Charles Louis, Elector Palatine

Together with his brother Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Charles Louis, Elector Palatine, was a remote driving force in Hollar's life. Being the sons of the daughter of James I, King of England, and her husband Frederick V of the Palatinate (known in Bohemia mainly by his nickname "the Winter King"), they made territorial claims on the Upper and Lower Palatinate that their father had lost in war conflicts. Owing to these hereditary interests of his nephews, King Charles I, the brother of the Bohemian "Winter Queen", dispatched a diplomat to negotiate with the German Emperor. Although the diplomatic mission had failed to succeed (which, after all, could be expected at the times of the Thirty Years' War), along the journey the Earl hired the young, promising artist Wenceslaus Hollar, entrusting him with cataloguing his art collections; with this in mind, he took Hollar to England with him.