and plague, the vast majority in the German states of the Holy Roman Empire. In terms of proportional German casualties and destruction, it was surpassed only by the period January to May 1945 and remains the single greatest war trauma in German memory. Frederick was evicted from Bohemia in 1620 following his defeat by the forces of Emperor Ferdinand II at the Battle of the White Mountain. Over the period 1621–1622, the Palatinate was occupied by Spanish and Bavarian troops and Frederick was exiled to the Dutch Republic. His territories and electoral rights were transferred to the distantly related but Catholic Maximilian I of Bavaria, who now became Elector of Bavaria. After his death in 1632, Frederick's daughter Princess Elizabeth and wife Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, worked tirelessly to have the Palatinate restored to her son Charles Louis and the Protestant cause. When the Peace of Westphalia ended the war in 1648, he regained the Lower Palatinate and the title 'Elector Palatine' but now ranked lower in precedence than the others. He was succeeded by Charles II, Elector Palatine in 1680 but the Simmern family became extinct in the male line after he died in 1685. In 1670, Charles II's sister Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate married Philippe of Orléans, younger brother of Louis XIV; on this basis, Louis claimed half of the Palatinate for France. The direct heir to the Palatinate was Philip William, Catholic Count Palatine of Neuburg, Duke of Jülich and Berg. His eldest daughter Eleonore married Emperor Leopold, while another, Maria Anna, married Charles II of Spain in 1690. Nine Years' War When France invaded the Palatinate in September 1688 to enforce its claim, these wider connections meant the conflict rapidly escalated, leading to the outbreak of the Nine Years' War. The French were forced to withdraw in 1689 but before doing so, destroyed much of Heidelberg, another 20 substantial towns and numerous villages. This destruction was systematically applied across a large section of the Rhineland but especially the Palatinate, which was raided again in 1693; the devastation shocked much of Europe. France later renounced its claim to the region in the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick. Johann Wilhelm succeeded as Elector in 1690, changing his residence first to Düsseldorf, then back to Heidelberg and finally Mannheim in 1720. Like his father, he was a Catholic, which under the 1555 Peace of Augsburg meant the Protestant