The House of Orange in Revolution and War: A European History, 1772–1890 1789145422, 9781789145427

Table of contents :
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Introduction
1. The Minor Civil War and the Great Revolution, 1772–99
2. In Napoleon’s Europe, 1799–1812
3. A New Royal House, 1813–15
4. Bulwark of Europe, 1815–30
5. Crisis Years, 1828–40
6. Palace Secrets and Family Intrigues, 1795–1849
7. Constitutional Monarchy, 1840–53
8. A King without Responsibility, 1849–73
9. A Family on the Throne, 1849–90
Epilogue: Orange and Europe, 1789–1918
References
Bibliography
Archive Sources
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index of Names

Citation preview



the house of orange i n r e v o l u t i o n a nd w a r

THE

HOUSE OF OR A NGE I N R EVOLU TION A ND WA R

A European History, 1772–1890 JEROEN KOCH, DIK VAN DER MEULEN and JEROEN VAN ZANTEN

Translated by Andy Brown

reaktion books

Published by Reaktion Books Ltd Unit 32, Waterside 44–48 Wharf Road London n1 7ux, uk www.reaktionbooks.co.uk

First published 2022 Copyright © Jeroen Koch, Dik van der Meulen and Jeroen van Zanten 2022 English language translation © Reaktion Books 2022 First published in Dutch as Oranje in Revolutie en oorlog © 2018 by Jeroen Koch Originally published by Boom Uitgevers Amsterdam This publication has been made possible with financial support from the Dutch Foundation for Literature

This publication is also partly funded by the Prince Bernhard Culture Fund All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers Printed and bound in India by Replika Press Pvt. Ltd A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library isbn 978 1 78914 542 7

Contents

Introduction  7 1 The Minor Civil War and the Great Revolution, 1772–99  15 2 In Napoleon’s Europe, 1799–1812  47 3 A New Royal House, 1813–15  81 4 Bulwark of Europe, 1815–30  116 5 Crisis Years, 1828–40  149 6 Palace Secrets and Family Intrigues, 1795–1849  185 7 Constitutional Monarchy, 1840–53  215 8 A King without Responsibility, 1849–73  249 9 A Family on the Throne, 1849–90  283 Epilogue: Orange and Europe, 1789–1918  317 References 

329

Bibliography 

393

Ar c h i v e S o u r c e s   427 Ac k n ow l e d g e m e n t s  

429

P h o t o A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s   431 I n d e x o f N a m e s   433

Introduction

Three kings from the House of Orange-Nassau ruled over the Kingdom of the Netherlands between 1813 and 1890: William i from 1813 to 1840, William ii from 1840 to 1849 and William iii from 1849 to 1890. None of their reigns was to unfold as might have been expected. William i (1772–1843) was destined from birth to succeed his father William v as hereditary stadholder of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. But that was not be. The Orange family was driven from the Republic and, for almost two decades, roamed around a Europe thrown into chaos by the French Revolution and Napoleon. In 1813 a Dutch elite unexpectedly recalled the 41-year-old prince William to the Netherlands and, under the watchful eye of the United Kingdom, proclaimed him their sovereign prince. Two years later, the Congress of Vienna added the Southern Netherlands to the territory that would go down in history as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. In the years that followed, William i tried to bring peace and prosperity to his subjects. He did so with such vigour that a description of the reign of this ‘king-merchant’ reads like a textbook of Dutch history. In 1830 revolution resulted in the division of this United Kingdom, not least through the actions of William i himself, into the Netherlands and Belgium. Ten years later, disappointed and battleweary, William i abdicated to make way for his eldest son. The reign of William ii (1792–1849) was, if possible, even more surprising than that of his father. It is a miracle in itself that this Prince of Orange survived the wars against Napoleon. As aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington, he could easily have been killed fighting in the front lines on the Iberian Peninsula and at Quatre-Bras and Waterloo. William ii was an adventurer on the battlefield, in politics and in love, three areas in which he put the Orange dynasty at great risk. He was permanently at loggerheads with his authoritarian father, who was jealous of his son’s 7

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status as the ‘Hero of Waterloo’. In 1830, during the revolt in the Southern Netherlands, the heir to the throne seemed willing to accept the position of king of an independent Belgium, but a year later he led a punitive expedition from the Northern Netherlands against the new kingdom. In 1848, as a wave of revolutions swept across Europe, William ii approved a radical change to the constitution, heralding the beginning of modern democracy in the Netherlands. He died less than a year later. His eldest son was the first member of the Orange family destined to be king from birth.Yet, during the life of William iii (1817–1890) too, far-reaching political changes frustrated these expectations. The Belgian revolution against his grandfather cut the territories he was due to inherit by half, while the constitution that his father signed in 1848 imposed restrictions on royal power. The architect of the revised constitution, Johan Rudolf Thorbecke, encapsulated the move to a new form of monarchy in the following article: ‘The King is inviolate; the ministers are responsible.’ While William i had drawn as much power as possible to himself and William ii had shown understanding for his subjects’ desire for constitutional liberalization, the reign of William iii was marked by royal impotence, a term that applied equally to his personal life. The king was temperamental, impulsive and had little success. Shortly before his death, radical socialists would immortalize him as ‘King Gorilla’. The reigns of each of the three kings were marked in different ways by war and revolution. In the first phase in particular, during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, it was not inconceivable that the House of Orange-Nassau could have been destroyed by the chaos of the times, a fate that could equally have befallen the independent state of the Netherlands. The revolutions of 1830 and 1848 and the many European wars in which the small Netherlands was more than once in danger of becoming embroiled also had a deep impact. At the same time, it was these same radical changes across Europe that made the Orange monarchy possible, and perhaps even saved it in the long term. This book examines the history of the Orange monarchs from the final days of the Republic to the birth of the modern Netherlands. It is based on the biographies of the three kings published in 2013 to mark the monarchy’s second centenary.1 Each of the three books examines the life of one king on the basis of five themes: the king’s personal life, the international context, the development of the Orange monarchy within the Dutch constitutional state, the king’s public image and his activities as 8

Introduction

head of state. These themes recur here, too, but with a different emphasis. Unlike in the three biographies, attention focuses primarily on the fortunes of the Orange dynasty. In addition, the European context acquires greater weight, with structural attention to the importance of developments across the continent for the Netherlands and for the Orange family and with the introduction, where appropriate, of a comparative element: the three kings are compared both with their contemporaries elsewhere and with each other. New in this book are a section on Belgian Orangism after the secession of the Southern Netherlands and an examination of the colonial reputations of the Dutch kings. The latter is expanded further with a short analysis of the first decades in which the Netherlands was ruled by Queen Wilhelmina, William iii’s daughter and successor. The epilogue follows her reign until 1918, when war and revolution had once again ravaged Europe, with consequences for the European monarchies. Between 1795 and 1848 the fate of the Orange family was more European in nature than during any other period, with the possible exception of the late seventeenth century, when Stadholder William iii was also king of England, Scotland and Ireland. They operated within a network of royal families that spanned the entire continent. During the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, they depended on this network and especially on the British and Prussian royal houses, to which the Orange stadholders had been allied through marriage since the mid-seventeenth century. In the decades around 1800 ties with the Prussian royal house were strengthened and relations were established with the Russian tsarist family, while those with the British royal house weakened – all at a time when the Netherlands was becoming increasingly dependent on Britain, both in Europe and the colonies. When, in the second half of the nineteenth century, political power shifted from the royal court to government and parliament and the royal house was increasingly nationalized, the international network of monarchies – sometimes called the White International – continued to be of significance. This was most sharply defined in the area of diplomacy, where direct contact between the monarchs could help ease international political tensions.2 Though it was the third largest colonial power, in Europe the Netherlands was small and neutral and wedged between the great powers of France, the United Kingdom and Prussia (from 1871 the German Empire). It could therefore not afford to make too many errors in navigating its way through international diplomatic waters. King 9

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William iii was a risk factor, though that could equally have been said earlier in the century of the impulsive William ii and of his father, who could be exceptionally clumsy in his dealings with European courts and governments. The European context is also addressed in another way in this book. As already mentioned, the Dutch monarchy will regularly be compared with those of other European countries. Since many of the major political changes that took place related directly to the position of the king, the monarchy as an institution changed radically in this period. Kings were deposed, kings were reinstated. Some have suggested – incorrectly – that the latter applied in the case of William i, ignoring the differences between republic and monarchy, between stadholder and king, and between the Northern Netherlands and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Like many other monarchs after 1815, William i became the ruler of a new state, a unified kingdom comprising the Northern and Southern Netherlands. This was partly possible because, in the first half of the nineteenth century – just as during the ancien régime and the Napoleonic era – territories, states, peoples and dynasties in much of Europe existed in relative isolation from each other. Not until the second half of the century would these separate elements be united in seemingly logical nation states. The nineteenth-century European kings, almost all constitutional monarchs, drew on a wide variety of historical precedents: the enlightened absolute monarchies of the eighteenth century, Napoleon’s absolute rule, an economic or political ‘citizen king’, monarchs whose military function was of primary importance, and a romantic or even mystical ‘medieval’ concept of monarchy.3 From the middle of the century, the monarchy became increasingly bourgeois in cultural terms. The royal family was to be seen primarily as the first family of the nation, the family on the throne. Its main task was to lead its private life in the public eye, which presented its own problems.4 But no matter what form the various monarchies took, they remained until far into the nineteenth century deeply marked by the memory of the death of French king Louis xvi at the guillotine during the French Revolution. The assassination of Tsar Alexander ii, cousin and contemporary of William iii, in 1881 showed that regicide in Europe was not a thing of the past. The Orange family had feared assassination long before the execution of Louis xvi. Much earlier, Stadholder William v, the father of King William i, was afraid of meeting the same fate as Charles i, the English 10

Introduction

king beheaded in 1649 on the orders of Oliver Cromwell. The family were not without their critics. In this period, with ideals of freedom being propagated on all sides, there were variants in the Netherlands that advocated freedom with, through, around, against and without the Orange dynasty. In the long term, the first would dominate – freedom with the dynasty, but then only in the Northern Netherlands and the conditions under which that freedom took shape would in no way be dictated by the family itself. The problem of the nineteenth-century monarchy can be reduced to two questions: does the nation belong to the king, or the king to the nation? After 1830 and certainly after 1848, it had become clear that only the second option had a future, no matter how much difficulty Dutch statesmen had in persuading William iii of the inevitability of this change. The king ultimately had to acquiesce to Thorbecke, his most important and more powerful opponent. That, too, was a common aspect in the lives of the three kings: all had to deal with a contemporary who had a decisive impact on their lives. For William iii it was Thorbecke, for William ii it was his own father, and for William i it was Napoleon, as enemy and example. The Orange kings’ private lives were also deeply entangled with events across Europe, even after the dynastic politics of marriage, rule and war lost significance after the end of Napoleon’s domination. Their marriages to, successively, the Prussian princess Wilhelmina (or Mimi), the tsar’s sister Anna Pavlovna and Sophie, daughter of the king of Württemberg, brought the political, dynastic and personal dimensions of the lives of the three kings together. The personal was political, at all times. Their dysfunctional private lives are also part of the account that follows in this book. While, at a certain point, the great changes that affected the Orange family became a thing of the past, the drama behind the scenes only intensified over the three generations, peaking with William iii and Sophie, who did everything they could to make each other’s lives miserable. Anna Pavlovna continued to revere her husband as a hero until the end of her life, irrespective of what she may have heard about his extramarital activities. The arranged marriage of Mimi and William i can be seen as solid; Mimi’s upbringing at the court of her father Friedrich Wilhelm ii had made her forgiving. Lastly, a little advice for the reader. First, many of the people in this book have the same names, such as William, Frederick and Wilhelmina, which can cause confusion. The family members themselves were aware 11

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of this problem and often gave each other nicknames. William ii, for example, was known as Guillot in his youth, while the eldest son of William iii, born in 1840 and also called William, was referred to as Wiwill. William i’s wife, Wilhelmina of Prussia, was known as Mimi to distinguish her from her much better-known mother-in-law and aunt. Before they became king, William i, William ii and William iii were in any case referred to as Prince William Frederick, the Prince of Orange or Hereditary Prince William. In the notes, any confusion is avoided by referring to the kings as William i, William ii and William iii even while they were still princes: this is strictly speaking incorrect, but it is clear and unambiguous. The family tree at the back of the book also offers some clarity in this tangle of names. Finally, the index gives the names and nicknames of the individuals referred to in the book. Possible confusion about the names William and Frederick is further avoided by not translating the names of the Prussian kings: Friedrich Wilhelm ii, Friedrich Wilhelm iii and Friedrich Wilhelm iv thus retain their German names. An exception is made for William i’s great uncle Frederick the Great, who is widely known as such in the English-speaking world. Yet it remains confusing, as we can see once again from a letter that William Frederick wrote to his eldest son William in May 1813: I must point out to you, my dearest William, in respect of your letter to the Duke of York, that the way you have signed your name is incorrect. It would be best for you to add ‘Hereditary Prince’ as, without these words, since we are both called William, it is not clear whether ‘William, Prince of Orange’ refers to you or to me. If you were to write ‘William, Hereditary Prince of Orange’ this will be avoided and you will have almost the same signature as I had when my father was still alive.5 Besides the problem of identical names and the need to distinguish them from each other by using additional forms, this fragment draws attention to another potential source of confusion. The meaning of the titles ‘Prince of Orange’ and ‘Hereditary Prince of Orange’ formally changed in 1815. During the Republic, the former title was reserved for the head of the dynasty. Until his death in 1806, hereditary stadholder William v was the Prince of Orange. His oldest son William Frederick was the Hereditary Prince of Orange and became Prince William vi, Prince of Orange, after his father’s death. Article 36 of the 1815 Constitution of the 12

Introduction

United Kingdom of the Netherlands, however, stipulated that the title of Prince of Orange would henceforth be used for the male heir to the Crown. For the period up to 1840, that was Prince William, the eldest son of King William i. The title ‘Hereditary of Prince of Orange’ underwent a similar change of meaning. Until 1815 the Hereditary Prince was the successor to the head of the dynasty, whether he was a stadholder, a sovereign prince or held no position. This title now also moved up a generation. The grandson of King William i, who would later become King William iii, bore the title of Hereditary Prince of Orange from his birth in 1817. It is worth noting that the Orange rulers, in both the Republic and the Kingdom, were vorsten, ‘the one who is in front’, a literal translation of ‘prince’, which is in turn derived from the Latin princeps (the first or most prominent). The passage from the letter quoted above gives rise to yet another comment of relevance to the reader. This letter and many others in the book were originally written in French, the language which, until the end of the nineteenth century, aristocratic and royal families throughout Europe were accustomed to use in their correspondence. These and other passages that were originally written in German, Italian, Spanish, Latin or of course Dutch have all been translated into English. This account begins in the latter days of the Dutch Republic, at the end of the first revolution that the Orange family would encounter in the period covered by the book. Though the rebels had been inspired by the American Revolution of 1776 and the Orangist reaction of 1787 was supported by Prussia and Britain, it was a home-grown revolution. The leading role was played by Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia, wife of Stadholder William v and mother of Prince William Frederick – later to become King William i – who was to lose his political innocence in the process.

13

Wilhelmina of Prussia is held captive at Goejanverwellesluis after her arrest by volunteer patriots. G. A. Lehman, 1787.

1

The Minor Civil War and the Great Revolution, 1772–99 Goejanverwellesluis It was Wilhelmina of Prussia who instigated the counter-revolution. In the early morning of 28 June 1787 the princess left Nijmegen with a sizeable entourage. Her destination was The Hague, the stadholder’s seat. The Orange family had fled the city almost two years previously after the Republic had lost a war against Britain, taunted and mocked by revolutionaries calling themselves patriots. Wilhelmina wished to restore the family’s power and status. She had no illusions about the contribution of her indecisive husband. Hereditary stadholder William v had been in Amersfoort with the States troops for several months, not daring to engage in battle with the patriots in the provinces of Holland and Utrecht. ‘Do you have a better plan? What is it, then?! If you don’t have one, then we’ll have to execute mine,’ Wilhelmina had snapped at him.1 It sounded like an ultimatum. A few hours after the princess had left, fourteen-year-old Hereditary Prince William Frederick wrote to his father from Nijmegen: ‘My Mother left for The Hague this morning; her departure was a well-guarded secret.’2 But nothing was further from the truth. Rumours had been doing the rounds for days; it was part of the trap that Wilhelmina had set for the patriots. She had first assured herself of the support of Orangists among the domestic elite and of the British and the Prussians. She could rely on their support if the patriots prevented her from reclaiming the legitimate position of the stadholder. And that is exactly what happened.The princess and her entourage had hardly set foot in Holland when a unit of volunteer patriots, their suspicions aroused by the large number of fresh horses that had been ordered, stopped them in their tracks. Wilhelmina was taken to the village of Hekendorp and held in a farmhouse near the Goejanver­ wellesluis lock for two days. Her request to the States General and the States of Holland to be permitted to travel on to The Hague was denied. 15

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Deeply insulted by the arrest she herself had provoked, Wilhelmina demanded satisfaction. As agreed, she asked her brother, the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm ii, for military assistance. The French, who maintained contact with the patriots, remained neutral; the British threatened to intervene on the side of the stadholder. That left the patriots alone. Their volunteers were no match for the 20,000 Prussian soldiers who invaded the Republic. In September 1787, scarcely three months after ‘Goejanverwellesluis’, as this episode has come to be known in Dutch history, the stadholder was back in Holland, ready to complete the counterrevolution. 3 In the name of Orange, the cities of Groningen and ’s-Hertogenbosch were sacked by the States army, which was under the command of the stadholder. In an ‘Orange fury’ orchestrated from above, stones were thrown through windows and patriots’ houses were looted. The violence continued for several months. A commission set up by William v removed every magistrate with patriotic sympathies from office. This was no longer restoration, it was revenge. Many patriots fled to France, where they kept the revolutionary ideal alive, inspired from the summer of 1789 by the breathtaking events in Paris.4 For the patriots, the counter-revolution was yet another example of the tyrannical nature of the stadholder and his wife: they had set Prussian soldiers on ordinary civilians! Orange supporters, however, celebrated the return of the stadholder as a ‘Glorious Revolution’ – a direct reference to the triumph of Stadholder William iii, who had become king of England after averting the threat of civil war in 1688. But, while the non-violent Glorious Revolution and the accompanying Bill of Rights had resulted in more rights for the British parliament, the counter-revolution of 1787 in the Netherlands led to expansion of the stadholder’s powers at the expense of the representative bodies. The patriots were dismissed as children playing at soldiers and their ideals – which claimed that the stadholder should return to his traditional role of servant of the representative government – were scoffed at. From the patriot side, the stad­­holder was seen as both tyrant and weakling, a new Philip ii and a drunken good-for-nothing who allowed himself to be bullied by his wife, the Prussian battle-axe. In the meantime, Wilhelmina enjoyed widespread acclaim at home and abroad.5 Together with her children, she entered The Hague in an open carriage, pulled by cheering crowds. Her reception in Berlin was even more exuberant. She was heralded as the princess of peace who, with the help of her brother, had restored law and order in the Dutch 16

The Minor Civil War and the Great Revolution

Republic. She would be immortalized as the embodiment of both Irene and Eve in the reliefs on the Brandenburg Gate, commissioned by Friedrich Wilhelm ii to commemorate the Prussian campaign to restore order in the Dutch Republic. The costs of building the gate were covered by a special tax imposed on its own citizens by the States of Holland.6

The stadholder’s ambition and impotence The patriot revolution in the Republic has been called a ‘minor civil war’.7 There were violent clashes in a number of towns between supporters and opponents of the House of Orange. For the dynasty itself, the conflict encapsulated all the problems with which it would have to contend until 1848. As stadholders and as monarchs, they would repeatedly experience war, revolution, exile, counter-revolution and foreign intervention, not to mention a series of triumphant returns to The Hague. The family was not without its critics. That had always been the case, since they had become stadholders of the Republic in the sixteenth century. There was consensus only about their role as defenders of national freedom in the face of foreign enemies; here, as supreme commander of the army and navy, the stadholder – as the servant of each of the provinces separately – found his true task. The illustrious forefathers William the Silent, Maurice, Frederick Henry and William iii in particular were revered as saviours of the fatherland.8 The family had loyal supporters among orthodox Calvinists. They were seen as the protectors of religious freedom – or rather of Protestantism – since the last quarter of the sixteenth century, when William the Silent had positioned himself as leader of the Calvinist revolt against the Catholic King Philip ii of Spain. ‘God, Fatherland and Orange’ was the motto of this almost mythical Orangism of the kleine luiden (little people), as the Reformed community liked to see themselves.9 But the supporters of the Orange family were a wide-ranging and devoted group that also included magistrates, military officers and the few nobles that still survived in the Republic. It was these loyal Orangists who ensured in 1747, after an international crisis led to yet another appeal to the House of Orange to come to their aid, that the stadholdership would henceforth be hereditary. In doing so, they linked their own fates irrevocably to that of the dynasty. Orangists frequently stirred up the rather lukewarm support of the urban proletariat to turn them against their main opponents, those loyal to the States. The latter, an influential oligarchy of regents from the 17

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Festive celebrations after the Orangist counter-revolution. The citizens of The Hague pull the carriage of Wilhelmina of Prussia and her children into the city. Georg Balthasar Probst, 1787.

trading towns of Holland, with Amsterdam at the forefront, wanted to restrict the power of the stadholder as much as possible. Twice they succeeded in keeping the position of stadholder vacant in the most important provinces for several decades. They glorified these periods without a stad­­ holder as years of ‘true freedom’. They watched suspiciously how, from the middle of the eighteenth century, the stadholder’s court acquired increasingly monarchical tendencies: besides the position becoming hereditary, state affairs were dealt with through the stadholder’s own clientele, outside the sovereign assemblies of the provinces, and Wilhelmina of Prussia, who held no official position, displayed a strong desire to act independently.10 From the early 1780s, after the outbreak of the war against the British, the States loyalists found themselves competing against another ‘anti-stadholder’ group calling itself ‘patriots’. The patriots’ calls for the ‘constitutional restoration’ of a representative government encapsulated modern ideas on popular sovereignty and national unity, and about basic rights grounded in a constitution. After the defeat to the British in 1784, they called for the departure of Stadholder William v. Their demands were expressed in a controversial anonymous pamphlet from 1781 entitled To the People of the Netherlands, which proclaimed, ‘Yes, Prince William, everything is your fault!’ They saw the stadholder as 18

The Minor Civil War and the Great Revolution

sacrificing the Republic to his own dynastic interests and blamed him for all the ills affecting the country: the outbreak of the war against England and its dramatic conclusion, the pitiful state of the army and navy, the decline in trade and scandals in government circles. ‘Don’t dare deny it, oh William!’ the pamphlet cried.11 It was true that the Republic no longer had the power it had been able to wield in the seventeenth century. The accusation that the stadholder’s intrigues were entirely to blame for the decline of the Netherlands was, however, a complete fantasy. More decisive was England’s growing eco­ nomic and political power; in that sense, the decline of the Republic was relative. But the patriots were right in claiming that there was a great deal wrong with William v’s regime as stadholder. There was lack of clarity about his position, he was dependent on foreign powers and he was, as an individual, completely unfit to fill the office. No one could explain exactly what the powers of the stadholder were. The Prussian king Frederick the Great, an uncle of Wilhelmina of Prussia, was astounded at the legal restrictions imposed on the stadholder as a servant of the provinces. The state structure of the Republic was indeed extremely opaque. In the words of the British envoy in 1788, it was ‘irregular, inaccurate, preposterous and undefined’.12 The different parties and factions all seemed to be pursuing their own interests. Provinces, towns, guilds, universities and other associations had their own powers and continually invoked traditions and privileges. The corporate structure of the Republic, a tangle of power interests, can best be compared to the more than three hundred sovereign territories that made up the Holy Roman Empire, with the essential difference that the Republic was not subject to a monarch. Sovereignty lay with the seven provinces individually.13 Their representatives met in the States General. Under the terms of the 1579 Union of Utrecht, they pursued a joint foreign policy. Freedom of conscience was also laid down in the Union of Utrecht, which functioned as an unofficial constitution. The highest ranking official in the Republic, besides the stadholder, was the Grand Pensionary of Holland, who was responsible for the Union’s international relations. By the mid-eighteenth century, the office of stadholder had been considerably strengthened. It had become hereditary and acquired extensive powers of appointment, which the Orange family’s clientele proceeded to expand even further. Historians describe the authority of the hereditary stadholder in the final decades of the Republic as ‘almost royal’. Monarchical tendencies seemed to have the upper hand.14 But 19

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appearances were deceptive. The stadholder and his family wanted above all to act as monarchs. Through legal powers and political intrigue, interests loyal to the States and to the House of Orange held each other in a paralysing grip. The lords were servants and the servant was lord – and the latter, as one party among many, was not a monarch.15 The disorder in the state structure of the Republic had a great deal to do with the outbreak of the war with Britain. The British declared war in December 1780 after it was revealed that the city of Amsterdam had signed a secret trade agreement with rebellious colonists in America. Until then, the States General and the stadholder had pursued a policy of neutrality. Now the Republic stumbled into a war because of unpredictable decision-making in a badly integrated administration. The restoration of the stadholder’s position in 1787 may have once again extended his power, but William v was only too aware how dependent he was on foreign support.That was the stadholdership’s second problem: from 1788 Prussia and Britain held the Republic and the stadholdership together. Although the three countries officially formed an alliance, William v was essentially under curatorship, and not for the first time. Even before he became stadholder in 1766, the duties of the Prince of Orange – orphaned at an early age – had been fulfilled by his guardian and mentor the Duke of Brunswick, an Austrian field-marshal in the States army. Brunswick’s position as regent to William was made official in 1766 in a secret Act of Advisorship. He continued to exert considerable influence on affairs of state until 1782, halfway through the war with Britain, when States loyalists barred his access to the stadholder’s court. There was widespread indignation when the content of the Act was made public. The duke was banned, as his presence was considered a threat to the state. His departure did not, however, lead to a decline in foreign influence in the Republic. The third problem with the stadholdership was the stadholder himself. While enjoying the status, privileges and luxury associated with the office, William v had an enormous aversion to the duties it entailed.16 Although he held the stadholdership in high esteem, he admitted that he was not equipped for the task. He seemed most concerned to preserve the honour of the position sufficiently to pass it on to his successor. As a ruler, William v was astoundingly careless, signing documents without reading them and falling asleep at his writing desk, bored by affairs of state or tired from attending the theatre the previous evening. Laurens van de Spiegel, trusted advisor to Wilhelmina of Prussia who was appointed Grand 20

The Minor Civil War and the Great Revolution

Pensionary of Holland after the patriotic rebellion had been defeated, said of William v, ‘His policy is to try and confuse things as much as possible.’17 He wanted to throw in the towel as early as 1781, after the first losses against England. The stadholdership no longer held any appeal. Behind the scenes, he declared, ‘I am nothing, I have no power at all.’ Before the crisis had deepened and the war was followed by the patriot uprising, he said, ‘I wish I were dead, that my father had never become stadholder. I feel that I am not fit for the office.’18 He made a half-hearted attempt to restore his power, but by bombarding the towns of Hattum and Elburg, he only confirmed the patriots’ claims that he was a tyrant. If the stadholder could be described as self-indulgent, self-pitying, suspicious and stubborn, his wife was resolute and energetic, though no less impetuous and obstinate. The physical contrast between them only emphasized these differences: the stadholder was flabby with a weak chin while Wilhelmina of Prussia, a fervent horsewoman, was slim and athletic. She had grown up at the court of Frederick the Great and understood better than William v that power had to make itself felt from time to time. She had ensured that the stadholder signed a proclamation at the beginning of 1787 demanding nothing less than complete restoration of his rights. It was a declaration of war on the patriots. When William v again dithered, she took action herself.

The Hereditary Prince: An enlightened upbringing William Frederick thus grew up in an atmosphere of war and revolution. The Hereditary Prince, born in 1772, lost his political innocence before reaching the age of fifteen. The struggle between the patriots and those loyal to the prince taught him that the stadholdership was not uncontested. He also realized that the position of the Orange family in the Republic depended on foreign support. And it had become clear to him that politics was a tough business; he could not have failed to notice the scabrous pamphlets that ridiculed his parents. Being born into the Orange family meant being born into a dynasty: the traditions, duties and future of the House, which took its name from the French principality of Orange, made themselves felt from the beginning. Sooner or later, the Hereditary Prince would be faced with a number of difficult challenges: leadership of the House of OrangeNassau, supreme command over the Republic’s army and navy and a role in appointing many high officials and committees. It was largely 21

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Wilhelmina who prepared her son for these duties. It was she who cared for the children; besides William Frederick, there were Louise (born in 1770) and Frederick (1774). Infused with the pedagogical fashion of the late eighteenth century, the princess believed that providing children with a good upbringing was the ‘most sacred duty’ of a parent. While the stadholder had confessed in advance to lacking ‘the patience and strength’ to fulfil this task, a disappointed Wilhelmina herself had to admit when William Frederick was about ten years old that she, too, lacked the necessary capacities.19 She appointed a number of tutors, but kept overall control in her own hands. Wilhelmina was aware that William Frederick’s future position as a stadholder called for a special education. As a future ruler, he – more than his siblings – would need a trained mind and a well-developed insight into human nature. He would also need to learn to resist flattery. Since,

Violence in Rotterdam on 3 April 1784. Patriot Burgher Company No. 9 opens fire on Orange supporters. Theodorus de Roode, attrib., Treffen tussen de Negende Burgercompagnie en Orangisten te Rotterdam, 1784, etching.

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as stadholder, he would always act in the full glare of the public eye, ‘his attitude, his words and his deeds would never be indifferent but always mean something.’20 The princess was critical in her assessment of her son’s character. He did not lack intellect, but she observed ‘bad tendencies’: self-indulgence, laziness and an irrepressible impulse to argue, especially with his father. Moreover, William Frederick rarely allowed himself to be corrected, as his tutors experienced at first hand. One suggested a sober regime with a lot of physical activity. It was to cost him his job.21 Wilhelmina, in the meantime, was right about the position of stadholder: it was extremely difficult. In early 1789 one of William v’s private secretaries explained to the Hereditary Prince what would be expected of him. While a sovereign prince could take decisions in the state’s interest quickly and efficiently, the stadholder of the Republic had to conduct endless consultations with provinces and towns about the value and necessity of a particular course of action and how to pay for it, taking account of their various interests. ‘But do not be discouraged by the prospect,’ the secretary concluded.22 William Frederick replied, ‘You almost make me afraid. A stadholder must invoke virtually unlimited confidence in his insights, but if he chooses an unsuccessful strategy, he will lose that confidence and will not be forgiven.’23 William Frederick was educated in The Hague, Brunswick, Berlin and Leiden. The curriculum was comprehensive: the history of the Dutch Republic, with considerable attention to the heroic deeds of his fore­ fathers in their roles as stadholders while ignoring their periodic abuses of power, knowledge of classical Rome and present-day Europe, and extensive enlightened religious instruction. On top of that came military training, including an understanding of weaponry and military engineering, map-reading, manoeuvres and horsemanship. The prince was also prepared for life at court with French conversation lessons and training in ceremony and ritual, as well as music, painting and dancing lessons (the latter to learn how to move elegantly). He was given lessons in drama to prepare him for a stadholder’s representative duties, including speaking in public. The stadholder and his family were fervent admirers of French theatre, both as amateur performers on the stage and as spectators in the loge.24 William Frederick’s education was imbued with the spirit of the Enlightenment. Duty and virtue were the conditions for happiness – Rousseau’s teaching transformed into a practical optimism. Wilhelmina felt that her eldest son had no need of a grand tour; the preparations 23

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for his tasks as stadholder took priority over all other considerations. Consequently, while in Berlin, the Hereditary Prince acquainted himself under the tutelage of his governors with the work of his great-uncle Frederick the Great, who had died in 1786. He was repeatedly bombarded with the details of the polity of the Republic and was obliged to attend all kinds of meetings.25 In Nassau, the German principality of the Orange family which he visited in the summer of 1789, William Frederick was taught about mining, agriculture and industry and attended a meeting of the government and the audit office.26 William Frederick completed his education in Leiden. He studied under Grand Pensionary Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel, who tutored him in the art of governing, defined by Van de Spiegel as ‘the science of leading a civic society so as to attain the greatest possible happiness without unlawfully causing disadvantage to others’.27 The Grand Pensionary based his lectures on the Prussian Kameralistik and the French Science de la Police, two early forms of state administration. At the heart of this utilitarian and meritocratic gospel was the common interest and the belief that social status was earned by achievement. Like the entire Enlighten­ ment programme, this message did not sit easily with the historical destiny of the Hereditary Prince, determined as it was by his birth. It was a paradox that faced all enlightened absolute monarchies.28 William Frederick would be reminded to the end of his long princely career that no form of enlightened rule could ever bring the ‘fury of the world’ under control.

Dynastic duties In Berlin, William Frederick had become acquainted with the members of the Prussian royal family. Among them was his future wife Wilhelmina of Prussia, his full cousin and daughter of the king of Prussia, soon known as Mimi to distinguish her from her aunt and mother-in-law. In 1789 William’s mother had cashed in on her newly acquired fame in Berlin as the princess of peace to match her son to Mimi, when they were seventeen and fourteen years old. Wilhelmina was so sure of herself that she had proposed to her brother Friedrich Wilhelm ii a double tie between the House of Orange-Nassau and the House of Hohenzollern: she also wanted to marry her daughter, Princess Louise, to the Prussian crown prince, later King Friedrich Wilhelm iii. Her plan, however, failed and Louise had to pay a heavy price. When mother and daughter passed 24

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The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The gate, built between 1788 and 1791 in honour of the ‘peace monarchs’ Friedrich Wilhelm ii of Prussia and his sister Wilhelmina of Prussia, was financed with Dutch money and served as the decor for the wedding of Mimi and William Frederick. Reinier Vinkeles, Gezicht op de Brandenburger Tor in Berlijn, 1793–1816, etching and engraving.

through Brunswick on their way back to The Hague,Wilhelmina betrothed her daughter to the sickly eldest son of the duke, who had led the Prussian troops that had put a stop to the patriots’ revolution in 1787. According to a chronicler of late eighteenth-century court life in Berlin, Louise’s husband was ‘small, fat and blind, and devoid of any talent’.29 To Louise’s sorrow, the marriage would remain childless. How different it was for William Frederick. He was delighted with his bride-to-be Mimi, who grew in the years that followed into a charming and exceptionally attractive young woman. The Hereditary Prince never tired of staring at her portrait and immediately begged his father for permission to marry. William v tempered his son’s enthusiasm. Both proposed marriages required the approval of the States General and both were steeped in political sensitivities: a Prussian princess and the son of the commander of the invading army of 1787 – it was rubbing salt in the wounds of patriots and republicans. William v reproached his wife that the marriages would make the tie with Prussia overly close. Would he have to restore the balance by marrying his other son to one of the daughters of the English king George iii? The stadholder could not countenance the thought. Three Royal Highnesses in the Republic – his own wife, Mimi and a British princess for Frederick – would be certain to sow division in the family.30 25

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The stadholder told William Frederick that both he and Mimi were still far too young to marry. They would have to wait until the end of 1792, when they would be eighteen and twenty. Perhaps by then the political situation in Europe might have become more settled – a veiled reference to the events in Paris, where the Bastille had been stormed and the people were calling for a constitution. Without mincing his words, William Frederick replied, ‘Why let me pine for so long, dear Father? You were much younger when you married . . . Make haste with the moment of our marriage, as I can tell you that we are both impatient.’31 The commanding tone spoke volumes. William Frederick had little respect for his father. When, during his training in Prussia, he wanted to take part in army exercises and William v objected because he did not want to expose his heir to the risks, he had responded insolently, ‘Dear Father, is there no better way to learn the art of war than in practice? . . . Besides, if I am killed or wounded, there is always my brother, who can perfectly well take my place.’32 The stadholder had capitulated. William Frederick and Mimi were married in Berlin on 1 October 1791, a year earlier than the stadholder had suggested. The new Brandenburg Gate provided the impressive decor for the wedding. It was actually a double wedding, as the Duke of York and Princess Friederike, the Prussian king’s daughter from his first marriage, were married at the same time. The celebration was partly intended to add lustre to the alliance against France agreed in 1788 between Prussia, Britain and the Republic.33 Princess Louise had already been married for a year and had left for Brunswick. Their brother Frederick was also in Germany, where he had been receiving his military training since 1789. The stadholder’s family remained in contact with each other by writing regularly, resulting in an enormous archive of correspondence.34 Although the family spoke Dutch between themselves, they wrote to each other in French, the lingua franca of European royal houses and international diplomacy. From 1795, when the future of the Orange family became increasingly uncertain, these letters held the dynasty together.35 Wilhelmina had taught the children to write to each other and their parents from an early age. In Enlightenment thinking, written correspondence served to promote transparency, but Wilhelmina also used it as a means of control.The children always had to describe what they had done, what they were doing and what they were going to do, much to William Frederick’s annoyance.Wilhelmina’s statement about her oldest son – ‘We want to know everything and to say nothing’ – is well known.36 It illustrates 26

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her desire to keep a firm hand on the reins, but also says something about the introvert character of the Hereditary Prince. Van de Spiegel observed the same trait in the prince: ‘I have never been able to fathom his character, though I have tried from every angle.’37 In many ways, Wilhelmina and William Frederick were very alike. Both wanted as much control as possible over their surroundings, and for both feelings were subordinate to reason. Lastly, for both of them, ambition, diligence and a desire to prove themselves fought for priority. The letters have much to tell about the five family members. Louise took the time to report on the vicissitudes of life at the Brunswick court and on the political situation in Europe, and to ask about the welfare of those she was writing to. Her handwriting was neat and flowing, like that of her mother’s, with notably frequent references to Providence. The much shorter letters from father and sons were completely different. The handwriting of William Frederick and Frederick was angular, legible but less elegant, while that of the stadholder was extremely sloppy. William v filled pages with scribble, as though not at all interested in what he wrote. Much in the correspondence was etiquette. Like their contemporaries, parents and children addressed each other in formal terms. The children’s letters to their parents were well sprinkled with polite phrases and ended with ‘Your humble and dedicated Son’ or ‘Your dedicated and obliging Daughter’. The parents would close with ‘Your faithful Mother’ or ‘Your most affectionate Father’. And yet the distance between the fam­ ily members was small compared to the distance they wanted to keep from the outside world. The subservient manner in which the children’s tutors signed their correspondence with their pupils bordered on selfhumiliation. As in all European courts, differences in status were perpetually emphasized and confirmed.38 The tone of William Frederick’s letters varied according to his relationship with the recipient. To his father, the Hereditary Prince could be hard and cold. He would respond obediently and evasively to his mother’s meddlesome instructions – ‘look after your health’, ‘take care of your teeth’, ‘practise your handwriting, spelling, style’ – even daring to answer her back on occasion.39 He only sounded relaxed when writing to his ‘little sister and brother’, and he was particularly open with his sister. Their letters were full of small talk, gossip about the people around them or what they had thought of plays they had seen, and sometimes more important matters – from the summer of 1789 they both expressed concern 27

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about the political news from France. They responded with horror to the celebrations surrounding the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille in July 1790. Despite her best intentions, Mimi was no letter writer. Although she moved to The Hague after her marriage, William Frederick spent a lot of time in Breda. In August 1790, to mark his eighteenth birthday, he had been appointed governor and military commander of the city. He is reported as having dealt with his men with ‘extreme severity’.40 It fell to Wilhelmina to care for Mimi. She prepared her daughter-in-law for her future tasks as wife of the stadholder. After all, like Mimi, she too had come from Berlin a generation earlier and had to adapt to strange forms of social intercourse founded on Republican ideas of equality.41 To Louise, who also had to adapt to new customs in Brunswick, she wrote: ‘You have all kinds of resources that she lacks.’42 A year later, the news was better. Mimi was pregnant. On 6 December 1792, at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague, she gave birth to a son,William Frederick George Louis. The birth went well, despite a deliriously happy William Frederick writing to his sister that it was ‘actually a most unpleasant moment’. Wilhelmina, too, was satisfied. Mimi had ‘conducted herself like an angel, though she was in great pain’. When he was called into the delivery room, William v immediately fell to his knees. He was the first stadholder in the Orange family to live to see his grandson.43 At the ages of eighteen and twenty, Mimi and William Frederick had fulfilled the most important dynastic duty. The future of the stadholder family was assured – at least, the successor to the Prince of Orange now had an heir. Other than that, little was certain. The times were dangerous but, unlike during the patriot crisis in the 1780s, the political threats now came from outside the Republic. Even in the letters she sent from Mimi’s nursery to Louise, Wilhelmina’s reports on the progress of the newborn baby were accompanied by reactions to the latest news from revolutionary France – the quibbling of the National Convention in Paris, the sinister intentions of the commander of the northern revolutionary army Charles-François Dumouriez and the malicious ambitions of the former patriots who had fled to France.44 Austria and Prussia had been at war with France since April 1792. Now the great revolution also reached the Republic.

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War and flight The decision was taken in Paris on 1 February 1793, eleven days after the death of Louis xvi at the guillotine: ‘The National Convention . . . considering that the Stadholder of the United Netherlands has had dealings with the enemies of France and has repressed the patriots . . . declares in the name of the French Nation that it is at war with the King of England and the Stadholder of the United Netherlands.’45 That the French revolutionaries mentioned William v as an oppressor of his people in the same breath as his cousin, King George iii, must have been a highly unpleasant confirmation of the Orange family’s monarchic ambitions. The message could not have been clearer: we are coming for you. Death to the king. Death to the stadholder! It was war, now for the Northern Netherlands too. William v had not waited idly for the formal declaration of war. After the execution of the French king, he sent William Frederick to Frankfurt to conclude military agreements with the leading powers of the First Coalition, Austria and Prussia. He also instructed the Hereditary Prince to form a triple contingent of Nassau soldiers. But when the French revolutionary army went on the offensive with the support of the Batavian Legion (comprising patriots who had fled the Netherlands), the prince returned in all haste. The French laid siege to a number of towns in the south of the Republic. Breda, where William Frederick was in command, capitulated without putting up a fight. In March, the tide turned. Austrian troops led by the Duke of Coburg defeated Dumouriez’s army at Neerwinden in Flemish Brabant. The victory was complete when the French general defected to the Austrians. The two armies marched to the northern border of France, accompanied by the States army and hastily arrived British troops. Until the summer of 1794 the opposing forces clashed in skirmishes, petty warfare and larger battles at the border towns of Valenciennes, Charleroi and Menen without either side achieving a breakthrough.46 If the combined forces of Austria, Britain, Prussia and the Republic had advanced on Paris, they would almost certainly have been assured of victory, but disagreement between the English and Austrian commanders caused them to miss the opportunity.47 Between July 1793 and July 1794 Robespierre’s Jacobin Reign of Terror was raging in France. The country was weakened by paranoia among the revolutionaries about traitors in their midst and desperation about the radical social experiments and the civil war against monarchists, Catholics and other counter-revolutionaries. 29

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The French king Louis xvi is beheaded on the Place de la Révolution, now the Place de la Concorde. The memory of this regicide would haunt the royal houses of Europe for the whole of the 19th century. Isidore Stanislas Helman after Charles Monnet, Louis xvi’s execution in Paris on 21 January 1793, 1794, copperplate engraving.

Nevertheless, the revolutionary regime had successfully introduced a policy of levée en masse, or ‘mass rising’, an appeal to all men, women and children to defend the revolution with their lives. Although this mobilization was achieved through ruthless press-gang tactics it did make France, in Van de Spiegel’s words, ‘unimaginably strong’.48 From the beginning, this was no ‘normal’ war.The French fought for their revolutionary ideals, to free the peoples of Europe from their tyrannical rulers. Their opponents, the European monarchies, fought against these ideas. It was a war of conflicting convictions, comparable to the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Nevertheless it took some time for the courts and governments of Europe to fully understand the consequences. At first they fell back on the principles of the eighteenth-century struggle for hegemony, putting territorial gain before the need to join forces.49 Within the Orange family, Wilhelmina of Prussia was the first to understand that this was no ordinary war. A week after the publication of the French decree, she wrote to Louise: ‘The distinction between the Stadholder and the provinces is exceptionally malicious, but is no threat to the Nation; the healthy part will see though the trap and no one doubts that the declaration of war is aimed at the whole country.’50 These ‘lunatics’ had to be resisted, preferably with soldiers. And that is precisely what her sons did. The war gave them the opportunity to acquire ‘fame and honour’.51 30

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Prince Frederick would gain fame very quickly. He was wounded leading an attack in September 1793. William Frederick, however, was less suited to the military métier and preferred to avoid the battlefield altogether. As a military leader, the Hereditary Prince was unable to form a bond with his men and was afraid of the pandemonium of powder smoke, screaming, mutilation and death. He was more interested in the organization and paperwork.52 He insisted that everything be in order, much to the annoyance of his commanders, who understood only too well that victory did not depend on whether all the tables were correct. This put William Frederick permanently at loggerheads with the Duke of York, his second cousin, who commanded the British army. The war was accompanied by propaganda on both sides. On the orders of the Austrian commander, pamphlets were distributed among the French asking the following two questions: ‘You were promised that, once the King was dead, you would be free and happy. Four months have now passed since that heinous deed. And are you free? Are you happy?’ The revolutionary side issued the following response, in German: ‘You, Prussian, Austrian, English and Dutch soldiers are being deceived with the lies that we know only too well from your kings, princes and officers, yes, from all your tyrants. They want to hold you in slavery and misery . . . Come comrades! Long live freedom and to the devil with your despots.’53 In January 1795 the revolutionary forces reached the Republic. Exceptionally cold temperatures had led to the major rivers freezing over, allowing the French armies to cross them easily and march north. After that, things moved quickly. The British troops returned home and Prussia wanted to leave the war. Only Austria continued to fight, with little success. The Republic’s defences collapsed. What followed was a caricature of a revolution, not only because of the carnival that accompanied the destruction of Orange symbols and the planting of liberty trees, but because the victors showed almost no interest at all in the stadholder. Nothing more was said of ending his tyrannical regime, let alone his execution. The revolution would become a farce, as very little came of the great cause of self-determination for the nation.54 Renamed the Batavian Republic, the Netherlands became a vassal state of revolutionary France, despite the time and words devoted to the revolutionary ideal. For William v, nevertheless, these were anxious times. According to Grand Pensionary Laurens van de Spiegel, ‘The Prince spoke of leaving the country, resigning from his positions and titles, not wishing to be the cause of the State’s misfortunes or sharing the fate of the 31

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King of France, and other remonstrations of the same ilk.’ Van de Spiegel had tried to change the stadholder’s mind: the departure of the Prince of Orange would only increase the confusion, and would constitute neglect of his duty and a betrayal of the fatherland and his family’s honour. ‘In the name of God, let these considerations also carry some weight,’ he urged William v on the day the prince asked the States of Holland and the States General for permission to leave, together with his sons.55 They left the Republic at midnight on 18 January 1795 without waiting for an answer. From Scheveningen, they sailed for England. Wilhelmina of Prussia, Mimi and their young son William had already preceded them. The stadholder’s departure thus looked more like a flight. The Hereditary Prince and his brother wanted to continue fighting – to defend the freedom of the Republic and not to relinquish the dynastic interests of their family, which were closely related to the stadholdership, too easily. Shortly before their departure, William Frederick had snapped at his father, ‘You may give up for yourself, but your positions and titles are hereditary, and I am still here and have a son.’56 But William v capitulated. It was an inglorious end to two centuries of Orange stadholdership.

Scheveningen, 18 January 1795. Stadholder William v flees from the Republic to England, together with his two sons William Frederick and Frederick. Dirk Langendijk, Het vertrek van stadhouder Willem v naar Engeland, 18 January 1795, 1798, pencil and brush on paper.

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It was singular retreat. Watched by a silent crowd that had gathered on the dunes at Scheveningen, the stadholder and his sons boarded a fishing boat. In a letter to Louise, William Frederick tried to describe the mood as they left: You know, my dearest sister, that I always resort to all too optimistic medicine, and to remain in character I would like to tell you that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds, and as a consequence we are obliged to endure our setbacks with patience. My Mother and my Father will undoubtedly give you an exact description of the journey . . . I will restrict myself here to a few comments and delight in the thought that I will see you again soon. Thus in all misfortune there is something good. Our departure from Holland was extremely miserable and everyone appeared disconcerted to see us go. A sombre silence, a mood of mourning, hung over The Hague, and I can assure you that you have never experienced the like.57 ‘All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds,’ William Frederick had written. ‘I say it in the words of Pangloss,’ he had added, quoting the ever-hopeful mentor in Voltaire’s Candide. The Hereditary Prince would use the aphorism so often that Louise would sometimes call her brother ‘Dr Pangloss’. Voltaire’s definition of optimism, in the words of his hero, also seems to have fitted William Frederick to a tee: ‘Optimism? . . . It is the mania for insisting that all is well when all is by no means well.’58 The Hereditary Prince would have great need of this piece of wisdom.

Exile ‘Orange   in exile’ is how the fate of the stadholder and his family in this period is generally described.59 For nineteen years the family roamed around Europe, from William v’s departure in January 1795 to the return of his son William Frederick in November 1813. The story follows a classic dramatic line: after expulsion, dispersion and alienation comes the miraculous return. It begins and ends on the beach at Scheveningen, from where the stadholder departed and where the sovereign prince landed.60 This representation of the exile is not incorrect, as long as it is not oversimplified and does not conceal the interruptions in and alternatives to this account behind an easily suggested continuity between father 33

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and son, stadholdership and monarchy, Republic and the Netherlands as a unified state – in other words, it must look beyond the myth of the unbreakable bond between the Orange family and the Netherlands.61 The historical situation was rarely as complex as in the decades around 1800. The future of the House of Orange was as unclear as that of the Netherlands. The national history of the independent Netherlands could have ended with the fall of the old Republic, followed rapidly by the Batavian Republic (1795–1806), the Kingdom of Holland ruled by Louis Napoleon (1806–1810) and the incorporation of the Netherlands in the French empire (1810–1813).62 That would also have meant the end of the story of the House of Orange and the Netherlands. Contemporaries were also aware of this. Revolutionaries tried to create a radical new society in which there would no longer be a place for princes, aristocracy or church, the decayed powers of what they called the ancien régime.63 Princess Louise too felt that her family’s departure from the Netherlands could well be final. She wrote in 1797: ‘We will all end up going to America as a last resort, where we will have to learn a profession or find employment.’64 She could see her own future as a governess, giving French lessons to the daughters of respectable families. And yet it was a full decade before the Netherlands disappeared completely from the future plans of the Orange family. For the time being, the dynasty followed an uncertain course based on two distinct strategies: regaining the Republic and the stadholdership versus negotiating com­­pensation for the loss of their power. Whatever they did, they would be dependent on others, namely their royal relations in England and Prussia who had taken them in after they fled the Republic, and the great powers of Europe, who were trying – in shifting coalitions – to find a way out of the chaos caused by revolution, war and French hegemony. The family was dispersed across the continent, staying at courts in London, Berlin and Brunswick, fighting in Portugal, Spain and Germany and briefly ruling territories in Poland and Germany. Frequently they had little other choice than to adapt to the rapidly changing circumstances; this may indeed have been a third strategy. Tensions arose, even more so because all that was political was also personal. If the feeling of shared fate was stronger in all of Europe’s dynasties than that of solidarity, exile only strengthened their awareness of being dependent on each other. Some members of the Orange family were able to surrender themselves to their political fate more readily than others. Louise encouraged

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her parents and brothers not to give up, warning them from an early stage not to follow the example of the French émigrés. Brunswick had been inundated with French refugees since 1789: aristocrats who had fled the terror and wore themselves out spouting anti-revolutionary rhetoric, and who saw the dawn of the counter-revolution in every minor setback experienced by the revolutionary regime in Paris. Every rumour gave rise to endless palavering, all equally fruitless.65 Together with Frederick, Louise tried to organize a loyal invasion force, known as the Osnabrück Assembly, which would contribute to the coalition’s efforts to liberate the Republic from the hands of the French and Batavian revolutionaries. Prussia soon put a stop to this attempt: exhausted, it left the coalition against France. The Treaty of Basel between Berlin and Paris of April 1795 established the neutrality of Prussia and a demarcation zone in Northern Germany; it also made the Assembly illegal.66 After the Assembly was disbanded, Prince Frederick joined the Austrian army. He was to go down fighting; that is at least the carefully cherished memory. In October 1797 the Treaty of Campo Formio between France and Austria brought his active armed service to an end. He suffered from the consequences of wounds that had never healed properly. At the end of 1798 he contracted an infection in a military hospital and died early the following year in Padua, not yet 25 years old. A dejected Wilhelmina wrote: ‘I shall grieve my whole life for this good and honest boy . . . If the newspapers are to be believed, our dear Fritz died from fevers he developed in hospital. In that case, he died on the field of honour.’67 Thus Prince Frederick earned the highest renown according to the aristocratic code of honour, which was at the same time, the pinnacle of masculinity.68 From England, Wilhelmina of Prussia followed developments on the continent with mixed feelings. The lack of success against the French revolutionaries made her despondent. She understood that the future of the dynasty lay in the hands of the great powers. She preached that only military cooperation could save Europe from France and that it was necessary to negotiate with revolutionaries from a position of strength. Because that was something the Orange family lacked, she was afraid that they would become pawns in the power games of others. She was furious with her brother, Friedrich Wilhelm ii. By signing the Treaty of Basel, Prussia had not only abandoned the coalition but had shamefully capitulated to the French king-slayers.69

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William v and Wilhelmina stayed at Hampton Court in London, where George iii had put a number of rooms in the colossal palace at their disposal. A ‘whole Dutch colony’ gathered around the exiled stadholder and his wife, who could do little for them.70 More than ever before, Wilhelmina devoted her energies to her correspondence with her children. Because of the war situation, she would send coded messages, sometimes with numbers, or use lemon juice to write between the widely spaced lines, which would become visible when held over a flame. 71 Strangely enough, she wrote these secret letters in French, while Dutch would have presented an additional obstacle for intelligence services that may have wanted to break the codes.72 Her correspondence was of little practical value, other than that the opportunity to write down her ideas on the political situation brought her some relief. ‘These are my humble sentiments,’ she would note in Dutch when she had once again made her point.73

Possibilities and impossibilities for the dynasty As a good wife, Wilhelmina believed that she should stand behind her husband, no matter how difficult she found his almost unlimited capacity for resignation.74 Delivered from the tasks of stadholder that had always been too much for him, William v had adapted himself immediately to the new reality. Just one last time, he brought the wrath of the revolutionary regime in the Batavian Republic down upon his shoulders when, at England’s request, he ordered the authorities in the colonies of the Dutch East and West India Companies to place themselves under the protection of the British, who had been trying to get their hands on the Netherlands’ overseas territories ever since the Seven Years War. ‘High treason’ was the response of two Dutch professors. They demanded the death sentence for the exiled stadholder who, in their eyes, had no authority at all in this respect. William v did not seem overly impressed by revolutionaries telling him what his authority was. To him, they were as muddle-headed as the proponents of a constitutional monarchy. His standpoint on the latter was clear: ‘A constitutional king is a king who ends up under the guillotine.’75 William v would regularly repeat this opinion, a perennial fear among European monarchies during the century that followed.When the Batavian revolutionaries embellished their constitution of 1798 with an ‘oath of hatred’ addressed to the ‘stadholder’s administration’, William would have been offended, but certainly not surprised.76 36

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Not without some self-interest, the stadholder contemplated the paradoxes of his situation. Shortly after his departure from the Republic, he committed his thoughts to paper in a memorandum entitled ‘Reflections on what the Prince of Orange should do on the subject of peace from the perspective of his different positions’.77 His conclusion was that he could do nothing, at least for the time being. As a prince of Nassau, which lay in the demarcation zone agreed between France and Prussia, he should remain neutral or sign up to the Treaty of Basel. As a prince of the Holy Roman Empire, also on the grounds of his Nassau territories, he was duty bound to join Austria in fighting France. As stadholder of the Republic, he was obliged to expel the French from the Netherlands and restore order in the country. These contradictions could only be resolved under the general European peace treaty being negotiated after the signing of the Treaty of Campo Formio in December 1797, if necessary by stipulating suitable compensation for one position or another. William v himself could do nothing. ‘I find myself between hammer and anvil,’ he wrote to his daughter Louise. ‘My duties clash.’78 Thus William v discharged himself from taking any initiative. As long as England fought an impossible battle against revolutionary France and to restore the stadholdership in the Republic, it was sufficient for him to pay lip service to his own efforts to restore his power. In the meantime, he enjoyed his stay in Britain. He immersed himself in court life, with its balls, theatre and opera, travelled throughout the land, admired landscapes and cities, and learned of the wonders of early industrialization – much to the dismay of his eldest son, who was only too aware that responsibility for the dynasty would sooner or later fall upon his shoulders.79 To Louise, William Frederick spitefully referred to his father as ‘William the Patient’. He was in danger of losing all the family’s possessions, ‘squandered at the expense of his successor’.80 How different were the actions of the Hereditary Prince himself. He had been seized by restlessness. He wrote to his sister: ‘It is impossible to make any plans for the future . . . In the meantime I cannot stop myself from devising castles in the air every possible kind, all mixed up with each other.’81 Should the Orange dynasty hang on so grimly to the restoration of its rights in the Republic? Was it not better to follow the example of Prussia? From Berlin, where William Frederick had gone in September 1795 to request permission – despite the Treaty of Basel – to build up an army at Osnabrück, he informed his father: ‘I continue to believe that we should not seek to achieve our aims only through violence, 37

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but should also enter into negotiations. I would therefore like you to establish relations simultaneously with London, Vienna, Berlin and Paris, so as to have more than one string to your bow and win friends wherever possible.’82 He found his father’s calculated inactivity ‘unstatesmanlike’ and bad for the House of Orange. The Hereditary Prince, however, found himself alone in this position within his family. Follow Prussia and make peace with the revolutionaries in Paris? William v and Wilhelmina would hear nothing of such a ‘Gallic-Prussian solution’. His mother felt that the Hereditary Prince should leave Prussia, saying, ‘I feel that your role in Berlin is over.’83 William Frederick, however, refused to change the course of action that he had set himself and which, compared to the passive waiting of his father, appeared decisive but also brought its own problems. Keeping all options open, fighting and negotiating with France at the same time – amid the tangle of revolution, war, alliances and peace settlements, he could easily be accused of opportunism, which would most certainly cause substantial damage to the reputations of both the Hereditary Prince and the House of Orange. Who would still trust him? Wilhelmina of Prussia once again reminded her son that a policy of fighting and negotiating at the same time was possible only from a position of strength: ‘The role of knight errant does not suit you, and that of negotiator would seem to me far too dangerous.’84 While berating her husband for using the hopeless fight against the French as an excuse to remain in the safety of his refuge in England and do nothing to help his own House, she warned her son against trying to turn the chaotic developments to his advantage. In the short term the Hereditary Prince achieved precious little. He did not want to return to his parents at Hampton Court. In the spring of 1796 he sent for Mimi and young William, now three years old, to join him in Berlin. A year later, a second son was born, Frederick, followed in 1800 by a daughter named Pauline. William Frederick moved through Prussian court life with difficulty. Like all courts, it was a mishmash of government, negotiation, intrigue and decadence. Since the peace treaty between Berlin and Paris, there were also diplomats from revolutionary France at court and William Frederick met Antoine Caillard, whom he knew from the time he was France’s envoy in The Hague. He wrote to Louise that, during carnival, ‘citoyen Caillard’ had worn a white and red sash over his costume. ‘Apparently the red symbolized the blood of Louis xvi,’ he explained, ‘while the white represented the blood of the other kings, blood that these Republican friends of humanity still wished 38

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to spill to quench their fury and bear witness to their love of Freedom and Equality.’85 On the advice of King Friedrich Wilhelm iii of Prussia, his brotherin-law and cousin who had ascended to the throne in November 1797, William Frederick purchased two landed estates in Poland, Widzim and Racot. Both lay in the territory that Prussia had annexed during the partitions of Poland in 1793 and 1795. One of his first decisions was to put an end to serfdom, an act of emancipation that also made economic exploitation of the land possible. Serfs became tenants, collective control and collective protection disappeared, land became a tradable commodity and profit became the primary objective.86 In the meantime, the Hereditary Prince devoted considerable energy to preparing the Second Congress of Rastatt, held in 1798 and 1799. Now that France, Prussia and Austria were at peace, attempts were being made to conclude an agreement for the Holy Roman Empire. Compensation for the exiled Rhineland princes was part of the negotiations. Through Prussia’s mediation, the Orange family were included in the consultations: they were to receive compensation for their lost power in the Republic. Berlin had already submitted a proposal to this effect in August 1796, without informing the stadholder: the Batavian Republic would compensate the family financially and they would be awarded the secularized bishoprics of Bamberg and Würzburg as territorial compensation. They repeated this proposal in Rastatt.87 But the congress was a failure and in April 1799 war broke out again between Austria and France. During the preparations for the Rastatt congress, the differences between William v and William Frederick once again surfaced. William v played for high stakes: to restore the stadholdership and retain Nassau without negotiating with Paris. Secretly he didn’t want a solution at all, no matter how welcome financial compensation would be. He preferred to stay in England where, as long as William Pitt – who refused to make peace with France at any price – was in power, he had little to fear. William Frederick, on the other hand, wanted to bring the current situation to an end as soon as possible. Negotiations with Paris were unavoidable; surely his father must see that? Unlike the stadholder, the Hereditary Prince had few objections in principle to territorial compensation in the form of secularized bishoprics. He prepared for the negotiations together with a confidant of the family. If he failed to restore the stadholdership and recover the family’s possessions, the Hereditary Prince would demand a financial settlement in addition to territorial compensation. 39

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Together they estimated the losses of the House of Orange-Nassau at 35 million guilders: loss of revenue from the stadholdership and income from annuities, and the value of confiscated possessions, including castles, gardens and libraries.88 William Frederick actually wanted to go much further. With some arrogance, he demanded that his father give him a free hand in direct negotiations with the revolutionary regime in Paris. If the stadholder was to sit back and do nothing, he himself would represent the interests of the House. To his father, he fired questions off in staccato fashion. Was the stadholder concerned only about restoring the old constitution, the Union of Utrecht? Was he prepared to continue in his position under a new constitution? Did he wish to work together with the regents of the old Republic? ‘If the Prince of Orange cannot make a decision on this matter,’ he wrote, ‘will he permit the Hereditary Prince to take control of affairs and undertake the necessary attempt at rapprochement with Paris?’89 When William v calmly rejected his son’s ultimatum, William Frederick responded accusingly that, in that case, everything was lost: the stadholdership and the compensation. He would henceforth provide for his children by seeking employment.90 William v reacted with resignation. If the Rastatt congress led to the stadholder’s powers being curtailed, ‘he would rather allow the Hereditary Prince to stand by his choice on that matter than, at his age, take on the difficult task of having to rule according to new insights and instructions.’91 The stadholder had simply had enough.

Debacle in Holland In the autumn of 1799 the difficult negotiations were interrupted by six weeks of armed conflict. British and Russian troops invaded the Batavian Republic, together with a small force led by William Frederick. The offensive was part of the operations of the Second Coalition, in which Austria, Naples, Portugal and the Ottoman Empire – indignant about the French attack on Egypt – also took part. Besides in the Netherlands, France was also under attack in Northern Italy, Switzerland and the Levant. Because Prussia was initially going to take part William Frederick had built up an Orange legion, financed by England, in the German town of Lingen, some 40 kilometres (25 mi.) from the border with the Republic. But Prussia left the coalition, and the French and Batavian troops made short work of the Orange army. 40

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William Frederick landed in the north of Holland, together with the British and Russian invasion force. He had been seized by an unrealistic optimism. While William v unwillingly supported the invasion and announced that he would be content with restoration of the stadholder­ ship in the Northern Netherlands, William Frederick hoped that the invasion would mark the beginning of the liberation of both the Northern and Southern Netherlands – the Seventeen Provinces, which he foresaw being resurrected under the leadership of the House of Orange. A proOrange revolt, which he expected immediately after the invasion, would prove that he was right. He was told by an informant that the population would rise up and follow him en masse. ‘There is an enormous burden on my shoulders,’ he wrote to his mother, and to his father: ‘I have high hopes that we will see each other in The Hague.’92 The inexperienced Hereditary Prince threw himself recklessly into the expedition. But it was all too much at the same time: the organization of the army at Lingen, the logistics of the invasion, the negotiations with the British and the preparations for a transitional government in the Republic.93 The British also had doubts about his loyalty. Was the Hereditary Prince of Orange their true ally? He repeatedly chose in favour of Prussia, which, since the Treaty of Basel, meant against England. A Dutch diplomat in the service of the British expressed these concerns: ‘It must be admitted that the Hereditary Prince is impetuous, domineering and arrogant. He relies too much on his own strength and what he considers good fortune; that sense of self-importance has a dangerous influence on his intentions.’94 He was right. The six weeks that William Frederick camped on the boggy strip of land between Texel and Alkmaar in the midst of 40,000 British and Russian troops was to end as a military, political and personal fiasco. From the last week of August 1799 it was vast, improvised chaos. Storms delayed the landings of the coalition troops. Once on the battle­ field, they were soon defeated by the French and Batavian troops. The Russians and British penetrated no further south than the town of Castricum. Their only success was capturing the Batavian fleet; the ships were directed from Den Helder to the Isle of Wight.95 More damaging to William Frederick was the failure of a pro-Orange revolt to materialize in the Republic. The Hereditary Prince, who had come to North Holland with only two aides-de-camp, had genuinely expected to be in The Hague within a few days, welcomed by a cheering population, as in 1787. But the reception for the stadholder’s son by the people of Holland, 41

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who waved a few compulsory cockades and streamers, was lukewarm to say the least. Efforts to ‘revolutionize’ the population came to nought and Orangist regents remained silent.96 After the adventure was over, British general Ralph Abercromby wondered what had possessed the Hereditary Prince, saying: ‘Except one man from Hoorn, no person has come near him, or had any communication with him. He knows as little of the country as if he had been born in Sweden.’97 The general was not the only one to be exasperated with the prince. William Frederick found himself among British officers who had prepared themselves well for a period behind the lines and could live reasonably comfortably. With no horses and almost no staff, the Hereditary Prince was afraid of becoming the object of their mockery. He had been in Holland hardly a week when he wrote to his mother that he had an urgent need for field equipment, including horses, wagons, stable boys, a field bed and writing materials. ‘I have nothing here,’ he complained, ‘and, as you will understand, it is even more unpleasant and could become a source of embarrassment to me because everyone around me has twice or three times as much.’98 He asked her to provide everything, and as cheaply as possible. Wilhelmina understood her son’s needs and sent men and goods to Den Helder. But that is as far as they got; there was no room for the horses, carriages and staff at the Hereditary Prince’s makeshift headquarters. As long as little came of the liberation plans, the prince assisted with the organization of the army. The men needed orders, a task that he thought to fulfil – as in the war of 1793 and 1794 – administratively. On paper, it was again very impressive. To William Frederick’s dismay, the supreme commander of the British-Russian invasion force was the Duke of York, with whom he had clashed many times before during the unsuccessful campaign against the French in 1794. Through the duke, William Frederick tried to obtain an advance from the British government to cover the costs of setting up a provisional stadholder administration.99 London refused the request, reasoning that if a majority of the population in the Republic wanted the return of an Orange government, they would be prepared to pay for it. If necessary, the Hereditary Prince could raise the money through taxes. The final disenchantment came in Alkmaar, in the presence of the Duke of York. The arrival of the Hereditary Prince in the first week of October provoked neither cries of welcome nor protests. The people took cognizance of the prince’s proclamation pledging restoration of the old freedoms, but there was hardly any response to his 42

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appeal to join him in his fight to reinstate the stadholdership. ‘We damn the Prince of Orange,’ proclaimed a number of Batavian seamen taken as prisoners of war.100 At the beginning of October the French defeated the British-Russian invasion force at Castricum. The Duke of York initiated negotiations with the French and capitulated in mid-October. The British and Russians returned home, leaving behind 5,000 dead, most of them Russians.William Frederick accompanied the British back to England. He was furious. The invasion force had lasted for only six weeks. Why had England not sent an extra naval squadron? He had not been so close to The Hague since 1795. He blamed the Duke of York for the expedition’s failure. The duke should not have negotiated behind his back. All he had written to the Hereditary Prince was, ‘I do not wish to waste a moment in informing Your Highness that I am suspending hostilities.’101 In England, lessons were learned from the adventure, first of all by the British government. Until then, London had supported the Orange family on the basis of the 1788 treaty, which Prussia had also signed: the stadholder-based order had to be maintained or restored, irrespective of the standpoints of the prince or the Hereditary Prince. It was in England’s interests to have a power that it could easily control on the other side of the North Sea, but now that it was clear that the stadholder’s family enjoyed little notable support in the Netherlands, London changed course. It sought rapprochement with the Batavian Republic and even eventually with France, though that was to be short-lived. With Britain’s change, of course, William v’s house of cards collapsed. As long as the struggle looked hopeless for Britain, he knew he was safe. He had always resolutely rejected a settlement with the Batavian Republic.102 If Britain’s negotiations with The Hague and Paris were successful, the House of Orange would again have to make choices, a prospect that terrified the exiled stadholder. When a Europe-wide peace was agreed in Amiens in 1802, he immediately transferred all his rights and duties to his son.103 William Frederick also took stock of the situation following the debacle in Holland. In France, on 9 November 1799 – the 18th Brumaire in year viii of the revolutionary calendar – Napoleon had seized power with the help of a small number of conspirators. The Hereditary Prince wondered whether the double strategy of fighting against and negotiating with Paris, which he had been advocating since 1795, might now deserve a second chance. It might even be preferable to participate in the 43

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new order, especially now that France had a powerful leader. The Orange family had been following the activities of the French general – whom they persistently called ‘Général Buonaparté’ in their letters – since his campaign in Italy. In mid-November William Frederick wrote to his sister Louise from England: ‘We do not know the intentions of Buonaparté [and his followers], but if they really want the peace they have announced, we must look at the conditions and, if they are acceptable, it will be a blessing for humanity. It will lead to a general peace.’104 His response was one shared generally in the courts of Europe; the 18th Brumaire was received as a farewell to Jacobin radicalism. Napoleon’s coup fired William Frederick’s imagination and he lost himself in speculation. If the Duke of York had not given up prematurely, if the invasion force had held on for another three or four weeks until after Napoleon’s coup, his adventure in Holland may have ended more favourably. William Frederick’s mood quickly deteriorated. He was dissatisfied with his situation, embittered with the British, full of expectations about ‘first consul’ Napoleon and dismayed at his father’s cowardice. When an aide-de-camp and an Orangist diplomat encountered the Hereditary Prince in the spring of 1800, he was full of rancour and lashed out at all those around him. The diplomat reported on the meeting: We found the Hereditary Prince engrossed in a report on Bonaparte’s inauguration as consul. He was very agitated. Bonaparte was indisputably a king in all respects. What did it matter what name the king bore and who his family was? What was the first that bore the name of king, but a successful soldier? We were shocked.105 The Hereditary Prince cynically rejected everything that the opponents of the revolution had fought for since 1789. His subordinates protested: what about his own family and the noble tasks entrusted to the stadholders’ dynasty for centuries? Was supporting Napoleon not tantamount to declaring the old order bankrupt? But their protests fell on deaf ears. William Frederick snapped back at them scornfully: His own forefather William the Silent? He was nothing more than a rebel who had used violence to wrest the state free from its legitimate sovereign. The Hereditary Prince even claimed that the patriotic pretentions of this great man were worthless because of his clear intention of seizing power himself and clothing it 44

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in sovereignty. If he had lived ten days longer, he would have succeeded.106 An unprincipled struggle for power – was that how William Frederick now felt about politics? Besides his disdain for the honour and tradition of his illustrious family, there was also the reference to Voltaire. The full quotation reads: ‘What was the first that bore the name of king, but a successful soldier? He who serves his country well requires not ancestry.’107 William the Silent as a pedestaled soldier compared by his descendant, Hereditary Prince William Frederick, with a French general of humble origins dabbling in politics? There was only one conclusion to be drawn: it was crisis in the Orange dynasty.

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William Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Orange-Nassau, in 1800. Painting by John Hoppner, Portrait of Willem i van Oranje-Nassau 1772–1843, January 1800, oil on canvas.

2

In Napoleon’s Europe, 1799–1812

Opportunities, catastrophes and dashed hopes Napoleon Bonaparte determined the fate of Europe. He imposed peace across the continent, reorganized it politically and played the other powers against each other until they united against him. The relations between the major powers were decisive. At the end of the century, France’s relationship with Prussia continued to be dictated by the Treaty of Basel. Austria had been defeated at Lunéville in June 1800 and forced to agree peace terms with Paris. Russia had withdrawn after suffering defeats in Holland and Switzerland; Tsar Paul emerged as a friend to Napoleon until he was assassinated during a palace revolution in early 1801. That left Britain, a principled opponent of the revolution. But the departure of William Pitt as prime minister left the way clear for negotiations with Paris, resulting in the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802. For the first time in ten years, there was no fighting on the continent.1 Though they were able to exert little influence, this state of peace following an extended period of war had a direct impact on the smaller royal and princely houses of Europe, exiled or not. It offered opportunities, but also brought new catastrophes and dashed their hopes for the future. Such mixed consequences also affected the Orange dynasty. Napoleon’s reorganization of the Holy Roman Empire, at least the first phase, presented them with a new opportunity. In 1802 the family was awarded territorial compensation for the loss of the stadholdership that William Frederick so passionately desired. But the possessions were not secure. In 1806, with war once again escalating and the continued restructuring of the German states, calamity struck: the compensation was withdrawn. After souring relations with the British in 1799, William Frederick – now head of the dynasty after the death of his father – proved no longer useful to Paris and had also lost his credit in Berlin. 47

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Of the three possible strategies customary in dynastic politics – rule, war and marriage – only one was left open to the Prince of Orange after 1807: to find an opportune marriage for his eldest son. The family invested all their hopes in the fourteen-year-old Hereditary Prince William. He was to go to England to improve ties with the British royal family, with the aim of marrying the heir to the British throne, Princess Charlotte.Young William exceeded expectations in fulfilling his mission. As Wellington’s aide-de-camp in the Portuguese and Spanish campaign against Napoleon, he wiped out the stain on the family’s military reputation. At the end of 1813 he was betrothed to Charlotte, but new developments on the continent during the final phase of the fight against the French frustrated the family’s plans. Everything changed once again.

