CROWN ON THE WORK OF 1830
Declaration of War to the Stadtholder of the United Netherlands
The Dutch monarchy is not a product of our own soil. It was founded on 12 February 1815 by a secret draft of the Congress of Vienna. The birth announcement was written in Deutz:
Die vereinigten Provinzen, aus denen Holland besteht, werden gemeinsam mit den belgischen Provinzen und den durch Art. 10 abgetretenen Bezirken gebildet an S.K.H., den Souveränen Fürsten der Vereinigten Provinzen, ein einziges Königreich mit dem Namen Königreich der Niederlande. Dieser Prinz und seine Nachfolger werden den Titel eines Königs der Niederlande annehmen und sobald die übliche Ratifizierung erfolgt ist, werden der Titel und die Vorrechte der Königswürde im Haus Oranien-Nassau-Dietz anerkannt.
Although the kingship was decided upon elsewhere, the idea was quietly cherished by William I. For him, it was the crowning achievement of the sovereignty mission of 1813. He sought the crowning via a roundabout route. His representatives in Vienna were instructed to adopt a passive attitude with regard to the king's title, but to agree if the crown was offered.
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The kingship was also linked to territorial expansion. The land hunger initially included more than a reunification of the northern and southern Netherlands. It was somewhat comparable to the annexation lust after 1945. It also concerned German territory up to and including the Nassau heritage. The argument that had to win the Allies over to this wish list was that the territorial expansion of the Netherlands would contribute to the political balance of Europe.
The United Kingdom would act as a sentinel against a revival of the French desire for conquest. The English government in particular proved sensitive to this argument; the French control of the Scheldt, of Antwerp, she had felt like a pistol on her breast. Her Foreign Minister Castlereagh spread the suggestion among his allies. Austria indicated that she would make no claim for the return of Belgium to her rule.
Russia, after some financial compensation for its debt burden, also agreed. Prussia blocked the claims on German territory; Luxembourg took its place. Metternich, the master of ceremonies of the Congress of Vienna, noted afterwards
'Der neue Staat der Niederlande sey ohnehin das Schooskind der Mächte das sie mit Liebe, ja mit wahrer Affenliebe gross zögen.'
The new kingdom was not based on the later nationality principle. The peoples who had been gathered together had not been known in advance. If the silent ambition of William I had been fully fulfilled, Prussia, the empire, would have become trilingual. This was largely prevented by resistance from the Rhineland itself. But defeated France was unable to prevent the incorporation of the Walloon areas. The union with the Protestant North aroused reluctance among the former French-speaking Roman Catholic elite in the South; a significant part would have preferred a return to the House of Habsburg.
It might have felt at home in a personal union with the Netherlands. In the North, the conquest of William I was accepted without enthusiasm. Under the threat of the return of Napoleon, William I put the crown on his head in 1815, before the ratification of the Vienna decrees. The necessary constitutional revision followed only afterwards.
If the dynastic wishes of William I provided the impetus, the English government gave in, perhaps partly as consolation for the breaking off of the engagement of the English and Dutch heirs to the throne, defensive military considerations will have been decisive for the Allies in the rapid decision to establish a buffer state north of France. This hasty attempt at a merger did not benefit the inner cohesion - the internal structure - of the young kingdom, indeed, it probably ultimately proved disastrous. A vitium originis, which has remained underexposed in the history of the Lesser and Greater Netherlands.
On 5 March 1813 Wilhelmina of Prussia - the widow of William V - wrote a letter from Berlin to her eldest son, who was then in Breslau. In it she mentioned a report of the mood in Holland from Amsterdam, still occupied by Napoleon. 'That report', she reported, 'also contained the naturally fictional news that an English fleet was approaching with William as king of Holland. That is of course not to be accepted. He wrote;
'we only laughed about it, but it would be important to find out something with certainty about the real mood of the nation and about the wishes of the better part of the population. That our House is still loved there, that they desire our restoration, I readily believe that; but in what way do they want us back? And what do they want to do on their part to make our return possible?
Two questions that according to Wilhelmina were of the utmost importance to the House of Orange. Knowing her headstrong, independent son, she presented her opinion to him in all humility. Nevertheless, with a clarity with which her husband, the deceased hereditary stadtholder, had previously been so often - and often in vain - pointed in political direction. An anecdote even claimed that William V would have scorned paradise if his wife had paved the way for him.
The first thing that had to be done according to the princess was: free the country from the French yoke and then see how peace and prosperity could be assured. As long as the war lasted, predicting was of course difficult.
Queen Wilhelmina
'But if you were called to the throne on a spontaneous impulse, I think that you would not refuse, of course if this also corresponded with the plans of the powers that now hold the future of Europe in their hands. However, I would have to strongly advise you to avoid even the appearance of seeking a kingship. I cannot think that that would be your intention either, if only because of the prejudice that has existed in the country against the title for so long. But what does a title depend on if only the essential is achieved. However, it seems to me very necessary that the head of the state, whatever his title may be, is invested on this occasion with the necessary power to be able to ensure compliance with the laws and to be able to act according to circumstances².
