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A pensionary (or syndic) was a name given to the leading functionary and legal adviser of the principal town corporations in the Low Countries because they received a salary or pension.
The office originated in Flanders. Initially, the role was referred to as clerk or advocate. The earliest pensionaries in the county of Holland were those of Dordrecht (1468) and of Haarlem (1478). The pensionary conducted the town's legal business and was the secretary of the town council and its representative and spokesman at the meetings of the Provincial States. The post of pensionary was permanent, and he had great influence.
In the States of the province of Holland the pensionary of the order of nobles (Ridderschap) was the foremost official of that assembly and, until the death of Oldenbarneveldt in 1619, he was named Land's Advocate, or more shortly the advocate. His importance was much increased after the revolt in 1572, and still more so during the long period 1586–1619 when John van Oldenbarneveldt held the office.
After the downfall of Oldenbarneveldt the office of lands advocate was abolished, and a new post, tenable for five years only, was erected in its place with the title of Raad-Pensionaris or Pensionary of the Council, usually called by English writers Grand Pensionary. The first holders of this office were Anthony Duyck, Jacob Cats and Adrian Pauw, in the days of the stadtholders Frederick Henry and William II of Orange-Nassau had to be content with lessened powers, but in the First Stadtholderless Period (1650–1672) the grand pensionary became even more influential than Oldenbarneveldt himself, since there was no prince of Orange filling the offices of stadtholder, and of admiral and captain-general of the Union. From 1653–1672 Johan de Witt, re-elected twice, made the name of grand pensionary of Holland forever famous during the time of the wars with England. The best known of his successors was Anthony Heinsius, who held the office from 1688 to his death in 1720. He was the intimate friend of William III, and after the decease of the king continued to carry out his policy during the stadtholderless period that followed. The abolishment of the office occurred after the revolutionaries transformed the "old" Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, establishing the new democratic Republic of Batavia, supported by the French forces of the first republic in AD 1795.
The advocate drew up and introduced all resolutions, concluded debates, and counted the votes in the Provincial Assembly. When it was not in session, he was a permanent member of the college of deputed councilors who carried on the administration. He was the minister of justice and finance.
All correspondence passed through his hands, and he was the head and the spokesman of the delegation, who represented the province in the States General. The conduct of foreign affairs, in particular, was entrusted almost entirely to him.
The United Provinces of the Netherlands, officially the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, and commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands, and the first independent Dutch state. The republic was established after seven Dutch provinces in the Spanish Netherlands revolted against Spanish rule, forming a mutual alliance against Spain in 1579 and declaring their independence in 1581. It comprised Groningen, Frisia, Overijssel, Guelders, Utrecht, Holland, and Zeeland.
In the Low Countries, a stadtholder was a steward, first appointed as a medieval official and ultimately functioning as a national leader. The stadtholder was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and Habsburg period.
William II was sovereign Prince of Orange and Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, Overijssel and Groningen in the United Provinces of the Netherlands from 14 March 1647 until his death three years later. His only child, William III, reigned as King of England, Ireland, and Scotland.
Johan de Witt, Lord of Zuid- en Noord-Linschoten, Snelrewaard, Hekendorp en IJsselvere, was a Dutch statesman and a major political figure in the Dutch Republic in the mid-17th century, the First Stadtholderless Period, when its flourishing sea trade in a period of global colonisation made the republic a leading European trading and seafaring power – now commonly referred to as the Dutch Golden Age. De Witt was elected Grand pensionary of Holland, and together with his uncle Cornelis de Graeff, he controlled the Dutch political system from around 1650 until the Rampjaar of 1672. This progressive cooperation between the two statesmen, and the consequent support of Amsterdam under the rule of De Graeff, was an important political axis that organized the political system within the republic.
Cornelis de Witt was a Dutch politician and naval commander of the Golden Age. During the First Stadtholderless Period De Witt was an influential member of the Dutch States Party, and was in opposition to the House of Orange. In the Rampjaar of 1672 he was lynched together with his brother Johan de Witt by a crowd incited by Orange partisans.
The grand pensionary was the most important Dutch official during the time of the Dutch Republic. In theory, a grand pensionary was merely a civil servant of the Estates of the dominant province, the County of Holland, among the Seven United Provinces. In practice, the grand pensionary of Holland was the political leader of the entire Dutch Republic when there was no stadtholder at the centre of power.
Gaspar Fagel was a Dutch politician, jurist, and diplomat who authored correspondence from and on behalf of William III, Prince of Orange, during the English Revolution of 1688.
