
In legend, the Palatine Hill in Rome was said to be the one on    whose foot the twins Romulus and Remus were deposited when they escaped the    flood of the Tiber River. It became the initial center of Rome and retained    this importance for most of the life of the later Empire. The Roman emperors    designated some of their local officials with the title "palatine" after the    name of the hill.   Later empires such as the Merovingian and Carolingian used the    same title, expanding it to "count palatine", which meant an official sent to    report on a remote region owned by the crown. Under the later German empire of    the Saxon and Salian dynasties (919-1125), a further expansion occurred -- the    counts palatine were now responsible for general administration and dispensing    justice.
The regions along the middle Rhine were originally put under    imperial control by the Salian dynasty. But after 1235, Emperor Friedrich II,    who, more concerned with Italy than German lands, appointed a count-palatine    of the Wittelsbach family which controlled the powerful duchy of Bavaria in    return for the duke's support.
With the decline of the monarchy after Friedrich II,    administrative rights reverted to local dukes or bishops, in Saxony, Bavaria    and other places, but the count palatine of lower Lotharingia who    headquartered at the palace at Aachen held onto these powers and kept them for    his descendants, who called themselves the Counts Palatine of the Rhine. This    territory, called the Rhenish or Lower Palatinate [German, Pfalz], was    gathered on both sides of the Rhine River between the Main and the Neckar,    with its capital at Heidelberg until the 18th century.
In 1329, to resolve an internal familial dispute, the North    Mark of Bavaria was detached, named the Oberpfalz    [Upper Palatinate], and transferred to the Count  Palatine.
The trend in those days was to subdivide inheritance among all    the sons of a family and in this way the Palatinate was divided into four    regions in 1410. This was reversed by Friedrich the Victorious (1449-1476).    After this event, the Palatinate's power grew and it became the leading state    in the empire, a fact which was recognized by making its ruler an hereditary    elector in 1356.
Previously an entirely Catholic region, the Palatinate    accepted Calvinism under Elector Friedrich III during the  1560s.
Elector Friedrich V's acceptance of Bohemia's offer of its    crown touched off in 1618 the Thirty Years War, a complicated catastrophe from    which the Palatinate never really recovered. Although the final result was    centuries in coming, it meant that instead of politically leading Germany, the    Palatinate became a spoil, fought over by other states and countries.    Subsequent German history might have been considerably different had the    Palatinate rather than Prussia held the position that the latter was to    acquire for itself. Initially however, the only immediately apparent loss was    that of the Upper    Palatinate which was claimed by Bavaria.
During these times, a weakened Palatinate was no match for an    ebullient France under Sun king Louis XIV, whose forces ravaged the region. In    fact, so much international concern was there over growing French hegemony,    that Britain led a coalition of powers to oppose her. These struggles became    known as the War of the Palatinate (or the War of the Grand Alliance or War of    the League of Augsburg, 1688-1697). One major effect was large scale    emigration from 1689 to 1697, and later, giving rise, for example, in the United States to    the phenomenon of the Pennsylvania Dutch.
There was a major freeze in the winter of 1708/09 in the    Palatinate. On 10 January 1709 the Rhine River froze and was closed for five    weeks. Wine froze into ice. Grapevines died. Cattle died in their sheds. Many    Palatines traveled down the Rhine to Rotterdam in late February and March. In    Rotterdam they were housed in shacks covered with reeds. The ones who made it    to London were housed in 1,600 tents surrounding the city. Londoners were    resentful. Other Palatines were sent to other places, such as Ireland, the    Scilly Isles, the West Indies, and New York.
Queen Anne was related to the ruler of the Palatinate. On 24    March 1709 a British naturalization act was passed whereby any foreigner who    would take the oaths to the British government and profess himself a    Protestant would be immediately naturalized and have all the privileges of an    English-born subject for one shilling.