With Napoleon Developments on the continent after Napoleon’s coup in November 1799 proved William Frederick right: the Orange family had to initiate negotiations with Paris. Lunéville put the exiled princes’ demands for compensation back on the agenda. Under article 18 of the Treaty of Amiens, the signatories were obliged to provide territorial compensation for the House of Orange. William Frederick, who had withdrawn to his Polish estates after the debacle in Holland, offered to negotiate in Paris on behalf of the family.2 From Schloss Oranienstein in Nassau, where he had lived since the collapse of his ‘English policy’, William v accepted his son’s offer. As long as he could retain his title of Prince of Orange, he would consent to any peace agreement.3 Wilhelmina of Prussia, however, protested. In her eyes, there was no one more cunning than Bonaparte. Furthermore, the substance of the negotiations was far too complex for her son. ‘Your presence in Paris will be a source of endless concern to me,’ she wrote. ‘You are running the risk of being seen as an adventurer and treated accordingly.’4 Her fears were confirmed when, during long months of preparation, William Frederick submitted a claim of 117 million guilders to the Batavian Republic, three times more than the family had requested four years earlier. If the claim were to be submitted, no member of the family could ever hope for a return to the Republic. ‘It would bring scandal down on your father’s head,’ Wilhelmina wrote.5 That, scarcely a month later, William Frederick had a representative in Paris ask about the possibility of the House of Orange-Nassau being restored in Holland under French 48

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protection bears witness to his opportunism.6 Wilhelmina found it no less alarming that the Orange delegation would be led by a Prussian delegate: she had mistrusted Berlin ever since the Treaty of Basel. Only Louise was positive about William Frederick’s mission, though she understood how complex his position would be as a ‘Hollander’ hemmed in between Prussia, England and France. ‘He will not shirk his duties,’ she wrote to her mother.7 Wilhelmina repeated that her son had no business being in France. ‘May God be with William Frederick and return him to us safely!’ she sighed when he left for Paris at the start of 1802.8 Within a few days of arriving, William Frederick met everyone who mattered regarding the immediate future of the House of Orange. But he had no influence on the outcome of the negotiations. His position was rather humiliating, though he saw that differently himself. The French foreign minister introduced him to Napoleon, after which William Frederick reported to his father, ‘I found the First Consul in the affable mood that minister Talleyrand had already told me of. The interests of the House have his attention and he asked us to have confidence in his good intentions towards us.’9 After paying his respects to Napoleon on two further occasions, he confessed to Louise, ‘I am completely enthralled by the First Consul, who spoke to me with a candour that you cannot imagine, and confided in me regarding everything that has happened since the 18th Brumaire, including England’s refusal to enter into negotiations.’10 Is this what Wilhelmina was afraid of? Was her son being deceived? Napoleon asked William Frederick for a portrait of stadholderking William iii. He would have it copied and add it to his gallery of historical leaders, among which he counted himself. The prince suggested that the current stadholder would be happy to provide him with an original, but Napoleon was content with a copy.11 The corps diplomatique was received with imposing ceremonies celebrating the state, nation, army and leader. These spectacles, which attracted massive crowds, were intended to surpass the European monarchies.12 Equally grandiose was the announcement of the agreement between the French state and the Roman Catholic Church at Easter. In a packed Notre-Dame, the Hereditary Prince watched as the papal envoy celebrated mass with the three consuls sitting under a baldachin opposite the cardinal. The service closed with a Te Deum, as it had at the celebrations of the ratification of the Treaty of Amiens.13 William Frederick felt honoured to witness these gatherings in the presence of the First Consul. He boasted to Louise that he had ‘made the acquaintance 49

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of many from the Big, Wide World’.14 His aide-de-camp, however, was less ebullient. The Prince of Orange, he said, was treated like any other diplomat; besides the compulsory words of welcome, Napoleon had not taken ‘the least notice’ of him.15 William Frederick did not take part in the actual negotiations. He spent his time in Paris seeing the sights. He visited museums, theatres and the opera and was shown around Versailles, the dismantled palace of the Bourbons. He also devoted attention to the achievements of the new regime, visiting the school of surgery, an institute for the blind and the École Polytechnique, where military engineers were educated.16 William Frederick showed great interest in the Concordat of 1801, which restored the Roman Catholic liturgy and the church hierarchy, and placed both under the control of the state. He attended a session of the Corps Législatif at which the Concordat was discussed. ‘This is of enormous importance,’ he wrote to Louise. ‘I consider it one of the most fortunate events for Europe, as the return of France to religious principles cannot but make a favourable impression, just as the abolition of all religious ideas in the country was the moment at which everything was overthrown.’17 The struggle against the Church had indeed contributed strongly to the complete derailment of the French revolution. Church lands were taken over by the state, and priests were forced to declare their loyalty to the revolution. During the most radical phase of the revolution, Christianity was abolished and replaced by a cult of reason. All traces of the old religion had to be destroyed. In particular, the ban on baptisms, weddings and funerals according to the traditional rituals had caused emotions to run high.18 Although the Church did not regain its possessions, the Concordat was not the least significant of the measures Napoleon introduced to bring the revolution under control at home. It flew in the face of radicals, who consistently saw the abolition of Christendom as a great leap forward. ‘In religion,’ Napoleon declared, ‘I see not the mystery of the incarnation, but the mystery of the social order.’19 William Frederick, familiar with the sensitivities surrounding the Church and religion, would take Napoleon as his example throughout his administrative career. William Frederick also reported to his father. For William v, a pious member of the reformed church, there was little more closely associated with the honour of the House of Orange than freedom of conscience, as realized in the policy of tolerance practised in a number of provinces in the old Republic. In his eyes, this meant a clearly defined freedom of 50

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religion, as specified in the Union of Utrecht, in combination with the dominance of the Reformed Public Church.20 He was of the opinion that the stadholders had maintained the balance between the various religious groups. When the results of the Paris negotiations were made known, it was precisely these opinions on Orange rule, the Church and religion that set William v at loggerheads with his son. While Louise and Wilhelmina accused the Hereditary Prince of being too gullible – the result was indeed very minimal – William v experienced a crisis of conscience when offered the compensation. He refused to sign the treaty.21

A new position for the House Prussia had agreed with France to treat the stadholder in the same way as the princes driven from the Rhineland and the north of Italy. They could be compensated with Roman Catholic land, bishoprics, abbeys, monasteries and convents in the Holy Roman Empire, which were being secularized for this purpose. Berlin was not acting without self-interest: dismantling the prince-bishoprics increased Prussia’s power within Germany at the expense of Austria.22 At the end of May it became known what the Prussian envoy had succeeded in grinding out of the negotiations for the House of Orange. It was not Bamberg, Würzburg, Trier, Cologne or Mainz – all bishoprics that had been mentioned. Nor was it financial compensation, as William v would have wished; for that Paris referred the family to the Batavian Republic. Article 10 of the 1802 Treaty of Paris summed up what had been achieved: the House of Orange acquired authority over the bishopric of Fulda, the abbeys of Corvey and Weingarten and the free imperial cities of Dortmund, Isny and Buchhorn. The new possessions were explicitly intended as compensation for the loss of the stadholdership, which the Orange family formally relinquished under article 8. Louise cautiously pointed out to her father the consequences of this apparently voluntary surrender of the family’s claims to its hereditary titles: would it not later give old and new opponents of the House of Orange in the Republic a ‘false pretext’, an all-too-welcome argument?23 The treaty contained another unpleasant surprise. The defeated Holy Roman Empire itself was made responsible for how it would interpret and implement the terms of the treaty, with Napoleon acting as arbiter. In this way, France made the German princes and the emperor in Vienna complicit in dismantling their own empire, which would no longer 51

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bear the name ‘Holy’ or ‘Roman’. Under the leadership of Habsburg emperor Franz ii, the German princes came up with a solution. Early in 1803 the Perpetual Diet of Regensburg ratified this Final Recess of the Imperial Deputation (Reichsdeputationshauptschluß). The debates were a farce; the deputation meeting confirmed what France dictated with the agreement of Russia. In April the humiliated emperor signed the final decision.24 The French regime could now maintain that the princely victims of the revolutionary wars had been compensated – at the expense of the Roman Catholic Church. A discontented William Frederick complained to his brother-in-law Friedrich Wilhelm iii that the compensation did not cover even a quarter of the family’s losses.25 His confidence in Napoleon had been severely damaged; the Orange family had been moved across the European chessboard like pawns – and could just as easily have been sacrificed. Referring to the 117 million guilders that he initially wanted to claim from the Batavian Republic, he wrote to Louise, ‘Personally, I am extremely dissatisfied, since I had wished to benefit from it, but I realize that we do not have the power to achieve that.’26 And yet he urged his father to sign the treaty, which he presented as the fruits of his own efforts. ‘You will see from the report and the annexes,’ he wrote, ‘how I have fought and how I eventually gave in, so as not to be held responsible for obstructing the whole settlement, and in the belief that you would prefer to accept this small but assured compensation to continued uncertainty.’27 William v did not want to give his approval at all – not only because he would rather have seen a financial settlement but more especially because of the way in which the assigned territories had been acquired: from the secularization of Church possessions. It was theft. ‘I refuse to be a part of this,’ he wrote. ‘I have no right at all to the bishopric and the abbeys, nor to the towns.The King of Prussia and First Consul Buonaparté, with all due respect, also have no authority on these matters.’28 The Prince of Orange was severely upset. ‘This has moved him deeply,’ Louise wrote to her brother. ‘It is, I feel, because of his religious convictions; he is tortured by his conscience. Give him time and try to convince him step by step.’29 There was, however, no time.William v had to sign the treaty before the beginning of July. Wilhelmina now supported her son and told her husband as much.30 The correspondence took on a harder tone. Naivety, obsolete ideas about inheritance, recriminations about the ‘actual tasks’ of prince and Hereditary Prince, ‘doing nothing’ or ‘not being permitted 52

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to do anything’ in the House’s interests – father and son knew exactly how to hurt one another. ‘Let my father at least once take account of the interests of his House, which he has almost destroyed,’ William Frederick fumed to his sister who, at Wilhelmina’s request, mediated between her father and brother.31 Under pressure from Berlin,William v finally gave in and signed the treaty. ‘We have to move forward and I have made my decision,’ he wrote to William Frederick.32 At the same time, the stadholder drew up a deed in which he transferred his new possessions to his son. ‘I hope that you do not disapprove of my actions,’ he excused himself to Wilhelmina. ‘In my eyes, it was the only way to bring the interests of my family in line with my conscience.’33 As far as the family’s immediate financial problems were concerned, the British government decided to allocate William v an annual allowance of £16,000 – not personally but for the House. Wilhelmina received a one-off payment of £60,000, through William v. The English legal rule that ‘the wife is dead in law’ made direct payments to women impossible. Once married, women lost all rights to act independently.34 At the age of thirty, William Frederick had become one of the many ruling princes of Germany. He showed his father little gratitude. Louise took her brother to task, saying he had treated his father unfairly by dismissing his scruples as childish. ‘Why all this bitterness, this coldness, this absence of politeness?’, she wrote to her brother. ‘I have cried, yes, cried.’35 But William Frederick, dissatisfied with the scale of his new possessions and irritated by his father’s indecision, ignored his sister’s accusations.

Governing intermezzo in Germany The new Orange territories were widely spread out from central Germany to the Swiss border, with hundreds of kilometres between them. The most important was Fulda. In December 1802, before the Perpetual Diet and Franz ii had ratified the settlement, William Frederick made his ‘joyous entry’ – his official entrance – into the new princedom accompanied by a loud fanfare of trumpets, kettledrums, church bells and artillery salutes. The Landesvater swore to fulfil all his duties, and his subjects pledged loyalty and obedience.36 Louise congratulated him, looking back with surprise on the ten years since France had attacked the Republic. ‘What wondrous events have occurred in such a short space of time!’ she wrote. ‘Back then Dumouriez stood at the gates of our dear fatherland, and now you are expelled and exiled but have become the sovereign of a new 53

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The town of Fulda around 1800. Copper engraving by Augustin Heider.

state.’37 But Wilhelmina expressed her reservations about the sincerity of the declarations of devotion.38 In Dortmund there was resistance to the new ruler. The change of regime had more far-reaching consequences for the free imperial city than for the dismantled Church-states. The inhabitants had been demoted from free citizens to the subjects of an insignificant prince. It was a decision, they rightly claimed, that could be made only by the Diet and the Habsburg emperor, and they were still engaged in consultations in Regensburg and Vienna. When these objections were voiced, William Frederick’s representative threatened immediate military occupation. He repeated this threat twice before William Frederick’s joyous entry in July 1803. By then, there were rumours that the Prince of Orange wanted to sell the impoverished Dortmund to Prussia. The sale did not go ahead, but the rumours were true – confirming yet again that the Hereditary Prince cared little for the feelings of his subjects.39 Despite the fragility of his possessions, the Hereditary Prince set to work. He made his seat at the Baroque palace in Fulda, the capital of the princedom of the same name, with a population of 10,000. Within a fortnight he had revealed a reform programme. Everything was to change: the complex state administration with its surplus of staff was to be reorganized and the wide-ranging legal powers of the churches, monasteries and 54

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guilds were to be rescinded. And the education system needed improvement: young people had to learn something useful. Taking England as an example, the prince promised less theology and more science in higher education.40 William Frederick’s plans can best be described as coerced enlightenment. William v and Wilhelmina urged their son to exercise some restraint. Imposed on the dismantled prince-bishopric after a military conflict, he could easily be seen as a Protestant or Enlightenment intruder. They advised him that it would be better to allow his new subjects ‘to practise their Catholic faith in full and with no restrictions’ and ‘to leave their administrative and legal customs’ intact.41 William Frederick’s credo of modernization and education constituted a break with popular belief and administrative inertia. An efficient and centralized administration based on utilitarian values was to bring prosperity and happiness. He was not alone in this conviction: since the middle of the eighteenth century, a utilitarian approach to property and to their subjects had taken hold among enlightened princes and the high nobility across Europe.42 William Frederick promoted trade, agriculture and industry, had roads built and founded a hospital. He outlawed begging; the healthy poor were put to work in the textile industry and soup kitchens assured they were fed. All in all, the exploitation of Fulda, Corvey, Dortmund and Weingarten raised some 700,000 florins a year. This seemed more than it was. William Frederick’s new properties were heavily mortgaged. He had also been obliged to take over the outstanding debts incurred by the former Roman Catholic rulers.43 From Fulda, William Frederick maintained contact with various European courts. When he and Mimi received the Prussian royal couple in the summer of 1803, representatives from Denmark, Russia and a small number of German states were also present. To give the visit of Friedrich Wilhelm iii and Luise extra lustre, Wilhelmina and William v travelled from Nassau to Fulda.44 The Landesvater, however, devoted most of his energy to domestic government, the daily leadership of which was in the hands of two privy councils. They governed the princedom during the winter months, when William Frederick joined his family in Berlin. In the summer, the Hereditary Prince presided over his own cabinet meetings in a meeting room adorned with a portrait of Frederick the Great. They worked through enormous piles of reports, sworn statements and memoranda, discussing every detail. Their decisions were published.45 To his people, the Landesvater showed his paternalistic side. He had his portrait distributed, inspected the land on horseback and listened to all 55

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comers at his public audiences. The Orange prince wished to reign as ‘a father over his children’.46 And yet this cliché of the benevolent prince came under pressure. Almost all the reforms affected the Catholic faith, with serious consequences for the Church and the veneration of St Boniface, who was buried in Fulda cathedral. The saint’s tomb was a destination for pilgrims and Catholicism was omnipresent. ‘We see processions pass by our windows every day,’ wrote an amazed Wilhelmina. ‘This must be a very sacred week.’47 The new, enlightened Protestant ruler saw all this as pure superstition, especially the ‘primitive’ rituals in the crypt of Boniface, where pilgrims kissed images and touched relics. His aim was to abolish these practices, as had happened with the monasteries and convents, or at least to regulate them, as with the training of clerics, the laws on marriage and funerals, and the number of religious festival days.48 The agreement that the prince was responsible for the external Church order and the clergy for internal Church matters was clearly defined only on paper.49 The Prince of Orange pushed ahead with his policy. The secularization of the bishopric under property law was followed by social secularization: justice, finances, education, poor relief and care for the sick were all transferred from the Church to the secular authorities, and a civil register replaced the Church records of births, marriages and deaths. William Frederick’s experiment in governance in Fulda was one link in a process of historical evolution in which the secular state emerged from the old religious, Church-based order. The reforms introduced by Frederick the Great and the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph ii, by the Batavian Republic and by Napoleon Bonaparte were also part of this radical development, as were William Frederick’s later policy in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and that of the liberals after 1848. The subordination of the Church to the secular state, religious tolerance, the equality of Catholics, Protestants and Jews under the law, the separation of religious and secular life and of the public and private dimensions of religion all played a role – to a greater or lesser extent – in these reforms. Rulers experimented and judged religion in terms of its value to state and society.50 Frederick the Great is generally seen as setting the example for William Frederick’s policy on the Church, but this was an area in which the prince was also influenced by many others, notably his father, Joseph ii and Napoleon. While William v advocated cautious tolerance, Joseph ii saw the clergy as parasites, repressed the Church and closed monasteries and convents. With the Concordat, Napoleon offered yet another option.51 56

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The French leader was seldom out of William Frederick’s thoughts. Although he no longer admired the First Consul uncritically, the prince had great respect for the way in which he had ended the anarchy in France. When Napoleon announced that he was to declare himself emperor, many at courts across the continent concluded that restoration of the ancien régime was imminent: first the Church, now the monarchy. 52 William Frederick wrote hopefully, ‘If the news that Buonaparté is to become Emperor of the Gauls with his descendants inheriting the title proves true, that is even more reason for me to assume that further hostilities will not occur.’53 But that was wishful thinking. War had broken out again between England and France in May 1803. ‘And we sink back down into wretched uncertainty,’ Louise sighed when the British took up their arms. ‘It fills me with despair.’54 Shortly before his ‘self-coronation’ in December 1804, Napoleon visited Mainz in Rhineland, which had been annexed by France. He had wanted the German princes, nearly all of whom were dependent on him, to pay tribute to him a year earlier. As the rulers of Fulda and Nassau, William Frederick and William v decided, after nervous consultations, not to honour the new emperor.55 ‘My visit to Paris was, I believe, justified but now I hesitate and wish it was not necessary to make a decision,’ William Frederick wrote to Louise.56 With England again at war with France, would not such a tribute be an insult to George iii? It could jeopardize the annual allowance from the British.57 Napoleon had already had a negative impact on the finances of the Orange family by blocking the Batavian Republic’s decision to compensate the exiled stadholder. In the family’s eyes, The Hague had violated the peace treaties by not paying, releasing them from the obligations it imposed on them, including the provision under which William v relinquished the stadholdership. Wilhelmina, too, had reservations about a ‘humiliating and futile’ journey to Mainz. At the start of 1804, after the execution of the Duke of Enghien, a cousin of Louis xvi, she asked herself who the real Napoleon was: an enlightened legislator or a new Robespierre? She already knew the answer. ‘Remember the fate of the Duke of Enghien,’ she warned her son.58

Out of favour The peace on the mainland held until September 1805, when France resumed its conflict with Austria and Russia, which had joined England to form the Third Coalition. Fulda became the scene of troop movements, 57

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until Austria and Russia were defeated at Austerlitz at the beginning of December. With foraging, the billeting of troops and the confiscation of horses and goods, the military manoeuvres were a plague on the local people.59 But these problems paled into insignificance compared to the setbacks that the House of Orange would experience in 1806. It was a year that brought only losses, to the dynasty and personally. On 9 April 1806, after suffering bad health for many years, William v died. William Frederick was now William vi, Prince of Orange. He was certain he would serve the dynasty’s interests better than his father, whose sardonic resignation had brought the House only harm. And yet he soon became entangled in European politics, and with dramatic consequences. Within a year the family lost almost all its possessions, a return to the Republic had become even more improbable and the prince had disgraced himself as a Prussian general. William Frederick became the victim of a vengeful Napoleon, Prussian deceit, Austrian impotence and Russian opportunism. It was a miracle that Britain continued to support the family financially. The kings and princes of Europe deceived and betrayed each other, and the inept actions of William Frederick himself did the rest.60 Nassau was the first to be lost. In June the French occupied the patrimonial lands and divided them up between two adjoining grand duchies. It was a rehearsal for the dismantling of the Holy Roman Empire, which Napoleon pursued definitively after defeating Austria. In the first phase, William Frederick obtained Fulda, Corvey, Dortmund and Weingarten. Now he was on the losing side. Napoleon was driven by resentment. He was only too well aware of the aversion he aroused among the ruling houses of Europe, the officer who had crowned himself emperor and, in doing so, had exposed their nobility and mocked their royalty. It was Napoleon, not France, who had led to the Third Coalition being forged and who held it together.61 At sea he had to acknowledge Britain’s supremacy, but on the continent he would show the nature of real power. In July 1806 Napoleon united the German states between the Rhine and the Elbe in the Confederation of the Rhine, with the aim of weakening Prussia.62 He invited William Frederick to join the Confed­ eration with Fulda. The request coincided with the seizure of Nassau and the confiscation of Dortmund and Weingarten. If the prince had considered rapprochement in 1805 – ‘it is, after all, not of little importance what Napoleon thinks of us,’ he wrote to Louise – after the occupation of 58

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Nassau, he thought differently.63 Fulda did not join the Confederation. Napoleon’s mendacity,William Frederick’s own duties as Landesvater and the impossibility of abandoning the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm iii, his cousin and brother-in-law, by joining the anti-Prussian Confederation left him no choice. His duty lay in Fulda.The news that the French emperor had appointed his brother Louis Napoleon king of the new Kingdom of Holland on 5 July 1806 had little effect on him. By refusing to join the Confederation of the Rhine,William Frederick linked his fate directly to that of the Hohenzollerns. That could hardly have been less favourable. In the autumn of 1806 Prussia felt the full fury of Napoleon’s wrath. It was paying the toll for its policy of neutrality. If Berlin had believed that it was a major player in Europe since the annexations in Poland, at the end of 1805 it overplayed its hand. One cause was division at court. Because the policy of neutrality had not prevented French intervention in Germany, a clique around Queen Luise insisted that Prussia join the coalition between England, Austria and Russia, and that meant war with France. Another camarilla wanted to use Prussia’s neutrality to play a risky double game. Berlin should present Napoleon with an ultimatum. If France did not retreat from Germany, Prussia would join the Coalition. If France was defeated, Prussia would acquire Hanover on the basis of a secret agreement with Russia. The German state, of which the British king George iii was elector, had been occupied by France since 1803.64 The scheming between Prussia and Russia became known, in London and Paris too. The British were aghast: what kind of aspiring ally was Prussia? But Berlin’s secret plan failed. Before it could hand its ultimatum to Napoleon, he beat the Austrian and Russian armies at Austerlitz. Prussia broke its promise to the Coalition and left its troops at home. It did, however, accept Hanover from Napoleon, as a reward for not joining the Coalition.65 For the time being, France’s policy of divide and rule worked in favour of Prussia’s cynicism, but the lesson was clear: it was Napoleon who dictated what happened on the continent, not Prussia. He had cleverly played London and Berlin off against each other. In June 1806 England declared war on Prussia. A month later, the establishment of the Confederation of the Rhine gave Napoleon his outpost against Berlin. Shortly afterwards he would punish the military state. William Frederick’s refusal to join the Confederation of the Rhine did not go down well in Paris. From August, French troops assembled 59

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around Fulda. In search of support, the Orange prince travelled to Berlin, where he joined the group around Luise which successfully persuaded the Prussian king to declare war on France.66 While negotiations on a Fourth Coalition were still underway with Russia and England, Friedrich Wilhelm iii presented the French emperor with an ultimatum: his armies must leave Germany by 8 October. The king referred explicitly to William Frederick, as the first of the secular princes to be robbed of his ancestral possessions.67 ‘Monsieur my brother,’ Napoleon replied, ‘it is war between us . . . At the moment, you are still there . . . But before a month has passed, your position will have changed.’68 On 14 October 1806, two days after Napoleon’s letter had arrived in Berlin, Prussia was defeated at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt, where it faced the French armies without allies.69 If Frederick the Great were still alive, Napoleon declared, this would never have happened, rubbing the Prussian king’s defeat even more emphatically in his face. William Frederick, now a lieutenant-general in the Prussian army, surrendered in Erfurt, the fortified town to which the remains of his division had retreated from Auerstedt. Even before the Prussian lines collapsed, their wounded commander decided to withdraw. What followed was a spectral journey through the darkness, with gunshots sounding all round and the burning battlefield in the distance. ‘It is complete chaos,’ observed William Frederick’s aide-de-camp Jean Victor de Constant Rebecque in Erfurt. ‘The town is full of refugees and wounded.’70 The Prince of Orange, who had unwillingly taken over command from his superior officer, decided to capitulate immediately, as it was impossible to defend the dilapidated citadel. He justified his actions to the Prussian king.71 He had hoped that by surrendering he would save the local people and the refugees. But he was well aware that he had failed. Did the military code of honour not require that he stand and fight? Now it seems that he had not even considered mounting a defence.72 The French took the Prussian soldiers as prisoners of war. They released the officers on parole, meaning that they must give their word of honour that they would not continue to fight. Any who broke that promise would be executed on the spot.73 William Frederick was permitted to leave. He wanted to go to his family, who were – as far as he knew – in Brunswick or Berlin. He also sought contact with the Prussian king. He passed through the lines with a letter of safe conduct.74 In Brunswick, he discovered that his mother and sister had fled, fearing what was coming. 60

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‘I am not wounded,’ he informed them. ‘The position of Prussia is terrible and it is impossible not to lose oneself in sombre thoughts when contemplating the future.’75 The fate awaiting Brunswick did indeed justify fearing the worst. The duke, supreme commander of the Prussian army and Louise’s father-in-law, had been wounded at Auerstedt. Before he died of his wounds, the French emperor had declared the rights of his house null and void, together with those of the House of Orange-Nassau. ‘Neither prince shall reign again,’ reported Napoleon’s Bulletin de la Grande Armée of 31 October 1806.76 Brunswick and Fulda came under French control. The decision came as a complete surprise to William Frederick.Three days before the Bulletin was published, encouraged by Friedrich Wilhelm iii, he had made an attempt to retrieve Fulda – from Napoleon. The Prince of Orange travelled from Brunswick via Berlin to Küstrin on the east bank of the River Oder, where the Prussian court had sought refuge. En route he witnessed France’s punitive expedition against Prussia. Looting, rape, arson: all hell had broke loose.77 He described his hopeless situation to his mother: It is at the King’s advice that I write to Emperor Napoleon to plead my case and that of the family and to draw his attention to the fact that, although for me personally the laws pertaining to duty and honour require that I take an active part in the war, my states have at least remained neutral: they have consequently not taken part in the war and I hope that he will spare them and protect all that is dear to my heart.78 Wilhelmina was dismayed but could do nothing more to help her son. He had already sent his supplication to Napoleon. Its content was startling. Like the people of Fulda, he said, he was a victim of the war. As a cousin and brother-in-law of the Prussian king and a lieutenant-general in his army he had not been ‘lord and master’ of his own decisions. Could Napoleon not for once show clemency? If he were permitted to return to Fulda, he would immediately join the Confederation of the Rhine. The letter ended with a veritable statement of self-renunciation: ‘In the hands of your Imperial Majesty, to whom I shall feel eternally obliged and who will thus gain my recognition, lies the power to secure the fate of a House that merits your attention because of the great men who conferred glory upon it . . . Sire . . . I shall be at your disposal.’79 Napoleon’s answer arrived eleven days later: 61

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My cousin, it is not my place to judge the behaviour of Your Highness. Nor to weigh up the nature of your obligations against each other. Your Highness informs me in his letter that he was not lord and master over himself and was therefore not free to decide not to engage in hostilities with me. Your Highness will therefore not hold it against me if I wish for a prince in Fulda who most certainly is lord and master over himself and who is capable of living in peace with me. Besides that, my cousin, I pray that God may preserve you in his mercy.80 After this rebuke, William Frederick could have drawn his conclusions: the future of his House was of no interest at all to Napoleon. Nevertheless, he begged the French emperor once again for an audience.81 He received a verbal response that he should address his pleas to the Prussian king. But William Frederick appealed to Napoleon for a third time, this time completely defaming his brother-in-law: Decency does not permit me to burden the King of Prussia yet again with my presence . . . I do not wish to remind him continually that he himself is main cause of my tribulations and of the catastrophes affecting my House . . . The position of my House depends solely on Your Imperial Majesty. My hope is founded on the nobility and magnanimity of a generous victor.82 The Orange prince could sink no deeper. Napoleon, who no longer replied, had triumphed completely, on the battlefield and now also morally. And William Frederick knew that. ‘For the past few days, I have had the feeling of being in Purgatory,’ he confessed to his sister.83 The family’s position, built up with such difficulty, had been lost in only a few short weeks. The prince had become entangled in the claws of power politics, family loyalty and dynastic interests. How would the British royal family respond? And the Prussian king? The year 1806 brought one more drama. After William Frederick had received a firm ‘no’ from Napoleon, he rejoined his wife and children. Mimi, hardly recovered from giving birth to a stillborn child, had fled Berlin with William, Frederick and Pauline, to get away from the threat of French reprisals. They wanted to go to Königsberg. William Frederick caught up with them at the beginning of December in Freienwalde in Brandenburg. Mimi had stopped because Pauline had suddenly been 62

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October 1806. After his victory over Prussia at Jena and Auerstedt, Napoleon held a triumphal procession through Berlin. Charles Meynier, Entry of Napoleon i into Berlin, 27 October 1806, 1810, oil on canvas.

taken ill. She was caring for her daughter, with the help of governess Julie von der Goltz. Her health deteriorated and on 22 December she died, aged only six. ‘We were so hopeful that Pauline’s illness would pass,’ William Frederick wrote to his mother. ‘Unfortunately for us, Providence decided otherwise and, since half past four this morning, we have been in the depths of mourning.’84 The family drama was to have yet another twist. While Mimi received personal permission from Napoleon to return to Berlin with her sons, William Frederick and Julie remained behind to bury Pauline.85 Overpowered by sorrow, prince and governess turned to each other for comfort. That was the beginning of a relationship that led to the birth of four children in five years, to the dismay of Wilhelmina, who chastised her son for his ‘despicable liaison’.86 Before the end of the year, the French deported William Frederick across the Oder, telling him to seek refuge with the Prussian king. He was not very welcome. ‘The Prince of Orange arrived from Danzig today,’ a lady-in-waiting noted. ‘He looked in a bad way and was not welcomed very cordially by the king.’87 In June 1807, during peace negotiations between France and Russia in Tilsit, Napoleon once more held William Frederick’s fate in his hands. The emperor and the tsar conducted their negotiations in an army tent on a raft in the River Memel. The Prussian king and his wife were permitted to watch the proceedings from the 63

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riverbank, an insulting prospect that Napoleon had presented to the king on the eve of the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt.88 Through mediation by Tsar Alexander and after a plea by Queen Luise, Napoleon proved willing to restore a radically reduced Prussia. It had to relinquish its Polish territories, including those belonging to William Frederick. They were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, a new French vassal state. Fulda became part of the new kingdom of Westphalia, with Napoleon’s younger brother Jérôme Bonaparte as king. The Treaty of Tilsit marked the end of William Frederick’s release on parole. He returned to Berlin, where in December 1807 he had to account for himself at a court martial. His trial was part of an unprecedented purge of the Prussian army after which only a quarter of the officers retained their ranks. The court and the army leadership were completely at a loss after the defeats at Jena and Auerstedt, when the country’s defence forces collapsed and their commanders surrendered without resistance.89 The court martial had a number of questions. Did the king order the retreat at Erfurt? And who had taken the initiative to negotiate on the capitulation? William Frederick drew up a defence ‘from memory’. In the chaos of Auerstedt and Erfurt, he said, the command structure had disintegrated. When his commandant refused to sign anything, the prince had acted on his own initiative. It was a weak defence. ‘It is not enough to simply and clearly tell the truth,’ said his aide-decamp with concern. ‘Your Highness is not on trial, no judges have been appointed. But for the tribunal of public opinion, suspicions will always persist.’ The aide-de-camp was right. There was a legal inquiry, but without a clear acquittal for William Frederick. In the eyes of the wider public, he shared responsibility for Prussia’s defeat.90

‘Project William’

  In the summer of 1807 all that William Frederick was able to come up with was to ‘gather together the fragments of our House’s destiny and attempt to avert our political downfall’.91 He appealed to Napoleon for the last time. ‘I had hoped that the fate of my House would be decided at Tilsit,’ he wrote to the emperor, ‘and that all that remained for me to do would be to thank your Imperial and Royal Majesty for the return of my states. But, to my regret, I have to conclude that my interests were not represented during the peace negotiations.’92 He no longer expected a reply. ‘In one way or another, Napoleon as my opponent 64

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feels much more natural,’ he had earlier commented to Louise. ‘I will try to obtain the protection of the large powers, so that my interests are taken in to account in any future peace.’93 A small princely house might be able to expect help from the major powers, but where to start? The prince had already made a mess of things in Berlin, while London was equally unenthusiastic about helping him, though the British king still supported him financially. That left the courts in St Petersburg and Vienna. With Wilhelmina’s help, William Frederick turned his attention to Tsar Alexander. Did his family’s glorious history not prove that the House of Orange deserved his support? St Petersburg replied that he should seek a solution in Paris.94 During negotiations on the formation of a Fifth Coalition against France, William Frederick put himself at the disposal of the court in Vienna. He was charged with persuading Berlin to join the alliance, but Prussia refused. When war broke out in 1809, he joined the fray as an officer in the Austrian army. ‘Thank God I have survived,’ he wrote to his oldest son after Austria was defeated at the battle of Wagram. ‘During the evening of 5 July, my horse was killed under me twice. I was wounded in the leg.’95 It was a great disappointment, even more so as Archduke Karl von Habsburg had achieved the first victory over Napoleon at AspernEsslingen in May. ‘The phantom of Napoleon’s invincibility has at last been destroyed,’ Louise had written, jubilantly.96 Just how dependent the Orange family was on the great powers is clear from how completely surprised they were by the British contribution to the Fifth Coalition. In an attempt to take Antwerp from the French, British troops had landed in Zeeland. London had not taken the trouble to inform the family about this operation in this province of the old Republic.97 The offensive failed and was followed by more months of hopeless waiting. ‘I am dismayed because I am unable to make a clear plan of any kind for the future,’ William Frederick wrote with irritation at the beginning of 1810.98 There was a plan, and had been for a few years, but for a control freak like the Prince of Orange it contained too many unpredictable factors. Furthermore, the leading roles were reserved for his son William and the English, and not the prince himself. He did not know exactly what he could expect from his son or his ally. The idea had come from Louise in 1807. It was a wild suggestion, whispered into her ear by her aide-de-camp. ‘He sees young William as a husband for my cousin Charlotte,’ she wrote to her brother, ‘offering a new destiny for our House, which he so wants to see restored.’99 65

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A marriage between Hereditary Prince William and Charlotte, daughter of George August Frederick, the Prince of Wales, and Louise’s sister-in-law Caroline of Brunswick? Charlotte would inherit the British throne from her father, the later George iv, who would take over affairs of state from the severely deranged George iii as prince regent in 1810. It could herald a return to the era of ‘William and Mary’, the successful marriage between stadholder-king William iii and Mary Stuart. Louise put the idea aside, while William Frederick initially saw little to be gained from it. Not because William and Charlotte were only fourteen and eleven years old; there had never been a minimum age for arranged marriages. But what did the young Hereditary Prince have to offer his future bride? The stadholdership, Nassau, Fulda – everything was lost. Yet, as of 1807, a strategic marriage for the Hereditary Prince offered the best prospects. There was no chance of William Frederick returning to rule for the foreseeable future, or of achieving glory on the battlefield. What had started as an impulsive notion in Louise’s mind rapidly gained momentum to become ‘Project William’.100 Wilhelmina and Mimi also supported the plan. William would be sent to an English university to become a gentleman and would then have to distinguish himself on the battlefield as a British soldier, to attract the attention of the British royal family. That would make it difficult for them to reject a proposal of marriage to Charlotte. William Frederick was right: this was not a clear plan, but a game of chance. It did, however, have one immediate advantage. It prevented the Hereditary Prince from serving in the Prussian army, with the risk of having to fight on Napoleon’s side. Until the end of 1813, Hereditary Prince William was both the dynasty’s hope and the object of the family’s political ambitions. He was sixteen when he was sent from Prussia to England, a sensitive young man and a capable soldier, trained at the exclusive military academy for the nobility in Berlin by, among others, Carl von Clausewitz. The Hereditary Prince had spent his childhood in the company of women, the favourite of Mimi, Louise and Wilhelmina. William adored his mother, who demanded little of him and his brother. His relationship with his father was, however, completely different. Up to the age of ten, he had scarcely seen him and after that, only sporadically – the tense, demanding and temperamental William Frederick continually corrected his son and may have found him soft-hearted, honest and generous, but also lacking in intelligence, ill-focused and lazy.101 Even more critical was Jean Victor de Constant Rebecque, a contemporary of William Frederick, who was 66

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the Hereditary Prince’s governor from 1809 to 1813, first in England and from 1811 – much to his chagrin – in Portugal and Spain, where William fought against France as Wellington’s aide-de-camp. According to Constant, spending too much time with women had made William ‘effeminate’. He had developed ‘a large number of small faults’ which could be cured only by ‘several years in the company of men’.102 ‘Project William’ was revealed to those involved a step at a time. After Constant, the family’s agents in England were informed. They were responsible for contact with the British royal family in London and the British army leadership. William was the last to hear what the family expected of him; William Frederick did not explain the plans to his son until 1812: The only remaining hope that our House will sooner or later be restored . . . is founded on nothing other than the importance that England will wish to grant us in the general peace. No one can contribute more to this than you . . . I would not call you a suitable marriage candidate at this moment, but I do hope that when the times comes for Princess Charlotte to choose a husband, that choice will fall on you. I am not in a position to bring the desired conclusion about myself but will have to patiently await a decision on the matter.103 The Hereditary Prince replied, ‘The marriage to Princess Charlotte of which you speak was also suggested to me as a possibility by Constant. Although it does not appear to me to be completely improbable, it does seem highly unlikely, and I confess to you that I hope that it does not happen.’104 He added that he would prefer to marry one of his German cousins but, if the worst came to the worst, he would sacrifice his happiness for the dynasty. His reply illustrates his aversion to everything to do with the succession. Within a period of ten years, the Hereditary Prince would develop serious claustrophobia to all his obligations relating to the dynasty. His ire was focused on his father. Although the women had supported the marriage proposal, it was William Frederick who was depriving him of all his freedom and was using him for his selfish plans. He was the man who held the reins, in 1812 only within the dynasty but at the moment when the Hereditary Prince complained about his fate in sombre self-reflection, in the Netherlands too. ‘Heir to the throne,’ William confessed in 1821, ‘a position that ends all freedom.’105 Burdened 67

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by his family’s expectations, his life felt like one gigantic chore. At the same time, he had been very successful in performing his duties. Why could his father not acknowledge that?

The Hereditary Prince in Oxford In the summer of 1809 William and Constant arrived in England. From Berlin they had travelled via Sweden, crossing lines that had been heavily guarded since Napoleon introduced the Continental System at the end of 1806 with the aim of crippling the British economy. Exactly as instructed by William Frederick, they rented a house in Oxford large enough to receive twelve guests and accommodate a domestic staff of eight.106 The primary aim of the stay in England was not study; the Hereditary Prince would obtain an academic degree anyway. William was to build up a network of influential families in politics, in the army and at court. The aristocratic, Anglican Oxford offered ample opportunities.107 Hendrik Fagel, the family’s agent in England, made the initial contacts. And so it was William Cavendish-Bentinck, prime minister of Great Britain and chancellor of the University of Oxford, that decided who was to teach Prince William and who would be his tutor. For the latter post, he chose William Howley, professor of divinity and canon of Christ Church College, who was to become Archbishop of Canterbury in 1828.108 Together with Constant, Howley took charge of William’s social life in Oxford. After all, the supreme goal – marriage to Princess Charlotte – demanded that the Hereditary Prince’s reputation be safeguarded with great care. William found himself surrounded by companions with renowned names. As regular dinner guests at his home, Howley selected the sons of the higher aristocracy and other notable public figures, including those of two ministers, the bishops of York and Dublin and an Irish member of parliament. There were only two ‘commoners’ in the group. ‘He comes over as very amiable and not at all arrogant,’ one of them noted of the Hereditary Prince. ‘His conduct is perhaps even not dignified enough.’109 Constant was not dissatisfied with William’s dinner companions, who met around the table several times a week. His assessment of his own pupil was, however, less positive. He found the prince a sentimental, whining mother’s boy, not very sociable, tiring and badly brought up.110 Constant also missed Berlin, and his wife and children, but at least he held his head high. 68

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During his first weeks in Oxford, William was stricken with homesickness. ‘After such a cruel separation, abandoned by everything and everyone,’ he now had to survive on his own.111 Long an avid disciple of the Sturm und Drang mode of the times, the Hereditary Prince knew how to exaggerate his mood swings. He would perk up with every message from Berlin. At the same time, his self-pity was not free of ambivalence. It might not be easy for him in England, but he was at least free of his father. And if he did something together with Constant – visiting the horse races, an interesting city or the theatre – his homesickness dissipated immediately.112 But he dared not admit that to his family in Berlin. The Hereditary Prince felt misunderstood, especially by his uncompromising father, with whom doubt and sentiment only aroused aversion. Then he would turn to his mother, who was more sympathetic. During two long journeys through Britain, the Hereditary Prince was in the best of spirits. In the autumn of 1809, accompanied by his governor and his English teacher, he visited the southwest of England. A year later, he travelled to the southeast, and to Scotland and Ireland.113 Now that the war in Europe made a grand tour of France and Italy impossible, travelling through Britain was popular among young men and women from aristocratic and other prominent families. It was considered part of their education.114 William learned to appreciate landscapes, cities, stately homes and art. He visited art collections, Gothic cathedrals, deserted monasteries and rugged castles. ‘You feel as though you are back in the days of knights in armour,’ he noted in his travel diary. At Stonehenge he could see druids in his mind’s eye.115 When he visited the basalt columns on the Scottish island of Staffa during his second journey, Walter Scott proved to be staying in the same inn as the Hereditary Prince.116 In the weeks that followed, William’s companions read from Scott’s recently published The Lady of the Lake. But William’s experiences were not restricted to romantic reflections on past ages. He also encountered the modern industrial world, going down coalmines in Newcastle and visiting a cotton mill in Manchester, where he saw a steam machine in operation.117 The wonders of this new world also included iron bridges and impressive canal lock systems. In Scotland he witnessed the digging of the Caledonian Canal.118 Everywhere he went, he saw frenzied activity. More important than all this sightseeing were William’s meetings with several prominent figures. In the naval port of Plymouth, he was introduced to an admiral and a number of high-ranking officers. Constant 69

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organized dinner with bishop John Fisher, tutor and agent to Princess Charlotte; a recommendation from Fisher could prove valuable.119 The Hereditary Prince also visited Lord Edgcumbe, a close acquaintance of the royal family, on his estate and was delighted to meet his daughters, the first young women of his own age he had met in a long time. He was particularly impressed by the youngest, as shown by the exclamation marks in his notes.120 Despite all efforts to keep the tour and the visits secret, various newspapers reported on the prince’s travels. ‘These scandalous dailies are telling all and sundry about every move we make,’ Constant complained, only halfway through the first journey. ‘Travelling with a prince makes one a misanthropist.’121 To his own shame, the governor would soon discover that things could go just as badly wrong in Oxford, too. Every letter from William Frederick was a reminder to both the Hereditary Prince and his governor of their most important task: to establish and protect the prince’s reputation.122 Each time, William promised to become a ‘distinguished’ young gentleman. But being well known and ‘the excitement of his age’ made that task more difficult. At the end of 1809 something happened that Constant did not dare tell William Frederick about until five months later. Fortune had not smiled on him, and he had failed in his duties as governor. ‘Sweating blood and tears,’ he wrote: Sometime in the middle of last December, we had retired to our beds when the prince came back out of his room, went into the garden and opened the small gate leading to the street, which was locked with a key every night. The prince had the misfortune to see a young girl walking along the street, who came over to him. He went with her to a house a little further up the road, where he paid her five shillings for the loss of his innocence and then returned home unnoticed. Unfortunately the girl, who belongs to the lowest class of such people in Oxford, fell pregnant around this time and wasted no time in spreading the rumour that the prince was responsible. Consequently, the matter has become the subject of public gossip in the city and at the university.123 To ensure that the whole object of the prince’s stay in England was not put in jeopardy, Constant put aside ‘two to three hundred pounds’ to buy the girl off. But the problem was that the Hereditary Prince – like 70

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all his fellow students in Oxford – continually struck up conversations with young girls, including those with less than respectable reputations. Constant tried to persuade William of ‘the foolishness of this behaviour . . . and arouse feelings of shame, chastity and diffidence in him’.124 The letter that William wrote to his father asking for his forgiveness suggested that this tactic was working: My dearest father, I see that Constant has written to you . . . I beg you to see this matter as a youthful lapse and to forgive me for succumbing to it . . . I do not have the courage to speak of it to mama, knowing how much it will upset her, but if you tell her, I ask you to beg her forgiveness in my name and to tell her that I live in remorse.125 William Frederick’s reply came a month and a half later. He was not mild in his judgement: I have received the letter describing the error that you have made and have read your expression of regret. I would not know how to conceal my enormous disappointment concerning the details that Mr Constant sent to me. The circumstances in which the error occurred make it even worse and testify to your wantonness and lack of resolution, and your incapacity to preserve your good reputation, which is so necessary for all young men, but which seems to interest you not at all. My trust in all that concerns you is deeply damaged and, since I hide nothing from your mother, I was unable to spare her the initial sorrow; her trust in you is also severely damaged. She knows of your conduct. She comes to me repeatedly and asks me to tell you to be especially on your guard, and to be sure that you do not again give free rein to your desires and to warn you to avoid new errors.126 Mimi, recovering from the birth of her daughter Marianne at the beginning of May 1810, enclosed a short note. ‘I will be in despair if you retain these tendencies and commit such an error again,’ she wrote. ‘It has caused me a great deal of pain.You have already heard from your father how I feel about it.’127 Not a word about William’s apologetic plea to see his slip as a youthful indiscretion. Did William Frederick recall his mother’s ukase from June 1807 as he formulated his answer? How dare 71

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he rebuke his oldest son for his mistakes, Wilhelmina of Prussia had reproached him when she learned that he had made Julie von der Goltz pregnant. ‘You corrupt your sons with your own example, and most of all William, who has after all reached the age at which his passions are awakening . . . But I will say no more on this matter, my dear friend. This tableau is too repugnant, too revolting and too low to continue to talk about it.’128 There was, however, a difference: unlike William’s faux pas in Oxford, William Frederick’s escapades could do little more harm to the dynasty.

The Spanish labyrinth A year after William’s rash liaison, a crisis in the British royal family once again threatened the future plans of the Orange dynasty. What would be the consequences of the accession of the prince regent, Princess Charlotte’s father? Would he honour the agreements with the House of Orange? Then there was also the question as to what should be the next step in the plan to make the Hereditary Prince the desired marriage candidate for Charlotte. It all depended on his son, William Frederick repeated to his agent: ‘As head of a House that has suffered heavily under recent events in Europe,’ he wrote to Fagel, ‘it is my most fervent wish to secure a marriage for my son that will bring the unfortunate fate that has befallen us for so long to an end.’129 Various scenarios were considered. William could continue his studies for another year or enter the service of the British army to fight against the French. Serving in the Prussian or Austrian armies was a less desirable option. There was still a chance that Prussia would fight on the French side, which would end all hopes of a marriage to Charlotte, while the British royal family would be equally out of reach if William were to join the Austrian army. That left prolonged study or the British army. William Frederick consulted with his advisers in England for many months, a correspondence that became increasingly difficult because of the war and thus easily led to misunderstandings. While William Frederick wrote that his son should join the British army in Portugal and Spain, Constant thought he himself could return to Berlin because William no longer needed him in Oxford. The suggestion came from Berlin that William himself should make the choice, but the Hereditary Prince felt such moral pressure to join the army that he felt that the decision had already been made for him.130 ‘We must seek the fields of 72

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glory and experience elsewhere,’ William Frederick wrote to him. ‘And this consideration has convinced me that it would be best for you to join Wellington’s army and take part in the fighting in Portugal.’131 Once again, it was a gamble. If the Hereditary Prince went to battle, there was a risk that he would not return alive. After considerable consultations, William agreed on condition that his governor and his English teacher would accompany him. Delighted at his voluntary enlistment, the prince regent awarded William the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Wellington also welcomed his new aide-de-camp. Whether the young Prince of Orange possessed military capabilities remained to be seen, but his illustrious title would certainly be useful in diplomatic contacts with the Portuguese and Spanish nobility.132 In England all that was left for him to do was to collect his doctor’s degree, throw a farewell party and purchase a war horse. William noted with delight, ‘I have the honour of wearing for the first time the uniform of the best army in the world. Hurrah! Hurrah!’133 In June 1811, after five days at sea, William arrived in Lisbon, which he found a dirty city inhabited by ‘a population of apes’.134 It was the start of an adventure on the Iberian Peninsula that would last for two years: a gruesome war, heat and thirst, boundless boredom and endless desires. At the end of 1807 the British had intervened to fight Napoleon in support of Portugal, their oldest ally, and to keep open the possibility of evading the Continental System.The invasion drew England into the Spanish labyrinth as deeply as it had France.135 While the Iberian conflict, like the revolutionary wars elsewhere, was both a war between states and a civil war, it was unique in the large number of conflicting parties and its excessively violent nature. Supporters of the exiled Bourbons, of the revolution and Napoleon, juntas, liberals and nationalists all fought against each other. Moreover, the Spanish Catholic Church sanctified the war against the godless Jacobins as a religious crusade. The atrocities of the war included not only looting, rape and random killings by the French, but the reprehensible actions of guerrilla fighters who had no qualms about burying their opponents alive, or boiling or stoning them.136 The violence drove the French army units to the fortresses; at no time did they have the situation under control.When Napoleon declared his brother Joseph King of Spain in May 1808, there was a revolt in Madrid which, despite being mercilessly repressed, immediately led to similar uprisings elsewhere. The resistance joined forces in the Junta Suprema Central. Led by a cabinet, the Junta tried to direct the war of independence against the French from Andalusia.137 73

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William and Wellington oversee troop movements at Salamanca, July 1812. G. R. Lewis, The Battle of Salamanca, 1813, aquatint and etching.

After the campaigns of 1808 and 1809, Wellington concentrated on defending the Portuguese border.138 But shortly after Prince William had joined him, he tried to retake the military initiative. He sought contact with the Junta in Cádiz, giving this task to William. The British supreme commander wanted to get a clear idea of the Hereditary Prince’s character before deploying him on the battlefield. His first impression of the prince was by no means negative, and the admiration was mutual. ‘“The conqueror of the French” is exceptionally easy to get on with,’ William noted after their first meeting. ‘I cannot describe him better for myself than by saying that he is the figurehead of the soldier’s life.’ To a friend he wrote, ‘The general is very strict with those who shirk their duty and extremely friendly and appreciative to those who fulfil it as they ought.’ Later, William expressed the opinion that Wellington already knew of the plans to match him to Charlotte. That may have explained his kindness.139 The Hereditary Prince would primarily distinguish himself in the Iron Duke’s service as a soldier. He fought in almost all the major battles in Spain, including the victories at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz in January and March 1812 and at Salamanca and Madrid in July and August, and the defeat at Burgos in October. In June 1813 he fought at Vitoria, in 74

Prince William as Wellington’s aide-de-camp. J. S. Copley, William ii, King of Holland/House of Orange, 1812–13, oil on canvas.

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Basque territory.William proved surprisingly able to withstand the rigours of battle. The smell of gunpowder, wet leather, excrement and mud, the deafening clamour of artillery and exploding shrapnel shells, the intolerable stench of scorched hair and burned body parts, the screaming and moaning of wounded and dying soldiers begging for help as they crawled over the battlefield in search of their severed limbs – William seemed to know exactly what to do in the chaos of the battle. That much was clear from his maiden battle at El Bodón on 25 September 1811. With 40,000 British troops, Wellington tried to intercept a French supply convoy to Ciudad Rodrigo.140 The Hereditary Prince fought in the battle as a communications officer, not on the dark-grey mount that he had purchased in England, which had since been put down, but on a replacement horse. When he came under fire during skirmishes, he discovered a side to his character that had hitherto remained hidden. That same week, he confessed to his mother, ‘What I felt during my first battle is indescribable. It was not fear. It was completely different to what I had expected; I felt completely content.’141 Constant confirmed William’s fearlessness. Before the battle, the prince was as excited ‘as if he were going to a ball’. Once on the battlefield, he was ‘as calm as an old soldier’.142 At the siege of Cuidad Rodrigo in January 1812, William proved his bravery once again, throwing himself into the battle and saving a wounded British major. ‘I climbed the fortifications with the storm troops and have never been happier in my life than at that moment,’ he wrote to his father.143 But the Hereditary Prince was nowhere more heroic than at Badajoz, which was taken in early April 1812 after a bloody fight. Wellington had called in reinforcements from England and had only given the order to storm the town after bombarding it with artillery for a fortnight. While the French fired down at them from the walls, British army units used scaling ladders to climb over the breaches created by the artillery fire. The British lost 5,000 men, but the attack was a success and the French garrison capitulated.144 Then everything went completely awry. Drunk and out of control, a large number of British troops went on the rampage, mistreating, raping and killing the townspeople and setting fire to houses. In the words of one British officer, it was as though ‘a pack of hell hounds’ had been let loose.145 The rioting stopped only after Wellington gave the order to execute on the spot anyone caught taking part. Prince William was in the thick of the fighting. He wrote nothing to his parents about it, but did send a report to William Howley, his former tutor in Oxford: 76

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Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, ‘With or Without Reason’, from the series The Disasters of War, 1810–20, etching.

The storm of the town was a gruesome affair that most closely resembled how one would envisage the last judgment. The breaches and the parapet were aglow with the blaze of exploding gun­powder and a devastating rain of gunfire and shrapnel. The path that our troops followed to attack the breaches was strewn with the dead and wounded. I almost dared not to look around me for fear of see­ing a friend in the ditch alongside the path. The groans and gnashing of teeth of the dying and wounded all around us was genuinely hor­­­ri­­­­fic. I hope never to spend another night such as that: nervous, swinging between hope and fear of the final outcome, con­­­cerned about the fate of one’s friends. I myself came through it unhurt, thank heavens, as did my closest friends. The atrocities committed by our soldiers the following day and on the morning of the 8th, when Lord Wellington finally succeeded in putting a stop to them, were terrible. There was looting, destruction and killing everywhere. Our men became enraged at attempts to stop them and more than once I had to draw my sabre to protect people and their homes. It was almost as dangerous as fighting 77

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the enemy, as their guns were loaded and they threatened to shoot at the officers.146 Did the events at Badajoz change William’s ideas on war? It was clear that it was completely random who lived and who died. And it was also clear that there was no sharp dividing line between the good side and the bad. At the end of April 1812 the Morning Post reported on the prince’s heroic actions, without a word on the British atrocities. William rejected all the praise. ‘I do not consider it praiseworthy,’ he wrote in his travel diary, ‘and I would not have been praised were I not a prince. Princes are flattered everywhere they go.’147 It was not always an exciting life being at Wellington’s side during the British campaign on the Iberian Peninsula. The prince suffered from boredom and homesickness, especially during breaks in the fighting, which could last several months. The boredom could be broken, for example, with a fox hunt, which also helped keep his military skills sharp. Or by visiting interesting cities. In Lisbon the Hereditary Prince visited monasteries and churches and the lower city, which had been restored after the earthquake of 1755. He also found distraction in the company of women, at least in Spain and Morocco. ‘When it comes to beauty, there is very little in evidence among the Portuguese women,’ he concluded frankly. He gaped in admiration at the coquettish Spanish and exotic, voluptuous Moroccan women and girls, though he found the British society ladies he met in Portugal even more beautiful.148 And there were young women at the parties where the drink flowed freely and ‘Slender Billy’ – as he was called because of his tall, thin figure – enjoyed himself to the full. He acquired recognition. Had the war not made a man of him? He had even dared to speak back to his father when the latter revealed his plans to save the Orange dynasty by marrying him to Charlotte. He had not seen his parents for four years, and he missed his mother. At the end of 1812, shortly before his twentieth birthday, he wrote to her, ‘When will I once again be able to sit on the sofa in your bedroom, surrounded by flowers? Oh! When will that happy time return? All the honour and distinctions I have achieved and perhaps may still achieve cannot replace what I lost when I left Berlin.’149

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Napoleon’s approaching downfall In Prussia the end of 1812 was by no means a happy time. Increasing tension between France and Russia had led to war. And what a war it was. From March, William Frederick, Mimi, Frederick, Louise and Wilhelmina had witnessed the build-up of Napoleon’s troops in Prussia and Poland. Soldiers were recruited across Europe, including French, Germans, Dutch, Poles, Portuguese and Spaniards. There was even a regiment of Croats; according to Louise, they spoke ‘no known Christian language’ and thought they were fighting the Turks.150 Misconduct by the soldiers was punished severely. ‘Someone was executed by firing squad every day,’ Louise wrote to her brother.151 But the presence of tens of thousands of soldiers destroyed the land, including William Frederick’s newly acquired possessions in Silesia. ‘Sometimes I imagine that we are in the same situation as at the start of the French Revolution, when we had to acquaint ourselves with a new constitution every three or six months,’ William Frederick wrote. ‘Everything is completely arbitrary.’152 Napoleon had once again ruined his life. In August 1812 he reached the age of forty. He had achieved nothing. He had become ‘un spectateur des événements’.153 On 24 June 1812 Napoleon had crossed the Memel with his Grande Armée to start his campaign against Russia. A month after his Pyrrhic victory at Borodino in September, his fortunes changed. The Grande Armée had been halted by the Russian winter and Alexander’s troops now had the initiative.154 Slowly a Sixth Coalition was formed. Besides Russia, it consisted of Britain, Sweden, Portugal, Spain and, lastly, Prussia. Napoleon’s defeated troops reached Prussia in early 1813. The sight defied all imagination. William Frederick wrote to William from Berlin: It is impossible to imagine where all the troops brought together at the start of the campaign have gone to. Of the 60,000 Poles only 4,000 are left. The regiments from Bavaria, Württemberg and Westphalia have also been completely decimated . . . The soldiers refuse to obey their superiors, the satellites of their Robespierre. There are shortages of everything . . . There seems to be no end to it. I would like to tell you everything about the losses and suffering of the Grande Armée Française, but it is beyond my imagination, everyone’s imagination, and everything I write pales in the face 79

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of reality. The hand of Providence is all too clearly visible in all of this.155 Since his return from captivity in 1807, William Frederick had not come a single step further. Everything was still in the air: his future, the position of his House, the marriage of his son. But one thing was clear: Europe had to prepare itself for a future without Napoleon.

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A New Royal House, 1813–15

Orange, the Netherlands and the major powers Dismantling Napoleon’s empire took another two years of heavy fighting. Eight months after the torturous withdrawal of the Grande Armée from Russia, the major powers united in the Sixth Coalition against France. In October 1813 this Grand Alliance imposed a crushing defeat on the French armies at the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig. Six months later, on 6 April 1814, Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to the island of Elba. But Europe was not yet rid of him. In the spring of 1815 there was widespread panic when the emperor escaped from Elba, returned to France and remobilized his armies. But his return was short-lived. On 18 June 1815 he was conclusively defeated at Waterloo, a little to the south of Brussels, in the territory of William Frederick, who by then had been King William i of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands for only three months. His son William, now the Prince of Orange, played a heroic role in Napoleon’s final battle. Everything had changed, as an unpredictable but certainly not coincidental consequence of the partial convergence of the dynastic aims of the House of Orange, those of a self-appointed interim government in the Netherlands and, much more importantly, the demands of the major powers, and Britain in particular. As a small royal house, the Orange family continued to be dependent on the great powers after Napoleon’s defeat, even after the Congress of Vienna established a European order of which the monarchies were held to be the main pillars.1 During the complicated restructuring of territorial, national and dynastic relations across the continent, justified as restoration, the major powers more than once imposed their will. William Frederick had to make concessions: restoration of his House in the Netherlands proved incompatible with a marriage between Hereditary Prince William and Princess Charlotte, the elites in the Northern and Southern Netherlands held different views 81

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on the structure of the state from the returned Orange monarch, and the territorial claims of the courts in Berlin and The Hague clashed. But after a quarter of a century of war and revolution, the desire to find a solution proved stronger.

The English waiting room In March 1813 Wilhelmina of Prussia received a summary report on the mood in the Netherlands. There was a rumour in Amsterdam that a British fleet was on the way, bringing the Prince of Orange as ‘King of Holland’. This was of course only a fantasy, she wrote to William Frederick from Berlin, en passant identifying all parties who were important for the immediate future of the dynasty. But it would without doubt be interesting to know something of the real mood of the nation and the ideas of the right-minded part of it. I believe that our House is still loved and that people wish us to return. But in what way and under what conditions? And what would they be prepared to do for their part to get us back? . . . The first priority is to free the country from the yoke it currently labours under . . . But if you are called to the throne in a spontaneous upsurge of popular sentiment, I do not think you would refuse, as long as it did not frustrate the plans of the major powers. They determine the fate of Europe. I would however strongly advise you to avoid giving any impression that you seek the throne yourself.2 William Frederick thought it too early for such speculations. ‘At the moment,’ he wrote to his mother, ‘I cannot even predict how the military operations will turn out, and even less whether the great powers have any notion of what kind of government they wish to see in Holland.’3 But three months later, he felt that he was once again living in ‘the best of all possible worlds’. The chance that his House would rule was no longer dependent on a marriage between William and Charlotte.4 For the first time since 1799, he focused on the liberation of the former Republic and had ambitions to rule over an even larger territory.5 Besides the matrimonial dimension, the dynastic policy of the Orange family once again acquired a military and administrative perspective. They wanted to form an Orange legion consisting of Grande Armée deserters from Holland and Nassau to strengthen the Coalition’s 82

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northern army led by Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, the Swedish crown prince and Napoleon’s former general. Friedrich Wilhelm iii and Tsar Alexander supported the plan. William Frederick travelled from Berlin to England via Sweden. He wanted to know whether the marriage between William and Charlotte had any chance of going ahead, and if he could rely on British support if his House were to return to the Netherlands.6 William Frederick’s advisers argued against him going to England in person.7 The British could certainly not ignore him without offending their Russian, Prussian and Swedish allies, with whose support he would be travelling to London. But he was indeed not popular there, and certainly not after repeatedly throwing himself at Napoleon’s mercy. How did this prince, who depended on his British annual allowance to survive financially, wish to plead his case?8 If the primary objective was restoration of the House of Orange in the Netherlands, insiders suggested, then London could better send William Frederick’s amiable eldest son across the North Sea. All their plans would then be achieved at one stroke. ‘I would certainly not lament a King of England uniting his throne with the stadholdership (as King William iii did),’ Lord Malmesbury wrote.9 But Wellington, who knew Hereditary Prince William best, dampened the optimism, saying ‘He is very young . . . Too much is not to be expected from him.’ Moreover, if a revolt were to break out in Holland, the Dutch would see his father as its leader.10 While in England, however, William Frederick vindicated himself. He renewed his contacts with the British royal family and the Dutch colony in the country. He was overjoyed to see his son again after four and a half years. ‘My child has changed somewhat,’ he wrote in August when William brought the news of Wellington’s victory at Vitoria. ‘He is suntanned and has grown to be a head taller than me.’11 The Hereditary Prince left for Spain again after a month, without having met Charlotte. His father became increasingly frustrated. ‘I have run aground here,’ he complained at the beginning of October.12 Lord Castlereagh, the British foreign minister, wished to keep all options open. He wanted to consult with the other major powers before making any pronouncements about Britain’s plans for the Netherlands. He did not respond to William Frederick’s proposal to call for a revolt in the Netherlands, but made it clear that he was not in favour of a marriage between Charlotte and William.13 For the time being, all he was prepared to do was finance the Orange Legion. Wilhelmina now also intervened in the question of the legion. As in 1787, during the Goejanverwellesluis crisis, she herself wanted 83

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to play a role in the liberation of the Netherlands and the restoration of the House of Orange. She mortgaged all the remaining family possessions – land, invested capital and jewellery – to take out a loan. But the Orange Legion failed to materialize; the Dutch soldiers were fighting in the Prussian army. The consultations with Castlereagh were difficult. The minister restricted himself to a statement that the new state of the Netherlands should be ‘more monarchical’.14 But should the Northern and Southern Netherlands be united to contain France’s territorial ambitions? Or should the North only be expanded to include Antwerp? Should France be restrained by the superior strength of Prussia? Would Austria definitely be willing to relinquish the Southern Netherlands?15 At Castlereagh’s request, William Frederick drew up a memorandum. The prince wanted a strong and especially large state, comprising the Northern and Southern Netherlands united, with Liège plus the land between the rivers Maas, Moselle and Rhine. If England were to return control over the trading colonies to the Netherlands, the new state would surpass Prussia in size and power. ‘Such an enlarged Holland will be the bulwark of Europe,’ William Frederick told Castlereagh. ‘The old provinces will form the citadel of the Netherlands . . . The new provinces will be the fortifications, the defensive line against France. In times of crisis, they will unfortunately be the theatre of war.’16 In the prince’s deliberations, strategy and dynasty took priority over the wishes of the people. At the beginning of November news of Napoleon’s defeat at Leipzig reached London; William Frederick’s son Frederick had survived the battle. After that, it was once again a matter of waiting. ‘We hear nothing, and that in a time when events follow upon each other at lightning speed,’ the prince complained to his mother on 15 November.17 Five days later, a telegraph message brought the wait to an end: ‘Secret. Yarmouth Telegraph 3 o’clock: Complete revolt in Holland. Dutch Baron on his way to the Prince of Orange. Texel Fleet in Mutiny.’18 The envoy proved to have been sent by Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp, a confidant of Wilhelmina who had ambitions of a career at the stadholder’s court even before 1795. The Orange family had had no contact with him at all. While demoralized French troops ran rampage in the country, Van Hogendorp had dared to declare the Netherlands free. ‘All the past is forgotten,’ he proclaimed. ‘And forgiven . . . The old times have come again. Oranje boven! [Up with Orange!]’19 To prevent a power vacuum, Van Hogendorp had established a provisional General Administration of the United Netherlands, which 84

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offered the Prince of Orange the ‘High Office’. ‘The nation has arisen and it wears your colours,’ he informed the prince. Uncertain whether William Frederick was actually in England, he had also sent a message to the Prussian army at Münster.20 This seemed to be the signal those in England had been waiting for: restoration of the House of Orange in the Netherlands. ‘The spontaneous movement of the nation has made a great impression; the Prince Regent and the ministers are very satisfied,’ a delighted William Frederick wrote to Wilhelmina and Louise. ‘My task is momentous . . . I have to take it on, the good with the bad.’21 Castlereagh, too, grasped his opportunity. The British would send an ambassador to accompany the Prince of Orange to the Netherlands and ensure that developments on the other side of the North Sea were to their advantage. The ambassador, the Earl of Clancarty, soon became known as the viceroy of the Netherlands. It was realpolitik, wrapped in fine-sounding words about a ‘special relationship’ between the two countries. The people of the Netherlands would be free only with British protection and William Frederick could only accept sovereignty under British supervision.22

Sovereign Prince William Frederick’s return to the Netherlands on 30 November 1813 was a chaotic improvisation, made spectacular later by nineteenth-century historiography and a national culture of commemoration. An easterly wind delayed his sea crossing, mist obstructed the view of the dunes at Scheveningen and by the time the prince – dressed in civilian clothing – and Clancarty were pulled through the breakers and up onto the beach in a wagon, it was dark. Accompanied by a hastily assembled escort, the prince reached The Hague around midnight. To the delight of a curious crowd, he appeared briefly on the balcony of his temporary residence. But the spectators did not know if they were cheering the prince or the Hereditary Prince. Was it William Frederick, the head of the Orange dynasty, who stood before them or his eldest son William? This was not the last time such confusion would occur.23 On his first day in The Hague, William Frederick held a council of war with the commanders of the Prussian and Russian armies, who were still fighting the French rearguard.24 He also had a cool meeting with Van Hogendorp, confined to his home with gout. On 2 December he was proclaimed Sovereign Prince. On the instructions of Clancarty, who 85

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wished to combat anti-Orangist and anti-British sentiments, the ceremony took place in the former patriot bastion of Amsterdam.25 A morning newspaper dusted off the old myth that bound freedom, fatherland and Orange together, writing, it is not William the Sixth that the Dutch people have recalled, without knowing what they could hope or expect of him. It is William the First, who will rule as Sovereign Prince according to the wishes of the people of the Netherlands, who were once freed from slavery and infamous foreign domination by another William the First.’26 A second William i, not a William vi – it implied both restoration and a new start.27 The sovereignty would, however, be bound by certain conditions; the interim government in Amsterdam had the Orange Prince publicly make the following pledge from the balcony of the town hall: ‘I accept what the Netherlands offers me. But I accept it only under the condition of a wise constitution that protects you against future potential abuses.’28 The constitution and the investiture of the Sovereign Prince would follow as soon as possible afterwards. Until that moment, Van Hogendorp made it clear, the authority of the prince was not legitimate.29 These constitutional finesses were lost in the popular celebrations. ‘Long live William the First, our Sovereign; the Prince must be King of Holland,’ chanted the people of Amsterdam.30 There was singing, dancing and drinking in the streets of the city on the day that it was liberated by troops of Russian Cossacks. ‘The Sovereignty of the Prince has put an end to all our differences in one fell swoop,’ one observer noted, ignoring the fact that the city’s people had been ordered to line the prince’s route with the Dutch tricolour and Orange ribbons.31 William Frederick himself was divided between hope and fear. ‘I have succumbed to the will of the nation, without accepting the title of King,’ he wrote to his mother. ‘For the moment, I feel that it is better to maintain the name of Orange and to limit myself to the title of Sovereign Prince of the Netherlands . . . I have no illusions about the difficulties and setbacks that await me.’32 Two weeks later, in reply to his mother’s best wishes, he specified his claims more precisely, saying, ‘It is Sovereign Prince of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, not simply the Netherlands, although everything suggests that the major powers are aiming at their unification.’33 Irrespective of what territory William Frederick would rule over, it was an unpleasant surprise for Hereditary Prince William. He received 86

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the news from Holland on 10 December in Plymouth. Freshly returned from Spain, where he had contracted an eye infection that prevented him from doing much of use, he found himself surrounded by high-ranking officials with orange cockades in their hats, who congratulated him on his father’s new title. Eight years later, he recalled how he felt: I understood none of it: I felt as if I was dreaming and found myself in a stage play where I played the role of the prince who fell asleep as a postilion and woke up as a colonel or a marquis. I was given a number of newspapers and I read the news of the revolution in Holland and my father’s landing in Scheveningen. I was bewildered and deeply affected . . . I saw my destiny change forever, with myself tied to a country and a position that were completely unknown to me and for which I felt nothing but aversion.34 A stage play was no exaggeration. The restoration of the dynasty in the Netherlands during the final stages of the war against France coincided with the final act of the drama surrounding William and Charlotte. Suddenly their proposed marriage, now a match between two heirs to their respective thrones, became a political issue. The Hereditary Prince found himself embroiled in a comedy of errors, a farce played out within palace walls, in salons and in the British parliament. For a short time, it looked as though he would be playing the role of fool.

