Summary

It is the 1630. The war is dragging on and on. Friedrich V, the deposed king of Bohemia, is nearing his twentieth year in exile in the Netherlands. He awaits with his wife, Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of King James of England, for the unlikely chance to reclaim the throne. Living in relative poverty in the distant city of The Hague along the North Sea far from Prague, Friedrich is only beginning to understand how his clumsy mishandling of the opportunity to be the king of Bohemia led to the decades of war that have ravaged central Europe. He had held the throne barely a month, hence his derisive nickname, The Winter King. Elizabeth in exile recalls with especial longing the court life she left behind in England to marry Friedrich, the pageantry, the elegance, the sophistication, the culture. She particularly misses the...