elector of Brandenburg. As such, they could all trace their lineage, by birth or by marriage, back to the Elector Palatine, Frederick IV and his wife, Louise Juliana of OrangeNassau. By 1652 the union had produced two children, the sickly Charles II and the “more robust, Elisabeth Charlotte (1652–1721)” who was known as Liselotte.43 The state of affairs in the Palatinate was dire. Putting aside the “wild estimates of the amount of depopulation due to thirty years of war…the most moderate literary estimate is that the population was one-fifth of what it had been thirty years earlier.”44 The land had been laid waste and the population had “grown up in poverty and terror,” making them naturally distrusting of their new ruler. Charles Louis’ task over the next thirty years would be to bring about the economic and social restoration of the Palatinate. This he labored at, “inspiring, ordering, calculating, [and] economizing with a touch of miserliness.”45 Among his more innovative interventions was the introduction of the first free trade and free industry policies in German history.46 Closer to home, Heidelberg castle was almost uninhabitable. The boards were rotting, the roof was letting in rain, and as Charles Louis lacked the funds to pay for the repairs, he was forced to house his new bride in town.47 For this reason—and the fact of her considerable debts in Holland—the relocation of the Queen of Bohemia back to her castle was out of the question. In the end, Elizabeth Stuart never returned to Heidelberg. It was not until late in 1651 that her daughter, Princess Elisabeth returned for the first time and began to assist her brother in re-establishing the intellectual life of the Palatinate. THE DEATH OF DESCARTES While Charles Louis was coming to grips with the parlous state of the Palatinate, Descartes was continuing his correspondence with Queen Christina of Sweden. After receiving an invitation to visit her in Stockholm in March 1649, Descartes decided to make the journey, arriving in Sweden in early October of that year.48 In his first letter to Elisabeth from Stockholm, Descartes wrote that although he had only seen the Queen twice so far, he already felt he knew her “well enough to dare to say that she has no less merit and more virtue than her reputation assigns her.”49 Descartes also noted that “[o]‌ne of the first things she asked of me was whether I had news of you, and I did not hesitate to tell her immediately what I think of your Highness.” In fact, Descartes seems to have regaled the Queen with his views of Elisabeth’s talents, assuring himself that they would not “arouse any jealousy in her, just



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as I am sure that your Highness feels none when I write her freely of my feelings about this queen.”50 In her reply, Elisabeth almost scoffed at the suggestion she would be jealous of Queen Christina. On the contrary, Elisabeth expressed her admiration at seeing a fellow woman doing so well, although she did wonder how the Queen managed to keep up with her studies and rule her country at the same time. Of Descartes’ favorable description of Christina, she wrote: “it leads me to esteem myself a little more than I did before she gave me the idea of a person so accomplished, who defends our sex from the imputation of imbecility and weakness that the pedants would have given it.”51 Elisabeth finished the letter by thanking Descartes for representing her to Queen Christina and seemed to hold some hope still that they might become personally acquainted. But the meeting was not to be. Descartes died on 11 February 1650. The cause of his death has long been thought to be pneumonia—perhaps contracted by having to rise in the cold morning air to give Queen Christina her lessons in philosophy at 5 am. The news of his passing came to Elisabeth in a letter from Chanut: …I think myself obliged to give an account of a person whom you so greatly esteemed for his rare merit, and to inform you, Madame, with incredible grief that we have lost M.Descartes. We were both, he and I attacked almost at the same time by a similar malady, a continuous fever with inflammation of the lungs; but since his fever was at the beginning more internal, he did not believe it dangerous, and would not allow himself to be bled for several days, which rendered the illness so violent that all our trouble and the continual care of the Queen of Sweden took in sending her own physicians could not hinder his decease on the ninth day of his malady. His end was gentle and peaceful, like his life.52

Elisabeth had lost her most important correspondent, confidant, and intellectual companion. A few weeks later, Chanut wrote to Elisabeth again, this time asking for permission to publish a selection of her correspondence with Descartes, alongside a similar set of letters that passed between the philosopher and Queen Christina. He wrote: Among his papers were found a quantity of letters, which your royal highness paid him the honour of writing to him and which he considered precious, since some of them were carefully folded with other important papers. I put them all aside and I took them from the trunk without including them in the inventory. I have no doubt, Madame, that it would benefit your reputation if it became known that you have serious and learned correspondence with the most gifted man who has lived for many centuries. I also knew from Mr Descartes himself

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that your letters were so full of light and intelligence that it could only redound to your glory if they were published.53

Despite Chanut’s pleading, Elisabeth refused to give permission for the letters to be published.54 Chanut accepted her position and “[a]‌s a result, the three volume edition of Descartes’ correspondence was published by [his] brother-in-law, went to press without any letters from Elisabeth.”55 As we will see however, later in the 1650s and 1660s, Elisabeth did share some of the letters she and Descartes had exchanged, particularly on mathematics and her early studies of geometry. A WEDDING AND TWO FUNERALS Still unable to return to Heidelberg and with Descartes gone, Elisabeth turned her attention to arranging the marriage of her sister, Henriette.56 As Genevieve Lloyd notes, “[t]‌he reinstatement of their brother Charles Louis to the title of elector palatine…had come too late for there to be much hope of marriage for the older sisters.” And so it “fell to Elisabeth to handle the frustrating diplomatic maneuvres to persuade Charles Louis of the suitability of the match” to the Transylvanian Prince, Sigismund Racoczy.57 The only blonde sister among the Palatine princesses, Henrietta had “fair flaxen hair, a complexion without exaggeration, of lilies and roses, and a nose which, although well shaped, was able to resist the cold. She had soft eyes, black well-shaped eyebrows, a pretty mouth, and hands and arms as perfect as if they had been turned with a lathe.”58 Her talents, as her sister Sophia tells us, lay in the areas of needlework and preserve-making.59 Although it is doubtful that Prince Racoczy was initially enamored of her ability to make jam, what is more certain is that he fell in love with her from a portrait. Sigismund wooed Henriette “with a diamond watch and ardent love letters.”60 Elisabeth thought the proposal a good match: the Prince’s “title was recognized by the Emperor…he kept 200 men at arms and 50 gentlemen in attendance” and the “family ate off silver plates.”61 Charles Louis was less convinced about the merits of the match and worried about the wisdom of sending his sister so far away from the rest of the family. In the months that followed, he and Elisabeth engaged in an acrimonious dispute over the matter. What is more, given the parlous state of the Palatinate’s finances, he was reluctant to provide Henriette with anything like a reasonable trousseau. With the terms of the marriage treaty being negotiated by the Dowager Electress of Brandenburg, Elisabeth “found herself between hammer and anvil, the aunts, to whom she felt so much gratitude was owing, being very angry at the threatened frustration of their kind efforts, and her



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brother accusing her and them of meddling and precipitation.”62 Such was her distress at her brother’s rebuke that Elisabeth wrote to him: “The reason I did not answer you last week was that your example showed me the wrong one may do by writing in a passion, and one must be more apathetic than a stoic to receive such cruel reproaches from the person one loves best in the world without an extreme perturbation.”63 Elisabeth was certainly angry with her brother, but called on him to moderate his passions, lest they harm his interests. In the end, Charles Louis relented and agreed to the match. The wedding date was set for 25 March 1651. As if the rift caused by the marriage negotiations had not been enough for Elisabeth, however she also had to contend with “the doubts of the nervous Henriette and assemble a meager trousseau.”64 This was no straightforward task. The provisions promised to the Palatine Princesses upon marriage had not materialized, Charles Louis was unwilling to part with the little money he had, and Queen Elizabeth “had at this time hardly bread to put into her mouth.”65 In the end, however, Henriette was provided with most of her requirements by her Brandenburg aunts and cousins. Before the wedding could take place, however, more tragic news reached the family. Elisabeth and Henriette’s brother Philip had been killed on 16 December 1650 at the Battle of Rethel. As her junior sibling by just one year, Henriette was especially distraught to learn of her brother’s loss. Elisabeth too expressed her distress in a letter to Charles Louis, in which she continued to vent her anger at him over the issue of Henriette’s marriage: “I wrote the accompanying last night and afterwards fell asleep for some time, having had no sleep for several days, for the image of my dear brother Philip was continually before my eyes.”66 In the end, the wedding took place on 14 May 1651 with Racoczy represented by a proxy. By all accounts the marriage was happy but short lived. Within three months of her arrival in Transylvania, Henriette took ill and died. She was buried in her wedding gown with the string of pearls that had once been just one strand of her mother’s famous eight strand pearl necklace. Two hundred years later Queen Victoria inherited the now-seven strand necklace and suggested that Henriette Maria’s coffin should be exhumed to retrieve it. Her request was denied and the necklace, now in the possession of Queen Elizabeth II, is still missing its eighth strand.67 Grief stricken at the loss of his young wife, Henriette’s heartbroken husband wrote “I hold my life for nothing worth” before succumbing to the grave himself five months later, on 4 February 1652.68

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RE-ESTABLISHING THE UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG In 1651 Elisabeth finally returned to the place of her birth, Heidelberg. Awaiting her arrival were her brothers, Charles Louis and Edward, and her sister Sophie. They were shocked by what they saw. Sophie wrote in her Memoir: Her stay at the court of our aunt, the Electress of Brandenburg, had done her no good. We thought her much changed, both in mind and person. Looking at her, Prince Edward whispered to me: “Where has her liveliness gone? What has she done with her merry talk?”69

Elisabeth was clearly downcast, worn down by years of chronic illness and depressed at the loss of her great friend and confidant, Descartes. She did not bother to hide her bad mood and was thought quite disagreeable by her family and, in particular, her sister-in-law, Charlotte the Electress. Yet despite her gloomy disposition, Elisabeth threw herself into the reconstruction tasks underway in the Palatinate. By the time of her arrival, repairs to the castle had begun and Charles Louis had instituted a series of policies designed to repopulate the territory and stimulate the Palatinate economy. Also on the agenda was the re-establishment of intellectual life and reviving the arts in Heidelberg. Due to his upbringing in Holland and years spent in England, Charles Louis had a great “appreciation of Shakespeare” and other dramatists, and set about reinvigorating the theatre scene.70 At the same time, he also devoted himself to studying the “art of classical antiquity” and set about establishing “a collection of coins and other artefacts from Ancient Greece and Rome.”71 At the time, however, building a collection such as this was not simply a matter of intellectual interest. The desire to amass what was rare and costly, be it coins, gems, clocks, mathematical instruments, porcelain, books, or paintings, has been interpreted in a variety of ways. Just as patronage of magnificent architecture reflected the grandeur of the prince, so to the cultivation of a connoisseur’s collection was a mark of princely prestige. It was a means by which a prince would achieve a form of personal memorial in posterity, the collections of individual princes bearing the stamp of their own particular interests.72

In addition to his collection of coins and artefacts, Charles Louis ensured his place in history by re-establishing the University of Heidelberg. The University had been established in 1386 by the Elector Palatine, Ruprecht I, but had been closed since the 1620s. Prior to the Thirty Years’ War, the University of Heidelberg had been one of the most important centers of humanist scholarship in Europe and housed the most significant library of the



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German Renaissance, the Bibliotheca Palatina. After Heidelberg was sacked in 1622, many of the library’s 5,000 books and 3,524 manuscripts were boxed up and carried over the Alps to the Vatican for safe-keeping.73 In reopening the University, Charles Louis endowed seven new chairs and recruited some of the best minds of the time with promises of complete religious toleration and freedom to teach whatever they liked.74 In doing so, the Elector aimed to have all “three Christian churches represented equally” at the University—as we will see, his toleration later extended to the Jewish scholar Barach de Spinoza.75 Among the first professors to take up chairs at the University were the jurist, Reinhold Blomius (also known as Blum or Blume), Johann Heinrich Hottinger (1620–1667) who was appointed professor of Oriental Languages and Biblical Criticism, the French theologian and Reformed church minister Daniel Tossanus,76 Heinrich David Chuno (1604–1665), the Jewish physician and professor of physiology, Jakob Israel (1621–1674), Johann von Leuneschlos (1620–1699), who was appointed professor of mathematics and physics, and Johannes Freinsheim (1608–1660) who had become acquainted with Descartes during his time in Sweden— Freinsheim was the professor of eloquence rejected by Queen Christina who Descartes wrote of in his letter to Elisabeth. Perhaps the most famous appointment came, however, in 1661 with the creation of a new chair of International Law and Philology for Samuel Pufendorf (1632–1694) who had dedicated his Elementa jurisprudentiae universalis libri duo (Elements of Universal Jurisprudence) to Charles Louis.77 In it, Pufendorf had written of Charles Louis’ endeavors to re-establish the university: “The shattered shrines of Wisdom You restore with a most liberal hand, and that, nothing be lacking to their spleandour, You do not regard it as beneath Your high estate to grant them also the favour of Your presence. By such an honour You give courage to the timid Muses, nor can their own fortune fail longer to satisfy them after the favour of so great a Patron dispenses itself upon such terms of intimacy.”78 Pufendorf’s chair was the first of its kind mandated to study the law of nature and, as such, Pufendorf “always described himself as the Professor of Natural Law” rather than referring to his formal title.79 That said, however, during the seven years he spent at Heidelberg, Pufendorf’s most significant work was not on natural law but on the states of Germany “within the decaying Holy Roman Empire,” a subject of considerable interest to his patron.80 In the meantime, however, Charles Louis opened the University on 1 November 1651, establishing himself as the first rector, in part to keep control over the institution and in part to demonstrate his dedication to the reinvigoration of intellectual life in the Palatinate. For his efforts, particularly in establishing the core principles of academic freedom at the University of Heidelberg, Charles Louis has been described as “one of the most splendid

