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The first section will contest the two prevailing scholarly explanations for Charles Louis’s adherence to parliament during the Civil War, and demonstrate that he was neither motivated by an ambition for the English throne, nor that he had a long-standing friendship with leading parliamentarians or an affinity with their cause which made his actions in the summer of 1644 inevitable. Charles Louis hoped above all for a reconciliation between Charles I and the parliament, and attempted to maintain a neutral façade for as long as possible in order to benefit from the king’s diplomatic influence and the financial resources controlled by his enemies.
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It will be shown that the elector’s central objectives were always the survival of the exiled Palatine dynasty, and obtaining vital military, financial, and diplomatic assistance to facilitate the recovery of his ancestral lands and titles in Germany. This article will provide the first detailed examination of Charles Louis’s motives and actions between 16 by situating his conduct within the broader context of developments in both the continental and British wars. 5 Although the parliamentarian news press declared that “his stay is like to be little,” Charles Louis remained in England for almost five years, returning to his ruined capital of Heidelberg only after the Peace of Westphalia restored him to part of his ancestral lands. 4 Scarcely two weeks after his arrival in the capital, Charles Louis presented the House of Lords with the Motives and reasons, concerning his Highnesse the Prince Elector Palatines coming into England, a document in which he professed his support for the parliament and the Scots Covenanters, and argued a long-standing affinity between their cause and that of his exiled dynasty. 3 This caveat was ultimately removed from the formal welcome presented to Charles Louis on August 31, however contemporaries noted the “strange welcome” afforded by parliament to the young prince, and The kingdoms weekly intelligencer insisted that he had not been invited by the king’s enemies. The king wrote to his nephew on September 15 demanding to know “upon what invitation you are come” and “the desire of your coming,” and both Houses of Parliament initially appeared intent on limiting the young elector’s stay in England to two weeks. The consternation caused by Charles Louis’s arrival was shared by royalists and parliamentarians alike. 1 Clarendon later wrote that the return of the young prince in England in the midst of the Civil War two years later was “no less the discourse of all tongues” than the death of John Pym the previous December, and another observer claimed that “the Prince Elector is going from hence to London, I imagine for no good.” 2 Between October 1635 and August 1642, Charles Louis spent over two and a half years in his uncle’s kingdom, in which he attempted to procure military, financial, and diplomatic support for his restoration, and witnessed the final breakdown in the king’s relations with parliament before absconding from the royalist camp in August 1642 and returning to his family’s court-in-exile. Charles Louis had first journeyed to England in October 1635, shortly before attaining his majority and becoming head of the dispossessed Palatine electoral dynasty which had been driven into exile in The Hague during the opening stages of the Thirty Years’ War. On August 29, 1644, Charles Louis, the eldest nephew of Charles I and brother of the royalist commanders Princes Rupert and Maurice, landed at Gravesend amidst considerable contemporary interest and suspicion.