Nor were her poverty and the callous indifference of of her favourite son her only troubles. Her third daughter, the fair Henriette, had died, after a three months' marriage with the Prince of Transylvania, and the eldest and youngest having departed to Heidelberg, she was left alone with the artist, Louise. Next to the Elector, Louise had been her mother's favourite child, and great was the shock to Elizabeth when this last remaining daughter suddenly professed herself a Roman Catholic, and fled secretly to France. For several days no one knew what had become of her; and the mother, sufficiently distracted by her daughter's abrupt desertion, found her grief enhanced by the circulation of scandalous rumours. The escapade was well calculated to produce them, for the Princess had fled from the Hague alone, and on foot, at seven o'clock on a December morning. Not till the day following, was the letter which she had pinned to her toilet table discovered; and its contents were not very consolatory to Elizabeth. From it she learnt that Louise, being convinced that the Roman was the one true Church, had acted thus strangely because she dared not attend the Anglican Celebration of the Holy Communion on Christmas Day.[2]
Rupert, who seems to have been much moved by his mother's distress, wrote to the States of Holland, begging their care and consideration for the Queen, and demanding "the satisfaction that is due to us in regard of the slanders that so greatly augment the injury;" and he added a passionate protest of gratitude for all that the States had done for his family.[3] They complied with his request by depriving the Princess of Hohenzollern, the supposed perverter of Louise, of all her privileges at Bergen. But { 285} though the Princess of Hohenzollern bore the blame, the responsibility probably belonged as much to Louise's brother Edward as to any one else. "Ned is so wilful!" complained his mother, in reference to his conduct in this affair.[4] He came to meet his sister at Antwerp, where she had taken refuge in a Carmelite convent, and conducted her thence to Paris. She was, of course, kindly received by the French Court, and the joy of Henrietta Maria over the repenting heretic was very great. The English Queen wrote to Elizabeth that she would care for Louise as her own daughter, and begged forgiveness for her. "But," said Elizabeth to Rupert, "I excused it, as handsomely as I could, and entreated her only to think what she would do, if she had had the same misfortune."[5] It was not long before Henrietta had a somewhat similar misfortune, in her failure to convert her youngest son, Henry of Gloucester. The boy took refuge in Holland, and Elizabeth had a pleasing revenge in receiving her young nephew. King Charles and his sister, Mary of Orange, both visited Louise, and reproached her for her "unhandsome" flight from her mother; but she only answered that, though sorry for Elizabeth's displeasure, she was "very well satisfied" with her change of faith.[6] Subsequently she entered a convent and became abbess of Maubuisson, where she lived long enough to see the second exile of the Stuarts, of whom she was ever a warm partisan.