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and enlightened rulers in seventeenth-century Germany.”81 The liberal scholarly freedoms he instituted were not, however, to everyone’s liking. In 1673, Spinoza turned down the offer of a chair at the University of Heidelberg, in part because he was not interested in teaching, and in part because he harbored concerns over the implications of the University’s liberal policies. In particular, Spinoza seems to have worried that by teaching ideas that were held to be “false, heretical and dangerous by the immense majority” of people, the University ran the risk of failing to uphold the “hopes and expectations of the Parents and Guardians of the Students, entrusted by them to a University” and even questioned the “Prince’s Right” to do this.82 Though in his response to Johann Fabricius, the chair of theology at Heidelberg, “good friend and adviser” of Charles Louis who had been asked to invite Spinoza to join the faculty, Spinoza was far less critical. He wrote: If I had ever had any desire to undertake a professorship in any faculty, I could have wished for none other than that which is offered me through you by His Serene Highness the Elector Palatine, especially on account of the freedom to philosophize that this most gracious Prince is pleased to grant, not to mention my long-felt wish to live under the rule of a Prince whose wisdom is universally admired. But since I have never intended to engage in public teaching, I cannot induce myself to embrace this excellent opportunity, although I have given long consideration to the matter.83

Although she held no formal appointment at the University, Elisabeth played a role in ensuring the favorable reception of Descartes’ ideas in Heidelberg.84 From the letters of Joachim Jungius (1587–1657), a professor of philosophy and mathematics at the Academic Gymnasium in Hamburg, to his former students, we know that Elisabeth established a circle of students who dedicated themselves to reading Descartes’ works.85 In a letter to one such former student, then studying at the University of Heidelberg, Jungius wrote: “I have understood from your father how much you profit by the conversation and the teaching as it were on Cartesian philosophy by the most Serene Highness the Princess Palatine” and referred to her as a “magistra tua” or female teacher.86 From Jungius’ letters, we also know that Elisabeth shared transcriptions of the letters Descartes had sent her on various topics of interest to the group. Jungius wrote to his student: “I ask you to send me the two transcribed letters of Descartes, which the Most Serene Princess has communicated to you, so I could thereby better advise and assist you and others in your studies.”87 Although transcribed copies of eleven letters by Descartes were found in Jungius’ papers after his death, all were lost in a fire in 1691 and, as such, we cannot be sure precisely which of Descartes’ letters Elisabeth shared with her students.



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Elisabeth’s correspondence with Descartes also featured in her relationship with Johann Hottinger. Hottinger, who at the time resided in Zurich, had originally agreed to join the University of Heidelberg for a three year appointment to assist in its re-establishment. Not long after his arrival, however, it became clear his stay would be far longer: he returned to Zurich, collected his family, and settled in Heidelberg. Of all the University’s new professors, Hottinger was perhaps the closest to the Palatine family. On the very day of his arrival in Heidelberg, Hottinger dined with the family and Charles Louis assured his new professor of his “personal support in all matters.”88 For Charles Louis, who had amassed an impressive collection of antiquities, including ancient Hebrew and Islamic coins, Hottinger’s arrival facilitated the further expansion of his interests. For Elisabeth, Hottinger became her new confidant, someone with whom to discuss “church history, his work in oriental languages, and matters of a more personal nature as well.”89 The attraction was mutual: Hottinger not only dedicated the fifth volume of his nine-volume Historia ecclesiastica to Elisabeth but named his daughter after her. In a letter to Hottinger, written in 1659, Elisabeth wrote “because she has my name, I will look upon her as my godchild.”90 Sadly, the little Elisabeth, along with her father and two of her siblings drowned when the boat they were travelling capsized in 1667. Prior to his death, however, Hottinger played the role of intermediary in a series of discussions about Descartes and Elisabeth’s early conversation about the three-circle problem. In 1657, the Swiss mathematician Johann Heinrich Rahn (1622–1676) responsible for first using the obelus (÷) as the mathematical symbol for division, wrote to Hottinger to ask for assistance in his study of the three-circle problem. At the time, the English mathematician John Pell was “on diplomatic service in Zurich” and had been giving Rahn weekly mathematics lessons. A “cranky and resentful” man, Pell was fanatical about algebraic technique and “acknowledged Elisabeth as an authority on Cartesian mathematics.”91 The same could not be said for her colleague at the University of Heidelberg, Johannes Luneschloss. In 1657, Pell wrote to Hartlib expressing his dismay at Luneschloss’ claim to being the foremost Cartesian mathematician at the University. He wrote: You sent me an extract of Letters from Frankford, which speake of him as if he were a profound Cartesian. I hope he did not professe himself such, whilest the Princesse Elizabeth was at Heidelberg. Now shee is gone; he may, perhaps justly, say, that he understands Des Cartes better than any Hee or Shee in that University.92

It was thus at Pell’s suggestion that he and Rahn examined Descartes’ letters to Elisabeth on the three-circle problem.93 The only problem was that

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the key diagrams which explained Descartes’ and Elisabeth’s solutions were missing from the copies of the letters he had in his possession. This omission would not be remedied until the mid-1660s and then only partially. THE PALATINE ELECTOR’S AFFAIR Despite having found a rewarding intellectual role for herself, Elisabeth’s stay in Heidelberg was far shorter than her scholarly interests might have liked. Once again, the affairs of her family were to blame. For some years, the incompatibility between Charles Louis and his wife, Charlotte Elizabeth, had been clear. Charlotte was an “Amazonian” woman who enjoyed horse riding, hunting, and an “extravagant way of life” which diverged significantly from Charles Louis’ austerity and intellectual focus.94 At least in her memoirs, if not in her overt demeanor, the Elector’s sister Sophie did not bother to hide her disdain for her “very stupid” sister-in-law. In particular, Sophie found Charlotte’s obsession with clothing distasteful and was shocked when her sister-in-law confided in her that she had not wanted to marry her brother, “a jealous old man,” but rather sought the hand of Frederick, the Duke of Wutemberg.95 According to Sophie’s assessment, however, in the relationship between her brother and his wife, fault lay on both sides. Indeed, the most obvious trait that Charles Louis and Charlotte Elizabeth shared was the fact that they both possessed a hot temper. Elizabeth Godfrey suggests that it was “common knowledge that at a public banquet she had thrown a plate at his head and he had boxed her ears,” although I can find no mention of the incident elsewhere.96 With neither he nor his wife able to moderate their behavior toward one another, Charles Louis looked to pursue a relationship elsewhere. In 1650, the sixteen-year-old Marie Louise von Degenfeld (1634–1677) had been appointed as lady-in-waiting to Charlotte Elizabeth. Louise could not have been more different to Charlotte, both in personality and in appearance. Charlotte was “very tall, with an admirable complexion and most beautiful bust.” She had “beautiful flaxen hair,” with which her dyed black eye-brows clashed, “sparkling eyes, full pouting lips and very fine teeth.” She was, in Sophie’s estimation, “a handsome woman.”97 Louise, by contrast, was plump, “red-haired and submissive,” a “comely and cheerful” woman.98 Charles Louis fell in love with Sophie’s “exquisite fairness,” her “feminine softness,” her sympathy and gentle nature.99 As it happened, however, so did his younger brother Rupert, who was visiting Heidelberg at the time. And it was due to Rupert’s pursuit of Louise that Charles Louis’ affair came to light. According to Godfrey’s, perhaps embellished account, that Rupert liked Louise was no great secret, least of all not to Charlotte. Charlotte, Godfrey suggests, sought to “protect” her lady-in-waiting from Rupert’s nocturnal



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advances by having Louise sleep in her room. However, it seems that Charlotte’s actions were not entirely admirable. On the contrary, Godfrey argues that she actually fancied Rupert and was trying desperately to keep them apart. The whole situation came to a head when Charlotte came into possession of a love letter written by Rupert and intended for Louise. Charlotte, however, assumed it was for herself. Flattered she decided to make her move on Rupert who was forced to confess that the letter was for Louise. As Godfrey’s version of the story goes, rejected and humiliated, Charlotte raided Louise’s room in search of more letters from Rupert. What she found was, indeed, a stack of love letters written in Latin. But they were not from Rupert. Their author was her husband, Charles Louis. If popular accounts of what happened next are to be believed, Charlotte was enraged, marched into her husband’s chamber to find him in bed with Louise, attacked the younger woman, and almost bit off her little finger. Charles Louis offered Louise his protection and, it is said, installed her in an apartment above his bedroom, and cut a hole in the ceiling of his room so he could visit her by stepladder. After an extremely acrimonious quarrel with Charles Louis over Louise and his rights to his inheritance, Rupert left the Palatinate vowing never to return. Having set his heart on Louise, Charles Louis appealed to a council of lawyers and theologians for a divorce. In his petition he wrote that his wife had been “contradictory, disobedient, obstinate, sulky and rebellious.”100 He should have added stubborn too. Charlotte not only refused to divorce Charles Louis but determined not to move out of Heidelberg castle. In 1657 Charlotte learned of a sort of contract “in which the Elector and [Louise] declared they loved and honoured each other as man and wife.”101 In the “furore” that ensued, Charles Louis unilaterally declared that he had divorced Charlotte and, on 6 January 1658, married Louise. The marriage was morganatic, effectively bigamist, and produced thirteen children, eight of whom survived. In defense of his actions, Charles Louis reflected “on the scriptural position on polygamy,” conveniently decided that it was not prohibited, and commissioned at least one work to be published and circulated on the matter.102 Elisabeth was appalled by her older brother’s behavior. Although she harbored no fondness for her sister-in-law, Elisabeth thought Charlotte had suffered a great injustice. Unable to recognize Louise as the Elector’s rightful wife, Elisabeth was left with no choice but to leave Heidelberg. This time it was to Cassel that Elisabeth went: her cousin Hedwig had married CharlotteElisabeth’s brother, the Landgrave of Hesse, and they had agreed to take her in. Charlotte, however, remained firm and it was not until 1662 that she finally gave in and returned to Cassel.103

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NOTES 1. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 21 February 1647, 155. 2. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 21 February 1647, 155. 3. Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany: The Reformation, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954), 354. 4. Parker, The Thirty Years War, 148. 5. Wilson, The Thirty Years’ War: Europe’s Tragedy, 512. 6. Wilson, The Thirty Years’ War: Europe’s Tragedy, 512. 7. Croxton, Westphalia, 271. 8. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 21 February 1647, 155. 9. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, March 1647, 157. 10. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, March 1647, 157–8. 11. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 11 April 1647, 158. 12. The dispute in which Descartes was involved stemmed from the earlier disagreement he had with the professors at the University of Leiden. He wrote: “for three or four months, a certain Regent of the College of Theologians of Leiden, named Revius, has raised four different theses in disputation against me. In doing so he has perverted the sense of my Meditations and made people believe that I said things in it which are quite absurd and contrary to the glory of God—for instance, that I doubt that there is a God, and even that I want people to deny absolutely for a period of time that there is one, and similar things. But since this man is not competent, and since even the majority of his students made fun of his attacks, the friends that I have at Leiden didn’t even bother to alert me to what he was doing, until other theses were put forward by Triglandius, their leading professor of theology, which included these words: Eum esse blasphemum, qui Deum pro deceptore habet, ut male Cartesius. At this my friends, even though they too are theologians, judged that the intention of these people, in accusing me of so great a crime as blasphemy, was nothing less than to try to condemn my views as very pernicious.” Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 10 May 1647, 159. By June, however, he wrote that “the theologians who wanted to destroy me have been silenced.” Descartes to Elisabeth, The Hague, 6 June 1647, 164. 13. Elisabeth to Descartes, Crossen, May 1647, 162. 14. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 6 June 1647, 164. 15. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 6 June 1647, 164. 16. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 20 November 1647, 165. 17. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 20 November 1647, 166–7. 18. Elisabeth to Descartes, Berlin, 5 December 1647, 167. 19. The subject of erudition was previously raised in the context of their discussion of Machiavelli’s The Prince. 20. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 31 January 1647, 168. 21. Elisabeth to Charles, Autumn 1648, in Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 194–5. 22. Elisabeth to Descartes, 30 June 1648, Crossen, 170. 23. Elisabeth to Descartes, Crossen, 30 June 1648, 170. 24. Elisabeth to Descartes, Crossen, 23 August 1648, 174. 25. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 195–6.



