Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine

Princess Palatine Elisabeth Charlotte was a German princess and, as Madame, the wife of Philippe I, Duke of Orlans, younger brother of Louis XIV of France, and mother of Frances ruler during the Regency. Louis invoked her hereditary claim to the Palatinate as pretext to launch the Nine Years War in 1688. Her vast, frank correspondence provides a detailed account of the personalities and activities at the court of her brotherinlaw, Louis XIV for half a century, from the date of her marriage in 1672.

Princess Elisabeth Charlotte was born onMay 1652 in Heidelberg Castle, to Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine of the Simmern branch of the House of Wittelsbach, and Landgravine Charlotte of HesseKassel. Her grandmother Elizabeth of Bohemia was a Scottish and later English princess, daughter of James I of England and granddaughter of Mary, Queen of Scots. Her first cousin became George I, the first Hanover King of England. In childhood she became known as Liselottea portmanteau of her names. Her parents were in an unhappy dynastic marriage and in 1653 her father began an affair with Marie Luise von Degenfeld, one of his wifes attendants. He purported to marry her motu proprio as a princeelector of the Empire, without benefit of a judicial divorce, and claimed to have done so to legitimise the bastard children. Liselotte was five years old when she was sent to live with her fathers sister, Sophia, wife of Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover.

Source: Wikipedia