With this letter Wilhelmina transferred to her son the ambivalence that had characterized the attitude of the House of Orange towards the sovereignty of the Seven United Provinces for two centuries. There is no doubt that this sovereignty was aspired to by several members of the House. For example by Frederik Hendrik! His father, Prince William 1, and his brother Maurits were still addressed with the title 'Excellency', his friendship with Richelieu earned him the title 'Highness'.
By entering into a marriage alliance of his son with an English princess (1641), the prestige of his House was elevated even more. Even at the English court there were many who regarded this as preparation for a coup d'état, whereby the stadtholder would become sovereign of the country from servant of the States.³
The early death of Prince William II probably thwarted this development. Later experience showed that such marriages had complicated aspects: William V was referred to as 'His Highness', his wife Wilhelmina of Prussia as 'Her Royal Highness' and that reinforced his inferiority complex and besieged their marital bond⁴.
But even though the ambition was there, it was suppressed, made subordinate to other considerations. Some will still remember the history from their school years. At the time of the abdication of Philip II, the rebellious provinces felt the lack of a sovereign as a constitutional gap. The rulers of the various Nassau lands were no more than imperial counts, as Poelhekke explained.⁵
William the Silent and his descendants had only one thing in mind: the title of prince of their otherwise not very significant French possession Orange. The Silent believed that he would violate feudal hierarchical traditions by putting himself forward as such. As the real leader of the Revolt, he looked for a general protector from an established dynasty.
On his advice, Matthias of Austria and the Duke of Anjou were successively approached. They did not meet the requirements. The first proved to be too weak, and the second too keen on sovereignty, too Catholic too, to really be considered as the protector of the liberties of the Netherlands. In both cases, the Prince of Orange remained 'high authority' in his provinces as princely stadtholder who shared in sovereignty.
Presumably, he must have done what he did if we acknowledge that the failure was also due to ambiguity of understanding among the rebels. They wanted a 'sovereign' in name; one who would sanction and execute their decisions. When Anjou made himself impossible in Antwerp with the 'French Fury', the States of Holland wanted to take action. William the Silent would have been inaugurated as Count of Holland, if Balthasar Gerards had not killed him two days earlier.
This shocking event did not detract from the need for a sovereign, in accordance with the monarchical principle. In vain, sovereignty was then assigned: first to the King of France and then to the Queen of England. Neither of them wanted to take such an open stand against Philip II. It is true that Leicester was appointed governor-general by Elizabeth. She sought a power behind this equal to that of his queen; the States-General wanted to assign him authority, but - subordinate to theirs.
Thus the English secours degenerated into a power struggle for sovereignty. When people suspected Leicester (1585-1587) of wanting to eliminate both Oldenbarnevelt and Maurits, the cup was full. A sovereignty assignment was not attempted again after that. Necessity was made a virtue. The monarchical form of government became a subject of academic study, which would continue to be taught at the young university in Leiden for a long time. The King is inviolable, the ministers are responsible (Article 55 of the Constitution).⁷
Apart from this monarchist theory, a republican practice developed. A regent aristocracy sought to establish its power. Of course, attempts were made to legitimize this authority. The Gouda regent Vrancken and Hugo de Groot provided initial evidence of this. In the Tractaet van de oudtheyt van de Batavische en de Hollandsche Republique in which it was stated that the States (ordines) would always have ruled alongside princes (principes) - not kings (reges) - with limited powers. It is now agreed that this was not De Groot's strongest writing.⁸
Nevertheless, his doctrine was popular. The resistance of the regents to the power of the stadholder was evident from the long duration of the stadholderless periods: 1650-1674, and 1702-1747. However, since the regent rule was not free from oligarchic taints, the House of Orange could, in the event of a debacle, develop counterforce with the help of the people ('the mob'). In certain periods the stadholder was undoubtedly the leading power in foreign policy and warfare.⁹
However, when a Maurice, a William III or William rv were given the chance and the opportunity to elevate themselves to sovereignty, a certain reluctance arose to fundamentally change the structure of the state. Before he conquered the English monarchy, Prince William III tried to acquire a monarchical position in the Netherlands. He came close when the States of Gelderland offered him the ducal dignity; his friends dissuaded him from accepting it¹⁰.