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26. Peace of Osnabruck, 24 October 1648, Articles I and II, in Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 411. 27. Peace of Osnabruck, Article V, 415–418. 28. Peace of Osnabruck, Article VII, 419. 29. Kalevi J. Holsti, Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order, 1648–1989, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 34–5. 30. Holsti, Peace and War, 35. 31. Holsti, Peace and War, 35. 32. Treaty of Westphalia, The Avalon Project, www.avalon.law.yale.edu 33. Peace of Osnabruck, Article IV, paras. 6 & 3, 413 & 412. 34. Peace of Osnabruck, Article IV, paras. 4 & 3, 412. 35. Peace of Osnabruck, Article IV, para. 5, 413 36. Peace of Osnabruck, Article IV, para. 12, 413. 37. Peace of Osnabruck, Article IV, para. 15. 38. Thomas, A House Divided, 21. 39. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 22 February 1649, 176. 40. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 22 February 1649, 176. 41. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 22 February 1649, 177. 42. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 22 February 1649, 178. 43. Sara Smart, “On the Diverse Duties of the Servants of the Princes: Lorenz Beger (1653–1705): Librarian, Antiquarian and Court Poet in Heidelberg,” The Modern Language Review 94(1999): 1030. 44. Clapham, “Charles Louis, Elector Palatine,” 388. 45. Clapham, “Charles Louis, Elector Palatine,” 389. 46. Clapham, “Charles Louis, Elector Palatine,” 391. 47. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 199–200. 48. Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, 31 March 1649, 178; Descartes to Elisabeth, Egmond, June 1649, 179. 49. Descartes to Elisabeth, Stockholm, 9 October 1649, 180. 50. Descartes to Elisabeth, Stockholm, 9 October 1649, 180. 51. Elisabeth to Descartes, 4 December 1649, 181. 52. Chanut to Elisabeth, 19 February 1650, in Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 219; AT 5: 471. 53. Chanut to Elisabeth, 16 April 1650, AT V, 472–4. 54. Erik-Jan Bos, “Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and Descartes’ Letters (1650– 1665),” Historia Mathematica 37(2010). Although Elisabeth’s letters to Chanut have not been preserved, “Adrien Baillet, who had access to these letters, reports her refusal.” 55. Bos, “Princess Elisabeth.” 56. Sophie Ruppel, “Subordinates, Patrons and Most Beloved: Sibling Relationships in Seventeenth-Century German Court Society,” in Christopher H. Johnson and David Warren Sabean (eds.), Sibling Relationships and the Transformations of European Kinship, 1300–1900, (New York: Berghahn Book, 2011), 94. 57. Genevieve Lloyd, Providence Lost, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), 190.

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58. Memoirs of Sophia of Hanover, 16. 59. Memoirs of Sophia of Hanover, 16. 60. Nicola Cornick, “The Sotheby’s Sale Part 2 – A Couple of Family Portraits,” www.ashdownehouse.blogspot.com.au 61. Cornick, “The Sotheby’s Sale Part 2.” 62. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 235. 63. In Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 235. 64. Lloyd, Providence Lost, 190. 65. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 236–7. 66. Elisabeth to Charles Louis in Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 239–240. 67. Cornick, “The Sotheby’s Sale Part 2.” 68. In Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 244. 69. Sophia, Memoirs of Sophia, 42. 70. Clapham, “Charles Louis,” 384. 71. Smart, “On the Diverse Duties of the Servants of the Princes,” 1027. 72. Smart, “On the Diverse Duties of the Servants of the Princes,” 1027. 73. Clapham, “Charles Louis,” 395. 74. Lore Metzger, “Coleridge’s Vindication of Spinoza: An Unpublished Note,” Journal of the History of Ideas 21(1960): 284. 75. Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany, Volume 1, 50. 76. Ole Peter Grell, Brethren in Christ: A Calvinist Network in Reformation Europe, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 261. 77. Samuel von Pufendorf, Two Books of the Elements of Universal Jurisprudence, trans. William Abbott Oldfather, 1931. Revised by Thomas Behme. Edited and with an introduction by Thomas Behme, (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008), 3–5. 78. Dedication in Pufendorf, Two Books of the Elements of Universital Jurisprudence, 4–5. 79. Timothy J. Hochstrasser, Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 42. 80. J. B. Schneewind, “Natural Law” in David E. Wellbery, Judith Ryan, and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht (eds.), A New History of German Literature, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 325. 81. Behme, “Introduction” in Pufendorf, Two Books of the Elements of University Jurisprudence, ix. 82. Metzger, “Coleridge’s Vindication of Spinoza,” 284. 83. Steven Nadler, Spinoza: A Life, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 312. 84. Clapham, “Charles Louis,” 395. 85. Bos, “Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia and Descartes’ Letters,” 487. 86. In Bos, “Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia and Descartes’ Letters,” 488; See Bernd Elsner and Martin Rothkegel (eds.), Die Briefwechsel des Joachim Jungius, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2005), 803. 87. In Bos, “Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia and Descartes’ Letters,” 488. 88. Jan Loop, Johann Heinrich Hottinger: Arabic and Islamic Studies in the Seventeenth Century, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 36.



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89. Bos, “Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia and Descartes’ Letters,” 489. 90. In Bos, “Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia and Descartes’ Letters,” 489. 91. Pal, Republic of Women, 272. 92. In Pal, Republic of Women, 272–3. 93. Bos, “Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia and Descartes’ Letters,” 489. 94. Smart, “On the Diverse Duties of the Servants of the Princes,” 1030–1. 95. Memoirs of Sophia, 88. 96. Elizabeth Godfrey, Heidelberg: Its Princes and Its Palaces, (New York: Blackie and Son, 1912), 319. 97. Sophia, Memoirs of Sophia, 86. 98. Charlotte Elisabeth of Orleans, The Letters of Madame: The Correspondence of Elizabeth-Charlotte of Bavaria: Princess Palatine, Duchess of Orleans, D. Appleton, 1925, 10. 99. Godfrey, Heidelberg, 318. 100. Godfrey, Heidelberg, 319. 101. Smart, “On the Diverse Duties of the Servants of the Princes,” 1031. 102. Smart, “On the Diverse Duties of the Servants of the Princes,” 1031. 103. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 267.

Chapter 8

The Abbess of Herford

As always, Elisabeth’s family dramas did not end with her brother’s bigamist marriage. Next to cause consternation and grief was her younger sister, Louise Hollandine. As with all the Palatinate princesses, the question of Louise Hollandine’s future was a vexed issue for the family. With no dowry or suitable suitors, her continued financial support was always a troubling issue. Indeed, Louise had not been lucky in love. Not only had her cousin Frederick William of Brandenburg been prevented from marrying her but the advances of James Graham, the Marquis of Montrose, had amounted to nothing. In 1649 Montrose visited The Hague to pay his respects and assure Charles II, who was residing there in exile, of his loyalty. During his time there, Montrose managed to convince Charles that he “was certain of re-establishing the young King if his Majesty would appoint him Viceroy of Scotland.”1 The King agreed, not only to Montrose’s appointment but to the provision of his proposed reward upon installing Charles upon his rightful throne: Louise’s hand in marriage. But the marriage was not to be: Montrose was captured in April and executed on 21 May 1650, his limbs dismembered and sent for public display in the Scottish cities of Stirling, Aberdeen, Perth, and Glasgow, and his head left to rot on a spike outside the Tolbooth for eleven years.2 It is little wonder then that Sophie thought his a particularly “cruel” death.3 Elisabeth thought that perhaps Louise could be provided a “dignified retirement” in the cloistered life of Herford Abbey, a refuge for the daughters of upper class families which was run by their cousin, Elizabeth Louise of Zweibrucken. Louise, it seems, was not taken by the idea but did not violently object to it. In 1653, Elisabeth had written to the Abbess proposing a trial stay at the abbey: “Concerning my sister’s stay at Herford, your Grace might see by the letters it was no resolved affair, but only a matter to be 165

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discussed between us on which each one might give his opinion, and because they said she ought to go to Herford to make herself known to the Capitular Body and win them to her side, which my brother does not think such a little time as a fortnight would be sufficient for and therefore would rather pay her board, but nothing was resolved without hearing your opinion.”4 The matter remained unresolved and, in a later letter, the Abbess revealed she had heard, and believed, a report that “Elisabeth was about to turn Catholic.”5 Nothing, Elisabeth replied, could be further from the truth: “If I had any desire to do such a thing I should have done it when there was a crown to be won by it,” she wrote, “now nobody would give me a peppercorn for it.”6 The same, however, could not be said for Louise Hollandine. But Louise was no passive actor, waiting for others to decide her future. On 19 December 1657, she ran away from her mother’s house, sending her family into a flat panic about her whereabouts and wellbeing. As Carole Oman writes: No carriage was missing from the stables, no attendant were absent. Neither halberdier, footman, page, lady in waiting nor fille de chamber had seen anything of the princess since last night. She had apparently left the house in darkness, on foot, alone and without money.7

Even more alarming were the contents of a note found in her room in which she confessed that she had converted to Catholicism and intended to join a nunnery. A search was launched and rumors began to circulate suggesting that Louise had run away because she was pregnant. In fact, some accounts of her life have suggested that she “had had so many illegitimate children, that she commonly swore by her body, which had borne fourteen children.”8 However, there is no evidence that she was anything but chaste. In the meantime, Louise travelled to Paris and was reunited with her brother Edward, who had also converted some years earlier. True to her word, she entered a convent as a novice on 25 March 1659, took vows as a nun on 19 September 1660, and was appointed the Abbess of Maubuisson in August 1664. Although Elisabeth was disappointed by her sister’s conversion, her objections to Catholicism—earlier voiced in her letters to Descartes regarding Edward’s conversion—had begun to soften. Better news came in the form of a marriage proposal for Sophie, from George William, Duke of Brunswick—a second cousin of her mother. Sophie was also being pursued by Prince Adolf of Sweden, a man for whom she had “taken so great an aversion” that she believed “only a strong effort of will could have overcome it.”9 Thus, when George asked her for “permission to demand” her hand from the Elector, Charles Louis, Sophie “unhesitatingly said ‘Yes.’ ”10 While this arrangement was to the satisfaction of all except poor



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Prince Adolf—who had been showing his acquaintances portraits of Sophie as his future bride—the marriage did not eventuate. Having reconsidered his position, George William decided that he preferred the single life and broke off the engagement. In his place he suggested that his younger brother, Ernest Augustus should marry Sophie. George William agreed never to marry and thereby ensured that the Brunswick title and inheritance would pass to any children produced by Ernest and Sophie’s marriage.11 The marriage took place on 30 September 1658, and in 1692 Ernest Augustus became the Elector of Brunswick-Luneburg, making Sophie, now known as Sophia, the Electress of Hanover. Among their seven children to survive into adulthood, their eldest son George became King of England, while their eldest daughter, Sophia Charlotte was the Queen of Prussia. Had she lived just one month longer than her impressive eighty-three years, Sophie would herself have become Queen of England in accordance with the 1701 Act of Settlement.12 THE SEARCH FOR A HOME With her sisters now accounted for, the issue of Elisabeth’s own future came to the fore. Following the death of her aunt, Charlotte, the Electress Dowager of Brandenburg, Elisabeth was in need of a permanent place to live. One suggestion was that she might return to England with her mother who was making preparations for her voyage home. Word that “the ‘Cartesian princess’ might soon be gracing their shores” was the source of great excitement among members of the Hartlib Circle.13 Hartlib was particularly “enthusiastic” about Elisabeth’s possible move to England and, as Carol Pal writes “in a rather whimsical moment wished that Elisabeth would marry More’s ideas, and that the offspring of this marriage would be a wonderful Cartesian book.”14 He wrote: I wish she were in England, that she might marrie Dr. More’s Cartesian Notions, which would beget a noble offispring of many excellent and fruitfull truths.15

