The daughter of James I, Elizabeth Stuart married Frederick V, Elector Palatine, in 1613 and took up residence at Heidelberg Castle, where a magnificent garden was created for her. In 1619 Frederick was offered the throne of Bohemia, where the couple reigned until their defeat at the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620. The brevity of their reign earned them the nicknames 'Winter King' and 'Winter Queen'. The couple spent their remaining years in exile in the Dutch Republic, though Queen Elizabeth returned to England for the last year of her life. The Hanoverian claim to the throne (and that of all subsequent British monarchs) derives from the Act of Settlement of 1701, which named the Electress Sophia of Hanover (1630-1714), Elizabeth of Bohemia's youngest daughter, as the most direct Protestant heir to the throne.

An inferior copy with some variations of a portrait once attributed to Honthorst (CW 76, 405801), probably executed by an English artist during the seventeenth century, when the sitter’s fame was at its height.