Incompatible dynastic ambitions In December 1813 the British press published reports of a secret engagement between Princess Charlotte and the Hereditary Prince of Orange.35 The first official announcement followed four months later. On 30 March 1814 the Sovereign Prince was invested in Amsterdam. In his investiture speech, William Frederick declared, ‘The most important of our international relations, that with noble Great Britain, will soon move on to a higher stage of trust and mutual support through the marriage of my eldest Son.’36 This was news, in the Netherlands and in England. Not everyone responded with joy. When British parliamentarians demanded clarity and the Chancellor of the Exchequer replied that he could say nothing about the proposed marriage between Charlotte and William, everything went haywire. Referring to William Frederick’s speech, the Whigs protested against the way in which parliament had been left out of 87

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Richard Golding after Sir Thomas Lawrence, Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, 1822, line engraving.

the decision-making process.That developed into a power struggle between parliament and the prince regent, and between the liberal Whigs and the moderately conservative Tories. Thus even more obstacles were thrown up to a communion already labouring under the problem that, once they sat on their own thrones, William and Charlotte could not be each other’s subjects. There was also the impact that an Anglo-Dutch royal marriage could have on the search for a new balance of power in Europe. And these were only the constitutional and political problems relating to the marriage. 88

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On a personal level, relations between the prince and the princess and between the princess and her parents were if possible even worse. Young William soon discovered that behind the innocent face of the seventeenyear-old princess was a woman who was impossible to deal with.37 Charlotte, the only child of the disastrous marriage between Princess Caroline and Prince Regent George, had her own views on the pitfalls of marital bliss. She took her negative example from her parents, who lived separate lives, but found her ideal in the novels of Jane Austen: she was resolved to marry only for love. She had been a pawn in her parents’ marital conflict from an early age. Caroline stirred up her daughter’s feelings against her father, but Charlotte did not need her mother’s encouragement to protest about his drinking, his affairs and his uncivilized behaviour. For his part, George refused to introduce Charlotte into London society, with the consequence that his daughter – ‘a fine piece of flesh and blood’ who had matured early – forced herself on the young men she did meet, her half-cousins at the palace.38 In February 1813 the prince regent told his daughter that he had found her a suitable marriage candidate, the Hereditary Prince of Orange. ‘To be honest, I was not entirely ignorant of their plan,’ Charlotte wrote to her friend Margaret Mercer Elphinstone, with whom she talked about practically everything. The princess, whose capacity for manipulation exceeded even that of her parents, knew what she had to do. The prospect of marrying William gave her ‘violent orange attacks’. ‘It will probably lead to a scene, but only a clear refusal will suffice. Coercion does not work with me, and intrigues even less so.’39 In the meantime, she had become curious about her ‘little hero’, whose war exploits had been regularly reported in the British press. But when they had an opportunity to meet in the summer of 1813, she avoided William. ‘The young hero has not made his appearance at Windsor,’ she wrote. ‘But had he, I should undoubtedly neither have spoken or looked at him.’40 She was given a description of her intended: thin, blond and suntanned, expressionless eyes, but with good teeth. When she learned that the ‘monstrous prince’ would return to Spain without aides-de-camp, she noted viciously that he clearly had to prove his ability to stand on his own two feet.41 Unlike Charlotte, William was hardly occupied with their future marriage. But Wellington warned him that, if it came to an engagement, he would be wise not to pick sides in her family quarrels.42 The engagement finally came about. On 12 December 1813, immediately after his 89

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arrival in England, William was summoned by the prince regent. In a select company, George introduced him to his daughter. William’s first impression was that she was ‘A beauty in the style of Rubens’, robust, fair-skinned and blonde. Her lively conversation compensated for an unpleasant-sounding voice.43 After they had dined, the prince regent got down to business. Did his daughter please the Hereditary Prince? Did he wish to marry her? ‘Before answering I would first like to hear from the princess herself if I pleased her,’ William replied, according to his written record of the meeting. ‘Would you permit me to visit her tomorrow, so that we may discuss the situation without embarrassment?’ George assured the prince that that was not necessary. ‘She told me presently that she consents to the union.’ The prince regent sent for his daughter and asked her, ‘Is it not so, Charlotte, that you agree to marry the Prince of Orange?’44 Before she could reply, George laid Charlotte’s hand in one of William’s and requested that they embrace each other. He then gave his blessing and left the room, leaving the betrothed couple alone and dumbfounded. Charlotte assured William that she had agreed from her own free will.45 To her friend, she confessed that the Hereditary Prince had pleased her more than she had expected. He was not handsome, but he was gallant, and at certain moments even ‘lively and animated’.46 And yet Charlotte had consented to the match under pressure from her father.47 She came to regret her decision, not because of the Hereditary Prince – whom she gradually came to appreciate – but because she had bowed to her father’s will. She was quick to suspect what George had in mind. The prince regent had requested that William say nothing to Charlotte about the conditions of their marriage and about how much time Charlotte would spend in the Netherlands in particular. But this was precisely what the Hereditary Prince wished to discuss with her: how would they divide their time and attention between the Netherlands and Britain? Charlotte burst into tears. So that was what her father was trying to achieve: he wanted her out of the country once she had reached the age of majority, so that she would no longer pose a threat to his position. While William prepared for his departure for the Netherlands, where his father needed him – there was just time for a speech at a reception attended by high-ranking officials and the press to mark the liberation of the Netherlands – Charlotte felt more and more that she wanted to strike back at her father as hard as possible by torpedo­ing the marriage to William. It was this reception that led a number of British newspapers to report on the engagement.48 90

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William felt that he had fulfilled his dynastic duty. ‘The question has been settled in the way my father has always wished,’ he wrote to Mimi. ‘I am content with it.’49 He saw the union as a ‘mariage de convenance’. So did Charlotte, though it still pained her that she had consented to it under false pretences.50 Princess Caroline maliciously suggested that, after the marriage, William would inherit the title of king, so that her daughter would have to obey him. ‘King!?’, Charlotte fulminated. ‘Never! He shall be my first subject, never my king.’51 The future queen of Great Britain as a simple subject in a foreign country – a more absurd situation was inconceivable.52 Such a thing was unconstitutional. Princess Charlotte sought contact with the Whigs, who had a number of political accounts to settle with the prince regent. They pledged to do everything they could to block the required approval of the marriage in parliament. The Tories warded off this threat by referring to Charlotte as the ‘heiress presumptive’ rather than the ‘heiress apparent’: in the unlikely event that Charlotte were to have a brother, she would lose her right to the throne. In response, she decided to initiate a discussion on her status as ‘heiress presumptive’ in parliament, and thus in public.53 A public scandal would then be unavoidable. That was the situation in mid-April when, in response to William Frederick’s investiture speech in Amsterdam, the British parliament asked a number of questions about the proposed marriage. That set the alarm bells ringing and William had to return to England to save his engagement. His physical presence, however, only exacerbated the chaos.54 At first, Charlotte refused to see him; then she welcomed him and assured him that she did not want to break their engagement. But she had lied. She did everything in her power to block the marriage, mobilizing the parliamentary opposition, demanding that the marriage contract be revised and humiliating William. The contract was indeed changed, so that Charlotte only had to spend two months a year in the Netherlands. William Frederick also agreed to this condition, much to the dismay of George, who wished to see his daughter out of the country. The prince regent was fully aware that cancelling the announced marriage would cause a scandal, especially now that high-ranking guests from across Europe were pouring into London. After Napoleon’s capitulation and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France, the Russian tsar, the Austrian chancellor and the Prussian king had all travelled to the British capital with their families, generals and entourage to celebrate their victory and to negotiate a new European state system 91

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‘A Dutch Toy!!! – Or, a pretty Play-thing for a Young Princess!!!’ Illustration by George Cruikshank, 1814.

ahead of the Congress of Vienna.55 In June they reached an agreement in principle on the union of the Northern and Southern Netherlands. William knew how fervently his father wanted the union, and also that it was impossible without British support. His marriage to Charlotte was still in the interests of the dynasty, even though it was no longer required 92

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to restore the House of Orange. Together with his ‘future bride’, William – who knew many of the princes and generals personally – threw himself into the celebrations with great enthusiasm. He got along famously with Tsar Alexander and his sister, Grand Duchess Catharine Pavlovna.56 While Charlotte hoped that her father would turn against the marriage after the changes to the contract, the prince regent surprised his daughter by consenting to the new conditions.57 Nothing now seemed to stand in the way of the union between Charlotte and William. In other words, George was close to winning. The princess now played her final trump card. She instigated an argument with William by sending him an insulting letter.58 And with success. ‘She herself has broken off the engagement,’ the Hereditary Prince wrote to his father on 17 June. ‘She has behaved so disgracefully towards me that I can do nothing other than consider myself fortunate that I have discovered her true character. I will never be able to live together with her, and it is thus a true blessing from Heaven that matters have taken this turn.’59 What the Hereditary Prince feared came to pass: he became the laughing stock of the salons. Princes, press and the general public revelled in backstabbing and mockery. Cartoonists drew Charlotte with her ‘Dutch toy’: Prince William as a jumping jack or a spinning top, whipped along by the princess.60 Some claimed that Catharine Pavlovna had been stirring things up because she wanted to marry William herself (this rumour was caused by confusion with Wilhelm of Württemberg, who would indeed marry Catharine). Others believed that Catharine and Alexander actually wanted to save the proposed marriage.61 The fact was that the tsar showed the most concern for the Hereditary Prince, who was deeply upset and clearly suffered under the humiliation, which soon became the subject of gossip in all the courts of Europe.62 After seven years the Charlotte drama ended in a fiasco. Prince William bore little blame. On the contrary, the failure of the marriage plans lay with the princess, who had a ‘malicious character’.63 William Frederick, for whom after November 1813 the marriage between William and Charlotte was to have been the dynastic pinnacle of the special relationship between Britain and the Netherlands, refused to accept the situation. Enraged, he demanded that his son return to London to marry the princess.64 That there was no love between them should not be an obstacle, he said, adding that ‘a man can never be unhappy in a marriage; he can always find distraction elsewhere.’65 Such negative dialectics between the king and his successor would be repeated on many occasions in the decades that 93

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followed: William Frederick using William as a political pawn, unforeseen developments that torpedoed policies, and a son who aroused his father’s ire whether he worked with or against him. While the Prince of Orange was burdened by the pressure from his father, the king complained that he had lost his grip on his son.66

Two constitutions Where William Frederick had little real influence was on the major powers, on which he was so dependent in building up his state. This was to become clear in February 1814, while the war against France was still in full swing, when Clancarty learned of William Frederick’s attempts to expedite the unification of the North and South by conducting pro-Orange agitation in the Southern Netherlands.67 The British ambassador demanded clarification in ‘strong terms’. Was the Prince of Orange aware that he was putting the Austrian emperor, the legitimate ruler of the South and an important ally of the English, in a difficult position?68 Did he not understand that building a greater Netherlands required the approval of the major powers and consensus between the domestic elites in the North and the South? In June 1814, when the agreement in principle was concluded in London, William Frederick seemed to have learned his lesson. The Dutch negotiators even succeeded in presenting their Eight Articles, which contained their conditions for unification between the Northern and the Southern Netherlands, as an instruction to the Sovereign Prince by the allied powers.69 William Frederick found it easier to control affairs at home, at least during the negotiations on the constitutions of 1814 and 1815. The first applied to the Northern Netherlands. The second, revised constitution became necessary after the Congress of Vienna approved the unification of the Northern and Southern Netherlands as a single kingdom. The negotiations led to a power struggle with Van Hogendorp, now minister of foreign affairs and at least as sure of himself as William Frederick. Divergent perspectives on the new state system worsened the already sour relations between them. Van Hogendorp wanted a constitution as quickly as possible; without one, he considered the power of the Sovereign Prince illegitimate. His aim was to restore the decentralized governance structure of the old Republic, reserving the powerful position of Grand Pensionary for himself. But until the end of the war with France, William Frederick wanted to rule the country ‘with a simple Cabinet’, without a constitution 94

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or the States General.70 He wanted the executive to have far-reaching powers, and had no intention to rule under a ‘wise constitution’: that promise had been forced upon him.71 Van Hogendorp initially seemed to get his way. In December 1813 he was appointed president of the constitution commission, which specified that the draft constitution on which he had been working in secret since 1795 should serve as the basis for the new constitution.72 So soon after his return, dependent as he was on the General Administration, William Frederick could only agree to this. But what the Sovereign Prince really thought about the constitution became clear in a conversation with his eldest son early in 1814, by which time William Frederick was making comments on the articles of the draft constitution. The Hereditary Prince wrote in his notes: I found my father preoccupied with the constitution written by Van Hogendorp, the grand master of the revolution in our name. He gave it to me to read and asked my advice on the document. I told him that it did not seem to me that it tied his hands too much. He replied, ‘I did it this way intentionally, as I expected that this would be your opinion.’ . . . Another day, when he asked me the same question and my answer was the same, he said, ‘Yes, but it’s always possible to give it different interpretations and this constitution must be seen only as a plaything placed in the hands of the mass of the people, to give them the illusion of freedom, while it can be adapted to suit the circumstances.’73 Even for those who felt that, after the many experiments with democracy since 1789, all calls for freedom should be mistrusted, this was strong talk. But William Frederick’s authoritarian reflex was authentic. He had great difficulty with the distribution of powers provided for in the constitutions of 1814 and 1815. What was in these constitutions? The constitution of 1814 was simple. The executive power of the centralized state was in the hands of the Sovereign Prince and his government, while legislation was entrusted to the government and the States General together. The provinces chose the 55 members of a single parliament that could approve or reject proposed legislation, but could not amend it. Citizens were equal under the law and had access to the law courts. The existing religious faiths were protected, without a formal separation of Church and State.74 The 95

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Sovereign Prince acquired dynastic power in that he was able to appoint his sons to positions of state, but William Frederick’s real coup was eroding the States General’s powers to supervise the state finances. The Sovereign Prince, who had ‘supreme control of general funds’, forced through a distinction between ‘permanent’ and ‘temporary’ expenses, between a substantial ten-year and an insignificant annual budget.75 The revised constitution of 1815 contained a number of important changes. In addition to the parliament, it created an Upper House whose members were appointed by William Frederick for life from among the most prominent dignitaries in the country.76 It was a concession to the nobility of the Southern Netherlands, but also increased the power of the king: the Upper House soon became known as the ménagerie du roi.77 The influence of the wider population was further restricted by dividing those entitled to vote into three estates: the nobility, towns and the countryside. By contrast, the debates of the 110 members of parliament – 55 for the North and 55 for the South – would be conducted in public and citizens’ basic rights were established, including freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the right to petition and the protection of private property. So that it did not too closely resemble the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen from the French Revolution, these rights were spread across different chapters. William Frederick’s favourite provision was article 73, which included the phrase ‘Le Roi décide seul; The King alone decides.’78 This provision, intended to guarantee unity of governance, would become the motto of his reign. The new constitution put paid to Van Hogendorp’s ambitions. The position of Grand Pensionary ceased to exist and, once William Frederick no longer needed him, he dismissed him as minister of foreign affairs and appointed him vice-president of the now powerless Council of State. More important, however, was that the legitimacy of William Frederick’s royal power was grounded ultimately neither in the constitution, as Van Hogendorp had wished, nor in the decisions of the major powers at the Congress of Vienna. He acquired the recognition of his subjects as the legitimate ruler of both North and South as a result of yet another of those completely unpredictable events that had influenced the fate of the dynasty since 1795, a coincidence caused by the war on the continent against the background of which the negotiations on the constitutions of 1814 and 1815 took place. No one less than Napoleon, through no design of his own, came to the Orange king’s aid – the general whom William Frederick had admired, with whose approval he had ruled, for whom he 96

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had swallowed all his pride and by whom he had been humiliated and ruined. It was Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo that firmly established the House of Orange in the hearts of the people.79

Vienna and Napoleon again The definitive decision to unite the Northern and Southern Netherlands, so desired by the Sovereign Prince and Britain, was taken in February 1815. Under the leadership of Austrian foreign minister Klemens von Metternich, the Congress of Vienna redrew the map of Europe. Everything was related to everything else at the congress, which was essentially an exchange mart for dynastic, military and national interests. William Frederick lacked the tact and patience for such higher diplomacy. He also found it difficult being dependent on the negotiators.80 He had ruled the Southern provinces on the orders of the allied powers since August 1814. Why did it take so long for them to be assigned to him permanently? Castlereagh was irritated by his nervous insistence. What was the Prince of Orange thinking? His haste was ‘unreasonable’, his claim on Belgium ‘exaggerated’ and his military and financial contribution ‘insufficient’. Did he realize everything that London was doing for ‘Holland’? Britain’s dedication was ‘almost romantick’.81 In January 1815 the situation became severely difficult. The Congress of Vienna ran aground on the Polish question and the division of power between Prussia and Austria in a newly created German Confederation. When counting ‘souls’ and ‘square miles’ failed, Castlereagh forced a crisis. England forged an alliance with Austria and France against Prussia and Russia. War became a real threat.82 Castlereagh expected support from the Netherlands and presented William Frederick with an ultimatum: he could side with England and therefore against his Prussian cousin and brother-in-law Friedrich Wilhelm iii, or he could go against his current protector. He chose the first option. It was not only William Frederick who had difficulties with this situation; no one was still able to follow Castlereagh’s line of thinking. Nevertheless, the British minister’s strategy was successful. The negotiations started to move forward again. Prussia abandoned its claims on Saxony, which were unacceptable to Austria, and was compensated for this concession with territory in the west. This was at the expense of William Frederick, among others. The triangle between the rivers Maas, Moselle and Rhine went to Prussia 97

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and, in exchange for Luxembourg, the Orange family had to surrender Nassau. Again the family lost its patrimonial lands: in July 1806 it had been at the command of Napoleon and now, at the beginning of 1815, it was by order of the European powers.83 But William Frederick’s state finally took shape: the Northern and Southern Netherlands united in a kingdom plus the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which became part of the German Confederation.84 As the ‘bulwark of Europe’, it was to help prevent a new French attack. For that reason, William Frederick had to allow a Prussian garrison in the Fortress of Luxembourg. Although the Congress of Vienna decided that William Frederick would become king, the moment at which he would proclaim his new title was determined by Napoleon, or more precisely by his escape from Elba on 1 March 1815. Van Hogendorp and Hereditary Prince William quickly realized that the panic in Europe caused by the return of the French emperor and the extremely fast resurrection of his army could add drama to the Dutch king’s proclamation, especially in the Southern Netherlands. Napoleon and the allied powers were expected to encounter each other somewhere on France’s northern border, perhaps in the Southern Netherlands – on William Frederick’s new territory.85 On 13 March, as Napoleon approached Lyon, Prince William wrote to his father from Brussels: I believe that, under these circumstances, it would be a very shrewd move on your part to proclaim yourself king without delay. It will inspire the nation and give it a boost. People will see that you are a Leader, and the crisis will give your government more substance.86 After receiving explicit permission from Vienna, William Frederick dared to take the step.87 ‘I do not know if the reports from Paris have already reached you,’ he wrote to his sister. ‘Together with the requests I have received from Brussels, they have led me to decide to proclaim myself King.’ Yet it remained a gamble. ‘We have to take advantage of France’s treachery, even though it is impossible to foresee the consequences.’88 On 16 March 1815, in the presence of the States General, William Frederick proclaimed himself King of the Netherlands; not in Brussels, as his son had urged him to do, but in the Trêveszaal on the Binnenhof in The Hague. The almost Napoleonic self-proclamation was accompanied by a somewhat clumsy statement. ‘Not a small number of districts,’ King William i declared, by which he meant the Southern Netherlands, ‘have 98

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The Congress of Vienna. Standing left: Wellington. Standing sixth from left: Metternich. Leaning on the chair: Clancarty. Sitting third from left: Castlereagh. Sitting second from right: Talleyrand. B. Dondorf after Jean Baptiste Isabey, The Congress of Vienna, 1819, lithograph.

been added to the fatherland’. He immediately announced a revision of the constitution.89 Two days later, he travelled to Brussels with Mimi, now the queen. ‘Belgium,’ his secretary wrote, ‘required more than words and a speech from far away.’90 In the Southern Netherlands, the renewed fight against Napoleon reached its grand finale, a coda that proved undividedly favourable for William Frederick. As expected, Napoleon’s army marched northwards. The emperor wanted to attack the British, Dutch, Prussian and other German troops in the Southern Netherlands before they were ready for battle.91 The restored French Bourbon king Louis xviii, a brother of Louis xvi, fled from Paris to Ghent, where he enjoyed the protection of William i while waiting for events to unfold.92 Hereditary Prince William, who had for the past year been commanding a combined Anglo-Dutch army in the Southern Netherlands as a British general, had taken defensive measures. After initial reports of Napoleon’s return he wanted to advance directly on Paris to defend the restored Bourbon monarchy but Wellington, who was negotiating in Vienna, advised him against it. The British commander arrived in Brussels at the beginning of April and immediately took charge. The city soon looked like an army camp.93 99

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It all became too much for William i. His decision to come to the South had been correct; it seemed to have given his subjects heart and was in stark contrast to the flight of Louis xviii. But, his secretary wrote, ‘the more the bustle of war increased and the authority of the foreign commanders became stronger, the less suitable it became for the Sovereign to remain in Brussels.’94 Wellington and William i did not like each other. ‘He is the most difficult person to deal with I have ever met,’ the general complained. ‘He objects to everything I propose; it then comes to be a matter of negotiation for a week, and at last is settled by my desiring him to arrange it as he pleases, and telling him that I will have nothing to say to him.’ William i, for his part, had great difficulties with the expensive parties full of drinking and wanton women that Wellington organized to keep up the morale of his troops. Even more painful for the king was that his son had more say in what was now a military zone than he did himself.95 The king and queen decided to leave Brussels. By mid-June they were back in The Hague.

Génie de la guerre ‘Napoleon   left Elba in March 1815. Everything was focused on me: I held the Fate of Europe in my hands,’ wrote Prince William in 1821, looking back at the remarkable ‘Hundred Days’, the period of Napoleon’s return.96 Although he was exaggerating, Waterloo would certainly determine the future course of his life. Queen Sophie, the wife of King William iii, expressed it in the clearest of terms half a century later. Her father-inlaw’s watch had stopped, she wrote, ‘on 19 June 1815’. ‘The great impressions of his youth were permanently fixed’ and ‘had penetrated deep inside him’.97 On the battlefields of Quatre-Bras and Waterloo, on 16 and 18 June 1815, Prince William had once again proven his worth as a soldier. At the beginning of June 1815, allied scouts reported that Napoleon was building up a large army between Maubeuge and Beaumont, on the border with the Netherlands. A week later, they caught sight of the French emperor himself. The allies groped nervously around in the dark. There was a rumour that Napoleon would attack on 14 or 15 June.98 But where? Wellington foresaw two scenarios. Napoleon could bypass the Anglo-Dutch army to the west, capture Antwerp and attack the allies from the rear. Or he would try to drive a wedge between the Anglo-Dutch troops and the Prussian army east of Charleroi by marching directly to 100

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Brussels via Mons and Braine-le-Comte. Wellington’s second hunch proved correct: Napoleon wanted to fight the Prussians and the British separately. However, his route to Brussels did not pass through Mons, but through Charleroi and Quatre-Bras. Wellington provisionally divided his troops into three large corps. He placed William’s corps, some 30,000 troops, between Mons, Hal and Nivelles, directly facing Napoleon’s main force. In the early morning of 15 June, artillery fire could be heard from the direction of Charleroi. From his headquarters in Braine-le-Comte, William concluded that it was skirmishing between the French and Prussians. His chief-of-staff Constant agreed.99 Wellington thought Napoleon was engaging in diversionary tactics and that it was too early to sound the alarm. Accompanied by William, he attended a ball given in Brussels by the Duke and Duchess of Richmond. But Wellington could hardly have been more wrong. The ‘diversionary tactics’ proved to be the prelude to a French attack at Ligny and Quatre-Bras on 16 June. At Ligny Napoleon defeated the Prussians, but at Quatre-Bras Prince William won just enough time for Wellington to prepare his armies for battle at Waterloo. Wellington only realized during the ball how serious the situation was. His decision to attend the soirée rather than engage in battle may have gone down in British history as the pinnacle of ‘British­­ ness’, the masculine and undaunted ‘climax of Wellington’s psy­ch­ological warfare’, but in reality he had allowed himself to be outsmarted by Napoleon.100 While Wellington and Prince William were getting ready for the ball, in Braine-le-Comte Constant – who had protested against William going to Brussels – received dramatic reports from the front. Charleroi had fallen and French troops were marching towards Quatre-Bras.101 If they gained control over the crossroads there, they would not only be able to move their troops more quickly, but would also break the line of communication between the Anglo-Dutch and the Prussian armies. In Constant’s view, the crossroads had to remain in allied hands. Against Wellington’s order to concentrate on Mons, he sent troops to QuatreBras. Late in the evening, they succeeded in halting the French advance. By that time, Wellington and William had been informed of the situation. They had hardly arrived at the Richmonds’ house when an aide-de-camp delivered a dispatch from Constant.102 Wellington’s reaction, after study­ ing a map of the Southern Netherlands, spoke volumes: ‘Napoleon has humbugged me by God, he has gained twenty-four hours march on me.’103 101

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William left immediately for his headquarters, sending notice to his father that ‘serious events’ were about to take place.104 William went to Quatre-Bras, via Braine-le-Compte. Arriving at daybreak, he tried to estimate the strength of the French army, but it was impossible. French commander Michel Ney had set up his troops in the undulating landscape so that there seemed to be more than there actually were. William’s own vanguard of troops from Nassau and the Northern and Southern Netherlands did the same in the Bois de Bossu. At that moment, the balance of strength between the opposing forces was very uneven: 15,000 French soldiers with 24 cannon against 4,500 allied troops with only a few cannon and a shortage of munition. Reinforcements would join them sporadically throughout the day. Wellington himself arrived at ten o’clock in the morning. After conducting an inspection, he rode to Ligny to consult with the Prussian commander, Gerhard Leberecht von Blücher. An hour after Wellington had left, the French artillery opened fire, which was followed immediately by an attack by infantry and cavalry. William rode to the front line on his war horse Wexy, but the gunfire was so heavy that he ordered the retreat.105 After this first attack, there was no longer any semblance of a respectable battle order on the allied side. At the expense of a great many lives, the commanders decided to keep the French occupied by ‘traversing’ the wood.106 In mid-afternoon, Constant arrived with fresh troops and sixteen pieces of artillery, followed shortly by a division from Nivelles. To give the reinforcements time to prepare themselves for battle, William decided to launch a counter-attack. An eye-witness described the scene: ‘His Royal Highness commanded here in person. Waving his hat, he sprang ahead of the troops.’107 When a small group of infantrymen from the Southern Netherlands freed an aide-de-camp who had been cornered, William ripped the medals from his own uniform and threw them to the men, crying, ‘Keep them, my brave Belgians, you have earned them!’108 An hour and a half after the start of the French attack, Wellington returned from consulting Blücher and took over command from William. More troops arrived – English, together with men from Brunswick and others from Hanover who had remained loyal to the British crown. William allowed his troops to rest, but continued to fight himself. When hostilities ceased at nine o’clock in the evening, the prince had once again proved his bravery. As in Spain, he had stood in the front lines, in the midst of the artillery fire.109 102

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Wellington praised Prince William for his actions at Quatre-Bras. He would also receive praise from Napoleon in his memoirs, dictated on St Helena: ‘Everything depended on a great victory that would push the allies back across the Rhine and, without the heroic decision of the Prince of Orange, who dared to take a stand at Quatre-Bras with a handful of men, I would have overwhelmed the British army.’ Elsewhere, he wrote ‘The prince proved that day that he possesses the génie de la guerre. All honour from this campaign is for him. Without him, the British army would have been destroyed before it could engage in battle.’110 Napoleon was playing politics here, as always: by attributing all the honour to William, he was humiliating Wellington and Blücher.111 The emperor’s account, however, does not tally with the facts. It was not William but Constant who had set up his troops at the crossroads on the evening of 15 June, against Wellington’s orders. No matter who deserves the credit, the French defeat at Quatre-Bras gave Wellington time to take up his position at Waterloo. There, 15 kilometres (9 mi.) to the south of Brussels, Napoleon would launch his final attempt to ‘push the allies back across the Rhine’.

Waterloo: The royal house established The final battle against Napoleon immediately took hold of the European imagination – as a military encounter, as a decisive moment for the nation states involved, and as a turning point in history.112 For the Prince of Orange, the battle was also of personal significance. Although his role was less prominent than at Quatre-Bras, he would be known henceforth – at least in the Netherlands – as the Hero of Waterloo. After the Russian campaign and the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig, Waterloo was the third and final act in Napoleon’s downfall. The battle had its own horrors. On 18 June 1815, 67,000 allied and 73,000 French troops entered into combat on a small battlefield that heavy rainfall had turned into a mudbath. When the fighting began in the afternoon, soldiers, horses, wagons and cannon sank deep into the mire, adding an extra element to the apocalyptic scenes that had lost none of their terror even after a quarter of a century of revolution and war.113 Wellington’s troops controlled the high ground, a plateau that served as a natural bastion and was difficult to capture owing to a sunken, covered lane, known as ‘the hollow way’, at the base of the slope. The French, though superior in numbers, were at a disadvantage. 103

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Thirty-one thousand men died during the battle, bringing the total number of deaths – including those at Quatre-Bras and Ligny – to 54,000.114 The large numbers of deserters from both camps should therefore come as no surprise. There are countless descriptions of Waterloo. They all contain a number of key moments in the battle: the first attack by Jérôme Bonaparte on the Hougoumont fortified country house, defended by Nassau, Hanoverian and British troops; Napoleon’s offensive with four divisions simultaneously – 17,000 infantrymen and five hundred cuirassiers who advanced directly on a Dutch-Belgian brigade; the British attempt to force a breach via La Haie Sainte farmhouse and the village of Mont Saint-Jean; the capture of 2,000 French troops; Marshal Ney’s spectacular cavalry charge against the allied positions and his enormous losses at the hollow way; and the reckless attack by General David Chassé’s regiment on Napoleon’s rapidly advancing elite troops around seven in the evening, after the Prussian troops – which had regrouped after their defeat at Ligny under the leadership of Friedrich Wilhelm von Bülow – had overrun the eastern flank of the French lines. When Wellington and Bülow congratulated each other on the victory at 9.30 in the evening in Napoleon’s headquarters at La Belle Alliance, the emperor had already fled.115 Where was Prince William amid all this hellfire? Wellington had given him command of the troops in the centre. The prince wore the dark-blue uniform of the British cavalry, emphasizing his loyalty to the English army, more tangible to him at that moment than his loyalty to the new kingdom of the Netherlands. During Ney’s cavalry charges, he entered the fray by organizing his men into squares. He himself rode from one square to another, fully exposed to French fire, to encourage his men and give orders.116 Ney was halted, though losses were great and soldiers inside the squares almost suffocated in the powder smoke. Towards the evening, when Wellington had lost so many officers that his command structure threatened to collapse, William was still in the saddle, though not for long. Around 7.30 p.m. his units became involved in a gunfight with the imperial guard. Hundreds of allied soldiers fled.117 The prince decided to launch a counter-attack. As he rode out ahead of the lines, he was hit by French musket fire. Wexy’s legs collapsed under him. William, who had been wounded in the left shoulder, dismounted, took a few steps and fell to the ground in the middle of the firing line. He was rescued by British and Dutch officers. Using 104

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a door as a stretcher, they carried William to Wellington’s headquarters in the Bedonghien hostel in Waterloo, where a field hospital had been established. The wounded lay everywhere. Some could be saved by amputating an arm or a leg; others died miserably.118 The prince was semi-conscious through loss of blood. Surgeons removed the bone splinters and dressed the wound.119 From Brussels, the State Secretary for the Belgian provinces sent the following message to the king and queen by courier: The Prince of Orange has been very lightly wounded. His Royal Highness’ wound was immediately dressed, and I can assure Your Majesty and the Queen on my word that he is not in the slightest danger. The prince is now on his way to Brussels, and can be expected to arrive within a few hours. I will send more details presently.120 But the prince provided the details personally. After arriving in Brussels at 1.30 a.m., he had insisted on writing to his parents himself.121 His erratic handwriting betrayed his excitement: Victoire! Victoire! My dearest parents, we had a magnificent confrontation today with Napoleon, who attacked our positions before the Bois de Soignes. My corps bore the brunt of the assault and it is to them we largely owe our victory. But the battle was finally decided by the Prussian attack on the right flank at Epernay. I was wounded by a musket ball which passed right through my left shoulder, but it is nothing to be concerned about.Yours in life and death, William.122 ‘God has pleased us this day with a perfect success, and given you the strength to announce it to us in a few short lines,’ William Frederick answered.123 Mimi, who had at first responded ‘as a Spartan woman’, was desperate to see her wounded son. ‘How I wished I was with you in Brussels right now, at this very moment,’ she wrote to her ‘dearest William’.124 Wellington and Constant, the latter still wearing his bloody uniform, congratulated the prince in the hospital. His actions had been of great significance, though this would be denied by British historians a generation later.125 In their view, William had acted recklessly, resulting in many unnecessary victims. This version of ‘Slender Billy’s’ military 105

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Jan Willem Pieneman, The Battle of Waterloo, 1824, oil on canvas.

incompetence would be a persistent thread in a British historiography that also trivialized the contributions of the Belgian, Dutch and German troops.126 Under the pressure of nationalism, the shared honour for the victory over Napoleon was everywhere erased from memory. In ‘a spirit of envy and jealousy’, the Dutch lauded their William, just as the British did Wellington, the Germans Blücher and Gneisenau, and the Russians Tsar Alexander.127 While the English considered Waterloo with hindsight as the starting point of the British Empire, the battle was immediately seen as the founding moment of the kingdom of William i. Had his United Netherlands not proved to be precisely what the king had presented it to the British as in November 1813, the ‘bulwark of Europe against France’?128 Wilhelmina of Prussia formulated the significance of the victory of Napoleon most succinctly. ‘The glorious and complete victory of the allied armies, on the soil of the Netherlands, which decided the fate of France and whole Europe and saved my son’s realm from an eminent danger, and the heroic part played by my grandson,’ she noted a month after Waterloo, ‘have firmly established the Royal House and given it a solid footing.’129 The Orange family would derive maximum advantage from Waterloo: Orange, freedom and fatherland were once again aligned. The 106

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eighteenth of June became a national day of celebration, tourists were encouraged to visit the battlefield and in 1826 a mound was raised on the spot where William had been wounded, topped off with a bronze Dutch lion.130 Immediately after the battle, the king decided to honour his son with the Military Order of William. ‘You have now earned the Order of William,’ he told his son, ‘which you did not wish to receive until your achievements entitled you to it.’131 Prince Frederick also received this highest distinction for courage, skill and loyalty, which had only been created two months earlier. Waterloo had been a disappointment for the veteran of Leipzig, as he had not been under fire. But Frederick, too, admitted that ‘William’s blood could not have been spilled on a more appropriate occasion or at more important moment for the country.’132 William i repeated this observation at the beginning of August, in his first speech from the throne after the victory. ‘The promises were corroborated by deeds,’ he declared to the States General. ‘History will one day identify the battles of Quatre-Bras and Waterloo as two glittering pillars of the new State of the Netherlands, and how happy is the father, whose sons were fortunate to help establish those pillars with their arms and to anoint them with their blood!’133

June 1815. Queen Wilhelmina visits her son, the wounded Prince of Orange, in Brussels after the Battle of Waterloo. Study by M. I. van Bree, June 1815, ink, pencil and charcoal on paper or canvas.

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Arithmétique hollandaise Waterloo united the people behind the Orange family for a short time. This was especially important in the South, where their position was not bolstered by prestige, history and tradition. ‘On the street one hears only the cries “Long live William i!” and “Long live our dear Prince!”,’ reported one source.134 Young William, now rapidly recovered, was showered with tributes. During his first visit to the theatre after Waterloo, the audience gave him a standing ovation, the actors sang to him and, by means of an ingenious device in his loge, a laurel wreath was lowered onto his head.135 When Scottish writer Walter Scott visited Brussels and Waterloo in August 1815, he encountered singers and storytellers everywhere who praised William’s heroic actions.136 In the name of his grateful subjects, the States General presented the prince with the palaces of Soestdijk and Tervuren. Waterloo gave new lustre to a royal rule that was already showing the first signs of wear and tear: disgruntled muttering about military service and taxes, suspicion in the South about the financial and religious plans of the Northern king, and dismay on the part of some ministers about William i’s autocratic tendencies. The failure of the planned marriage between William and Charlotte also damaged the new king’s prestige. But after Waterloo, the marriage question was solved for good, while the political issue was settled for the time being. The revision of the constitution called for political creativity. The new article 73 – ‘The King alone decides’ – did not cause problems. Just how literally William i interpreted this article only became clear some years later. Conflict did arise about two unnegotiable provisions of the Eight Articles of the 1814 Treaty of London, which laid down the basic conditions of the merger of North and South to create an ‘intimate and complete union’. The first dispute was about the amalgamation of the debts of the two sides (article 6); the second related to the equal protection for all religious faiths (article 2). The union was intimate and complete first and foremost financially: the amalgamation of the debts of North and South recalled a measure from 1798, when the debts of the separate provinces were amalgamated with the creation of a united state of the Northern Netherlands. This particularly benefited the coastal provinces, which were overburdened by the interest they had to pay on their debts.137 While it then concerned the debts of nine ‘peoples’ and the Batavian Republic took on the responsibility of compensating the most urgent injustices, this time it related only 108

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to the financial obligations of North and South and the amalgamation was purely to the benefit of the North.138 The South’s debt was 26 million guilders. The non-postponed debt of the North – the third part of the total national debt over which interest was still being paid after the Tiercering introduced by Napoleon and continued by William i – was 575.5 million guilders, more than twenty times larger than that of the South. It was an expensive legacy from the eighteenth century and the French era. The difference between the North and the South was made even larger by their unequal treatment by the major powers in Vienna: the money that the French had extracted from the Austrian Netherlands was cancelled, while the debt forced on the North between 1795 and 1813 had to be repaid by the new kingdom.139 Protests were heard not only from those involved in finance, trade and industry; everyone in the South would have to pay higher taxes. It was as though the new provinces were a colony of Holland. Over the fifteen years that the United Kingdom of the Netherlands was to last, there was indeed a structural transfer of income from South to North.140 Yet it was the provisions on religion that caused the most heated discussions. William i had not expected any problems from the Catholics in the Southern Netherlands. After all, after four years in Fulda, he knew exactly ‘how far a Protestant Prince can go’. In addition, article 133 of the 1814 Constitution, which stated that ‘The Christian Reformed Religion is that of the Sovereign Prince,’ had not survived the constitutional revision. William i had not been happy with it, because it could obstruct his plans to acquire the Southern Netherlands. Not unimportant, finally, was the pledge that the clergy of all denominations, including that of the Belgian Catholics, would be paid by the state and that efforts would be made to agree a concordat with Rome.141 These concessions did not, however, prevent an episcopal revolt. William i realized too late that the Roman Catholic Church had changed: he was no longer dealing with an enlightened clergy, as in Fulda, but with a Church that had become much more ideologically aware since the French Revolution, which it saw as an offensive against Christendom, the Church and the Pope.142 In July 1815 William i found himself facing a Catholic front led by Prince Maurice de Broglie, the Bishop of Ghent. At the end of a complex career – as an émigré, chaplain and opponent of Napoleon – the bishop devoted himself, with the support of the Jesuits, to the independence of the Roman Catholic Church. The movement’s protest sounded like a declaration of war: ‘The state of the Religion and the freedoms of the 109

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Catholic Church will not survive under the articles of the draft constitution, under which all faiths will enjoy protection and equality. Never, since the Belgians converted to Christianity, have such perilous modernizations been introduced, other than with violence.’143 The bishops had earlier responded with anger to the administrative degradation of the Catholic Church, which would no longer be represented in the Provincial States as a separate political estate but, like all other faiths, would be subject to the secular government, exactly as under Joseph ii and Napoleon.144 De Broglie was relentless. Shortly before the Belgian dignitaries were to approve the constitution, he threatened the Catholics among them that he would withhold the sacrament from those who did: Catholics could not be permitted to cooperate with a law that placed ‘the only true religion’ on an equal footing with heresy and control of the Church in the hands of a ‘sovereign who does not practise our religion’. He also opposed public education and the priority given to civil marriage above marriage in the Church. It was all too reminiscent of the French revolutionaries.145 Afraid of turning the bishop into a martyr, the state hesitated to prosecute but after William i received the support of Austria, the power with the greatest influence on the Holy See, De Broglie fled to France. He was to experience from a distance how the new Dutch state used his prosecution to humiliate the whole Catholic community. The legal authorities announced the sentence of deportation in Ghent by fixing a placard with their decision on a scaffold. On each side of the scaffold, two branded thieves were chained to a pillory. The reference to Christ’s crucifixion was clear to everyone. Catholics and Protestants alike expressed their disgust.146 Priests and chaplains who had been ordained by De Broglie were also expelled from office. Now that the issues of the state debt and religious plurality had been settled as the national government wished, a vote was taken on the revised constitution on 18 August 1815 (complaints that the South – with a population of 3.5 million, much larger than the North with 2 million – was inadequately represented in parliament were ignored).147 The procedure was comparable to that of March 1814, when six hundred dignitaries designated by the sovereign government had approved the constitution for the Northern Netherlands on behalf of the people. Now, against the advice of a small number of Southern members of the constitutional commission, 1,604 dignitaries were appointed for the South – one for every 2,000 people. Unlike the Republic, the Southern members said, the Austrian Netherlands had never had people’s 110

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Opening of the first session of the States General in Brussels on 21 September 1815. Johann Nepomuk Gibele after Joseph Paelinck, First Meeting van de States-General Opened by King Willem i in Brussels, 21 September 1815, 1815, aquatint.

representatives: ‘We Belgians must not be placed in a position that the constitution might fall as a consequence of our actions.’148 The Hague was indeed not convinced that the proposed constitution would acquire the necessary majority, even more so because a separate majority was required in both parts of the country. The States General in the North would certainly approve the constitution, but what of the South?149 There, they were still protesting about the amalgamation of the state debt, and even more vehemently about the equal status of religions.150 The protests did not fall on deaf ears. After some pressure was exerted, the North voted unanimously in favour of the constitution, but a large majority in the South rejected it. One thousand, three hundred and twenty-three of the 1,604 dignitaries voted: 527 for and 796 against. The constitution was thus rejected. The king and his advisers refused to accept the verdict and set about counting heads. Some of those who had voted against the constitution had given their reasons in writing. The 126 who had given the religious question as the reason for their vote were added to the ‘yes’ voters: the freedom and equality of all religious faiths was laid down in the Eight Articles of London, and were therefore non-negotiable. Eight dignitaries who had been too ill to vote were also counted as yes voters. That produced a count of 661 in favour and 670 against.151 William i then suggested counting all 281 dignitaries who had 111

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not voted among the yes voters.152 That would have produced a final count of 942 in favour and 670 against. But the court dared not risk such far-reaching manipulation. When the constitution was announced on 24 August 1815, it became clear how the count had actually been conducted. In the South, after a little creative arithmetic, the vote was practically a tie, while the North was clearly in favour. But, the state now reasoned, had the ‘intimate and complete union’ not created a kingdom that was united and indivisible? The demand for separate majorities in North and South was abandoned. The final count was thus 527 Southern dignitaries in favour of the constitution, together with the entire States General in the North. Of the 796 who voted against in the South, 126 had been ‘misled’ by the Catholic Church. Three-quarters had therefore voted in favour – the revised constitution was approved.153 Arithmétique hollandaise, arithmetic Holland-style – this is how the manipulation of the votes was to go down in the history of the Southern Netherlands. The Belgians felt deceived. But the method adopted by William i and his advisers was more Dutch than his incensed Southern subjects suspected. Arithmetic juggling with votes was a well-embedded democratic custom in the North, a legacy from the Republic. Guilds, civic militias, churches, universities and other corporative institutions had the power to decide on governance measures. But the government also had to govern. Anyone who did not turn up forfeited their vote, or rather their right to vote against. The same procedure was applied without protest in February 1814, when the list of dignitaries who were to approve the constitution of the Northern Netherlands was drawn up.154

A Russian marriage alliance Constitutionally, everything seemed to have been settled by the summer of 1815. The other major question of the years between 1813 and 1815 – who was to marry the Prince of Orange – was also solved, thanks to Tsar Alexander. On 20 July 1815, a month after Waterloo, he offered Prince William – like the tsar himself the victor over Napoleon – both a Russian medal of honour and a suitable bride, his sister Anna Pavlovna. Napoleon had also considered the Grand Duchess after the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, when he was looking for a wife to bear him a successor. Twenty-year-old Anna was virtually the only member of this generation of Romanovs that William had never met. Because he was especially 112

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fond of the tsar’s family, who had selflessly stood behind him during the debacle surrounding Charlotte, it seemed to him impossible ‘that Anna would be any different from her brothers and sisters’ and ‘that she would not make an impression on him’.155 He was to be proved right: in flesh and blood Anna was even more beautiful than in the portrait that Alexander had given him in August. The stubborn rumour that her father, the assassinated Tsar Paul, had been insane and that Anna was therefore less suited to help continue the bloodline of the Orange dynasty would not take hold in the Netherlands until a generation later.156 Later, William would defend his marriage to Anna as his own choice, but here, in the context of the restructuring of Europe, everything was political. His father had the final word and he knew he was dependent on the major powers. While William Frederick continued to believe in a marriage between William and Charlotte even after June 1814, Castlereagh and Metternich had suggested that his eldest son take a Habsburg bride. They tried to prevent a Russian-Dutch royal marriage as it could jeopardize the new balance of power on the continent. And would a Catholic Austrian archduchess not be a fine gesture to the Southern Netherlands?157 Because of the hierarchy between the European royal houses, however, it was difficult for William i to refuse the tsar’s offer of a marriage between William and Anna.158 In any case, he could see an advantage in the match. Strengthening ties with Russia would provide added weight against Prussia, which now shared a border with the Netherlands. So William i agreed, provisionally. ‘I did not believe that I could or should give the Tsar a definitive answer without first knowing your own opinion and that of your mother,’ he wrote to William. ‘You know that I would have preferred a marriage to Princess Charlotte, as the most favourable choice for you and for peace.’159 But in London, the idea of a new marriage between the British House of Hanover and the House of Orange had been abandoned, also by Charlotte herself. She found the man of her dreams in 1814: Leopold, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, who was to become the king of the Belgians in July 1831. Their marriage was to last barely a year and a half. In November 1817 Charlotte died giving birth to a stillborn son.160 Prince William thus married into the Russian and not the British royal family. On 21 February 1816 – 9 February on the Julian calendar used in Russia – he was joined to Anna Pavlovna in holy matrimony in St Petersburg by the metropolitan bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church in the presence of the members of the Holy Synod and Council of State. 113

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Seventy illustrations lead the players through the history of the Netherlands from the ‘Arrival of the Batavians’ to the ‘General Peace’ of 1815. All stadholders play their part, and pictures 66, 67 and 68 show ‘King William the First’, ‘the Constitution sworn in’ and the ‘Battle of Waterloo’.

Icons, incense and Byzantine singing, the luxury and opulence of the Winter Palace and the presence of the high Russian nobility and clergy made it a wholly exotic experience for William. The Russian Orthodox blessing was followed by a Protestant marriage ceremony.161 A 101-cannon salute from the Peter and Paul Fortress heralded the beginning of several weeks of celebrations, with theatre performances, a ball for 1,500 invited guests in the gallery of the Winter Gardens and a spectacular firework display. ‘Forty thousand rockets were fired up into the air at the same time, creating an effect identical to a volcano,’ William reported to his parents.162 Was it any surprise that he was concerned about the frugal royal life that awaited his ‘Anninka’ in the Netherlands? William had only one complaint. None of his family had come to St Petersburg.163 Not until the summer of 1816, after a long journey preceded by a farewell party where the seventeen-year-old poet Alexander 114

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Pushkin performed what he himself considered a ‘worthless ode’ in honour of the Prince of Orange, did the Orange family welcome the newlyweds in Berlin and at Het Loo Palace in Apeldoorn.164 By then, Anna was expecting their first child. The prince and the Grand Duchess took up residence in Brussels, where a son was born on 19 February 1817. Unlike his father and grandfather, William Alexander Paul Frederick Louis was destined from the very beginning to be king of the Netherlands.

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Restoration ‘The   old times have come again.’ The sentiment mobilized to enforce order after the defeat of France was a deliberate illusion. Everywhere, innovations were introduced under the flag of restoration.1 The French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars had thrown everything into confusion – royal houses, religious faiths, privileges, states, borders and the balance of power. Henceforth every standpoint on the nature of power, the state and society was ideology, including the idea that there was a natural, God-given order with the king as its most prominent representative, even though the rulers of Europe resolutely denied the latter. A new ‘monarchic principle’ made kings the mainstays of the international order. Rivalry between the ruling monarchs at the expense of their subjects was to make way for a joint effort to banish the spectre of revolution. It was more than pure symbolism.2 At first, the restored monarchs tried to find a compromise between revolution and reaction, to seek reconciliation by forgiving and forgetting or by granting their subjects a constitution – as a gift from their sovereign.3 This rapprochement to the political nation was, however, soon followed by a new clampdown, especially in France where, after Napoleon’s ‘Hundred Days’, there were even purges. The slightest hint of unrest was soon stamped as revolution.4 The confrontation with popular rule and terror had been so intense, the memory of the execution of Louis xvi was so powerful, that traditional wisdom about the capriciousness of the people offered the kings of the restoration very little comfort. With the exception of the Romanovs in Russia and the Hanoverians in Britain, all royal houses had been deposed or driven into exile. The Orange family, before 1795 never sovereigns but considered just as much tyrants by the revolutionaries, shared their fate with the Bourbons in France and Spain, the Braganzas in Portugal and a whole 116

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gamut of German and Italian princes, including the pope. Expulsion from power left its mark on all their lives and the experience – with revolutionaries aiming to destroy them and Napoleon who had subjected them to his will – made them into kings different to all others: unlike their predecessors from before the French Revolution, and unlike those that would succeed them. This generation of monarchs knew what it was to have their thrones kicked away from under them. With the support of the major powers, the kings of the restoration tried to give new shape to their monarchies. Absolutism remained a reality only in Russia. In western Europe, citizen kings emerged.5 What they all had in common was the identification of the king with the nation. William i was also seen as a citizen king, as the ‘merchant king’ who pursued a policy of prosperity for his subjects.6 He identified with industrialists and bankers, the self-made men of the upcoming capitalist entrepreneurial class. Had he not, after all, become king largely through his own efforts? No less bourgeois was the king’s work ethic: he performed his tasks as ruler tirelessly and with discipline. His aversion to important aspects of the aristocratic life, such as the ostentatious luxury and the military code of honour, strengthened this bourgeois image. Profit was all that mattered to this thrifty monarch, described by many a visitor as having the ‘dullest court in Europe’.7 For him, the constitution stood in the way of his ambitions. He refused to rule by the conditions imposed by the nation.8 For William i the nation belonged to the king; the king did not belong to the nation. He modelled himself on Emperor Joseph ii and King Frederick the Great, enlightened absolute monarchs who presented themselves as ‘the first servant of the state’. His preferred style of rule is also frequently compared with that of Napoleon Bonaparte and Louis Napoleon.9 As a king of the restoration, William i had many faces. His policy of prosperity was modern, as were his attempts to forge unity between North and South through his policies on language, education and the church.10 Here too, as with the Orange monarchy itself, all notions of restoration were purely illusory. The manner of William i’s rule was reminiscent of the past, especially of his enlightened absolutist and Napoleonic predecessors. His reign is so difficult to categorize that it practically forms a separate sub-genre in the historiography of the Netherlands. Besides merchant king and ‘canal king’, he has also been described as a ‘decree king’, an enlightened despot, an enlightened absolute ruler, a presidential king, father of the nation, pope of the nation, the Dutch Napoleon and the Dutch citizen king.11 All this, together with his elusive personality 117

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and the complicated life he led before becoming king, resulted in one resigned comment that ‘William i never really knew who he was.’12 This is not only a problem for historians. Contemporaries also found it difficult to pigeonhole the Dutch king. In 1828 papal internuncio Francesco Capaccini called William i ‘the world’s most absolute monarch’. A decade earlier, the same king was known at the decidedly reactionary courts of Austria, Prussia and France as ‘liberal’.13 This was due to the fact that, after 1815, Brussels had become the most important place of refuge for former French revolutionaries and Bonapartists, including high-ranking officers from Napoleon’s armies and a number of regicides, members of the National Convention that had voted to execute Louis xvi in 1793. Any who were still alive were expelled from France in 1815. Among those who fled to Brussels were ideologist of the Third Estate Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès and painter-revolutionary Jacques-Louis David, and former members of Robespierre’s Comité de salut public. They all had blood on their hands, and not only that of Louis xvi.14 The presence of this république souterraine in Brussels was cause for concern in itself, but real problems arose when it emerged that they had close ties with the Prince of Orange.

Father and son A week before the Battle of Waterloo, Prussian general of cavalry Friedrich Erhard von Roeder completed a critical report on the Orange family. He started with the king. Although William i was exceptionally sure of himself, this ‘unfortunate character’ combined a malevolent temperament with military incompetence and administrative myopia – all forcefully reinforced by a ‘less than fortunate school of life’. The Orange king was assisted by a queen who was not capable of fulfilling her duties. The former beauty now radiated a ‘cold severity’. She lacked any political insight. Despite the extremely important strategic position of the Netherlands on France’s northern border, the king and queen maintained almost no diplomatic contacts. ‘Both Highnesses see no one,’ Roeder reported, adding that their court in Brussels was ‘a dull business’.15 Even worse was that William i saw Prussia, not France, as his ‘main enemy’, largely because he was dependent on the former. Roeder claimed, incorrectly, that the king ignored the sensible advice of his strong-willed mother, leaving her out of all decisions. In reality, only Prince Frederick was a friend of Prussia. The timid young man was afraid of his father. 118

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But it was the Prince of Orange, who was ‘playing the English general’ in Brussels and was extremely popular, that suffered the most from the king’s petty thirst for power. Even before Waterloo, the relationship between the king and his successor was defined by jealousy.16 Roeder was not neutral. In 1806 he had taken part in the inglorious capitulation of Erfurt, for which he – like many Prussian officers – held the Orange king responsible. Moreover, he completed his report shortly after the ‘January crisis’ in Vienna, when Castlereagh had forced William i to choose in favour of England against Prussia. And yet his analysis was not inaccurate. William i was bursting with self-importance and the rivalry between father and son was deeper than their shared dynastic destiny justified. After Waterloo had made Prince William a hero, the king’s jealousy knew no bounds. Anna Pavlovna too suffered her share of this envy. In the autumn of 1817 William i dismissed his son by royal decree as head of the war department, a position that the prince had held since April 1814. The cause was a complex conflict in which a number of officers were sacrificed, protégés of the prince who had previously served in Napoleon’s armies. Shortly afterwards, William i and Anna Pavlovna discussed the matter, and the Grand Duchess reported back to her mother.17 The king had vented his anger to his daughter-in-law. The Prince of Orange was, he said, ‘a degenerate son, a rebel, with no common sense’.18 He had spent the last three years wasting his time. When Anna countered by saying that Quatre-Bras and Waterloo had taken place during this period, the king became angry again, referring to the war of 1794 and 1795: He is a bad soldier, a bad general . . . He was lucky to have been wounded, otherwise he would have been killed. I also fought the French at Quatre-Bras, during the revolution, but no one speaks of that because we were defeated.19 The king wanted to control everything ‘with his decrees’, complained the Grand Duchess, who all too soon learned the Dutch word for ‘ukase’. When William and Anna had their two-month-old son vaccinated against smallpox – a risky undertaking at the time – without the king’s permission, he responded furiously: ‘Your child is not only yours, but belongs to the State, and it is therefore my duty to exercise considerably more authority over this child than would a grandfather who is not a King.’ 119

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The king was correct, but his son and daughter-in-law felt that they had been treated as small children.20 Yet the king’s judgement over his son was not without foundation. Waterloo, Anna and fatherhood had gone to his head and he had indeed emerged as a loose cannon, unpredictable in court and state affairs. Like many young men who despised Europe under the restoration, he swung between adventure and melancholy.21 Officers and former officers were especially discontented. Was this the world for which they had risked their lives? Camaraderie, ambition and frustration were fertile breeding grounds for the wild plans of these armed Bohemians. Their dissatisfaction manifested itself in a longing for new glory, in political radicalism or in blatant conspiracies against the restored monarchs.22 Encouraged by French refugees, Prince William also threw himself into this adventure. Taking advantage of the freedoms they enjoyed in predominantly Frenchspeaking Brussels – article 4 of the constitution gave native citizens and foreigners equal rights – these exiles conducted opposition against the regime of Louis xviii. Metternich insisted that measures be taken. The Austrian chancellor’s fear of a new European revolution driven by a Comité Directeur could be considered exaggerated with hindsight but, if such a sinister group was to be found anywhere shortly after Napoleon’s defeat, it would be in Brussels.23 But, appealing to the constitution and the freedoms of the old Republic, William i left the French exiles alone for the time being. At the beginning of 1816 Prince William, still in St Petersburg since his marriage, was contacted from Warsaw by Lazare Carnot, organizer of the French people’s armies of 1792 and of the levée en masse of 1793 – in short, a revolutionary hero. Carnot’s plan was to depose Louis xviii from the throne. As a regicide, a member of Robespierre’s Comité de salut public and minister of war under Napoleon, Carnot – who had earlier been spotted in Brussels – was a dangerous schemer.24 The Russian secret police quickly informed Tsar Alexander of Carnot’s attempts to involve Prince William in a conspiracy against the House of Bourbon.25 At the same time, St Petersburg received a message from the French government: there were rumours in Paris and Brussels that the Prince of Orange was making a pact with Bonapartists. The prince was allegedly planning to advance on Le Havre with an army as soon as Wellington left France with the English army of occupation.26 Alexander, who – as leader of the reactionary Holy Alliance of Russia, Prussia and Austria – led the fight against revolution in Europe, confronted his brand-new 120

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brother-in-law with this incriminating information. William did not deny having contact with the exiled revolutionaries, but insisted that he knew nothing of a plot against Louis xviii, no matter how much he despised the Bourbon king. Back in Brussels, however, William immediately contacted the conspirators, Bonapartists that he knew from salons and the Freemasons’ lodge. They took the gullible prince in completely. Napoleon had not been a tyrant, they said, but ‘a great leader and a progressive statesman’. France’s problems had always been caused by the Bourbons, and that was still the case.Would Prince William be willing to accept the French crown? Other candidates were Napoleon’s stepson Eugène de Beauharnais and Louis-Philippe of Orléans.27 The Prince of Orange was flattered. Later he wrote, ‘It seemed noble to me, because I felt that France was oppressed by the Bourbons and was very unhappy. I decided to accept their offer and to devote myself to the happiness of that great Nation.’28 Just how blinded Prince William was became clear at the beginning of 1817, when he asked Tsar Alexander for help. A new revolution in France could be avoided only if the hated Louis xviii were to leave immediately.Was St Petersburg willing to give military support to a palace coup?29 Although the tsar did not have a high opinion of the French king – he had called him ‘the greatest zero in Europe’ – he severely reprimanded his brother-in-law. William had to distance himself from the ‘miserable intriguers’ immediately.30 But it was too late. An investigation by the French police into an uprising against the Bourbons had turned up both the Brussels connection and the name of Prince William. The French minister of police demanded that action be taken against the conspirators in Brussels.31 With Wellington, who was acting on behalf of the coalition powers, and the Dutch ambassador in Paris, the minister called the Prince of Orange to order. Did Prince William not realize that by playing ‘the little Bonaparte’, he was jeopardizing European peace and placing his father in a compromising position?32 Not only was William i responsible, with the other restored monarchs of Europe, for peace on the continent, but Louis xviii was also his ally.The fact that, since the summer of 1816, the Netherlands had been building colossal fortifications along its southern border with the aid of the British to prevent a new French attack did not affect the Dutch king’s friendship with Paris.33 So much realism was, however, lost on the Prince of Orange. He continued to maintain contact with the French conspirators and, full of bravado, made all kinds of wild statements, including that the British 121

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were about to attack the Netherlands. And that was not all: the prince was falsely accused of being involved in an attack on Wellington and there were rumours of ‘scandalous and unnatural lust’, a licentious life in Brussels that included homosexual encounters. Blackmailers who claimed to have irrefutable proof threatened to bring the Orange family into disrepute. The perpetrators were arrested and exiled to the colonies, but William i had to pay hush money for many years.34 At the same time, the king did not fail to remind Anna of Prince William’s ambiguous comment that ‘a “garçon” was much happier than a married man.’35 The Hero of Waterloo had become a political liability. Growing fear of a new European revolution eventually forced William i to take action. Without acknowledging what he had to be grateful to his son for, he relieved him of all his official duties. The radical press in Brussels was muzzled and shadowy groups with international contacts like the Freemasons and the Jesuits were under permanent suspicion. Prince Frederick was given the task of clipping the wings of the Freemason lodges. No one trusted the Jesuits; the king had them permanently shadowed and his files were soon filled with report after report.36

The king alone decides The differences between William i and the Prince of Orange were not limited to temperament and behaviour. The calculated, seemingly rational king and his impulsive, easily emotional successor each drew their own conclusions from their experiences with revolution and war, lessons that would affect the way they would give shape to their reigns. After 1818 Prince William devoted a number of essays to this matter, as if he wished to justify his attempt to become king of France. Together they can be seen as an exercise in royal self-reflection.37 The prince saw himself as a member of a ‘lost generation’ burdened by their fathers with finding a solution for the political legacy of the revolution. Inspired by the French politician and orator Mirabeau, William philosophized about what he called a ‘popular monarchy’ – popular in the sense of being at one with the people. In an early stage of the French Revolution, Mirabeau had not only called for a constitutional monarchy but argued that, in the post-revolutionary era, a king could only be successful if he controlled public opinion and was able, even in difficult times, to give the spirit of the people ‘the right direction without going against it’. In William’s summary of Mirabeau, this was 122

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Machiavellian: ‘The mass is everything. Seducing this mass, caressing, flattering and bribing people is the only option’ – for the king, that is to say.38 He continued to hold this conviction after he had ascended to the throne in 1840 as King William ii. With the divine right of kings a thing of the past, the monarchy now relied solely on the support of the people. Did he not see this confirmed over again and everywhere? In Spain, with the return of the Orange family to the Northern Netherlands, in the unpopularity of Louis xviii and later, from 1820, during the gestation of revolution in Russia and France and in the successes and failures of his father in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Seducing and flattering the people so as to manipulate them without offending them was not how William i saw the monarchy. If administrative measures encountered resistance, so be it. Unlike his eldest son, William i never put his ideas on the monarchy to paper. They have to be distilled from scattered statements and how he ruled in practice. Old and new elements came together. The symbolism, the presentation and the self-presentation of the king as father of the nation were classical elements. The people encountered their father on pedestals,

‘The Two Audiences’: King William i and King Charles x of France. The difference between how they receive their subjects can hardly be greater. Jean-Louis van Hemelrijck, attrib., 1827, lithograph.

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in portraits and on their coins, and in the daily newspaper columns dedicated to the comings and goings of the royal house.39 The king’s subjects were his ‘children’, in the North unreservedly and in the South usually qualified in some way. Initially they were referred to as William i’s ‘adopted children’ whom the king hoped would feel part of ‘a single household’, together with the inhabitants of the North. However, as discontent with his reign grew in the South, he called them his ‘recalcitrant children’.40 Though the perception of king and people as father and children had a long history, in these post-revolutionary years it acquired a political significance. The hierarchical relationship between a father and his children presented a forceful alternative to the concept of the nation propagated by the French Revolution, which saw the populace as sovereign and consisting of free and equal citizens. That had brought nothing more than disaster. Better the natural, paternal authority of the king, which safeguarded social cohesion and suggested engagement and warmth.41 This paternal authority was at its most visible during the Wednesdaymorning public audiences at the royal palaces in Brussels and The Hague, which were open to everyone. William i also gave this old royal practice, which dated back to medieval times, a modern form – as can clearly be seen in ‘The Two Audiences’, a print from 1827. The aloof way in which the French King Charles x, who ruled from 1824 to 1830, receives his subjects – sitting on the throne, three steps above the supplicant bowing humbly before him – is in sharp contrast to the cordial way in which William i speaks with his children: at the same level, looking the visitor straight in the eye and not flanked by soldiers and lackeys; it shows the simplicity of Fulda transferred to The Hague and Brussels. A Frenchman who attended one of William i’s public audiences at the beginning of 1840 described it as follows: On these days in the royal chambers, all ranks were equal, all privileges of birth and social class were suspended. The only privilege here was your registration number: the first to register was the first to be admitted. The artisan in his linen clothes and dusty shoes went before the tastefully garbed nobleman, whose horses could be heard stamping their hooves in the street; the apprentice went before the master, and the soldier before the officer. In an adjoining salon stood the King, leaning against a console table, 124

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amiably greeting all those who he received in turn, listening to their petitions and complaints and taking his leave of them with a slight nod of the head.42 The foreign visitor understood that the ritual only confirmed the immeasurable distance between the king and his subjects. The reception at the palace, the granting of a sum of money – everything confirmed a hierarchy that was transcended in appearance only.43 Behind the scenes, there was no evidence of benevolent paternalism. On the contrary, though the 1815 constitution had given the king a great deal of power, within a few years William i had brought the state completely under his own personal control. The 1818 Blanketwet made it a criminal offence to violate royal decrees, giving them the power of laws. In 1822 the king issued the Conflictenbesluit, a decree declaring the judiciary unauthorized to judge the legitimacy of acts by government. That same year, he eroded the already limited budgetary power of the Lower House of parliament. ‘If we lose the annual Budget, we lose everything,’ Van Hogendorp – already on bad terms with the king – had warned in 1819 during the debate on the first ten-year budget. It would give all power to the king. ‘This makes the King bad, and his subjects ignoble,’ Van Hogendorp lamented.44 But it did not stop William i, after December 1822, from deliberately creating a veil of invisibility around the government’s finances through the way in which he set up his Amortization Syndicate, a fund to pay off the national debt and for government investment which had its counterparts in almost all European states labouring under heavy debts.45 William i’s method of working undermined the rights and authorities of the Lower House, the Court of Audit, the Council of State and the independent judiciary in favour of the State Secretariat, the engine room of his government by decree.46 In this way, the reign of William i acquired a number of unique characteristics. After 1815, in almost all constitutional monarchies of northwest Europe, the powers of the monarch were gradually restricted. The new wisdom was, in the words of French journalist and politician Adolphe Thiers, ‘Le Roi règne, mais ne gouverne pas,’ the king reigns but does not govern.47 In Britain the power of the monarch had been declining since the Glorious Revolution of 1688. With the Bill of Rights, no laws could be passed without the approval of parliament. Almost a century later, in 1783, George iii became the last king to dismiss a government. From then on, British politics would be dominated by political parties, 125

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without this eroding the unity of the nation.48 In France efforts to restore absolutism after 1815 failed. The power of Louis xviii and Charles x was barely legitimate. Radicals ridiculed their monarchic pretensions, especially when Charles x appealed to medieval mysticism surrounding the monarchy, complete with anointment and healing by touch. Although the radicals did not gain a republic after the 1830 revolution, the new king Louis-Philippe of Orléans – son of the regicide ‘Philippe Égalité’ – was fitted with a tight constitutional straitjacket. Thiers’ words were aimed at this ‘Roi bourgeois’, the nickname given to Louis-Philippe by his royal counterparts around Europe because he had been placed on the throne by the French bourgeoisie.49 In Prussia Friedrich Wilhelm iii was more powerful than his cousin and brother-in-law in the Netherlands on paper only. Radical reforms of the state and the army after the defeat of 1806 aimed to ensure that the court could no longer be the plaything of ministers and generals. The king was given greater decision-making powers, but was at the same time hemmed in by a comprehensive system of duties, responsibilities and reporting obligations. Consequently the real power lay in the hands of an efficient state bureaucracy. Ministers and monarch would henceforth be jointly responsible for unity of government.50 This was not the case with the royal authority of William i. Although he constantly sought the advice of ministers and other counsellors, there was no question at all of collective decision-making and joint responsibility in the government of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, as the king made clear to his eldest son in 1820: You talk to me of ministerial responsibility. I will have nothing to do with it. It cannot be reconciled with the nature of my government. Look at the final paragraph of article 73 of the constitution: ‘The King alone decides.’ I alone make all the proposals here.51 Nor was there a bureaucracy to restrict the king’s freedom or direct his monarchic regime. It was exactly the opposite: through the State Secretariat decree, King William i led his apparatus of government personally. He held all the reins in his own hands: ruling, governing, making decisions, managing and even the administration – he saw them all as his tasks. With this king there was no doubt at all about whether he initiated and implemented government decisions himself or whether ministers and privy councils performed these duties in his name. ‘I alone am the 126

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man who acts and is responsible for the deeds of the government,’ he stated unequivocally.52 In the kingdom of William i, there was almost no countervailing power to speak of, with the exception of the periods in which the ten-year budgets of 1819 and 1829 were discussed, when members of parliament were permitted some insight into the state’s finances. The later liberal leader Johan Rudolf Thorbecke would claim that, under its first king from the House of Orange, the Netherlands became a ‘Napoleonic-style regulated state with a constitutional facade’.53 Even the constitution seemed superfluous to the king. ‘I exist also without the constitution,’ he let slip to his eldest son. ‘The States General exist only by grace of the constitution. If they destroy the constitution, they will no longer exist and only I will remain.’54 William i’s opinion of his ministers was, if possible, even lower. According to Van Hogendorp, he degraded them to the level of ‘simple clerks’ and stifled all criticism in sarcasm and chagrin. Two ministers, he wrote, ‘have remained in their positions with all their discontentment and continue to swallow vipers every day’.55 Father of the nation and ruler over the state – this is how William i’s reign can be summarized. He modelled himself on the enlightened absolute monarchs Joseph ii and Frederick the Great and on Napoleon, whom he saw – unlike his eldest son – as not so much a brilliant soldier but a brilliant ruler. William i’s state would be centralized, efficient, integrated and modern, and equipped with an army of at least 50,000 men, as the great powers demanded. Only then would the great United Kingdom of the Netherlands fulfil its pledge to be the bulwark of Europe.

The United Kingdom of the Netherlands as an enlightened project William i would never achieve this last objective, to build up a substantial army, despite the enormous amounts of money the state spent on its armed forces.56 His first concern was not the size of the new army, but the incorporation of veterans of Napoleon’s armies from the Northern and Southern Netherlands. Engineers and artillerymen could be employed directly, but superfluous officers were put on half pay or pensioned off and the rest could choose between the colonial army or demobilization. The troops transferred their loyalty from the French emperor to the Dutch king. Officially it was enough to pledge an oath to the king, though the military prestige of Princes William and Frederick, both of 127

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whom had been given prominent roles in the reform of the army, was also an important factor.57 In other areas, William i had a less complicated beginning to his reign. He inherited an efficient centralized government apparatus from the French era. His own reform policies were to lead to an integrated and prosperous kingdom, all in accordance with the early nineteenth-century conviction that only large, modern nations with a growing population had the right to exist.58 William i’s policy can best be described as enlightened nationbuilding. It was utilitarian in intention, form and content, both a repeat and an extension of his rule in Fulda.59 Through rational action, the state would achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number, a relatively new ambition that was primarily materialist in nature; happiness, usefulness and rising prosperity very easily overlap, even more so when the results must preferably be measurable. While usefulness was the yardstick, the most important virtues were diligence and dedication. Everyone was expected to make the most of their talents – the king, his government and his subjects. Nation-building under William i entailed not only disciplining the people but mobilizing them. With the people united behind the king and obedient to his authority, the project was assured of success.60 This creed of social engineering preached that action was always better than waiting. The working life of the decree king was filled with countless acts of governance. He would spend twelve to fourteen hours a day – excepting Wednesdays, which were reserved for his public audiences – at the writing desk of his simply furnished office, surrounded by papers and writing materials: pen trays, ink and a pot of sand to dry his signature on documents and the text of instructions or letters written by himself or dictated to his clerk.61 Memoranda, deeds, reports, circulars, tables, statistics, budgets, draft orders and royal decrees in various stages of preparation – the king preferred to deal with them all himself, up to two hundred dossiers a day.62 ‘His office closely resembled a paper factory,’ recalled Van Hogendorp. ‘Heavy packages were continually being carried in and out.’63 The written word was also used to keep records. The idea was that it prevented arbitrariness and thus shored up the enlightened nature of the royal government.The State Secretariat kept a record of almost everything. Its archives for the period from 1813 to 1840 extend to no less than 924 metres (1,010 yd) in the National Archives in The Hague, a paper trail comprising an estimated million royal decrees, small and larger measures 128

New map of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 1816.

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varying from the suspension of a penalty, the cancellation of a sentence, the repair of a fire hose and elevations to the nobility to an increase in a ministerial budget, the construction of a canal or the establishment of a trade association. Is it any wonder that the king’s staff complained of ‘an over-abundance of work’?64 William i was nowhere more at home than at the writing desk in his office. In 1815 Prussian general Friedrich Wilhelm von Bülow mockingly referred to him as a ‘prima Bureau-Arbeiter’, an excellent office clerk.65 For William, to rule was to write. Every third Monday in October, he would report on all of his activities in the speech from the throne. This statement on the opening of the parliamentary year invariably included an assurance that, together with the government and the States General, he was making every effort to increase the prosperity and happiness of the realm and those who lived in it. These speeches, on the texts of which William i himself had the final word, provide the shortest summaries of his policy plans and achievements. He held a total of 29, two more than the number of years that he reigned, as circumstances sometimes made it necessary to address the nation more frequently.66 The speeches from the throne had a fixed structure: they started with births, marriages and deaths in the Orange family and usually ended with a prayer with, in between, an outline of foreign and domestic policy. The king praised the desire for peace of the major powers and the Holy Alliance and summed up the domestic political plans intended to forge his pluriform kingdom into a unified nation: reorganization of public finances, the construction of roads and canals, measures to stimulate trade and industry, development of the colonies into profit-making regions and the introduction of new statute books in the Netherlands. This process of nation-building by the central state had an important cultural component in the form of policies on education, language and the Church, of which only the first made it into the pages of the king’s speeches. Like those relating to taxation, the measures to promote the Dutch language and to regulate the churches, and the Catholic Church in particular, were too controversial. Mentioning them would have disrupted the message of prosperity, happiness and mutual devotion between the monarch, his government and his subjects. William i used the setbacks that did find their way into the speeches – a bad harvest, an epidemic or severe flooding – to illustrate the resilience with which the state and its people overcame them. For the dynasty itself, national solidarity at such moments called for the Prince of Orange to rush to the location of the 130

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disaster without delay to support the victims, while his father restricted himself to a generous donation from the palace.67

Policy of prosperity King William i is a monumental figure in Dutch history. In 2006 he was only the second member of the Orange family – after ‘father of the fatherland’ William the Silent – to be given a place in the Canon of Dutch History, a list of fifty topics designed as a summary of everything that every citizen of the Netherlands should know about their own past, from the first inhabitants of the area around 5,000 years ago.68 William i is remembered as the king who brought stability after decades of revolutionary unrest and international conflict. Alternating the seat of his rule annually between Brussels and The Hague, he gave shape to the modern state and changed the impoverished nation into a prosperous society. The Southern Netherlands also shared in this success story. When William i came to the country in 1813, he found it in a sorry state. War had damaged homes and infrastructure, trade and fishing had come to a standstill. After Napoleon had incorporated the country into France, high taxes had reduced the people to beggary. A poignant illustration of this economic decline was the dramatic fall in the population of Amsterdam, from 217,000 in 1795 to 180,000 in 1815. A third of the people were dependent on charity, and decay and impoverishment were rife. The metal and textile industries in Wallonia and Flanders had collapsed. Both sectors had flourished in the Napoleonic era, the arms industry in Liège in particular; demand was high and the market was protected. Now industry in the Southern Netherlands was suffering badly from competition from England.69 The king’s main concern was the national debt. The interest was a threat to the country’s economic recovery, even now that – thanks to Napoleon’s Tiercering – interest only had to be paid on a third of the bonds.70 To regain investors’ trust, William i promised ‘to restore the national debt’: the whole amount of 1,725.5 million guilders would be subject to interest. At the same time, he wanted to prevent investors from putting their money solely into government bonds. In the eighteenth century this had turned the Republic into a nation of spendthrift middleclass citizens living off their interest and not daring to take any financial risks.71 Twenty different kinds of public debt, with interest rates as high as 7 per cent, were merged to form a single national debt over which 131

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The Great North Holland Canal, 1824, artist unknown.

