The daughter of James I, Elizabeth Stuart, the ‘Winter Queen’ was married to Frederick, Elector Palatine, who became King of Bohemia – for one season. Nancy Goldstone’s engrossing history first tells Elizabeth’s story, from childhood in the Stuart court to deposed queen in exile, then describes the lives of her four daughters: Princess Elizabeth, Louise Hollandine, Henrietta Maria and Sophia, Electress of Hanover and mother of George I – women who ‘formed the loom upon which the great tapestry of Europe was woven’.