It seemed as if actual power was considered more important than the title. The Orange family's main aim was to keep power in the family. By uniting the stadtholdership in all provinces and making it hereditary first in the male line, then also in the female line. But William IV did not want to be known as 'King of the Rabble' - or rather 'Prince of the Mob' - at the court of his English father-in-law.¹¹
Fockema Andreae describes the development somewhat too simply, when he describes the stadtholder as the state servant who 'according to written law was placed under eight or ninefold masters, had to observe a multitude of ties, had to spare an innumerable multitude of privileges, acquired rights, established interests, but who, under and with all this, had increasingly become the central point, the actual head of the state; only waiting for the Kingship, which after the trials of the years 1795-1813 would undisputedly befall his descendant'.¹²
Gerretson was partly right when he wrote that the material exercise of sovereignty until 1795 had been divided between the States-General and the stadtholder - we can add the States - and that their mutual struggle for absolute supremacy had been the cause of much misery.¹³
The significance of the function was related to the question of whether the Prince of Orange was a political heavyweight or lightweight. When the National Convention declared in the name of the French people in 1793 that it was at war with the hereditary stadtholder of Holland, the High and Mighty Lords of the States-General could not contain their indignation.
'To declare war on the Stadtholder of the United Netherlands, who is not the Sovereign of this state; but an Illustrious Personage attached to this, by the High Dignities which he holds in it, under the Sovereignty of the Provinces, whose union represents the Sovereignty of the Alliance, what is this but to show the deepest ignorance concerning the Government of a State, from which one judges to have received insult.' When later in 1799, during the English invasion of the North Holland of the Batavian Republic, the British Admiral Duncan summoned his opponents to surrender and thereby designated the hereditary stadholder as the 'legitimate sovereign' of the Low Countries, this had a counterproductive effect; even the most ardent supporters of William V did not see it that way.¹⁴
This experience was the basis for the warning which Wilhelmina - the widow of William V - gave to her eldest son in 1812. In a certain sense, this good advice was superfluous. Despite Napoleon's retreat, the prince thought it was still too early - three quarters of a year before the liberation - to concern himself with the form of government. He knew too little about the plans of the allies. 'I for myself,' he replied on 10 March 1812 from Breslau;
'am attached to the old forms and desire only changes insofar as they are necessary to prevent former abuses, as I am convinced that we already possess much of what is desirable in the very old. If we can only reduce things to the point from which provincial influences have caused them to deviate and thus we can only achieve what Prince William I and Prince Maurits failed to do. The Union of Utrecht and some further instructions provide excellent material for this.¹⁵
This answer teaches us three things. The prince did not intend to deviate from the tactics of his ancestors. He apparently underestimated the progress that the pursuit of unity and the strengthening of central authority had made in the last years under Schimmelpenninck. Just as he did not realize how eagerly former patriots under King Louis Napoleon had applied for royal honors.¹⁵
He rightly made a reservation with regard to the plans of his potential allies. In that respect he was in a difficult position. The Batavian Republic had abolished the stadtholdership. Although her decisions later proved to be subject to frequent revision, the prince's call for the restoration of the old Republic had hardly been heeded during the failed landing of the British-Russian troops in North Holland in 1799. A return of the Oraniehuis even seemed unlikely. The peace of Amiens therefore only involved compensation for the former stadtholder.
Our historiography almost unanimously considers the conduct of the future William 1st during the negotiations on this subject with Napoleon as humiliating. His father William V, who was weak but not indecent, refused to get involved with 'stolen property', his son accepted the government of the secularized bishopric of Fulda - an area the size of Groningen. Although this government had come to an end in 1806 and the prince had fallen out of favor with Napoleon, he had not become popular in England.
It says something that he was unknown to the English during the landing of 40,000 British on Walcheren with destination Antwerp - in the final days of the kingdom of Louis Napoleon in July 1809. To his dismay, he had to read that news in Austrian newspapers. He immediately indicated that he had never relinquished his rights to the stadtholdership.¹⁷
Perhaps fortunately for the prince, the expedition had not so much been the fault of the unfortunate Louis Napoleon as it was the result of poor preparations and the 'Zeeland fever' that Simon Schaamu.¹⁸ sarcastically calls 'even by British standards of incompetence: a stupendous débâcle'. Two English ministers, Canning of Foreign Affairs (who had advised against the expedition) and Castlereagh of War (who had supported it) fought a duel over it. Castlereagh won, but the cabinet fell. Now, in 1812, Castlereagh was back in government, at Foreign Affairs. In the same year, in which the French emperor reached the height of his power in Erfurt, Castlereagh had discovered Wellington's military genius. One of his biographers notes:
'Five years later Castlereagh had welded together the coalition that drove Napoleon back into France. Six years later, he had made him an exile in Elba; seven years later he had shut him up for ever within the prison of St. Helena. No British foreign secretary had ever initiated, carried on, and completed so great a work.¹⁹
We will ignore the bit of British self-glorification that is inherent in his prose and that evokes a comparison with Winston Churchill. It was also argued at the time that Tsar Alexander of Russia 'was widely acclaimed as the conqueror of Napoleon and saviour of Europe'.²⁰
And could something similar not be said about Metternich? We only ask the question: how would this Castlereagh judge William I? The prince had already changed course again! While his second son 'Fritz' remained in Prussia for his military training, the eldest son, the future William II, was sent to Oxford in 1809 just before the Zeeland expedition. Not only or mainly for his university education. Also to strengthen the ties between the House of Orange and the British Royal Family. That plan succeeded.