2.5 per cent interest was paid – that is to say, only over the third part that was now known as the New Actual Debt. Lots would be drawn each year for 4 million guilders of delayed liability shares (Delayed Debt) – the two-thirds on which no interest was paid – to be converted to New Actual Debt. The operation would therefore take three centuries to complete: from its introduction in 1814 until 2101, in the very distant future.72 William i also encouraged investors to put their money in new companies by promising yields far higher than those of government bonds and by making investments himself. When the Dutch Trading Company was established in 1824, he guaranteed an interest rate of 4.5 per cent a year. He himself invested 4 million guilders, a third of the capital required.73 The king gave priority to the financial aspects of economic policy, as witnessed by the foundation of De Nederlandsche Bank and the Royal Dutch Mint in 1814.74 And yet the establishment of the Dutch Trading Company shows that his involvement extended further. When this state corporation – an improved version of the Dutch East India Company, dismantled in 1798 – started operating, William i revealed a master plan to restore prosperity throughout his kingdom. He no longer believed in reviving the seventeenth-century staple market in Amsterdam, which changes in the economic balance of power had made impossible.75 132

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The goal now was to integrate the different parts of the kingdom. To stimulate the economy, the Dutch Trading Company aimed to unite trade in Amsterdam and Antwerp, industry – the modern part of which (coal, iron and steel production) was concentrated in the Frenchspeaking provinces – and the profitable colonial activities in ‘priceless Java’ in a single system.76 Such large-scale thinking – which wondrously enough managed to co-exist with William i’s tendency to lose himself in details – also drove his plans for infrastructure and industry. There was a Fund for National Industry to stimulate entrepreneurship. His great example was the industrialist John Cockerill, owner of a machine-making factory in Seraing, near Liège. Cockerill was always welcome at the king’s door. William i gave substantial support to the textile industry in and around Ghent, a region that also benefited greatly from the completion of the GhentTerneuzen canal in 1827. The canal was one of the many waterways that William i had constructed to connect industrial centres, ports and the hinterland or to open up inaccessible areas, as with the Zuid-Willemsvaart in eastern Brabant. The king commissioned almost 500 kilometres (311 mi.) of new canals. The 80-kilometre-long (50 mi.) Great North Holland Canal between Amsterdam and Den Helder was by far the biggest and most expensive project, but his plans also included a never completed link between the rivers Maas and Moselle through Luxembourg and a design for a canal through the isthmus of Central America.77 The king’s policy of prosperity was not without its problems. The economy had a number of mechanisms that were difficult to control, such as sharp falls in farmers’ income after an excessively good harvest and conflicting wishes of trade and industry on import duties. Now that the blockade of the river Scheldt imposed by the Dutch Republic in 1585 had been lifted after more than two centuries, Amsterdam merchants were afraid of competition from Antwerp. Cockerill’s factory, which – much to the dismay of the director of the industry fund – accounted for the lion’s share of the available subsidies, displayed all the problems of early industrialization, and was not alone in this respect. It proved impossible to tailor supply to demand, expectations of new technology were far too high, and there was always a lack of capital because the money was tied up in uncompleted or unsold machinery, bills were not paid and potential buyers were unable to obtain credit.78 The impact of the improvements to the waterways was also disappointing, caused not least by the king’s haste. When the North Holland Canal was opened at 133

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his insistence in 1824, the engineer responsible for the project warned that it was not yet deep enough everywhere. Within six months two ships sprang leaks after scraping the bottom of the canal. The engineer received a reprimand and, two conflicts later, was given his marching orders.79 More serious, for the king and his subjects, were the obscure financial transactions behind the colossal investments, some of which would only be profitable in the very long term. The problems were concentrated in the Amortization Syndicate, the fund that eliminated the deficit by concealing it. William i deliberately set up the fund to pay off the national debt and make investments so that ‘the Kingdom could obtain money unnoticed, where otherwise negotiations would be required, which would be disadvantageous to the credit.’80 Removing parliamentary control over financial operations was only one aspect of this policy. William i left no stone unturned in his efforts to acquire money: shady bookkeeping, unlawful loans, mortgage upon mortgage, and other manipulations using royal domains – territories that the king could claim as his property under the law – as security. From 1824 a new law suspended the fixed obligation to pay off the national debt. As the investments continued, nothing was paid off on the national debt until 1829, so that the state of public finances – the aims of the Amortization Syndicate notwithstanding – only deteriorated.81 It was no better after that: under William i, the national debt rose from 100 to 200 per cent of gross domestic product.82 Frisian member of parliament Daam Fockema had suspicions of malpractice in public finances as early as 1823. Some years later, he sighed, ‘I would almost apply to the Amortization Syndicate that which Cato advised against Carthage in the Senate of Rome.’83 The true state of public finances in the Netherlands would not become clear until after William i’s abdication. William i’s economic policy was part of the anarchistic industrial capitalism of the early nineteenth century.84 Although it was based on the state and not on the entrepreneurial bourgeoisie, the king modelled his policy on industrialists and bankers. For him, too, time was money and money, even though it was only credit, had to make more money.85 Daring and self-confident, acting practically and improvising rather than being driven by ideology or theoretical insight, he was taking an advance on the future. Anyone who worked with him would benefit. His plans were seen as enlightened, rational, useful and virtuous even after his financial policy lost its way in wild speculation and resolute assurances that everything was under control sounded less and less credible.86 A Russian diplomat 134

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referred to the king as ‘the most intrepid of speculators’.87 State and freeenterprise capitalism merged into one another. The founding of the Dutch Trading Company gave the king’s policy mercantilist tendencies, even though the company was not a state monopoly, despite the complaints of some merchants.88 William i anticipated the policies of François Guizot, the most prominent minister of French king Louis-Philippe who, from 1840, had called on the bourgeoisie to enrich themselves and promised them the support of the state in doing so.That resulted in unbridled materialism and, as in the Netherlands under William i, the leading political principle would be ‘he who pays, says.’89 The prominent role of the state in economic life had exceptional consequences. One was the increasing entanglement of William i’s private finances and the public finances of the kingdom, between which the law made no clear distinction.90 Companies that could not be allowed to go bankrupt were also kept afloat for too long with public money. Cockerill’s machine factory was once again the clearest example; to all intents and purposes, the government had unintentionally become a partner in the enterprise.91 In the meantime, the deficits in the national debt were passed on to the population as a whole. Because by far the most taxes were collected through excise duties, the lower classes bore relatively the heaviest burden. And yet this economic policy reaped benefits, mostly in the early 1820s, when the failed harvests that had caused widespread hunger and unrest in 1816 and 1817 did not repeat themselves. Poverty alleviation was also part of broader economic policy and was equally founded on enlightened ideals. The most ambitious manifes­ tations of this policy were the colonies of the Society of Humanitarianism, five free and two penal colonies in the provinces of Drenthe and Antwerp. Names like Frederiksoord, Willemsoord and Wilhelminaoord emphasized the close ties with the royal house.92 The experiment was steeped in a belief in the notion that society could be created by policy. The colonists – beggars, vagrants, foundlings, orphans, veterans and prisoners – were marched off to the poor institutions on the orders of municipal councils, orphanage regents or bailiffs to be re-educated as loyal citizens. Families were allocated a labourer’s cottage with a small plot of land. Those who were strong enough worked on the land, cutting peat in the Drenthe peat moors or cultivating the sandy soil of the Kempen region of the province of Antwerp. Children and those unable to do manual labour learned how to spin and weave. The colonists were paid for their labour and the little education they received was intended to elevate them to 135

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Jean-Louis van Hemelrijck, King William i meets the Walloon Industrialist John Cockerill, Seraing 1829, from the series Les Rencontres de Guillaume i, 1829, lithograph.

the level of ‘civilization, enlightenment and industriousness’. Johannes van den Bosch, statesman, soldier and future governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, had devised the system for his king, who announced it in his speech from the throne in 1820.93 And yet the Society of Humanitarianism did not fulfil its promise. The compulsory education in prosperity and happiness did nothing to prepare the colonists for a return to society. Earning barely enough to survive made it impossible for them to take control of their own lives. Once in the colony, they rarely left. As such the institutions seemed above all to perpetuate their own existence.94 The message to society was equally clear: there was no place in the kingdom for dependent poverty. Everyone was expected to make their contribution, to enthusiastically embrace the principle of productive virtue. This ethos also resonated in the name of the Algemene Nederlandsche Maatschappij ter begunstiging van the Volksvlijt, the General Netherlands Society for the Promotion of National Industriousness, established in 1822. The king’s aims were rarely expressed so succinctly.95 In 1830 Van den Bosch was also made responsible for colonial policy in the Far East. Peace had been restored after five years of bloody conflict. 136

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The Java War, a rebellion led by Prince Dipanagara, had cost the lives of 15,000 European and Asian soldiers in the colonial army and 200,000 Javanese.96 The conflict had flared up after disputes about corruption, taxes, the adat (local customary law and practices), the indigenous government and the ownership of farmland, grievances that the new governor-general had no intention of addressing. Van den Bosch devised a way to ‘restore public funds’, which had been the constant goal of the Netherlands’ colonial policy since 1816, when it took over control of Java from the British. In 1830, he introduced the Culture System (Cultuurstelsel), a system of forced cultivation and unfree labour that had also been in operation in the days of the Dutch East India Company. The system forced the people of Java to cultivate crops such as coffee, indigo and sugar. The Dutch Trading Company bought the products at a low price and sold them at a large profit on the world’s markets. Those profits went into the state coffers, and the king decided on how they were to be spent.97 The Culture System turned Java into an exceptionally profitable colony within a few years. Between 1840 and 1880 the Netherlands’ state

28 March 1830. The end of the Java War (1825–1830): the arrest of Prince Dipanagara by lieutenant-general Hendrik Merkus de Kock. Nicolaas Pieneman, The Submission of Prince Dipo Negoro to General De Kock, c. 1830–35, oil on canvas.

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finances would be largely dependent on this revenue. Economic historians speak of a ‘colonial complex’, especially when the policy of colonial exploitation was completed with cotton fabrics made in the Nether­ lands being sold on Java. The colony was now not only supplying the mother country with products and income, but creating jobs.98 But under William i it had not yet progressed that far; the colonial regime was only just being built up. The project was steeped in the same symbolism as the process of nation-building in the Netherlands: the Javanese were children and the king was their father. ‘Orientals!’ wrote poet Hendrik Tollens, the champion of national self-adulation, when a state portrait was shipped to Batavia in 1819. ‘See in the king’s portrait, the image of a father, who loves all his children, of no matter what culture or language.’ He continued: Javanese! Take this portrait and feel it with all your senses; Take it! It is the Father’s gift, which he sends to his children. Oh, learn to love your dear King through his portrait: The love of his heart is printed in his eye.99

One people, one language, one Church William i’s prosperity policy was the backbone of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Around 1820 the Netherlands was the most prosperous country in the world.100 As long as the majority of the king’s subjects were content to lead lives that were modest but stable and secure, and were even in some ways improved, his critics had only a limited following. There was some dissatisfaction with his regime, resistance from specific groups such as lawyers and, once again, the Catholic clergy. Those who gave vent to their grievances from the pulpit or through the newspapers found themselves in court. A section of the press turned against the national government, an opposing voice that was not easy to silence.101 The discontent was concentrated in the Southern Netherlands where, during the French era, a modern political climate had emerged in which partisan conflict and criticism of the government were the order of the day. In the Northern Netherlands, on the other hand, with the memory of the patriots and Batavian Republic still fresh in the mind, quiet acquiescence had been elevated to the highest virtue. Although conflicts did occur, party-forming would remain taboo until deep into the nineteenth century.102 138

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The discontentment of members of the bar and the Catholic clergy in the Southern Netherlands had a clear cause. More than others, they felt the pressure that the central government exerted to unite the heterogenous nation culturally. Language decrees, education reforms and a statist policy on the Church were designed to generate a perfect cultural amalgam. The policy was not necessarily doomed to failure. It need not have come to the secession of Belgium; Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna had successfully merged a large number of states in Germany and, although everyone spoke a variant of German, the religious differences were sometimes at least as great as those in the Netherlands.103 The fact remains that William i inundated his subjects with measures, but did not engage in politics or mediate to reach a compromise. Averse to opposition, he demanded the cooperation of all parties: schools and universities, the press, the churches, parliament, his ministers, his subjects and his sons.104 Without acquainting himself with the wishes of his people, he imposed reforms and dismissed any objections as the complaints of a dissatisfied few. Thus William i ruled with total disregard for those he ruled over. If his critics became too vocal for his liking, he would order his minister of justice Cornelis Felix van Maanen to prosecute them, which the latter was only too pleased to do. Described as a ‘weather vane’, this political survivor had held high office in the Batavian Republic, the Kingdom of Holland and the French Empire and was seen by many in the South as the epitome of Northern domination.105 The policy of amalgamation did indeed generally flow from North to South: both the equal treatment of those of different religious faiths and the policies on education and language had their origins, like the king and the Orange family as a whole, in the Northern Netherlands. With a few exceptions, the same applied to the ministers and councillors of state.106 The cultural-political reforms also bore an enlightened, Northern stamp. A powerful nation spoke a single language. If the United Kingdom of the Netherlands wished to be a bulwark against France, that language would have to be Dutch. William i issued his first language decree in July 1814. Within a foreseeable time everyone, including those living in French- and German-speaking regions, would have to speak the ‘language of the nation’. Five years later, the decree was revised, introducing the first measures to enforce use of the single language.107 The government took the lead: with the exception of the French-speaking provinces and Luxembourg, French was abolished as the language of 139

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the state. From 1 January 1823 ‘no other language than the language of the nation would be recognized or sanctioned for the consideration of public affairs, and all administrative, financial and military authorities, councils and civil servants, without exception must make use of this language exclusively.’108 Dutch thus became the official language for civil servants, lawyers and teachers wishing to make a career: without sufficient command of the language, they would not be promoted. Van Maanen, a fervent proponent of the language of national unity, ensured that the decree was strictly enforced. While the number of civil servants, officers and students wanting to learn Dutch rose strikingly fast from 1819, resistance among magistrates, solicitors and lawyers – professions that, like the whole Southern elite, had become strongly Gallicized under the revolutionary and Napoleonic regimes – hardened no less rapidly.109 Furthermore, Flemish was specified as a variant of Dutch in the decree, while many Flemish speakers felt that their language was very different to what they saw as ‘Hollandish’. Southern priests even told their congregations that ‘Hollandish’ was nothing less than the instrument of Calvinist heretics.110 The clergy in the Southern Netherlands also feared a Calvinist agenda behind the educational reforms. They rejected the religious instruction of the new school system that replaced the Catholic education of preparatory seminaries as ‘Nut Protestantism’, after the Maatschappij tot Nut van ‘t Algemeen, the Society for Public Welfare. The ‘Nut’ was an enlightened Protestant society that had been providing education and care for the poor in the North for several decades and was now setting up branches in the South.111 The state tried to promote a moderate, non-dogmatic form of religious education. The basic principles of the educational reforms under William i were not so much Protestant as, in a more radical form, enlightened. Here especially, this term could not be interpreted literally enough as the light of reason fighting the darkness of Roman Catholicism. It was not difficult for ministers Anton Falck and Melchior Goubau d’Hovorst to ridicule the education of the preparatory seminaries. These religious schools prepared pupils for training as priests at the seminary proper, but most left to practise a profession outside the Church. After all, had not the ‘spirit of the century’ drastically reduced the demand for priests? And had the lack of state control over the preparatory seminaries not become unacceptable?112 According to the distinctly anticlerical Goubau d’Hovorst – a former chamberlain and still an admirer 140

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of Joseph ii, the Austrian emperor who had already become the scourge of the Catholic clergy before the French Revolution – the preparatory seminaries were ‘these days largely schools from which young men emerged equally as ignorant and stupid as when they went in’.113 The statistics bore out the ministers’ claims: education in the Southern Netherlands was in a wretched state. Many villages lacked a primary school and illiteracy was ten times higher than in the North.114 Efforts to curtail Catholicism were not restricted to primary education. The government now also interfered with the monasteries, convents and the Church, which fell under the department for Roman Catholic affairs. Useless piety had to come to an end. William i preserved a decree introduced by Napoleon under which contemplative monasteries and convents could no longer take on novices and would therefore eventually die out. He wanted to secularize orders and congregations devoted to care for the sick, but he left those that tended to the poor alone for the time being.115 This policy of non-interference did not apply to the priest training at the seminaries. In 1825, simultaneously with the closure of the preparatory seminaries, the Collegium Philosophicum (Philosophical College) in Leuven opened its gates. The college offered a two-year enlightened state-controlled course of education that would henceforth be the only way to train as a priest at the seminary. The government had intentionally copied one of Joseph ii’s most hated reforms. In 1786 he had set up an enlightened state training course for priests, the General Seminary, which – like the new Collegium Philosophicum

Cartoon depicting the closure of the Collegium Philosophicum by Royal Decree, 2 October 1829. Eugène de Loose, 1829.

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– was located in the buildings of the sixteenth-century Pope’s College founded by the Dutch pope Adrian vi. The emperor’s act had led only to a storm of protest. The closure of the General Seminary in 1789 could not prevent it becoming one of the direct causes of the rebellion against Austrian authority in Brabant.116 The Collegium Philosophicum was an administrative blunder. Its creator, Goubau d’Hovorst, had learned nothing from his time under Austrian rule. ‘Because the darkness must make place for the light and ignorance for religious civilization,’ he noted in his proposal for the college. The new generation of priests, he assured William i, would ‘learn to distinguish appearance and reality in religion’.117 Southern Catholics soon spoke of the ‘Collegium Diabolicum’, the Devil’s college. Candidate students preferred to attend seminaries across the border in France and Germany.118 Consequently, the Collegium Philosophicum alienated precisely the group that William i needed for his national project: the Southern Catholic bourgeoisie, families that had ambitions of careers in the Church for one or more of their sons.119 Even François-Antoine de Méan, the archbishop of Mechelen, who was intended to achieve peace between the Catholic Church and the new state after bishop MauriceJean de Broglie’s fight against the constitution, now turned against William i’s policy on the church.120 Relations between the Dutch state and the Catholic Church were also fragile at the highest level. William i had been trying to achieve a concordat since 1814. He wanted to subject the Church to public law, and thus to the authority of the state. With the organic laws of 1802 – Napoleon’s elaboration of the agreements with the Church – the French emperor’s concordat of 1801, which Van Maanen claimed was still in force in the Southern Netherlands, became the starting point for the negotiations with Rome. William i wanted a uniform system for the whole of his kingdom. He aimed high: Catholic worship was recognized as Rome’s own territory, but establishing the borders of the ecclesiastical provinces, appointing bishops, priests’ pay and training would fall under the auspices of the state. In addition, the king wanted agreements on civil and church marriages, and dispensation for mixed-faith marriages and the faith of the children of such marriages. The state would also not have to return Church property appropriated during the revolution.121 William i was much more persistent in holding on to the model of Napoleon’s concordat than his ministers. In May 1826 Van Maanen presented a draft concordat that was a cocktail of French Gallicism, the 142

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German concept of Staatskirchentum (State Church) and Napoleonic principles.122 To the wishes of William i he added the right of placet – no episcopal or papal pronouncements could be read out without royal approval. Furthermore the minister proposed repairing the Utrecht schism of 1723, which had divided the Catholic Church tolerated in the Republic into those loyal to the pope and state Church supporters, united in the Old Catholic Church. Van Maanen’s intention was that the administrative model of the Utrecht Old Catholic Church should form the basis of a national Catholic church. Years of negotiation led to nothing. Rome put its trust in eternity but, in Brussels and The Hague, patience was wearing thin. This was one of the causes for going ahead with the closure of the preparatory seminaries and the establishment of the Collegium Philosophicum in 1825. Results were only achieved after the departure of Goubau d’Hovorst, the minister for whom Rome could only invoke aversion; unlike the king, he saw the pope purely as a foreign ruler and not as the head of a supranational Church. Antoine de Visscher, Count de Celles, negotiated further with the pope and the Roman Curia. As far as possible, religious questions were avoided. De Celles, who had received personal instructions from William i, quickly got down to business with Pope Leo xii and the concordat was ready to be signed on 18 June 1827, Waterloo day – as though this, too, was a final battle for the Netherlands. William i had made concessions on the most important point: Rome was permitted to appoint any prelate to the post of bishop that the king had marked down as ‘not unacceptable’.123 In the end, the concordat was never implemented. Immediately after it was announced, the Dutch government stated that it could not agree to ‘the clauses, formulations and expressions in the bulls, which are or could be contrary to the laws of the land’.124 After the United Kingdom of the Netherlands was disbanded, the concordat was scrapped altogether. In the meantime, the concordat and De Celles’ enthusiastic messages from Rome inspired the king to expansive reflection on the Church and the state in Europe. De Celles alleged that the Holy See wished to conclude agreements with all kingdoms, no matter whether the monarch was Catholic, Protestant or Eastern Orthodox. He also wrote that, with the concordat, the pope considered the Utrecht Schism a thing of the past.125 These messages were incorrect but gave William i good reason to put his ideas down on paper. Could peace in Europe not 143

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be further deepened by promoting fraternization between all Christian states?126 The concordat proved that there were no ‘unsolvable issues’ between the Holy See and the European monarchies. It was simply a matter of thinking ‘politically’ – that is, in terms of policy – and seeing the issues as matters of good governance, rather than as religious or theological problems. He had already provided a small example of this in 1816: with the founding of the Dutch Reformed Church, William i united almost all Calvinist churches in one single community, under his leadership. A few years later, his Prussian cousin Friedrich Wilhelm iii had followed suit, setting up the Evangelisch-Christliche Kirche.127 The time was now ripe to do the same on a grander scale. William i proposed setting up an ‘Aréopage Européenne’ somewhere in Switzerland, a meeting of European monarchs chaired by the pope. The pope would mediate between the kings, as heads of the Church in their respective states, while the kings themselves would be representing the faithful in their territories.128 Religious peace as a condition for civic peace across Europe: in this period of ultramontanism, the Holy Alliance, the Protestant Réveil and romantic views of Europe as the Christian world, it was not as strange as it may sound. William i immediately calculated the size of the peace dividend that could be profitably invested.129 Optimistically, mainly because he thought that the Utrecht Schism had been resolved, the king made an even more radical proposal: he wanted to repair the age-old break between Protestants and Catholics. It could not be that difficult: there was no essential difference between their beliefs and he felt that solutions could be found for issues on which their views were at odds, such as celibacy, the confession, the language of mass and even the doctrine of transubstantiation. ‘The creed’ should no longer be ‘a reason for dispute’.130 The whole proposal remained secret, but that it reflected the king’s real intentions was confirmed by an adviser to whom William had said at the end of December 1826 that he might be taking a decision that would lead to ‘a declaration that the Roman Catholic religion had ceased to exist’. He claimed to know that William the Silent had also had such plans. ‘But,’ he added, ‘something like this would not be welcomed with great enthusiasm at this moment.’131 He was right on that count. Repairing the break caused by the reformation? Abolishing Catholicism? Had William i asked himself what reactions his proposals could unleash? Did he expect that Catholics, by far the majority of his subjects, would meekly 144

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William i throws the French Jesuits out of the country, while a Hollander looks on in approval. Cartoon from 1829, artist unknown.

subject themselves to the Protestant king and allow themselves to be incorporated in a pan-Christian state church? How would they respond to him treating sacraments like the Eucharist, confession, marriage and the priesthood so lightly? And what answer could the king expect from the Protestant side? The head of the illustrious Orange dynasty, the descendant of Protestant hero William the Silent, subordinating himself to the Bishop of Rome in a European Areopagus? Woe betide the Protestant nation. You did not have to be an ultramontanist or an antipapist to know that this was going to cause serious problems.132 If his paper on religious and civic peace in Europe illustrated one thing, it was how far William i had become removed from the world of his subjects. Despite his public audiences and his working visits throughout the country, he had only a limited understanding of what was important to his people. Even though he could call on historical examples like the Anglican Church in England and the old state Church system in the German Empire, his proposal for a general Christian state Church 145

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was above all driven by his irrepressible desire to increase his power and regulate society, a textbook example of the state nationalism from behind a drawing board that the king practised: uniform, efficient and authoritarian.133

The industrial exhibition in Brussels William i’s economic policy advanced the integration of North and South. It was the king’s deepest wish that, together with the development of the colonies, it would make the United Kingdom of the Netherlands into a more powerful state than Prussia. Cultural-political reforms were intended to bolster up this process but, in practice, they had the opposite effect. Solemn references to the great Burgundian state of Holy Roman Emperor Charles v may have convinced a few but, in the meantime, the king’s language decrees and policy on the Church – measures that affected large segments of the population – undermined the construction of the single state. Like his education policy, all the administrative rigmarole with faith and language aroused an emotional response. It stirred up feelings of identity that European leaders thought they had defeated or had embraced to strengthen their own positions. But in the late 1820s, fanned by economic adversity, these sentiments emerged into the open in the form of radical opposition and were bound up with romantic ideas of national freedom.134 This also happened in the Southern Netherlands. As part of his language policy, William i used the French words Belgique and Belge as equivalent to ‘the Netherlands’ and ‘Dutch’. In the conflict that followed, the Belgians and the Dutch – or rather Belgians and Hollanders – were suddenly seen as different people, different nations.135 Almost no one had seen it coming; as is often the case, the warning signs became clear only afterwards. The atmosphere in the South had certainly become grimmer after 1827. Police stood guard over Catholic masses. A priest was convicted for preaching against state education, and one of his fellows was sent to prison for cursing ‘the Godless descent of Calvin’ and the ‘scum of Luther’ in an ode in Latin, adding that ‘a Belgian would never wear a heretic’s yoke’. In 1828 and 1829 French Jesuits active in the Southern Netherlands were deported.136 With no less mistrust, Van Maanen had his judicial services spy on the liberal press. In 1828 Brussels was the scene of a series of controversial court cases against newspapers and journalists, an unprecedented 146

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anti-press campaign led by the minister of justice – himself no stranger to criticism – with almost personal spite and rancour. Long prison sentences and high fines made martyrs of prosecuted journalists, of whom the popular Louis De Potter, who had dared draw up an alternative political programme, was the most well known.137 This repression on the part of the government led to Southern Catholics and the liberal opposition coming together in a monstrous alliance at the end of 1828, a Union of Opposition against the policies of King William i. While the liberals had initially supported the king in his forceful policy on the Church, they now felt that they had to fight for the freedoms of everyone, including Catholics’ freedom of religion, education and the press. Catholics, for their part, gradually realized that they stood to benefit from these freedoms, rights which were championed most vociferously by the liberals they had reviled as godless revolutionaries.138 The economic malaise made their opposition even more dangerous. With unemployment, poverty and hunger, and a growing resistance to high taxes, it was not difficult to exploit the discontentment among the population. William i did not ignore the protests completely but, until the summer of 1830, he believed that a successful policy of prosperity would temper calls for respect for civil rights and the expansion of political rights. He could never have imagined that the South would secede from the United Kingdom – practically no one could. This was his message during his visit to the Exhibition of the Products of Dutch Industry in Brussels at the beginning of August 1830. After Ghent in 1820 and Haarlem in 1825, this was the third exhibition of its kind, with displays of plants and crops, industrial and craftwork products, paintings and sculptures. The Brussels exhibition comprised everything that the king was proud of: new products from North and South, and for the first time from Java, and of a quality of which even the British could be envious. It was ‘the fruits of the people’s labour in an almost inconceivable progression’, according to one observer. ‘The rich and perfect combined with moderate prices for our products of all kinds, so lavishly brought together in one of Brussels’ palaces.’ The relatively cheap prices perhaps gave the king the greatest pleasure. He walked through the halls for two hours. ‘His Majesty,’ wrote the Groninger Courant, ‘examined all the items one at a time and with the greatest attention.’139 He even found time to hold a public audience. Whatever William i may have thought, behind the scenes everyone had been very nervous. ‘Fortunately, everything remained calm and 147

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Commemorative coin by Jean-François Dehondt marking the agreement of the concordat on 18 June 1827. The front depicts Pope Leo xii and King William i; the rear shows an orange tree and the keys of St Peter.

quiet,’ noted the attorney-general in the Southern Netherlands with relief after the king had departed.140 It was a particularly turbulent time in the Southern Netherlands, more than it had been for many years. The economic crisis had hit the people of Brussels especially hard. A young intelligentsia of journalists and newly trained lawyers, almost all franskiljons – supporters of the French language and culture – stood at the ready to exploit the unrest for their own political purposes. Events in the past two weeks in France had given Southern radicals hope. At the end of July Paris was once again the scene of a revolution, as a Bourbon king was again removed from the throne. Against this political background, it was the task of the attorney-general to make sure the king’s visit to Brussels went off without a hitch. He was successful, but it was the last visit that William i would make to the Southern Netherlands.

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The end of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands In 1830 peace in Europe came to an abrupt end. There were revolutions, or attempts at revolution, in France, Poland, Greece, a number of German and Italian states, and in the Netherlands. Resistance to the claims of the Orange family flared up again in the Southern provinces of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, more intensely than in 1814 and 1815. As before, the major powers proved willing to shuffle borders and rulers around but, unlike during the closing stages of the war against Napoleon, a divided opposition in the Southern Netherlands now voiced political demands of its own, varying from respect for the basic rights and greater autonomy of the Southern provinces to independence for a new Belgian nation.1 That independent Belgian state emerged more out of opposition to William i and his rule than from resistance to the North as such. For many years, William’s government had responded to legitimate opposition from parliament, the press and the petition movement with rejection and persecution. The state did not make concessions until early 1830, lifting the tax on milling grain, relaxing the language laws and closing the Collegium Philosophicum. But it was too late. On 24 August 1830, the king’s 58th birthday, a minor disturbance in Brussels got out of hand. In no time, rioting escalated into a full-scale revolt, though as yet not severe enough to lead to the dismantling of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. An inept response by William i and a bloody military intervention in Brussels and Antwerp, however, deepened the crisis to such an extent that it soon became clear that the only solution was for the South to secede. In London, growing irritation with the Dutch king, a change of government from Tories to Whigs and deft diplomacy by a provisional Belgian government made the idea of an independent Belgium more palatable. Paris, too, was in favour of the split. On 4 October 1830 the 149

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Southern insurgents declared Belgian independence and, shortly before Christmas, the major powers announced that they would work to achieve the ‘future independence’ of a neutral Belgium, if necessary under a new royal house. Consequently, on 21 July 1831 in Brussels, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld was invested as king of the Belgians.2 A week and a half later the Dutch army, under the leadership of Prince William, invaded its new neighbouring state in a punitive expedition that was to go down in history as the Ten Days’ Campaign. From September 1830, at his father’s request and with the support of a more moderate segment of the opposition in the Southern Netherlands and the British government, the prince had sought alternative solutions to the crisis. His early mediation in the conflict, the proposals he had received from the insurgents in Brussels and his understanding response could have resulted in a more favourable outcome for the Orange dynasty and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands – if his father had been more consistent as the crisis developed, if there had not been a nationalist reaction in the Northern Netherlands restricted to the borders of the old Republic, and if the confidence of the major powers in the future of a unified state of the Northern and Southern Netherlands had not been eroded. Nevertheless, practically everyone was surprised by this turn of events. With the exception of the most radical insurgents, very few saw the revolt in the South as a genuine national revolution. Thorbecke, until the secession of Belgium professor of history and statistics at the University of Ghent, denied that it could have been caused by a ‘difference in nationality’. In November 1830, with the outcome of the revolt still unknown, he wrote to Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, secretary of the King’s Office, ‘If the emergence of such an opinion explains the war of parts of a state against the whole, then future historians will not have a difficult task describing our upheavals. It will be sufficient for them to say that this or that people rebelled, because they wanted to rebel.’3 Did Groen recall these Death threat to King William i, words when he cautiously stated in 1846, ‘The the ‘tyrant of the Netherlands’. 150

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revolt became national as a consequence of the assumption that it was national’? 4 But then where did this notion arise? In the Southern Netherlands, or in the North? In the European capitals? And if the ‘Belgian people’ had risen up against their own monarch, the king of the Nether­ lands, why should they be rewarded with an independent nation state? Were the major powers then not supporting precisely the kind of revolution that, since 1815, they had solemnly pledged to fight against, together with the rulers of the Holy Alliance? Or was it all cynical power politics and was the scope that the major powers allowed the Belgian revolution subordinate to their desire for influence and security, and to preserve the balance of power? Did the outcome of the crisis in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands not illustrate that the major powers, just as Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna had done previously, used states, peoples, territories and – because they were monarchies – dynasties in a completely arbitrary way, taking no account at all of the interests of the inhabitants of this or that region or the claims of a hard-headed second-rate monarch?5 Belgium’s secession from the Northern Netherlands was to take almost ten years. The monarch and the subjects over which he still ruled shared no common objective. On the contrary, while the great majority of the people of the North were relieved at being rid of the ‘rebellious Belgians’, the king was set on revenge. He became obsessed with restoring the United Kingdom of the Netherlands: at great cost to the economy and the treasury, he kept the army mobilized, supported Belgian opponents of Leopold i financially and even hoped that a great war would plunge the whole of Europe into chaos so that he could reconquer his legitimate possessions. A peace accord was not agreed between the Netherlands and Belgium until 1839. A year and a half later, on 7 October 1840, William i stepped down from the throne, disillusioned, battle-weary and heavily criticized – now, too, by his subjects in the Northern Netherlands.

Redress of grievances ‘Down   with the politics of Philip ii and Louis xiv!’6 With these words, the member of parliament for Liège made no bones about comparing William i with these two despots from the past. During discussions on the budget in December 1828, he formulated his demands: ‘Freedom of religion, education and the press; respect for the constitution that safeguards all our freedoms; abolition of government by decree and the ministerial orders that violate our rights on a daily basis. In short: 151

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freedom, openness to public scrutiny and good faith.’7 The moment was opportune: the discussions preceded the parliamentary debate on the second ten-year budget of May 1829. There was now finally something on which to decide and the Southern Netherlands’ opposition resolved to obstruct the budget proposals. In the words of the member of parliament for South Limburg: The time is approaching when even the most unrelenting minds can no longer fail in their duty to reject a budget on the grounds of flagrant disregard for the law and violation of the constitutional contract, about which we are fighting equally as resolutely as about ministerial responsibility. What kind of constitutional monarchy is it when, on the one hand, ministers who have sworn allegiance to the constitution can violate it with impunity while, on the other hand, the budget may not offer an efficient means of obtaining redress of grievances? Well, then it is nothing more than an abuse of words; despotism appears in a new guise when it allows the people’s representatives to bear the blame for all the aversion it engenders.8 This was robust language. The second ten-year budget was indeed rejected by an overwhelming majority, not only by the representatives from the Southern Netherlands but by a number from the North, who, paradoxically enough, made basic rights and the wider distribution of power and responsibility, as laid down in the 1815 Constitution, the centre­­ piece of a liberal reform programme.9 The opposition was playing for high stakes. Its slogan ‘no state budget without redress of grievances’ was tantamount to sabotage, rejecting the budget for reasons that had little to do with the budget itself. William i responded with a display of dynastic power. He appointed Prince William as vice president of the Council of State and president of the cabinet, and Prince Frederick as colonel-general of the civic militias. The king was not interested in expanding the influence of parliament or recognizing ministerial responsibility, as implied by the constitutions of 1814 and 1815.10 He remarked, not without some disdain: They want to share government and administration; an assembly of 110 members! They have read the English and French new­spapers and wish to judge our constitution on what they see there. The 152

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constitution contains a number of safeguards, though inviolability and ministerial responsibility are not among them.11 Much more popular in the South than his father, the Prince of Orange played along with the king against his own better judgment. In vain, he warned about the ferocity of the Southern resistance to the taxes and the policies on language and religion. ‘The king has little faith in me, as we hold completely different opinions on many issues,’ he wrote to his brother-in-law Tsar Nicholas shortly after his appointment. He added that he had only accepted the ‘troublesome position’ because ‘it is an important duty to stand by my father in the crisis we currently find ourselves in, so that no one even remotely suspects me of being a leader of the opposition, and to be loyal to my father and to go down with him irrevocably if he sinks into the mud.’12 The conflict with parliament lasted a year. The king emerged the victor; indignant about the deliberate obstruction by the Southern representatives, a majority in the Lower House finally approved the ten-year budget at the end of 1829.13 The Southern opposition, however, continued to protest, under the motto ‘redress of grievances’. They appealed to the right, dating back to the Middle Ages, to submit a petition to a ruler to demand more just governance – a right also recognized in the 1815 constitution.14 Yet their call for ‘redress of grievances’ (herstel der grieven), an odd-sounding phrase in Dutch, was also inspired by another source, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.’ All in all, this amendment encapsulated the complete programme of the Southern Netherlands’ opposition. A petition movement gained momentum, spurred on by the Church and the press. The first 150 petitions, with some 50,000 signatures, were delivered to the Lower House of parliament in March 1829. Six months later, almost 1,000 such entreaties had come in, signed – if necessary with a cross – by more than 300,000 citizens. The king himself had elicited this second ‘frenzy of petitions’, though justice minister Cornelis van Maanen claimed that the opposition was guilty of ‘political abuse’ of the right to petition.15 A discussion arose in the States General. Could the petitions – in effect thinly disguised protests described as ‘voices 153

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from the realm of darkness’ of ‘Democratics and Catholicists’ by a representative from Groningen – be presented to the king?16 The Southern representatives thought they should be, while their Northern counterparts were divided. In the end, both Houses agreed that the king should hear ‘the opinions of the masses’. Thus William i learned of the details of the petitions: complaints about excise duties, requests to respect civic freedoms and implement the concordat and the demand to recognize ministerial responsibility.17 After the first wave of petitions, William i decided to acquaint himself with the mood of the people at first hand. In May and June he embarked on a tour of the Southern provinces. He showed his paternal side, caring, responsible and just. He visited factories, schools, churches and barracks, inspected canals and ports, and attended folk performances, exhibitions and illuminations.18 The people cheered and brass bands played the Prince’s March, a stirring martial version of the Wilhelmus (now the national anthem with a different, choral melody).19 At gala dinners and during the public audiences organized wherever he went, the king conversed with military, civic and Church leaders. Sometimes he would be called away on state business to sign documents brought to him personally by his cabinet director.20 Did the king’s tour of the South give him a realistic impression of the concerns of the people? The procession of burgomasters, officers, clerics and directors he met with would suggest not. Even a close encounter with the local people in the Limburg town of Sint-Truiden did not bring the monarch nearer to his subjects.21 What dominated was the slightly alienating, contrived rejoicing that high-ranking visits inevitably invoke, then no less than now. Virtually everything was stage-managed, right down to the displays of affection. For his part, the king feigned genuine interest, which the newspapers reported in customary inflated fashion. All this theatre hampered any real contact. And yet dissatisfaction occasionally broke through the superficial appearance of peace and harmony. In Ghent the royal visit coincided with the Provincial State elections and it was impossible to prevent William i from hearing the loud cheers of the opposition when three pétitionnaires were elected.22 In the town of Gits a veteran demanded the immediate release of journalist Louis De Potter. In Mons Catholic clerics boldly complained about the pernicious influence of the local garrison on public morality.23 The most serious incident took place in Liège, caused by William i himself. He declared that he was touched by his warm welcome 154

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in all the provinces and the contentment of his subjects, which was surely proof of the close bond between the monarch and his people. He continued by saying: I see now what I should believe of the so-called grievances that people have made such a fuss about. They are all the work of a small number of individuals seeking only to satisfy their own, partisan interests; it is disgraceful behaviour . . . I wanted to see it with My own eyes and assure Myself that public opinion is everywhere favourably inclined towards My government.24 The king decided to combat the instigators of this ‘fabricated malaise’ – the radical press – by publishing a new newspaper, Le National. Financed by the state, the paper railed mercilessly at the opposition.25 The king’s words in Liège gave the opposition new ammunition, leading directly to a second wave of petitions. William i was furious. He vented his rage on the member of parliament for the city. Did ministerial responsibility not amount to surrendering the monarchy to unstable parliamentary majorities? It would all end in chaos. Why did the Catholic and liberal opposition not acknowledge his achievements? Everything that is useful, great and enduring is the work of Princes and Kings. What do governments of the people have to offer other than a thousand discourses? . . . My government is a tempered monarchy, not a republic with a king. The attributes of the King and the States-General are laid down in the constitution. Theories that run counter to the constitution are revolutionary. I am the King of the Netherlands . . . I will maintain what I have sworn to do.26 He expressed his anger in a royal pronouncement on 11 December 1829. It promised, in one word, repression: severe fines and long prison sentences for ‘abuse’ of the freedom of the press and violations of ‘the rights of the King’. Again, he rejected ministerial responsibility. Freedom could only be guaranteed, the document explained, when those in positions of responsibility stood ‘outside society’, ‘elevated above passion and foolishness’.27 Conciliatory gestures early in 1830 came too late. The opposition feared that they were intended to drive a wedge between Catholics and liberals. The decision to set up the new Supreme Court in The Hague 155

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did not help the situation; all of the major state institutions were now in the Northern Netherlands.28

Uproar at the opera Events in Paris served as an example. Only days after the Bourbon king Charles x had been replaced by Citizen King Louis-Philippe, cries of ‘Down with the Hollanders, down with Van Maanen, to the gallows with the lot of them!’ could be heard in the streets of Brussels.29 Agitators started singing the ‘Marseillaise’. While William i was visiting the industrial exhibition, radicals were demanding independence for the Southern Netherlands – for them, Belgium. The cries became bolder: ‘Vive De Potter! Merde pour le Roi!Vive la liberté!’ Shortly before the king’s birthday on Tuesday 24 August, posters announced: Monday: fireworks Tuesday: illuminations Wednesday: revolution The fireworks went ahead, but the city authorities cancelled the illuminations. As for the revolution, that was for others to decide.30 The revolution that erupted on that Wednesday was in the tradition of the restoration and the Vormärz, starting during an opera in the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. In the darkness of the auditorium, it was possible to cry out subversive slogans in the presence of a large audience without fear of punishment. This was a customary way of avoiding repression and censorship throughout Europe. Operas were particularly suitable, especially if the heroes expressed national ambitions in singalong odes to freedom and fatherland. In the right circumstances, the spectacle could easily spill over into the street. And this is exactly what happened in Brussels, as announced.31 On the programme was La Muette de Portici, the Mute Girl of Portici, a grand opera by French composer Daniel-François-Esprit Auber about a seventeenth-century popular uprising in Naples against Spanish rule. In October 1829 William i had attended a performance of the opera with Constantine Pavlovich, governor of Poland and brother of Anna Pavlovna, who was his guest in Brussels. The revolutionary nature of the story – halfway through, the Neapolitans murder the royal guard – was not seen as a reason not to attend. But now, after the revolution in Paris, everything was different.32 156

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Revolutionary agitation during a performance of the opera La Muette de Portici in the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, 25 August 1830. Artist unknown.

Evening after evening, students of the Brussels Atheneum used the duet ‘Amour sacré de la Patrie’ for a Belgian nationalist demonstration: ‘We throw off our galling yoke and will break the chain’ – the chain being that of foreign domination. Amour sacré de la Patrie, Rends-nous l’audace et la fierté, À mon pays je dois la vie, Il me devra la liberté. Oh! Sacred love of Fatherland Give us courage and make us proud, For my country I give my life, It will give me liberty. On that 25 August emotions in the theatre reached boiling point. ‘Aux armes!’ resounded through the auditorium and a frenzied group of theatregoers set off for the centre of Brussels. They threw stones through the windows of Le National, the government newspaper, looted Van Maanen’s house and set it on fire.33 Events moved forwards swiftly: within a few 157

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weeks, the calls for reform had developed into a full-scale national revolution. The stakes now were an independent state of Belgium. The escalation had been fuelled by the indignant response from the people of the Northern Netherlands and especially of the king, who felt betrayed by his subjects in the South. ‘I was making every effort to lighten the burden of the people,’ he declared at a hastily organized session of the States General in mid-September, ‘when, with no warning, unrest erupted in Brussels, an example which was soon followed in other parts of the Kingdom, characterized by arson and looting of a severity that would be too sorrowful for my heart, for the national feeling and for humanity to present to this meeting.’34 It was almost pitiful.

King and princes in times of revolt What was wisdom? William i, so decisive in peacetime, had been completely paralysed by the crisis of governance. Nothing remained of his ‘self-confident, slightly mocking persona’, according to the Austrian ambassador Von Mier.35 Unable to set out a clear policy course, the king mobilized all resources at his disposal at the same time: his administrative powers, the army and his family at home and abroad. But it only made his problems worse. He expected military assistance from his brotherin-law in Berlin, King Friedrich Wilhelm iii, and from Prince William’s brother-in-law Tsar Nicholas, but it did not materialize despite pledges from St Petersburg. Prussia and Russia were soon facing revolutionary unrest themselves. Yet it was mainly the political and military mission with which the king charged his sons William and Frederick that ultimately excluded any possibility of the Orange dynasty retaining control over the Southern Netherlands. Prince William understood better than anyone the predicament that the king found himself in, though this knowledge did not protect him from the danger of himself being sacrificed during the crisis. Unlike his father, the prince was blessed with a highly developed sense of empathy. In addition, he had valuable contacts with clerics and Freemasons in the South.36 In August 1829 he presented an intelligent analysis of the crisis to the Council of State and the cabinet and suggested a solution. His main target was the Southern liberals. The deceitful double game they had played with the king and the Catholics was harmful to the nation. They had welcomed the king’s policy to reduce the influence of the Church and the clergy, but had sought the support of moderate 158

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Catholics to break the power of the monarch. William i should destroy the Southern Union of Opposition by forming a united front with the Catholics against the liberals. If he refrained from the kind of unproductive statements he had made in Liège, that should not be so difficult, especially as within the monstrous alliance the liberal majority in parliament was dependent on the Catholics who dominated the country. The prince wrote to his father, ‘I have often been told that the government can use the Catholic clergy as an effective weapon to the benefit of the monarchy and the kingdom. In the hands of a Protestant king, this weapon seems to me to be twice as powerful.’37 The king ignored this advice, just as he refused to dismiss Van Maanen, so hated in the South, another measure recommended by Prince William. The prince, too, was soon irritated by the persistent calls from the Southern opposition for reforms. In a letter to the Tsar at the end of 1829, he called them ‘Don Quixotes’, driven insane by ultra-liberal illusions from France, ending by alluding to possible Russian military intervention – thus earlier than his father – if the crisis were to deepen.38 What if the king had listened to his son? Would the uprising have been avoided? From the final week of August 1830, the question was no longer relevant. During the night of 26 August, reports of unrest in Brussels reached the king. No one seemed to be in control of the city, neither the national government nor the rioters, the garrison nor the hastily set up civic militia and civic committee.39 On 28 August Princes William and Frederick left for Brussels ‘to do and carry out’ whatever was necessary to bring the ‘Belgian mutiny’ to an end, by force – the course of action preferred by William i and Prince Frederick – and/or through negotiations and concessions, which Prince William advocated. The difference depended on how they saw the unrest: as a revolt or a full-scale revolution. Convinced it was the latter, Frederick had already ordered the commanders of Antwerp and Ghent to prepare their men to intervene.40 On the way to Brussels, Prince Frederick appeared to be proved right. The brothers encountered a small group of men who wished to negotiate with the king on behalf of the rebels. To the annoyance of Prince William, they wore the old Brabant colours of black, yellow and red, like the members of the Brussels civic militia and committee whom the princes met a day later in Vilvoorde, to the north of Brussels, where the troops were assembling. William was of the opinion that the colours were illegal and were intended to incite and gather support for the revolt.41 159

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But while the prince advised his father to take the Southern delegation prisoner, he himself entered into negotiations in Vilvoorde. If the rebels divested themselves of the illegal colours, he assured them, he and Frederick would be willing to send their troops into the city to restore order, without violence. After that, the parties could talk. The commander of the civic militia agreed, but some of the radicals protested: they wanted to surrender power in Brussels only after the king had agreed to their demands. At that stage, national revolution did not appear to be on the agenda. The Princes of Orange refused to budge: there would be no concessions until order had been restored.42 While the negotiations were under way in Vilvoorde, rebels in Brussels barricaded the streets. Standpoints hardened on both sides. Newspapers in the North did not restrict themselves to condemning the violence, suggesting that it might be better if the kingdom dumped all Belgians. Reports like this only strengthened national sentiments in the South. Believing that an armed response would only deepen the differences in the Kingdom, Prince William announced after consulting with his brother that he would enter Brussels the following day to make his good intentions known: to avoid bloodshed and restore the devotion of the South to the House of Orange. On the morning of Wednesday 1 September,William rode to Brussels in his general’s uniform. Warnings from Frederick and his officers about the enormous risks to which he would be exposing himself had not been able to change his mind. ‘I am convinced that the interests of the king, the fatherland and Brussels call me there, within its walls,’ had been his res­­ ponse. ‘I entrust myself entirely to the loyalty of its people.’43 Only Constant, who knew the prince from the Peninsular War, Quatre-Bras and Waterloo, had no objections. Around 1 p.m. Prince William, Constant and a number of aides-de-camp approached the Lakense Poort. Because the broad road through the main gate was blocked, the riders had to pass in single file through the narrow pedestrian gate, a tense moment – and even more so when they found themselves face-to-face with an angry mob armed with butcher’s knives, pitchforks, sabres and muskets. There were people and Brabant flags everywhere.44 Escorted by the civic militia, the prince and his entourage made their way to the Grote Markt, the square in the centre of the city. There were shouts of ‘Down with the ministers!’, but also of ‘Vive le prince! Vive la liberté!’ ‘Vive le Roi!’ William answered. Some wept on seeing the Prince of Orange, and people started shouting at each other. On Muntplein square, the prince made an announcement: 160

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By coming amongst you, I wish to prove my loyalty to you. I am your friend, Brussels! I sealed my bond with you with my blood at Waterloo. I was wounded leading Belgian soldiers into battle.45 ‘To the town hall!’ by-standers shouted. There they encountered an agitated crowd. Even Constant now acknowledged that the situation was life-threatening: one wrong word and the prince would be lynched. But William’s cool-headedness commanded respect.46 After being welcomed by the burgomaster of Brussels, he once again addressed the people, repeating his message of peace. Suddenly everything went wrong. Nervous from the pressing crowd, the prince’s horse started to buck. It kicked a by-stander, who fell to the ground unconscious. ‘He’s dead!’ someone shouted. The prince changed horses and, helped by his entourage, tried to get away as quickly as possible. At a barricade, the group was pelted with stones and pieces of furniture. Constant had to be rescued. They narrowly escaped and fled to the prince’s palace in the upper city. Prince William was now a captive in his own city, protected only by the Brussels garrison. In the evening the prince issued a proclamation: he still wanted to negotiate and even hinted at concessions. But bad news thwarted his proposals: the Brussels delegation that had wished to speak to William i had returned empty-handed, insulted by the king, who considered them ‘mutineers and looters’ and had refused to negotiate ‘with a pistol at his chest’. That led to a new wave of outrage. Prince William invited two of the delegates to report on their mission. One was a lawyer, Alexandre Gendebien, whom the prince knew through the Freemasons. After an awkward start, a remarkable dialogue evolved between the two frères-maçon. Gendebien repeated the South’s grievances. Sacrificing Van Maanen, as the prince had long wished, was not enough; the electoral system, which systematically disadvantaged the Southern Netherlands, had to be reformed. But, the lawyer proffered, there was a quicker and better solution that was in the interests of the South, the dynasty and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. The government of North and South should be divided immediately, with each part of the kingdom having its own king from the House of Orange: Prince William should become king of Belgium. You cannot ignore this. Accept rule over Belgium as viceroy, or better, as king. That would be accepted in Belgium with no qualms at all. After the death of your father, the two parts of the country 161

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that are now so divided could be reunited without problems as one realm.47 The prince was astounded: king of Belgium! He had dreamed of it at times during his wilder years, but what was the offer worth? On whose behalf was Gendebien speaking? And how would his father respond if he were to oust him from the throne in the South? The prince replied that he could only accept the Belgian crown with the king’s approval. But Gendebien insisted that there was no time for consultation. The prince had to decide now: ‘This is my final word. Tomorrow around noon, you will either be king of Belgium, on the conditions I have outlined here, or you will be a captive of Brussels.’ ‘What, your prisoner?’ cried William indignantly. ‘You are violating all the agreements made earlier! If you and the civic militia break that trust, you can have me executed!’ Gendebien remained calm: ‘I don’t want you killed. I am trying to act in everyone’s interests.’48 They took leave of each other with a handshake, and the question remains unanswered whether Prince William missed an opportunity here to end the crisis peacefully. Would the people of Brussels have accepted him as king of an independent South? Would William i have agreed or had the proposal come too soon? At the end of September, when the revolt ran completely out of hand, the popular Prince of Orange would repeatedly be suggested as a suitable ‘viceroy’ for the South, now also in the North.49

Fighting in the Warandepark and on the Koningsplein in Brussels between 23 and 26 September 1830. Paulus Lauters, 1830–31.

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After his conversation with Gendebien, the prince wrote to his father. Again he insisted that he dismiss Van Maanen, but he said nothing about the offer to become king of Belgium.50 His attempt to achieve peace had failed. In the lower city, the unrest was becoming more heated: there was news from Leuven, where protests had been violently suppressed, and a group arrived from Liège with guns and ammunition, the vanguard of a full-scale army of rebels that arrived in Brussels a week later. Arsenals were looted.51 Afraid that the rebels would attack his palace, Prince William left the city on 3 September. He would never see his beloved Brussels again. The prince went to The Hague to see his father, who gave him a stiff lecture. He had been far too accommodating. Nevertheless, in a somewhat awkward gesture and against his will, William i now dismissed Van Maanen.52 The king wanted to buy time to take stock of his position, make a plan and consult with the major powers. It was a risky strategy: it gave the rebels the opportunity to take the initiative. The revolt spread to Liège, Verviers, Namur and a number of Flemish cities.53 In midSeptember the most radical rebels united in the Jacobin Réunion Centrale. With paid volunteers, they wanted to attack the army.54 At almost the same time, the moderate Southern opposition demanded an administrative separation from the North that was in essence identical to what Gendebien had proposed in a personal capacity: Prince William as king of an independent Belgian state united in a personal union with the North, where William i could continue to reign.55 It was an interesting pro­­­ posal, partly because it made consultations possible. Furthermore, the king declared that he was willing to discuss the idea at a special meeting of the States General on 17 September. But a week later, the chances of a peaceful outcome were dashed when Prince Frederick ordered his troops into action. Again the king had not known what to do: negotiate with the rebels or repress them. In a clear moment, he wrote to Prince Frederick: ‘If Brussels has to burn, it is better that it is not at the hand of one of the King’s sons. Spare yourself for those moments when you can show mercy and do good things.’56 On 21 September, however, after consulting with his father, Frederick announced an attack. In threatening terms, he told the people of Brussels, ‘Your city will be lost; my troops will march through your streets and all your misdeeds will pass into oblivion.’57 The battle for the city lasted four days and ended with no clear victor. When the army retreated on 26 September after bloody fighting on the Koningsplein 163

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and in the Warandepark, there were four hundred dead and 1,500 wounded soldiers and civilians. For William i the consequences were disastrous. A king who ordered his troops to fire on his own people – was he not unworthy of ruling?58 Militarily the battle may have ended indecisively but psychologically it was a victory for the rebels. Those who died at the hands of the king’s army became martyrs. More and more people felt that separation from the North was inevitable. Soldiers from the South deserted from the army. After the rebels declared Belgian independence on 4 October, the king threw all caution to the wind. The following day, under the banner of God, Orange and the Netherlands, he issued a proclamation: ‘To arms at the compelling command of your King! To arms for law and order!’59 He reappointed Van Maanen and again requested military assistance from Berlin, London, St Petersburg and Vienna. But the major powers had their own problems to deal with. Only Britain felt any obligation to the United Kingdom of the Netherlands; a conference was called in London to solve the problems.60

Negotiations in London Could the Orange dynasty have retained the South after those bloody days in September? The States General consented to administrative separation of the two parts of the country, while moderate Southern notables repeated the idea of Prince William becoming the king of Belgium. The prince asked his father to allow him to go to the South again and take temporary control of government there. The king agreed, with some hesitation, and on 4 October the prince left for Antwerp. With the support of Orange loyalists in Belgium and assisted by the papal nuncio and British and Russian military advisers, he wanted to per­­­suade the Provisional Government in Brussels to let him participate in the transitional government. After hearing of the declaration of independence, he sighed in a letter to Anna, ‘I fear that my mission comes too late.’61 The prince requested the Provisional Government meet him in Antwerp for consultations, but even far-reaching concessions could not persuade them. With what mandate was the prince negotiating? The army was in any case not under his command and his brother’s military actions had served only to unite radical and less radical opponents against the House of Orange.62 The refusal of the Provisional Government to meet the prince was a serious setback, not only for William but for the 164

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Southern notables who had hoped that putting the prince on the Belgian throne would avert a national revolution. Gendebien was no longer one of these moderates.63 Even in Antwerp, initially pro-government, many now chose the side of the rebels. After a week and a half, the prince decided to move things forward. He received his father’s reluctant permission to accept sovereignty in the South, in whatever form. The king was afraid that his son would bring down the wrath of the people of the North on his shoulders. Convinced, as in June 1815, that the peace in the kingdom and in Europe rested on his shoulders, Prince William decided to take the plunge.64 On 15 October he accepted the offer of the Belgian throne and the following day issued a proclamation: Belgians! I have studied your situation. I understand it, and recognize you as an independent nation . . . In the provinces under my rule, I will stand at the head of a movement that will lead you to a new, stable situation which will be strengthened by your nationality. Listen to the words of one who shed his blood for the independence of your provinces and who now unites with you to establish your constitutional independence.65 Was the heir to the throne intending to lead a national revolution against his father? Cries of ‘Disgrace!’ were heard in the North. The secretary of the King’s Office Groen van Prinsterer announced a ban: ‘May the Prince never again set foot on the soil of Holland, may the ashes of his fore­ fathers never be defiled by his body!’ From Brussels, the Provisional Government repeated its nationalist message: ‘The people made the revolution . . . not the Prince of Orange.’66 His father’s reaction was even more painful. William i dropped his son like a stone. In his speech from the throne on 18 October, he expressed his indignation that his heir was now among ‘those who had gone astray’.67 The prince felt betrayed. Had he not continually kept the king informed of his motives?68 In Antwerp, after fierce rioting, a state of siege was proclaimed. The garrison commander gave orders to bombard the city and blockade the Scheldt river. Fearing he would be lynched if he returned to the North, Prince William fled to London, where he thought he might be able to influence the diplomatic sparring surrounding the crisis, perhaps by offering himself once again as a candidate for the Belgian throne. 165

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From 4 November the major powers came together at the London Conference to discuss the situation in the Netherlands. Because Russia, Prussia and Austria gave priority to dealing with revolutionary unrest in their own territories, it fell to Britain and France to address the Belgian crisis.69 The new regime under Louis-Philippe grasped the Belgian question as an opportunity to present France as a reliable partner in the European arena, even though it would benefit from two weak states on its northern border rather than one large kingdom. British policy was dictated by the desire for peace on the other side of the North Sea, to preserve the balance of power in Europe and keep the port of Antwerp out of French hands. Although England initially supported the House of Orange, it did reconsider earlier guarantees about respecting the legitimate authority and territorial integrity of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. The British continued to seek a diplomatic solution, also after Wellington’s Tory government was succeeded by a Whig administration under Charles Grey. The strategy proved successful. In a protocol issued in December, the major powers pledged to work towards a future independent and neutral Belgium. William i could remain Grand Duke of Luxembourg and a member of the German Confederation. His Dutch territory would be restricted to the 1814 borders, plus Maastricht.70 The London Conference continued until November 1831, with as the most important milestones an immediate ceasefire, the Bases de Séparation and the Treaties of the xviii and xxiv Articles. In February 1831 William i accepted the Bases de Séparation and thus the split between North and South.71 But he rejected the two other treaties on the borders of the Netherlands and Belgium, division of the national debt, exemption from criminal prosecution for revolutionaries and freedom of shipping on the Scheldt.72 The king’s obstinacy and differences of opinion among the Belgian revolutionaries exacerbated the chaos. France threatened a ‘Polish solution’: dividing up the Southern Netherlands between the Netherlands and France, or between the Netherlands, France, Prussia and Britain.73 In the meantime, the rebels worked on building their new state. The violence in September had given wings to the independence movement. Preparations for a new constitution were already under way in October 1830 and elections were called for a Belgian national congress. When the constituent assembly decided in December that the new state would continue to be a monarchy, it was already clear that, as far as the Belgians were concerned, the new king would not come from the House 166

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The revolt in the Southern Netherlands was part of a wave of revolution across Europe. This German print from 1830 depicts the events in Brussels and Antwerp together with similar unrest in France, Germany and Poland.

of Orange: the national congress had voted with an overwhelming majority for a decree stating that ‘all members of the House of Orange-Nassau’ were excluded ‘from all power or authority in Belgium for all time’.74 The decree notwithstanding, William i continued to believe in the possibility of a prince of Orange on the throne of the new Southern 167

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Netherlands until the spring of 1831. That is why he had agreed to the Bases de Séparation. Prince William seemed best qualified but, behind the scenes, three other Orange princes were mentioned: William’s brother Frederick and his thirteen-year-old son William, the Hereditary Prince, for whom Anna Pavlovna would first act as regent. A similar arrangement would also be possible for his ten-year-old brother Henry.75 In Brussels and elsewhere in Europe, however, the names of other candidates were bandied around: Otto of Bavaria, John of Saxony, Karl von Habsburg and Louis of Orleans, Duke of Nemours. Louis, a son of the new French king, was chosen as king of Belgium in February 1831, but was compelled to refuse the throne; the London Conference decided that the new monarch must not be a son of one of the royal houses of the major powers.76 Britain carried the day, with a German prince. On 4 June 1831 Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, the widower of Princess Charlotte – to whom Prince William had briefly been engaged – was chosen as king of the Belgians. His name had been mentioned in diplo­ matic circles and in the Belgian press since December. Charles Grey was not unsympathetic towards his candidacy, but Leopold became king only after England had tried to get the Prince of Orange on the Belgian throne right up to the last minute.77 Prince William’s experiences in the British capital illustrate how complicated the diplomatic game was between November 1830 and February 1831.78 He was an unwilling participant in the official negotiations. ‘He worked according to his own plan and in his own interests,’ the Dutch negotiator complained. William i and Tsar Nicholas felt that the prince was in the way.79 In any case, Prince William was more visible than Leopold. Everyone knew that the prince wanted the Belgian throne and enjoyed the support of part of the Belgian people and all of the major powers, even France – though the inescapable Talleyrand, negotiator for yet another French regime, asked the prince maliciously why he had not acted more forcefully in Brussels and Antwerp, exclaiming, ‘Then you would long have been king!’80 Prince William hoped to be able to benefit from his relationship with both the Russian and British royal houses, not to mention his contacts with the British government in London. Wellington and Grey supported him as candidate for the Belgian throne. The question was whether the Provisional Government in Brussels would come round. These were the rebels who had resolutely rejected him in mid-October and whose sentiments had been strengthened by the bombardment 168

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of Antwerp and the decree in which the national congress banned the House of Orange from ruling in Belgium for all time. The negotiator for the Provisional Government in London was very clear on the matter, decrying the Orange family as the real troublemakers, saying, ‘If you give that family the slightest glimmer of hope, the revolution will persist.’81 And yet, at the beginning of 1831, Prince William was presented with one last opportunity to acquire the Belgian throne. Catholic leaders in the Southern Netherlands had openly expressed doubts about the wisdom of exchanging the Calvinist William i for the Lutheran Leopold. France supported the Belgian clergy and proposed Louis of Orléans, but a French king in Brussels was unacceptable to Prussia and England. How was this stalemate to be broken? Under pressure from the Russian ambassador in London, British prime minister Grey decided to adhere to the principle of legitimacy. ‘The establishment of the Prince of Orange in Belgium, to whatever inconvenience it may be subject, would now be, upon the whole, the easiest and most satisfactory solution of the difficulties which embarrass the election of a new sovereign,’ he wrote to British king William iv.82 A petition bearing almost 90,000 signatures presented to Prince William from Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges was a clear illustration of his popularity. The British decided to organize a mass Orangist movement in the Southern Netherlands that would proclaim the prince king of Belgium. Prince William cooperated in the conspiracy. ‘We need money to bribe two or three notables,’ he replied to Grey. ‘But where will we find it?’83 According to Grey, this was no problem: the wife of the Russian ambassador, a confidant of Anna Pavlovna, managed a substantial portfolio of bonds for the Grand Duchess, capital put aside for inclement times. Perhaps part of that could be used to preserve the Southern Netherlands for the Orange dynasty? Now it was the prince’s turn to protest. ‘Anna would never forgive me,’ he replied.84 But Grey managed to persuade him and 500,000 francs of Anna Pavlovna’s capital would be used for the secret operation. The Grand Duchess herself could not understand it at all when she was informed, and complained that she had been robbed.85 While Prince William bribed notables and funded Southern Orangists, Grey tried to break the resistance to the prince’s candidacy in the Belgian national congress. The prince even issued a proclamation, drawn up by Grey and edited by Talleyrand.86 The Belgian response was divided. Delegates demanding attention for Prince William’s candidacy 169

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Cartoon of the London Conference. The three figures on the right are King William i (in ‘bulky breeches’), Leopold of Belgium and, extreme right, William, Prince of Orange. Henry Heath, ‘The Protocol-Society in an Uproar, or the Conferees Confounded: A Sketch in Downing Street’, 1831.

and wishing to see the anti-Orange decree rescinded had a tough time.87 When it became clear that the national congress would never approve his candidacy, the prince decided – with the knowledge of Grey and his father, who immediately made funds available – to launch a coup d’état. A former aide-de-camp, his children’s former fencing instructor and a French adventurer would seize power in Ghent, which was favourable to the Orange family. The provinces of Antwerp and West Flanders were expected to take the prince’s side immediately. When skirmishes broke out with the civic militia and the fire brigade in Ghent on 2 February, the six hundred Orangist volunteers proved too badly organized and too drunk to make any gesture of significance. Icy weather did the rest. The conspirators were arrested. A second Orangist coup to be carried out in Antwerp by a small army led by the military governor and the garrison commander – both veterans of Waterloo – was foiled by treachery. After the plots had been exposed, anti-Orangist riots broke out in a number of Belgian cities.88 High-ranking military officers and Orangists were arrested. 170

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The nation of the North and the nation of the South In the meantime, national hysteria had reached boiling point in the Northern Netherlands and in Belgium. ‘Our ex-king, who art in The Hague; Your name is hated,’ ran one revolutionary version of Our Father from Mons. ‘Let us not perish from the bullets of the Hollanders, but deliver us from your presence. Amen.’89 The violence accompanying the division of the United Kingdom, now widely seen as inevitable, fuelled the agitation. An incident near Antwerp, where Dutch troops controlled the citadel until being expelled by the French army at the end of 1832, became famous in the North. In February 1831, 29-year-old lieutenant at sea Jan van Speijk saved the honour of William i and the Netherlands by blowing up his gunboat with a full crew after it had gone adrift. He allegedly cried that it was ‘Better to be blown to pieces!’ than to suffer a dishonourable surrender to the Antwerp rebels. His senseless act made him a hero and his deeds were praised by many a poet.90 Emotions ran even higher during the Ten Days Campaign against the new Belgium of King Leopold i. On 2 August 1831 William i sent 37,000 troops, reinforced by a large number of students from the voluntary rifle companies, across the Belgian border – as yet not recognized by the Dutch king. This time it was not Prince Frederick who was in command, but Prince William, who wished to remove the blemish on his reputation.91 Not that the punitive expedition amounted to much. It resulted in little more than a few skirmishes near the towns of Hasselt and Bautersem. Moreover, the Dutch army was met by badly organized and ill-equipped Belgian soldiers.92 More significant, at least symbolically, was the siege of Leuven. While waiting for military assistance from the French, King Leopold – who had immediately condemned the aggression as ‘unworthy’ – personally led a Belgian force. Before the two sides engaged, Prince William made the king an offer: the Dutch troops would withdraw if they could first parade through the city in triumph. On the insistence of the French commanders, the Belgians agreed. The victory procession took place on Saturday 13 August, after Leopold had left Leuven.93 Dutch honour was preserved, Prince William – ‘the avenger of the nation’ – had rehabilitated himself and a confrontation with French troops had been avoided. There was also a great sense of personal satisfaction in the Orange family. Leopold, who had stolen the Belgian throne from Prince William, had been humiliated. The women at the Orange court outdid each other with compliments. Anna Pavlovna 171

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spoke of ‘justice and glory’, Queen Mimi saw her son as ‘a true disciple of Wellington’ and Princess Marianne thought that her brother ‘had shown once and for all the difference between Us and the Belgians & their Leopold’.94 Even William i seemed satisfied. The fight against the Belgians had united the people of the North around his throne. As when he returned from exile in 1813 and after the Battle of Waterloo, Orange, freedom and fatherland had come together. But what fatherland had actually been saved? Was the united nation of the Northern Netherlands not celebrating the chastisement of a Belgian people whom they reproached for destroying the great unified nation: the United Kingdom of the Netherlands that King William i had wished to mould into a single nation and that the government, moderate Southern rebels and the British had wanted to preserve for the Orange dynasty right up to the last moment, by making Prince William king or viceroy of Belgium? There was great irony in the fact that the indignation about the dismantling of the kingdom by the ‘mutiny-loving’ Belgians strengthened sentiments in the North that, without those same Belgians, the Northerners could finally regain their own identity. The confusion was partly caused by a lack of clarity about what and who the nation was, vague notions that had shifted during the Belgian revolt. Were the Belgians and the Dutch one or two nations? Was the nation a hierarchical structure within which the king ruled over his subjects like a father over his children, or did it consist of free, equal and sovereign citizens who decided for themselves whether they wanted a monarch and, if so, under what conditions he would be allowed to wield the sceptre? Did the nation belong to the king or the king to the nation? The answers to these questions varied. Restoration king William i was clear: the notion that the king belonged to the nation was dangerous revolutionary nonsense. The nation, his subjects in the North and South, belonged to him, to the King of the Netherlands. The people of the Northern Netherlands acquiesced in their king’s pretensions to sovereignty for the time being, but attached considerably less value to the United Kingdom of the Netherlands than he did. They proved willing to dismantle the state structure earlier than their compatriots in the Southern Netherlands; the Protestant nation would after all be rid of the politicizing Catholics in the South, and merchants in Amsterdam would be free of their competitors in Antwerp.95 In the Southern Netherlands 172

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the picture changed during the revolt. As long as the people begged William i to honour their basic rights, the hierarchical state and the United Kingdom remained their reference framework. The notion of a separate, sovereign Belgian state gained ground only after the fighting in Brussels in September 1830. And indeed, for the Belgians, the old king had to make way for a new king who belonged to the nation. So Leopold became king of the Belgians rather than king of Belgium. He soon complained of the constitutional straitjacket that a ‘gang of democrats’ had fitted him with and laid the blame with William i. It was their bad experience of William’s rule that had made the Belgians’ constituent assembly restrict the king’s power substantially.96 The major European powers, not unimportant players in the conflict, had other priorities. They did not care about national sovereignty. Strong states were required to keep this dangerous legacy of the French Revolution in check. For them, raison d’État and the balance of power were more important than the claims of this or that dynasty or the rights of this or that people. When the emergence of an independent Belgium could no longer be prevented, for London and Paris there was no inherent reason why the throne should be occupied by a monarch from the House of Orange. If the new king came from elsewhere, it was simple enough to fabricate a close bond with the people – nice work for official speechwriters, eulogists and historians.97 It was no wonder that William i felt betrayed by the British. At European level – where, besides the major powers, the monarchs themselves also operated – the secession of Belgium brought a new dimension. Until 1830, by working together, the monarchs had contributed to the peace efforts of the congress system and the Holy Alliance: jointly they had suppressed the threat of revolution and war. With his reaction to the accession to the throne of ‘Mijnheer Leopold’ – the violence and his obstinate resistance – King William i anticipated a new modus operandi on the part of the continent’s monarchs which, after 1848, would be adopted across Europe. Collective responsibility for peace and security would make way for realpolitik and militaristic nationalism, whereby king came face-to-face with king, as though they were fighting a duel as highest representatives of their nations.98 As the 1830s progressed, this image was gradually undermined. William i steadily lost the support of his people and the elite for his policy of perseverance against Belgium, while in Belgium itself a hard core of opponents of Leopold emerged, who remained loyal to the Dutch king and his successor. With assistance 173

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Nicolaas Pieneman, The Battle at Bautersem during the Ten Days’ Campaign of August, 1831, oil on canvas.

from the North, these Belgian Orangists provided a remarkable epilogue to fifteen years of Orange rule over the Southern Netherlands.

