Princess Elizabeth of the Palatinate - Part 1

The most intellectual princess the Reformed church ever possessed was Princess Elizabeth of the Palatinate. She was the brightest light of the Palatinate house after the days of Elector Frederick III., who ordered the composition of our catechism. She was a pupil of Descartes and the correspondent of Leibnitz, the celebrated philosophers, and on intimate terms with other learned men of her day. She combined with her native ability the broad principles of the house of Brandenburg (in which her abbey was located), namely of religious toleration; for her home became the asylum of all refugees. And yet to all her learning she added piety, which beautified and sanctified it. She was the disciple of both the philosophy of Descartes and of the religious faith of the Pietists.

She was the eldest daughter of Elector Frederick V. and Princess Elizabeth of the Palatinate, and was born on December 26, 1618, at Heidelberg. Elizabeth suffered the sad fate of her father's family. When her father left Heidelberg to go to Bohemia to take the throne, she was left behind in the care of her grandmother, Electress Juliana. And when the coming of the Spaniards compelled her grandmother to leave the Palatinate and flee, she was taken along with her to Konigsberg, where she found an asylum. She remained with Juliana until she was nearly ten years old. It was the sublime faith and religious earnestness of her grandmother that early helped to lay the foundations for the serious thoughtfulness of Elizabeth. Then she was sent to the Hague in Holland, where her father's family were living quietly in exile in the little village of Rheten. And yet her sad reverses continued. Her dearest brother, next older than herself, and her playmate, was drowned. Then came her father's death, and with that her hope of worldly position faded away. And her mother seems to have failed to recognize her ability for a long while, so that there was a coldness toward her.

But she bore all these things philosophically, and her adversities turned out to be blessings in disguise. For her family, when driven to Holland, had settled in one of the most learned lands of Europe. Holland was at that time the home of painters, poets, and thinkers. She was the classic land of the Reformed theology of the seventeenth century. To this land of learning there came one of the greatest thinkers of modern times, Rene Descartes, who was ultimately to revolutionize men's methods of thought. Elizabeth had already made great progress in her studies before she met Descartes. She made no pretension to beauty, but had an expressive eye and a pleasing countenance. She had developed so quickly and brightly, that Ladislaus, the king of Poland, had sought her hand when she was only fifteen years of age. But the suit came to naught, because she refused to barter away her Reformed faith and go over to the Romanists.