Henry More (1614–1687) was a rationalist theologian. As the “first person from England to take Descartes seriously,” he came to know about Elisabeth’s talents through his correspondence with the French philosopher.16 In a letter to Descartes, More wrote: “the first moment I read your works, I at once decided in my own mind that your illustrious disciple, the Princess Elizabeth, must—in order to have entered so perfectly into the comprehension of your philosophy—be infinitely wiser than all the sages and philosopher of Europe put together.”17 More than a decade later, More was still captivated by Elisabeth and believed that having her in England “would make ye world a

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more desirable place.”18 Although Elisabeth’s mooted move to England was not to be, her associations with the members of the Hartlib Circle did not, as we will see shortly, end there. Rather than travelling to England with her mother, Elisabeth sought a place at Herford Abbey, the institution she had originally suggested might be suitable for her sister, Louise Hollandine. In 1658, Elisabeth had commissioned the chemist, alchemist, and kabbalist, Franciscus Mercury van Helmont (1614–1698/99) to “secure the dowry of 10,000 thalers from the Emperor, which had been accorded her under the terms of the Treaty of Westphalia.”19 Van Helmont had been known to the family since at least 1648—and possibly as early as 1644—and had played an unfortunate role in the love triangle between Charles Louis, Louise von Degenfelt, and Rupert. It was van Helmont who acted as go-between between the brothers and had been the one to deliver “a passionately written and incoherent memorandum from Rupert to [Charles Louis], in which Rupert restated his monetary and financial demands.”20 Now, it seemed, he would work for Elisabeth in helping her to secure a place at Herford Abbey. Elisabeth’s acceptance at Herford was by no means guaranteed. The Abbess seemed suspicious of Elisabeth’s motives—perhaps she feared her cousin would attempt to overthrown her position—leading Elisabeth to write: “If you knew me alright…you would know that I have no ambition and ask no more than retreat for my old age, which I may perhaps find at Herford.”21 The other problem for Elisabeth was, as always, a matter of finance: a place at Herford did not come free and the dowries accorded her and Louise Hollandine in the Peace of Westphalia had not been forthcoming. In a letter to Charles Louis on the matter, in June 1658 Sophie wrote: …my sister Elisabeth is also going to be canonized and tells me that she has been offered the Abbey of Herford and that if she accepts, she wishes to lead a very retired life there, and she prays that God will give her by the hand of Helmont the money from the Emperor, which she would very much like to have to furnish the house.22

Whether van Helmont was successful in his endeavor is unclear. While Elisabeth did eventually join Herford as coadjudtrix, some have suggested that it was her cousin, the Elector of Brandenburg, who facilitated her appointment.23 In any case, Elisabeth’s money troubles were far from over: in 1661 Sophie reported in a letter to Charles Louis that so dire were Elisabeth’s finances by this stage that she had needed “to sell all her precious stones in order to buy dishes and furniture” and in 1670 she sent van Helmont to England to petition Charles II for a pension.24



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In 1667 Elisabeth was proclaimed Abbess of Herford. Originally a Catholic community for women, the Lutheran Herford Abbey was not a conventional convent. Not only was its Abbess not a Lutheran but a Calvinist, but under Elisabeth’s leadership it became “a refuge not only for unmarried aristocratic women but also for free thinkers of all classes and genders.”25 As abbess, Elisabeth was considered a princess or prelatess of the Holy Roman Empire, exercised a vote in the Imperial Assembly, and was responsible for the “flourishing agricultural and commercial community,” which surrounded the Abbey.26 RETURN OF THE THREE-CIRCLE PROBLEM Although one might be forgiven for thinking that Elisabeth, seeking to couple a quiet retirement with her responsibilities as Abbess of Herford might have retreated from intellectual life in her final years, this is certainly not the case. If anything, with most of her family’s troubles settled—the Palatinate had been returned, her sisters married or taken into female religious communities, and her mother resettled in England—her time at Herford provided Elisabeth with the time to pursue scholarship once again. In fact, it was in her early years at Herford that Elisabeth’s correspondence with other scholars seems to have gathered pace once more.27 Among those she corresponded with were members of the Theodore Haak and John Pell. The subject of their discussion was mathematics and, in particular, the three-circle problem. In 1661, the English divine and theological writer John Worthington wrote to his friend Samuel Hartlib about the fact that “Descartes’ mathematical letters to Elizabeth of 1643 were not included in the first or second volume of Descartes’ correspondence edited by Clerselier.”28 Recall that Elisabeth had refused the publication of her letters in Clerselier’s volume but seems to have assumed that Descartes’ letters to her would be included. In his letter, Worthington expressed the hope that John Dury, who was due to travel to Germany, might be able to visit Elisabeth and obtain copies of the missing correspondence. What is more, Worthington noted that Elisabeth herself had devised a solution to the three-circle problem that may in fact have been better than Descartes’. The publication of these letters, Worthington thought, “could be a great ornament to the second edition of these epistles.”29 The content of these letters was not simply a matter of curiosity within the learned circles of the time. On the contrary, they were viewed as a means of better understanding the fundamental principles of Cartesian mathematics. What better way of untangling Descartes’ arguments than by reviewing his debates with a “very advanced scholar”—Elisabeth—who had “really been able to grasp his method”?30

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It was not, however, until early 1665 that Elisabeth was asked to provide these letters. At around that time, Theodore Haak wrote to the princess asking for copies of the correspondence. Along with his request, he sent her the first two issues of Philosophical Transactions, the world’s first science journal, published under the auspices of the Royal Society. The issues included papers on the motion of a recent comet, whale fishing in Bermuda, methods for killing rattle-snakes, and improvements in the grinding of optical glasses, as well as an account, attributed to Robert Boyle, of “a very odd Monstrous Calf.”31 In May 1665, Elisabeth wrote Haak a letter that mentions that she had already sent him copies of the two letters which she incorrectly assumed were intended for Henry More—their recipient was in fact John Pell. Elisabeth’s letter is particularly interesting because it provides several insights into her intellectual interests during this period of her life.32 She starts by lamenting the state of the diagrams in the transcribed versions of Descartes’ letters that had been circulating: “The figures in these letters,” she wrote, “are so badly drawn, because the person who copied them has no knowledge of geometry, and in the whole country of Westphalia there is no one to be found who has.” To rectify the problem, Elisabeth corrected the first diagram and provided a summary of her algebraic solution to the problem, explaining that she did not have a copy of it with her. In the final sentences of the letter, Elisabeth thanked Haak for sending her the issues of Philosophical Transactions and begged him to send further works on “the effects of the new microscope and the observations of Mr. Boyle on cold” as soon as they are printed.33 This is not the only hint we have that Elisabeth was interested in the development of the microscope. We know from the correspondence of Benjamin Furley (1636–1714), who was member of a party of Quakers who visited Herford in 1676, that Elisabeth was in possession of a gilded silver microscope that Descartes had commissioned and presented to her.34 According to Furley, Elisabeth presented him with this prized possession upon his departure from Herford. ELISABETH’S ASSOCIATION WITH ANNE CONWAY Before the arrival of the English Quakers, however, Elisabeth was struck, once again, with financial worries. Calling on van Helmont again, this time she sent him to Charles II to ask for a pension.35 While in England, van Helmont did not only petition the king, but became personally acquainted with Henry More and Anne Conway. First he visited More at Cambridge, the introduction having been arranged by Hartlib, bringing with him letters from Germany. Although the contents of these letters are unknown—there is some



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speculation that they “probably concerned” the state of the study of kabbalah in Germany—perhaps there was one from Elisabeth among the package.36 On 12 October 1670, More and van Helmont dined together in More’s rooms at Christ’s College. Although they were known to one another by reputation, they had never met before. As it turned out, they got on famously; More was particularly “[i]‌mpressed by [van Helmont’s] ‘very good plaine and expert humour,’ ” as well as his knowledge of chemistry and medicine.37 It was More who introduced van Helmont to Anne Conway, hoping that the alchemist’s knowledge would be able to treat the debilitating illness that had plagued her throughout most of her life. Born Anne Finch, Conway was among the most talented female British philosophers of the seventeenth century. Although as a woman she was unable to attend university, her brother’s tutor, Henry More, agreed to teach her. The curriculum he taught, in person and in the form of letters, included discussions of Cartesian thought: several of More’s letters to Conway include English translations of significant tracts of Descartes’ work. Considered a brilliant scholar, Conway became a lifelong friend of More, who spent considerable periods of time visiting her and her husband, Edward, the First Earl of Conway, at the Finch’s London House— Kensington Palace—and at the Conway residence, Ragley in Warwickshire. From the age of twelve, Anne had suffered incredibly debilitating headaches. In the search for a cure, she had consulted William Harvey, consumed a compounded copper concoction known as ens veneris, invented and prepared for her by Robert Boyle, and travelled to Paris to undergo trepanning—a surgery in which a hole is made in the skull to allow built up pressure to be released. Although the French physicians who were to conduct the trepane refused to do so in the end, they did attempt to treat her by opening the arteries of her jugular! None of these painful and potentially lethal treatments were successful and so van Helmont was asked to attempt a cure.38 Like those who had gone before him, van Helmont failed to cure Anne’s headaches. Nonetheless, the alchemist and his patient became devoted friends. Van Helmont “was so taken with her that he ended up staying at Ragley for the best part of a decade, only moving on after Anne’s numerous ailments finally got the better of her in 1679.”39 Anne, for her part, was persuaded by van Helmont to “see her own suffering in cabbalistic terms as part of the divine redemptive process leading to universal salvation.”40 Her only work, The Principle of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, published posthumously with van Helmont’s assistance, was heavily influenced by Kabbalist ideas, and anticipated the concept of the “monad” for which van Helmont’s friend, Leibniz—whose patron was Elisabeth’s sister Sophie—became famous.41 It was also through van Helmont that Conway, like van Helmont converted to Quakerism and came to regularly entertain prominent English

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Quakers like William Penn at her home. These same individuals would later find shelter with Elisabeth at Herford. Aside from these indirect associations, van Helmont also helped to forge a personal relationship between Elisabeth and Anne. Although their correspondence has not survived, we know that Anne sent a package of books, which included the works of Henry More, to Elisabeth as a gift.42 Precisely what role Anne, or van Helmont for that matter, played in Elisabeth’s later relationship with the Quaker William Penn is unclear. “One thought,” as Lisa Shapiro writes, is that van Helmont “facilitated their interaction.”43 At the same time, however, Elisabeth was already connected to Penn’s fellow Quaker, Robert Barclay, through her family: Robert’s first letter to Elisabeth in 1676 implied that he knew Rupert.44 However they became known to one another, in the end Barclay, Penn, and their Quaker associates would converge on Herford and there attempt—unsuccessfully—to convert Elisabeth to their faith. THE LABADISTS VISIT HERFORD But before the arrival of the Quakers in 1677, Elisabeth hosted another ostracized religious group, the Labadists, at Herford. Centered around the figure of Jean de Labadie (1610–1674), the Labadists were a pietest sect who were “driven out of tolerant Holland in 1670” for being, in the words of one writer, “pretty obnoxious.”45 Born in France, their leader has often been portrayed as a “misfit, troublemaker and nut.”46 Originally trained as a Jesuit, from an early age he led an ascetic life, eating only herbs. Unsurprisingly his health suffered. After an honorable dismissal from the Jesuits, Labadie became a Jansenist, a Carmelite, and then a Protestant.47 It was while he was working as a Calvinist minister in Geneva in 1662, that Labadie met Johan van Schurman, Anna Maria van Schurman’s brother. Upon meeting the Frenchman, Johan wrote to his sister “reporting that his heart was ‘set aflame’ by his encounter with this ‘clear living image of Christ.’ ”48 Enthralled by his efforts in radically reforming the church in Geneva, Johan continued to correspond with Labadie after he had been appointed as the minister of a church in Middleburg in the Netherlands. It will be no surprise, given Johan’s praise of Labadie’s talents, that upon arriving in the Low Countries, Labadie made himself acquainted with Anna Maria van Schurman. Labadie’s arrival in the Netherlands coincided with van Schurman’s increasing disillusionment, dissatisfaction even, with contemporary Christianity. Christianity, in Anna Maria’s view, had become corrupted. She wrote:



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Corrupted Christianity! Where is your former lustre? Of love and hope and faith? Why does your light shine do darkly?49