Loyalty to the king: Belgian Orangism William i did not sign the separation agreement between the Netherlands and Belgium until 1839. Until then, the Dutch army remained mobilized with the unmistakable aim of restoring the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Orangists in the young state of Belgium acted as a fifth column. Unlike the Orangism in the North, which partly had its roots in the old Republic, the Belgian movement was an exclusive product of the reign of William i and of expectations surrounding the rule of his eldest son, who was still loved in many circles in the South.99 Although the Dutch king was the ideological figurehead and offered financial and organizational support, Belgian Orangism was a bottom-up movement and its support base was diverse.100 Orange loyalists were to be found in cities and in the countryside in Flanders and Wallonia, among Belgian aristocrats, captains of industry, trade and finance, and highranking civil servants from the governing elite of the divided kingdom. There were also Orange supporters among workers in Antwerp, Charleroi, Ghent and Liège, where the economy had thrived between 1815 and 1830. 174

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There were even Catholics – laymen and clergy – who supported the measures taken by the Calvinist king to curtail the power of the Church. For this reason, he was also still loved by some Freemasons and radicals.101 Another important group was the Orangist officers in the South, whose hero was Prince William, rather than the old king. The Orangists in Belgium were those who had benefited under Orange rule, who had set their hopes on the ousted monarch and his successor or who valued them as rulers. During the revolution of 1830 and 1831 many of them had become victims of destruction, looting and molestation. Now they were repressed by the Belgian government. Though they were fighting a lost cause, they remained a source of unrest in the as yet far from stable new state. The resistance went further than the failed coups of 1831. More theatre followed, tumultuous demonstrations that soon deteriorated into violent scuffles. In April 1834 the violence escalated. The Belgian state wanted to divest itself of Prince William’s expensive stables at the palace of Tervuren. Like all of the family’s possessions, the horses had been legally confiscated awaiting the outcome of the peace negotiations. When there were rumours that anti-Orangists were intending to harness old Wexy – the horse that Prince William had ridden at the Battle of Waterloo – to a manure wagon and drive it through the streets of Brussels, Orangist aristocrats decided to organize a petition to raise money, buy the horses and give them back to Prince William. Orangist Belgian nobles were now mentioned by name in newspapers subsidized by William i. That led radical Belgian nationalists to engage in looting and theft. The perpetrators incorrectly assumed that Leopold himself had ordered them to take action.102 The Orangist agitation also had an impact on the Belgian king. By depicting William i as the rightful king and Leopold as a rebel leader, revolutionary or usurper, an influential group of prominent figures sowed continual doubt about the legitimacy of the state and the king. This damaged Belgium’s international reputation. The Orangist resistance liked to present itself as legitimate, an assumption that was not completely free of opportunism and which none of the major powers shared.103 From 1832 Russia, Prussia and Austria accepted the existence of an independent Belgium, while Britain and France actively supported the new state. Leopold’s second marriage, in that year, to Louise of Orléans, eldest daughter of King Louis-Philippe, strengthened the ties between London, Brussels and Paris. A second invasion by the Dutch army, 175

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supported by Belgian Orangists and planned for the same year, came to nothing. Relief came for Brussels only after 1835, when William i diminished his efforts to reconquer the Southern Netherlands and Dutch elites increased the pressure to settle the Belgian question. For the time being, however, William i refused to listen. This gave him a new nickname in the South: Guillaume-le-Têtu, William the Stubborn.104 Belgian Orangism would, however, be revived after the abdication of William i. During a visit to Dutch Limburg in 1841, King William ii had alluded to a speedy reunification of North and South. British diplomats were informed that, in reply to a bold comment from a Limburg burgomaster that ‘without Belgium, Sire, we are surely damned?’, he had answered, ‘Yes, friend, but that business is far from lost.’105 Conclusions were quickly drawn: the new Dutch king was involved in a conspiracy against Belgium; he was planning to place himself at the head of an Orangist counter-revolution.106 It is impossible to determine with hindsight whether this was true, but the fact remains that William ii had contact with Orangist conspirators in Brussels, via a Belgian major-general with whom his father had also cooked up operations against Leopold.107 In the night of 26 September 1841, during the commemoration of the 1830 revolution, the major-general planned to start fires, together with a number of other officers. In the ensuing chaos, the conspirators intended to seize all the weapons in the arsenal at the Naamse Poort and march on the Royal Palace to force Leopold to abdicate. William ii funded the plan, but called it off when it appeared that his ministers and his subjects had no desire to reunite with the South.108 Nevertheless, a second attempt was made in October, again with William ii’s support. This time, the conspirators were arrested by the Belgian police. They had not made it difficult for the constables, loudly announcing their intentions in their local hostelry and inviting anyone who was interested to join them.109 The Belgian Orangists made no further attempts to stage a coup and disappeared as a political force. After the death of William ii in 1849, all that remained of Belgian Orangism was a culture of nostalgia.110

Perseverance and stagnation ‘Sire,   Belgium is lost to you!’111 While it took engaged observers only days to reach this conclusion in August 1830, it would take King William i a whole decade. He refused to accept the new political reality, holding 176

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on stubbornly to the possibility of restoring the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Admitting that the Belgian revolution was irreversible meant acknowledging that his life’s work had failed.112 William i persisted in believing that he was in the right. The crisis in his great kingdom was the fault of others, not his: his disloyal subjects in the South, the major powers who had left him to his fate, or his eldest son, who had been unable to save the Southern provinces for the dynasty, a failure behind which the king suspected malice on the part of the prince. To all intents and purposes, the king appeared to want to make a fresh start with the half-state, the ‘Old Netherlands’ that remained to him and which had proved with the Ten Days’ Campaign that it was resilient and law-abiding, against the ‘turbulent spirit of the times’.113 He announced new policies that aimed at making the small Netherlands viable: a new canal, a review of trade tariffs and accelerated cleaning up of the state’s finances, followed in the mid-1830s by plans to lay railways and reclaim the Haarlemmermeer.114 William i had high expectations of the newly introduced exploitation system on Java. The real heyday of the Culture System still lay ahead, but from 1831 it brought high annual profits from the East Indies.115 Together, the king and the nation tried to avert an unprecedented danger: cholera. The disease struck in 1832, claiming victims even in the palace of Prince William and Anna Pavlovna. Primitive hygiene measures were tried to prevent an epidemic, but in 1833 the disease returned.116 As impressive as the Northern initiatives seemed to be, William i’s priority was to restore the United Kingdom. ‘Perseverance’ became his motto, recalling that of his house: Je maintiendrai. The result was only stagnation. Although, under pressure from France and Britain, the Netherlands lifted the blockade of the Scheldt and the ceasefire was made permanent, peace with Belgium had to wait a while longer.117 The review of the constitution rendered necessary by the secession of Belgium suffered a similar delay. There were talks on a new constitution from January 1831 when, in preparation for the ‘administrative separation’ with which the Orange family attempted to maintain control of the South, William i established a committee to review the 1815 constitution. The committee was overtaken by the Belgian revolution, but nothing was done in the North either, with its cautious recommendations on ministerial responsibility, budgetary control and press freedom. The same applied to a draft constitution in 1832.118 Even the first two articles of the 1815 constitution remained unchanged, so that until 1840 – when a new constitution finally came into force – the Netherlands still officially consisted 177

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of seventeen provinces: the territory of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands as laid down in the final act of the Congress of Vienna, of which William i unvaryingly considered himself the legitimate king.119 This policy of perseverance was even more visibly manifest in the permanent mobilization of the Northern army, which was extremely damaging to the national economy, public finances and, eventually, the king’s prestige. The country held almost 80,000 conscripted soldiers at the ready, more than 10 per cent of the male working population, who were forced to stand idly by and who had to be fed and accommodated.120 The consequences could be seen everywhere: rural areas had insufficient labour power and households’ incomes fell because the mobilized men were paid less than they could have earned themselves. One Haarlem man noted that there were fewer visitors to the fair and that ‘various women and girls were to be seen without men, most of whom were in the army’.121 The armed forces now swallowed up 40 per cent of the annual national budget. Again, the country had to borrow: between 1830 and 1840, the national debt rose from 150 to almost 200 per cent of gross domestic product. When the king raised excise duties, there were riots in Amsterdam and the municipality of Oldambt, in Groningen.122 Even more than before 1830, lack of information eroded the confidence of the financial elites in public finances. What would be the financial consequences of the secession of Belgium? Would the Netherlands really receive 8.5 million guilders in annual interest on the national debt of the now dismantled United Kingdom from Brussels, as of 1830? Inves­tors and bankers increasingly turned against William i. And with good reason: despite his reputation as a financier, merchant and entrepreneur, his policy of perseverance was obstructing new economic growth.123 ‘I fear that coming generations will curse the name of the king,’ wrote Thorbecke in 1836. Even without exact figures on the military budget and the national debt, he knew that the country’s financial base was unstable. Two years later, he noted caustically: ‘Perseverance is a good thing; the important thing is to know when it must stop.’124 Thus the king’s politics of illusion created their own realities, and not only in relation to his policy on Belgium. They were also reflected in anonymous complaints about the state bureaucracy that appeared in the press shortly after William i abdicated. The State Secretariat bore the brunt of most of the criticism, as the focal point of a system of royal ‘meddling’ and bureaucratic ‘table mania’. It had produced nothing 178

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more than ‘useless documentation’, with overviews filled in purely as a matter of form, ‘approximate and often, for the sake of convenience, exactly the same from one year to the next’. Behind the scenes, various burgomasters admitted that ‘most of the tables meant nothing at all.’125 But everyone had meekly done as they were told, partly because in the stifling Biedermeier climate of small-minded obedience and growing political repression, no one dared tell the king that what he felt was right went no further than the palace walls; outside, other truths reigned.126 William i developed into a raisonneur: because he was clearly in the wrong in the outside world, he had a growing need to prove he was right in his immediate environment.127 He would reel off endless monologues at his ministers, his councillors of state and his sons. His reign became one of increasing pretensions. A group of orthodox members of the Dutch Reformed Church became his first victims in 1834. Their preachers rejected the dominant enlightened optimistic interpretation of the Christian doctrine, replacing it with their own orthodox truths of sin, suffering, predestination and grace. They acquired some support in the impoverished countryside of the Northern provinces. Initially they hoped for the protection of the king, as formal head of the Reformed Church.128 But William i saw the penurious group as a criminal sect, a threat to his Calvinist church of unity, which had evolved into a pillar of support for king and nation in the emphatically Protestant ‘small Netherlands’.129 Once again, the king waged war against obscurantists, but this time it was not a mass of Southern Catholics with a powerful religious institution at their backs, but only a few thousand orthodox Calvinists. When they threatened to secede from the Dutch Reformed Church, the government sent in the police and the army. Their church services were disrupted; soldiers were billeted with orthodox families in the style of the dragonnades Louis xiv had used against the Huguenots. Their preachers, some of whom had denounced William i as a new Philip ii, were given fines and prison sentences.130 But it was all to no avail: there was no avoiding a schism in the Church. Known as the Afscheiding (Secession), it was to be the first in a long series of splits in the history of Dutch Protestantism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For a short time, this conflict with the secessionists developed into a principled debate on civil rights, in which a reformed elite emphasized the ‘freedom of religious doctrine’ within Protestantism on the basis of biblical and historical grounds, without which reformation was not possible, while liberals defended the constitutional ‘freedom of religious 179

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convictions’: the fundamental right to dissent that was the basis of all liberalism, in the Church, politics, art and science.131 William i thought in eighteenth-century terms. He was prepared to allow freedom of religious doctrine as long as it contributed to enlightenment and progress, as that was the only way to salvation and welfare.132 The discussion came to nothing. For the time being, the king enjoyed the support of a commanding majority in government and Church, neither of which took favourably to orthodox fanaticism. The situation would remain unchanged until 1840: anyone who spoke out against the king needed courage. Nineteen-year-old army volunteer Eillert Meeter was one such undaunted subject. In 1837, while William i was touring through Groningen and Friesland, the scales fell from his eyes. All the displays of public joy at the king’s visit were ridiculous and unreal. Did the people not see that they were cheering their own oppressor? ‘My witnessing King Willem’s reception suggested to me, for the first time, the idea of putting myself at the head of a republican newspaper,’ wrote Meeter. From early 1840, he published Tolk der Vrijheid (Voice of Freedom), a mix of gutter and royalty journalism that was nonetheless well informed. Meeter knew the secrets of the palace and wrote of the tensions between the king and his heir, and of the calamitous state of public finances. It resulted in him being sent to prison for ‘revolutionary conspiracy’.133

Abdication Republican ideas like those of Meeter were rare, but from 1837 onwards there were widespread objections to the ‘William i system’, old grievances with familiar solutions: the implementation of constitutional provisions for ministerial responsibility and parliamentary control of public finances, and respect for freedom of the press, religion and education. 134 Van Hogendorp had been the first to put these political ambitions into words before 1820, the Southern opposition repeated them on the eve of the Belgian revolt and now, at the end of the 1830s, they were revived by the liberal opposition. Again, the 1815 constitution of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands was the starting point for constitutional reform.135 The breaking point came at the beginning of 1837, with an extraordinary budget for the army and navy. After seven years of the king’s policy of perseverance, no one had any oversight of the state of public finances. Even the most fervent monarchists now doubted the reassuring 180

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message from the royal camp that income still covered expenditure and that it was even possible to decrease taxes. One conservative member of parliament practically gave the king an ultimatum: ‘I vote in favour of the policy of perseverance, as practised until now, for the last time. I consider its continuation longer than this year as futile, and a sacrifice that we can no longer account for.’136 The Southern Netherlands were lost and it would be better for those in the ‘small Netherlands’ to accept that if they did not want the state to collapse under the pressure of military expenditure. The ball was now in William i’s court. In March 1838 he decided unexpectedly to make peace with the Belgians. Now, finally, it was possible to make a start on dismantling the United Kingdom – already long

7 October 1840. William i signs the Act of Abdication in the audience room at Het Loo Palace. Barend Wijnveld, The Abdication of William i, 1840, oil on canvas.

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disintegrated – constitutionally, financially and under international law. The simplest step came first: the peace agreement with Belgium. The Treaty of the xxiv articles, later the Treaty of London, had been ready to sign since 1831. It needed only a number of small changes, relating to shipping on the Scheldt and the Belgian contribution to the interest on the national debt. Larger amendments on the borders in Limburg and Luxembourg needed to take account of the strategic interests of France and the German Confederation and there were British conditions relating to the balance of power in Europe. London and Berlin supported the Netherlands’ claims in Limburg and Luxembourg.137 The question was settled by splitting both the province and the grand duchy into a Belgian and a Dutch part.138 To compensate the German Confederation, William i joined with Limburg (he was already a member with Luxem­ bourg). On 19 April 1839 he signed the definitive separation treaty: his United Kingdom of the Netherlands no longer existed, not even on paper. A month earlier William i had restarted the procedure for reforming the constitution. He wanted a minimum of changes, while the political community wished to make a completely fresh start. ‘Only the profound awareness of this being a good and great cause may accomplish that one, seeing how the constitution has been treated, mistreated or neglected since 1815, can clean up such an Augean stable without rage,’ Thorbecke noted. He had emerged as an opponent of the king and was not alone, as became clear when parliamentarians refused to cheer the king at the opening of the States General on 21 October 1839.139 William i had lost power and prestige, and he knew it. His ambitions for a great kingdom had failed and his authoritarian manner of ruling no longer fitted in with the changed political relations within the nation. His disillusionment was strengthened by his aversion to opposition and a critical press. This was illustrated by a conversation with a former governor of one of the Southern provinces. The latter had cautiously suggested that reform of the constitution was desirable in all respects. But William i saw things differently. As in 1829, when touring the Southern Netherlands, he made a distinction between the great majority of loyal subjects, whom he referred to as ‘the nation’, and a small group of opponents, ungrateful ‘disobedient children’ who refused to see everything that he had achieved. ‘Monsieur,’ snapped the king in irritation, ‘je suis né républicain’ (I was born in a republic). He knew his opponents only too well, saying ‘Do they no longer want me? They only need to say; I no longer need them.’140 182

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So it was to be abdication. In mid-1840 the decision had been taken; all that remained was for the minister of justice to remove any constitutional obstacles. New financial troubles had changed the debate on constitutional reform that year into one long motion of no confidence against the king.141 When the new constitution replaced the firm provision ‘The King alone decides’ in article 73 with three articles on restricted ministerial responsibility subject to criminal law, the need for all royal decrees to be countersigned, and the power of judgement of the Supreme Court, an acceptable motive for voluntary abdication appeared to have been found.142 Another equally important reason was ignored on the official side: William i was involved in a scandal that only he saw as a private matter. A London newspaper was the first to reveal the details in September 1839.

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Artist unknown, Henriette d’Oultremont de Wégimont, gouache. This portrait was painted during the time that Henriette d’Oultremont was staying at the court of King William i, 1817–40.

6

Palace Secrets and Family Intrigues, 1795–1849 Scandal On 10 September 1839 The Times reported: ‘The left handed marriage of the King of the Netherlands with the Countess of Oultremont, which was to have taken place in the latter end of August, is now postponed to next May.’1 A few weeks later, the Algemeen Handelsblad, the first Dutch newspaper to comment on the news, suggested that the report could not be true. A marriage between the king, a widower since 12 October 1837, and Henriette d’Oultremont, a 47-year-old lady-in-waiting of the late Queen Wilhelmina and a Catholic of non-royal descent from the Southern Netherlands, would be an insult to all Dutch patriots, even if she did not have a share in the dynastic rights. ‘The Dutch court can tolerate no Belgians in its midst,’ the newspaper declared.2 The indignation of the Algemeen Handelsblad was partly feigned. By rousing public sentiment against the marriage of the lonely king, the liberal paper hoped to speed up his abdication. And yet, the Amsterdam paper was clearly in touch with feelings around the country. There were authentic protests from the Dutch Reformed Church. A Catholic consort for the king? Was Orange not betraying the Protestant nation? Were the papists not becoming too assertive?3 People in Amsterdam threatened to molest the countess if she showed her face in the capital. At Moerdijk, a ferryman narrowly succeeded in preventing passengers from throwing a woman whom they took for Henriette d’Oultremont overboard.4 The king decided to send his bride-to-be abroad for the time being, to Rome. The unrest surrounding William i’s second marriage would persist until the beginning of 1842 both outside and within the palace, with the Prince of Orange – from 7 October 1840 King William ii – as the link between the two. It was he who had informed The Times in deepest secrecy and, through shady paid contacts, had prompted the editors of the Algemeen Handelsblad.5 Prince William himself received his information 185

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from Henriette d’Oultremont; the two knew each other well. After the king had proposed to her, she had taken the prince, her contemporary, into her confidence. The prince would use her candour to depose his father from the throne.6 What followed was a classic royal drama in a nineteenth-century guise. That the opposition and the heir to the throne conspired against the sitting monarch was not remarkable in itself. What was new was the combination of palace intrigue and a press campaign, an old-style conspiracy and modern journalism, what one commentator referred to in a different setting as ‘a conspiracy in broad daylight’.7 The scandal surrounding the king’s second marriage also illustrated the growing interest not in the king as such, but in the family on the throne. As the first family of the nation, it was to set an example to its subjects. While for the people, marriage, education and faith moved from the public domain into the private sphere, they demanded precisely the opposite of the royal family: maximum openness – which led to increasing friction between aristocratic freedom and civic morals.8 The consternation around the proposed marriage also showed that times were changing in the Netherlands. The affair aroused curiosity about relations within the Orange family behind the palace walls: about their marriages, liaisons and affairs, their characters, desires and secrets. But it also raised questions about how the reality of the dynastic networks in Europe related in the various generations to the increasingly national and symbolic task of the various royal families.

Female histories Family values and the Protestant faith as national virtues embodied by the Orange king and his family – these, the editor of the Algemeen Handelsblad explained to Prince William, should be the basis for staging the scandal. It was not possible to slander the king, but they could use the domestic ideology of the bourgeoisie and the state as a weapon: ‘The articles must have something in the nature of a plea . . . in the language of a distressed family wishing to prevent their father from doing something foolish.’9 The suggestion was to be that William i had been negligent in fulfilling his kingly duties. Was he not dishonouring the memory of the profoundly loved Mimi by remarrying so shortly after her demise? What would it mean for his children, for his subjects? Would the people still be able to respect the king if he married a Belgian woman, and a Catholic 186

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to boot? ‘The beautiful Union . . . that has guaranteed the survival of the Netherlands in recent years, will be destroyed.’10 Insiders in political and court circles soon understood that the smear campaign was not intended to make the king abandon his marriage plans. The aim was abdication. They rightly suspected Prince William of leaking palace secrets, not aware that the prince had openly threatened his father that he would do so.11 One journalist wrote of ‘intrigues by very highly placed persons . . . who wish to make the king’s situation so difficult that he steps down from the throne’.12 The campaign had the desired effect. At first, the king appeared to have capitulated to the ‘religious hatred’, to the cries of ‘crucify him, crucify him!’ that public opinion had dared throw at him. He decided to delay his marriage to the lady-in-waiting.13 But only a short time later, he announced his abdication. After that, he thought, nothing more could stand in the way of his marrying Henriette. Behind the scenes, tensions ran just as high. In her first letter to Prince William, Henriette wrote that, by revealing his marriage plans, the king had caused a ‘revolt in the seraglio’.14 She was referring to the ladies-in-waiting with whom William i and Mimi had spent a daily tea hour for many years. That one of them was to become the king’s new consort was not so surprising. ‘Courting a Princess is unthinkable,’ noted minister Anton Falck with some wit. ‘Why all this fuss, when he can find what he needs in his entourage?’15 The experienced statesman knew even more. The king had long been in doubt as to which of the ladies-inwaiting should become his second wife: Henriette d’Oultremont, daughter of an honourable Catholic family that had provided a princebishop of Liège in the eighteenth century, or Julie van der Goltz? With Julie, once the governess of his daughter Pauline, who had died in 1806, he had fathered four illegitimate children. ‘Allusions to former times in Berlin, memories and bitter recriminations,’ wrote Falck.16 Henriette, too, alluded to this past, asking, ‘Does Julie not have rights, older rights, that I do not have?’17 Julie van der Goltz was completely distraught when she heard that the king had chosen to marry Henriette. The bride-to-be herself was inundated with scorn by the other ladies-in-waiting – the ‘revolt in the seraglio’ referred to in her letter to Prince William. Julie had stood by the Orange family in the darkest years of its exile. She had become Mimi’s lady-in-waiting in 1813. They had regularly travelled together to Berlin, where Mimi visited her brother Friedrich Wilhelm iii and later her 187

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daughter Marianne, who was unhappily married to her tyrannical cousin Albert of Prussia. Julie would go to see her own daughter, Wilhelmine von Dietz, Marianne’s half-sister, born in 1812. William i had set up a fund in 1815, on his mother’s insistence, to pay for Wilhelmine’s education. The king took a share in the Netherlands’ national debt: 400,000 guilders at 2.5 per cent interest. His illegitimate child thus cost him nothing at all.18 The king’s relationship with Julie did not appear to have harmed his marriage. Mimi was clearly well aware of the situation. Julie was close by her almost daily until the queen’s death in 1837, after a long period of failing health.19 Moreover, the maintenance fund for Wilhelmine von Dietz was in her name. Mimi was long-suffering. Brought up at the Prussian court during the reign of her father Friedrich Wilhelm ii, she seemed to have reconciled herself to the loose morals of aristocratic marriage. How different was the response of Wilhelmina of Prussia, her mother-in-law and aunt. The princess abhorred such behaviour, especially when it was practised by her brother, the Prussian king, with all his mistresses, or by her son with the governess of his deceased young daughter. ‘You do not have a bad marriage and could and should have found comfort at home [with Mimi], the legitimate object of your love,’ she had written to William Frederick after learning of his secret affair.20 She refused to show any understanding of the fact that the presence of unmarried ladies-in-waiting and governesses, selected for their upbringing, appearance and conversational skills, imposed constant pressure on royal marriages arranged on dynastic and political grounds. No one expected aristocratic men to be faithful to their wives. But what did it mean for the women, in this case for Mimi? There are no records of how she responded to her husband’s illegitimate children. In fact, very little is known about her generally. After she died, William i ordered their correspondence to be destroyed: his letters to her all went up in flames, while some three hundred of her letters to him survived.21 Almost all of them date from the period of exile, when revolution and war drove the family through Europe and Mimi spent a lot of time in Berlin, separated from her husband.22 The surviving letters portray a woman who felt completely at home at the Prussian court. Mimi was adept at receiving monarchs, diplomats and high-ranking military officers, and in creating the perfect ambience for political dialogue without actually taking part in it herself.23 She loved palace life, with its dinners, theatre, balls and parties, including carnival, which went on for several weeks – in short, all the bustle that, for her 188

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Hereditary Prince William Frederick, Wilhelmina (Mimi) and their sons William and Frederick in 1799. Friedrich Georg Weitsch, attrib., Portret van koning Willem i (1772–1843) als erfprins met zijn gezin, n.d., aquarelle.

restless husband, represented the unbearable side of being at court. Mimi’s life revolved around la société. Her correspondence is a record of endless frivolity, with the exception of the heart-rending letters she wrote after the death of Pauline.24 Often enough, she wrote, ‘I have nothing of interest to tell you, my life is the same everyday.’ Her reports on her children also followed a fixed pattern: ‘Les Enfans se portent bien,’ the children are well.25 Mimi’s letters also show that she had an eye for the men, for power, status and glitter.26 The boredom of court could after all be brightened 189

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up with paramours and mistresses, and with gossip about love affairs and broken hearts. The morals of free marriage applied to both men and women, albeit that such liaisons were permitted to the latter only once the dynastic succession had been secured and if they were restricted to members of the same class.27 Mimi seemed to play along with the game. Did she have a paramour? In 1802 she wrote to William Frederick: ‘I am very susceptible to the attentions of Prince Reuß, my protégé. But I can assure you that you have no need to be alarmed. There is no reason at all to be jealous.’28 When did Mimi become aware of the affair between her husband and Julie van der Goltz? Little secret was made of the liaison. When Mimi informed her sister-in-law in 1809 that she was expecting another child (Marianne), Louise wrote a poem for her brother, with scarcely concealed reference to his two (at that moment) illegitimate children: Faisons la guerre, faisons l’amour. Quand la guerre A dépeuplé la terre, Faisons nos efforts Pour réparer ses torts. Make war, make love, For in the battle The earth loses its people. Let us work hard To contain the damage. ‘These are the rules that You have lived by & on which You have thrived, as You know,’ she added.29 Poor Julie van der Goltz was passed over by William i in 1839 in favour of Henriette d’Oultremont after having served the Orange family for her whole life. It was not the hidden private history behind this final dramatic turn in the love life of William i that permitted Prince William to use the affair to drive his father from the throne, but the matter also had a personal significance for him. His father’s marriage plans felt like a betrayal of Mimi, the mother he had loved so dearly. After he became William ii, he took revenge on his father, who had used him for so long as an instrument of his power and had even been prepared to sacrifice his son’s marital happiness for his own ends. In the interests of dynasty 190

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and state, he had tried to couple Prince William with Princess Charlotte, the heir to the British throne. Feelings were unimportant for a man in marriage, he had told his son, because ‘he can always find distraction elsewhere.’30 Now it was William ii’s turn to rub his father’s nose in the fact that his marriage to Henriette was not a private matter. It affected the monarchy, which was now his son’s responsibility. William ii used the marriage to Henriette to settle old scores with his father, who was enraged. From Berlin, where he had gone immediately after his abdication, he tried to fight back, crying impotently, ‘I am the king!’31 The new king challenged the legality in the Netherlands of the left-handed marriage, which took place in the Prussian capital on 17 February 1841. Minister of justice Van Maanen drew up the legal argumentation. Although he felt it his duty as ‘king of the Netherlands’ to congratulate his father, William ii informed him, ‘I cannot recognize Countess Henriette d’Oultremont as your wife, and I shall not be able to receive her as such.’ It would be better for them to stay in Germany. ‘I need the support of the people to be able to govern, and to lose that over a matter such as this would be very disadvantageous for me.’32 And indeed, the news of the marriage led to renewed protests. Busts of the abdicated king were smashed and he was mocked in scabrous texts and cartoons. It was also rumoured that, to lead the good life with his new love, he had stolen 200 million guilders from the national coffers.33 Father and son were not reconciled until May 1842 at Soestdijk Palace. After William i had threatened to hold the marriage ceremony again in The Hague, it was promptly recognized. Until shortly before his death at the end of 1843, the old king and his former lady-in-waiting would travel regularly between Berlin and The Hague. The heated emotions surrounding the controversial marriage seemed to have calmed down. And to achieve that, it was a good thing that the most sensitive chapter in the whole drama remained secret. The pious Henriette needed dispensation from the pope to marry a Calvinist, which is why she had travelled to Rome. Papal permission for the marriage was finally obtained through the mediation of her cousin, the Belgian envoy to the Holy See. ‘If these details were to become known in Holland,’ Falck noted, ‘what distress they would cause to all those pious souls who are so attached to the classical Protestantism of the House of Orange-Nassau.’34

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Male friendships In the meantime, William ii had more to hide than his father. There were persistent rumours about not only political intrigues but ‘scandalous and unnatural lust’, according to notes by Van Maanen in a police file dating from 1819.35 In other words, sodomy, as homosexual acts were referred to, with all its connotations of deviant, immoral and sinful behaviour. Sex was only permitted between a man and a woman: for decent bourgeois women always within wedlock, for men also outside it. Men of all ranks and classes visited brothels.36 Male homosexuality was practised in the shadows. It was punished severely and those who engaged in it, especially in higher circles, were exposed to blackmail and mockery.37 William ii was also vulnerable to such threats, both as prince and as king, and blackmailers were paid large sums of money to keep their silence. William had been sexually active from an early age. As an adolescent in Oxford, he had caused problems for his governor by having sex with a prostitute. In Spain, he had become aroused by the temperamental dark-haired beauties. He continued to flirt with other women after his marriage to Anna Pavlovna. In 1833 he was seen at a ball in The Hague in the company of what one journalist described as ‘a collection of whores and libertines’.38 His desires for intimacy were not, however, limited to the opposite sex. The prince also had relations with men, a broad palette of soldierly camaraderie, romantic spiritual affinities and physical amourettes. His love for his aide-de-camp Albéric, Count du Chastel, for example, was mutual and deep.39 It did not go unnoticed, especially when the count was elected as a member of parliament in 1819. The nature of their friendship, Du Chastel’s all too liberal political ideas and his access to court – all equally dangerous – were reason enough for William i to separate his son and the aide-de-camp.40 The king’s actions, however, had the opposite effect: the relationship between the prince and the parliamentarian became even closer and the rumours persisted, even more so after the prince recalled his friend to the palace by appointing him chief equerry. The king was furious.41 Prince William’s interest in his own sex was most likely aroused in Oxford. Shortly before 1800, in a notorious case, a number of students and teachers had been prosecuted. During the trial, it became clear that homosexuality was rife in the university city. The prince must have heard of this while at Christ Church. His regular dinner companions included 192

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at least one student with a history of homosexuality: John FitzGibbon, the Earl of Clare, who had had an adolescent affair with Lord Byron.42 The prince learned soon after his arrival in Spain how dangerous it was to surrender to homosexual desires. Sodomy was a crime in Wellington’s army: one soldier was hanged and another given 1,000 lashes.43 Just how susceptible Prince William was to blackmail became clear at the end of 1819. A blackmailer claiming to be called A. Vermeulen threatened to release details of secret meetings with men. His letter was accompanied by the first few pages of a pamphlet that left little to the imagination. For 63,000 guilders, he was prepared to withhold it from publication. If the money were not paid, he would publish the whole account. The blackmailer referred to an incident from 1816, when a former president of the Supreme Court had committed suicide after being accused by a ‘number of boys’ of immoral behaviour.44 This time, it was the royal family that was in danger of being embarrassed. A disconcerted Prince William turned to his father for help. The king ordered Van Maanen to settle the issue as quickly as possible and to keep it a secret. His officers were to be told only what was strictly necessary. The police investigation really got underway when the Amsterdam postal services intercepted a letter in which the same A. Vermeulen booked a room in a boarding house in the city. Twenty officers were sent to arrest the suspect. He proved to be Adam Boers, a 38-year-old clerk who had found himself in financial difficulties after an unsuccessful financial transaction with the prince. To relieve his money problems and ‘to save his honour, his wife and his children’, he was now involved in criminal activities under his mother’s name, together with a member of Prince William’s Brussels entourage.45 The attempted blackmail, he declared, was a ‘desperate step’. His apparent acknowledgement of his guilt notwithstanding, Boers refused to cooperate any further. He insolently suggested that the prince himself guess the identity of his partner in crime. And that he did: Boers’s accomplice could be none other than Pierre Bouwens van der Boyen, the brother of a regimental major and already known to the Brussels police as a notorious swindler. Bouwens had already revealed himself; in a letter to William i, he demanded Boers’ immediate release, otherwise he would go public. Before he could get that far, he too was arrested.46 To avoid a trial – and therefore publicity – William i decided to deport the blackmailers: Boers to Suriname and Bouwens to the East Indies. Under the press act of 1818, the king could deport individuals found guilty of defaming the royal house. As a 193

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precautionary measure, they were sent on their way with hush money, a monthly allowance and letters of recommendation. The ship carrying Boers to Suriname was wrecked, however. He was able to save himself and fled to France where he resumed his blackmailing practices in Paris. He claimed that he had lost the hush money during the shipwreck and asked the king to compensate him for his losses.47 Van Maanen immediately sent an Amsterdam police officer to Paris. Wearing one of his wife’s dresses, he tailed the blackmailer for several days. When he met no new accomplices, Boers was arrested by the French police, handed over to the Dutch authorities and ended up in Suriname after all. But echoes of the affair would resound later from the Far East, now more persistent and dangerous. In Batavia, Bouwens befriended two Dutch officers, Regnerus van Andringa de Kempenaer and Huibert Nahuys van Burgst. After returning to the Netherlands at the end of the 1830s, Van Andringa would take full advantage of the secrets that Bouwens had entrusted to him in the Indies. Even more unpleasant was blackmail with violence. In 1837, during a nocturnal walk through The Hague, Prince William was lured into an empty house by a group of Belgians with the promise of sex. Once inside, they pushed him roughly to the ground, pulled down his trousers and held a knife to his genitals. In this perilous position, the prince signed a number of bills of exchange. Shortly afterwards, his attackers announced that they would publish a pamphlet on the incident, complete with obscene illustrations. The prince was furious: could someone not ‘do away with’ this scum?48 Now an old acquaintance of the prince joined the fray: the former fencing instructor who had been involved in the Orangist coup in Ghent in February 1831. He told the high-born victim that he could stop publication of the pamphlet. The fencing instructor – who was himself behind the blackmail – demanded a favour in return: a noble title or a high military rank, to be endowed when the prince became king. The matter was again settled with hush money.49 There was a clear pattern in these blackmail affairs. The perpetrators were all former accomplices of Prince William. He had had financial dealings with Boers; the fencing instructor had been involved in the failed attempt in Ghent to seize the Belgian throne. They were unsavoury characters to a man, ‘fops, ignoramuses and cowardly braggarts’, whose past involvement with the prince gave them access to his palace and a degree of influence, which continued after he became king in 1840. ‘It made one shudder,’ in the words of the chief constable of The 194

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Hague.50 Even Prince William’s most persistent tormentor, Van Andringa de Kempenaer, was a ‘false Orangist’ with whom he had done – and continued to do – business. At the end of 1839 Van Andringa successfully manoeuvred himself into the double position of blackmailer and assistant to the prince. His friend General Nahuys van Burgst, a member of the Council of the East Indies, had recommended him to the prince as a loyal Orangist. But Van Andringa, who had financial problems, intimidated the prince with the secrets that Bouwens had entrusted to him in the Indies. In exchange for his silence, the prince offered Van Andringa a position as a secret agent. He also promised, once he became king, to annul Van Andringa’s dishonourable discharge from the Dutch army. The agent immediately proved his worth: during the press campaign around Henriette d’Oultremont, he acted as the liaison between the prince and the editor-in-chief of the Algemeen Handelsblad. Shortly after the prince succeeded his father, he would be richly rewarded with money and support in furthering his career.51 But it was not enough. During William ii’s reign, Van Andringa – who persistently found himself in dire financial straits – would repeatedly make new demands.Whatever ministers did to keep him away from court, the ‘vampire’ would always return to his prey.52 In 1844 he wanted money again; otherwise he would reveal his role in the press witch hunt against William i and Henriette ‘down to the finest detail’. And this time, he would go even further: Van Andringa produced proof that he was now also in possession of a pamphlet full of shocking revelations about the king. No one knew who had given him the information.53 Even after Van Andringa left to return to the East Indies in 1845 and hopes were expressed at court that the ‘Javan climate’ would free the king from this ‘troublesome creature’, William ii was not yet rid of him.54

Family love: The Russian relations From what point did Anna Pavlovna know of the insatiable indulgences of her husband, of the scandals and the persistent blackmail? It is certain that, a year after his death in 1849, she herself was blackmailed with old compromising evidence.55 But how much did she know while he was alive? If she had heard rumours, the Grand Duchess knew better than any princess or queen at the nineteenth-century Orange court how to look modestly in the other direction. Keeping up appearances was a 195

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valuable skill at all the royal courts of Europe but, having grown up at the Russian court before and during the struggle against Napoleon, Anna had become exceptionally accomplished in the art.56 She spent her childhood in the wings, at the gaudy summer palaces around St Petersburg where her mother had sent the youngest children in 1801, after the assassination of their father Tsar Paul in his palace, far from the power struggles and intrigue. At the time, Anna was only six years old. After the victory over Napoleon, appearances and reality at the Russian court became even more closely intertwined. Anna’s brother Tsar Alexander was celebrated as the ‘saviour of Europe’.57 In Prince William, this ‘blessed Messiah’ provided Anna with her own hero. And that is what her husband would remain to her until her death in 1865: a hero. Besides a formidable collection of jewellery and a small number of Russian Orthodox clergy, Anna Pavlovna also brought the pride of the tsar’s family to the Netherlands. It was typified by two principal characteristics: irrepressible ambition and a highly developed sense of being superior to everything and everyone. Although the Grand Duchess rarely troubled herself with affairs of state, she would occasionally allow herself a political judgement. In 1828 she protested against the engagement of Princess Marianne to Gustaaf Vasa, the pretender to the Swedish throne, whom she considered an enemy of Russia.58 Of the disastrous Belgian revolt, she preferred to remember how her William had saved the honour of the fatherland during the Ten Days Campaign. She vented her chagrin at her lady-in-waiting Pauline d’Oultremont, Henriette’s sister, who resigned in 1832: after the separation of the Southern Netherlands, Anna saw Pauline’s ‘Belgian origins’ as a crime.59 William was completely different. He too had a strong sense of honour – with good reason, considering his achievements. Before he met Anna, he had learned about life the hard way, like his stadholder forefathers Maurice, Frederick Henry and William iii, as the following poem shows: Who advances there in the Belgian lands With his victorious army? . . . Is it Maurice? Frederick Henry? or – William the Third returning from the grave . . . No! It is the Hero of Waterloo The Crown Prince, the Netherlands’ pride 196

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He avenges our right, and our honour too And brings us welcome peace.60 War and revolution had shaped his political ideas, moving them more in a liberal direction, as his essay on Mirabeau and the ‘popular monarchy’ showed. For the moment, his ideas on the close ties between the monarch and his people were unstable and not fully thought through – a reflection of his character and the unsettled times. Yet he did distance himself from the authoritarian monarchy; in October 1830 he had even wanted to place himself at the head of the Belgian national movement.61 Why did this political intuition fail him in his dealings with his family-in-law? If there was ever an autocracy, it was Russia. Is it perhaps because Prince William was not only in love with Anna but with the tsar’s entire family? There could be no greater honour for the Prince of Orange than to be related to Tsar Alexander, the monarch who had saved Europe. Was family love also blind? During his recurring visits to Russia in the 1820s, Prince William saw much, including the incredible luxury

The Russian relations (from left to right): Tsarevich Alexander, Constantine, Nicholas, Tsarina Maria Feodorovna, Catherine, Maria, Anna (in green dress), Tsar Paul i, Michael, Alexandra and Elena. Gerhard von Kügelgen, The Family of Paul i of Russia, c. 1800, oil on canvas.

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of the Tsar’s court, overwhelming splendour amidst harrowing poverty. Anna did not usually accompany the prince, despite her persistent homesickness for Russia. Only in September 1824 did she travel with him, still upset that a year earlier her husband had celebrated his birthday and Christmas in St Petersburg and she had only been able to congratulate him by letter. The prince had long found her moodiness annoying, putting it down to ‘nervousness and irritated nerves rather than bad intentions’, but also to ‘bitterness from erroneous judgments’.62 While Anna stayed in Russia for a year, the prince travelled back and forth to the Netherlands. But in 1825, 1826 and 1828 he again undertook the journey alone – an undertaking that was too much for Anna’s weak constitution, given the great distance and the fury of the elements.63 Prince William got on well with his family-in-law, not only with materfamilias Maria Feodorovna – the Russian name that Sophia Dorothea of Württemberg had had to adopt on her marriage to future Tsar Paul in 1776 – but with Tsar Alexander and grand dukes Constantine, Nicholas and Michael.64 They discussed European politics, the possibilities and dangers of constitutional ideas and the indispensability of the Holy Alliance, conversations on which the prince sent enthusiastic reports to his father.65 In 1825, together with the tsar, William inspected a colossal parade of troops on the Field of Mars in St Petersburg while dressed in his Russian general’s uniform. Alexander had awarded him this high rank – a courtesy that was both customary and meaningless in royal families – though in this case the prince had certainly won his spurs.66 William always visited St Petersburg, but this time he also travelled to Novgorod, Moscow and Warsaw. His route took him through Borodino, Smolensk and Minsk, names that meant more to the Russians in the fight against Napoleon than Quatre Bras and Waterloo.67 Prince William also visited the military colonies at Novgorod. To keep the costs of the standing army to a minimum, the colonists combined military service with farm labour.68 It was a system of ruthless oppression: the families suffered from hunger and the young women were obliged to fall pregnant every year – to bear sons for the tsar’s army. There are no records of the prince criticizing this slavery; to do so would have been an insult to his hosts. Shortly before his visit in 1828, Russia had gone to war with the Ottoman Empire, ignited by the struggle for independence in Greece. There was a brief possibility of the prince taking up arms again, but his offer to accompany the tsar on his Danube offensive met with fierce resistance from The Hague.69 198

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That tsar was by now Nicholas. After weeks of dynastic and political confusion, he succeeded Alexander, who died suddenly at the end of 1825, childless. Their brother Constantine, the governor of Poland and first in the line of succession, had refused the throne. At Nicholas’s instigation, however, the army had already sworn allegiance to Constantine. In December a group of officers mutinied, many of them highly decorated veterans of the Napoleonic wars who had demanded reform in Russia after returning from Paris: a constitution and abolition of serfdom and privileges. Organized in secret societies, they had great expectations of Constantine. Revolution again threatened the monarchy, this time in the east of Europe.70 Prince William, who had come to St Petersburg to attend his brother-in-law’s funeral, witnessed the trials of these Decembrists. Despite his own past as a conspirator against Louis xviii, he had no sympathy with them at all. Shaken by the uprising and the death of Alexander, he endorsed the execution and exile of the perpetrators. ‘The events of 14 December are a conspiracy against the Angel [Alexander] and his family,’ he wrote, ‘based on the illegitimate and excessive demand to introduce a constitution.’71 He asked his father to immediately extradite any escaped Decembrists who might turn up in the Netherlands.72 His Russian family-in-law and current affairs in the country thus had a clear impact on William’s political views. He seemed to have forgotten the progressive ideals he had formulated for himself between 1811 and 1820.73 In 1827 a short meeting with the arch-reactionary Bourbon king Charles x would have a similar conservative effect on the easily influenced prince. ‘With the prince, today’s standpoints are not the same as tomorrow’s,’ the French ambassador observed.74 Alexander was interred in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in March 1826, three months after his demise. Not only had it been a major operation to return the body of the tsar to St Petersburg from Taganrog, the southern Russian city where he had died, but the Orthodox funeral rites endured endlessly. The whole spectacle, not in the last instance intended to make an impression on the people, was made bearable for Prince William only by the sense of finding himself at a reunion: Wellington had attended, with another aide-de-camp from the Iberian campaign.75 The prince’s presence was first and foremost important for his familyin-law. Immediately after his arrival in St Petersburg, he took care of Anna’s mother and the new tsar. ‘William’s presence is a blessing for Nicholas, an enormous comfort,’ Maria Feodorovna told Anna. ‘No one understands my grief better than he does.’76 It strongly resembled 199

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Prince William’s intimate relationship with his own mother, Mimi. When he left to return to the Netherlands at the end of March, he was closer than ever to his family-in-law.

‘Vivre comme le Prince d’Orange’

  William ii did not need Russian pomp and circumstance to give court life more gloss. The parties he organized in Tervuren before 1830 were extravaganzas for the Brussels beau monde; vivre comme le Prince d’Orange à Bruxelles, to live like the Prince of Orange in Brussels, was a popular local saying until the end of the nineteenth century. But when he became King William ii, it unleashed a veritable cultural revolution in the high society of The Hague. The contrast with his thrifty father could not have been greater. The residence was the scene of grandiose parties: balls in medieval style, with the attendees dressed as knights and damsels and entertained by troubadours and jesters; dinners where diplomats, ministers, parliamentarians and entrepreneurs joined the king and queen around tables decorated with exuberant sugar sculptures; musical theatre

King William ii in his workroom at Kneuterdijk Palace. In the background is Victor Amadeo Trossarello, the curator of his collection. Augustus Wijnantz, 1847, Portret van koning Willem ii (1792–1849) met in de achtergrond Amadeo Trossarello (1794–1882), oil on panel.

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Nicholas Pieneman, The Investiture of King William ii in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, 28 November 1840, 1840, oil on panel.

at the palace; horse racing in Scheveningen.77 Critics found it all eccentric and un-Dutch, not without reason. Many years of moving around Europe had made William ii a stranger in his own land, the little Netherlands, over which he had ruled since October 1840.78 The differences between father and son were also visible in the buildings they commissioned. The old king preferred quiet respectability to unbecoming exuberance. Noordeinde, his work palace in The Hague, was sober in design.79 In Brussels, too, expense was spared where possible. The royal palace was created by joining two mansions together. Although one of the mansions was 2.5 metres (8¼ ft) lower than the other, no effort was made to disguise the height difference. Floors, windows, doors – nothing was symmetrical.80 The palace did not acquire a uniform facade until 1829, when at least the appearance of symmetry was created. Immediately adjacent to it, Prince William built his magnificent city palace in classical style, which was completed in 1828. The palace was finished in marble, ivory and crystal and had an atrium to 201

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house his growing art collection.81 After 1830 the palace lay across the border in Belgium, as did Waterloo, the battlefield where he had acquired his greatest fame. When the prince, now King William ii, retrieved his art collection ten years later, after the signing of the treaty of separation between the Netherlands and Belgium, he had a new gallery built to house it at Kneuterdijk Palace in The Hague: the Gothic Hall, based on the great hall at Christ Church in Oxford. With its high walls and pointed towers, it could be used as a chapel as well as an exhibition hall.82 The king would often seek repose there, between Flemish Primitives, canvases by Murillo, Rubens and Velázquez, and drawings by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, private property accessible to others only when the king was elsewhere. On this point, William i had been – for once – more generous: he had opened the family’s art collection to the wider public.83 The Gothic Hall did not mark the end of William ii’s building frenzy. Noordeinde Palace acquired Gothic extensions and elsewhere in The Hague he built a cavalry barracks with stables, a winter garden full of exotic plants and a menagerie with ostriches, parrots, kangaroos, llamas and peacocks. Many of his crowned contemporaries displayed a similar love of ostentation. Friedrich Wilhelm iv of Prussia commissioned architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel to build a fairy-tale castle, Schloss Stolzenfels, high above the Rhine at Koblenz. Ludwig i of Bavaria – like William ii a passionate art collector – had a classical temple built at Regensburg, the Walhalla, jam-packed with statues of figures from German history, in the broadest sense: busts of William the Silent, Prince Maurice, Hugo de Groot and Michiel de Ruyter soon joined the illustrious company.84 Ferdinand ii of Portugal made his contribution with Pena Palace in Sintra, near Lisbon. These buildings reflected a desire to escape from their own times and from the administrative duties of the monarch.85 The royal fairy tale was portrayed not only in stone but through ceremonies, as the people of Amsterdam discovered during the investiture of the new king. The investitures of William i, in Amsterdam in 1814 and in Brussels in 1815, were kept simple – understandable in the exhausted country, directly after the French era. A quarter of a century later, on 27 and 28 November 1840, the Amsterdam city authorities spared no expense. The city was decorated in red, white and blue and with orange flowers and streamers.86 The crowds gave William ii, in an open carriage with his eldest son, an enthusiastic welcome. The procession was accompanied by ringing bells and cannon fire, while cuirassiers 202

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formed a guard of honour. The mayor welcomed His Majesty at the Willemspoort, a city gate built especially for the occasion, while elsewhere along the route, orphan children sang to him. A triumphal arch commemorated the battles at Quatre-Bras, Waterloo, Hasselt and Leuven, good reason to place a bust of the new king between naval heroes Michiel de Ruyter and Piet Hein.87 Expense was also no object at the ceremony in the newly renovated Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. William ii had been closely involved in the preparations, ordering a new throne and regalia, including crown, sceptre and orb.88 Anna, who had made a deep impression during the procession in her blue velvet coat, again attracted admiration in a white and gold dress, court train and ermine cloak. This was fortunate: a lady who dared to attract more attention than the queen would risk making a serious blunder. ‘I do not think I have ever seen anyone walk so majestically,’ the daughter of the British ambassador later noted on recalling Anna’s entrance.89 Invitees and the press observed the king taking the oath. He uttered the words ‘So help me God Almighty’ only after the State Secretary had completed an exhausting recital of the entire constitution. After the members of the States General had also sworn their allegiance, a loud ‘Long Live the King!’ and a salvo of cannon fire heralded the start of the national celebrations. While the crowds abandoned themselves to the revelry, the invited guests attended a service of thanksgiving.90 This illustrious company could only relax and enjoy themselves at the dinner, after the new king had raised his glass to Anna, saying ‘I love you and respect you.’91 Shortly after the succession, the Russian ambassador reported to St Petersburg: ‘William i looked sombre and serious. William ii, on the other hand, presented himself to the people as a young, active, open and liberal monarch.’92 The new king himself struck a remarkably modest note. ‘These three points I wish always to take into consideration,’ he wrote to his father who, to his successor’s sorrow, had chosen not to attend the ceremony. ‘I will retain my inner calmness. I will submit myself to the commands of God. And I will be forgiving towards my fellow men.’93 William ii was convinced that the investiture had been a success. Did not the crowds in Amsterdam prove that he, that Orange had regained the trust of the people that his father had squandered by marrying Henriette d’Oultremont? Even the Algemeen Handelsblad, which had so forcefully stirred up the feelings of discontent surrounding the king and the lady-in-waiting, wrote after William ii’s investiture of the ‘symbols of the Constitutional Monarchy’.94 203

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And yet not everything on 28 November had passed off as harmoniously as William ii believed. Some Catholics felt aggrieved by an investiture in a Protestant church, followed by a Protestant service.95 Much worse was that in the evening, six people – a twelve-year-old girl, three pregnant women and two men – had been killed in the crush to see the fireworks.96

The new Prince of Orange Under the constitution and in the eyes of God, William ii was now king. The former William i now bore the predicate Count of Nassau, though he also retained his title as king. William ii’s eldest son was now the Prince of Orange. On the day of his investiture, his father had promoted him to field marshal. His brother Alexander was henceforth a general and his other brother Hendrik captain at sea. There was no military rank for sixteen-year-old Sophie, the youngest child of Anna Pavlovna and William ii, but that did not prevent her from enjoying the spectacle.97 William ii would develop a strong bond with his daughter. The children of the royal couple were educated in the spirit of Jean-Jacques Rousseau – not that this offered any clear pedagogic support, let alone that the results for each child were comparable. At the end of the eighteenth century, William i had also enjoyed an education based on the ideas of the French philosophe, in the German practical adaptation of which Wilhelmina of Prussia had immediately seen the benefits. Unlike his grandmother, practical value was not the first quality that aroused William ii’s enthusiasm. Freedom and self-confidence should be the basic principles and goals of education; the positive example was the soldier’s life, while the negative one was the coercion that his father had exerted upon him.98 Rousseau inspired him to the following basic maxim, with which he began his instructions for education: ‘The child is predestined to become a human being. This should be nourished in the first years of its life. It is the duty of all who come into the world.’99 In the case of his eldest son, this programme was a complete success: the Prince of Orange – King William iii from 1849 – would become a human being with all weaknesses known to the species. William ii’s education instructions radiated simplicity and fairness: ‘A child must be self-sufficient and be happy in all possible circumstances.’ So it should be ‘exposed to the elements in all seasons’ and not ‘too thickly clothed’, must eat ‘milk and dry bread’ but no ‘cake, 204

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coffee or chocolate’.100 The well intentioned instructions were unable to prevent an educational catastrophe.101 Like many other nineteenthcentury kings’ sons, the young prince went off the rails for a multiplicity of reasons: demanding preparations for his future duties as king, overawareness from a young age of his elevated destiny, a loose aristocratic moral outlook in a society that restrained the king and his family in a bourgeois straitjacket, enforced idleness after his education was complete and the throne was not yet vacant, and well nigh unlimited financial resources.102 In one respect, the situation of the Dutch heir apparent was different. Unlike elsewhere in Europe, the Prince of Orange was not kept completely at a distance from politics. From October 1837, when he had reached the age of twenty, Prince William sat on the Council of State, the government’s most important advisory council. Under the constitution, his appointment had come two and a half years too late.103 The prince’s character did not work in his favour, either. His less pleasant traits had made themselves apparent at an early age. His governor complained of the young prince’s ill manners, coarse language and irrational rages. He lied to and insulted ladies-in-waiting, and shouted abuse at lackeys; William was much worse than his brothers in this respect. There seemed to be no connection between his aggressive outbursts and his overfull education programme, which took up no less than fifty hours a week and included modern languages, Latin, mathematics, history,

The family of William ii, here still the Prince of Orange. From left to right: Hereditary Prince William, Prince Alexander, the Prince of Orange, Anna Pavlovna, Princess Sophie and Prince Henry. In the background is the palace at Tervuren. Untitled painting by Jean Baptiste van der Hulst, 1832, oil on panel.

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constitutional law, music and religious instruction in the doctrines of both the Dutch Reformed and Russian Orthodox churches.104 The future king copied long passages from Montesquieu’s De l’Esprit des Lois on the characteristics of the republic, the monarchy and tyranny, on freedom and the separation of powers. The question is whether any of these ideas, which he could have made good use of once he became king, stuck in his mind. ‘Prince William is still so unknowing of the ways of the world for a young man of 16,’ noted a friend of his parents, a professor in law, in December 1832.105 The young prince was more in his element – though that did not directly make him any more pleasant to those around him – when engaging in his favourite outdoor activities: archery, horse racing and hunting. The latter in particular, in all its irrational bloodthirstiness, was an aristocratic prerogative.106 No animal was safe from Prince William: he killed enormous numbers of deer, wild boar, rabbits, pheasants and herons. As hunting was no longer seen as crucial in developing military skills, it could be considered purely as recreation. After a hunting party in Germany, the prince wrote enthusiastically, ‘We must have shot five or six hundred hares and two or three hundred partridges.’107 He also had undeniable sadistic tendencies, which he tried to pass on to his children. He taught his eldest son William (Wiwill, born in 1840), for example, to shoot at frogs.108 The spoils of the hunting parties found their way to the dinner table, where the meat was rinsed down with alcohol. Heedless consumption of copious amounts of the latter removed William’s last inhibitions. It was at meals that he gave his corporal tendencies and pathological sadism free rein, as prince and even more as king. Was it any wonder that, more than a decade before Darwin’s theory of evolution would cast science and society into the grip of origin and heredity, there was talk in court circles of the prince’s fateful bloodline? ‘Il y a du Paul de dans,’ there is something of Paul in him, Anna Pavlovna reportedly said of her eldest son, alluding to the presumed mental illness of her father, the assassinated Tsar Paul. ‘That is true, but fortunately we do not live in the same country,’ was the incisive reply of her second son, Alexander, who also sought the answer in environmental factors.109 Nevertheless, in the early 1850s Wiwill’s governor Eduard de Casembroot would further elaborate on Anna’s concise diagnosis. In his diary, he noted on the Netherlands’ third Orange king: ‘To the furious rage, the lunacy, the Kalmyk coarseness and despotic Asiatic ambition of his Russian blood, 206

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he does not even add the goodness of heart that his grandfather Paul and his uncle, Grand Duke Constantine . . . could show at times.’110 By that time, new queen Sophie of Württemberg no longer had any illusions about her husband. His behaviour to those around him and to her, she felt, could be described only as ‘bestial’ and ‘animal-like’. ‘Eating, drinking and killing, that is all he cares for.’111 She would expound on this standpoint in countless letters.

An unlikely couple In the nineteenth century love was still not a decisive factor in the marriage of the heir to a throne. State interests were the main priority. The Orange family themselves proved that marital happiness was nevertheless possible. William i, matched with Mimi by his mother, had a good marriage, not in the last instance because of his wife’s willingness to please him. The marriage of William ii and Anna Pavlovna, fruit of the flush of victory that had overwhelmed both her brother Alexander and the Prince of Orange shortly after Waterloo, was not without tenderness. The key appeared to be mutual respect: Anna for William’s heroism, and William for Anna’s family. The relationship between William iii and Sophie of Württemberg, on the other hand, became a drama after both had entered into the union in relative freedom.112 Despite being bound by the unwritten rules of the monarchical marriage carousel, Prince William had been permitted to choose his bride himself. Without much insistence from William and Anna, from the age of sixteen he combined his travels through Europe with a search for a suitable marriage candidate. A journey to Russia in 1834 together with his father was unsuccessful, but two years later in England, where he and his brothers met ‘beaucoup de jolies dames’ (many pretty ladies), things looked more promising. There had already been a rumour that the Hereditary Prince would be married to Princess Victoria, but now there was actual contact between them. William’s father described the events: There was a ball at court yesterday evening and my children danced with Princess Victoria; first William and then Alexander. She is very small, but has a pleasing appearance and an intelligent and aware look in her eye, and I said to myself, she has as a woman what Alexander has as a man.113 207

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A marriage between Hanover and Orange was, however, not a realistic prospect this time around either, and especially not to William, as the heir to the Dutch throne. The objections that had stood in the way of a marriage between his father and Princess Charlotte in 1814 still applied. But in 1837 the prince found his bride-to-be. During his grand tour of Germany, Italy and Austria, William – now twenty years old – visited Stuttgart, capital of Württemberg, which had been elevated from a duchy to a kingdom after the French Revolution and Napoleon. Here, he again met his cousins: 21-year-old Marie and nineteen-year-old Sophie, the daughters of King Wilhelm i of Württemberg and Catharine Pavlovna, Anna’s older sister, who had died in 1819. After an extended process of comparing candidates – not limited to the two sisters – Sophie was chosen as the best prospect. This time, Prince William had set out with the express aim of finding a marriageable princess. From Milan, he reported on the progress of his Brautschau (bride search) to his father. He had started in Rumpen­ heim on the Main near Frankfurt, a meeting place of royals, young and old. There, William encountered a princess of Cambridge, probably Augusta Caroline, a grand-daughter of the British King George iii. According to the prince, she had a ‘pleasant, regular face’ but her figure was less appealing. ‘She is small and gives the impression of being 24 years old, while she is only sixteen,’ he wrote. ‘She is now so fat that I fear that, when she is twenty, she will have the colossal proportions of her aunt, the Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg.’114 The sisters Louise and Caroline Marianne of Mecklenburg-Strelitz also held little appeal for William, especially after he heard more from a cousin of the princesses. Louise was shy. The prince wrote: What has deterred me the most is that George of Cambridge told me that she is a poète with a terrifying imagination, which causes her to sometimes fly into a premature passion about matters of which she knows nothing. She is small and, to be honest, I find her terribly ugly.115 Of the no less shy Caroline Marianne, he wrote: She is attractive rather than ugly and has nothing in excess. Her figure is good but she is small and transparently thin. I do not think she has a well developed bosom, as her shoulders are narrow 208

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and weak and small breasts generally go together with narrow shoulders.116 William’s test report continued in the same vein, as ungracious as it was direct. Princess Olga Nikolaevna, a daughter of Tsar Nicholas i who would marry Sophie’s half-brother, the later King Karl i of Württemberg, noted the following on the life of a princess: ‘Princesses of marriageable age are actually pitiful creatures. The Almanach de Gotha [the directory of European nobility] betrays their age, and they find themselves examined like horses on sale.’117 Of course, William also wrote to his father about what he thought about the two princesses of Württemberg. He certainly seemed positive about Sophie, an impression that was improved by the absence of judgements about her appearance, as his father had seen the sisters two months previously in The Hague. At that time, Marie had made the greatest impression on the young William. But now he wrote from Milan: Now I have seen Sophie in her everyday surroundings, I believe that she is more sensible than her sister, which you would not say other­wise; it is true that she has a tendency to verbosity, but if you let her go her own way so that she can order and clarify her thoughts, you see that there is much truth in what she says. Sophie is more amicable and sensitive than Marie, which I particularly noticed during the King’s birthday, which I attended on the second day after my arrival, and it seemed to me that Sophie was more closely involved in the occasion than her sister was. With some reservation, he concluded, ‘I prefer my cousin Sophie to all the princesses I have met so far.’118 Sophie, consumed by her own drama throughout her life, would insist in her embittered L’Histoire de ma vie from 1865–6 that their meeting in Stuttgart was love at first sight for Prince William. She had enchanted him, but the enchantment was not mutual. When the young man arrived, it was alas clear after three days that I should have no illusions: I was the chosen one. I told my father and asked whether I should discourage the prince. He forbade me to do so, but I saw that he was disappointed that the prince’s desires were not directed at my sister, as he had another future in 209

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mind for me. Poor father. He did not realize that the future prospects of his children were very limited. I was not in love with the prince; I was in love with no one.119 But Wilhelm i of Württemberg was actually very enthusiastic about Sophie’s suitor, who, like him, was a fanatical hunter. The king became the driving force behind the marriage, which would take place in Stuttgart on 18 June 1839, Waterloo Day. Sophie and William were an unlikely couple. Sophie had been politically formed in her father’s remarkably liberal kingdom, an exception within the German Confederation. Württemberg had an effective system of power-sharing, its parliament was elected by all male inhabitants and, if Austrian chancellor Metternich had not put an end to it with the 1819 Carlsbad Decrees, Württemberg could have been an example for Europe in respect of freedom of the press, including the Netherlands of William i.120 Yet this background was not the greatest problem. The Württemberg princess was not a good match for William from the outset. It was she who was a poète, the main reason why William had rejected Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz as a candidate. Her terrifying imagination did indeed cause her to fly into a premature passion about unfathomable matters. In addition to French, German and English, Sophie could speak Russian and Italian. She developed into one of the most widely read royal figures of her time. She preferred works that few understood: the metaphysics of German idealists Kant and Hegel, scientific treatises and all things spiritual. ‘It seems a strange predilection, certainly for a woman,’ she herself noted later, preferring this ‘more substantial and healthier food for the mind’ to many a popular novel.121 For her William, on the other hand, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas was the be-all and end-all of fictional literature. The couple shared only one interest: like Sophie, William was a great music-lover – though he loved female singers even more. If Sophie had not wished to marry William, she could have rejected the proposal. Her reasons for agreeing to it are unknown. Was she obeying her father? Did she see the marriage as her unavoidable fate? What survive are her strongly one-sided recollections. A good example is her account of a conversation – thirty years later – with her aunt Maria Pavlovna, Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, shortly after she had decided to marry William:

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‘Oh, that is good,’ she said hastily, looking out of the window. When I did not reply, she looked at me. She noticed my pale face, the traces of my tears. ‘Dear child, what is the matter?’ she asked. ‘Oh,’ I let slip, ‘I feel no signs of happiness at all.’ She stood before me, touched my shoulder with her pale, chubby hand of which she was so proud, and said: ‘Do you have a right to be happy?’ The idea that I would be happy! I was a princess – people like that have no right to be happy. I said nothing and remained calm.122

Changing of the guard William i died on 12 December 1843 in het Niederländisches Palast on Unter den Linden in Berlin. Henriette d’Oultremont remained at his side in his final days. On 2 January 1844 he was interred in the royal crypt in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft, attended – as was customary – only by the male members of the Orange family. Unlike the women, they could be relied upon to control their emotions. But when the 24 pallbearers carried the heavy coffin with some difficulty down the steps into the catacombs, it was too much for William ii. Immediately afterwards, he burst into tears in the church.123 Before the coffin was transported to the Netherlands, there had also been a short ceremony in Berlin. In lofty tones, the royal chaplain expressed what everyone already knew: ‘The storms that shocked kingdoms and overthrew thrones throughout our continent at the end of the last and the beginning of the current centuries did not leave him unscathed either.’124 With the old king, the last member of the Orange family who could remember the Republic and the era of the stadholders passed away. His sister Louise had died in 1819 and his mother Wilhelmina of Prussia in 1820. But the family flourished in the first half of the nineteenth century, as is illustrated by two specific moments. In March 1817 four generations gathered in the Augustine Church in Brussels for the christening of the later King William iii. What a different scene from December 1792 when, in the nursery in The Hague where the later King William ii had just come into the world, William v realized with great emotion that he was the first Orange stadholder to see the birth of a grandson. In September 1840 four generations of the family came together again, this time in The Hague – first around the cradle and then at the christening of Wiwill, the first child of Sophie and William.125 Anna and William, now himself almost king, had four adult children of their own. Sophie and William 211

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would have two more sons. And yet, within a few decades, new concerns about the future of the dynasty would emerge. Not because William ii died relatively young in 1849, but because William iii survived his three sons. They all died young: Maurice, the middle son, before reaching the age of seven. Frederick, the prince who had always stood – and continued to stand – in the shadow of his brother William ii, lived to a very old age. After William iii became king, as a veteran of the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig, Frederick represented a different era. His main task was to attend the half-centenary commemorations of decisive moments for the Orange dynasty: in 1863 the return of the family from exile; in 1865 the Battle of Waterloo; and in 1881 the Ten Days Campaign.126 The prestige of the Orange family in the first half of the nineteenth century could not prevent the dynasty’s power in Europe from declining. The first omen was the marriage of Prince William and Sophie of Württemberg. In the era of the Republic, even when its position was weakening, the Orange family found marriage partners in powerful Britain and emerging Prussia. During the French Revolution and the time of Napoleon, these family ties with London and Berlin were of paramount importance, politically, militarily and existentially. In the context of 1815–16, immediately after the Battle of Waterloo, as a Russian bride for Prince William, Anna Pavlovna was undoubtedly a major dynastic-matrimonial prize, no matter how much William i wished to see his son marry a British or – so as not to offend Castlereagh and Metternich – Austrian bride. Conversely, the marriage of William and Sophie in 1839 showed that, after the loss of the Southern provinces, the Netherlands had become a second-rate state in Europe. Not that the House of Württemberg was an inconsequential intersection in the tangle of European royal marriages between nephews and nieces. Successive generations of Württembergs had married into the Russian royal family and there were family ties, notably enough, with the Bonapartes, a name that was both imposing and suspect, especially in royal circles. Future political developments did the rest. Sophie and William would see the kingdom of Württemberg incorporated into the German Empire, swallowed up by Prussia and subject to the House of Hohenzollern.127 The fall of the House of Orange-Nassau within the hierarchy of European dynasties was complemented by a steady decline in the king’s political power. Despite the fact that national and imperial monarchies were thriving throughout Europe, constitutional constrictions increasingly closed around them, especially in the west of the continent.128 From the 212

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perspective of expanding constitutionality and democratization, family ties with the Russian autocrats were certainly not advisable. European monarchies may have been able to continue to operate nationally and internationally as family businesses, but this was no guarantee of cordial relations between them.The malaise even affected relations within the Orange family. The confrontations between King William i and his eldest son in the early years of the new kingdom, and later during the uprising in the Southern Netherlands and before and after the succession in 1840, spoke volumes. The conflict was a classic example of the tension between king and heir at a time when a monarch still had real power. This cannot be said of the hatred and envy that characterized the relationship between Anna Pavlovna and Sophie of Württemberg. Both egotistic women experienced a changing of the guard in 1849.When William iii became king, the queen became a princess and the princess a queen. Aunt and niece, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, they made each other’s lives a misery. The Grand Duchess and the self-styled princess-poète were both vain in their own ways. Was the coolness that Anna showed Sophie from the very start a consequence of the jealousy she had always felt for her sister Catharine, the mother that her daughter-in-law had never known? If we are to believe Sophie’s chronicle of self-pity and self-justification, there is no escaping her conclusion: ‘My mother had a much more prominent position in Russia than Anna. This woman loved to hate and joyfully took revenge on the daughters of her dead sister.’129 Even Sophie’s fatherin-law, who got on well with all the Romanovs, noticed the tension between the tsar’s two daughters directly after his marriage in St Petersburg in 1816.130 Anna and Sophie were never reconciled. The Grand Duchess could not even control her chagrin during the birth of Wiwill, her first grandson. Of the birth, Sophie remembered not only her own lonely brooding – she would rather have had a girl – but the behaviour of the brand-new grandmother: ‘My mother-in-law was beside herself with rage; I could hear her ranting in the next chamber.’131 Did the arrival of her grandson strengthen Anna’s sense that she was lost in the Netherlands? That her years there were ‘wasted time’? With as little self-knowledge as that shown by Sophie later when she wrote her memoirs, Anna wrote to her brother Nicholas in 1839: ‘I have become accustomed to my complicated and delicate situation by continually sacrificing myself to preserve the peace and harmony in the family. From the very beginning, I have acted with the cordial simplicity that I display in all my contacts with others.’132 213

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Anna and Sophie could do nothing good in each other’s eyes and, for that reason alone, the succession of 1849 had a radical impact on both of them, but that did not happen until the end of William ii’s reign. His investiture in November 1840, or rather the clothes in which Anna Pavlovna had appeared in the Nieuwe Kerk, later caused Sophie to make the following comment: My mother-in-law was literally covered in diamonds. The large stones, lavish and tasteless . . . put me in mind of a chandelier. Extravagance is so unattractive when not accompanied by good taste!133 The hero of Waterloo’s sangfroid would stand him in good stead on the frontline between Anna and Sophie. The family would, however, not be the only battlefield during the reign of William ii.

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Constitutional Monarchy, 1840–53 A different sort of king William ii wanted to be a different sort of king from his father. By making common cause with his people and by guiding and managing public opinion, he would show that he had learned from the French Revolution. He would reign in the spirit of the times. The early days of his ‘popular kingship’ were promising. Showing an almost liberal degree of openness, William ii declared that he would respect the freedom of the press, and that journalists with opposition views would no longer be prosecuted. Protestant dissenters and Catholics were promised new freedoms: religious diversity in primary education, an end to the persecution of orthodox Calvinists who had split off from the Netherlands Reformed Church, and restoration of the freedom to admit novices for monasteries and convents – a fundamental course change.1 The relationship between the government and the States General was set to change as well. William ii promised the houses of the States General the right to full inspection of public finances and a vote on the budget once every two years. The Amortization Syndicate, the fulcrum of mystification and misapprop­riation under William i, was shut down in late 1840, as was the State Secretariat, which for decades had churned out an unrelenting stream of royal decrees. Both the Syndicate and the Secretariat were, in retrospect, described as having been unconstitutional.2 The people of The Hague could see for themselves in the predawn hours of 12 November 1840 that a different king had assumed power. A coffeehouse directly behind the city hall caught fire and William ii rushed to the scene with his eldest sons. Half dressed, he climbed the tower of the city hall, from where he shouted instructions to the firefighters. He waited there for the signal that the fire had been extinguished before descending to the pavement, soaked to the skin. His actions left a strong impression, regardless of their effectiveness, 215

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as did the 200 guilders that he and Anna donated to the ruined coffeehouse manager.3 What a contrast to his father, who had not even visited the disaster area during the floods of 1825, although he had authorized emergency funding. But when William ii was confronted with the administrative realities of kingship, his initial enthusiasm soon evaporated. ‘Every night, I work until two or three o’clock in the morning,’ he complained in a letter to his father in January 1841. ‘It is no small task you entrusted to me, and I imagine a galley slave must be happier than a king, because he is out in the open air, while I am chained to my writing desk.’4 Had he forgotten his active pursuit of the Crown from the summer of 1839 onwards? Or had he realized by then that his reign would, for the foreseeable future, be spent grappling with his father’s administrative legacy? Two half-prayers expressed after the abdication and investiture seem to foreshadow this problem. The first was by William i, who wrote to Henriette d’Oultremont the day after his abdication, ‘The son is now charged with the duties that weighed on his father for so many years. May God be with my son.’5 The other came from the new king himself. In a letter to his father, he wrote about swearing his oath of investiture: ‘I was alone with the Almighty and saw in my thoughts only Mama and you.’6 William ii would continue to see his father during his reign, much more often than he cared to. Two administrative legacies from the regime of William i proved especially burdensome: the astronomical national debt with which the old king had saddled the Netherlands and the struggle over the constitution, which even after the changes of 1840 was far from over. William ii’s efforts to solve the debt problem dominated the early years of his rule, and the constitutional question was resolved in the second half of his brief reign. It is telling that the liberals saw their constitutional reform of 1848 as a posthumous victory over the ‘William i system’.7 It was mainly in the course of this constitutional struggle that William ii showed himself to be a different sort of king – though not in the way he had intended. Yet more was at stake than the legacy of William i in the political struggle over the constitution. The question was weighed down with half a century of European history, the turmoil of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, the restoration and new upheavals. Were king and constitution truly compatible? What place remained for the monarch if the nation was sovereign?8 ‘A king is a prisoner of the state,’ William ii wrote 216

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in 1844 to his daughter Sophie, who had moved to Weimar and was married to her cousin Karl Alexander, the future Grand Duke of SaxeWeimar-Eisenach.9 And what if the nation wanted radical reform of the state? A ‘popular kingship’ would then be unthinkable. Two alternative scenarios presented themselves: the spectre of Louis xvi at the guillotine or an undistinguished citizen-kingship, a sovereign imprisoned in the cage of a constitution he had no choice but to accept. The Roi Citoyen Louis-Philippe had lost his lustre after 1840.10 In late 1844, when Dutch liberals proposed amendments to the constitution that would radically limit the power of the monarch, William ii was enraged: ‘This proposal, never! Not even if it were made next to the scaffold!’11 A year later he declared: I shall not offer up the prerogatives of the Crown. If the scaffold is erected before my eyes, I shall mount it and give my head rather than sign. I know it may cost me my head, but they will sooner send that rolling than persuade me to give in. I shall not show the same weakness as Louis xvi, consenting to the destruction of my authority before I am killed.12 The bloody past also cast its shadows over the European year of revolution, 1848. Though the Netherlands was spared any outbreaks of violence, the year did represent a turning point in the constitutional development of the nation. The victorious liberals would make that clear soon enough to William ii’s successor, King William iii, after his accession to the throne in March 1849.