With his natural charm, the young prince acquired a certain popularity, which increased when he distinguished himself as a soldier during Wellington's Spanish campaign. Some already saw him as a suitable husband for the English heir to the throne, Princess Charlotte.
Among them was James Harris, a British diplomat who had served his country in Russia and our old Republic and who now lived on as Lord Malmesbury. In literature he is portrayed both as a good friend and as an evil genius of the Netherlands. A good friend of the House of Orange, which he supported in the days of Goejanverwellesluis. An evil spirit for the Republic, insofar as he subsequently insisted on harsh punishment of the patriots:
'If the many thousands of patriots who had to flee to France had stayed here and had been able to continue the work they had begun, along national lines, then we would have been ahead of France; then a democracy would have blossomed here on historical foundations that would never have left such a void behind it as the strange system of freedom, equality and brotherhood.²¹
It was not so strange that Lord Malmesbury saw something in a future with a new king-stadholder like William III. Now that this dream image was in mind, the obvious question was whether the endearing son was not more suited than his stiff father to take charge of the liberation of his country. It was not only Wellington who prevented people from 'running wild'. He liked 'slender Billy' quite well, but pointed out his youth and lack of experience:
'Too much is not to be expected from him.²²
It is up to psychologists to determine, if desired, whether in that period in the heart of the father, who knew himself that he could not deal with people so easily, the jealousy grew, which would later repeatedly cloud the relationship with his charming but frivolous son. The fact is that Willem Frederik went to England in April 1813 to be informed about his own future and that of his House. He came there as an uninvited guest. A good friend like Lord Malmesbury had advised against it. But Willem Frederik did not let himself be fobbed off so easily to a future of his Nassau heritage.
Provided with the support of Alexander, Tsar of Russia and his Prussian brother-in-law, King Frederik Willem, he put the most relevant questions to Castlereagh 23 about the thoughts of the great powers with regard to the form of government in liberated Netherlands; about the possibility of an extension of his territory to increase the defensive power of his country and finally about the possible return of Dutch colonies, which England had taken possession of with the unauthorized approval of Prince William V in the Declaration of Kew.
At that time (May 1813) Castlereagh, unaware of the further course of international developments, kept a low profile, although not unwillingly. But that William Frederick would be involved in answering those questions seemed little doubtful anymore. When the moment of departure for Scheveningen arrived, a special English representative Lord Clancarty - Castlereagh's confidant - would assist him with advice and action. For the sake of understanding, it is useful to insert a few remarks about this Englishman here. When he left England, it was still uncertain in what capacity he would act in the Netherlands.
This depended on the position that the Prince of Orange would take up. When he had accepted sovereignty, Clancarty was appointed ambassador; a high place in the list of ranks, which predestined him to be the doyen of the diplomatic corps in The Hague. This appointment underlined the importance that the English government attached to its latest constitutional creation. The role that Clancarty fulfilled at the birth of the kingdom of the Netherlands can be compared to that of a nurse.
For ten years, almost continuously, he would represent his country in The Hague, feeling like a watchful guardian. When in 1824 he thought he could recall his earlier merits during an English-Dutch Rhine dispute, he fell out of favor. The king did not like people who wanted to tell him how to act.
In Dutch scientific literature there are only a few recent studies on the monarchy. However, in articles and monographs arguments are sometimes used that alternately plead for or against the monarchy. It would be desirable, however, for the analysis of the Dutch monarchy to leave the phase of the pro or contra debate behind; it is much more interesting to look at how the monarchy functioned in the nineteenth and especially in the twentieth century and could remain of current, practical value through adjustments.
It is clear that in the case of the monarchy in particular there is a peculiar mixture of traditionalism and modernity. Thus, any analysis of our monarchy will aptly reflect how old and new have merged in Dutch society itself. It is therefore important for many conscious citizens to take note of this book, which points to the composite nature of society in general and of monarchical synthesis in particular.
THE MONARCHY IN THE NETHERLANDS
Edited by Dr. C. A. Tamse. University of Leiden. Now, the monarchy essentially has all kinds of very different functions; it is therefore useful to consider one and the other from various angles. With a view to the constitutional, social, political, psychological, historical and art-historical significance of the monarchy, a number of authors have contributed to this book, each from their own discipline and experience. Among them, in addition to Dr. Tamse, are Dr. W. Drees Sr., Prof. Mr. A. M. Donner and Mr. J. L. Heldring.
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