People still went to church, she observed, but they went “just as easily from the church into the pub.” What is more, “affluence in the Republic was spilling over into the Church. People now wore expensive clothes and wigs, their houses looked like palace, they had teachers who taught their children how to dance.”50 That is, Anna Maria believed that Christianity had become superficial, even hypocritical. Such was her enthusiasm for his ideas—conveyed to her in her brother’s letters—that when Labadie and his coterie of students arrived in Utrecht in 1666, it was Anna Maria herself who met them off the boat. For the next ten days, Labadie and his students were hosted by van Schurman who, during this time, introduced Labadie to the most influential Dutch theologians of the time, including Voetius, and organized for him to deliver sermons in the Walloon Pieterskerk before he took up his official position in Middleburg.51 Although his sermons were extremely long—the services sometimes went for three or four hours!—Labadie soon gained a large following. Among his most devoted disciples was Anna Maria van Schurman, who agreed with her brother’s assessment that “this man was different from the other ‘representatives of Christ she had heretofore known.’ ”52 When Labadie was expelled from the official Calvinist church of Wallonia for his unorthodox views in 1669, Anna Maria sold her house and joined the new religious community he established in Amsterdam.53 Residing in Labadie’s house in Amsterdam, the Labadist community lived an ascetic communal existence. Although theologically speaking they followed a variety of Calvinism, the Labadists sought to distinguish themselves from what they viewed as the “laxity and spiritual lassitude countenanced by the established Church.”54 Labadism, by contrast, was “anti-institutional, spiritualistic [and] antidogmatic.”55 Its leading doctrine was that of “[s]‌upreme reliance on the immediate presence and power of the Holy Spirit” and, as such, Labadism was “pre-eminently a mystical form of faith.”56 Labadists believed that attending church was not sufficient for salvation; what was required was election—they believed in predestination—and a devoted personal relationship with God. Children within the sect were not baptized as infants—on account of the fact that “it could not be told beforehand whether the child would grow up as the elect of God or increase in sin”—but were rather “brought before the church, presented, consecrated, and blessed.”57 Labadists dressed plainly and eschewed worldly adornments, such as jewelry, practiced self-denial, particularly in the form of fasting, and shared their wealth communally.

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Despite the piety of the Labadists, neither their theology nor their way of life was tolerated in ordinarily quite tolerant Holland. Rumors abounded that the sect was actually a form of harem surrounding Labadie and, in the end, the community were forced to flee. In her search for a place of refuge, Anna Maria wrote to her old friend Elisabeth to ask whether they might join her at Herford. Although their correspondence is lost, Anna Maria wrote about the exchange in her diary: Putting aside all interference, and firm in her resolve, the Princess wrote to me direct, informing me that she was well acquainted with my intention of freeing myself from the world in order to devote myself entirely to the practices of the true Christian religion, and to end my days calmly and happily in communion with pious spirits. She was good enough to say she recalled our former friendship, and therefore offered to me and our whole community the free and public exercise of our religion throughout the whole of her little State of Herford…It was evident to us all that this was a special manifestation of Providence in our favour, and we immediately set about profiting by it.58

Labadie and his followers arrived in Herford at the end of 1670 and settled there in a “beautiful house.”59 But despite Elisabeth’s graciousness in welcoming them to her community, the inclusion of the Labadists was extremely controversial. Elisabeth had already written to her cousin, the Elector of Brandenburg to secure his support for the Labadists’ stay at Herford, presenting them as a community, mostly of women and girls, centered on Anna Maria van Schurman. Now, however, the Elector was not so sure: the people of Herford were uncomfortable with the fact that the Labadists were not strictly Calvinist, nor Lutheran or Catholic. They disapproved of the Labadists’ denial of the value of civil marriage and rumors abounded that their practice of ecstatic Holy Communion involved dancing around and kissing one another.60 This put Elisabeth in a very difficult position. As the leader of a nunnery she could not condone the sorts of marriages the Labadists engaged in—Labadist couples would simply declare that they wanted to be married and that would be that—and so insisted on the establishment of civil marriages within the Labadist community. But as Anna Maria’s friend and as someone who was sympathetic to some of Labadie’s ideas about piety and spirituality, Elisabeth felt bound to defend her guests. She wrote to the Elector: I understand your Highness has been told much evil of my Dutch women, and indeed much has been written to me from Holland about them; if I did not see them every day and have opportunity of judging at every hour of their conduct, I would be the first to send them away. But I beg your Highness not to condemn them without a hearing, and at least to await the arrival of General Ellern. If he



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cannot show you clearly that not only religion but the country itself prospered since their arrival, you may refuse them all protection. The magistrates know well that they are not Quakers but true Protestants.61

Although Elisabeth gained the Elector’s qualified support, she was unable to protect the Labadists from the mob. While sick in bed one night, Anna Maria van Schurman was “attacked…by insolent people who broke open her window” by shattering it with stones.62 In response, Elisabeth moved the Labadists to her own summer residence outside the town of Herford and went to Berlin for assistance. By the time she returned, however, the Labadists had left, seemingly unconvinced that Elisabeth would be able to protect them. They established a new community in Altona, near Hamburg, where they stayed until Labadie’s death in 1674. The Labadists then relocated to Weiward in Friesland, attempted unsuccessfully to establish a colony in Suriname, and then eventually settled in Maryland. After Labadie’s death, Anna Maria went to live with her brother, only surviving Labadie by one year. For Elisabeth, the whole Labadist affair had been extremely trying. Although the Elector of Brandenburg had offered her some support, her immediate family did not approve of her decision to shelter the Labadists. Anna Maria had attempted to convert Elisabeth’s sister, Sophie, and sent her “a letter in French, together with two books of De Labadie.” Sophie had declined Anna Maria’s invitation to join “the ‘blessed’ commune now—that could wait until she was in heaven, she thought”—and, after visiting Herford remained unconvinced by the Labadist’s claims.63 Although she thought that Labadie was a witty, entertaining man with a tongue like a “perpetual motion machine,” she wrote of his doctrines: As for his Religion, it is the Reformed faith, which he has purified a second time, reducing it to an essence so pure, that I believe it would evaporate as soon as one tried to get hold of it. He says that it is necessary to renounce one’s faith, even when it is perfect, because one must not derive pleasure from anything other than the glory of God…When one dons or removes a glove, if one does not do it for the glory of God, then it is a sin…They are all quite gay, because they believe that they are the only Elect. In the end, they are good people who have damned us all.64

Even Charles Louis’ famous religious tolerance would not extend as far as their mysticism. What is more, her family and guests, both immediate and more distant, did not feel the need to restrain themselves in Labadie’s presence, criticizing him to his face, and laughing at him behind his back. One such incident took place during a visit of Prince Charles, Charles Louis’ son, to Herford, during which the Superintendent of Osnabrück engaged in such a heated debate with Labadie one morning over the question of earthly

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love that Elisabeth was forced to intervene and bid “both the wranglers to come to breakfast with her.”65 At breakfast things only got worse: Labadie was accused of forbidding women to adorn themselves, and of depriving them by a ridiculous and ill-timed severity of jewels and all other harmless appurtenances of the toilet. He was told that the poor wretched little souls—already disposed to err, and even to fall—were by his doctrine and by the narrow, timid, quaking principles of piety he instilled into them, utterly bewildered and made incapable of discerning right from wrong.66

Labadie attempted to defend himself but was met with “shouts of laughter” where upon the young Prince Charles challenged him to gather together his congregation and present a sermon. Labadie gave his sermon, “a long and sickeningly declamatory discourse” in which he argued that “no one was to be called a Christian about whom yet lingered any of the impurities of the world,” in a “loud voice” with the “affectation of holy inspiration.” The congregation, for its part, responded with groans, the beating of chests, and tears. That evening at dinner, Elisabeth’s house guests could talk of “nothing else but this absurd and quaking sort of piety.” In particular, they were astonished to find that so many “young women of the best families, richly dowered, brilliant with beauty and youth…were insane enough to give up the conduct of their souls to this worst of men and most powerless of priests (only to be laughed at too by him in secret), and who were so riveted to their delusions that neither the prayers of their parents, nor the pleadings of their betrothed, nor the prospect of maternal joys, could tear them away!” Elisabeth was incensed and sought to defend Labadie and his followers’ piety. In the end the mood of the evening was rescued by Sophie who joked that Elisabeth had only agreed to take in the Labadists because they “were stingy housekeepers and cost little or nothing to keep!” Jokes aside, however, the arguments of her guests were difficult for Elisabeth to hear for they spoke to the abhorrence with which most Protestants viewed ascetics in general and, in particular, women who chose religious life over marriage.67 Yet despite her indignance at her guests’ criticisms of the lives of ascetic women, Elisabeth could not be persuaded to join Labadie’s sect. A VISIT FROM THE QUAKERS Ironically, given the extent to which Elisabeth sought to defend the Labadists against the accusation of Quakerism, the next religious group hosted at Herford was the English Quakers, led by William Penn and Robert Barclay. Penn had first attempted to visit Elisabeth in 1671 but, it is said that Labadie



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had objected so strongly to Penn’s presence in Herford that Elisabeth had declined to see him.68 In 1676, however, Barclay had visited her in Herford, although the details of the visit are very sketchy. What is more Elisabeth had continued to correspond with Barclay, Penn, and Furley who, of course, were making considerable efforts to apprise her of the merits of Quakerism. The Quakers, or Friends, as they referred to themselves, was a radical nonconformist Christian group that emerged in England in the middle of the seventeenth century. Their origins are usually attributed to George Fox and, in particular, an experience he had in 1647 in which “he felt he could hear Christ directly and inwardly without the mediation of text or minister.”69 Believing this experience to be authentic and universally applicable, “Fox preached a spirituality in which potentially all people were ministers, all part of a priesthood of believers, a church leveled before the leadership of God.”70 The early Quakers thus did away with the outward trappings of the Christian faith: church buildings, sacraments, and the notion of the ministry as being set apart from the congregation. Early Quaker congregations worshipped in silence, waiting for someone present to be moved by Christ to speak. They “preached impromptu in various settings and to a variety of audiences, claiming the ‘Inward Light’ of Christ immediately moved them.”71 Shunning worldly goods, they “started to wear plain clothes and eschew anything considered superfluous or vain, such as titles or gravestones.” They were and remain pacifists. In Scotland, one of the most prominent Quakers was Robert Barclay (1648– 1690) whose work, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, published in Latin in Amsterdam in 1676 was the first great work of Quaker theology. His father, Colonel David Barclay (1610–1686), 1st Laird of Urie, was a military man who rose to the tank of major in Gustavus Adolphus’ army during the Thirty Years’ War—whether or not he met Frederick V while in the Swede’s service is unclear. Rather, Barclay’s connection to the Palatine family seems to have come through his association with Rupert, whom he mentioned in his first letter to Elisabeth written in 1676. Barclay, it seems, had asked Rupert and the King, Charles II, for their help in securing the release of his father and forty others who had been imprisoned in Edinburgh for their associations with the Covenanter, William Keith, 7th Earl Marischal.72 The Covenanters were Scottish Presbyterians who had wielded considerable political power in Scotland during and after the English and Scottish civil wars but now, following the restoration of Charles II, faced brutal persecution. That said, while in prison, David Barclay met John, Laird of Swinton (1621–1679), who converted him to Quakerism. Barclay’s letter to Elisabeth was not, however, simply an appeal for help in securing his father’s release. In true Quaker style, Barclay reasoned that if the appeal was not successful, he would be “content to suffer and…go

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home cheerfully, willing to partake with them of their bonds.”73 Rather, the main content of the letter makes it abundantly clear that he was attempting to convert Elisabeth to the Quaker faith. In it Barclay implored Elisabeth to “feel after” the manifestations of the Lord’s work in her and to “be faithful to the least appearances of God’s light in thy heart,” safe in the knowledge that “thou shalt receive what more is requisite for thee and the real enjoyment of that inward peace will follow.”74 He also noted that he was “often near thee in spirit and in the sense of that precious seed which God hath sown both in thee and in the Countess of Hornes”—Elisabeth’s close companion at Herford—before suggesting that he might like to visit them in Germany.75 In her reply, Elisabeth provided only a short, “abrupt answer” to Barclay’s exhortations; she was, she implied, too busy with the task of running Herford Abbey to write a longer response. Nonetheless, in the one-paragraph long letter, Elisabeth confessed to being “spiritually very poor and naked.” She wrote that although she had sometimes experienced “a small glimpse of the true light” she did not “attend to it” as she should. Rather, being “drawn away by the works of [her] calling, which must be done” Elisabeth found that she regularly overran herself, only pulling back “when it is too late.” As such she was grateful for Barclay’s prayers, which, she believed she needed, and made clear to her correspondent that he, his letters, and his friends would always be welcome with her.76 The correspondence between Elisabeth and Robert Barclay over the ensuing months followed a similar pattern. Barclay would update Elisabeth on the status of the prisoners—still imprisoned—and continue to impress on her the truth of Quaker doctrine, while Elisabeth would provide short, polite responses that, though they briefly engaged with Barclay’s arguments did not give him reason to hope she would actually convert. From October 1676, Barclay wrote to Elisabeth from prison where he too was now incarcerated. This was not the first time he had spent time in prison. His initial period of incarceration came in 1672, shortly after he had paraded through the streets of Aberdeen wearing sack cloth and ashes. By early December 1676, Elisabeth had heard in letters from both Barclay and Benjamin Furley, that Barclay had been “clapped up.” In her letter to him, dated 1 or 11 December 1676, she wrote that she was “sure that the captivers are more captive than you are being in the company of him that admits no bonds and is able to break all bonds.”77 For his part, Barclay was undeterred by his circumstances and continued in his attempt to convert Elisabeth, drawing on the example of Anne Conway in his efforts to convince her. In the end Elisabeth was forced to give a more direct response to his exhortations. She wrote: We join in the aversion from much correspondence and agree also in this point that knowledge without light is uncertain and words without deeds are vain.