The Lands' Advocate of Holland acted as a legal adviser and secretary to the Estates of Holland. They also acted as leader and spokesman of the Holland deputies in the States-General, and negotiated with foreign ambassadors. The office started in the late 15th century and ended in 1630, following the death Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, when the title was renamed into Grand Pensionary. They were the speaker of the nobility of Holland and had the first say on a subject during a meeting of the Estates. A decision of the Estates was made by a summarizing of all the statements of the other delegates by the Lands' Advocate. The Lands' Advocate of Holland was the most powerful man of the United Provinces when there was no Stadtholder in Holland. For the majority of its existence, Lands' Advocates would serve for life, though this would change to a five year term when the position was renamed.
Andries de Witt was Grand Pensionary of Holland between 1619 and 1621.
The Act of Seclusion was an Act of the States of Holland, required by a secret annex in the Treaty of Westminster (1654) between the United Provinces and the Commonwealth of England in which William III, Prince of Orange, was excluded from the office of Stadtholder.
The Perpetual Edict was a resolution of the States of Holland passed on 5 August 1667 which abolished the office of Stadtholder in the province of Holland. At approximately the same time, a majority of provinces in the States General of the Netherlands agreed to declare the office of stadtholder incompatible with the office of Captain general of the Dutch Republic.
Johan Kievit (1627–1692) was an Orangist Rotterdam Regent, who may have been one of the instigators of the murder of former Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt, of the Dutch Republic, and his brother Cornelis de Witt on 20 August 1672, together with his brother-in-law, Cornelis Tromp.
The Second Stadtholderless Period or Era is the designation in Dutch historiography of the period between the death of stadtholder William III on 19 March 1702, and the appointment of William IV as stadtholder and captain general in all provinces of the Dutch Republic on 2 May 1747. During this period the office of stadtholder was left vacant in the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht, though in other provinces that office was filled by members of the House of Nassau-Dietz during various periods. During the period the Republic lost its status as a great power and its primacy in world trade. Though its economy declined considerably, causing deindustralization and deurbanization in the maritime provinces, a rentier-class kept accumulating a large capital fund that formed the basis for the leading position the Republic achieved in the international capital market. A military crisis at the end of the period caused the fall of the States-Party regime and the restoration of the Stadtholderate in all provinces. However, though the new stadtholder acquired near-dictatorial powers, this did not improve the situation.
De Witt is the name of an old Dutch patrician and regenten family. Originally from Dordrecht, the genealogy of the family begins with Jan de Witte, a patrician who lived around 1295. The family have played an important role during the Dutch Golden Age. They were at the centre of Dordrecht and Holland oligarchy from the end of the 16th century until 1672, and belonged to the Dutch States Party.
The Dutch Republic existed from 1579 to 1795 and was a confederation of seven provinces, which had their own governments and were very independent, and a number of so-called Generality Lands. These latter were governed directly by the States-General, the federal government. The States-General were seated in The Hague and consisted of representatives of each of the seven provinces.
The Dutch States Party was a political faction of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. This republican faction is usually (negatively) defined as the opponents of the Orangist, or Prinsgezinde faction, who supported the monarchical aspirations of the stadtholders, who were usually members of the House of Orange-Nassau. The two factions existed during the entire history of the Republic since the Twelve Years' Truce, be it that the role of "usual opposition party" of the States Party was taken over by the Patriots after the Orangist revolution of 1747. The States Party was in the ascendancy during the First Stadtholderless Period and the Second Stadtholderless Period.
Willem Nieupoort was a Dutch States Party politician, ambassador to the Commonwealth of England for the Dutch Republic and commissioner in the Dutch delegation that negotiated the Treaty of Westminster (1654) after the First Anglo-Dutch War.
The Act of Guarantee of the hereditary stadtholderate was a document from 1788, in which the seven provinces of the States General and the representative of Drenthe declared, amongst other things, that the admiralty and captain-generalship were hereditary, and together with the hereditary stadtholderate would henceforth be an integrated part of the constitution of the Dutch Republic. Moreover, members of the House of Orange-Nassau would have the exclusive privilege to hold the office. The Act was in force until the Batavian Republic was established in 1795.
The States of Friesland were the sovereign body that governed the province of Friesland under the Dutch Republic. They were formed in 1580 after the former Lordship of Frisia acceded to the Union of Utrecht and became one of the Seven United Netherlands. The Frisian stadtholder was their "First Servant". The board of Gedeputeerde Staten was the executive of the province when the States were not in session. The States of Friesland were abolished after the Batavian Revolution of 1795 when the Batavian Republic was founded. They were resurrected in name in the form of the Provincial States of Friesland under the Constitution of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The Orangist revolution of 1747 brought William IV, Prince of Orange to the Stadtholder office, finishing the Second Stadtholderless Period.