Malaise The most pressing problem that William ii faced was the national debt, which had soared to almost 200 per cent of gross domestic product as a result of his father’s policy of perseverance towards Belgium. Per capita interest and amortization had tripled.13 Since 1838 the state had been unable to meet all its debt service obligations; even William i’s financial ingenuity had proved unequal to the task. The interest payments that were made constituted a growing proportion of the national budget – half in 1842, a dangerously large share, even at a time when government spending was less than 15 per cent of gross domestic product. Public debt threatened to throw state and society into disarray.14 217

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‘Your attention, please, gentlemen, farmers, burghers, and country folk, for this trick! I dare say, with all due respect, that even if I had come up with no other trick but this one in my whole career, my accomplishments would be great enough to excuse me from doing anything else good for the rest of my life!’ The controversial conversion of the national debt in 1844 continued to haunt minister Floris van Hall for many years afterwards, as this political cartoon from De Nederlandsche Spectator illustrates. Johan Michaël Schmidt Crans, 1860.

In September 1843 William ii asked the justice minister, Floris van Hall, to reorganize public finances. The minister, one of the few liberals who was a loyal servant to the new king, had recently authored two pamphlets on the national debt. He also had a large network of contacts in Amsterdam commerce. Van Hall temporarily headed both the justice and finance ministries.15 He had to wipe out arrears of 28 million guilders in interest payments without delay, 12 million of which dated from before the change of monarch. Gaining insight into the financial mess was much less urgent; the previous finance minister, appointed by William i, had been in office for three years and left little the wiser. To make matters 218

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worse, his plan to convert the national debt to lower-interest loans had been rejected by the Lower House.16 Van Hall achieved his first success in November 1843, when he persuaded the former king not to sue the Dutch state for millions, and to make a 10-million-guilder loan on favourable terms. This ‘sacrifice on the altar of the Netherlands’ was William i’s last political act before his death five weeks later: a financial decision, and one that was actually good for the country.17 This was not enough, however, especially considering the disappointing revenue from the Culture System, as a result of failed harvests on Java. This revenue was reserved ‘for the good of the mother country’ – originally by royal decree, but since 1840 by law.18 It took Van Hall until 1844 to complete his bailout plan. He applied pressure right, left and centre to get his measures through the States General. The Lower House was given a choice: a voluntary conversion, more or less according to his predecessor’s plan, or land and income tax supplemented with a compulsory tax on capital.19 The Orange family would have to contribute; the old king’s gesture, covered at length in the press, would be only the beginning. William ii and his brother would have to forfeit the state stipends for Luxembourg and Limburg, and the king’s annual salary would have to be ‘voluntarily’ reduced.20 On Van Hall’s instructions, William ii announced in his annual speech from the throne that higher excise duties would only lead to greater poverty among the people. The capital-owning class would have to foot the bill. The minister braved the anger of large landowners and of the king, who accused him of ‘hostility’, ‘impudence’ and ‘extortion’.21 Yet after the passage of ‘the monstrous Act’ in parliament, the national government bond issue was successful because William ii personally paid the last half-million – a vital act of support. Van Hall claimed that this gesture would reverse the steady decline in the king’s popularity since his investiture. The finance minister had pulled off a financial and tactical masterstroke, an instructive example for William ii. In April 1844 the king praised his ‘beloved compatriots and subjects’ for their contributions. The ‘voluntary loan’, he explained, had been motivated by ‘pure love of country’ and ‘religious sentiment’.22 The towering national debt had contributed to a growing sense of ‘malaise’ – although the realization that the loss of Belgium had relegated the Netherlands to the ranks of the small states once and for all was an equally important factor. In any case, malaise had become the new political buzzword after 1840, when Jean Chrétien Baud, the minister of the 219

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navy and the colonies, used the word in parliament to describe the state of the country.23 This despondency was manifest in the grim news about trade, industry and the stock exchange, and in the budget cuts that hit ‘all branches of public administration’.24 Vanished was the optimism with which William ii had taken office after ten years of stasis under his father. Not only did he find himself surrounded by benighted technocrats – yet another legacy of William i – but even worse, there was simply no money for new initiatives. To his disappointment, he even had to lower the budget for the army.25 High excise and import duties made the necessities of life expensive. To complete the catastrophe, a new potato disease led to failed harvests from 1845. Throughout Europe, the 1840s were years of famine. Demand for manufactured goods collapsed and industrial development stagnated. In the march of progress, the Netherlands found itself trailing behind.26 A quarter of the population was dependent on public relief. Widespread pauperism sparked new fears of radical politics and revolution both among the bourgeoisie and in William ii.27 In late 1841, when his father suggested that he might give up the estates he had inherited from Mimi to alleviate the urgent needs of the underclass and the public purse, he replied: As for my land in Silesia, I have never contemplated selling it, because it comes from Mother. I regard it as a guarantee and a refuge, for after witnessing so many senseless disturbances and revolutions, I believe anything is possible. It is a great comfort to me to know that if everything falls apart, I can always find bread there for myself and for my children.28 Van Hall’s political triumph deepened rather than alleviated William ii’s disillusionment. The king’s tussles with parliament and the ministers left him exhausted, and he was offended by the constant criticism in the radical press, even though it was not aimed at him personally. Besides the friction between him and the liberals, he also clashed with his conservat­ ive minister Baud. The cause of the conflict was a proposal by William ii to appoint 26-year-old Prince Alexander as governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, to strengthen royal influence over administration of the Javanese colony. The minister, who protested vehemently, won the battle.29 Then there was William ii’s sudden involvement in the question of whether Luxembourg would accede to the Prussian-dominated Zollverein, the customs union of a large number of northern German 220

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states. The minister in charge of the portfolio resigned. William also stepped in, more successfully, when conflict was brewing between the Netherlands and Britain, which aimed to break the Dutch trade monopoly with Japan, granted in 1636.30 And in a turn of events that was nothing short of wretched for William ii, blackmailers showed up again – riff-raff from Belgium and the Dutch East Indies who, along with a swarm of fortune-seekers, demanded money from the palace.31 Lastly, a preposterous attack was made on the king’s status as the Hero of Waterloo. In 1844 British amateur historian William Siborne published his History of the War in France and Belgium in 1815. Earlier, he had built a model of the Battle of Waterloo based on eyewitness reports. Whether the problem was an overly narrow range of sources or simple chauvinism, Siborne denied the role of the Nassauers, Belgians, Prussians and Dutch in defeating Napoleon. Waterloo, he claimed, had been exclusively the work of the British, and above all of Wellington, Siborne’s patron. Outraged by this show of ‘envy and national rivalry’, Captain Willem Jan Knoop of Breda ventured into the fray for the Dutch army and for his king, who supported the captain’s mission to restore his country’s honour. In 1846 there was even a rumour that Knoop and Siborne had demanded satisfaction from each other in a duel, with William ii’s reputation at stake.32 Fortunately, the king – who so keenly felt the burden of his executive duties – still had friends, people who admired him for his past accomplishments.

The Nine-man Proposal What Van Hall saw as a triumph in 1844 felt to William ii like capitulation. The king no longer seemed willing to reign in the spirit of his time, no matter how enthusiastically the foreign press praised the Netherlands for solving its financial problems. Giving into the political demands of the moment, he now believed, would be ‘tantamount to abdication’.33 He decided to defend the ‘prerogatives of the Crown’ against all forms of liberalism. When asked about the possibility that Johan Rudolf Thorbecke and Dirk Donker Curtius, the two most overtly progressive liberal politicians, would be included in his government, William ii replied: I once sincerely believed that those Gentlemen, during my father’s reign, had been misunderstood and undervalued. Now that I myself 221

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am in charge and have had the opportunity to assess their principles in regard to the essential importance and needs of the nation, I have come to perceive the impractical and pernicious nature of those principles and become convinced that, with those persons, one could very easily topple the edifice of state.34 It was not solely his fear of another revolution that fuelled the king’s conservatism. Memories of the Decembrists in Russia and of the Belgian revolutionaries also played a role, as did the advice of other European rulers such as his brother-in-law, the arch-reactionary Nicholas i. There were also reports of unrest in states that had more liberal systems than the Netherlands. Britain was grappling with the working-class Chartist movement, protests in Ireland and growing resentment of the corn laws, high taxes on grain that made bread needlessly expensive. In Belgium, Catholics and liberals were locking horns over the expansion of suffrage and freedom of education. And in France, the retour des cendres, the return and interment of Napoleon’s mortal remains in December 1840, had not led to reconciliation, as Louis-Philippe and his prime minister Adolphe Thiers had hoped, but to a resurgence of Bonapartism and radicalism.35 Conservatism was the natural state of any monarch. William ii, supported by Anthon van Rappard, director of the King’s Office, believed that the Netherlands was too small for a parliamentary system with competing parties. A change in political colour would make it too difficult to find capable statesmen.36 In a land of provincial particularism and religious dissension, inflaming partisan passions was child’s play; maintaining unity was not.37 The king’s pledge, in late 1843, to revise the constitution if necessary meant, from a conservative perspective, that nothing would change. Meanwhile the Dutch ‘political nation’ was moving in the opposite direction, dissatisfied with its ‘standstill in the mud’ and the apparent indifference of the ministers, the ‘prattlers of state’.38 The liberal opposition demanded greater influence and called for constitutional reform. In December 1844 nine radicals presented a comprehensive plan, the Nine-man Proposal. The proposal was prompted by a petition of July 1844 from the Provincial States of Friesland to take up the task of revising the constitution, or more precisely by William ii’s failure to respond to that petition. The rationale for the request was that the existing constitution lacked a ‘firm foundation’. The Frisians referred explicitly to the king’s 222

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pledge. William ii did not reply publicly but did have an opinion on the matter. He saw the Frisian proposal as a shameless attempt, behind a veneer of ‘sophistry’, to restore the Republic and demote the Orange kings ‘to the rank of stadholder’. He had apparently forgotten that his forefathers with that title had made a substantial contribution to the country’s illustrious history. The king refused to respond to the petition, and that year’s speech from the throne also said nothing about this unilateral Johan Rudolf Thorbecke in 1852. attempt to renegotiate the contract Painting by Heinrich Neuman. between the ruler and the people.39 But a debate had erupted in the States General, which had received a copy of the Frisian petition. Liberals and conservatives exchanged rhetorical volleys, and ministers feared for the country’s stability.40 When a majority was found in favour of constitutional reform, but an appeal to the king to take the initiative was defeated in the Upper House, a group of liberal parliamentarians decided to take matters into their own hands. One of them was Thorbecke, who later emerged as their leader.41 Thorbecke would dominate the Dutch political scene until his demise in 1872, but in 1844, with his limited parliamentary experience, he was still an armchair scholar known for his competence, lack of pretension and pedantic tone rather than as a man of action.42 His political colour was vague, but that changed once he turned against the constitutional standstill.43 Like William ii, Thorbecke had been shaped by German romanticism. In the king’s case, this was visible in his illusions about the nation, his soldierly heroism, and his longing for beauty and the past. Thorbecke, a legal expert who had likewise drunk from the well of philosophical idealism, had integrated his romantic influences into an organic historical worldview which, even more impressively, he managed to translate into legal and governmental practice. Another shared influence on the two men was doctrinaire French liberalism. Both king and professor agreed that there was no way to turn back the clock on the French Revolution. This formed the basis 223

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for William ii’s ideas about his ‘popular kingship’. Thorbecke believed that the political legacy of the revolution had to be integrated into an orderly system of government. He explained how he perceived this in dry-as-dust disquisitions.44 At that stage, Thorbecke’s message seemed far from radical. Yet he advanced a new interpretation of the principles of sovereign inviolability and ministerial responsibility. The principle of inviolability had, until that time, been understood simply as protecting the king from being deposed. But Thorbecke saw it differently: ‘The Sovereign’s lack of responsibility under the constitution is based on the accepted distinction between the reigning individual and the acts of his ministers. The provision states that he cannot be held personally accountable for the misdeeds of his Government.’45 This interpretation turned the king into a neutral head of state, standing above the political fray. A year later, Thorbecke came out in opposition to both the restriction of suffrage to certain classes and the indirect election of the Lower House through the Provincial States. ‘Fear and narrow-mindedness, more than ill will, have thus far stood in the way of our development,’ he observed. ‘Will we fail again, this time, to do what we can?’46 Following a polemical lecture on citizenship – practically a declaration of war on the prevailing system and the ‘class privilege’ of the political elite – Thorbecke’s moment came on 9 December 1844 when the Nine-man Proposal put his constitutional alternative at the heart of the political struggle.47 The chief proposals presented by Thorbecke and the eight other liberals were the adoption of political ministerial responsibility and of sovereign inviolability in Thorbecke’s sense, direct elections to the Lower House, an annual budget and the right of members of parliament to introduce amendments. William ii set out to torpedo this parliamentary proposal before it was well and truly launched. In his eyes, this was revolution. ‘The battle has begun,’ he declared in a meeting with the cabinet. ‘The Government and the Monarchy have been assaulted.’48 The beleaguered king saw conspiracies reaching as far as his government and reflexively shifted towards an authoritarian perspective. This brought him close to his father’s views, the ideas about the monarchy that he had once criticized so fiercely: it was the duty of the nation to follow him, and not the other way round. The constitution was not a social contract and there was no pressing need to revise it. Until such time as he himself determined that constitutional reform was necessary, he deemed it ‘incumbent upon himself and on the Nation not to cede a hair’s breadth of that which he 224

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had received from his father, and that which his father had given to the Nation’.49 This encapsulated the entire substance of the ‘monarchist principle’ that had guided the post-Napoleonic restoration. According to one minister, ‘His Majesty’ became so irascible at one meeting with the cabinet that he ‘broke a number of pencils’.50 William ii began to wonder whether the civil service should be purged of disloyal officials and no longer even trusted all his ministers. Van Hall had the audacity to contemplate the ‘revision of a certain point, if the Nine-man Proposal has merit in that respect’. This reinforced the king’s image of him ever since the national debt crisis: an opportunist.51 On 11 December 1844 most of the ministers fell in line behind the ‘conservative system’: the constitution as it was and ‘the doctrines of the King’.52 As Thorbecke led the opposition in parliament, Donker Curtius massaged public opinion. ‘The Dutch people are yearning for the improvement of the flawed state charter,’ wrote the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant two days later. The newspaper described the Nine Men as the ‘true interpreters of the nation’. Some 5,000 declarations of allegiance followed. The government considered prosecution but feared that Donker would take advantage of a criminal trial targeting the press to organize a political demonstration.53 In January 1845, while the Lower House was adjourned, the political crisis appeared to enter a new phase. The opposition made veiled references to revolution and called on the public to exercise the right of petition, bringing back memories of the Belgian Revolution and the French July Revolution of 1830.54 Meanwhile, the government organized a secret campaign against the Nine Men, their proposal for a ‘tyranny of the many’ and the ‘hideous patchwork quilt of democracy’. The pamphlets and articles for this countercampaign were written by Henri Box, editor-in-chief of the government newspaper Journal de la Haye, which was funded in part by William ii.55 After the recess, a majority in the Lower House opposed parliamentary debate on the Nine-man Proposal. Constitutional reform was thought to be advisable, but the initiative had to come from the government. A few members of the House believed that the proposal ran counter to the Dutch national character, which they described as averse to liberalism. In May 1845 the government won the battle, having convinced the representatives that there was no necessity for constitutional reform.56 Only 21 of the 58 members of the House voted in favour of the Nine-man Proposal, which according to Van Rappard was defeated in part because of the way Thorbecke had defended it: ‘His manner is too doctrinaire and 225

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too harsh, too condescending, and puts off both his associates and others, who otherwise have great respect for his intelligence and competence.’57 By this time, the king had launched a charm offensive. Feigning a carefree attitude, he made public appearances with his family before cheering crowds – even in Amsterdam, where support for the Nine Men was strong. A few months later, when the king delivered the speech from the throne, he was accompanied by his eldest son and intended successor, a committed opponent of any change to the constitution. In spite of all this, William ii felt insulted: ‘My authority and my dignity have been denied recognition through no action on my part.’58 Had the king and government won a Pyrrhic victory? One minister noted in his diary, ‘The term “constitutional reform” has become the latest watchword, to such an extent that something must be done.’59 He was soon proved right.

Political foment The economic crisis was deepening. Year in and year out, the king’s speech from the throne mentioned the ‘poor crops’ and the ‘scarcity and costliness of foodstuffs’. Famished city-dwellers rioted, and the army was sent in.60 The radical press blamed the government for the misery, and above all the ‘profiteer’ Van Hall. Prosecution of journalists fuelled the hatred, and even William ii became the subject of mockery and defamation.61 His occasional acts of charity – such as distributing food, blankets and firewood or buying uninfected seed potatoes for farmers – were seen as publicity stunts rather than serious solutions. According to Van Rappard, such acts did not win him the public’s admiration: ‘Like hungry wolves besetting the winter traveller in the woods of the North, supplicants with greater and lesser needs hound the King on such occasions. I assure you, this comparison is no exaggeration.’62 More and more often, the king was described as eccentric and decadent. A satirical poem summed up the grievances against him personally: I am the king, trala, tralee, And keep my virtues where none can see, An ox is not so dumb as me, And I spare no thought for my country, Champagne ci, Champagne là, I am a King! Tralee, trala. I once fought with Napoleon: 226

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He screamed and tried to run away. I sent him to St Helena – The whole thing took me but a day. I did such sterling work back then I’ve never done a thing again! I am a King! Tralee, trala.63 This was not entirely wide of the mark. William ii really was holding his position, but that of 1845, not 1815. Defying all expectations, in that year’s speech from the throne – the first since the crisis surrounding the Nine-man Proposal – the king repeated that he saw no need to amend the constitution. On his way to the Binnenhof to open the parliamentary year, he had heard ‘popular cries for constitutional reform’. Even the mood in the States General did not interest him. It was made known that the customary response to the speech from the throne would not be welcome.64 So the constitutional crisis dragged on, with Thorbecke and his allies fanning the flames. Their main target was now limited suffrage. Two ministers resigned, and the popularity of the liberal leader increased. There was even talk of ‘Thorbeckomania’.65 In societies and clubs in the major cities, British-inspired supporters of the liberal opposition practised political skills such as debating, mobilizing support and forming parties and electoral associations. These efforts bore fruit in the 1847 elections, when the opposition won ten more seats in the Lower House. Protestants, Catholics and radicals followed the liberal example of citizen activism with national ambitions.66 Donker Curtius was especially driven, prepared to use any means necessary to achieve the goals of ministerial responsibility, expansion of suffrage and safeguarding of civil rights. Donker gathered around him a group of young lawyers and journalists. One of the latter was Adriaan van Bevervoorde tot Oldemeule, an acquaintance of Regnerus van Andringa de Kempenaer and, like him, an aristocrat fallen on hard times. Van Bevervoorde, who was in touch with Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and other ‘international socialists’, had recently been involved in a spat with the Orangist editors of a government newspaper.67 The scope of his resentment had very naturally expanded to encompass the entire conservative elite, and the newspaper Asmodée became the platform for his libel and insinuations. To generate a little income, Van Bevervoorde resorted to blackmail, learning the tricks of the trade from Van Andringa. His most prominent victim was Van Hall. 227

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But Van Bevervoorde’s activities were not yet very political in character, and he remained well disposed towards the king.68 William ii was deeply concerned about the growth of the radical press, which to him was just as threatening as the partisan fervour among liberals. He decided to exclude Donker Curtius, to the latter’s great disappointment, from the gala balls at court from then on.69 The rising tensions between religious groups were hardly less troubling; this was the dark side of the Catholic community’s growing confidence. When it came to religious freedom, the king was in fact more liberal than many members of the House and had no sympathy for anti-Catholic sentiments.70 The king worried not only about politics and the press, but about his family. His eldest son William idled away his days and had embraced a simple-minded conservatism; his marriage to Sophie of Württemberg was torture for both of them. Like his father, the king’s second son Alexander had serious health problems. Alexander was losing weight, was nervous and, in the summer of 1847, began to cough up blood. He was sent to Madeira to take the cure.71 William ii’s health problems seemed at least as serious. He had heart palpitations and had fainted several times. The pressures of kingship weighed ever heavier on him. Those around him noticed his growing irritability. From the spring of 1847 on, his complaints grew worse: high fever, chest pain – there were fears for his life.72 His youngest son Henry wrote to Madeira, ‘Papa has had the same sort of fit as on his birthday, but much more severe,’ and suggested it might be best for Alexander to return home.73 But the king recovered, and to defuse speculation that he would abdicate, the court doctors presented a detailed report in the Staatscourant, where new laws and governmental announcements were published. In the summer, William ii resumed his tasks, but his family was ill at ease. ‘The doctor has told me in no uncertain terms that Papa has a heart condition and any moment could be his last,’ Prince William wrote to Alexander. The king himself seems to have been at peace with his poor health. ‘It is God’s will,’ he told his daughter Sophie in late July.74 Over the summer of 1847 William ii’s political position began to shift. On 13 October he declared in a meeting with the cabinet: For seven years I alone have stood in the way of making any change to the constitution, because there was no necessity to do so, and such is an absolute requirement. Now – as anyone must 228

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acknowledge – the necessity is present . . . I wish to make such changes as I am certain are needed, all at once, on my own initiative, and to announce those changes all at once. Capitulate? Never! 75 Five days later, during the opening of the States General, he reiterated this intention, thus putting the question of constitutional reform back at the top of the political agenda for the first time since the Nine-man Proposal of 1844.76 The king’s weak constitution was not the only reason for the change of political course. The threat of revolution loomed. In June 1847, with the help of local militias, the army quelled a hunger riot in the northern provinces. Plunderers were shot dead; seven people were killed in the city of Groningen alone.77 In August, after receiving a tip from a vigilant barge captain, the Amsterdam police discovered plans for an attack on the king and Prince William. During a canal ride in the capital, they were to become the victims of an ‘infernal machine’, a crate containing gunpowder, flasks of mercury and ‘rifle barrels pointing in all directions’. The trail led to Liège, but the conspirators were not tracked down.78 The king responded manfully, ‘To take my life, no machines infernales are needed; I can be found every day, by anyone who so wishes, when I go out riding.’79 In fact, William ii was nervous – about the unrest in his country, the unrest in the House, and ministers clamouring for constitutional reform. He took it out on Van Hall, who in a cabinet meeting had dared to call the constitution as it was ‘a hindrance’.80 After a few more confron­ tations, in which he had no choice but to endure ‘all the red-hot bullets fired by the King’, Van Hall resigned.81 It was now January 1848, five months after the king had agreed to a limited revision of the constitution and a week after a worked-out proposal to that effect had been sent to the Council of State for review. William ii had refused to go along with the ‘delusional theories’ of the young radicals, instead insisting that the revised constitution had to fit the ‘national character’. In other words, no direct elections or political ministerial responsibility; a possible right of amendment for the Lower House; and the expansion of suffrage, but within the bounds of the restrictive class-based electoral system.82 The consultations resulting in this proposal had taken place in a very tense atmosphere, in part because of the king’s intense agitation. At one regrettable moment, he had cried out that the constitutional question would 229

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‘hasten his death’.83 He also feared that he had let himself be swept up in the political current. But when he learned, in the early weeks of 1848, that revolutions had broken out in Naples and Palermo, he concluded he had made the right decision, and none too soon. ‘If I did it now, it would be attributed to the turbulence in Italy. As it is, I am in a better position.’84 Six weeks later, the revolution spread to Paris.

1848: Revolution in Europe In 1848 a new constitution was adopted in the Netherlands, based on Thorbecke’s proposals. Its cornerstones were the inviolability of the king, political ministerial responsibility, freedom of the press, association and assembly, the separation of Church and State, direct election of the Lower House by secret ballot, and indirect election of the Senate. Census-based suffrage replaced the class-based system; in principle, all adult men could obtain the vote, but in practice the number of eligible voters decreased. The deliberations on the constitution began in March, and the revised constitution was enacted in early November. As a coup brought a brutal end to the new republican experiment in France, while elsewhere in Europe – in Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Berlin, Munich, Venice, Milan and Rome – conservative forces violently suppressed the uprisings, the Netherlands experienced a velvet revolution.85 The events of the third week of March were decisive. From 14 to 15 March, the king is said to have transformed ‘from highly conservative to highly liberal in 24 hours’. This phrase, derived from a statement that he made on 15 March to the ambassadors of Austria, Britain, Prussia and Russia, has become a staple of Dutch historical writing on the year of revolution. The cliché is as ineradicable as it is inaccurate.86 That was not how it happened. For one thing, the king was never simply conservative or reactionary. There is ample evidence to the contrary: his ideas about a ‘popular kingship’, his willingness to engage with progressive forces in opposition to Louis xviii in 1816 and in Antwerp in 1830, his persistent criticism of his father’s authoritarian views (although he understood his father better after assuming the throne), and his liberal openness to change at the start of his reign in 1840. On the other hand, there were his conservative ideas and measures: his response to the Decembrist revolt, his sympathy for his autocratic in-laws, and his refusal, for many years, to allow constitutional reform. But taken together, these facts suggest the unsettled nature of his political principles – in part a reflection of the 230

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turbulent times in which he lived – rather than a consistently conservative or liberal outlook. Even other members of the Orange family had a hard time understanding his declaration. Sophie of Württemberg commented on her father-in-law’s seeming about-face in the revolutionary days of March 1848: ‘He no longer believed in the future and saw only chaos around him; like a captain who fears that his ship is sinking, he threw all its cargo overboard, piece by piece.’87 Did William ii really believe that all was lost, and is that why he gave the radical liberals more room to manoeuvre? Does that explain why Thorbecke, the architect of the reviled Nine-man Proposal, was allowed to put his stamp on the revised constitution? What exactly happened in the early months of 1848? In late February news reached The Hague about the Campagne des Banquets in Paris, a series of banquets that had been going on for months at which the opponents of the French king took advantage of the toasts to make inflammatory political speeches to the guests at the table. An attempt to prohibit the practice had backfired, leading to riots and the erection of barricades. Observers thought at first that the protesters in the streets were merely re-enacting the great revolution, but when the National Guard sided with the revolutionaries, the situation became serious. On 24 February citizen-king Louis-Philippe abdicated and fled, and the republic was established.88 A shocked William ii convened a meeting with the cabinet. Some ministers argued that the events in Paris showed the need for a more thoroughgoing constitutional revision in the Netherlands. But the king refused to go any further than the proposal already under review by the Council of State. He believed he had made enough concessions.89 His priority was the defence of the nation. The king and government feared that the revolution in France would inevitably lead to war. As in 1815, after Napoleon’s unexpected return, a defensive alliance had to be formed, first of all with Belgium. To the dismay of Anna Pavlovna, who felt that her husband was disregarding his family’s justifiable anti-Belgian sentiments, William ii sought rapprochement with Brussels and Leopold i. Realism outweighed rancour. The king of the Belgians, who was also struggling with revolutionary agitation, welcomed the outstretched hand of his Dutch counterpart as the start of a ‘truly confidential relationship’.90 The situation in France and Belgium briefly appeared to have settled down, although William ii was informed that Leopold’s government was now considering an extension of suffrage. Similar news 231

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‘The universal, democratic, and social republic. The alliance.’ This print represents the ideals of the European revolutions of 1848, the ‘springtime of the peoples’. Scattered around on the ground at the front are torn-off crowns and other symbols of the monarchy. Lithograph by Frédéric Sorrieu.

about concessions to revolutionaries came from Germany. In Baden, Munich and Heidelberg, demonstrators marched the streets with flags and banners. Again, political protest was accompanied by carnivalesque revolutionary antics: some demonstrators dressed up as Robespierre, Carnot or the other leaders behind the Reign of Terror. The rulers of Bavaria and Württemberg made concessions, and the Dutch opposition took that as a signal to demand further-reaching constitutional reform, more radical than the government’s December proposal.91 This demand was lent force by skyrocketing food prices and the collapse of the stock market, both reactions to the unrest in France. Liberals, socialists and radicals seized the opportunity to organize demonstrations.92 The former Nine Men resubmitted their programme of constitutional reform to the attention of the Lower House. This time they called on the Crown to take the initiative, showing that they had learned from experience.93 They were supported by the moderate liberals. Only the conservative minority clung to the government’s proposal. For a while, William ii dug in his heels. ‘A system of intimidation,’ he said with a sneer.94 But this was mere bluster. What if a popular revolt 232

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broke out? There were already posters on the walls in Amsterdam: ‘Long Live the Republic! Down with the king, the ministers and the States General!’95 On 13 March the king began to rethink his position. The immediate causes were a worrying report by the chief of police in Amsterdam about the threat of anarchy in the capital, and two letters in which his daughter Sophie reported on disturbances in Saxe-WeimarEisenach.96 She had seen the crowd of rioters for herself – farmers, students and discontented citizens, crying out for lower taxes, expanded suffrage and freedom of the press. Ministers’ windows were broken and government buildings were stormed. After the Grand Duke promised to meet some of their demands, peace seemed to have been restored. But in the evening, a mob of revolutionaries forced their way into the castle. Once again, the duke managed to calm the crowd, addressing them from an open window. Sophie reported that the family was doing well, all things considered, but they had had quite a shock.97 The letters and the report hit home. William ii summoned the speaker of the Lower House. A peculiar conversation followed. The king denied having obstructed reform, claiming that he had merely been postponing the revision of the constitution as long as there was a risk of his proposals being voted down. Now he was willing to make ‘greater concessions’: the House could set to work.98 His motivation for this turnaround was revealed when he expressed the wish that the Lower House ‘would maintain his popularity’ – that is, the king’s popularity. He also affirmed that he had taken the initiative for a more sweeping constitutional revision ‘entirely of his own accord’ and ‘without consulting with his ministers’.99 William ii seemed to have won his battle. Cries of ‘Long live the king!’ were raised in Amsterdam and Rotterdam once the daily papers had spread the news that he had agreed to further-reaching reform. But in political circles in The Hague, confusion reigned. Was the House meant to act as a constitutional assembly? And what were the ministers supposed to do now that the king had taken this historic step without them? While some of them sought comfort in the thought that ‘the king can do no wrong’, others insisted that he repair the damage to their reputations. A furious minister Baud told William ii, ‘You have disowned us before the eyes of the nation, we who urged progress upon you, as if we were entrenched conservatives. My name must be cleared of that accusation.’100 The ministers decided to tender their collective resignation on 15 March, and William ii accepted it that same day.101 He defended his decisions 233

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to the foreign ambassadors: ‘I believed it was better to appear to grant of my own free will what I would later have been forced to concede.’102 This seems accurate: William ii had served mainly his own interests. He explained himself to his daughter Sophie: You cannot imagine how deeply I have been affected by the events in Weimar and the dangers to which you and the family have been exposed. Thank God the crowd was calmed down in time . . . You are learning a great deal. Everything is quiet here, but to preserve the calm, which may conceal a raging fire, I have taken the initiative. I will agree to a liberal constitution and am in the process of selecting new ministers and a prime minister, which for the moment has won me a popularity that almost frightens me.103 What was he afraid of? Was William ii aware that his almost obsessive craving for the people’s approval had dark historical echoes? Talk of ‘popular kingship’ and Mirabeau’s lessons of the French Revolution was all well and good, but between ‘beguiling the masses, gratifying their vanity, flattering them, bribing the people’ and the old stadholder reflex of turning to the urban mob for support against the regent elite, there was a very fine line indeed.104 As Europe erupted into revolution, William ii offered up his ministers – an act of betrayal, pure and simple. What if he tried a similar gambit with the members of the House? Was the king truly capable of guiding the revolution? Or had he been dealt a different hand in 1848, and was it the Lower House or the new constitutional commission that would guide the king, using his popularity for their own purposes? Had the king been forced to distance himself from the conservatives? Had he been painted into a corner; was that what frightened him?

Shadowy power games The political power games of mid-March 1848 were almost impossible to fathom. It was understandable that William ii consented to broader constitutional reform, under the pressure of news about European revolutions, unrest in his own country, the political demands of the House and the recommendations of a few of his abruptly sidelined ministers. But why was the revision so quickly entrusted to the radical liberals Donker Curtius and Thorbecke, and why were they given a practically free hand? 234

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The liberal opposition press may have been calling for a Thorbecke government, but neither Thorbecke nor Donker was a member of the House at the time. After William ii had accepted his ministers’ resignation, he spoke not only to the speaker of the House, but to Lodewijk Casper Luzac, the eldest of the former Nine Men. Who qualified for a ministerial post, and who could serve on the constitutional commission? Luzac responded only to the latter question, naming Thorbecke and Donker Curtius.105 Meanwhile, Donker was making efforts of his own to ‘encourage further concessions’ from the king. He had asked the journalist Van Bevervoorde to arrange for a demonstration near the palace – for a fee, of course.106 Donker specified that the march should proceed in an orderly fashion, although it could do no harm ‘if here and there a minister’s window was smashed’.107 Van Bevervoorde, still as much at war with the conservative elite as ever, needed only a day to organize the protest. ‘Long live the reforms!’ his posters shouted. On the evening of 15 March a crowd gathered in the centre of The Hague.With music, flags, banners and torches, it looked like quite an event. The procession advanced towards Kneuterdijk Palace, crying ‘Long live the king! Long live William! Oranje boven! [Up with Orange!]’108 As Anna Pavlovna looked on from upstairs, William ii went outside to shake hands with Van Bevervoorde and other demonstrators. ‘We love you,’ one of them shouted. ‘You’re our William. But we hate your ministers. Send them away.’109 Then the protesters marched on, with Van Bevervoorde on their shoulders, to the palaces of the Prince of Orange and Prince Frederick, passing the houses of a number of popular members of parliament. There were no incidents, and the king had promised nothing. On 16 March Van Bevervoorde presented an encore performance of his ‘orchestrated agitation’. Once again, William ii went among the crowd.110 Earlier that day, he had informed Luzac and Donker Curtius that he consented to the appointment of Thorbecke and Donker himself to the constitutional commission. He seemed to have capitulated to the extrème gauche. When the indignant Van Rappard complained to the king of a ‘liberal coup’, the king replied that ‘it had to be seen through to the end now!’111 At the palace, it was observed that the king was not himself – he cloaked himself in ‘solemn silence’ and, even before word arrived of Prince Alexander’s death in Madeira, everything seemed to be covered in a ‘mourning shroud’.112 Anna apologized for her husband’s vacillation, saying, ‘There are moments when one must make important 235

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decisions.’113 William ii let it slip to a chamberlain that there was ‘just as much of a stir’ in Weimar. Was the king brooding over the political unrest, or was something else going on? The dismissed minister Baud suspected that demons from William ii’s past had returned to haunt him again. Writing about the king, he remarked, ‘The habit of associating with ne’er-do-wells and schemers may have reasserted itself. He is now possessed by a sort of terror.’114 Journalists carried this line of thinking even further, naming names. The editor-in-chief of the Catholic newspaper De Tijd wrote to a fellow editor, ‘Do you know who made the revolution? I’ll let you guess who persuaded the King to take this step. It was Van Bevervoorde, General Nahuys and Van Andringa de Kempenaer, with Donker Curtius, Luzac and Thorbecke behind the scenes.’115 In other words, a cabal. The danger of revolution seems not to have been the sole motive for William ii’s decision to place constitutional reform in the hands of the liberal opposition. He was also tangled up in a delicate affair, and during those eventful March days, it proved impossible to keep the public sphere of politics separate from the underworld. At first, it seemed like extortion according to a familiar recipe: shady business partners who had managed to interest the palace in their plans tried to use the king’s homosexual contacts to blackmail him. This time, the compromising event was not

Orchestrated revolutionary agitation. The procession organized by Adriaan van Bevervoorde on 15 and 16 March 1848. Egbert van Gorkum, Volksdemonstratie in Den Haag, 1848, ink drawing on paper.

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the Du Chastel, Boers and Bouwens van der Boyen affair of 1819. Damaging new facts had emerged. New, too, was that the blackmailers were in close contact with the opposition, specifically Donker Curtius. Other familiar names were also involved: Nahuys van der Burgst, Van Bevervoorde and, inevitably, Van Andringa de Kempenaer. The pivotal figure, however, was Petrus Jansen, a good-for-nothing from Germany who was always in search of money. According to Jansen, when William ii had received him at Kneuterdijk Palace in 1844 to discuss investment plans, their conversation had taken an unexpected turn: After some preliminary common talk, he gently took my hand and pressed it with such a strange sort of trembling nervousness, which appeared as if I was holding the hand of a loving, lustful woman . . . and, drawing me nearer to him, he gave me a kiss, and whispered: ‘Believe me, Jansen, I can make a statesman of you, and a great man, too’ . . . (he now pressed me to his heart and kissed me more fondly than before) – ‘and, if you like it’ – (and here he was, while breathing heavily, unfastening the order he wore on his own breast) – ‘you can have this; only come, dear Jansen – come, do as I wish.’ Saying these words, he put his hand forward and . . .116 The business plans failed, but there was no doubt that their meeting had been out of the ordinary. The court tried to send Jansen back to Germany as quickly as possible. He collected the hush money but never left.117 When Jansen, again in dire financial straits, insisted to his creditors that the king would serve as a guarantor, the justice ministry decided to prosecute. In mid-1846 Jansen was thrown in prison in Rotterdam.118 A year later, Jansen began to blackmail the king from his cell: ‘If Your Majesty will not acknowledge my delicacy and caution [by] helping me out of these thorny circumstances, I will be forced to take other measures to obtain my personal liberty, which could prove supremely compromising to You.’119 When William ii did not reply, Jansen threatened to inform the queen, Prince Frederick, Princess Marianne and the Supreme Court: ‘What is at risk here is the peace of the state, Your Majesty’s good reputation, the Orange Dynasty and my freedom.’120 Jansen sent countless letters, often in duplicate and to different addresses: Tilburg, Soestdijk and Kneuterdijk. His lawyer also contacted the palace, claiming that the king had promised Jansen financial support so that he could pay his creditors and regain his freedom. Jansen’s business partner 237

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turned up as well, eager for his share of any money that might be doled out.121 Then Jansen declared that he would take his case to the courts. If he followed through, the whole thing would become public knowledge, including the details of his ‘most secret relationship’ with the king.122 It was January 1848. Van Andringa, too, had come to see William ii again, this time asking for financial support or a paid commission, a turn of affairs reminiscent of the scandal surrounding William i and Henriette d’Oultremont in 1839 and 1840.123 Van Andringa referred to a conversation with Van Bevervoorde, who was working on several magazine articles that mentioned an unprecedented scandal regarding a ‘person of very high station’. Van Bevervoorde had disclosed certain details of the correspondence between Jansen, William ii and Van Rappard, the head of the King’s Office. Van Andringa immediately spotted an opportunity to regain the king’s favour. He emphatically advised William ii to call on the assistance of Van Andringa’s business partner from the Dutch East Indies, General Nahuys van Burgst – or face the consequences!124 The combination of the names Jansen and Van Bevervoorde must have sent the palace into a panic. William ii followed Van Andringa’s advice, asking Nahuys for help. The general personally saw to it that Jansen, supplied with hush money and a monthly allowance, was expelled from the country, first to Germany and later, after he went on harassing the court, to the United States.125 Following Jansen’s release from prison, ‘highly compromising writings’ were found in his Rotterdam cell. This was on 25 February 1848, the same day the first reports of the revolution in Paris reached The Hague.126 In the court’s attempts to cover up the affair, the radical journalist Van Bevervoorde had become the weakest link. He was in communication not only with Van Andringa but with Donker Curtius, for whom he would stage the ‘revolutionary’ demonstrations in mid-March. He too had been paid off, and he knew that the king had personally ordered Jansen’s release. It looked very much as though some dubious deal was struck. On 17 March 1848, one day after William ii appointed him and Thorbecke to the constitutional commission, Donker Curtius threw a party in his home for Van Bevervoorde, Van Andringa and Luzac.127 What did they have to celebrate? Had Van Bevervoorde, in his rudimentary political anti-elitism, given Donker Curtius some sensitive information about the king just before Donker’s visit to the palace with Luzac on 16 March?128 Had William ii agreed to further reform partly in response 238

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to threats of exposing the Petrus Jansen affair? Perhaps that explains minister Baud’s remark that a ‘sort of terror’ weighed on William ii. It would not have been the first time that revolution became intermeshed with conspiracy.

The ministers are responsible ‘The King is inviolable; the ministers are responsible.’ From then on, the brief Article 53 of the Constitution of 1848 would rein in the official acts of the Dutch head of state. William ii escaped the consequences. Four months after the revised constitution was adopted, he died. His eldest son, the new King William iii, thus became the first Dutch monarch to reign under the new constitutional framework. He would never grow accustomed to it. As Prince of Orange, he had declared his antagonism to constitutional reform – whether Thorbecke’s radical plans or the more limited revisions proposed in late 1847. He realized only too well that his future reign was at stake.129 Since he had joined the Council of State in late 1837, his opposition to reform had grown stronger. The prince had been moderately in favour of the constitutional revision of 1840, shortly before William i’s abdication. The replacement of ‘by the king’ with ‘by law’ in many places had met with his approval, but he had jotted ‘against’ next to proposals to diminish royal power over the colonies and reduce funding for the armed forces. ‘Very much for strengthening Navy in so far as remotely feasible,’ he scribbled in the margin.130 Over the course of William ii’s reign, the prince had become more and more conservative. In 1844 he rejected the proposal to expand the group of eligible voters for the provincial elections, arguing that political changes should never be forced ‘on the government by the Nation’. Popular influence was not a bad thing, he added, but ‘principles that are too progressive’ can easily lead to ‘the corrupting system of eternal concessions’ on the government’s part.131 It is not hard to guess what the prince thought of the Nine-man Proposal. The true watershed came in 1848, when the unrest throughout Europe and liberal proposals for constitutional reform drew nothing but reactionary criticism from the 31-year-old heir to the throne. It was sheer foolishness, Prince William contended in late February, to count on Leopold i’s neutral Belgium to stave off the threat of war with France; the Netherlands had to mobilize for itself. Shortly before William ii put the liberals in charge of reforming the constitution, the 239

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prince admonished his father, ‘As far as the revision of the Constitution goes, a king’s word must stand as firm as a rock.Your Majesty announced changes on your own initiative, and the government must now carry them out, unchanged.’ Going beyond the concessions of late 1847 would be ‘desertion’.132 Fourteen days later, he snorted about the unseemliness of the king’s joke to foreign ambassadors about going ‘from highly conservative to highly liberal in twenty-four hours’.133 A year later his father was dead, and as William iii, he had to conduct his own reign under the terms of the revised constitution. What did the liberal victory over the ‘William i system’ mean for the relationship between state and society and for the balance between the king, the government and parliament? The constitutional reformers no longer regarded the nation as a family where the king presided like a father over his children. To them, this was useful symbolism at best, rather than a model for government. Thorbecke believed that the constitution should be a ‘national force’, the legal framework within which the nation, led by the liberal middle class, gave form to the state and society. He described the constitution of 1848 as clearing the way for ‘the principle of life and growth’.134 In practical terms, this meant that the nation would govern itself, that the state would withdraw from economic life, making way for free enterprise, and that the freedoms of religion, association and expression were sacrosanct. Education, science and learning would be supported. Despite all the paternalism of the liberals, their objective was emancipation, a fundamental departure from William i’s authoritarian mode of government, which had never been completely abandoned under William ii, as well as from the state’s massive influence over industry and trade, and government intervention in religion and the press. The liberals realized that this sweeping programme could not be carried out all at once, and not without a social struggle. Clearly, this drive for reform at the heart of state power had a direct impact on the status of the king. Thorbecke designed a constitutional ‘double dualism’, between the king and the government and between the government and parliament.135 The centre of political authority shifted from the king to the government. Ministers were responsible to parliament but were also expected to take account of the king, who still had the unfettered right to appoint ministers and exercise his political influence within the framework of the constitution.136 A great deal hung on the interpretation of article 53: ‘The King is inviolable; the ministers are responsible.’ What had really changed? Ministerial responsibility had 240

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also been enshrined in the constitution of 1814, although William i had showed complete disregard for the principle.137 There were two dominant views. To liberals, ministerial responsibility entailed limitation of the political power of the king; the constitution of 1848 had to be the point of departure for further reform. But conservatives concluded from the same principle of ministerial responsibility that the established mode of government would be continued, with the principle of inviolability guaranteeing the king’s political independence. For them, 1848 was the end point of state reform.138 In the spring of 1853 this would lead to open conflict between the king and the liberals. The bone of contention was the constitutional separation of Church and State, which opened the way for the re-establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in the Netherlands, as the Catholic Church quickly realized. Too quickly for Thorbecke’s liking. His first government, which took office in November 1849, hoped to confine itself to the ‘organic laws’: the Elections Act, the Municipalities Act and the Provinces Act, which form the foundation of the Dutch state system to

Six months after the April Movement, King William iii was fêted in Utrecht, the city where the protest against the re-establishment of the episcopal hierarchy began. Painting by Nicolaas Pieneman, Aanbieding van een adres aan koning Willem iii in Utrecht, 1853–6, oil on panel.

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this day.139 Although, like the Calvinist William iii, Thorbecke – himself a Lutheran – had no personal objection to the return of Catholic bishops, he believed that Dutch Protestants were not yet ready.140 England provided an instructive example: the appointment of Catholic bishops there in 1850 was seen as ‘papal aggression’, and the Reformation cry of ‘No popery’ was heard throughout the land.141 The appointment of Catholic bishops in the Netherlands was no less historically charged. After all, had the Protestant nation not liberated itself from Catholic Rome and Spain in an epic struggle led by the House of Orange? The bishops had been forced out of the provinces north of the major rivers early in the Eighty Years War, and since 1592 Rome had regarded the area again as a missionary region. The concordat of 1827, meant to put an end to that situation, had never been put into practice. After the Belgian secession, the Dutch rump state felt more Protestant than ever, and this did not change under William ii, despite his tolerant attitude towards Dutch Catholicism. Reformed Christians, members of the large national Church, raised their voices louder than ever in praise of the ‘cord of three strands’: God, the Netherlands and the House of Orange. They even saw their Calvinism as the root of Dutch religious tolerance. But nothing could have been further from the truth. Anyone wishing to unleash ungovernable passions had only to bring up religion or, still more effectively, religious differences.142 In 1850 the Catholic minister of foreign affairs and Catholic worship made a cautious proposal for the re-establishment of the episcopal hierarchy. He was supported by the liberal ministers, who recognized that this followed from the new constitution. In fear of the response among Protestants, William iii blocked the initiative, refusing his consent until October 1852.143 It was then a matter of waiting for a decision from the Holy See, which arrived with a vengeance in March 1853: the wording could hardly have been less diplomatic. According to Rome, the heresy committed by Calvin – ‘a hostile person,’ Pius ix thundered – had ‘destroyed, levelled, and misshapen’ the once-flourishing Catholic Church in the Netherlands, and it had ‘seemed as if the intention was to eradicate the name of Catholic in those parts’.144 At last, after almost three bitter centuries, the pope could finally appoint five bishops. The archbishop’s see was a topic of intense debate: ’s-Hertogenbosch or Utrecht? The choice fell on Utrecht, which had been an episcopal city from 695 to 1580 and the archbishop’s see for the last 21 years of that time. 242

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The Protestant reaction, a protest that has gone down in Dutch history as the April Movement, rippled outwards from Utrecht. ‘No archbishop in Utrecht!’ was the clarion call. Thorbecke was among the targets of the anti-Catholic hysteria. Why had The Times reported that the Catholic hierarchy in the Netherlands had been re-established ‘at the government’s request’?145 Pamphlets were published with titles like Mr Thorbecke Crowned by the Pope and The Annexation of the Netherlands by the Roman-Catholic Empire. The rhyme ‘Bible and Orange’ was meant to remind William iii of his paternal duties to the Protestant nation: Come Brothers! Sisters! Join our fight, To the House of Orange be true, The Bible is our trusted light And the State’s foundation, too. So hear, O God, the people sing Our glorious song to Thee, And grant long life unto the King, And us, his family!146 The Reformed protesters appealed directly to the king, their Church’s executive authority. In mid-April, when William iii visited Amsterdam, he was presented with a petition signed by pastors, lawyers, professors and some 50,000 other churchgoers. Although the ministers once again pointed out to the king that re-establishment of the episcopal hierarchy was sanctioned by law and urgently advised him to ignore the petition, William iii granted the Protestant delegation an audience. Its leader, pastor Bernard ter Haar, reiterated their outrage ‘at the gross arrogance of the Roman court, at the scorn it has heaped not only on our Protestant creed but also on our history, on the ashes and living memory of our Forefathers and the Royal Dynasty of Orange’.147 The true political bombshell was William iii’s reply, which an Amsterdam alderman described as an unsparing attack on the government. The king was reported to have said that ‘recent events in Rome had shocked him deeply too, but the provisions of the constitution had tied his hands.’ He added that, as prince, he had not been consulted about the relevant articles during the constitutional revision of 1848, even though he had had to swear to uphold them at his investiture.148 This was an outright declaration of war on both the constitution and the ministers. It also revealed William iii’s true motive. He himself 243

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had no real objection to the return of Catholic bishops, but he had a score to settle with the liberals and their 1848 constitution, which left him so little elbow room. In particular, he had his sights set on Thorbecke. The liberal minister Jacob van Zuylen van Nijevelt recalled, from their meeting at the time of his appointment, ‘the king’s antipathy to Mr Thorbecke’. William iii had greeted him with the words, ‘The only thing I hold against you is your attachment to the constitution.’149 The king had waited until April 1853 to go on the offensive, not only because he had been looking for the right opportunity, but because it had taken time to find a replacement for Thorbecke. By this stage he had a candidate: Thorbecke’s political rival Van Hall, the former justice minister, now a member of the Lower House. Thorbecke did the only thing he could: he tendered his resignation to the king.

Citizen-kings What role remained for the king within the sovereign nation? Ever since the French Revolution, the question had arisen time and again.150 After the democratic experiments and the fall of Napoleon, few people still put much faith in the radical abolition of the monarchy. Crowned heads of state had been reinstated in power throughout Europe, although in the west they ruled on the basis of compromise: charters and constitutions were meant to ensure that rulers and their nations would find common ground.151 Did the nation belong to the king, or did the king belong to the nation? Until 1830 this question could be answered with confidence, in favour of the king. But the revolutions of that year in France and Belgium had tipped the scales to the other side: Louis-Philippe and Leopold i were kings who belonged to their nations, citizen-kings. Louis-Philippe was soon being called by that title, Roi Citoyen, placed on the throne by the French citizenry and ruling on its terms.152 In 1848, as France began its second republican experiment, the Dutch ‘political nation’ followed the Belgian and French example from 1830. The liberals, led by Thorbecke, reined in the monarchy with their constitution. William ii, who – as the Hero of Waterloo – embodied the ideal of the soldier-king, and with his love of art, Gothic architecture and idealized chivalry fitted the image of the romantic, fairy-tale king, can be identified as the Dutch citizen-king in the original political meaning of the term.153 In the end he agreed, although only under considerable 244

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pressure, to accept the restriction of royal power through the constitution. He was spared the practical consequences of this decision. His predecessor, the authoritarian King William i, had tried in his own way to assume the mantle of citizen-king: not in any political respect, but by striving for economic progress. While he managed to escape constitutional restrictions on his authority, he nonetheless identified strongly with the rising middle class of industrialists, merchants and stockbrokers, the men of the capitalist future. The fact that his financial policies brought the country to the brink of insolvency does not detract from the economic citizen-kingship of this ‘merchant king’.154 Capitalist principles allow for corporate bankruptcy. William iii, the king who refused to acquiesce to the constitution of 1848, was expected to play the role of citizen-king, not only in constitutional but in social and cultural terms. The inviolable king, although not entirely shorn of his authority, had to look on as the government and parliament gradually assumed the leading roles on the political stage. But with this loss of power came a new social role for the king and his family, as examples to the nation. Throughout Europe, kings and queens and their children were becoming their countries’ first families, supreme symbols of national unity. They each approached this differently. The Russian tsars and their family were once again surrounded by a cloud

The absolute rulers, forced to swallow the pill of the constitution. French political cartoon, 1848.

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of mysticism: autocracy, Eastern Orthodoxy and the people merged into the concept of ‘holy Russia’. This sacred monarchy did not belong to the citizens in any sense.155 In Austria and Prussia, the ruling dynasties imbued the monarchy with both military and civilian features. From 1871, in the German Empire dominated by Prussia, conservative members of the middle class were proud to derive their identity from their status as reserve officers in the imperial army.156 In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Habsburg family offered the middle class endless opportunities for sentimental identification. At the same time, Kaisertreue (loyalty to the emperor), the army and the state bureaucracy were the glue that held together the ethnically diverse state.157 It was in Western European societies, dominated by the middle class, that cultural citizen-kingship was at its strongest. These countries no longer had a king or queen but, in the eloquent words of British commentator Walter Bagehot, a ‘family on the throne’. The task of this royal family, as Bagehot saw it, was to lead their private lives in public so that the people would identify with them. From the mid-1880s, when British political leaders finally managed to persuade Queen Victoria to emerge from her secluded life as a widow, she and her family would furnish the model.158 This ambition proved too grand for the House of Orange, in part because William iii and Sophie’s dysfunctional marriage formed an insuperable obstacle. But thanks to his second wife Princess Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont, whom he married in 1879, William iii was not, in the final analysis, a complete failure as a citizen-king. Citizen-kingship remained a paradoxical notion. The monarchy simply did not mix well with the bourgeois liberal creed summarized as ‘my own master, my own servant’. People who took their lives into their own hands, who set out to choose for themselves, learn for themselves and provide for themselves, would not readily submit to a king, the clergy or an employer.159 Bending to the will of the sovereign, accepting the position of subject, was inherently a form of self-abasement. As early as 1819, when William i had withdrawn the state finances from parliamentary supervision, Van Hogendorp had warned, ‘Unlimited authority makes the king bad, and debases his subjects.’ While Van Hogendorp had been concerned exclusively with parliamentary oversight of state finances, in 1879 the orthodox Calvinist leader Abraham Kuyper phrased the same discontent in more general terms. What infuriated him was ‘the spirit of slavish flattery and unmanly servility’ pervading the court – ‘moral decay, which defiles the people from above’.160 246

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Yet historical developments are seldom logical. In the closing decades of the nineteenth century a potent conservative nationalism would unite the monarchy and the middle classes in countries across Europe. Dread of new revolutions, this time by socialist forces – although the Austro-Hungarians also feared nationalist radicals – made the middle class more conservative and inclined to see the ruler and dynasty as two essential pillars of the social order. Monarchy flourished in Europe as never before. Rarely has the role of king been performed with such pomp.161 The critics of monarchy, except for the most extreme radicals, seemed resigned to its popularity. In the end, the Netherlands under William iii followed this broader pattern – no thanks to the king himself.

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William iii in 1849, the year in which he became king. Richard Dighton, Portrait of Willem III van Oranje-Nassau (1817–1890), 1849, watercolour.

8

A King without Responsibility, 1849–73 The caged king William iii had been king for almost four years when he took advantage of the unrest caused by the restoration of the episcopal hierarchy to seek confrontation with the liberals. He was invested on Saturday 12 May 1849 in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. He swore allegiance to the people and the constitution, and pledged to defend the independence of the realm and to protect the freedom and rights of his subjects. The oath was taken directly from article 51 of the new constitution. It was almost unthinkable that anything could go wrong. This succession, too, was surrounded by doubt and turmoil, different to the transfer of power from William i to William ii but no less a cause for concern. Was William iii suited to sit on the throne? In the mid-1840s William ii had spoken to a number of ministers about his eldest son’s incompetence to hold high office, about the prince’s ‘vehemence’ and ‘lack of judgement and tact’, together with his ‘bizarre ideas’. William ii described the weaknesses in the character of his almost thirtyyear-old successor as ‘youthful impetuosity’, but the ministers wanted constitutional guarantees against the monarch’s unpredictable behaviour. With the constitution of 1848, the liberals thus armed themselves against the unavoidable accession of William iii to the throne.1 While there were doubts in the entourage in The Hague, the turmoil in the run-up to the succession was caused largely by William iii himself. Political reluctance and personal problems affected his state of mind. In October 1848, a month before the new constitution came into force, the then Prince of Orange wrote to his sister Sophie that the principles on which the new constitution rested were a threat to the state and had led to him to decide to relinquish all rights to the throne. He would step down and settle in Paris.2 From Weimar, Sophie informed her father of the situation, who then offered his son advice ‘as a friend’. 249

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What the prince referred to as his ‘rights’, William ii wrote, were as a matter of fact the highest of duties and his son should judge the liberal constitution in light of that calling: ‘Let us never forget that God made it the destiny of kings to rule in the interests of the people, not for their own pleasure or for the vain pride of a little more or less power.’3 Did this nod to the Almighty betray the fact that William ii felt that his end was nigh? But the prince refused to yield. He submitted his resignation as lieutenant-general of the infantry and as patron of the Royal Academy of Civil Engineers. Standing down as heir to the throne proved impossible under the constitution.4 The difference of opinion between father and son spoiled the king’s last birthday in December 1848.5 The prince wanted to leave, to go to England, and he departed on 20 January 1849 with William ii’s permission. Officially he was going on tour, but his wife knew better. ‘His mistress has left for England,’ Sophie of Württemberg wrote to her English friend Lady Malet, the wife of a diplomat, in the middle of December. ‘She claims to be five months’ pregnant. He will follow her shortly.’ After the prince had left, she wrote, ‘He is gone now to that woman of his, leaving his debts to pay and a household in dis­ order of which there is no idea to be made.’6 Was Sophie referring to the expected accession of the recalcitrant Prince of Orange to the throne of the sick king? The woman expecting his child was incidentally the 25-yearold French soprano Louise-Rose Rouvroy, who had been performing in The Hague for several months.7 Even greater consternation arose when William ii died suddenly, if not unexpectedly, on 17 March 1849, probably from heart failure. He died in Tilburg, where he had regularly sought refuge since the secession of Belgium. Out of sight of his father and of Anna, he was surrounded with soldiers in the garrison city, had bred sheep and had struck up a friendship with a priest called Johannes Zwijsen, who would become Archbishop of Utrecht in 1853.8 Prince William, now king, was in the north of England, enjoying the hunt and indulging in other pleasures, ignorant of his new position. In the Netherlands, sadness was mixed with concern. How would William iii react? Sophie, tending as always to arouse unrest, went to see the ministers. ‘They were enraged. They spoke of the abdication.’9 As long as there was no certainty about the prince accepting the throne, Sophie did not wish to be addressed as queen. ‘I request you,’ she said to Wiwill’s governor Eduard de Casembroot, ‘not as yet to call me Votre Majesté.’10 Anna Pavlovna made it known that, 250

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if her eldest son refused the throne, it was William ii’s wish that ‘our beloved son Henry be appointed regent of the Kingdom’. Meanwhile, Prince Frederick, now the oldest member of the family, counted on being made regent in the event of William iii abdicating, until Prince Wiwill reached the age of majority.11 There was very little coordination within the family. It was decided to send a delegation to London, led by minister of foreign affairs Leonardus Anthonius Lightenvelt. William iii was expected to be in the capital, too.12 The Catholic minister, once a self-appointed intermediary between William ii and the prince, enjoyed the confidence of the latter; he too was an opponent of Thorbecke, even though he accepted his constitution because of the guarantees it offered the Catholic Church.13 It was a heated discussion. William iii did not want to return to the Netherlands. ‘He kept on complaining,’ recalled one French diplomat. ‘Even after he had returned, he wanted nothing to do with the throne. His resolute response to all pleas and exhortations was “Because my father has swallowed that ridiculous Constitution of 1848, I cannot rule.”’14 Back in the Netherlands, too, Prince Frederick attempted to talk his nephew round.15 Sophie’s account of William iii’s arrival in what was now his kingdom on 21 March 1849 is particularly memorable. While a Rotterdam newspaper spoke of ‘a warm welcome’, she wrote: On Monday, I went to Hellevoetsluis to meet him and had to wait for 42 hours. Eventually he arrived. ‘Have you accepted?’ I said. ‘Yes,’ was his answer. ‘Comment faire?’ He is the same, unaltered, unchanged. The people have accepted him without joy or enthusiasm of any kind, as a loyal necessity.16 ‘What is to be done?’ The Staatscourant had already announced William iii’s accession to the throne. Donker Curtius, now minister of justice, drew up a text for the new king’s acceptance of his position as monarch: william the first took Sovereign Power upon himself, to exercise it according to a Constitution. william the second changed the Constitution, in consultation with Parliament, to meet the needs of the times. my duty shall be to implement that Constitution fully on the same footing.17 251

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The king confined in the cage of the liberal constitution as a fait accompli – that was how the minister saw the monarchy. His view was shared by the liberal Arnhemsche Courant. The paper warned William iii on the day before he arrived from England: Whether the King is called William ii or William iii is of no consequence under the constitutional monarchy. The accession of a new individual changes nothing . . . We have consistently made the error as a nation of relying on individuals. Paying homage to the King is not to honour the person wearing the crown, but the Constitution that binds the King as much as his people.18 Those familiar with the world of The Hague understood what the paper was implying: William iii was unsuitable for office. This sentiment did not only hold sway in the Netherlands, as became painfully clear to the new king two weeks after his succession. His literary idol Alexandre Dumas wrote in his news magazine Le Mois that William ii’s successor was clearly ‘unfit to reign’ and that the conduct of this ‘prince of loose morals’ had ‘curtailed’ the life of his father.19 This damning judgement did not stop William iii from knighting the French writer for his novel The Three Musketeers. But the Netherlands had been warned.

The spectre of revolution It is a classic interpretation: 1848 marked the end of the age of European revolution. Six decades of struggle against the ancien régime ended in victory for the bourgeoisie. The liberal constitutional state emerged triumphant, at least in northwest Europe. Private property and free enterprise would henceforth dominate the capitalist economy, while education, science and freedom of expression would do the same for culture. Progress for the middle classes meant a loss of power for the monarchy, the aristocracy and the clergy. Court, army and Church came under civic control.20 While the monarchy continued to represent the established order after 1848 and would flourish as never before in that role, that order itself was bourgeois through and through.21 In the Binnenhof in The Hague, the victory over the monarch was almost tangible, with the empty throne behind the government’s table in parliament – unintentional progressive symbolism strengthened by the fact that parliament met in what Stadholder William v, William iii’s great-grandfather, 252

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had once added to the building complex as a ballroom. It stood as a monument to the triumph of bourgeois reason over aristocratic folly. A change of generation intensified the sense of a period coming to an end. The demise of William ii did not come in isolation. The decade following the year of revolution saw the deaths of the last of the great men who had fought against the French revolutionaries and Napoleon. Wellington, whose fame had captured the collective imagination of the people of Britain, died in 1852. ‘Vater Radetzky’, veteran of almost all the battles that Austria had engaged in between 1792 and 1814, was to follow in 1858; ten years earlier, at the age of 82, the field marshal had in Italy shown once again how to put down a revolution. Karl von Habsburg, hero of the first victory over Napoleon in 1809, had already died in 1847. The political leaders of the post-Napoleonic restoration also disappeared. Tsar Nicholas i, ‘the gendarme of Europe’, died in 1855. The last to go was Metternich: the architect of the restoration lived until 1859, long enough to see the Congress system and the balance of power dismantled.22 A new generation of leaders took their place, the most notable of whom would be French emperor Napoleon iii and Prussian prime minister and German chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The year 1848 was the grand finale. It is no coincidence that – despite predicting the ‘violent overthrow of all existing social conditions’ – the Communist Manifesto, published in that turbulent year, is often seen as an epitaph to the revolutionary age.23 Communist or liberal, there were no more sweeping social changes in Europe for the time being. Economic modernization would reduce social inequalities in the northwest of the continent, while the granting of political rights and expansion of education strengthened support for the established order. Yet this farewell to revolution did not apply to everyone. For monarchs and for those holding political authority, the evocative opening words of Marx and Engels’s pamphlet were as real as ever, notwithstanding the inevitable change in dramatis personae: A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Communism. All the Powers of Old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police spies.24 This spectre of Communism, of revolution in general, would continue to haunt the powers and the powerful. For ruling monarchs, even those 253

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The Lower House of parliament in session. Johan Michaël Schmidt Crans, 1860.

who had largely relinquished their authority, 1848 meant everything but the end of the revolutionary age, and certainly not of revolutionary forces that had targeted them personally. Everything could still go wrong, as the Paris Commune of March to May 1871 would prove. But more frequent occurrences were attempted assassinations, not in the last instance on those of royal blood. For the revolutionaries, it was time that Louis xvi received company. Tsar Nicholas i, the French emperor Napoleon iii, the Spanish kings Alfonso xii and Amadeus, the German emperor Wilhelm i: these cousins, friends and fellow royals of the Dutch king all survived one or more attempts on their lives, just as William iii and his father themselves had escaped the ‘infernal machine’ on a canal in Amsterdam. They were all deeply afraid and, after every attempt, they called for severe measures to be taken, even when the British Queen Victoria was threatened by a ‘half-demented’ man with an imitation pistol in early 1872.25 The attackers were usually radical nationalists, socialists or anarchists, who saw their actions as ‘propaganda of the deed’. They saw themselves as latter-day incarnations of the French Jacobins, though for the time being, they did not achieve any significant revolutionary changes. In 1881 Tsar Alexander ii was assassinated in St Petersburg. His carriage was hit by a can of 254

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nitroglycerine.While he was inspecting the damage, he was fatally wounded by a second bomb. The tsar, who had already survived six attempted assassinations, suffered the death he had feared: like Louis xvi, he became the victim of what the perpetrators, members of Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will), called a ‘justified revolutionary murder’.26 William iii, who had maintained a close relationship with his cousin, one year his junior, was deeply moved by his violent death and called for steps to be taken against ‘international revolutionary movements’.27 Like his father, grandfather and great grandfather, William iii was an Orange king in times of revolution. In 1830 the secession of Belgium reduced by half the territory he expected to reign over. Under pressure from the revolutionary turbulence of 1848, the power he inherited as king was curtailed. During his four decades as king, and especially during the second half of his reign, revolutionary attacks reminded him that he represented a state structure that was not undisputed and that he himself was in danger, even though most such incidents occurred beyond the borders of his realm.

War and the threat of war On the other side of those borders, new wars were being fought. Those in Europe took place mainly in the first twenty years of William iii’s reign: the international wars that established Italy and Germany as nation states, attempts at national liberation – in Poland, for example – that were seen as revolutionary wars, and civil wars; in Spain, domestic conflict almost led to revolution. It all started in 1853 with the Crimean War, the first conflict between the major powers since the fall of Napoleon.28 The Crimea, where Russia fought against Britain, France, Sardinia and the Ottoman Empire and Austria wanted to intervene on the side of Paris and London, was the starting point of a radical shift in the balance of power on the continent. Nation states increasingly and more emphatically held the reins, which affected the position of Europe’s monarchs. The dynastic international network, with its shared responsibility for peace and stability, slowly disintegrated and the monarchs found themselves confronting each other as the highest representatives of their nations.29 The Netherlands succeeded in staying neutral, but not without difficulty. Its policy of neutrality, adopted in 1840, was jeopardized by the participation of Limburg and Luxembourg in the German Confederation 255

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and the position of the Grand Duchy between France and Prussia. While the cabinet, the armed forces and the diplomatic corps agreed that the Netherlands could not afford to become involved in a European war, it was not clear how the king felt about it. Precisely in this area, of national defence and international relations, he still had considerable powers. They were laid out in articles 55 to 59 of the 1848 Constitution: final responsibility for international relations; declaring war and ratifying peace and other treaties; supreme command over the army and navy and the right to appoint officers. These provisions were preceded by article 53, ‘the King is inviolate; the ministers are responsible’, but no one knew as yet how exactly this fenced in the king’s powers in practice. War and the threat of war did not prevent William iii from acting on his own judgement. He made no secret of his aversion to Prussia and his preference for the Second French Empire under his friend Napoleon iii, even though – under pressure from Anna Pavlovna – he chose the side of the tsar during the Crimean War, while his minister of foreign affairs was negotiating with France and England to limit the damage for trade between the Netherlands and Russia.30 William iii also mobilized other members of the family. In 1859, when Austria threatened to drag the whole German Confederation into war with France, Sardinia and a number of North Italian states, he appointed Prince Frederick supreme commander of the Dutch army, against the wishes of the minister of war.31 As a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, Frederick had seen battlefields at first hand. Wiwill, however, had no military experience at all. His only encounter with war operations of any kind was a visit to Malta in 1855 at the age of fifteen, where he had observed British troops being transported to the Crimea and the evacuation of wounded back to England.32 Yet William iii gave his eldest son command over 60,000 Dutch troops mobilized during the Franco-German war of 1870.33 Although William iii did not take command of the armed forces himself during such times of international tension, he did wish to be a war king. A constitutional monarch could only achieve honour on the battlefield and, as the son of the Hero of Waterloo, he knew only too well what it meant to be famed as a war hero – his father complex can be seen as the psychological mirror image of the jealousy with which William i had viewed his son. On what glorious deeds could William iii pride himself? Certainly not his occasional visits to disaster-struck cities or regions, no matter how much empathy he displayed for the victims. After the king had visited the areas around the major rivers affected by flooding in February 1861, rowed 256

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there in a small boat despite being warned that it was too dangerous, he was mockingly referred to as the ‘Water hero of Het Loo’, his summer palace.34 If William iii could have had his way, the palace would have become a fort in the IJsselstelling, a line of defence against Prussia and Germany. He spent tens of thousands of guilders constructing three earthwork forts at Het Loo.35 Thus the monarch who so wished to be a war king wreaked the greatest damage in his own country. His actions also resulted in victims. Wiwill’s governor De Casembroot, himself a trained soldier, described an incident in July 1854: ‘He ordered a redoubt to be built close to Het Loo and fired off cannon and mortars. In itself an innocent pastime, but not in the way the King conducted himself while engaging in such games.’36 Queen Sophie described the events four months later in a letter to Lady Malet: He was at Het Loo, where he carried out all kinds of tests with firearms, which cost some poor man his life. When he saw the wretch bleeding and groaning, his face shot to pieces, he joked about his ‘grimaces’. The young officers in attendance were dumbstruck with horror.37

King William iii at a meeting of the Voluntary Corps at De Bilt. On the left are his brother Henry and his son Wiwill.