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Therefore my breathings unto the Lord are both for light and power to yield real obedience unto that light which he affords me, but I cannot submit unto the opinion or practice of any others though I grant that they have more light than myself. The Countess of Conoway does well to go on the way which she thinks best, but I should not do well to follow her, unless I had the same conviction. Neither did it ever enter into my thoughts so to do. I love all that love God, and am ready to embrace all that is undoubtedly good.78

By the middle of 1677, Barclay had been released from prison and we know from his letters to Elisabeth that he had spent time with their mutual acquaintance, van Helmont, as well as Prince Rupert and Elizabeth Stuart’s companion, Lord Craven. In particular, Barclay recounted an awkward encounter with van Helmont regarding the Quaker refusal to practice “hat honour”—removing one’s hat to acknowledge another, particularly one of a higher social rank: Thy friend Helmont is here and about 2 or 3 weeks ago found himself under a necessity so as he could not forbear with peace of conscience and without disobeying of God to come under the contemptible appearance of one of us by keeping his hat upon his head and laying aside those other ceremonies which truth has obliged us to depart from.79

Barclay reported that Lord Craven and Prince Rupert were surprised by this behavior and, as a result, van Helmont had asked Barclay to tell Elisabeth of the incident before she heard it from anyone else. Precisely why van Helmont was so desperate to tell Elisabeth what had happened is unclear; it may simply be the case that despite his conversion he still sought her approval. Nonetheless, the letter also noted that several Friends were planning to visit Elisabeth in the not too distant future. By 12 July 1677, Barclay had received word that William Penn and his companions had indeed visited Herford. Unlike the first time he had tried to visit, Penn and his companions arrived in Herford to a “gracious reception” in 1677. In his account of their first meeting, Penn noted that Elisabeth had been “impressed with what Penn said…and found herself filled with ‘that power and presence of God, which was among us.’ ”80 The meeting had lasted from 7 in the morning until lunchtime, when the Quakers politely refused Elisabeth’s invitation to dine with her. On the afternoon of the second day, Penn “gave a history of his conversion and of all the persecutions he had endured for his faith” in a lengthy testimonial that, being paused only for supper, was only concluded at 11 pm.81 Both the Sunday meeting that followed and the Quakers’ departure were emotional affairs:

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At last the hour of parting came, and most affectionate was the leave-taking. The Princess wished to unburden her mind, but overpowered by emotion could stammer only, “I cannot speak to you, my heart is full,” at the same time clasping her hands upon her breast. Penn “melted into a deep and calm tenderness, was moved to minister a few words softly to her.” She recovered, and cordially invited him to visit her again upon his return.82

Penn did return to Herford briefly, during which time he met and discussed theology with Achatius Dhona, Descartes’ old friend. Despite his best efforts, however, Penn was unable to convince Elisabeth to become a Quaker. In a letter to Penn, written after he had returned to London, Elisabeth wrote: Your tender care of my eternal well-being does oblige me much, and I will weigh every article of your counsel to allow as much as lies in me, but God’s grace must be assistant. As you say yourself, he accepts nothing that does not come from him. If I had made me bare of all worldly goods, and left undone what he requires most, I mean to do all, for and by his son, I shall be in no better condition than this present. Let me hold him first governing in my heart, learn to do what he requires of me, but I am not able to teach others, being not taught of God myself.83

For his part, Penn does not seem to have been in the slightest bit offended or demoralized by his failure to attract Elisabeth to the Quaker faith. On the contrary, his work, No Cross, No Crown, written while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London (1668–1669) included the following lengthy tract extolling Elisabeth’s virtues: The late princess Elizabeth of the Rhine of right claimeth a memorial in this discourse, her virtue giving greater lustre to her name than her quality, which yet was of the greatest in the German empire. She chose a single life, as freest of care, and best suited to the study and meditation she was always inclined to; and the chief diversion she took, next to the air, was in some such plain and housewifely entertainments as knitting, &c. She had a small territory, which she governed so well, that she showed herself fit for a greater. She would constantly, every last day in the week, sit in judgment, and hear and determine causes herself; where her patience, justice, and mercy were admirable; frequently remitting her forfeitures, where the party was poor, or otherwise meritorious. And what was excellent, though unusual, she would temper her discourses with religion, and strangely draw concerned parties to submission and agreement; exercising not so much the rigour of her power, as the power of her persuasion. Her meekness and humility appeared to me extraordinary; she never considered the quality, but the merit of the people she entertained. Did she hear of a retired man, hid from the world, and seeking after the knowledge of a better, she was sure to set him down in the catalogue of her charity, if he wanted it; I have casually seen, I believe, fifty tokens sealed and superscribed to the several poor



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subjects of her bounty, whose distances would not suffer them to know one another, though they knew her, whom yet some of them had never seen. Thus, though she kept no sumptuous table in her own court, she spread the tables of the poor in their solitary cells; breaking bread to virtuous pilgrims, according to their want, and her ability. Abstemious in herself, and in apparel void of all vain ornaments. I must needs say, her mind had a noble prospect; her eye was to a better and more lasting inheritance than can be found below: which made her often to despise the greatness of courts, and learning of the schools, of which she was an extraordinary judge. Being once at Hamburgh, a religious person, whom she went to see for religion’s sake, telling her it was too great an honour for him, that he should have a visitant of her quality come under his roof, that was allied to so many great kings and princes of this world, she humbly answered: “If they were godly as well as great, it would be an honour indeed; but if you knew what that greatness was as well as I, you would value less that honour.” Being in some agony of spirit, after a religious meeting we had in her own chamber, she said, “It is a hard thing to be faithful to what one knows: Oh, the way is strait! I am afraid I am not weighty enough in my spirit to walk in it.” After another meeting, she uttered these words: “I have records in my library, that the Gospel was first brought out of England hither into Germany, by the English, and now it is come again.” She once withdrew, on purpose to give her servants the liberty of discoursing with us, that they might the more freely put what questions of conscience they desired to be satisfied in; for they were religious: suffering both them, and the poorest of her town, to sit by her in her own bedchamber, where we had two meetings. I cannot forget her last words, when I took my leave of her: “Let me desire you to remember me, though I live at this distance, and that you should never see me more: I thank you for this good time; and know and be assured, though my condition subjects me to divers temptations, yet my soul hath strong desires after the best things.”84

Penn of course went on to establish the Province of Pennsylvania in North America, planned and built much of Philadelphia, and brought Quakerism to his new colony. After a hiatus of almost two years, Barclay wrote Elisabeth one final letter—that we know of—dated 6 May 1679. In it, Barclay explained to Elisabeth why he had drawn on the example of, the by now late, Anne Conway in his earlier correspondence. He had not, he argued, intended that Elisabeth should “imitate” Conway, but suggested that she was a good example of the sort of practice he was advocating. He wrote: “Therefore in judging so thou did mistake, for my design in all that which I have laboured towards thee is no other than that thou may really come to be acquainted with the mind and will of God and truly be found willing to answer it, so as by receiving the life and virtue of Christ in thy soul thou may feel redemption by it and know the justification thereof by passing from death to life.”85 No record of a reply

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from Elisabeth exists. In any case, Barclay went on to become the absentee governor of New Jersey. A PHILOSOPHER TO THE VERY END Elisabeth’s engagement with philosophy and the most prominent philosophers of the time continued throughout her final years. In 1677 Elisabeth entered into correspondence with the French Oratorian priest and philosopher, Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715).86 Drawing on Cartesian foundations, Malebranche sought to demonstrate the place of God in all things, including human cognition, knowledge, and ideas. In doing so, he too grappled with the mind-body problem that had so exercised Descartes and Elisabeth decades earlier. In his Dialogues on Metaphysics he wrote: “I am unable, when I turn to myself, to recognize any of my faculties or my capacities. The inner sensation which I have of myself informs me that I am, that I think, that I will, that I have sensory awareness, that I suffer, and so on; but it provides me with no knowledge whatever of what I am—of the nature of my thought, my sensations, my passions, or my pain—or the mutual relations that obtain between these things…I have no idea whatever of my soul.”87 Malebranche’s solution to the mind-body problem was to suggest a radical, extreme form of dualism in which the mind and body were conceived as completely “distinct substances” that are neither connected, nor act upon one another.88 On the contrary, drawing on Augustine, Malebranche proposed that the mind and body are connected only through divine intervention. That is, he argued that every interaction between the mind and the body requires an action on the part of God, a doctrine known as occasionalism. In The Search After Truth Malebranche argued: God created the world because He willed it…and He moves all things, and thus produces all the effects that we see happening, because He also willed certain laws according to which motion is communicated upon the collision of bodies; and because these laws are efficacious, they act, whereas bodies cannot. There are therefore no forces, powers, or true causes in the material, sensible world.89

That is, Malebranche addressed Elisabeth’s initial critique of Descarte’s metaphysics—in which she asked how the mind, which according to Descartes was unextended, could move an object that was extended, such as the body—by arguing that there simply is no connection between the mind and the body. This was not a mere case of Malebranche coincidentally addressing the same problem but an intentional reply to “the objections of Princess Elisabeth.”90 Indeed, as Tad Schmaltz notes, Malebranche owned



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a copy of the third edition of “Clerselier’s edition of Descartes’ correspondence,” published in 1667, “which included the letters of Elisabeth” and was therefore able to directly engage with her ideas.91 He wrote: “It appears to me quite certain that the will of minds is incapable of moving the smallest body in the world, for it is clear that there is no necessary connection between our will to move our arms, for example, and the movement of our arms.”92 Although she clearly did not agree with Malebranche’s solution to the mind-body problem she was, nonetheless, fascinated by the Frenchman’s work and approved, in particular, of his intention to overcome the criticism of atheism leveled at Cartesian philosophy. After reading The Search After Truth, which first appeared in 1674–1675, Elisabeth was determined to make contact with its author. She did so via her sister, Louise Hollandine who was, by this time, the Abbess of Maubuisson. Thus began a brief correspondence between Elisabeth and Malebranche during 1678 and 1679. Rather than enjoying renewed intellectual engagement with the mind-body problem, however, Elisabeth soon found that Malebranche was less interested in discussing philosophy with her than in converting her to Catholicism. She put him off firmly but politely and stated that “though she agreed with him in essential things and was obliged to him for his concern for her soul, she could not hope to live long enough to examine all the controversies and would continue to hold to what she believed.”93 Conversion attempts aside, however, Elisabeth remained interested in Malebranche’s works and in 1678 gave Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz a copy of Malebranche’s next book, Christian Conversations (1677). Leibniz and Malebranche were already acquainted with one another, having met in Paris in 1675, but Leibniz’s receipt of Malebranche’s work reignited their relationship.94 Leibniz rejected both materialism and Cartesian dualism and argued, instead, that there is only one type of real substance. Contrary to dualism, which posited a distinction between extended and unextended substances—put differently, between material substances and thoughts— Leibniz argued that there is only one type of “real” substance, a “unified” one. That is, Leibniz suggested that the substances that constitute mind and the body are one and the same. Curiously, however, he was still interested in the mind-body problem—in all likelihood because he thought that the mind and the body, though substantially the same, were metaphysically distinct.95 In the end, Leibniz rejected both the Cartesian dualist notion of an interaction between the body and the mind, and Malebranche’s occasionalism. On the latter he wrote: “I do not grant that God alone acts in substances, or alone causes their changes, and I believe that that would be to make the creatures totally futile and useless.”96 Leibniz’s solution was, instead, to posit that the “soul and its organic body are complete and perfect” and thus exist in “mutual conformity or co-ordination” with one another.97

