Lisa Jardine on The Winter Queen.

History In this week's A Point of View on Radio 4, Lisa Jardine explains the importance of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, the so-called Winter Queen, to our national heritage:

"More than 2,000 of her letters survive, revealing her to have been a key cultural, political and religious figure, her views taken seriously from London to Prague.

"Lobbying, bargaining, negotiating and cajoling, she was a major player during a particularly unsettled period of European history.

"In the end, she was successful in having her eldest son Charles Louis reinstated as Elector Palatine, and subsequently restored at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, to his Lower Palatinate lands along the Rhine."

Many of the letters can be read in this book preview at Google.