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By now, the antics of the new king raised few eyebrows. In April 1853, at the height of the protests against the restoration of the episcopal hierarchy, William iii wanted to send the fleet to bombard Civitavecchia, the port of the Papal States. Shortly after the accident at Het Loo, William iii issued a written order to fire on Schiedam from a gunboat because an artillery horse had died while troops were putting down a hunger protest in the town. It earned him a reprimand from the entire cabinet.38 That William iii’s military bravura did not cause only consternation in the early years of his reign is illustrated by the reactions to his behaviour during a stay in a luxury villa at Montreux in the summer of 1875, which culminated in substantial vandalism. Glassware, china and even a toilet bowl were smashed and garden furniture disappeared into Lake Geneva.39 The Swiss authorities decided to prosecute the Dutch king, who was travelling as the ‘Count of Buren’, not for the destruction of property but for ‘a matter of decency and attire’, as the respectable Journal de débats described it on 31 July. While the mainstream Dutch press remained silent on the incident, the Dutch satirical journal Asmodée reported on 12 August that the king was in the habit of taking a daily swim in Lake Geneva ‘in his birthday suit, or if you will, naked’ and then ‘to relax on the terrace of his villa for some time in the same state, to the great vexation of travellers passing by on the nearby railway or by steamboat’. A claim for immunity due to his royal status was to no avail: while the head of the Dutch state might be inviolable, the Count of Buren was not. William iii mobilized his foreign minister in The Hague: could the minister not request that his incognito status be lifted so that the Swiss would treat him ‘with the honour due to him as a King’? The Dutch consul-general in Bern, however, feared that such a request would raise ‘delicate questions’.40 The affair fizzled out, partly because the Netherlands and Switzerland were on the brink of signing a trade agreement.41 William iii was furious. The Swiss had treated him with no respect. He summoned war minister August Weitzel and asked him about the progress of the conflict in the East Indies, where the Aceh War had broken out in 1873. When the minister told him that no less than a quarter of the Dutch troops had been killed, the king answered, ‘You will ensure that they have all returned home by next spring. I shall take a few hundred with me to Switzerland.’ The leader of the cabinet had to step in to persuade William iii that marching against the Swiss, who were friends of the nation, was not a good idea; even the king could not take soldiers 258

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to settle a conflict caused by his own misbehaviour.42 In the meantime, William iii had been a genuine war king for some two years, embroiled in ferocious fighting in the extreme north of Sumatra. With more than 100,000 dead and 500,000 wounded, the Aceh War – which would continue long after the king’s death – was the bloodiest conflict in which the Netherlands was involved in the 125 years between Waterloo and the outbreak of the Second World War.43

Camarilla, conservatives and ‘constitutionals’ King, government or parliament: where would the political centre of gravity come to lie after 1848? For Thorbecke, the designer of the liberal constitution, there was no doubt at all: the government should hold the initiative. But after the April Movement of 1853, the king seemed to have restored his personal authority. He had successfully taken advantage of the revolt among the conservative and Protestant population against the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy to rid himself of the liberals. But that was as far as it went: Thorbecke was out of the picture for the time being, but that would be of little benefit to the king. He found Floris van Hall prepared to form a new cabinet, which they presented as a ‘government emanating from the King’, in which ‘the Ministers would take their responsibility, through their advice, execution and participation’. Van Hall, who had exchanged his liberalism for pragmatic conservatism, refused to revise the constitution in a conservative direction. The constitution, said the lawyer, was ‘inviolable’, adding, ‘There is none among us who entertains the idea of changing the Constitution in any way, and we shall strive to ensure that it is implemented justly.’44 Thorbecke’s elections and municipalities acts also remained intact. Van Hall found himself facing heavy criticism from the conservative and Protestant camp. He was accused of ‘betraying’ their cause.45 But did that reproach not apply equally to William iii? For their policy of appeasement, king and leader of the cabinet agreed the following: And, as far as the delicate question of religion is concerned, placating the injured feelings of the Protestants as far as possible; preserving the honour of the nation and the rights of the political authorities, while avoiding arousing bitterness among the Catholics; no sense of exclusion must prevail in the Cabinet.46

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Thorbecke’s liberals could not have put it any better. Van Hall allowed the appointment of the bishops to go ahead. Until shortly before the end of William III’s long reign, moderate conservative and liberal cabinets would govern by turn.When the conservatives were in power, the king could exert a certain influence and especially if the leader of the cabinet was favourably inclined towards the monarch. Liberal governments tended to remind the king of the constitutional restrictions on his power. Constitutional changes, invariably in a liberal direction, occurred mainly in times of crisis.Together, these developments ensured that the revised constitutional system gradually took shape, even if only because of a vague consensus among politicians on how it should function. That William iii did not share this consensus was inconvenient but not insurmountable, even now that he unexpectedly concerned himself intensely with national politics and the composition of his cabinets. The king’s interference served only one aim: to keep Thorbecke out of government, a standpoint shared by the conservatives who felt that the liberals gave the Catholics too much leeway. Thinking along the same lines as William iii, former minister of colonies and governorgeneral of the Dutch East Indies Baud, now a conservative member of parliament, wrote: People of undeniable abilities have joined the party that calls itself Constitutional – though it is actually papal-democratic – and are even more dangerous because they make use of those abilities without many scruples. They must be opposed by men who surpass them not only in integrity but who also possess at least equal abilities.47 The king indeed mobilized men to oppose the liberals – even though it sometimes appeared that he had reconciled himself to the revised constitution of 1848 or was prepared to abdicate in favour of Wiwill, who would be of age to succeed him in 1858.48 He apparently attached less importance to the qualities that Baud emphasized so strongly. The same applied to his methods. With a small group of loyal supporters, William iii tried to put together a genuine conservative government, a cabinet over which the liberals would have no influence at all – while Thorbecke, even though he was in opposition, still succeeded in pushing his more conservative colleagues in a liberal direction.49 The group, referred to by insiders as a ‘camarilla’, wanted to restore order, if necessary through a coup d’état. After resigning as minister of war, 260

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one of them confessed as much to a close confidante, stating, ‘If the King should so decide, he would be willing to lose his head for it.’50 While it is doubtful that there really was a camarilla, with all the suspicions of intrigue, abuse of power and unconstitutional ideas that surround such a royal or ministerial clique, it is certain that a number of influential individuals close to William iii had secret reactionary plans.51 These conservatives met at Het Loo. They included the rector of Utrecht University Gerrit Jan Mulder, the driving force behind the electoral association Koning en Vaderland (King and Fatherland) and the April Movement of 1853.52 The main figure, however, was Frits de Kock, William iii’s private secretary and director of the King’s Office. In this last position, he also attended cabinet meetings. De Kock had been part of the king’s inner circle since 1844. Some saw him as an intriguer; others praised him for his moderating influence. James Loudon, minister and later governor-general of the East Indies, recalled that De Kock was one of the few who dared contradict the king, saying, ‘Much suffering, much injustice was rectified through his actions.’53 The enigmatic De Kock, who erased nearly all traces of his actions, certainly had no high opinion of William iii, a king of whom little could be expected ‘that was not directly military in nature’.54 A letter that he sent to minister Baud offers some insight into what the king had in mind in the mid-1850s: His Majesty wishes to hear your opinions on whether the elections and the electoral system have fulfilled expectations and whether they express the wishes of the people. If not, how can they be changed? Whether there are resources to structure parliament in such a way that it genuinely represents the interests of the people? What means can be utilised to put a stop to the harmful freedom of the press while preserving the beneficial freedoms? Is it your opinion that there are objections to the obligation to have everything signed that is published?55 No matter how guardedly it is formulated, if the king and his camarilla succeeded in implementing these plans, it would have marked the start of a counter-revolution: a change in the electoral system in a conservative direction, despite the lip service paid to the people and their wishes, renewed restrictions on the press and a ban on journalistic anonymity. It would require another revision of the constitution. 261

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But it did not come to that. The activities of king and clique were limited to interfering in the composition of the cabinet, for which they invariably proposed men from the conservative camp, including members of the camarilla itself.56 Whether they were appointed leader of the cabinet, minister of foreign affairs or of war, the primary goal was always to keep Thorbecke – and with him the Catholics – from power. In 1858 William iii allegedly even threatened to abdicate if Thorbecke were to become a member of the cabinet.57 But the ministers appointed via the camarilla succeeded in pushing policy through that was favourable to the king. The budget for the army, for example, was increased; its weaponry was modernized and the standing army, over which the king had farreaching powers, was maintained alongside the conscripted army.58 Less kosher was the use of informal channels of power for personal gain: luc­ rative sugar contracts in the East Indies, for example, which William iii granted to friends, complete with interest-free loans. The minister of colonies was unable to withstand the pressure from the king and the director of his office.59 When parliament learned of the chicanery, the minister’s successor was ordered to pack his bags. By the early 1860s the conservative élan aroused by the April Movement had evaporated. There had been five more-or-less royalist cabinets in a row. The last two had each hardly lasted a year, lashed by bruising criticism from Thorbecke, who spoke of ‘parasitical politics’ practised by ‘servants of reaction’, with no ‘consistency, surety or moral influence’ and cut adrift from everything ‘except their authority’. 60 Parliament also wanted change. In January 1862, after a series of failed attempts to form a conservative government, William iii decided to put his aversion to one side and instructed Thorbecke to form a new cabinet.

‘Professor Thorbecke’

  Administrative prudence had triumphed over William iii’s political and personal aversion to the statesman and constitutional lawyer. Whether he led the government or the opposition, Thorbecke had set the tone in The Hague since 1848 – or was it 1844? In the interests of proper constitutional and political relations, it was better he did that from the government benches. But before the liberal leader once again accepted the responsibility of government, he spoke to the king in person and demanded his trust: ‘It has been said throughout the entire country since 1853 that the King mistrusts me, and without the 262

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sincere cooperation, without the trust of the King for his Minister, there can be no government.’61 The king replied by frankly airing his grievances against the intended leader of the cabinet and then shaking his hand. The second Thorbecke cabinet took office two weeks later, mark­­­ing the start of ten years of liberal government, interrupted only by two years of conservative leadership, which squandered the last vestiges of any constitutional credit the conservatives still held among those of other political persuasions. Once again, William iii found himself opposite the man who had a greater influence on his life than any other. In that sense, Thorbecke was to William iii what William i had been to William ii and Napoleon to William i. Thorbecke, however, had to share his role of inescapable opponent in the king’s life with Queen Sophie. That may explain why Thorbecke and his wife got on so well with the queen. On Christmas Day 1855, after an exhausting marital quarrel, Sophie and William iii had agreed on a private separation, the conditions of which made their shared life somewhat more bearable: thereafter the king and queen were rarely seen together in public.62 Thorbecke and William iii would not be rid of each other as easily. His own constitution bound the leader of the cabinet to the king and the king to the leader of the cabinet. Moreover, the constitution gave parliament the right to pass judgement on both the monarch and the government and their relationship with each other. And, in the intervening years of conservative government, between 1866 and 1868, it would do just that. What could be done to ensure that the personal feud between king and cabinet leader did not again sour their relations? Thorbecke had become acquainted with the king’s choleric temperament during his first cabinet, the attacks of rage that other members of the Orange family, the servants and many a diplomat could all bear witness to. The French ambassador described the king as a man ‘who spread a certain terror among those around him’.63 No one grew accustomed to it, not even those who learned from bitter experience when the king’s ire was about to descend upon them. The memoirs of minister of war August Weitzel provide an invaluable record of William’s iii’s bad-tempered outbursts, in many more words than the French ambassador had needed: No change occurs in his bearing. He sits or rather half lies in a lounge chair, one leg thrown carelessly over the other, the ankle roughly at knee height; his elbows rest on the arms of the chair, 263

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the tips of his fingers entwined. And so he remains sitting, but the blood rises suddenly to his head; his eyebrows knit into a frown; the veins of his forehead swell; his nostrils flare and his face can adopt an expression that would scare off anyone who does not know him . . . Sometimes, the storm subsides simply in a gruff rejection of what has been proposed, but at other times, there follows a tempest that one can best hear out in peace and allow it to blow itself out before, if necessary, giving any response.64 Weitzel, who also recorded the king’s no less sudden attacks of cordiality, believed that William iii saw his ministers as little more than ‘servants imposed on him, standing not beside but against him’. Consequently the king’s life was ‘nothing more than a constant fight with his ministers’.65 Thorbecke had used similar terms in his first term of office from 1849 to 1853: the king saw the cabinet as an ‘imposed ministry’ and, continued the liberal leader – who rarely spoke out about William iii – ‘in such a mood, he lent his ear only too eagerly to everything bad that was said about the Ministers, and the Minister of Interior Affairs in particular, and even tried to sow discord among them.’ It speaks for itself that Thorbecke himself held that latter position, as did almost all cabinet leaders in the nineteenth century.66 And so it went. Not only had William iii cast doubt on the unanimity of Thorbecke’s first cabinet and declared that ‘the professor’ stood alone, but he obstructed the appointment of sympathizers of the cabinet leader and inundated him with verbal injustices – ‘unpleasantries’, as the victim remarked, ‘that from the mouth of another would be insults’.67 A vehement conflict had arisen in 1850, when Thorbecke wanted to replace two inveterate provincial governors, both plus royaliste que le roi, with liberal King’s Commissioners, one of whom had been a member of the Nine Men. William iii refused to ratify their appointments. Cursing and swearing, he vented his rage. The circumspect language in which the ministers demanded the king’s apologies and the latter offered them – he ‘had found himself in a somewhat aroused state’ and had ‘spoken candidly’ – could not disguise the fact that it had been a stormy confrontation.68 William iii had tried to play Thorbecke off against the other ministers, but without success; the ministers had threatened collectively to resign. After both houses of parliament had passed the Provinces Act, the king finally backed down: the Act made the appointment of new commissioners necessary. Thorbecke had triumphed. 264

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Besides appointments, king and cabinet leader also clashed about the former making unilateral changes to the speech from the throne, skirmishes along the frontier between royal prerogative and ministerial responsibility.69 When William iii intentionally overstepped his constitu­ tional authority during the unrest surrounding the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy, it had led to the end of the cabinet. Just how negatively Thorbecke was spoken of at the palace after the fall of his first government is illustrated by an account by Wiwill, then twelve years old. In May 1853 he had argued with a fellow pupil who claimed that Thorbecke ‘was the benefactor of the land’. ‘I couldn’t listen to such nonsense,’ Wiwill told his governor De Casembroot. ‘And I answered simply that Thorbecke wanted to get rid of papa, that he is a mean man who wants to make us all Catholics, govern alone and introduce a republic, and I added that he should be hanged, because I was so angry.’70 Thorbecke was anything but a republican; a king should certainly have some influence on the government of his country: The King enjoys limited freedom. But a developed understanding of government, a head and a heart in harmony with the needs of the whole – these are the conditions required for a King – shall yet perform great things within that limited freedom, or rather his freedom and influence shall be greater the more developed his personal characteristics. With the continual change of representatives in parliament and among the ministers, the King remains; and this constancy is of incalculable importance for the influence of great kingly characteristics.71 Thorbecke thus allotted the monarch a more extensive task than Bagehot would in 1867. In the latter’s renowned formulation, royal powers in a constitutional monarchy were restricted to the right to be consulted, the right to encourage and to right to warn – ‘a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others’.72 Thorbecke’s misfortune – and not only his – was that he had to deal with this king, with William iii, who lacked all understanding of government and harmony. The laborious and needlessly exhausting confrontations with the king would change nothing, though the lawyer may have derived some comfort from the fact that other cabinet leaders, irrespective of their political persuasion, fared little better. It always started with government proposals about which the king felt he had been insufficiently informed. That led to a royal rage that 265

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invoked protests from the ministers, after which the king would resolutely deny all accusations while, at the same time, admitting that he had not controlled himself sufficiently – and then finally acquiescing with the ministers’ decision. Until his death in 1890 the king would compel all cabinets to perform this ritual dance. His confidence in his ministers would remain steadfastly fragile. That Thorbecke explicitly demanded the king’s trust in early 1862 made no difference. During his second cabinet, king and ministers initially gave the impression that the old wounds had healed. The liberal leader even seemed to take account of William iii, for example in the area of colonial policy, in which the king not only had considerable powers – ‘supreme command of the colonies’, according to article 59 of the 1848 constitution – but, as with everything to do with the army, initially showed a genuine interest. Liberalization of the exploitation of Java – the reform or abolition of the Culture System – was one of the major political questions of the 1860s. The liberals wanted to increase political control over colonial policy; the 1863 Government Accounts Act for the Indies, which gave the States General the right to approve, amend or reject the colonial budget, was a major step forwards.Yet, for the liberals, it was debatable how far parliament should be involved in colonial policy. In February 1866 the second Thorbecke cabinet – which also abolished slavery and successfully reformed higher education in 1863 – foundered over the introduction of a new criminal code for Europeans in the Dutch East Indies.73 Thorbecke wanted the code to be determined by law – that is, by parliament – but others preferred it to be regulated by royal decree. The discussion caused William iii to comment that Thorbecke apparently could not understand his own constitution: there was only a parliament ‘in the motherland, not in the colonies’. ‘He knows neither his country nor its history; he knows nothing at all. He is aware of only one thing: Thorbecke himself. We saw that in 1853.’74 No, the king could no longer save Thorbecke, if he had ever wanted to. Shortly afterwards, William iii labelled the liberal leader and his supporters again as ‘the enemy’ and ‘the enemy camp’.75 The peace had been short-lived.

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King, cabinet, parliament Constitutional relations between the king, cabinet and parliament came under pressure again during the conservative Van Zuylen van Nijevelt/ Heemskerk cabinet that took office in June 1866 – and with long-lasting consequences. Royal prerogative became the topic of fierce discussion on two occasions: the highly unusual appointment of a governor-general of the East Indies and a risky intervention in the international arena by William iii in his guise as Grand Duke of Luxembourg – the ‘Luxembourg question’, which was dealt with ineptly by cabinet leader and minister of foreign affairs Van Zuylen. During both crises, the conservative cabinet tried to mobilize the king to strengthen its own position of power with respect to parliament. Twice, William iii disbanded the Lower House with the stated aim of ‘improving the composition of the representation’. In other words: the newly elected House should, like the cabinet, be more royalist.76 The palace was now offering advice on how to vote. The first political row erupted when, three months after the conservative cabinet took office, it promoted the conservative minister of colonies Pieter Mijer to governor-general of the East Indies, the most powerful and lucrative public office in the kingdom. The exceptional appointment proved to have been agreed in the greatest of secrecy during the process of forming the government. Even the king, who was constitu­ tionally responsible for the appointment, knew nothing of the agreement.77 Conservative and liberal newspapers were unanimous in condemning the appointment as scandalous. They not only questioned Mijer’s ability to solve the problems in the East Indies, but were indignant at the crude nepotism with which the country’s leaders divided the best jobs among each other, with complete disregard for the royal prerogative.78 The Lower House of parliament also responded furiously. Unconventional antirevolutionary (that is, orthodox Calvinist) Levinus Keuchenius led the opposition with unprecedented fervour. No, he did not wish to ‘assail’ the royal prerogative regarding the colonies; the minister, not the king, was his target: I shall now say a few words about the departure of the Minister of Colonies; let this be known: it is a repudiation on the part of the Cabinet of the demands of the moment; of the interests and needs of the East Indies; of respect for parliament, and is lastly an enticement for political immorality.79 267

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This tirade was followed by a motion rejecting the cabinet’s conduct regarding the departure of the minister and his appointment as governorgeneral. The motion was approved in the House by a large majority. Van Zuylen saw it as a vote of no confidence in his entire cabinet. Against all expectations, the ministers decided not to submit their resignations. Instead, they advised the king to disband the Lower House and call new elections. And so it happened. According to Van Zuylen, by trying to block the appointment of the governor-general, the House had violated the royal prerogative and thus broken the rules. ‘Where would it lead, if the legislative power could encroach upon the powers of the executive in such a way?’ he asked.80 Conversely, many members of parliament, and not only from the liberal camp, were of the opinion that the cabinet had gone too far by asking the king to disband the House, especially now that there were covert calls from the palace to vote conservative. The critical representatives received the support of professors of constitutional law. The conservatives found themselves divided: the anti-revolutionaries, long dissatisfied with the limited opportunities for Orthodox-Protestant education, backed Keuchenius. Their political leader Groen van Prinsterer noted pointedly, ‘The House, including where the King decides alone, is fully authorised to judge.’81 This was to become the political rule some years after the clash surrounding minister and governor-general Mijer, but not until the king – following the Luxembourg question, of which more below – disbanded the Lower House for a second time in January 1868. While Van Zuylen could congratulate himself for averting a war with Prussia over Luxem­ bourg, the Lower House was exceptionally critical of the interna­tional obligation that the neutral Netherlands had committed itself to as the crisis unfurled: to protect the territory of Luxembourg. Parliament twice rejected the budget of Van Zuylen’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The government resigned, but the king refused to accept the ministers’ resig­ nations and decided to disband the House for the second time. The elections resulted in hardly any political changes; the conservative cabinet remained in office for almost six months. But the new parliament demanded clarity. Thorbecke, about whom the king had sneered that he ‘was over the hill’, did not miss the opportunity to give king, cabinet and conservatives a sound lecture. Once again, he explained to them the core of his own constitution: ‘The unlimited responsibility of the Ministers, behind which, whatever happens, the King remains unscathed.’ During an interpellation, he told the government, ‘The 268

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Ministers bear responsibility for disbanding the House, just as we have the right to judge that act as an act by the Ministers.’82 What would remain of the 1848 constitutional system if, every time a government proposal was rejected, the House was disbanded? This would be the significance for constitutional law of the double crisis surrounding the appointment of the governor-general and the Luxembourg question: without a positive decision being taken to that effect – the Keuchenius motion could not be seen as such – it was no longer sufficient for a cabinet to enjoy the trust of the crown if it did not have that of parliament.83 The constitutional malaise that the conservative cabinet had created, together with the king, marked the start of a period in which the political centre of gravity moved towards the Lower House of parliament, the members of which were as yet barely aligned with any political party or ideological programme. It was to primarily these representatives that the government was accountable. In this way, parliament and cabinet formed the ‘efficient’ part of the constitutional state, while the monarchy would henceforth embody its ‘dignified’ part. That was at least the ideal for a new generation of liberals. At the end of the nineteenth century, however, extension of the franchise and the advent of mass political parties with a distinct ideological persuasion would replace this division of powers with a new form of praxis – again with consequences for the head of state.84

Grand Duke between France and Germany: The Luxembourg question The disbanding of parliament by the king thus led to the making of constitutional law. And yet, especially during the Luxembourg question in 1866 and 1867, the relevance of William iii’s actions extended beyond political praxis. The crisis surrounding the Grand Duchy, tied to the Netherlands through a personal union, shows how difficult it was to keep the duties of the king of the Netherlands and of the Grand Duke of Luxembourg separate. It also showed the extent to which the powerpolitical selfishness of the great powers and the ideal of the integrated nation state had come to dominate European relations – at the expense of international cooperation, of the dynastic network, of imperial and federative states, and of the smaller countries.85 Despite remaining neutral, the Netherlands did not escape these changes. In 1856, after a revision of the Luxembourg constitution insisted 269

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upon by the German Confederation, Thorbecke was forced to conclude with alarm that the affairs of the Grand Duchy fell beyond the competence of the Dutch parliament, perhaps even of the Dutch cabinet.86 A decade later, however, Van Zuylen was to discover that his cabinet could not afford to remain at a distance where Luxembourg was concerned. The main causes of the crisis were first ministerial responsibility, no matter how that was interpreted, for the inviolable king, who was also Grand Duke of Luxembourg and, second, the position of the Grand Duchy between France and Prussia, or rather between Napoleon iii’s Second Empire and a Germany that, under the leadership of Prussia and Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck, was on the way to becoming the most powerful state on the continent. Many factors came together in the Luxembourg question, above all the ambitions to power of an emergent Prussia and a declining France. Since the Crimean War, Napoleon iii had wanted to become the arbitrator of Europe, but from 1870 it was Bismarck who fulfilled that role.87 Three short wars, all won by the Prussians, made the new balance of power clear: in 1864 Prussia and Austria defeated Denmark in the battle for control of Schleswig-Holstein, in 1866 Prussia triumphed over Austria for primacy within the German Confederation (which was disbanded after the conflict), and in 1870 the North German Confederation, set up and dominated by Prussia, defeated France. Napoleon iii was taken prisoner and the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine by what was from 1871 the German Empire would sour international relations across Europe. The Paris Commune, set up following the French defeat, proved that the revolution was far from dead. Each of these conflicts contained a lesson for the Netherlands and its king. The fear of Prussia that had held the Ministries of War and of Foreign Affairs in its grip since the mid-1850s thus proved completely justified. The surging power of the greater nations in Europe cast doubt on the very survival of the small Netherlands with its weak king. As both a province of a sovereign state and a member of the German Confederation, Limburg had the same ambivalent status within the Netherlands as Holstein had within Denmark until 1864, and there was a very real possibility that it would fall prey to aggressive German nationalism.88 During the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 Limburg – and thus the Netherlands – was in danger of being dragged into the conflict. The same applied to Luxembourg, also a member of the German Confederation. Vienna had called for a general mobilization of the 270

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Confederation army to fight against Prussia. While The Hague was exploring its options for not taking part in the war, the Prussian army crushed the Austrians.89 The disbanding of the German Confederation in 1866 marked the end of Limburg’s exceptional constitutional status. The now independent Grand Duchy of Luxembourg retained its personal union with the Netherlands. That was still the case in 1870, when it seemed for a short time that the French and German armies would meet on the battlefield in the neutral Grand Duchy, the territorial integrity of which had been guaranteed for the preceding two years by the equally neutral Netherlands. That was after all the outcome of the highly complex power game surrounding the mini-state in 1866 and 1867. The Netherlands was irrevocably involved in the question, because of the king’s position as Grand Duke, the close relations between William iii and Napoleon iii, and Bismarck’s diplomatic bluffing. William iii had proved susceptible to the power-political mischief cooked up in Paris at an early stage. Like all French rulers since Waterloo, Napoleon iii had set his sights on revising the peace agreement of the Congress of Vienna.90 In 1862, during a tête-à-tête with William iii, he proposed the possibility of expanding the Netherlands with Flanders and German East Friesland, while France would annex the Rhineland.91 The emperor dressed his ambitious geopolitical vision in compliments, declaring that ‘he placed our king above most of the sovereigns he came

Barricades in Paris. The revolutionary Commune ruled in the city from 18 March to 28 May 1871, when it was bloodily defeated. Photographer unknown.

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into contact with.’92 William iii indeed got on very well with the French emperor and his wife. In an instance of rare unanimity, this applied equally to Sophie, who was related to the Bonapartes through her aunt Catharina of Württemberg, who was married to Jerôme Bonaparte, an uncle of Napoleon iii. Catharina had taken her niece under her wing after the premature death of her mother.93 More generally, the Dutch king and queen shared a love of all things French and an aversion to anything to do with Prussia. Sophie’s Southern German homeland of Württemberg had great difficulty in resisting the pressure from Prussia.94 The king appeared to have inherited his anti-Prussian sentiments from his grandfather but, while for William i the rivalry between the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and Prussia had been a matter of which state was the most powerful, as king of the small Netherlands, William iii seemed to have generalized that dislike to an all-embracing aversion. ‘He hates Prussia,’ Van Zuylen confided to the French ambassador during the Luxembourg crisis.95 For William iii, all the good things in life were French – wine, language and music, not to mention actresses, sopranos and mistresses; most attractive of all were women who cultivated these qualities simultaneously. William iii’s desire for a Parisian woman – not French but American, and not a soprano but a violinist – was also a factor in the Luxembourg crisis. The Austrian defeat of 1866 had made Napoleon iii nervous. He sought ways of protecting France against the growing power of Prussia, one of which was to annex the Saar region and the Rhineland, preferably including Mainz. And it would be even better if he could add Luxembourg to the list.96 With some effort, the French emperor persuaded William iii to sell the Grand Duchy, as a favour between friends. The king’s hesitation was caused by power-political considerations: how would Prussia, which had a garrison in Luxembourg since 1814, respond? Favourably for Napoleon iii, no one could accuse William iii of taking any interest in the Grand Duchy, ruled over by his brother Henry as stadholder, other than his habit of lavishly awarding the Order of the Oak Crown, a Luxembourg honour that the king was allowed to bestow in the Nether­ lands without prior ministerial approval. Napoleon iii and William iii reached an agreement: Paris could have the Grand Duchy for five million guilders and, in return, France would protect the Netherlands against Prussia. But the agreement would never be signed.97 Bismarck, who seemed to have secretly approved the Franco-Dutch plan, now publicly turned 272

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against the transfer of Luxembourg; suddenly German national honour and Prussia’s vital interests were at stake. If the sale went ahead, Prussia would declare war on the Netherlands. Paris, too, responded in forceful language. The French ambassador told Van Zuylen that ‘a refusal by His Majesty, who had given the Emperor his word, would irrevocably lead to war.’98 Thus was the Netherlands under threat from war with both Prussia and France – states which, parallel to the Franco-Dutch negotiations on the Grand Duchy, had discussed annexation plans at the expense of both Belgium and the Netherlands: if France could have Wallonia, Prussia could incorporate Luxembourg and Limburg in the North German Confederation.99 It did not come to war, at least not for the Netherlands. William iii remained Grand Duke of Luxembourg, and the Netherlands was still beholden to protect the Grand Duchy. Van Zuylen himself was proud of the outcome, but parliament felt differently about the matter, as the constitutional consequences described above show. The question that remained unanswered was what had motivated William iii. Did he want to get rid of Luxembourg, because it continually brought him into confrontation with Prussia? Or was he more concerned with the financial benefits, the five million guilders he would get for the sale? And if so, what did he need this gigantic sum of money for? Rumour abounded at the courts of Europe. According to an insider, the British queen, Victoria, ‘was very angry at the Dutch king for causing this perilous situation, purely to acquire money to pay off his debts’.100 Her rebuke added fuel to stories doing the rounds that William iii was having an affair with one Madame Musard, an American violinist who was causing a stir in Paris, more for her appearance than her musical abilities.101 Her husband, Queen Sophie complained in 1864, spent ‘enormous sums of money’ on this ‘bad woman’. She claimed that the courtesan had wheedled millions from her ‘generous royal friend’.102 And indeed, William iii had got himself into debt for the violinist. The French secret service and thus Napoleon iii were also aware of the facts, and the emperor had not shied away from making use of Madame Musard’s services during the negotiations on Luxembourg. The Luxembourg press had even reported on the matter.103 Looking back on the question, one French politician wrote: When the king did not come to a decision, a solution was sought in less edifying means: in Paris there was a certain woman who 273

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New map of Europe 1870, printed by Emrik & Binger.

had a considerable influence on him; her interest in the affair was aroused, and she succeeded where diplomacy had failed.104 In short, foolish infatuation with a demimondaine who brought him into financial difficulties, almost blind admiration for the French emperor, a fundamental anti-Prussian attitude and childish naivety in the terrain of international politics: William iii had exposed his subjects, not only in Luxembourg but in the Netherlands, to the threat of war in a completely irresponsible way.

Colonial reputations: East and West Unlike with Luxembourg, preventing armed struggle in the East Indian colonies was not one of the cabinet’s goals. Throughout the nineteenth century, the growing Dutch presence caused minor and more serious conflicts in the archipelago, resulting in chaotic and improvised expansion. After 1870, halfway through William iii’s reign, a sudden increase in rivalry between Western nations for overseas territories led to an urgent desire to bring the East Indies under effective colonial rule. This period of conquest would reach completion shortly before the First World War, during the reign of Queen Wilhelmina.105 It was under Wilhelmina, not 274

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William iii, that the Netherlands evolved into an ‘imperial monarchy’, comparable to how this had occurred to a much greater extent from the mid-1870s in Britain under Queen Victoria and how the German emperor Wilhelm ii had attempted to pursue his theatrical but high-risk Weltpolitik after 1890.106 Just as the ‘Empress of India’ welcomed troops ‘of every colour, every continent, every race, and every speech’ at the celebration of her diamond jubilee in 1897 in London, the colonies, race and the civilizing mission increasingly dominated discourse in the Netherlands in the years following William iii’s death.107 This was most evident during the festivities surrounding the rapid conquest of Lombok in 1894, the Boer War (1899–1902) between the Afrikaners – whom the Dutch considered kin – and British imperialists, who were indignantly criticized for committing atrocities, and, more than forty years after the start of the conflict, during the celebration of the ‘pacification of Aceh’ in 1904. Wilhelmina was the focal point of all joy and concern.108 Because the expansion of Dutch authority in the East Indies took place in a region whose borders were specified in treaties between Western states, Dutch historians persisted in claiming until many years after decolonization that the Netherlands had not engaged in imperialism. They saw imperialism as an activity engaged in by the major powers, mainly in Africa and leading to extreme violence and the rape of the international legal order. For them, the ‘pacification of the Outer Islands’ of the Dutch East Indies – which from 1898 concluded with a standard ‘Short Declaration’, in which the indigenous ruler subjected himself to Dutch dominion and pledged loyalty to the queen of the Netherlands, the ‘Maharajah Blanda’ and the governor-general – was of a completely different order. Thus the Netherlands became the third largest colonial power after Britain and France in terms of the size of its overseas territories, supposedly without having committed the sin of imperialism.109 Recent studies show, however, that the expansion of Dutch authority followed the general pattern of modern imperialism. Everywhere, incidental expansion induced by local events escalated from fear of being pre-empted by Western rivals.110 For the Netherlands and for the Dutch East Indies, the Aceh War was the turning point. In March 1873 the Netherlands had declared war on Aceh, then an independent sultanate in the north of Sumatra. That marked the start of a conflict that would last far longer than the Java War, which had ended in 1830. The national government and the colonial administration had two motives for declaring war: to put a stop to Acehnese piracy and to 275

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curtail the activities of Western competitors Italy and the United States. This imperialistic rivalry had been aroused by the 1871 Anglo-Dutch Treaty, under which the Netherlands gave up its last settlements in Africa – much to the sorrow of the ‘the negroes’ who, according to the Javabode, would have preferred to remain forever ‘the children of the Dutch King’.111 In exchange, the Netherlands was given a free hand to control Sumatra, with the renewed obligation to protect merchant shipping through the Strait of Malacca. Portraying Aceh as a ‘pirates’ nest’ provided the Netherlands with a good pretext to invade the sultanate.112 If the invasion was successful, the whole of Sumatra could be made accessible for free enterprise, tobacco cultivation, mining and, later, oil production – activities that shifted the economic centre of gravity in the colony from Java to Sumatra.113 The campaign did succeed, but only after a gruesome and protracted struggle. After a first disastrous offensive, the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army was to be entangled in the conflict for four decades. William iii’s attention to Aceh soon dissipated; his interest in the colonies was limited solely to his royal prerogative: making appointments and enjoying the associated revenues. Three years before the start of the Aceh War, another colonial question was finally settled: whether and, if so, under what conditions the Culture System should be abolished. Dutch politicians had been squabbling about the issue ever since the publication in 1860 of the novel Max Havelaar; or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company had drawn public and political attention to the excesses of colonial administration in the East Indies. Multatuli, pseudonym of former assistant resident Eduard Douwes Dekker, had dedicated his book – an impassioned indictment not of the colonial dominion of Java as such but of the abuses the government permitted by not applying its own rules – to none other than King William iii.114 ‘Yes, I, Multatuli, “who have suffered much” – I take the pen,’ he wrote in an epilogue that left behind the illusion of the novel, concluding: For it is to Thee I dedicate my book: William the Third, King, Grand Duke, Prince . . . more than Prince, Grand Duke and King . . . emperor of the magnificent empire of insulind, which winds about the equator like a garland of emeralds! . . . I ask Thee if it be thine Imperial will that . . . thy more than Thirty millions of subjects far away should be ill-treated and should suffer extortion in thy name?115

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‘I want to be read . . .Yes, I will be read,’ Multatuli wrote at the beginning of his closing indictment. And his Max Havelaar was read, perhaps not by the king, but certainly by others. In the words of liberal member of parliament Wolter Robert van Hoëvell, the book had ‘sent a certain shiver throughout the country’.116 As late as 1868, a colleague in the Upper House declared that reading the book had made him aware that he had ‘no understanding at all of the colonies’.117 Parliament demanded details, on colonial administration, on the Culture System and the Dutch Trading Company, on the scarcity of land for Javanese farmers to grow their crops because more land than had been agreed was being used for ‘forced cultivation’, and on the shady allocation of sugar contracts to ‘favourites’ in government and at court.118 That the Dutch Trading Company was a state-run corporation was also a thorn in the side of the liberal proponents of free enterprise. The Culture System introduced under William i had made Java into such a profitable colony that it would be no easy task to abolish it. Multatuli may have declared with great indignation that the Netherlands’ ‘colonial profit is a tree which has its roots in a swamp of injustice!’ – Dutch prosperity was founded on ‘theft’ – but for many others, that same profit was ‘the cork on which the Netherlands floats’.119 While the publication of Max Havelaar fuelled the discussion about abolition of the Culture System, an English lawyer cited the exploitation of Java as an example to the British authorities in India. In 1861, four years after the Sepoy Mutiny – a revolt of Indian troops that led to the abolition of the British East India Company and the proclamation of the British Raj – James Money published his Java; or, How to Manage a Colony. Showing a Practical Solution of the Questions Now Affecting British India. According to Money, William i had been inspired by providence itself when he sent Johannes van den Bosch to Java to establish the Culture System. He had even dedicated his book to ‘the memory of that great statesman General Johannes van den Bosch, governor-general and commissary-general of the Dutch East Indies from 1830 to 1834, author of the Java Culture System, the results of which are described in the following pages’. Never had the measures of ‘any statesman . . . produced larger results for the good of his country, and for the welfare of the people under his rule’.120 The British showed no interest in Money’s book, but it caught the attention of Leopold ii, who would become king of the Belgians in 1865. Leopold would find his own Java in Africa: the Congo Free State, a private enterprise that received international recognition in 1885. 277

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Only forced labour, Leopold ii had learned from Money’s analysis of the Culture System, could civilize and elevate the ‘indolent and corrupt peoples’ of Asia and Africa. Money’s advice would contribute to a colonial regime of unprecedented cruelty, even in the eyes of the other imperialist powers.121 The Culture System was abolished, though not without long hesitation. William iii was uneasy about it, as the Netherlands could not do without the colonial profits. When a new liberal minister of colonies was appointed in 1863, the king asked Thorbecke suspiciously whether the new minister intended to make any radical changes. The man in question, Isaäc Fransen van de Putte, had made his fortune in the Indies as a sugar contractor. He declared that he wanted ‘fairness and justice’ for the colony.122 In his view, it was wrong for parliament to conclude in

Soldiers of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army next to the bust of King William iii on the island of Banda.

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advance that the legal and social changes required on Java to achieve that constituted a ‘social revolution’, the more so because it had not protested earlier against the ‘revolution’ that had rendered the people of Java ‘subject to the interests of the Dutch national coffers’ – in other words, against the introduction of the Culture System.123 In 1870, under yet another minister, the process of phasing out the Culture System was finally set in motion. Legal guarantees were established for Javanese landowners and there was to be a transition period of twenty years, during which ‘government sugar’ and ‘free sugar’ could be cultivated side by side. The methods used by government to coerce the Javanese into ‘free labour’ fell into disuse, though they did not disappear in the coffee plantations of the Priangan highlands in West Java until after 1900.124 After 1870 Java was no longer the profitable colony for the Dutch state that it had been from 1830 under William i, William ii and William iii. While the government created space for free enterprise in the Indies, a new attitude to the population of the colony gradually emerged in the Netherlands. Multatuli had demanded attention for the fate of the Java­nese. Anti-revolutionary leader Abraham Kuyper formulated his ideas on custody of the colony by focusing not on ‘what does Java give us?’ but on ‘what does God want us to be for Java?’125 Another notion also became current: by exploiting the East Indies, the Netherlands had incurred a ‘debt of honour’ that had to be paid.126 From 1901 – Kuyper was by then prime minister – colonial policy in the East Indies was pursued under the flag of the ‘Ethical Policy’. It was the Dutch variant of Kipling’s ‘White Man’s Burden’.127 As mentioned above, William iii no longer showed any great interest in colonial politics. And yet he found himself at the centre of a scandal in 1882 when irregularities came to light relating to the granting of concessions for exploiting tin mines on Billiton, an island between Sumatra and Borneo. A parliamentary enquiry revealed that it was the king that would benefit the most from the deal between the colonial authorities and the Billiton Company. In that same year, 1882, William iii had inherited half of Billiton’s shares from his brother Henry, who had died three years previously. They were literally worth millions. The fact that the king had not been involved in the dubious granting of the concession and that he had sold the shares as soon as he had received them did nothing to dispel the impression that the court, the cabinet and the colonial administration played fast and loose with contracts.128 279

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In the meantime, William iii had at least established his good name in the West. Slavery was abolished as of 1 July 1863. Suriname and the Antilles had to wait three years longer than the East Indies. This, too, had been an issue that government, king and country had grappled with for many years.129 Pressure was exerted by the Dutch Society for the Abolition of Slavery, which had close ties with the Protestant Réveil.130 England, where slavery had been abolished a quarter of a century earlier, also became involved. In 1859 the Committee of the British and Foreign Anti-slavery Society had complained indignantly to William iii that English slave traders were taking advantage of opportunities that still existed in the Dutch colonies. The committee’s thanks following the actual abolition of slavery in the Netherlands, as well as statements by the Dutch ambassador in England and the governor of Suriname, gave the impression that William iii had personally brought about, even insisted on, the decision.131 The latter was certainly not the case, though it is probable that the king, well acquainted with those in Réveil circles, was sympathetic towards abolition. The proclamation by Governor Reinhart van Lansberge to ‘the slave population of the colony of Suriname’ left no room for doubt, stating ‘It has pleased His Majesty our revered King to determine the day on which slavery will be abolished for all time in the colony of Suriname. On the First of July 1863 you shall be free!’132 A choir of freed slaves would sing to the king on that day: Gi Koning William bigi nem, En tjari tangi kom! Kom singi switi, prijze Hem, A doe wan bigi boen; A potti ala ningre fri, A poeloe wi na sjem. Da disi Koning Willem Drie, O Gado, blessi Hem! Grant King William great renown, Bring to him our thanks! Let us sing songs of praise, to honour Him, He has done a blessed deed; He has freed all negroes, He has released us from the shame. 280

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It is King William Three, O God, bless Him!133 William iii acted in the spirit of the times. The abolition of slavery in Suriname and the Antilles – although it would take another ten years to fully implement the decision – came two years before the end of slavery in the United States and two years after the abolition of serfdom in Russia. This last historical decision did not stop his cousin, Tsar Alexander ii (Alexander the Liberator), from violently suppressing the Polish uprising of 1863. ‘Alexander Nikolaevich, why did you not die that day?’ wrote Russian exile Alexander Herzen, referring to the decision to abolish serfdom in 1861. ‘You would have gone down in history as a hero.’134 William iii was not considered a hero in the West, but he had a better reputation there than in the East, even though his subjects in the East Indies allegedly revered him.135 On Banda Neira – the Moluccan spice island where in 1621 almost the whole population was murdered by the fourth governor-general of the Dutch East India Company, Jan Pieterszoon Coen – William iii stands on his pedestal to this day. The statue is a large bust, erected in 1874 to commemorate his silver jubilee as king of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg. The jubilee, as can be read on the rear of the pedestal, was ‘celebrated on this square by the people of Banda’.136

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The royal family, probably in 1851. Standing next to William iii is his son Wiwill, and in the cradle next to Sophie is Alexander. Their deceased son, Maurice, looks on (above right). Reinier Craeyvanger, Familieportret van Willem iii, koning der Nederlanden, Sophie van Württemberg en twee zoons, 1851–71, lithograph.

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A Family on the Throne, 1849–90 King and people in a modern country William iii’s silver jubilee was also celebrated on a grand scale in the Netherlands, complete with flags, recitals, folk dancing and patriotic singing. Amsterdam was the focal point of the festivities; the king and queen attended the celebrations together – a rare occurrence – but purely for appearance’s sake. William iii himself wanted his 25th anniversary to pass by unnoticed. When William i had been on the throne for 25 years, he told his ministers, nothing had happened, and ‘he was not fit to stand in his grandfather’s shadow.’ This false humility disguised the real reason for his reluctance: after so many years on the throne, he hoped for his income to be increased. There was no majority in favour in parliament but, because the cabinet had explored the possibilities for a royal pay rise, the king agreed to the festivities in the capital.1 Amsterdam, which had gathered together sufficient funds at the last minute, got value for its money. The public not only cheered William iii and Sophie but welcomed Tsar Alexander ii, who had stopped off on his way to England to congratulate his cousin on his jubilee. The only disappointment on jubilee day, 12 May 1874, was the weather: it rained.2 At the end of the celebrations, the king thanked his ‘dear compatriots’, praising their devotion to order and their love for the House of Orange: God has crowned our communal efforts with rich blessings. Has there ever been an era in the history of our country that can pride itself on more development, more progress, greater freedom in all directions, greater prosperity and growth than that on which we look back today?3 The question was rhetorical. Under his rule, the foundations had been laid for a new world and the new man.4 In September 1839, when 283

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William iii was not yet even Crown Prince, he and his new wife had made a return journey on the first railway line in the country, between Haarlem and Amsterdam. No one from the royal family, including his grandfather William i, had attended the opening of the 30-kilometre (18½ mi.) line a month earlier. Now, in the mid-1870s, the Dutch rail network covered all provinces. The system of waterways had also been extended and, with William i in mind, the family showed a keen interest. In fact, William iii had made the digging of more canals a condition for funding the rail network.5 In 1866 Wiwill stuck the first spade in the ground for the Nieuwe Waterweg, which was completed six years later, and in 1876 the king opened the North Sea Canal. These two canals connected Rotterdam and Amsterdam to the North Sea, assuring the future of both ports. Another gigantic hydraulic engineering project had been completed earlier: in 1852, after more than ten years of pumping the water out, the Haarlemmermeer became reclaimed land. Plans to drain the large lake to protect Amsterdam and other towns from flooding had been on the table since the seventeenth century, but came to fruition only after a decision by William i.6 It was not only infrastructure that was modernized. More progress was promoted through improvements in education, especially with the establishment of the Hogere Burgerschool (Higher Civic School) in 1863, with its practical curriculum of natural sciences, political economy and statistics. The hbs was another of Thorbecke’s achievements.7 His reforms also created the conditions for greater freedom for hitherto disadvantaged groups. After 1870 religious minorities were politically mobilized and there were growing calls for emancipation of the working class; orthodox Protestants and socialists in particular would not forget William iii in their struggle for equality.8 It was the beginning of a period of growth. From the last decade of his reign, greater prosperity would cautiously offer greater opportunities for leisure and luxuries such as fashion, sunbathing and commercial entertainment.9 This new world called for a new kind of king. Henceforth the nation would be in the driving seat. What remained of the power pyramid of monarchy, aristocracy and people – or, in the Netherlands, the always problematic hierarchy between the House of Orange, the elites and the masses – had to be removed from the public sphere; the main exception was the armed forces. At the same time, the ancien régime could continue to exist as theatre. As an invented tradition, a seemingly pre-revolutionary pageant, it would even thrive.10 The king, the royal family and the pomp 284

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and circumstance around the monarchy were presented as the property of the nation, which, despite all the differences between them, must be able to identify with the royal house. The press promoted this unification of people and king. With the exception of those of the socialist opposition, practically all newspapers – which, as the result of new production methods for paper and the abolition of stamp duty on the press, were quickly becoming cheaper and attracting more and more readers – devoted positive attention to the royal house, often with a daily royal section.11 The popularity of the Orange family rose considerably when William iii married Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont in 1879. His second wife was excellent at presenting herself in public. The national celebration of anniversaries like William iii’s silver jubilee also helped, as did the introduction of new feast days centred on the royal house. The most well-known example was Princess’s Day, the forerunner of Queen’s and King’s Day.12 This was all part of the monarchy’s ‘quest’ to become ‘closer to the people’.13 It was a quest that was by no means unique to the Netherlands; nor was it limited only to royal houses. Extremely successful and perhaps an example for the monarchs was the increased popularity of the Catholic Church among its common believers, with the prestige of the pope rising at the expense of the Church nobility of cardinals and bishops. Strengthening the support of the faithful was achieved not in the least by expanding the already considerable displays of ostentation within the Church and embracing popular devotions to the Virgin Mary and the Sacred Heart.14 For the pope and the monarchs in the more developed constitutional monarchies of Europe, the arsenal of what is known as ‘soft power’ – power that ‘attracts and co-opts as a means of persuasion or of shaping the preferences of others through appeal, but without resorting to coercion or the use of money’ – gradually became more and more important. While the monarchy in the west of Europe changed definitively from fundament to ornament of the state, this ‘soft power’, by giving meaning and purpose, emphasized its growing significance for the nation, and thus indirectly for the state.15 ‘Mystery’ and ‘magic’ were the terms Walter Bagehot used in 1867 to describe the influence of the British monarchy on society. Its secret was not in the last instance closely related to the cult around the ‘family on the throne’, and its role as an example to the broad middle classes.16 It was not a difficult observation for Bagehot to make: Victoria grew from the matron of the nation to become the ‘grandmother of Europe’, related as she was to practically all other royal families. Queens proved 285

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better suited to this delicate theatre than their male counterparts. They generally behaved better and, if they did occasionally go off the rails, their reputations were saved by the fact that the public at large could less easily imagine highly placed ladies misbehaving than prominent men.17 In the Netherlands, William iii’s rough manner – not to mention the dysfunctional family on the throne – put the magic around the monarchy severely to the test. Emma’s arrival would also change that. While the king was coarse, immoderate and eccentric, the egocentric and malicious Sophie made a hardly less pitiful impression on anyone who could see past her contrived sensitivity and intellectuality. The characters and lives of their children Wiwill and Alexander – Maurice died in 1850 – were equally incompatible with the demands of the new monarchy, not the least important of which was the appearance of living according to a strict bourgeois morality. ‘We must not let in daylight upon magic,’ Bagehot warned: the fairy tales surrounding the monarchy and the royal family could not suffer close inspection.18 But the opposition press did exactly that – and more; all in the awareness that behind the scenes everything was even more dramatic.

Arduous ceremony The people would never completely take the Orange family into their hearts. And, of course, it took time, just as time was needed to establish the constitutional limitations on the king’s powers. The political centre of gravity might have shifted towards parliament after the double crisis around minister of colonies Pieter Mijer and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg at the end of the 1860s, but William iii still had some influence – mostly when a conservative government was in office, as would happen on a number of occasions. The state system could not operate without the king, who appointed ministers, signed legislation and opened the parliamentary year with his speech from the throne. The latter was ceremonial, but it was a show with real impact. Since 1850 the head of state no longer had any influence at all on the content of the speeches from the throne. An early attempt by William iii to amend the text was blocked by the ministers, who informed him with irritation at the end of 1852 that the speech was not an ‘insignificant state document’.19 But after the king had given a newly appointed conser­vative prime minister permission to investigate the possibility of a change in the constitution in 1883 under the assumption that it would 286

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not affect the power of the government, he did interfere with the speech. Afraid that parliament would see an announced change in the constitution as carte blanche for all kinds of constitutional demands, he scrapped the passage referring to the change from the draft version. Instead, he read out a formula that would give him the freedom to reject any changes to the constitution. Although, much to the king’s displeasure, he was unable to stop the change in the constitution – in 1887 the franchise was extended, the number of seats in parliament was increased and the rules for succession to the throne were changed – he repeatedly succeeded in persuading the ministers to scrap passages on constitutional changes from the speech from the throne.20 It was unprecedented. In the final three years of his reign, he went a step further and refused to read the speech out at all. When it came to the unconstitutional performance of the king’s state duties, the ministers had front-row seats. They regularly found themselves faced with a monarch who refused to fulfil his duties, such as swearing in new members of parliament or approving appointments. At times, William iii seemed to completely turn his back on national politics. His involvement in affairs of state would then decline sharply. After 1870 they repeatedly had to send him state documents to be signed, to Het Loo or abroad. His subjects, too, obtained more than a glimpse of the aversion with which William iii performed his duties, for example at the opening of the World Exhibition in Amsterdam on 1 May 1883. The king was out of sorts, perhaps owing to the large number of Belgian and French delegates involved in organizing the event. One Frenchman at least was aware of the details of one of the king’s recent extramarital affairs.21 Whatever the reason, after the celebratory speech by the president of the organizing committee – ‘a bad speech’ according to the king – William iii refused to open the exhibition. He did walk through the various halls and inspected the 38 East Indian ‘natives’, displayed by ‘race’ and trade, in a replica of a kampong. This was one of the rare occasions when the king had direct contact with his subjects in the colonies.22 While Queen Emma benignly submitted to the enthusiasm of the public, William iii stared morosely ahead. Multatuli, who read a number of newspaper articles that did little to conceal the truth, noted that ‘the king once again apparently behaved like a buffalo at the “Opening”.’23 Two years later, at the ceremonial opening of the Rijksmuseum, again in Amsterdam, things went wrong again. Among those present were a min­­ i­ster, the city mayor and Princess Marie of Wied, a cousin of William iii. The king, one of the initiators of this temple of the arts – which was 287

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originally due to be called the King William i Museum – was conspicuous by his absence. The neo-Gothic, vaulted design of the building, created by Catholic architect Pierre Cuypers, apparently offended him. ‘I shall never set foot in that monastery,’ he had vowed. He had a different building in mind, preferably one designed by the architect who had earlier added a new art room to Het Loo palace.24 With a rare display of unanimity, orthodox and liberal Protestants shared the king’s dislike of the design, but Catholics were disappointed. Why this sudden anti-papist outburst? Had the king already forgotten the moving declarations of devotion by Catholic leaders during his silver jubilee in 1874?25 Those who had direct dealings with the king were no strangers to the obstinacy and dissatisfaction that he displayed here before the eyes of the nation. But the organizers and guests of the Seventh International Statistical Congress in September 1869 in The Hague, for example, were in for an unpleasant surprise. They had counted on an audience with the king, not least because statistics had become an indispensable element of government. William iii summoned them to Noordeinde Palace while the opening session was in progress, causing a break in the proceedings, but the delegation of learned scholars had hardly arrived when the king departed without having spoken a word to any of them. According to the minister of internal affairs, who had chaired the conference, the king ‘did not make a favourable impression on the delegates’. A day later, Wiwill did exactly the same as his father, causing the minister to sigh that the king and his son had ‘cast a dismal figure in the eyes of the visitors’. Sophie saved the family honour. At Huis ten Bosch, the queen spoke to the statisticians for an hour, asking them about their scientific work, each in their own language, and expressing her wish to visit some of the meetings at the conference.26 And so everyone played their roles to perfection. While the king and the prince clearly could not care less, the queen flattered herself that she had attracted the scholars’ interest.

Separate marital spaces After their private separation in 1855, the king and queen had as much as possible led their own lives. While William iii indulged himself in an eccentric gentleman’s lifestyle, Sophie created her own universe of art, science and fashionable modernism. The poète surrounded herself with exceptional individuals. She corresponded with French literator Ernest Renan and with Heinrich Schliemann, the discoverer of Troy, who had 288

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even sent her a number of antique terracotta figures.27 She struck up a friendship with John Lothrop Motley, the American historian who had used the Dutch Revolt as an example to his compatriots of the drive for freedom and progress. He seemed the perfect conversation partner for Sophie, who discussed the problems of the world with him and thanked him by becoming godmother to his second granddaughter. ‘The best compliment I can pay her,’ Motley confessed to his wife in 1858, ‘is that one quite forgets that she is a queen and only feels the presence of an intelligent and very attractive woman.’28 These were precisely the qualities that William iii did not, or certainly no longer, appreciated in his wife. Scientists, artists, poets – talent was always interesting to Sophie. She rarely received ‘normal’ subjects, partly because her command of Dutch was seriously lacking. She would sometimes meet visitors with dubious reputations, like American Bible-basher Robert Pearsall Smith, who caused a stir during the Brighton revival in 1875. Sophie had met him through the Réveil. The message that Pearsall Smith propagated at his meetings was to achieve ‘holiness’ through complete surrender to God and the Holy Spirit before the imminent end of days.29 There is no record of Sophie’s response to his unmasking; the charismatic preacher had sexually assaulted a female follower and had wasted no time in fleeing back to America.30 Spirituality, institutional or otherwise, held an intense fascination for the queen. When she visited Pope Pius ix in 1872, she was touched by the spiritual way in which the ‘prisoner of the Vatican’ endured the loss of his worldly power.31 Sophie had earlier sought comfort in spiritism, trying to seek contact with her second son Maurice, who had died in 1850 at the age of six. The heartrending death of the sickly boy signified the end to any normal married life together for the king and queen. When Maurice’s health deteriorated severely in May 1850, Sophie and William iii had quarrelled about which doctor should treat their son. Since the deaths of her brother-in-law Alexander in 1848 and her father-in-law William ii in 1849, the queen no longer trusted the court physician.32 Yet the latter had been right: Maurice had meningitis, not indigestion, as the doctor ignoramus consulted by Sophie had insisted. At first, William iii had let his wife have her way. ‘The Queen must do as she thinks fit, and will have to bear the consequences; I wash my hands of the whole matter,’ Wiwill’s governor De Casembroot heard him say. The tutor indignantly corrected his employer: ‘Sire . . . as the father, you must concern yourself with the matter. If the child dies, you will be equally responsible.’33 289

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William iii intervened and sent the quack packing, but it was too late to save the boy. He died on 4 June. That heralded the start of Act ii, with Sophie in the leading role. De Casembroot, who had become severely agitated by the way in which the queen had involved Wiwill in his little brother’s death, once again witnessed the developments at first hand: The queen, who had lived in great acrimony with the king since the death of the child, now played out a comedy that disgusted me, I who would otherwise have felt great pity for her; she would embrace the king, kiss him on the heart, and all in such theatrical fashion that all sympathy for her dissipated immediately.34 Sophie would be consumed with remorse; it was she who had brought in the quack doctor to treat her sick son. In 1858 she sought solace with the Scottish American medium Daniel Douglas Home, who was touring around Europe and had been received at many a royal court.35 Four closed seances were held at Noordeinde Palace. ‘This has genuinely been one of the most exceptional experiences in my life,’ the queen confessed to Lady Malet. ‘I felt a hand tipping my finger; I saw a heavy golden bell moving alone from one person to another; I saw my handkerchief move alone and return with a knot.’ Home had passed on messages from spirits on the other side. ‘It is wonderful,’ Sophie concluded.36 The medium himself was more specific. During a seance in Maurice’s nursery, which had been left untouched since the boy’s death, he had ‘provided the grieving mother with conclusive evidence that her darling son was still with her’, that is to say, ‘after the change that we call death’.37 The desperation of a dejected mother, and a craving for everything and everyone who presented themselves to her as interesting or in whom she thought she might inspire admiration, explain the queen’s behaviour. The birth of Alexander in August 1851 could not dispel her sorrow over the death of Maurice. It was more the ultimate proof of devotion to dynastic duty, at least on Sophie’s part. The pregnancy had been ‘purgatory’. She was afraid that the king would ‘ill-use’ her, causing her to miscarry, and expressed her wish to die soon, writing, ‘if it were not for my Bible, I could believe myself forgotten by God and man.’38 There was no doubt about at least one effect of Sophie’s theatricals: they exacerbated the estrangement between her and her husband. The observations of Wiwill’s governor were on the mark: the queen’s conduct was painful and embarrassing, which is not to deny that it was 290

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impossible to live with a character like the king. William iii, too, was horror-stricken at Maurice’s death. ‘My poor child is dead!’ he wrote in June 1850, with an exceptional display of emotion that was both auth­entic and understandable.39 The arrival of Alexander a year later could not con­­ sole him. ‘Ugh, what an ugly boy!’ he exclaimed, to which the dry nurse replied, ‘Why,Your Majesty, he looks exactly like you!’40 William iii would continually make fun of the delicate and sickly Alexander. Sophie’s fears that her husband might ‘ill-use’ her were not unfounded. She had become acquainted with his ‘fits of rage’ before he had become king. Once he had stormed into her salon and had scratched her arm, neck and throat ‘without any quarrel’. ‘Only to see him with his wild face, and long hair, dishevelled, striding – it is not walking – was enough to make one sick,’ she wrote, clearly distressed.41 William iii suspected Sophie of forging a conspiracy against him, together with all the men with whom she had close contact and about whom the wildest rumours were doing the rounds: an army officer and valet, the British foreign minister Lord Clarendon and, much closer to home, old Prince Frederick. While her correspondence with the officer and the British politician is conspicuously untraceable, she wrote of Uncle Frederick that he had confessed his love to her, saying ‘I fear that I will always love you too much.’42 The king claimed that he had her comings and goings watched by spies. ‘Once I have her in my trap,’ De Casembroot quotes him as saying in early 1855, ‘then she has only to choose between a voluntary retreat or a trial; the moment has finally come when I must crush that woman! . . . She may as well order her coffin.’43 In contrast to Sophie’s exalted interest in all things obscure, William iii had an insatiable desire for earthly pleasures and vulgar entertainment. He was always enthusiastic about women, drink and the crude behaviour common in student guilds. As far as mistresses were concerned, he did not restrict himself to the singer he had made pregnant and for whom he had wanted to give up the throne in 1849 and the courtesan whom Paris had made use of during the Luxembourg crisis. The king’s ‘leporello’, his book of conquests, also included Albertine, Christine and Theodora, ladies-in-waiting to Sophie. In the years surrounding the death of the queen, a complete chapter would be added to the compilation, devoted to the French Algerian soprano Emilie Ambre.44 An aide-de-camp recalled that, in later years, William iii received ‘secret visits’ from ‘women of easy virtue from Paris, who dallied with him and pleased him for his money’.45 291

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The king was not the only member of the Orange family who permitted himself such liberties. His successor Wiwill also had a reputa­ tion to keep up. His habits were a mirror image of those of his father.While William iii had prostitutes sent to The Hague from Paris, Wiwill showed sufficient discretion to travel to the French capital himself where, together with the ‘playboy Prince of Wales Bertie’ – the later Edward vii of England – he would visit theatres and houses of ill repute in the company of expensive mistresses. The Prince of Orange became known there as ‘Prince Citron’. His favourite paramour was the grande horizontale Henriette Hauser, whose nickname was ‘Citron’. In 1877 Édouard Manet would immortalize the actress as Émile Zola’s Nana in her boudoir. Is the halfhidden gentleman in the top hat in Manet’s portrait the Prince of Orange himself?46 Licentious behaviour by male royals was widely accepted at court and by the wider public. Newspaper readers could not get enough of it.47 But even though it may not have felt that way to the kings and princes, they were not immune to the judgements of their equals and the public at large. When king of the Belgians Leopold ii – who, of all his counterparts, was perhaps the most guilty of what are aptly called ‘the indissoluble bonds of a common immorality that unite the aristocracy and the working class’ – attended the interment of Queen Victoria in 1901 accompanied by his mistress Caroline Lacroix, a Parisian prostitute of extremely humble origins who was almost fifty years his junior, the monarchs of Europe did not conceal their outrage.48 The crowned heads were only really inviolable in their palaces, where, if they felt the need, they would give their passions full rein at the expense of their inferiors. From boredom or an irrepressible need to humiliate others, they would abuse their power, unearned and not acquired through their efforts. It was a world where they could dish out verbal abuse with impunity and indulge in the kind of binge drinking and promiscuity today associated with initiation rituals among soldiers and students.49 One such scene occurred during a dinner at Het Loo in August 1852. The table guests were twelve-year-old Wiwill, his governor De Casembroot, the court physician, the head of the Military House, an aide-de-camp and Lieutenant-Colonel Huijbrecht de Haze Bomme. The disconcerted governor described the evening’s proceedings. The king had not drunk too much, as he had an upset stomach. ‘So what could explain his behaviour?’ the governor speculated. While William iii was encouraging his guests to eat as much as possible, De Haze Bomme had caught his attention. He announced that 292

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Édouard Manet, Nana, 1877, oil on canvas. The model for this portrait was Wiwill’s mistress, Henriette Hauser. The half-hidden figure is most probably the Prince of Orange.

the lieutenant-colonel needed a waistcoat and ordered his valet to fetch a pile of jackets from his own wardrobe. The king assessed the garments, saying, ‘No, these are too good. I must have the worst one.’ After choosing one, he told the valet to sew a few bells onto the waistcoat. He then ordered De Haze Bomme to put the waistcoat on. When the colonel protested, William went into a fury, shouting ‘Who gave you permission to question my actions, who do you think you are? I shall say and do what I wish!’ De Haze Bomme proceeded to put on the waistcoat, much to 293

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the pleasure of Wiwill and a lackey. The king, clearly intending to make fools of the entire company, then turned his attention to the court physician. But the doctor outsmarted his high-ranking patient, saying, ‘The waistcoat will not fit me, for I should wager that His Majesty is three fingers broader in the chest than I.’ This had the desired effect: On hearing the words ‘broad chest’, the king immediately stood up, removed his tailcoat and then his shirt, standing at the table with his entire upper body exposed down to below the navel . . . After, thus attired, stretching his arms to show his muscles and beating himself on the chest, etc., he suddenly ordered Wiwill also to bare his chest. The latter obeyed his father. And there they stood, king and successor, naked to the hips at the tables where we sat smoking our cigars, in the presence of servants!!! With alcohol not the excuse this time, the governor asked himself, ‘if he is not drunk when indulging in such scandalous behaviour, then what is he? I leave it to the reader to answer that question.’50 In the presence of Sophie, William iii did not dare to let himself go this far. Meals at which both were present would go off the rails for other reasons. An undated report by an aide-de-camp speaks volumes: Their majesties entered the salon where everyone was gathering, both with angry countenances, and did not speak to each other throughout dinner until the dessert, when they exchanged a few words, after which the Queen fell face down on her plate, making movements as though overcome by an attack of nerves. Everyone was confounded. At first, there was a deathly silence, broken only by the sound of Prince Henry calmly continuing to prick strawberries with his fork and eating them one by one. Eventually, the court physician stood up and asked the King for permission to attend to the Queen. The King replied in a furious voice ‘Do what you must do.’51 ‘So what could explain his behaviour?’ Only a primatologist would be able to answer the governor’s question conclusively.52

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Gentleman farmer and patron And yet there would be occasional civilized moments in this woeful chronicle of life at court. William iii could show genuine interest in such widely varied activities as agriculture and music. He shared his attention to the former and to forestry with his father and grandfather. For William i, agricultural innovation was part of his policy of promoting prosperity; he had already tried around 1800 to modernize farming in his Polish territories and in Fulda.53 After the secession of Belgium, William ii had focused his efforts on the production of fine wool, keeping enormous flocks of sheep on two farms in Brabant.54 William iii developed his agricultural activities at Het Loo, growing crops, engaging in forest management and breeding livestock and fish. Visitors were surprised by the knowledge he displayed in running his model farms. ‘He performs his tasks with the simple and kind-hearted amiability of a wealthy, well-bred landowner wishing to show visitors what for him is familiar, occupying himself while enjoying the outdoor life,’ noted minister Weitzel.55 Everything was done according to the latest innovations: sophisticated breeding and cross-fertilization programmes, tests with guano and other fertilizers. The company had all the most modern agricultural machinery.56 Sometimes things would go wrong, as a local farmer once made clear to the king in the presence of high-ranking guests. ‘Sire,’ he said, ‘those are splendid cattle and you probably had to pay a high price for them, but I have cattle that are much better and a lot less expensive, you can be sure of that, Sire!’ ‘What an oaf!’ whispered one of the illustrious guests, to which William iii answered, ‘That man tells me the truth! Would that everyone were so honest!’57 What is more, the farmer was right: not only was there much to be said about the quality of the king’s cattle but his rabbit and fish breeding programmes also left much to be desired. The results of the king’s agrarian experiments were shared with the farming community at an agricultural exhibition at Het Loo, through agricultural schools and through the Agricultural and Horticultural Associations.58 In 1854 William iii organized a conference of the secretaries and presidents of Dutch agricultural associations. Opening the conference, he stated: I wished to hold this conference, because I hope that it will lead to an exchange of ideas; to new knowledge and new relations; to 295

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the spreading of light; to the removal of the prejudices that exist among farmers in many regions; so that the foundations can perhaps be laid for a more lasting unity, a central association for agriculture, a union that will promote not only agriculture, but also the prosperity of our blessed and dear Fatherland.59 These words could have come from the lips of his enterprising grand­ father; William i would also have directly imposed the desired structure of unity on the agrarian sector. Now it took two years to set up the General Royal Agricultural Association, which would be disbanded again only seven years later. Such was the resistance to change among the existing agricultural organizations.60 The king was more effective in the field of forest management. He had the wild lands around Het Loo, the heather fields and the sand drifts of the Veluwe planted with Scots pine and North American Douglas fir, personally selected by himself, to prevent the sand flats from spreading.61 The forests were also used for the hunting parties organized from Het Loo, the falconry that Queen Sophie indulged in as a guilty pleasure and the more serious business of shooting hares and roe and red deer preferred by William iii, Wiwill and Alexander.62 The Aardhuis, the hunting lodge that William iii had built on top of a hill in the Veluwe in 1861, is a lasting memorial to their bloody pastime. Paintings of the king hunting decorate the walls of the hunting room, the furniture is made from antlers and, in a corner, guns stand at the ready. At Het Loo, the king also presented himself as a patron of the arts, in a somewhat similar way to Ludwig ii of Bavaria. Like the benefactor of Richard Wagner, he had a preference for music as a performing art, both vocal and instrumental. Furthermore, despite an unfortunate start with the sale of the art collection of William ii, the Orange family had a love of architecture and painting. William ii had been in deep debt when he died; to the tune of 4.5 million guilders, according to the calcu­ lations of the committee charged with settling the king’s estate at the end of 1849.63 ‘In this dire need’, Anna Pavlovna asked her brother Nicholas to accept the collection in settlement of a loan of 1 million guilders that the tsar had granted to the Orange family with the paintings as collateral.64 William iii’s brother and sister protested, saying that their father had valued the collection at 2 million guilders and that it would be better to hold a public auction. Prince Frederick supported the idea and announced that he would be prepared to take over the loan from the 296

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tsar. William iii refused to become involved. The sale generated much less than expected; William ii’s paintings disappeared into foreign palaces and museums for scarcely 800,000 guilders. To make matters worse, the family had acted too hastily: it soon became clear that there were substantial revenues that cancelled out much of the debt left by William ii.65 In the 1870s William iii gave the expressive arts a place in the new art room at Het Loo.66 He changed his grants policy and terminated his donations to the French Opera in The Hague, even though they had put four royal boxes at his disposal. This released 20,000 guilders that was reallocated to promote painting and performance music. A small group of young artists received grants, initially only men but later these ‘pensionnaires’ also included a number of women.67 The king gave more attention, though not more money, to music, especially talented pianists, violinists and singers. Here, unlike with the visual arts, women were given preference. One aide-de-camp understood why, saying, ‘The King assesses the ladies more on their beauty than on their talent.’68 Between 1874 and 1880 William iii even funded a music college in Brussels. He had never felt any animosity towards Belgium.69 His choice was mainly driven by the orientation towards French music in Brussels. In music, too, William iii adored everything that was French and loathed anything that came from Prussia or Germany; no matter how great the musical reputation of the latter land, for the king’s pensionnaires German sounds were taboo. At auditions at Het Loo, French music was the order of the day.70 When William iii discovered that composer and violin pedagogue Henryk Wieniawski had instructed a pupil to play a piece by Louis Spohr instead of the one by Henri Vieuxtemps stated in the concert programme – ‘he won’t hear the difference anyway,’ the teacher had said contemptuously – the king threatened to withdraw the pupil’s allowance.71 The king devoted the greatest attention to female singers. He had them dress in glittering costumes for their performances. ‘Nowhere, not even in the great opera of Paris, have I seen so much opulence and beauty,’ said one connoisseur. ‘Is the ear not favourably disposed if the eye is delighted?’72 Exceptional performances were crowned with ‘la médaille Malibran’, devised by William iii as a tribute to the ‘great and immortal artiste’ Maria Malibran-García, from whom the king claimed to have had his first singing lessons.73 The winners were selected by a jury that included Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski, as well as Ambroise Thomas and Franz Liszt. The contact with the piano virtuoso took place through 297

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Princess Sophie in Weimar, where Liszt had been Kapellmeister Extraordinaire for almost twenty years. The jury members also performed. Liszt and Wieniawski gave a memorable rendition, intermingled with their own compositions, of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata – German music – and, at the king’s request, passages from Gioacchino Rossini’s opera William Tell.74 Willem Kes, who later conducted the Concertgebouworkest but here turned the pages of the score, recalled the scene: It was fascinating to see how the musicians let their imaginations run free with the arrangement. It was fabulous. Liszt began with octaves, thirds, sixths, trills, whole cadences, until the piano almost started to reverberate. When he was finished, he nodded at Wieniawski, who had been standing the whole time waiting with his violin under his arm, and the violinist started with his chords, double stops, flageolets and his magnificent left-handed pizzicati. The king was so much in his element that, the following day, he sent for two of his protégés to play the same piece for him, which they did . . . to his great disappointment.75 Liszt visited Het Loo in 1875 and 1876. Shortly after his arrival, he wrote the following about the king: He is exceptionally well informed about music and art. The table conversation (no ladies present) was very lively, with piquant Parisian anecdotes from Ambroise Thomas . . . The first of the concerts will take place this evening, with His Majesty’s pensionnaires. The grants and concerts set an example that should be followed elsewhere. Few kings have sufficient taste to devote themselves to such noble pleasures.76 It was a token of appreciation from a reliable source. The only thing that Liszt found incomprehensible was the absence of women at the table.

What future for the dynasty? But concerns dominated. The family on the throne symbolized not only the continuity of the nation, but its unity: the past, present and future of the Netherlands forged into one big narrative of freedom and progress 298

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under the House of Orange. That narrative had to be kept alive or have life breathed into it through, for example, national celebrations on well-chosen days of commemoration. Monday 1 April 1872 was such a day. It was exactly three hundred years since the watergeuzen, Calvinist insurgents who raided coastal towns from the sea, had achieved the first success in the revolt against Spain by taking the town of Den Briel. William the Silent – patriarch of the House of Orange and father of the fatherland – had been the undisputed leader of the revolt.77 His descendant William iii was the focal point of all the celebrations. If the political elite had hoped that the nation would unite in gratitude around his throne, they were sorely disappointed. Orthodox Protestants and Catholics distanced themselves from the ‘liberal fanfare’, as Groen van Prinsterer called it.78 The former took offence at the ‘completely neutral’, ‘insufficiently Christian’ nature of the commemoration, while for the Catholics being three centuries on from Den Briel was nothing to celebrate: since then they had been second-class citizens.79 The national commemoration of the Dutch Revolt would continue to cause tension, with every tricentenary – the Relief of Leiden, the Pacification of Ghent, the assassination of William the Silent – giving rise to questions about the impartiality of the Orange family.80 And yet it was not difficult to present the House of Orange as the constant element in the nation’s past. Coincidence, discontinuity and discord disappeared behind rudimentary commemorative rhymes, a discourse of historical necessity and claims of being led by God. But, as the 1870s progressed, there was growing uncertainty among those concerned with the future of the fatherland and the royal house. Did the House of Orange have a future? Who would succeed the king when the time came? Both surviving sons of Sophie and William iii were completely unsuited to the political and representative duties of the head of state. For the time being at least, Wiwill seemed more concerned with earning the title of king of Parisian nightlife, while mummy’s boy Alexander preferred the life of a hermit. ‘Melancholic delusion’ was the diagnosis of minister Weitzel; from the age of sixteen, the young prince wore an iron corset to hold him upright.81 The king would also survive these two sons: Wiwill died in 1879 and Alexander in 1884. From 1880 Orange supporters in the Netherlands would place all their hopes on Princess Wilhelmina, the only child of William iii and his second wife Emma. For several generations, as stadholders and kings, the dynasty had been relatively successful in producing heirs, and the continuity of the House 299

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was threatened only from outside, by war and revolution. Now the danger came from within the bosom of the family. Wiwill and Alexander were not the only deaths in the family around 1880. Besides the brothers, Queen Sophie and Princes Frederick and Henry also died. Earlier, in 1865, a period of court mourning was held for Anna Pavlovna. While the country grieved, William iii did not seem overly upset by the death of his mother. Their relationship had been marked by estrangement, which he himself described as ‘evasiveness, that testified to a lack of goodwill towards the queen and my person’.82 He put his finger on the sensitive spot: the main cause of the all the discord was the incessant jealousy and animosity between his wife and his mother. From this perspective, Sophie’s account of Anna’s deathbed is fitting: I am sitting at a deathbed as I write. The Queen Mother is dying. That life of intense selfishness and malice is coming to an end. There is no trace of repentance. She remains egotistic to the last, no matter how terribly she suffers. It is horrible, because she has remained so self-centred to the end. I myself have been ill, but got up especially to come here.83 Anna died on 1 March in Buitenrust Palace in The Hague. Her body was not embalmed. Sophie wrote ‘The state of decomposition was soon indescribable, as during her illness she had persistently eaten and drunk to excess. According to awful Russian custom, I have to visit her every day. The stench is unbearable.’84 The court now counted one less impossible person, but that had little impact on Sophie’s mood. Her letters continued to be peppered with complaints. Prince Henry’s wife Amalia, who died in 1872, was ‘relatively soulless’. Henry himself, stadholder of Luxembourg and the only member of the family to have visited Suriname, the Antilles and the East Indies, was an ‘insipid, irritating nonentity’.85 Sophie was plagued by minor health problems for many years, including swamp fever, fatigue and coughing attacks. En route to the French Riviera to take a cure, she was carried through Paris in a litter.86 On William iii’s instructions, the court did not publicize her indispositions. He did not consider her worth the attention. Sophie saw through him. At the end of 1875, after recovering from a deep crisis, she wrote:

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Queen Sophie in 1865. Painting by Franz Xaver Winterhalter.

