What's a Palatinate?

The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman by the 1600's, and the "empire" was essentially a convenient political facade for shifting alliances of small nation-states, but some of the ancient terminology survives to this day.

The emperor would travel to different castles in his empire, just as the kings and queens of England would travel in southern England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The emperor designated certain nobles to manage the castles to which he travelled, and gave these nobles authority over different districts within the empire. The castle-keepers were called "count palatines" and two separate districts along the Rhine and Danube rivers were called the Palatinate. Both are in modern Germany today.

Religious repression of the Protestants in these two areas drove many to emigrate to the English colonies in the New World. They were welcomed by Governor Spotswood, who sought to increase population in the Rappahannock River drainage, but many also settled in the Shenandoah Valley.

OK, So What's an Elector?

The emperor was elected by the powerful rulers of his supposed empire, and certain rulers had the right to vote. Who was entitled to vote changed occasionally, as some rulers gained in various wars while others aligned themselves with the losing side. In 1692, for example, the ruler of Hanover, Ernst August, was a minor power. His father had married Elizabeth, the only daughter of King James I, but had also been expelled from his country after trying to become King of Bohemia as well. You win some, you lose some...

Ernst Augustus picked the winning side in the Grand Alliance fighting Louis XIV of France. For this, he was "elevated" in status to be the Elector of Hanover and entitled to vote for the Austrian Emperor. And the Elector's son would also become King George I of England. His family, now called the House of Windsor rather than Hanover after the tensions of World War I, still sits on that throne.

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