This tall narrow mansion built by William, First Earl of Craven (1606-97), is said by family tradition among his descendants to have been intended as a gift for the beautiful and vivacious Princess Elizabeth, sister of Charles I, also known as the ‘Winter Queen’ or ‘Queen of Hearts’. It is said he meant it to be a refuge for her from plague-stricken London – too late, as it turned out, for she did indeed contract a fatal disease there.
It is a matter of historical record that Lord Craven felt lifelong devotion for Elizabeth, whom he first met when she and her husband, Frederick V of Bohemia, were living in exile at The Hague, and he himself was a young soldier in the service of Prince Maurice of Nassau. After Frederick’s death in 1632, Lord Craven dedicated himself to repairing the widowed queen’s fortunes, providing money to equip an army for her cause, and fighting alongside her son Prince Rupert. During the Civil War, when she was living in great poverty at The Hague, he came to her rescue; when she returned to England after the Restoration of Charles II, he put his London home, Craven House, in Drury Lane, at her disposal. Although not a word of love is expressed in the surviving letters between Lord Crave and Elizabeth, her affection for him seems undoubted. When she died in 1662 she bequeathed him all her pictures and papers.
Legend has embroidered history; almost all the houses Lord Craven built came to be associated with the Winter Queen. Ashdown House itself was probably not begun before 1669, when his estates, confiscated during the Civil War, were restored to him by Charles II, so Elizabeth can never have seen it finished. Nevertheless, the house now contains many mementos of her, notably portraits of her children and relatives which must have formed part of her bequest to Lord Craven and were transferred from Coombe Abbey to Ashdown in 1968.