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Whether Elisabeth discussed the mind-body problem with Leibniz is unclear—although given its prominence in the very work she had recommended he read, and the mutual interest in the subject, it would be surprising if they did not. What we do know, however, is that in 1678 Elisabeth went to see her sister Sophie and during her visit met Leibniz in person. What we also know is that they corresponded about Descartes’ ontological proof of the existence of God, which appeared in his Meditations. In basic terms, Descartes’ argument for the existence of God proposed that because imperfect human beings are capable of conceiving of a perfect God, God must exist: that is, it is only from that perfect being that our idea of perfection can be derived. Leibniz was a key critic of this argument, which rested on the assumption of a necessary God. In a letter to Elisabeth in 1678, Leibniz wrote: …there is a presumption that God exists. For there is always presumption on the side of possibility; that is to say, everything is held to be possible until its impossibility is proved. Therefore there is also a presumption that God is possible—that is to say, that he exists, since in him existence is a consequence of possibility. That can suffice for the conduct of life, but it is not enough for a demonstration.98

Leibniz thus did not reject Descartes’ assumption of the existence of a perfect God in theological terms but in philosophical terms: that is, he did not believe that Descartes had proven the existence of God. In his letter to Elisabeth he thus continued to say that “one has done nothing if one does not prove this possibility.”99 Once again, however, although we know that Leibniz posed an alternative account of God’s perfection in this same letter, we do not know what Elisabeth’s response was. What we do know is that their interaction was mutually satisfying, so much so that Leibniz visited Elisabeth as she lay dying in her bed in Herford late in 1679. It is fitting that Elisabeth’s final days were spent in the company of philosophers, family, and friends. Along with Leibniz, van Helmont had also travelled to see the philosopher princess one last time.100 Thus even as Elisabeth lay dying, she remained at the center of her intellectual circle, a revered and respected philosopher to the very end. NOTES 1. Sophia, Memoirs of Sophia, 22. 2. Richard Cavendish, “The Execution of Montrose,” History Today 50 (May 2000), available at http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/execution-montrose 3. Memoirs of Sophia, 23. 4. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 271.



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5. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 273. 6. In Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 273. 7. Carole Oman in Madame Guillotine, “Princess Louise Hollandine of the Palatinate.” 8. Elizabeth Charlotte, Secret Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV, and of the Regency, 390. 9. Sophia, Memoirs of Sophia, 56. 10. Sophia, Memoirs of Sophia, 56. 11. See, “Free Translation of Duke George William’s Renunciation of Marriage” in Memoirs of Sophia, 73–5. 12. It read: “Therefore for a further Provision of the Succession of the Crown in the Protestant Line We Your Majesties most dutifull and Loyall Subjects the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons in this present Parliament assembled do beseech Your Majesty that it may be enacted and declared and be it enacted and declared by the Kings most Excellent Majesty by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the Authority of the same That the most Excellent Princess Sophia Electress and Dutchess Dowager of Hannover Daughter of the most Excellent Princess Elizabeth late Queen of Bohemia Daughter of our late Sovereign Lord King James the First of happy Memory be and is hereby declared to be the next in Succession in the Protestant Line to the Imperiall Crown and Dignity of the forsaid Realms of England France and Ireland with the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging after His Majesty and the Princess Anne of Denmark and in Default of Issue of the said Princess Anne and of His Majesty respectively.” 13. Pal, Republic of Women, 269. 14. Pal, Republic of Women, 270. 15. In Pal, Republic of Women, 270. 16. Popkin, History of Skepticism. 17. Blaze de Bury, Memoirs of the Princess Palatine, 202. 18. In Pal, Republic of Women, 269. 19. Hutton, Anne Conway, 154. 20. Allison Coudert, The Impact of the Kabbalah in the Seventeenth Century: The Life and Thought of Francis Mercury van Helmont (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999), 33, see also p.22 on the timing of van Helmont’s introduction to the family. 21. In Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 290. 22. In Coudert, The Impact of Kabbalah, 33; A copy of the letter, which was written in French, is available in Bodemann, Briefwechsel der Herzogin Sophie von Hannover, 4–5. It reads: “ma soeur Elisabeth se va faire canoniser aussi et me mende, qu’on luy offer l’abei d’Herforde et que, si elle en accepte, qu’elle y veut mener une vie fort retiree et prier, que Dieu luy veuille donner par la main d’Helmond l’argent de l’Empereur qu’elle voudroit bien avoir pour meubler la maison.” 23. A.W. Ward, “Elisabeth, Princess Palatine,” Historical Essays, Volume 3, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1902), 343. 24. Sophie to Charles Louis, June 9/19, 1661 in Pal, Republic of Women, 275. 25. Pal, Republic of Women, 268; Nye, The Princess and the Philosopher, 169.

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26. Nye, The Princess and the Philosopher, 169. 27. In the absence of most of Elisabeth’s own correspondence from this time, this conclusion is drawn from the letters of those with whom she corresponded. 28. Bos, “Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and Descartes’ letters (1650–1665),” 493. 29. In Bos, “Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and Descartes’letters (1650–1665),”  493. 30. Pal, Republic of Women, 270. 31. Philosophical Transactions 1(1655). 32. The letter is published, in the original French and in English translation in Bos. 33. Elisabeth to Haak, 500. 34. Bos, p.499; Pal, Republic of Women, 274. 35. Hutton, Anne Conway, 154. 36. B. J. T. Dobbs, The Foundations of Newton’s Alchemy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 20. 37. Allison Coudert, “A Cambridge Platonist’s Kabbalist Nightmare,” Journal of the History of Ideas 36(1975): 633. 38. Carol Wayne White, The Legacy of Anne Conway (1631–1679): Reverberations from a Mystical Naturalism, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008), 6. 39. Jasper Reid, The Metaphysics of Henry More, (Dordrecht: Springer, 2012), 256. 40. W. R. Ward, Early Evangelicalism: A Global Intellectual History, 1670–1789, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 97. 41. Carolyn Merchant, “The Vitalism of Anne Conway: Its Impact on Leibniz’s Concept of the Monad,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 17(1979): 255–269. 42. Hutton, Anne Conway, 154. 43. Shapiro, The Correspondence between Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes, 183. 44. Shapiro, The Correspondence between Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes, 184. 45. Popkin, The History of Scepticism. 46. Popkin, The History of Scepticism. 47. Bartlett Burleigh James, “The Labadist Colony in Maryland,” Papers of the American Society of Church History 8(1896): 154. 48. Bo Karen Lee, “ ‘I Wish to Be Nothing,’ ” in Sylvia Monica Brown (ed.), Women, Gender, and Radical Religion in Early Modern Europe, (Leiden, E.H. Brill, 2007), 195. 49. Schurman in van Beek, The First Female University Student, 208. 50. van Beek, The First Female University Student, 205 and 207. 51. van Beek, The First Female University Student, 208. 52. Lee, “I Wish to Be Nothing,” 195. 53. van Beek, The First Female University Student, 221. 54. James, “The Labadist Colony in Maryland,” 149. 55. Joyce Irwin, “Anna Maria van Schurman and Antoinette Bourignon: Contrasting Examples of Seventeenth-Century Pietism,” Church History 60(1991): 303. 56. James, “The Labadist Colony in Maryland,” 152. 57. James, “The Labadist Colony in Maryland,” 151. 58. van Schurman in Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 308.



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59. van Beek, The First Female University Student, 231. 60. van Beek, The First Female University Student, 231. 61. In Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 312. 62. Elisabeth to the Elector of Brandenburg in Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 312. 63. van Beek, The First Female University Student, 231. 64. Sophie to Charles Louis, 19 March, 1671 in Pal, 275 and 276. 65. de Bury, Memoirs of the Princess Palatine of Bohemia, 364. 66. de Bury, Memoirs of the Princess Palatine of Bohemia, 364; most accounts of Labadie’s behavior seem to be drawn from Sophie’s letter to Charles Louis dated November 5, 1670, in Bodeman, Briefwechsel, 153. 67. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 320; Pal makes a similar argument that is also based on Sophie’s letter to Charles Louis of November 5, 1670. Pal, Republic of Women, 261. 68. Oswald Seidensticker, “William Penn’s Travels in Holland and Germany in 1677,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 2(1878): 257. 69. Pink Dandelion and Stephen W. Angell, “Introduction” to Stephen W. Angell and Pink Dandelion (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Quaker Studies, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 1. 70. Dandelion and Angell, “Introduction,” 1. 71. Michael P. Graves, “Ministry and Preaching” in Stephen W. Angell and Pink Dandelion (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Quaker Studies, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 277. 72. Robert Barclay to Elisabeth, 24 April 1676, London, in Shapiro, The Correspondence between Elisabeth of Bohemia and Rene Descartes, 188. 73. Robert Barclay to Elisabeth, 24 April 1676, London, in Shapiro, The Correspondence between Elisabeth of Bohemia and Rene Descartes, 188. 74. Robert Barclay to Elisabeth, 24 April 1676, 186 and 187. 75. Robert Barclay to Elisabeth, 24 April 1676, 187. 76. Elisabeth to Barclay, 21/31 July 1676, 188. 77. Elisabeth to Barclay, 1/11 December 1676, 192. 78. Elisabeth to Barclay, 1/11 March 1677, 204. 79. Barclay to Elisabeth, 15 June 1677, London, 202. 80. Penn in Pal, Republic of Women, 277. 81. Godfrey, A Sister of Prince Rupert, 328. 82. Seidensticker, “William Penn’s Travels,” 259. 83. Elisabeth to Penn, 19 October 1677, 216. 84. William Penn, No Cross, No Crown: A Discourse Shewing the Nature and Discipline of the Holy Cross of Christ, to which are added The Living and Dying Testimonies of Many Persons of Fame and Learning, both of Ancient and Modern Times, in Favour of this Treatise, New Revised Edition, (London: Harvey and Darton, 1842), XXXII, available at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44895/44895-h/44895-h. htm 85. Barclay to Elisabeth, 6 May 1679, 210.

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86. Tad M. Schmaltz, “Descartes and Malebranche on Mind and Mind-Body Union,” The Philosophical Review, Vol.101, No.2, (1992), 311; See also Nicolas Malebranche, Oeuvres Completes de Malebranche, ed. André Robinet, (Paris: J. Vrin, 1958–1967), Volume XVIII, 130–133. 87. Nicolas Malebranche, Dialogues on Metaphysics, ed. John Cottingham, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 155–156. 88. Elmar J. Kremer, “Malebranche on Human Freedom,” in Steven Nadler (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 190. 89. Nicolas Malebranche, The Search After Truth, Book Six, Part Two, Chapter Three. 90. Andrew Pyle, Malebranche, (London: Routledge, 2003), 105, n.15. 91. Schmaltz, “Descartes and Malebranche,” 311. 92. Malebranche, The Search After Truth, Book Six, Part Two, Chapter Three. 93. In Beatrice H. Zedler, “The Three Princesses,” Hypatia 4(1989): 42–3; Malebranche, Oeuvres, 18, 130–133; Other evidence of Elisabeth’s interaction with Malebranche is found in mentions of the fact in his correspondence with Leibniz. Oeuvres 18, 142–143. 94. Leibniz to Malebranche, 13/23 January 1679, Hanover, in Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, Leroy E. Loemker (ed.), (Dordrecht: Springer, 1989), 209. 95. Mark Kulstad and Laurence Carlin, “Leibniz’s Philosophy of Mind,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Winter 2013), ed. Edward N. Zalta, http:// plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/leibniz-mind/ 96. In Robert Merrihew Adams, Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Deist, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 95. 97. Adams, Leibniz, 295. 98. In Adams, Leibniz, 193. 99. In Adams, Leibniz, 198. 100. Shapiro, “Editor’s Introduction,” 16.

