Abstract

This chapter is a note on the education of Elisabeth, Princess Palatine, and as such presents what information there is regarding the instructors, curriculum and atmosphere she would have experienced at the so-called Prinsenhof, the school-cum-court of the Palatine princes and princesses that was located in Leiden, a mere three-hour journey from their parents and the court-in-exile in The Hague. While the limited sources allow only for mere glimpses of the education Elisabeth received, they do reveal new information, such as the texts she is likely to have read between the ages of ten and fourteen and the discovery that her first engagement with philosophy was most likely with either François du Ban or Daniel Berckringer rather than René Descartes. It also underlines the importance of her mother, Elizabeth StuartElizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, sometime Queen of Bohemia, in determining how Elisabeth would experience and benefit from this education, as her children enjoyed privileges that she was denied as a child, not least the companionship of siblings and a relatively ungendered education, particularly when it came to learning the classical languages.