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William II | |
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![]() William II, Prince of Orange (1651) by Gerard van Honthorst | |
Prince of Orange | |
Reign | 14 March 1647 – 6 November 1650 |
Predecessor | Frederick Henry |
Successor | William III |
Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel | |
Reign | 14 March 1647 – 6 November 1650 |
Predecessor | Frederick Henry |
Successor | William III |
Stadtholder of Groningen | |
Reign | 14 March 1647 – 6 November 1650 |
Predecessor | Frederick Henry |
Successor | William Frederick |
Born | The Hague, Dutch Republic | 27 May 1626
Died | 6 November 1650 24) The Hague, Dutch Republic | (aged
Burial | 8 March 1651 |
Spouse | [1] |
Issue | William III |
House | Orange-Nassau |
Father | Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange |
Mother | Amalia of Solms-Braunfels |
Religion | Calvinism |
William II (27 May 1626 – 6 November 1650) 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. [1] His only child, William III, reigned as King of England, Ireland, and Scotland.
William II, Prince of Orange, was the son of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, and Amalia of Solms-Braunfels. [1] Frederick Henry was the youngest son of William the Silent (stadtholder 1559–1584); his older half brother Maurits of Nassau was stadtholder (1585–1625); he was stadtholder from 1625 to 1647. [2] The stadtholders governed in conjunction with the States-General, an assembly of representatives from each of the seven provinces, but usually dominated by the largest and wealthiest province, Holland.
On 12 May 1641, William married Mary, Princess Royal, [1] who was the eldest daughter of King Charles I of England, [3] in the Chapel Royal of Whitehall Palace in London. William was not yet fifteen, while Mary was just nine at that time.
In 1647, his father Frederick Henry died, [2] and William II succeeded to both his hereditary titles and his elective offices as stadtholder of six of the seven provinces: Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, Overijssel and Groningen. [1]
The Netherlands at this time was engaged in the Eighty Years' War against Spain for its independence. Under Frederick Henry, the Netherlands had largely won the war, and since 1646 had been negotiating with Spain on the terms for ending it.
The negotiators agreed to the Peace of Münster in 1648, but William opposed acceptance of the treaty, even though it recognized the independence of the (northern) Netherlands, because it left the southern Netherlands in the hands of the Spanish monarchy. A separate peace furthermore violated the alliance with France formed in 1635. However, the States of six provinces voted to accept it.
Secretly, William opened his own negotiations with France with the goal of extending his own territory under a more centralized government. In addition, he worked for the restoration of his exiled brother-in-law, Charles II, to the throne of England.
In 1650 William II became involved in a bitter quarrel with the province of Holland and the powerful Regents of Amsterdam, Andries Bicker and his cousin Cornelis de Graeff. With the Peace of Münster, the Regents wanted to reduce the army, saving money. That would also diminish William's authority. William imprisoned eight members of the States of Holland (including Jacob de Witt) in the castle of Loevestein. In addition, he sent his cousin, Willem Frederik of Nassau-Dietz with an army of 10,000 men to seize Amsterdam by force. Bad weather foiled this campaign, but Amsterdam did give in. [4]
William served as stadtholder for only three years, until he died of smallpox in 1650. [1] His only son William was born one week after his death. This was the beginning of the First Stadtholderless Period. His son succeeded him in 1672 as stadtholder and later, in 1689, also became King of England. [5]
William II used the following arms during his time as prince of Orange, Stadholder or Holland, etc., and Captain-General:
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William III, also widely known as William of Orange, was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from the 1670s, and King of England, Ireland, and Scotland from 1689 until his death in 1702. As King of Scotland, he is known as William II. He is sometimes informally known as "King Billy" in Ireland and Scotland. His victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 is commemorated by Unionists, who display orange colours in his honour. He ruled Britain alongside his wife and cousin, Queen Mary II, and popular histories usually refer to their reign as that of "William and Mary".
In the Low Countries, stadtholder was an office of steward, designated a medieval official and then a national leader. The stadtholder was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and Habsburg period.
The House of Orange-Nassau is the current reigning house of the Netherlands. A branch of the European House of Nassau, the house has played a central role in the politics and government of the Netherlands and Europe especially since William the Silent organised the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule, which after the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) led to an independent Dutch state.
