The dazzling new biography of one of history's most misunderstood queens Elizabeth Stuart is one the most misrepresented - and underestimated - figures of the seventeenth century. Labelled a spendthrift more interested in the theatre and her pet monkeys than politics or her children, and long pitied as 'The Winter Queen', the direct ancestor of Elizabeth II was widely misunderstood. Nadine Akkerman's biography reveals an altogether different woman, painting a vivid picture of a queen forged in the white heat of European conflict. Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James VI and I, was married to Frederick V, Elector Palatine in 1613. The couple were crowned King and Queen of Bohemia in 1619, only to be deposed and exiled to the Dutch Republic in 1620. Elizabeth then found herself at the epicentre of the Thirty Years' War and the Civil Wars, political and military struggles that defined seventeenth-century Europe. Following her husband's death in 1632, Elizabeth fostered a cult of widowhood, dressing herself and her apartments in black, and conducted a long and fierce political campaign to regain her children's birthright - by force, if possible - wielding her pen with the same deft precision with which she once speared boars from horseback. Through deep immersion in the archives and masterful detective work, Akkerman overturns the received view of Elizabeth Stuart, showing her to be a patron of the arts and canny stateswoman with a sharp wit and a long memory. On returning to England in 1661, Elizabeth Stuart found a country whose people still considered her their 'Queen of Hearts'. Akkerman's biography reveals the impact Elizabeth Stuart had on both England and Europe, demonstrating that she was more than just the grandmother of George I.

It would be easy for the modern reader to conclude that women had no place in the world of early modern espionage, with a few seventeenth-century women spies identified and then relegated to the footnotes of history. If even the espionage carried out by Susan Hyde, sister of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, during the turbulent decades of civil strife in Britain can escape the historiographer's gaze, then how many more like her lurk in the archives? Nadine Akkerman's search for an answer to this question has led to the writing of Invisible Agents, the very first study to analyse the role of early modern women spies, demonstrating that the allegedly-male world of the spy was more than merely infiltrated by women. This compelling and ground-breaking contribution to the history of espionage details a series of case studies in which women — from playwright to postmistress, from lady-in-waiting to laundry woman — acted as spies, sourcing and passing on confidential information on account of political and religious convictions or to obtain money or power. The struggle of the She-Intelligencers to construct credibility in their own time is mirrored in their invisibility in modern historiography. Akkerman has immersed herself in archives, libraries, and private collections, transcribing hundreds of letters, breaking cipher codes and their keys, studying invisible inks, and interpreting riddles, acting as a modern-day Spymistress to unearth plots and conspiracies that have long remained hidden by history.

The Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart is the first complete edition of the letters of Elizabeth Stuart (1596-1662), Electress Palatine of the Rhine and Queen of Bohemia, daughter of King James I of England and Anna of Denmark. Volume I covers Elizabeth's life as princess and consort in the years between 1603 and 1631. It includes letters exchanged with her brother, Henry Frederick, the courtship letters of Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and Elizabeth's experiences of both marital and court life in Heidelberg, especially her struggle with Germanic culture and her arguments with both her husband and mother-in-law over rights of precedence. From 1619 her letters become increasingly political as she begs her father, the Duke of Buckingham, and others for assistance in the desperate struggle for the Crown of Bohemia. Deposed in 1620, Elizabeth spends her time in exile devising ploys to gain further financial, moral, and military support from statesmen and military leaders such as Sir Dudley Carleton, the 'Mad Halberstadter' Christian of Brunswick, Count Ernest of Mansfeld, King Christian IV of Denmark, and Bethlen Gabor, Prince of Transylvania, behaviour increasingly in defiance of her father's wishes and demands. Elizabeth's letters evidence her slow transformation from political ingenue to independent stateswoman, a position cemented as her husband fell victim to the war they had precipitated. The diplomatic writing skills she developed in this period were to become her only weapon for securing both the inheritance of her many children and her own position as a key religious, political, and cultural figure in early-modern Europe.