Frederick V (German: Friedrich V.; 26 August 1596 – 29 November 1632)[1][2] 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).

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.

However, James opposed his son-in-law's takeover of Bohemia from the Habsburgs and Frederick's allies in the Protestant Union failed to support him militarily by signing the Treaty of Ulm.

His daughter Princess Sophia was eventually named heiress presumptive to the British throne, and is the founder of the Hanoverian line of kings.

His father, Frederick IV, was the ruler of Electoral Palatinate; his mother was Louise Juliana of Nassau, the daughter of William I of Orange and Charlotte de Bourbon-Monpensier.

[3] Frederick was related to almost all of the ruling families of the Holy Roman Empire and a number of diplomats and dignitaries attended his baptism at Amberg on 6 October 1596.

The event was celebrated in John Donne's poetic masterpiece Epithalamion, or Mariage Song on the Lady Elizabeth, and Count Palatine being married on St. Valentines Day.

On their return trip to Heidelberg, Frederick and Elizabeth travelled to The Hague to visit Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange before leaving for Germany on 5 May 1613.

Unlike many principalities of the Holy Roman Empire, the Electoral Palatinate was not a solid dominion, but instead consisted of two unconnected provinces surrounded by foreign lands.

Strategists in the Palatinate believed that if Frederick became king, this would lead John George I, Elector of Saxony, to break his alliance with the Habsburgs and come fully to the Protestant cause.

On 23 May 1618, an assembly of Protestant noblemen, led by Count Jindřich Matyáš Thurn, stormed Prague Castle, and seized two Imperial governors, Vilem Slavata of Chlum and Jaroslav Borzita of Martinice.

The rebels charged them with violating the Letter of Majesty, found them guilty, and threw them and their scribe Philip Fabricius out of the windows of the Bohemian Chancellery.

Frederick did not publicly break with the Emperor, but in a letter to his father-in-law, James I of England, he placed the blame for the Bohemian vote on the Jesuits and the Spanish party at the Habsburg court.

The princes of the Protestant Union similarly rejected the idea, fearing it might lead to religious war and the Elector of Saxony was staunchly opposed.

In August 1619, the chances of Frederick becoming King of Bohemia became greater when Gabriel Bethlen launched an anti-Habsburg revolt in Royal Hungary.

Later Catholic propaganda, in a view accepted by Friedrich Schiller, portrayed the decision as based mainly on Elizabeth Stuart's desire to be a queen.

There also seems to have been economic considerations; the Upper Palatinate was at that time Europe's center for iron production, while Bohemia was a focal point for the tin and glass trade.

The coronation was conducted not by the Archbishop of Prague but by the Utraquist administrator of the diocese, Jiřík Dicastus, and a Protestant elder, Jan Cyril Špalek z Třebíče.

The state's finances had been disrupted for years, and, at any rate, Bohemian kings had only very limited ability to raise funds, being primarily dependent on the goodwill of the nobility and the tax allocations of the diets.

The nickname "The Winter King" appeared shortly after the beginning of Frederick's reign and our first printed reference using the term came in a 1619 Imperial pamphlet that presented the phrase in the context of a royal chronogram.

This meeting, which included John George of Saxony and Maximilian of Bavaria, rejected Frederick's argument, finding that Bohemia was an indivisible part of the Empire.

To raise money for the Bohemian forces, Frederick used his private funds, pawned his jewels and, in May 1620, drove the Palatinate into insolvency when he decided to move two tons of gold to Bohemia.

With the signing of the Treaty of Ulm Ambrogio Spinola, 1st Marquis of the Balbases, began raising Imperial troops in the Spanish Netherlands and in the Alsace region.

Afterwards, the heads of twelve nobles, along with the hand of Joachim Andreas von Schlick, were nailed to the Old Town Tower of Charles Bridge, where they remained for ten years.

However, Ernst von Mansfeld continued to occupy a portion of the Upper Palatinate and had successfully resisted efforts by Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly to dislodge him.

Frederick was very stingy in funding his administration, and yet, in order to maintain the dignity of a royal court, he spent vast sums on building and entertainment, quickly blowing through donations from the English and Dutch governments.

He was traveling to Amsterdam to view the Spanish treasure fleet captured by the Dutch West India Company when his boat capsized while crossing the Haarlemmermeer, a body of water near Haarlem.

He married Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of James VI of Scotland and I of England and of Anne of Denmark in the Chapel Royal, Whitehall on 14 February 1613 and had the following children: