Frederick V of the Palatinate

Uncommon card · No. 81527

Frederick V (German: Friedrich V.; 26 August 1596 – 29 November 1632) was the Elector Palatine of the Rhine in the Holy Roman Empire from 1610 to 1623, and reigned as King of Bohemia from 1619 to 1620. He was forced to abdicate both roles, and the brevity of his reign in Bohemia earned him the derisive sobriquet "the Winter King" (Czech: Zimní král; German: Winterkönig). Frederick was born in Deinschwang, Palatinate at the hunting lodge (Jagdschloss), Germany. He was the son of Frederick IV and of Louise Juliana of Orange-Nassau, the daughter of William the Silent and Charlotte de Bourbon-Montpensier. An intellectual, a mystic, and a Calvinist, he succeeded his father as Prince-Elector of the Rhenish Palatinate in 1610, and at the age of 17 was married to the Protestant princess Elizabeth Stuart. In 1618, the largely Protestant Czech nobility of Bohemia rebelled against their Catholic king, Ferdinand II, beginning a conflict that would become the Thirty Years' War. Frederick was asked to...

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