William the Silent, also known as William the Taciturn, or, more commonly in the Netherlands, William of Orange, was the main leader of the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish Habsburgs that set off the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) and resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1648. Born into the House of Nassau, he became Prince of Orange in 1544 and is thereby the founder of the Orange-Nassau branch and the ancestor of the monarchy of the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, he is also known as Father of the Fatherland.
Frederick Henry was the sovereign prince of Orange and stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from 1625 until his death in 1647. In the last seven years of his life, he was also the stadtholder of Groningen (1640-1647).
Amalia of Solms-Braunfels was Princess of Orange by marriage to Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. She acted as the political adviser of her spouse during his reign, and acted as his de facto deputy and regent during his infirmity from 1640 to 1647. She also served as chair of the regency council during the minority of her grandson William III, Prince of Orange from 1650 until 1672. She was the daughter of count Johann Albrecht I of Solms-Braunfels (1563-1623) and countess Agnes of Sayn-Wittgenstein (1568-1617).
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 globalization made the republic a leading European trading and seafaring power – now commonly referred to as the Dutch Golden Age. De Witt controlled the Dutch political system from around 1650 until shortly before his murder and cannibalisation by a pro-Orangist mob in 1672.
In Dutch history, the year 1672 is referred to as the Rampjaar. In May 1672, following the outbreak of the Franco-Dutch War and its peripheral conflict the Third Anglo-Dutch War, France, supported by Münster and Cologne, invaded and nearly overran the Dutch Republic. At the same time, it faced the threat of an English naval blockade in support of the French endeavor, though that attempt was abandoned following the Battle of Solebay. A Dutch saying coined that year describes the Dutch people as redeloos ("irrational"), its government as radeloos ("distraught"), and the country as reddeloos. The cities of the coastal provinces of Holland, Zealand and Frisia underwent a political transition: the city governments were taken over by Orangists, opposed to the republican regime of the Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt, ending the First Stadtholderless Period.
Frederick of Nassau, Lord of Zuylestein (1624–1672) was an illegitimate son of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, by Margaretha Catharina Bruyns,
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.
William Frederick, Count of Nassau-Dietz, Stadtholder of Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe.
Louis of Nassau, Lord of De Lek and Beverweerd was a Dutch soldier. He was the illegitimate son of Margaretha van Mechelen and Maurice, Prince of Orange, and so a collateral member of the House of Orange-Nassau. He was a Lord of the heerlijkheid van De Lek, as well as the Beverweerd Castle and its heerlijkheid from his father.
William of Orange usually refers to either:
In the history of the Dutch Republic, Orangism or prinsgezindheid was a political force opposing the Staatsgezinde (pro-Republic) party. Orangists supported the Princes of Orange as Stadtholders and military commanders of the Republic, as a check on the power of the regenten. The Orangist party drew its adherents largely from traditionalists – mostly farmers, soldiers, noblemen and orthodox Protestant preachers, though its support fluctuated heavily over the course of the Republic's history and there were never clear-cut socioeconomic divisions.
The Dutch Republic 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.
Marquis of Veere and Flushing is one of the titles of the kings and queens of the Netherlands. It was originally a Dutch title of nobility referring to the cities of Veere and Vlissingen, in the southwestern Netherlands. Holy Roman Emperor Charles V created the title in 1555 for his distant relative, Maximilian of Burgundy, who had by then ruled as Lord of Veere. After being held by the kings of Spain and England and claimed by the kings in Prussia, it definitively passed to the House of Orange-Nassau.
The Attack on Amsterdam in July 1650 was part of a planned coup d'état by stadtholder William II, Prince of Orange to break the power of the regenten in the Dutch Republic, especially the County of Holland. The coup failed, because the army of the Frisian stadtholder William Frederick, Prince of Nassau-Dietz got lost on the way to Amsterdam in the rainy night of 29 to 30 July. It was discovered, and once the city had been warned, it had enough time to prepare for an attack. The attempted coup made the House of Orange extremely unpopular for a lengthy period of time, and was one of the main reasons for the origins of the First Stadtholderless Period (1650–1672).