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Index

Agnes of the Palatinate, 23 Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius, 60 Alanen, Lilli, 4–5 Angry Star, 17, 19, 35 Anne of Denmark, 2, 27 Apollonius’ problem, 9–10, 77–78, 157, 169–170 Aquinas, Thomas, 18 Aristotelian thought, 17–18, 54–55, 70, 105, 111 Arnauld, Antoine, 69 Augustine of Hippo, 94 Bacon, Francis, 56 Barclay, Robert, 172, 176–179, 181–182 Battle of White Mountain, 33–34, 67–68 Beekman, Isaac, 67, 69 Benger, Elizabeth, 11–12, 42–43, 48 Blomius (Blum, Blume), Reinhold, 155 Bohemian revolt. 30–31 Bos, Henk, 78 Bourdin, Pierre, 69 Boyle, Robert, 58–59, 170, 171–172 Brahe, Tycho, 19, 68 Broad, Jacqueline, 7 Burton, Robert, 95

Calvin, John, 21–22 Calvinism, 21–22, 42, 147 Cartesian thought: ban on, 75; Elisabeth’s critique of, 4; spread of, 137–138, 156, 167–168. Caterus, Johannes, 69 Catholic League, 26 causation, 74–75 Chanut, Pierre, 151–152 Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine, 9–10, 41, 47–48, 56, 87, 128, 148, 149– 150, 152, 158–159, 175–176 Charles I, King of England, 2–3, 9–10, 46–47, 87, 98, 127, 148–149 Charles II, King of England, 165, 168 Charles IV, Emperor, 23 Charles V, Emperor, 23–24, 26 Charlotte de Bourbon-Monpensier, 2 Charlotte Elizabeth of Hesse–Cassel, 149–150, 158–159 Charron, Pierre, 94 Christina, Queen of Sweden, 9–10, 127, 144–145, 145–146, 149, 150–151 Chuno, David, 155 Cicero, 93–94 Clauberg, Johannes, 137–138 Coeffeteau, Nicolas, 95–96 Cohen, Gustav, 5

203

204 Index

Comenius, Jan, 56 comets, 17–20, 35–36, 50 contentment, 110–111, 113 Conway, Anne, 10, 57, 170–172, 178, 181–182 Copernicus, Nicholas, 18–19, 71 court life, 3, 42, 54 Craven, Lord William, 11–12, 48, 179 Curtius, 60 De Bury, Rose Blaze, 11–12 De Gournay, Marie de, 58 Descartes, René: and Queen Christina of Sweden, 145–146, 149, 150–151; correspondence with Elisabeth, 3; death of, 9–10, 65, 151; Description of the Human Body, 146; Discourse on Method, 67, 69, 110– 111, 134; dispute with Voetius, 51, 60, 75–77; dualist philosophy of, 4; Geometry, 69; life of, 66–69; Meditations on First Philosophy, 65, 69, 70, 73, 145, 146, 184; meeting with Elisabeth, 65; on the emotions, 91; on the passions, 112–121; Principles of Philosophy, 3, 86, 98; proof of the existence of God, 75, 77, 182, 184; The Passions of the Soul, 9, 114, 117–120. Digby, Kenelm, 98 Dijksterhuis, Eduard Jan, 71 diseases of the soul, 85–86, 94 Donne, John, 28 Dorothea of Denmark, 24 Drury, John, 54, 56, 58, 169 Du Moulin, Marie, 57–58 dualism:

Cartesian, 71, 183; Elisabeth’s critique of, 72–75, 100–101. Dutch revolt, 22 education of Elisabeth: advice from Anna Maria van Schurmann, 59–60; in Berlin, 32, 41; mathematics, 53; subjects, 42–43. Edward, Count Palatine of Simmern, 41–42, 89–90 Elector Palatine, 2, 127–128, 148 Elisabeth Albertine of Anhalt-Desseau, 1–2 Elizabeth Charlotte, Electress Dowager of Brandenburg, 125 Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia (Elizabeth Stuart), 2, 26–29, 44, 87–88, 121 Elzevier, Louis, 69 embodied mind, Elisabeth’s concept of, 8, 100–101, 111, 112, 119 emotions, 91–97, 99, 105, 113–114, 115, 117–119 English civil war, 2–3 Epicurean thought, 91, 93–94, 109 Epicurus, 93, 107, 109–110, 111 Ernest Augustus, Elector of BrunswickLuneburg, 166–167 Fabricius, Johann, 155–156 Faulhaber, Joann, 68–69 feminist interpretations, 6–20 Ferdinand II, Emperor, 30–31, 33–34, 45–46, 67–68 Ferdinand, Emperor, 21 Frederick Henry, Prince Palatine, 2–3, 32, 45, 65–66 Frederick II, Elector Palatine, 23–24 Frederick III, Elector Palatine, 24–25 Frederick IV, Elector Palatine, 2, 25–26

Index

Frederick V, Elector Palatine, King of Bohemia, 2, 26, 27–34, 44–46, 67–68 Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, 125, 143, 165 Freinsheim, Johannes, 155 Galen, 72, 91, 92 Galenist thought, 94–96 Galileo Galilei, 18–19, 71, 98 Garber, Daniel, 4–5 Gassendi, Pierre, 67, 69, 74, 94, 146 George William, Elector of Brandenburg, 34, 45–46, 143 Godfrey, Elizabeth, 5, 11–12, 44, 158–159 Golden Bull, 2, 23 Gonzaga, Anna, 89 Gustavus Adolphus, 45–46, 56, 144 Haak, Theodore, 56, 170 Hapsburgs, 21, 22, 29, 148 Hartlib Circle, 54, 56, 58, 167 Hartlib, Samuel, 54, 58, 157, 169 Harvey, William, 72, 171–172 Hay, Marie, 44 Heidelberg Castle, 9–10, 28–29, 150 Heidelberg Catechism, 25, 42 Henriette Marie of the Palatinate, 9–10, 41–42, 143, 152–153 Henry, Prince of Wales, 27–28 Herford Abbey, 1, 10, 165–166, 168–169 Hippocrates, 91, 92 Hobbes, Thomas, 69, 74, 98, 100–101, 146 Holy Roman Emperor, 2, 21, 23–24, 29 Honthorst, Gerard, 42–43, 57–58 Hortensius, 69 Hottinger, Johann Heinrich, 155, 157 Hume, David, 4, 74, 114 Hutcheson, Francis, 114

205

Huygens, Christiaan, 53, 69 Huygens, Constantijn, 69 illnesses of Elisabeth, 8, 65, 85, 87, 97–98, 99, 136, 137, 138, 143, 146, 148–149 intellectual circles, 54–57 intellectual networks, 53 Israel, Jakob, 155 James VI and I, King of Scotland and England, 2, 20, 26–27, 31 John Casimir of the Palatinate, 25 John II, Count of Zweibrucken, 26 Jungius, Joachim, 156 Kabbalah, 10, 170–171 Kepler, Johannes. 19, 68 Knesebeck, Thomas, 137–138 Labadie, Jean de, 172–174 Labidists, 7–8, 10, 172 Ladislas, King of Poland, 49 learned maidens, 3, 4–5, 50 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von, 10, 77, 171–172, 183–184 letters, 6–20, 10–11, 65–66, 75, 136, 151–152, 156, 170 Lippershey, Hans, 19 Lipsius, Justus, 60, 94, 105–106 Lord’s Supper, theological dispute over, 24–25 Louis V, Elector Palatine, 23–24 Louis VI, Elector Palatine, 25 Louise Hollandine, Abbess of Maubuisson, 1–2, 9, 41–42, 42–43, 121, 125, 165–166, 183 Louise Juliana of Orange-Nassau, 2, 32, 41 Luther, Martin, 21 Lutheranism, 24–25

206 Index

Machiavelli: denunciation of, 131–133; life of, 128–130; The Discourses, 131; The Prince, 9, 126, 130–131, 133– 136, 136–137. Makin, Bathsua, 50, 58–59 Malebranche, Nicolas, 3, 10, 77, 182–183 Maria Eleanora, Queen Mother of Sweden, 143–145 Marie of Brandenburg-Kulmbach, 24–25 marriage proposal, 48–49 mathematics, 10, 77–78, 152, 157 Matthias, Emperor, 30 Maurice of Nassau, 22, 67 Maurice, Count Palatine of the Rhine, 34 Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, 26, 33– 34, 35, 45–46, 67–68 mechanical philosophy, 71, 72, 98 melancholy, 65–66, 92, 94–95, 100 Melanchthon, Philip, 24–25 Mersenne, Marin, 66, 68, 69, 76, 98 mind-body problem, 4–5, 8, 69–75, 85, 87, 93, 97–101, 115–116, 182 Montaigne, Michel de, 94 Moore, Dorothy, 58 More, Henry, 167, 170–171, 172 neo-Stoicism, 60, 105–106, 113 New Science, 17–20, 59 Nye, Andrea, 5–6 Olevianus, Caspar, 24–25 Otto Henry, Elector Palatine, 24–25 Otto II of Bavaria, 23 Pal, Carol, 5–6

Palatinate, the, 2–3, 9, 23–26, 44–48, 65–66, 87–88, 127, 144–145, 148, 150. passions, 87, 91, 94–95, 97, 109, 112–121 Peace of Augsburg, 22–23, 127, 147 Peace of Passau, 22–23 Peace of Prague, 143 Peace of Westphalia, 9–10, 126–128, 145–149, 168 Pell, John, 59, 78, 157, 170 Penn, William, 10, 172, 176–177, 179–181 Perry, Ruth, 7 Philip II, King of Spain, 21, 22 Philip of the Palatinate, 9–10, 41–42, 90, 121, 153 Plutarch, 60 Pollot, Alphonse, 65, 77, 87, 90 Protestant faith, of Elisabeth, 49, 165–166 Protestant Union, 25–26, 31 Pufendorf, Samuel, 155 Quakers, 7–8, 172, 176–182 Racoczy, Sigismund, 152 Rahn, Johann Heinrich, 157–158 Ranelagh, Lady Katherine Jones, 58–59 reason and the passions, 112–115 Reformation, 21–26 Regius, Henricus, 75, 138–139, 145 Reynolds, Edward, 95–97, 99 Rivet, Andre, 57–58, 59 Roe, Thomas, 87–88 romance, 5, 11–12 Rudolph II, Emperor, 30 Rupert, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland, 32, 34, 47–48, 87–88, 90, 158–159 Ruprecht I, Elector Palatine, 154–155

Index

sadness, 85–86, 87, 90–91, 99 Schmalkadic League, 23–24 Schook, Martin, 76–77 Scipione Ammirato, 60 Seneca: life of, 107–108; on Epicurean thought, 109; on happiness, 9; on reason, 106–107; On the Happy Life, 101, 105, 106– 110, 146; stoicism of, 108. Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of, 114 Shakespeare, 28, 131–132, 132–133, 154 Shapiro, Lisa, 10–11, 100–101, 172 Sigismund, John, 137–138 Sophie, Electress of Hanover, 11, 41– 42, 44, 46, 145, 152, 166–167 Sorbière, Samuel, 42–43 Spinoza, Benedict de, 4, 97, 155–156 Stampieon, Jan Jansz de Jong, 53, 77 Steno, Nicolaus, 72 stoicism, 91, 93–94, 105–107, 113 Suetonius, 60 Tacitus, 60 Telescopes, 17–18, 19 Thirty Years War, 2–3, 20–21, 30, 35, 45–46, 127, 144–145, 147 Tossanus, Daniel, 155 Treaty of Pavia, 23 University of Duisberg, 137–138

207

University of Groningen, 76–77 University of Heidelberg, 7–8, 24–25, 154–157 University of Leiden, 57 University of Utrecht, 51, 75 Ursinus, Zacharias, 24–25 Van Helmont, Francis Mercury, 57, 168, 170–171, 179, 184 Van Schurman, Anna Maria, 4–5, 7–8, 10, 50–53, 57, 59–60, 69, 172–175 Vanini, Lucilio, 54, 76 virtue, 9, 52–53, 86, 94, 109–110, 110– 111, 113–114 Voetius, Gisbertus, 51, 58, 75–77, 173 Von Degenfeld, Marie Louise, 158–159 Von Leuneschlos, Johann, 155 Welf, house of, 23 Wilkins, John, 56 William II, Prince of Orange, 53 William the Silent, 2 William, Prince of Orange, 22 Wittelsbach, House of, 23, 26, 127–128 Wolfgang William, Count Palatine of Neuberg, 26 women: and virtue, 55; as scholars, 50–51; education of, 3, 42–43, 57; intellectual networks of, 53–54. Worthington, John, 169 Wright, Thomas, 94–95 Xenophon, 60

About the Author

Renée Jeffery is professor of international relations at Griffith University, Australia. She is the author of Hugo Grotius in International Thought (2006), Evil and International Relations: Human Suffering in an Age of Terror (2008), Amnesties, Accountability and Human Rights (2014), and Reason and Emotion in International Ethics (2014). She is the editor of Confronting Evil in International Relations: Ethical Responses to Problems of Moral Agency (2008) and Transitional Justice in Practice: Conflict, Justice and Reconciliation in the Solomon Islands (2017), co-editor, with Hun Joon Kim of Transitional Justice in the Asia-Pacific (2014), and the editor of the Australian Journal of Political Science.

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