Divided Loyalties: The Elector Palatine and Charles I, 1638–1649

Abstract

In August 1644, the eldest nephew of Charles I landed in England and publicly declared his support for parliament. Charles Louis, the exiled Elector of the Palatinate, has been accused by successive generations of scholars of either harboring ambitions for his uncle’s throne, or having a long-standing friendship with leading parliamentarians which made his eventual allegiance an inevitability. However, such interpretations ignore the influence of short-term developments in the British Isles and on the continent on the actions of this impoverished and exiled prince, who was dependent on English financial and diplomatic support and faced the very real risk of being permanently excluded from his ancestral lands and titles. This article therefore provides a valuable insight into how political and financial necessities could clash with the perceived obligations of dynastic loyalty between ruling elites in early modern Europe.