The king cannot forgive me for not dying, as he had expected me to. He never comes to me. Never asks how I am. When my last illness was at its worst, he sang and had someone play the piano very loudly below my bedroom.87 In 1877 Sophie failed to recover. At the beginning of June the family gathered in The Hague. Even Wiwill came; he had not been in the 301

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Netherlands since 1874. He reportedly greeted his father with the words, ‘I should warn Your Majesty that my mother is dying,’ to which the king allegedly replied, ‘That will be a great relief.’88 The parting of king and queen was without affection. Weitzel noted: The King found the Queen mortally weak and on the point of death . . . He stayed at her bedside no longer than a few minutes, retiring quickly to an adjoining room where Prince Frederick and his daughter Princess Marie of Wied were among those present. There, he began to speak of the Queen in such an inappropriate manner that Princess Marie got up and left the room, sobbing. He returned to Huis ten Bosch a number of times after that, but never visited his wife’s sickbed. Nor was he at the Queen’s bedside when she died.89 Sophie died at Huis ten Bosch on 3 June. She, too, was interred in Delft. As the family descended into the crypt, William iii remained standing in the church.90 In June 1879 it was the turn of Wiwill. His death was big news, at least in Paris. Le Figaro of 12 June described what ‘Prince Citron’ had meant for the city: With the Prince of Orange, Paris loses one of its most remarkable characters. It is not every day that we see a naturalized high-ranking individual who feels so at home in the city that he prefers an iron chair on the terrace at Bignon to the pleasure grounds of his fatherland. The prince had indeed become one of the most Parisian figures to grace the streets of the city in the past twenty years; he spoke perfect French, even the dialect of Paris. Nothing betrayed his foreign origins. The paper would report on Wiwill for weeks. But while the beau monde lamented the vacuum he had left behind him, the Parisian police felt that a burden had been lifted from their shoulders. They had kept a close eye on his activities for many years.91 Officers watching his house recorded how it had become a meeting place for Bonapartists and other non-valeurs. This was, after all, the Third Republic. They also recognized dubious moneylenders – Wiwill’s extravagant lifestyle, with expensive prostitutes, gambling and visits to the theatre, caused him to run up enormous debts, 302

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perhaps as much as 6 million francs. The prince himself was also alleged to engage in shady financial practices. Everything fitted the profile of a flamboyant bon vivant and troublemaker. Did he die of injuries sustained during a duel?92 Wiwill may have been celebrated in certain Parisian circles, but in the Netherlands, court and government had followed the heir to the throne with concern, not because of his way of life but because he neglected his prime dynastic duty to marry a princess to bear him children. Sophie had long hoped for a marriage between Wiwill and Princess Alice, a daughter of Queen Victoria; William iii had suggested his Russian great-niece Maria Alexandrovna.93 Each parent blamed the other for Wiwill’s failure to perform his duty. According to Sophie, her son’s education – arranged ‘at a distance from her’ by a ‘thoroughly bad father’ – had ‘aroused egotism in him’. For his part, the king attributed Wiwill’s recalcitrance to the ‘whisperings of his mother’, that ‘infamous creature’.94 Yet Wiwill had not been completely insensitive to the interests of ‘People and Dynasty’. In 1874 he himself proposed a marriage candidate, Anna Mathilda van Limburg Stirum. But that made everything even more complicated, as she was a Dutch countess and not of royal blood.95 Sophie put her objections to one side, but William iii continued to oppose the match vehemently. Wiwill refused to budge, saying, ‘It is I who has to live with the future Princess of Orange, and I shall be the first to make that Choice, as my life’s happiness depends on it.’96 This was undoubtedly revenge for the marital war that his parents had imposed upon him. Fearing notification from the government that, in the absence of heirs to the throne in the direct line of succession, the descendants of Princess Sophie, Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, would have to save the Dutch monarchy, William iii sent Alexander to Paris with orders to win back his brother for fatherland and dynasty. But it was to no avail. The question that the cabinet had described as follows, in 1872 or 1873, remained unsolved: If we look at the House, we see: that the Prince of Orange has already reached the age of 32 and continues to show no interest in marriage, that the King’s second and youngest son is a weak boy on whom we cannot found our hopes of continuation of the line; that the King’s only brother is a widower and childless, and that the King’s elderly and only uncle has no sons.97 303

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The king’s only brother died at the beginning of 1879, five month’s before Wiwill. In an attempt to assure the House of Orange a male heir, 58-year-old Henry had married 23-year-old Marie of Prussia in 1878, but their mission had failed.98 Elderly Uncle Frederick died in September 1881. Alexander, the weak boy with no hope of producing offspring, died of typhoid in June 1884. None of this seemed to affect William iii. His troubles, and those of the fatherland, had been relieved by the arrival of Emma and Wilhelmina.

An exemplary family Emma was not the first potential marriage candidate that William iii had in mind after Sophie’s death. Immediately after the queen had been interred, he had hopes of turning his year-long liaison with Emilie Ambre into a permanent union. He left for Switzerland, accompanied by the French-Algerian singer, whom he had in all haste endowed with the title comtesse d’Ambroise. They were planning to set up house in Meudon, near Paris. At Het Loo, furniture and works of art had already been prepared for transport to France. Newspaper reports caused consternation in government and at court. William iii threatened to abdicate.99 Was the country facing a repeat of the scandal surrounding William i and Henriette d’Oultremont? Or even worse? The reputation of the 28-year-old soprano with whom the widowed king appeared openly in public did not promise well. Weitzel said scornfully that she would have had ‘difficulty in stating with any accuracy the number of her former lovers’.100 With Prince Frederick’s help, the ministers managed to persuade William iii to abandon his plans to marry and move house. But he refused to break off his relationship with Ambre. He had a number of rooms fitted out for her at Noordeinde Palace – the chambers formerly occupied by Sophie.101 He also bought her a country house at Rijswijk. The name of the estate, Welgelegen, soon became synonymous with the decline in the king’s morals. William iii remained defiant until February 1878 but, on the 11th of the month, he wrote to his Uncle Frederick: ‘I take up my pen to inform you that all relations between La Ambre and myself have been severed.’102 He gave no reason, but it is likely that the diva, who would soon conquer the stages of Europe and America, had left him.103 Restoring the dignity of the House of Orange and the monarchy was to be Emma’s greatest accomplishment. Her historical significance, 304

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notwithstanding all their differences, recalled the achievements of Wilhelmina of Prussia, wife of stadholder William v and mother of King William i. While Wilhelmina did her utmost to help the House survive the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, Emma piloted the dynasty through the cultural changes that would make the monarchy part of a national popular culture sustained by the middle classes. Shortly after the departure of Emilie Ambre, William iii surprised all those around him by announcing that he wished to exchange his passé néfaste, his noxious past of rage and anger, for a future full of ‘friendliness and cordiality towards everyone’. With his grand master, the 61-year-old king discussed ‘his Wishes to finally experience the happiness of true affection and the domestic life that his heart had always desired’.104 To achieve that, he sought a spouse of royal calibre. Emma was the fourth candidate he had in mind. The first to be chosen was Princess Thyra of Denmark, the 24-year-old daughter of King Christian ix. Prince Frederick, William iii’s uncle and grandfather of Christian’s daughter-in-law Louise, presented the marriage proposal. The elegantly formulated rejection came as no surprise: William iii may have wanted to mend his ways, but for the time being, his reputation was still in tatters.105 Not discouraged, he turned his attention to the 28-year-old Mary of Hanover. Her almost-blind father, George v of Hanover, whose kingdom was annexed by Prussia after the 1866 war against Austria, nearly had a stroke. On his deathbed George, who had moved to France, refused to give his permission for the marriage. The princess herself was also overwrought at the thought of marrying the elderly Dutch king. After the death of her father in June 1878, William iii continued to insist, in the belief that ‘after all his friendly and courteous demonstrations of his condolences and sympathy, it was impossible for his proposal to be rejected (!!!)’. Mary pleaded with her mother to help. And with success: the widow vetoed the match.106 William iii now tried a different tack. At the beginning of July 1878 he went to Weimar, ostensibly to congratulate his sister Sophie’s husband on his silver jubilee as Grand Duke, but in reality to ask for the hand of his 24-year-old daughter. Sophie saw no obstacles to the marriage, but Princess Elisabeth was not prepared to sacrifice herself, saying ‘That man repulses me, everything in me turns me against him.’107 And yet, in August 1878, a little over a year after Queen Sophie’s death, William iii found his new wife: Princess Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont, just twenty years old. This distant cousin was related to the 305

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House of Nassau through both her mother and her father: her great-greatgrandmother was Caroline of Orange-Nassau, the sister of William v.108 Emma and her parents put aside the undeniable objections against marrying the Dutch king. Did the family politics of her parents, and especially of her mother, of tying the small royal house to more prominent dynasties prevail? Another daughter married into the British royal family, and a third into the Württembergs.109 Perhaps Emma weighed up the prospect of a good position in the Netherlands against what could be expected to be a limited number of years of fulfilling her marital duties. That is, assuming that Wiwill, Alexander and the king’s brother Henry – all of whom were still alive at the time of the marriage – did indeed fail to secure the dynastic succession. Emma never revealed whether she felt love for William iii – as he undoubtedly did for her, in his own way – either during their eleven-year marriage or during her 44 years as a widow.110 Whatever considerations she made, in December 1878, after William iii’s second visit to the German principality, the engagement was agreed. Obtaining permission for the marriage was no problem. The States General and the ministers were only too pleased that the wild adventure with Emilie Ambre had made way for a union with a respectable princess.111 They did complain that the king stayed in Germany for too long. There were laws and decrees to be signed, and a marriage contract to be drawn up.112 In the meantime, the public in the Netherlands responded with restrained enthusiasm to the news of the king’s engagement. Preacher and poet J.J.L. ten Kate anticipated good news regarding the succession, writing ‘Oranjestam blijf eeuwig wèl-bewaard!’ (House of Orange, be assured forever!).113 The republican scorn in Asmodée on 19 December 1878 was, however, somewhat more forceful: O, Emma, Emma mein. Was soll ich glücklich sein Mit meiner . . . in dein. (bis) O schenk ein bisschen ein. Oh, Emma, Emma mine. How happy I shall be With my . . . in thine. (encore) Oh pour a little in.

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Emma and William iii were married on 7 January 1879 at Arolsen, the Waldeck and Pyrmont residency. Written congratulations from the king’s sister Sophie, brother Henry and aunt Marianne had been received before the engagement was announced.114 Uncle Frederick had also sent his best wishes. Notable was the way in which he tried to reassure Emma’s father, whom he knew personally. He spoke of the ‘intimate relationship’ between himself and Queen Sophie, which had been strengthened by the ‘appalling setbacks and humiliation that the queen had been subjected to’. He then promised to do all he could to make Emma’s married life bearable.115 The responses of Wiwill and Alexander were equally interesting. The former said nothing at all to his father, but did inform his brother that he disapproved ‘most strongly’ of the marriage. 116 Alexander concealed the dutiful congratulations in a grievous letter written on black-edged notepaper. Though he promised to treat his father’s new wife with the required respect, he made it clear that he would ‘never be able to see her as a sec­­ond mother’ because of ‘her age’ – Emma was seven years his junior – but above all because he missed his ‘unforgettable Mother’. ‘No one can take her place in my bleeding heart,’ he wrote.117 To Alexander’s surprise, his father showed understanding for his reaction, writing, ‘We must say, my spouse-to-be and I, that this sentiment does credit to Your child’s heart.’118 Alexander closed his letter by ‘praying once more that this development, no matter how sad it makes me, will bring you greater happiness and salvation to the beloved Fatherland’.119 His prayer was answered. William iii thrived, thanks to Emma. And for the William iii and Emma in 1879, photographed majority of those of his subjects shortly after their wedding. 307

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A harmonious royal family, an example to all the people of the Netherlands: the figures of Emma, Wilhelmina and William iii, exhibited in the wax museum in Amsterdam in 1885.

who could imagine the Netherlands only as a monarchy, the king’s second marriage indeed brought salvation. Less than five years after the wedding, Henry, Wiwill and Alexander had all died childless. But Emma fulfilled her duties, giving birth to a daughter on 31 August 1880, surrounding the ageing king with care, and giving the monarchy new lustre by bringing people and royal house closer together.120 For the people, too, the monarchy now meant the family on the throne. In 1882 this image of the royal family was precisely displayed in lifelike figures of William iii, Emma and Wilhelmina in the Amsterdam wax museum. Though the king was dressed in uniform, the family was portrayed in an intensely bourgeois setting.121 Only a quibbler would note that the exemplary family was very small and that visitors to the exhibition had difficulty in resisting the impression that they were looking at not two, but three generations of the Orange dynasty.

National monarchy and radical criticism The far-reaching changes that took place in the relationship between government and people in Europe around 1900 are captured in the formula ‘The state permeates society and society permeates the state’.122 308

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Compulsory education and military service and the obligation to pay taxes were balanced with political and social rights, greater governmental control was offset by the emergence of party politics, and the state’s lead in information was counterbalanced by the development of independent newspapers and political magazines. Favourable presentation could make the demanding state acceptable, and the ruling dynasties were given a part to play in achieving that, in the Netherlands and its neighbouring monarchies. Yet the royal houses were more than simply instruments in the hands of governments. They too needed to engage in ‘image maintenance’, propaganda to justify the continuation of the monarchy to their subjects: a royal family might be expensive, but the country got a magnificent piece of theatre for its money.123 Within the House of Orange, Emma emerged as the star of this new, seemingly close monarchy. As a charming queen, a young mother and a caring wife, she embodied all the female virtues of the nation. The rapprochement of the monarchy towards the people was not only Emma’s work. As a stakeholder, the state also made a significant con­tribution. And the spirit of the times made it necessary to give the House of Orange new élan. Fearing disintegration of the nation as a consequence of the emancipation of Catholics, orthodox Protestants and socialist workers – groups that quickly organized themselves into their own associations, parties and congregations – the liberal elites in particular devoted themselves to strengthening national unity. Royal anniversaries and public holidays proved an excellent means of achieving that goal.124 The jewel in the crown would be Princess’s Day, a national holiday held on Wilhelmina’s birthday, 31 August. It was the outcome of several initiatives coming together. In 1885 the Utrechtsch Provinciaal en Stedelijk Dagblad proposed a national day of reconciliation to replace the commemorations of the major events of the Dutch Revolt, which were invariably divisive. Wilhelmina’s birthday was already celebrated in a number of places across the country. For the aptly named Association for the Promotion and Refinement of Popular Entertainment, it was to be an alternative for the rowdy and much criticized travelling funfairs.125 The turbulent year 1886 gave the plans an additional boost. The epicentre of the agitation was Amsterdam. After escalation of a religious conflict in the Reformed Church initiated in January by Abraham Kuyper’s orthodox zealots, there was continual unrest on Dam Square. Kuyper’s militant students gathered on the square outside the Nieuwe 309

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Kerk. In April, unable to enter the church, William iii and Emma even had to attend a normal service at the Oude Kerk.126 Shortly before the royal couple’s visit to the capital, radical socialist leader Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, known to his poverty-stricken supporters in Friesland as ‘Us Ferlosser’ (Our Saviour), had set his sights on the king. Under the heading ‘The king cometh’, he criticized both the slavish submissiveness of the press and the non-existent achievements of William iii. Domela was found guilty of lèse-majesté and sentenced to a year in prison, but his magazine Recht voor Allen (Rights for All) continued with business as usual. It published the following analysis of the working week of ‘Citizen William’: 15–22 May Work completed: ???? Wasted the nation’s money abroad, took a walk, went riding, dined, drank, slept, etc. Salary: ƒ20,000 at least, with free accommodation and appurtenances. Even more insulting was ‘The life of King William iii, the Great, describing all his significance for the People’. Below this title, readers saw only a blank page.127 July saw the Palingoproer, a popular uprising in the Jordaan district of Amsterdam which resulted in 26 deaths. The uprising and its subsequent repression were provoked by a ban on ‘palingtrekken’, a cruel form of popular sport in which players standing in a rowing boat tried to grab a live eel hanging from a rope above the canal.128 The Netherlands was certainly in need of a day of reconciliation. William iii’s seventieth birthday in February 1887 did not seem an appropriate moment, though it was widely celebrated. Half a year later followed the first national celebration of Wilhelmina’s birthday. Some years after the death of William iii, Emma initiated an intensive programme for her daughter, now the queen. Over a number of years, mother and daughter visited all the provinces – ‘it was very necessary,’ Wilhelmina recalled in 1959, ‘to show that we were still there.’ Wilhelmina’s investiture in 1898 in particular showed the positive way in which the renewed monarchy successfully united the elite and the masses.129 310

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William iii himself had often been the focal point of national celebrations, but more as an ‘unavoidable centre of attention’.130 Just how unavoidable the king was, and not only on feast days, was shown by a petition presented to him by the Catholic community at the end of 1870. Around the time of the restoration of the episcopal hierarchy in 1853, they were still having to deal with the king’s anti-papist whims – ‘un vero cosacco, uomo tirannico et perverso’ (a true Cossack, a tyrannical and perverse man), as one Dominican priest so graphically described him at the Roma Curia. The 1870 petition comprised 400,000 signatures protesting against the capture of Rome by Italian nationalists.131 Shortly before, in a clumsy attempt to leave no doubts about their loyalties, a group of Zouaves from Rotterdam leaving for the besieged Papal States had even chanted, ‘Long live the Holy Father! Long live the Zouaves! Long live King William iii!’132 A following wave of petitions led to criticism of the king, at least behind closed doors. In 1878 orthodox Protestants and Catholics protested against a liberal bill clearly designed to obstruct denominational education. Under the new legislation, the government would not fund faith-based education, but would monitor it. Very few issues could have mobilized both Catholics and Protestants more easily. Separately, religion and children already invoked strong emotions; now both motives came together.133 From the pulpit and through the newspapers, Kuyper and his supporters manipulated the ‘popular conscience’. His people’s petition was signed by 300,000 Protestants. The Catholics, who – with some delay – complied with the antiliberal course set up by Rome in the Syllabus of Errors of 1864, gathered no more than 160,000 signatures. William iii was presented with the petition at the beginning of August at Het Loo; its appeal to the king was ‘Sire, never place your Royal signature on such a bill.’134 But that was exactly what liberal minister Joannes Kappeyne van de Coppello had explicitly impressed upon the king – his duty to follow the majority in parliament. And so William iii signed the new education act. Kuyper responded bitterly, saying, ‘Now Orange, too, breaks with its past.’ One of his brothers-in-arms for the Calvinist cause wrote, ‘The House of Orange is distancing itself more and more from its patrimonial traditions. Our people [that is, the orthodox Protestants] will lose their love for Orange.’ As elsewhere in Europe, the struggle for education fostered the formation of denominational parties.135 Socialists did not organize themselves in the Netherlands until later. Although these self-confessed revolutionaries were seen as a threat, 311

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the response from the government was less vehement than in neighbouring countries. In Germany, after two attempts on the life of Emperor Wilhelm i in 1878, Bismarck pushed his anti-socialist laws through, banning all party activities.136 As Domela had already made clear, the Dutch socialists were radical and republican. Together with the army, the Church and the bourgeois class of large-scale entrepreneurs and bankers, the monarchy was part of the capitalist order and had therefore to be overthrown. Many attacks were carried out by left-wing groups. Across Europe, their revolutionary agitation attracted non-conformists, mostly apolitical Bohemians for whom the monarchy and the ridiculous pantomime surrounding it were an ideal target. They kicked against the royal shins, at times with humour and at others with bitterness and anger. A sensible king developed a thick skin. But not Emperor Wilhelm ii. He was furious when Berlin cabaret performers poked fun at him after the opening of the Siegesallee in 1901: his 32 forefathers, portrayed in marble on pedestals lining the opulent boulevard, inspired the song ‘Haltet euer Denkmäuler!’ (Shut your Monumouths!).137 In Belgium, Leopold ii was deluged with scorn. A good example is the etching by James Ensor Doctrinal Nourishment, which depicted the king, two members of the clergy, an army officer and a member of parliament defecating on the people, who are forced to eat their faeces. So far had the country sunk in 1889 in Ensor’s eyes.138 Nor did William iii escape the satirists. Asmodée parodied him in the adventures of ‘Willem Drieling’ (‘William Triplet’, a pun referring to the king being the third William in a row), but the most successful caricature was a pamphlet entitled Uit het leven van Koning Gorilla (From the Life of King Gorilla). The pamphlet, published in 1887 to mark his seventieth birthday, would permanently taint the memory of the king in the popular imagination. Koning Gorilla, written by socialist sympathizer and free-thinker Sicco Roorda van Eysinga but published anonymously, brought together what the wider public was already saying about William iii: truths and half-truths, embellished with fabrications and mudslinging. True were the references to his drinking, attacks of rage and insatiable sex­ ual appetite; fabricated was the ‘Prince Gorilla’ who murders his own father.139 The bumbling main character did not acquire his name by coincidence. The recently rediscovered primate had caught the public imagination throughout Europe. Satirical magazine Punch used the name ‘Mr. G. O’Rilla’ to refer to half the Irish, the other half being called 312

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The pamphlet by Sicco Roorda van Eysinga, tens of thousands of which must have been published.

‘Mr. O’Rangoutang’.140 Cursing, drunken and lecherous, ‘Koning Gorilla’ despised his subjects: they were ‘stupid oxen, riff raff and scum’. He himself was also described as a mandrill, a bull, a boar or a dog and, to remove any last doubts as to who was being referred to, ‘a real Russian, kicking and trampling on the workers’. Despite all the satire, the message was unadulteratedly revolutionary. While ‘all those who considered themselves “high” in the state’ bowed down to the ‘terrible Gorilla’, ‘only the 313

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working people’ tried to throw off the ‘yoke of slavery’. Victory beckoned: ‘freedom, equality, brotherhood!’141 Revolution came, but with a different outcome. Koning Gorilla attracted more attention than any other activity directed against the monarchy. The bourgeois press cried shame.142 On William iii’s birthday, Orange supporters from the Jordaan district of Amsterdam launched a counterattack. Singing ‘Hop, hop, hop, hang the socialists up!’, they threw bricks through the windows of bookshops selling the pamphlet. De Leeuw van Waterloo, a socialist beer-house on the Waterlooplein, was also destroyed. The Netherlands had not seen such pro-Orange fury since the repression of the Patriot Revolt in 1787, precisely a century earlier. The police looked on with approval.143 Repression would remain the response to lèse-majesté. A printer’s mate who enthusiastically welcomed the royal carriage by shouting ‘Long live Domela Nieuwenhuis! Long live socialism! Down with Gorilla!’ was sent to prison.144 But in the long term, the authorities lost the battle: William iii was to go down in Dutch history as ‘Koning Gorilla’.

The king is dead, long live the queen King William iii would be succeeded by Queen Wilhelmina. The country saw it coming from 1880 and, after the death of Prince Alexander in 1884, it was certain. Would a woman be able to perform such a difficult duty? Doubts were expressed immediately after Wilhelmina was born. The Leidsch Dagblad found solace in the constitution: a queen ‘might be less able to command an army and have less knowledge’, but since 1848 ‘sensitivity and tact’ were more important for a head of state, and were they not female qualities par excellence? Kuyper presented another objection: a girl could not ensure continuation of the ‘Orange line’; perhaps the king would have another son.145 Anarchists suggested in a satirical club magazine that William iii could not be Wilhelmina’s father. ‘Messing around with people of low repute’ had given him syphilis; Emma had been made pregnant by a private secretary.146 Given his extramarital activities, the king could easily have contracted a sexually transmitted disease – though syphilis does not cause impotence – but the rumours are not borne out by his medical records. William iii suffered from diabetes and a kidney problem, one of the symptoms of which was mental confusion, but there is no concrete evidence to prove that the old king had not sired his daughter.147 314

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After the death of Alexander, the masculine grumbling flared up again. According to law professor Johannes Buys, at a time when the country was falling prey to party politics and the government faced complex issues like the extension of the franchise, it would be a cause for concern for reflective citizens ‘that the helm of the state would shortly have to be entrusted to a woman’s hands for an unknown period of time’.148 Constitutionally, it was not an insurmountable problem. Though succession through the male line was customary, article 15 of the 1848 constitution stipulated that, ‘in the complete absence of a male heir’, the line of succession would pass to the ‘daughters of the King, observing the right of the first-born’. Solutions were found to the constitutional problems that did arise. One of them was article 198, which stated that ‘No change in the Constitution or in the succession may be made during a Regency.’ As both the government and the opposition wanted to revise the constitution and because it was very likely that the king would die before Wilhelmina reached the age of majority – which would result in a regency – this provision was changed so that it now read, ‘During a Regency, no change in the succession can be made.’149 There was no doubt as to who was to be regent: only Emma was eligible. Unclear objections from William iii were warded off, as were reservations among members of parliament who considered the regency too heavy a duty for a young mother with hardly any knowledge of the country or the constitution.150 All that remained was to invest Emma as regent under the law: that occurred the first time in April 1889, when she was also assigned custody over her daughter, and the second shortly before the death of William iii.With the immediate family now comprising only mother and daughter, the Orange dynasty did lose Luxembourg.The Salic system of succession in force in the Grand Duchy excluded women. Emma did, however, succeed in persuading William iii, who had long tried to preserve Luxembourg for his daughter, to appoint her half-uncle Adolf of Nassau as Grand Duke.151 The king’s death was preceded by a long period of suffering. In the winter of 1887–8 he became seriously ill. He was confused and listless. The court physician put it down to ‘kidney colic’.152 The king recovered, but little more came of consultation with the cabinet. The following winter, his situation worsened. The king became aggressive and would lose himself in incoherent monologues. He could no longer sign documents.153 And yet he recovered somewhat in the spring of 1889 and, much to the surprise of the organizing committee, he celebrated the fortieth anniversary of his reign on 12 May in seemingly good health. 315

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But he suffered another relapse and, after Wilhelmina’s birthday, it was clear that the end was near.154 In October parliament declared William iii unable to exercise the royal prerogative and on 14 November Emma was appointed regent. All that time, the general public could follow the state of the king’s health in the Staatscourant: when he slept well or badly, when he was restless, calm or confused. He died at Het Loo at 5.45 a.m. on 23 November 1890. The Netherlands was now ruled by a ten-year-old queen. The funeral was chaotic. High-ranking guests quarrelled about who should sit in which carriage. The pall-bearers looked as though ‘they were carrying a piano’.155 And court chaplain Cornelis van Koetsveld had already started his eulogy while the tail end of the entourage was still outside the church, the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft. While obviously praising the late king, the chaplain did not conceal his more difficult character traits, saying ‘We all know . . . how the Deceased, honest in all things, often lacked the self-control as a man that he showed so laudably as King.’156 To the notes of the Wilhelmus, the king’s mortal remains were interred in the crypt. Shortly after the interment, a number of newspapers published the account of a valet who had attended William iii in his final days. It included the king’s final, surprisingly lucid words, if indeed he did utter them. During the night of 20 November he had woken up and risen from his bed. When the valet urged him to lie down again, the king said, ‘Who gives the orders here, you or I?’ The lackey answered, ‘Your Majesty, and he alone. But your valet knows that a King must not fall.’157 This seems to sum up the 41 years of the king’s rule. Who had held power since 1848? The king, the cabinet or parliament? The meaning of article 53 of the constitution – ‘The King is inviolable; the ministers are responsible’ – never became completely clear. The valet, for his part, expressed precisely how those around the king – his family, the court, the ministers and officers, in fact almost all of his subjects – had treated him. While the short-tempered and impulsive William iii was in continual danger of stumbling, everyone understood that a king must not be allowed to fall. And so he continued to stand upright, left to the mercy of the nation.

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Epilogue: Orange and Europe, 1789–1918 Growing popularity and marginalization The fate of the House of Orange-Nassau throughout the long nineteenth century can be summarized as one of unexpected growth followed by extended marginalization. In 1815, after three decades of revolution and war, the dynasty’s future looked promising. It had survived the patriot uprising, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars with a favourable outcome that could not have been foreseen. Instead of a stadholder in the service of the sovereign provinces of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, William i was now king of a country that had doubled in size: the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, a medium-sized state wedged between France, Britain and Prussia, which had also acquired new territories. As ruler over this ‘bulwark of Europe’, he was part of a royal network that spanned the entire continent. While their predecessors in the ancien régime had primarily waged war with each other, the kings of the restoration – united in the Holy Alliance and, with fewer pretensions, in the White International – promised their subjects peace and security by preventing revolution and war.1 This idealism was a cover for self-interest: the monarchs of Europe were plagued by the memory of the execution of Louis xvi. At first, as in the stadholder period, marital alliances shored up the new power of the House of Orange. Family ties with the Prussian royal house were and remained close. A newer development was the dynastic link with the Russian Romanovs, through the marriage of the later William ii to Anna Pavlovna. Only the bonds with the British royal house, so strong during two centuries of stadholdership, were not maintained: new attempts to marry British princesses failed. The Hague did, however, develop a ‘special relationship’ with London; or, more accurately, Britain forced a special relationship onto the Netherlands after 1813. Britain made the greater Netherlands possible – first as a European buffer 317

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state on France’s northern border and later, after the Netherlands had been cut back to approximately the size of the old republic, as a major colonial power in Asia. Ultimately, it was not the monarchs who determined the order in Europe but the major powers, and the Netherlands was in the British sphere of influence.2 That became even clearer in 1830. After protests in the Southern Netherlands against the authoritarian regime of William i had escalated into a struggle for Belgian independence, Britain decided in consultation with the other major powers that it would be better to divide the United Kingdom of the Netherlands into two separate states. Despite leading to new concerns about France, this solution best served Britain’s strategic interests. From the signing of the Treaty of Separation in 1839, London guaranteed the neutrality of the new kingdom of Belgium. The Netherlands developed its own policy of neutrality, but not before a battleweary William i had transferred his kingdom, now reduced in size by half, and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg to his oldest son in 1840. He stood down because he could no longer command the support of the people of the Northern Netherlands. The first Orange king of the Netherlands thus capitulated to the spirit of the revolution he had fought against for so long – in the guise of the patriots, the French and Batavian revolutionaries, Napoleon and the Belgian nationalists. The way in which William ii related to the revolutions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was more complex. He saw himself as a member of the generation charged by their fathers with finding a solution for the legacy of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s domination. As an aide-de-camp to Wellington during the Peninsular War and at Waterloo, and later as commander of the Dutch troops during the Ten Day Campaign against Belgium, he fought against the revolution. But at other times, he sympathized with French radicals wishing to depose the restored Bourbon king and with insurgents in the Southern Netherlands who had put his father on borrowed time. The latter had even offered him the crown of Belgium. When revolution swept Europe in 1848, in what was to be the final year of his reign, William ii – after earlier proving himself an uncompromising conservative – expressed considerable support for the revolutionaries. His approval of Thorbecke’s liberal revision of the constitution in 1848, which considerably curtailed the power of the Dutch monarch, was not an impulsive decision; nor was it simply imposed on him. This is clear from a comparison with the opinions of his father. William i 318

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saw the constitution as a ‘plaything in the hands of the masses’, an ‘illusion of freedom’; he had sought legitimacy with an enlightened reform agenda of centralization and economic modernization, a policy that had – as a sign of the confusion of the times – led to accusations that he himself had become a ‘patriot’.3 William ii, on the other hand, inspired by

‘Grandmother of Europe’. Queen Victoria and her family in Coburg, 17 April 1894. Those surrounding the British queen include Emperor Wilhelm ii of Germany (seated left, with the handlebar moustache), the later tsarina of Russia Alix van Hessen (behind Victoria to the left, with mink) and Nicholas ii, the last tsar of Russia (with bowler hat). Behind Alix van Hessen is Albert-Edward (‘Bertie’), Prince of Wales and later Edward vii (with beard and kepi). Princess Louise, the oldest daughter of Leopold ii, King of the Belgians, is also in the picture (in profile, with a feather in her hat).

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Emma and Wilhelmina in 1890, after the death of William iii.

Mirabeau, developed ideas of the ‘popular monarchy’ at an early stage. Insubstantial as that ideal was, listening to the needs of his subjects and responding to the political and constitutional demands of the moment were important elements within it.4 Through the early death of William ii at the beginning of 1849, it fell to William iii to experience 320

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just how much the power of the king had been curtailed after the revision of the constitution in 1848. By the end of the 1860s it had become clear that the article in the constitution stating that ‘The King is inviolable; the ministers are responsible’ had shifted the political centre of gravity from king and cabinet to cabinet and parliament. While the Netherlands did not have a purely ceremonial monarchy, the king’s power within gov­­­ernment had declined considerably. Revolutions and wars were not yet over in Europe after 1848. Radical nationalists, socialists and anarchists once again challenged the established order. Though their activities were dangerous for European monarchs, as long as the unrest was limited to small groups of radicals they posed no threat to public order and their actions amounted to no more than ‘propaganda of the deed’: terror against the king as the leading character in the theatre of the state, behind which – especially in Southern and Eastern Europe – an often ugly, repressive reality lay hidden. During the second half of the nineteenth century, Europe would repeatedly be shocked by attacks on kings and other royals, many of whom were relatives or friends of the Orange family. And even if they were not, they were still fellow rulers. Unlike most countries, the Netherlands was spared the horrors of war after 1831, though the Franco-Prussian conflict of 1870 came perilously close. In the East Indies, on the other hand, colonial troops were permanently in action. For the Netherlands, as for other European countries, colonialism was not in the last instance a matter of exporting violence: there the misery, here the glory. Under Queen Wilhelmina, though not yet under William iii, every conquest or victory added to the prestige of the Orange monarchy.5 The expansion in the East Indies also led to national selfoverestimation, especially on the part of the king and the elite. The Netherlands may have counted among the major colonial powers but the secession of Belgium had definitively consigned it to the status of a small country within Europe. This was paralleled by the marginalization of the House of Orange within the European dynastic network. After William ii, successors to the throne no longer found their marriage partners in the royal families of the major powers. William iii’s first wife, Sophie, was a princess from Württemberg, a not insignificant kingdom but, compared to Britain, Prussia and Russia – whose ruling families had supplied spouses for six consecutive generations of Orange stadholders and kings – undeniably second-rate. Emma, his second wife, came from 321

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the House of Waldeck and Pyrmont, the ruling family of a German mini-state. This decline would continue during the twentieth century, and not only because the number of monarchies fell rapidly after the First World War. Queen Wilhelmina was married to Henry, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Juliana to Bernhard, Prince of Lippe-Biesterfeld, and Beatrix to Claus, Jonkheer van Amsberg. The latter only knew of the privileged status of his family at second hand as, constitutionally, the aristocracy no longer existed in Germany after 1918.6 Though the political and dynastic power of the House of Orange had declined sharply, the status of the royal house as a national institution grew steadily. Except in France, European monarchies experienced a period of unprecedented popularity in the closing decades of the nineteenth century.7 Kings and queens were venerated. The fact that the majority of the Dutch people had such a high opinion of William iii, despite his pitiful reputation, speaks volumes. Even he did not command that respect purely because of the charisma of the royal office. During the last ten years of his life, released from Sophie, the scourge of his life, and their eccentric offspring and with Emma and Wilhelmina at his side, he succeeded in playing the paternal role demanded of him by the middle classes in the continuous performance known as ‘the family on the throne’. Walter Bagehot, who had already analysed similar developments around the British royal house in the 1860s, spoke of the magic surrounding the royal family, a mystery that the established order should guard closely.8 In the long term, even this protection would prove no longer necessary. From the end of the nineteenth century, the royal families of Europe were incorporated in the popular culture of the broad middle classes: kings and queens, princes and princesses became celebrities. And, as with all celebrities, all their mistakes, slips and scandals only increased their fascination for the public at large; the task of the responsible ministers was no longer to guard the mystery but to gloss over the cracks. The constitutional credo of ‘the King is inviolable’, the keystone of the liberal revolution of 1848, acquired a cultural counterpart: the royal family, inviolable and sacrosanct, could now get away with anything, as long as the nation wished to preserve the monarchy.9

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1914–18: The return of war and revolution Unlike the majority of European states, the Netherlands would remain a monarchy. From August 1914 the continent was plunged into a war set in motion by the kind of event that Europeans had become accustomed to: an attack on a prominent member of a ruling dynasty by a radical revolutionary. On 28 June 1914, while visiting Sarajevo, the successor to the Habsburg throne, Franz Ferdinand, and his wife Sophie Chotek were assassinated by Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip.10 In itself, the violent death of the archduke was no reason to take up arms. Recent assassinations of royals by anarchists – of Elisabeth (‘Sisi’) of AustriaHungary in 1898 and of Umberto i of Italy in 1900 – had not led to rising international tensions, but in July 1914 everything was different. All of the great powers became embroiled in the conflict. AustriaHungary was trying to survive as a multinational state in a time of nationalism. The alliance system had divided Europe into two hostile camps, the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy and the Triple Entente of Britain, France and Russia. The general staffs of both Russia and France, but above all of Germany – surrounded as it was by enemies – had been preparing for a large-scale conflict for many years, and this was the opportunity. Britain, too, decided it was time to pit its strength against the German empire, with which it was engaged in industrial competition and an arms race. The threshold of willingness to lock horns with each other was lowered by a pervasive feeling that war between the great powers was not only inevitable but desirable. This was partly driven by social Darwinism, but the ethos of battle and the compulsion to do something ‘glorious’ were manifested in different ways.11 When the major powers mobilized their armies at the end of July, the diplomats of Europe – warned too late – could no longer stop the momentum. At the beginning of August world war broke out. Their rare widespread popularity notwithstanding, the crowned heads of Europe could do little in the crisis of July 1914. The appeal by cousins George v of Britain, Wilhelm ii of Germany and Nicholas ii of Russia in the last week of the month in an ultimate attempt to prevent war had little effect: like the diplomatic initiative from London, it was overtaken by the military machine. The telegrams from king, emperor and tsar were in effect nothing more than the death throes of the White International, the royal network whose influence on war and peace, independent of the major powers, had probably always been a fiction, 323

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even before the revolutions of 1848 and the Crimean War brought the European congress system to an end.12 What remained of international dynastic cooperation would be dismantled by the First World War, simply because the majority of monarchies did not survive it. War once again brought revolution, a combination that had become familiar since the French Revolution. But while in 1789 revolution was followed by decades of war, after 1914 it was the reverse: the war gave rise to a wave of revolutions, national, republican and Bolshevik. The Habsburg monarchy disintegrated. Emperor Franz Joseph, on the throne since 1848, survived just long enough to witness how, from 1915, a part of the Czech population gave priority to a national struggle for independence above the Austro-Hungarian empire’s fight against the Entente. In November 1918 his successor Charles i brought seven centuries of Habsburg rule to an end by fleeing to Switzerland.13 The Russian tsars also failed to survive the war. Petrograd, as St Petersburg had been known since the outbreak of the conflict, was twice the scene of revolution. During the February Revolution at the start of March 1917 according to the Western calendar, Nicholas ii abdicated in favour of his youngest brother Michael, but he would never rule. The family was imprisoned just outside Petrograd. After the October Revolution in November 1917, led by Lenin’s Bolsheviks, they were deported to Yekaterinburg. Here, in July 1918, the tsar, the tsarina and their five children were murdered – five years after Russia had celebrated three centuries of ‘blessed’ Romanov rule.14 Their violent deaths were a direct reminder of the fate of Louis xvi and his family 125 years previously. Emperor Wilhelm ii of the House of Hohenzollern had better fortune. In 1918 Germany launched a final effort to win the trench war in the west, after the revolutionary regime in Russia made peace with Berlin in March, considerably increasing the chances of victory. A German triumph was prevented by the United States of America entering the war. In August the German army high command concluded that the war was lost, though fighting continued for another three months. On 9 November, two days before the armistice, revolution broke out in Berlin. Social democrats proclaimed the republic, followed two hours later by more radical socialists who wanted a revolution along Bolshevik lines. Wilhelm ii had not waited for these developments and, under pressure from his advisers, had stepped down earlier that day. From his military headquarters in Spa, Belgium, he had fled to the neutral 324

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Netherlands.15 Three European empires had collapsed, and the Ottoman Empire would follow in 1920. Almost everywhere, they were replaced by new republics.16 The Kingdom of the Netherlands avoided being drawn into the war in August 1914, but thanks more to changes in Germany’s plan of attack on France than to respect for Dutch neutrality. Belgium’s comparable neutral status had not helped.17 Neither Germany nor Britain would invade Dutch territory during the First World War but, wedged between the warring parties, the Netherlands was under extreme pressure for the four years that the war lasted: the army was mobilized, a million Belgian refugees were given shelter, trade and the economy were disrupted, and spies and propaganda services tried to influence public opinion and government.18 In these times of need, the House of Orange once again functioned as a symbol of national solidarity and resolve. Queen Wilhelmina involved herself more with politics. She was more often in The Hague, inspected troops and fortifications, visited miners in Limburg and, in 1916, travelled to the flooded areas of North Holland and Utrecht.19 Partly under the pressure of the war raging all around the country’s borders, important constitutional reforms were pushed through. The ‘Pacification of 1917’ embraced the equal financing of public and denominational education (thus finally ending the ‘school struggle’), universal suffrage for men and proportional representation.20 In the spring of 1918 Wilhelmina almost caused a constitutional crisis. Supreme commander of the Dutch armed forces Cornelis Snijders informed the cabinet, which was anxiously defending the Netherlands’ neutrality, that he no longer had any confidence in the country’s defences. If the Netherlands were to be dragged into the war, then it would have to be on the German side, declared the demoralized general, a confidant of Wilhelmina. Snijders was discharged, but the queen refused to sign the order. The cabinet judged this to be unconstitutional behaviour and, with the exception of one minister, threatened to step down. The affair was smoothed over and the general kept his job, only to be dismissed after all in November 1918, literally days before the armistice.21 Queen and cabinet followed the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy with concern. Even more dreadful were the scarce reports from revolutionary Russia from the end of 1917.22 The tyrannical regime of the tsar was never popular in the west of Europe, but the murder of the Romanovs was still a crime against immediate family members of 325

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18 November 1918: the national celebration on the Malieveld in The Hague. Soldiers pull the carriage carrying Wilhelmina and Juliana across the festival field.

Wilhelmina.23 Moreover, the Bolshevik revolution at the end of 1918 was followed up elsewhere in Europe: in Hungary, in Germany and in the Netherlands. Inspired by this political unrest elsewhere in Europe, Pieter Jelles Troelstra, leader of the Dutch social democrats, called on his supporters at the beginning of November to unleash a revolution. A week and a half later, peace was restored. Despite the mayor of Rotterdam immediately surrendering, the established order was at no time in danger. On 18 November there was a national celebration on the Malieveld in The Hague. The main attraction was the arrival of the carriage with Wilhelmina and her nine-year-old daughter Juliana. Forty selected soldiers, who had been practising intensely in the days before the event, unharnessed the horses from the carriage and, to the cheers of the amassed crowds, pulled the queen and the princess across the field under their own steam.24 Thus was the circle closed. In September 1787, after the repression of the patriots’ revolution by Prussian troops, cheering crowds had, with equal ‘spontaneity’, drawn the carriage of Wilhelmina of Prussia and her children through the residency. But there were differences. This time, 326

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the display of dynastic solidarity flowed in the opposite direction. At the beginning of 1795, after the victory of the French and Batavian revolutionaries, Stadholder William v and his family had been able to count on the support of the British and Prussian kings. In 1918, fleeing enemy armies and the revolution, the German emperor requested and was granted asylum in the Netherlands. It was the cabinet, not the queen, that gave the emperor permission, though there are indications of intrigue by a Dutch camarilla. There was great indignation among the Entente powers, especially in Britain, where the battle cry throughout the war had been ‘Hang the Kaiser!’ The Netherlands received repeated requests to extradite the emperor; the Entente had even included an article to that effect in the Treaty of Versailles.25 Consequently, neither the unity of place and action of the national displays of affection for the House of Orange nor the provision of mutual dynastic support between the Houses of Orange and Hohenzollern could disguise the far-reaching changes that had taken place over the past century and a half. At the end of the eighteenth century, the juggernaut of European history rolled over the Dutch Republic and the House of Orange; revolution and war affected the stadholder family directly. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Orange dynasty and its kingdom found themselves on the sidelines of the European drama. Had the revolutions of the nineteenth century saved the Netherlands in 1914 and the House of Orange in 1918? That the country was spared from German aggression in August 1914 can be seen as a long-delayed consequence of the revolution of 1830 and the secession of Belgium. The revolution of 1918 failed partly because of Thorbecke’s liberal reforms of 1848, which had eventually turned the monarchy into a ‘neutral power’ uniting the nation rather than dividing it, but with little political influence and of interest only to revolutionaries as a useful target. For a brief moment, the socialists’ attempt at revolution seemed to drag the kingdom into the twentieth century, but real change would not come until the Second World War and the revolution in Indonesia – and then it would be only for the Netherlands, and not for the House of Orange in its symbolic role as protector of the nation.

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References

Introduction 1 Koch, Koning Willem i; Van Zanten, Koning Willem ii; Van der Meulen, Koning Willem iii. 2 Paulmann, Pomp und Politik; Mayer, The Persistence of the Old Regime, 129–87. 3 Dollinger, ‘Das Leitbild des Bürgerkönigtums’, 325–64; Dijkhuis, Monarchia; Van Osta, De Europese Monarchie. 4 ‘Lead a private life publicly’ is how Van Osta summarizes English publicist Walter Bagehot’s description of the task of the royal family in a constitutional monarchy in The English Constitution (1867). Van Osta, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, 192. 5 William i to William ii, 10 May 1813, kha-a35-viiia–94.

1  The Minor Civil War and the Great Revolution, 1772–99

1 Quoted in Gabriëls, ‘Tweemaal in ballingschap’, 333. 2 William i to William v, 28 June 1787, in Naber, ed., Correspondence i, 9. 3 Van Meerkerk, Willem v en Wilhelmina van Pruisen; Wilschut, Goejanverwellesluis. 4 Prak, Republikeinse veelheid, 177–84; Rosendaal, Bataven! 5 Grijzenhout, Mijnhardt and Van Sas, ed., Voor Vaderland en Vrijheid. 6 Pöthe, Perikles in Preußen, 113–66, 278–98; Rosendaal, De Nederlandse Revolutie, 65. 7 ‘A minor civil war’, in Sperber, Revolutionary Europe, 125. 8 Schöffer, ‘De Republiek’, 167–267. 9 Schutte, Oranje, 127–30. 10 Gabriëls, De heren als dienaren, 59; Schutte, ‘Willem iv en Willem v’, 197. 11 [Capellen tot den Pol,] Aan het Volk. 12 Gabriëls, De heren als dienaren, 13; De Jongste, ‘Beeldvorming rond Frederik ii’, 527–31. 13 Prak, Republikeinse veelheid; Sperber, Revolutionary Europe, 9–21; Fichtner, The Habsburgs. 14 Gabriëls, De heren als dienaren, 59; Boogman, Raadpensionaris L. P. van de Spiegel, 23; Anderson, Europe in the Eighteenth Century, 134–5; Aerts, ‘Een staat in verbouwing’, 19; Schutte, ‘Willem iv en Willem v’, 197. 329

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15 Gabriëls, De heren als dienaren; Cramer, ‘De kroon op het werk’, 14–16; Prak, ‘Republiek en vorst’, 28–52. 16 This description of William v’s character is based on Gabriëls, ‘Tweemaal in ballingschap’, 323–52, and De heren als dienaren, 108–15; see also Van Meerkerk, Willem v en Wilhelmina van Pruisen. 17 Gabriëls, De heren als dienaren, 110–11. 18 William v, quoted in idem, 113. 19 William v to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 19 September 1782, kha-a32-322; ‘Esquisse d’une plan que je souhaite qui serve de direction dans l’éducation de mes fils’, kha-a32-318; Baggerman and Dekker, De wondere wereld, 93. 20 Deliberations on education by Wilhelmina of Prussia, undated [c. 1788], kha-a32-322. 21 J. F. Euler to C. E. de Larrey, 8 January 1777, kha-a32-350; C. E. de Larrey, 1 August 1779, ideas on the upbringing and education of children by Mr Euler and Mr C. E. de Larrey, 1776–1779, kha-a32– 323; Memorandum by William v regarding the pension to be paid to his dismissed counsel C. E. de Larrey and his wife von Schwerin, former lady-in-waiting to Wilhelmina of Prussia, kha-a31-112; William v to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 17 September 1782, kha-a32–322. 22 Th. I. de Larrey to William i, 23 January 1789, exchange of letters 1788–90 (clerk’s copy), kha-a35–8cL15. 23 William i to Th. I. de Larrey, 15 February 1789, idem. 24 Koogje, ‘Willem v en zijn gezin’, 31–42. 25 Exposition in French on the state structure of the Republic, kha-a35-vi–33. 26 Woelderink, ‘De erfprins in Nassau in 1789’, 7–24. 27 Rutgers, Het gulden boekje: L. P. van de Spiegel, Schets der regeerkunde, 56. 28 Anderson, Europe in the Eighteenth Century, 151–9. 29 Lehndorff, Am Hof der Königin Luise, 220. 30 William v to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 30 July 1789, in Naber, ed., Correspondence i, 35. 31 William i to William v, 28 July 1789, kha-a31-445. 32 William i to William v, 19 November 1788, in Naber, ed., Correspondence i, 24. 33 Pöthe, Perikles in Preußen, 156–61, 403. 34 Johanna Naber published a selection of this correspondence between 1931 and 1936, amounting to some 10 to 15 per cent of the whole corpus: Naber, ed., Correspondence. 35 Naber, ‘Inleiding’, in idem, ed., Correspondence i, xi–xxxv; Naber, Prinsessen van Oranje, 201, 231; Ruberg, Conventionele correspondentie, passim. 36 ‘Nous voulons tout savoir et nous ne disons jamais rien.’ Wilhelmina of Prussia, as recalled by Van Hogendorp, Brieven 5, 67. He wrote these memoires after falling out with William i. 37 ‘Van de Spiegel’s mondelinge verklaringen in de kerker na arrestatie’ (1795), in Vreede, ed., Mr. Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel i, 17. 38 H. Tollius to William i, kha-a358cT15; Ruberg, Conventionele correspondentie, 72–8. 330

References

39 Wilhelmina of Prussia to William i, 17 August 1790, kha-a35-viiia-14; William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 15 November 1788, in Naber, ed., Correspondence i, 24. 40 ‘Van de Spiegel’s mondelinge verklaringen in de kerker na arrestatie’ (1795), in Vreede, ed., Mr. Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel i, 17; cf. Dik, ed., Magdalena van Schinne, 113–15. 41 Wilhelmina of Prussia to Louise, 25 March 1791, in Naber, ed., Correspondence i, 136–7. 42 Wilhelmina of Prussia to Louise, quoted in Naber, Prinses Wilhelmina, 153. 43 William i to Louise, 6 December 1792, kha-a33–64; Wilhelmina of Prussia to Louise, 6 December 1792, in Naber, ed., Correspondence i, 213; Bosscha, Willem den Tweede, 2. 44 Wilhelmina of Prussia to Louise, 6–27 December 1792, in Naber, ed., Correspondence i, 213–19. 45 Decree by the National Convention, quoted in Van Ginkel, Willem George Frederik, 26–8. 46 Sabron, De oorlog van 1794–95. 47 Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled, 87–8. 48 Van de Spiegel, quoted in Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 40; Hardman, Robespierre; Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled; Scurr, Fatal Purity. 49 Blanning, The French Revolutionary Wars; Rapport, Nineteenth-Century Europe, 32, 40; Sperber, Revolutionary Europe, 84. 50 Wilhelmina of Prussia to Louise, 8 February 1793, in Naber, ed., Correspondence i, 232; Naber, Prinses Wilhelmina, 167. For the radical nature of the distinction between nation and king, see Englund, Napoleon, 70–71. 51 Naber, Prinses Wilhelmina, 157; Wasson, Aristocracy, 75–7. 52 Colenbrander, Koning Willem i. Part i, 36. 53 ‘Adresse aux François qui veulent être hereux & libres’ and an untitled leaflet: proclamations from the war of 1793–1795, kha-a35viiid.-235. 54 Rosendaal, De Nederlandse Revolutie, 167–227. 55 Van de Spiegel, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken i, 558; Van de Spiegel to William v, 17 January 1795, in idem, 584. 56 Van de Spiegel, in idem, 558. 57 William i to Louise, 26 January 1795, kha-a33-67. 58 William i to Louise, 26 November 1796, kha-a33-67: ‘et je dis avec Pangloss: tout est pour le bien dans le meilleur des mondes possibles.’ See also William i to Frederick, 11 July 1796, kha-a34-5; William i to Louise, 1 September 1812; William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 4 June 1813, in Naber, ed., Correspondence v, 128, 209; Voltaire, Candide, 52. 59 Byvanck, ‘De prins in ballingschap’, 213–332; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 52–96; Algra, Oranje in ballingschap; Geyl, ‘Een Oranje in ballingschap’, 164–91; Gabriëls, ‘Tweemaal in ballingschap’, 323–52; Struik, Oranje in ballingschap; in 1995 the Paleis Het Loo National Museum held an exhibition on ‘Orange in Exile’. 60 For the theatrical aspects of the departure in 1795 and the return in 1813, in both a heroic and a caricatured sense, see Grijzenhout, ‘Scheveningen’, 67–89. 331

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61 The stadholder family and the later royal family have easily become the subject of what has been called a ‘national liturgical approach’ to history. Conversely, the members of the family themselves are always expected to act in a manner appropriate to such ‘historical liturgy’. Jonker, Ordentelijke geschiedenis, 18–19. 62 Aerts, ‘Een staat in verbouwing’, 51. 63 Behrens, The Ancien Régime, 10. 64 Louise to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 6 October 1797, in Naber, ed., Correspondence iii, 215. 65 Naber, ed., Correspondence iii, xv–xvi; Sperber, Revolutionary Europe, 83. 66 Lachenicht, Die Französische Revolution, 71. 67 Wilhelmina of Prussia to Louise, 12 February 1799, in Naber, ed., Correspondence iii, 275; Naber, Prinses Wilhelmina, 213–14. 68 Naber, ed., Correspondence iii, xxv; Braudy, From Chivalry, 49–55; Wasson, Aristocracy, 74–7; Mansel, Prince of Europe, 139; Paxman, On Royalty, 105. 69 Until 1813, European cooperation against France would be extremely problematic. There was enormous mistrust between the great powers, who regularly broke their pledges to each other. Zamoyski, Rites, 45–8, 72, 167–8; Rapport, Nineteenth-Century Europe, 32. 70 Naber, Prinses Wilhelmina, 189; for a description of Hampton Court, see De Bas, Prince Frederik ii, 482–99. 71 De Leeuw, ‘Een lexicaal geheimschrift’, 97–126. The whole numbered code is reproduced in the annex. 72 Zamoyski, Rites, 84, 252, 559–60; for France, see Mann, Lavalette, 43. 73 Naber, Prinses Wilhelmina, 196, 276. 74 Idem, 185, 199, 257; Gabriëls, De heren als dienaar, 113–15; De Bruijn, ‘Oranje in Engeland’, 6. 75 Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 94; Gabriëls, ‘Tweemaal in ballingschap’, 343; Naber, Prinses Wilhelmina, 208; see also William v to William Frederik, 13 June 1797 and William v to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 16 September 1797, in Naber, ed., Correspondence iii, 188, 211. 76 Staatsregeling, 53, 74. 77 ‘Réflexions sur ce que doit faire le Prince d’Orange au Sujet de la Paix sous toutes ses differens rélations’. See Woelderink, ‘Oranje tussen Nassau en Nederland’, 95–6. 78 William v to Louise, 22 May 1795, in Naber, ed., Correspondence iii, 43; Woelderink, ‘Oranje tussen Nassau en Nederland’, 95–6, 98, 105. 79 Von der Dunk, ‘Een vorstelijk balling als tourist’, 113–35. 80 William i to Louise, 3 March 1796, kha-a33-68. 81 William i to Louise, 10 February 1795, kha-a33-67. 82 William i to William v, 2 February 1796, kha-a31-449; Naber, Prinses Wilhelmina, 198–9. 83 Wilhelmina of Prussia to William i, 15 January 1796, in Naber, ed., Correspondence iii, 95. 84 Wilhelmina of Prussia to William i, 9 April 1796, in idem, 109; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 57–64. 85 William i to Louise, 25 February 1797, kha-a33-69; cf. Paulmann, Pomp und Politik, 69–70, 77. 332

References

86 Van Hamel, ‘‘s Erfprinsen toevluchtsoord’, 219–42; Appleby, Relentless Revolution, 56–86. 87 Colenbrander, William i. Part i, 69; Woelderink, ‘Oranje tussen Nassau en Nederland’, 101–5. 88 H. Tollius, ‘Memorie betreffende de onderwerpen die door de Erfprins op het congres te Rastatt aan de orde kunnen worden gesteld’, 29 May 1797, kha-g3-214. 89 William i, ‘Mémoire sur la conduite à tenir, 6 juli 1797’, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken ii, 961–5; Naber, ed., Correspondence iii, 196. 90 Colenbrander, William i. Part i, 67–8. 91 Main content of conversations with William v, reported to William i by Tollius, 15 September 1797, Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken ii, 983. 92 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 8 September 1799, quoted in Koolemans Beijnen, ‘De erfprins van Oranje te Lingen’, 167, 174–5; William i to William v, 29 July 1799, kha-a31-451; Koolemans Beijnen, ‘De erfprins van Oranje in Noord-Holland’, 11. 93 Described in detail in Koolemans Beijnen, ‘De erfprins van Oranje te Lingen’; idem, ‘De erfprins van Oranje in Noord-Holland’. 94 H. A. van Kinckel in his diary, quoted Koolemans Beijnen, ‘De erfprins van Oranje te Lingen’, 172. 95 Koolemans Beijnen, ‘De erfprins van Oranje in Noord-Holland in 1799’; Colenbrander, William i. Part i, 80–96; Struik, Oranje in ballingschap, 121–37; Uitterhoeve, Cornelis Kraijenhoff, 182–3. 96 Koolemans Beijnen, ‘De erfprins van Oranje te Lingen’, 182, 203–4; Koolemans Beijnen, ‘De erfprins van Oranje in Noord-Holland’, 2. 97 R. Abercromby to H. Dundas, the British War Secretary, 26 October 1799, quoted in Koolemans Beijnen, ‘De erfprins van Oranje in Noord-Holland’, 20. For original English quotation, see Dunfermline, Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Abercromby kb, 203. 98 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, September 1799, quoted in idem, 18. 99 Koolemans Beijnen, ‘De erfprins van Oranje te Lingen’, 193; idem, ‘De erfprins van Oranje in Noord-Holland’, 35–40. 100 Quoted in De Bruijn, ‘Oranje in Engeland, 15–19; Koolemans Beijnen, ‘De erfprins van Oranje in Noord-Holland’, 78. 101 York to William i, 18 October 1799, quoted in Koolemans Beijnen, ‘De erfprins van Oranje in Noord-Holland’, 93, 103. 102 De Bruijn, ‘Oranje in Engeland’, 21–3. 103 Naber, Prinses Wilhelmina, 237. 104 William i to Louise, 19 November 1799, kha-a33-71; Englund, Napoleon, 172. 105 Van Kinckel to Thomas Grenville, 10 March 1800, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken iii, 1102–4. 106 Idem, 1104–5. 107 ‘Le premier qui fut roi, fut un soldat heureux; qui sert bien son pays, n’a pas besoin d’aïeux.’ Voltaire, Mérope, i, 3, 175. Quotation in English from Morley, The Works of Voltaire: A Contemporary Version.

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2  In Napoleon’s Europe, 1799–1812 1 Ellis, Napoleon, 82–7; Englund, Napoleon, 252–78. 2 De Bruijn, ‘Oranje in Engeland’, 19; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 96; William I to William v, January 1800 and 4 July 1800, kha-a31-451. 3 William v to William i, 18 September 1801, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 46. 4 Wilhelmina of Prussia to William i, 1 November 1801. Also Wilhelmina of Prussia to Louise, 24 December 1801, in idem, 57–8, 65. 5 Wilhelmina of Prussia to William i, 11 May 1801, kha-a35-viiia–20. 6 M. d’Yvoy to William i, 15 June 1801, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken iii–2, 1154–7. D’Yvoy explains that the primary objection of the diplomats of the Batavian Republic to restoration of the House of Orange was the fear that it would make ‘Holland’ a province of England. 7 Louise to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 24 March 1801, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 30. 8 Wilhelmina of Prussia to William v, 26 February 1802, in idem, 75. 9 William i to William v, 28 February 1802, in idem, 80–81. 10 William i to Louise, 3 April 1802, kha-a33-74. 11 Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 106; Ellis, Napoleon, 162; Englund, Napoleon, 240–41, 304–6. 12 William i to William v, 8 March 1802, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 82–3; Gabriëls, ‘Het hof dat geen hof mocht heten’, 359–63; Duindam, Vienna and Versailles; Paulmann, Pomp und Politik, 37–42. 13 William i to William v, 19 April 1802, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 96–7; William i to Louise, 13 April 1802, kha-a33-74. 14 William i to Louise, 28 February 1802, kha-a33-74. 15 Robert Fagel to Hendrik Fagel, 20 April 1802, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken iv–2, 693. Fagel’s letter is written in French, but he wrote these words in English. 16 William i to Louise, 28 February 1802, kha-a33-74; William i to William v, 4 March 1802, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 81. This was probably a kind of standard programme for foreign visitors. Another Dutch visitor, Adriaan van der Willigen, made practically the same tour in 1802, including the theatres, museums, the institute for the blind and Versailles. Van der Willigen, Levensloop, 256–360. 17 William i to Louise, 9 April 1802, kha-a33-74. 18 McLeod, Religion, 1–15; Burleigh, Earthly Powers, 48–111. 19 Sperber, Revolutionary Europe, 155–6; Englund, Napoleon, 180–85; Ellis, Napoleon, 61. 20 William i to William v, 15 April 1802, William v to William i, 29 July 1802, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 96, 124; Schutte, Oranje, 113–34; Spiertz, ‘De opvattingen van prins Willem v’, 181–90; Van Rooden, Religieuze regimes, 78–120; Zagorin, Religious Toleration, 145–87. 21 Louise to William i, 29 May 1802; William v to William i, 29 May 1802; William v to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 20 June 1802, in Naber, ed., Correspon­­dentie iv, 106, 108, 117; Gabriëls, ‘Tweemaal in ballingschap’, 352. 334

References

22 Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte, 11–15; Struik, Oranje in ballingschap, 146–50, 196–200; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 104–10. 23 Articles 8 to 15 of the 1802 Treaty of Paris, reproduced in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 100–102; Louise to William v, 16 June 1802; she speaks of a ‘spécieux prétèxte’. Van Hogendorp did not discover until 1815 that William v had relinquished his hereditary titles in writing; see the introduction in Naber, idem, ix–x. 24 Bornewasser, Kirche und Staat, 3; Fichtner, The Habsburgs, 158–9. 25 William i to Friedrich Wilhelm iii, 24 May 1802, quoted in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 103 n. 1. 26 William i to Louise, 23 May 1802, kha-a33-74. 27 William i to William v, 23 May 1802, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 102–3. 28 William v to William i, 29 May 1802, in idem, 106; Gabriëls, ‘Tweemaal in ballingschap’, 352. 29 Louise to William i, 29 May 1802, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 108–9. 30 Wilhelmina of Prussia to William v, 6 June 1802; William i to Louise, 7 June 1802, in idem, 109–12. 31 William i to Louise, 15 June 1802, in idem, 110–11. 32 William v to William i, 20 June 1802, in idem, 115. 33 William v to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 20 June 1802, in idem, 117. 34 Wilhelmina of Prussia to William v, 17 July 1802, in idem, 122, 166. 35 Louise to William i, 16 June 1802, in idem, 119. 36 On the ‘joyous entry’, see Stollberg-Rilinger et al., ed., Spektakel, 199–202. 37 Louise to William i, 6 December 1802, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 139. 38 Wilhelmina of Prussia to William i, 29 November and 10 December 1802, in idem, 138, 140. 39 Schilp, ‘Die Besitzergreifung’, 17–20; Schilp, ‘Gerechtigkeit, Billigkeit und Mäßigung’, 26–31; Hellemanns, ‘Das Besuch des Erbprinzen’, 21–5. 40 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussian, 14, 18 and 21 December 1802 in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 142–4; Bornewasser, Kirche und Staat, 12–17, 107, 262–6. 41 William v to William i, 29 July 1802, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 124. 42 Sperber, Revolutionary Europe, 28–36; Bornewasser, Kirche und Staat, 60–66, 264–5; Dewald, The European Nobility, 88; Wasson, Aristocracy, 38–42; Bornewasser, ‘Koning Willem i’, 237; Anderson, Europe in the Eighteenth Century, 157–8; Fichtner, The Habsburgs, 141–5. 43 Fritschy, ‘De financiën van de Oranjes’, 39–48; Rudolf, ‘Aus den Niederlanden’, 464. 44 ‘Verzeichnis der Kurgäste im Bade Brückenau, vom 26. April bis 12. Juli 1803’, enclosed in the letter from William i to William v, 18 July 1803, kha-a31-452. 45 Bornewasser, Kirche und Staat, xv, 20–21, 27–41, 302; Bornewasser, ‘Koning Willem i’, 238–9; Arnoldi, Levens en karakterschets, 61–6. 335

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46 Dijkhuis, Monarchia, 156–207; Fichtner, The Habsburgs, 19, 30–35; Krol, Als de koning. 47 Wilhelmina of Prussia to Louise, 8 and 11 June 1803, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 157. 48 Bornewasser, Kirche und Staat, 66, 149, 190, 195–6; for the veneration of Boniface in Fulda, see also Mostert, 754: Bonifatius, 68–70, 77–80. 49 Bornewasser, Kirche und Staat, 191–210; Bornewasser, ‘Koning Willem i’, 239. 50 Anderson, Europe in the Eighteenth Century, 368–78; Zagorin, Religious Toleration, 289–311; Van Rooden, Religieuze regimes, 27–32; Burleigh, Earthly Powers; Kloek and Mijnhardt, 1800, 187–211; McLeod, Religion; Chadwick, Secularization. 51 Bornewasser refers only to Frederick the Great as an example for William Frederick. Zuber presents Joseph ii as a model. Bornewasser, Kirche und Staat; Zuber, Staat und Kirche, 177 n. 4; Fichtner, The Habsburgs, 146–50; Englund, Napoleon, 180–85. 52 Englund, Napoleon, 217–23, 238–43. 53 William i to Louise, 17 April 1804, kha-a33–76; cf. Louise to William i, 31 May 1804, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 181. 54 Louise to William i, 4 June 1803, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 152–3. 55 Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 111. 56 William i to Louise, 5 July 1803, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 162. 57 William v to William i, 11 July 1803; William i to Louise, 16 August 1803, in idem, 163, 167. 58 Wilhelmina of Prussia to William i, 17 September 1804 and 29 September 1805, in idem, 192, 227; Naber, Prinses Wilhelmina, 246; Mansel, Prince of Europe, 243; Englund, Napoleon, 225–7, 266. 59 From September 1805, all members of the family refer to the fear and damage caused by the mobilizations, Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 222–39; Bornewasser, Kirche und Staat, 79. 60 Englund, Napoleon, 247–51, 279–94; Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte, 13–15; Mann, Friedrich von Gentz, 128–85; Rapport, Nineteenth-Century Europe, 35–7. 61 Englund, Napoleon, 263–4. 62 Clark, Preußen, 346. 63 William i to Louise, 3 March 1805, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 211. 64 The analysis of the position of Prussia prior to its defeat at Jena and Auerstedt is based on Clark, Preußen, 333–63; Zamoyski, Rites, 386–7; Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte, 14–15; Rapport, Nineteenthcentury Europe, 32, 40; Sperber, Revolutionary Europe, 84. 65 Clark, Preußen, 352–3; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 116–17. 66 Clark, Preußen, 355–6; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 117; according to Leopold von Ranke, William i had insisted on war so vehemently that both Friedrich Wilhelm iii and Queen Luise avoided him and Mimi for some time, even though Mimi was the Prussian king’s favourite sister. See Hardenberg, Tagebücher, 459. 67 Clark, Preußen, 356; Struik, Oranje in ballingschap, 258–9. 336

References

68 Napoleon to Friedrich Wilhelm iii, received on 12 October, quoted in Clark, Preußen, 356–7. 69 Englund, Napoleon, 285–90; Clark, Preußen, 348–9; Black, The Battle of Waterloo, 32–3. 70 Diaries of Jean Victor de Constant Rebecque, na 2.21.008.01 inv. no. 19, 20; De Bas, Prins Frederik ii, 454–71. 71 Report in German from William i to Friedrich Wilhelm iii, recorded by Constant, printed in full in De Bas, Prins Frederik ii, 468. 72 Idem, 484; Englund, Napoleon, 272–3; Braudy, From Chivalry, 88, 284, 288. 73 Article i of the capitulation treaty of 16 October 1806, printed in full in De Bas, Prins Frederik ii, 466–7. 74 Various letters of safe conduct belonging to William i from the 1806–12 period have been preserved: kha-a35-ix.3. 75 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia and Louise, 20 October 1806, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 265–6. 76 Struik, Oranje in ballingschap, 267; De Bas, Prins Frederik ii, 471; Englund, Napoleon, 308, 316–19; Ellis, Napoleon, 169. 77 De Bas, Prins Frederik ii, 472–4. 78 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 28 October 1806, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 269. 79 William i to Napoleon, 28 October 1806, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken v, 761. 80 Napoleon to William i, 7 November 1806, in idem, 761–2. 81 William i to Napoleon, 19 November 1806, in idem, 764. 82 William i to Napoleon, 24 November 1806, in idem, 765. 83 William i to Louise, 24 November 1806, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 280. 84 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 22 December 1806, in idem, 283. 85 William i to Napoleon, 23 December 1806; Mimi also wrote to Napoleon: Wilhelmina [Mimi] to Napoleon, 25 December 1806 in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken v, 766–7; Napoleon to Wilhelmina [Mimi], 10 January 1807, kha-a36-iv5.a. 86 Information on William i’s illegitimate children can be found in the archives of the treasury, kha-E8-xiib–1–25; Wilhelmina of Prussia to William i, 2 June 1807, kha-a35-viiia–26. 87 Voss, Neunundsechzig Jahre, 216. 88 Clark, Preußen, 356–7. 89 Idem, 364–5. 90 Answers to the questions of the Prussian court-martial of 20 December 1807, no date, kha A35-xx–20; comments by Arend Willem de Reede accompanying the answers to the questions of the Prussian courtmartial of 20 December 1807, no date, kha-a35 xx–20; Clark, Preußen, 380. 91 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 30 July 1807, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 2. 92 William i to Napoleon, 27 July 1807, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken v–2, 775. 93 William i to Louise, 11 March 1807, kha-a33–79. 337

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94 Memorandum to the tsar and the Russian court, 11 February 1808, kha-a35 xix–15; cf. the considerations of the Russian foreign minister Count Romantzoff, 27 March 1808, kha-a35-xix–15. 95 William i to William ii, 13 July 1809, kha-a35-viiia–94; De Bas, Prins Frederik ii, 522. 96 Louise to William i, 1 June 1809, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 28. 97 William i to William ii, 10 August and 15 September 1809, kha-a35-viiia–94. 98 William i to William ii, 12 March 1810, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 45. 99 Louise to William i, 15 August 1807, in idem, 11–12. 100 For this term, see the instructions of William i for Van Heerdt, 24 March 1812, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vi–3, 1828–9. 101 Instructions for the education of William ii from William i to Pagenstecher, 26 September 1797, kha-a40-iv–2; William i to William ii, 24 September 1806, kha-a35-viiia–91. 102 Van Tuyll van Serooskerken, ‘De Erfprins te Oxford’, 23. 103 William i to William ii, 25 March 1812, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vi–3, 1831–2. 104 William ii to William i, 18 June 1812, in idem, 1836–7; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 133. 105 William ii, Autobiographical notes, September 1821, kha-g54–32. For the involvement of Wilhelmina of Prussia in the marriage of William ii and Princess Charlotte, see Wilhelmina of Prussia to Hendrik Fagel, 11 February 1809, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken v, 785–6. 106 Instructions for the education of William ii from William i to Baron de Constant Rebecque, na, 2.21.008.01, inv. no. 44; for details of William ii’s household, see Constant to William i, 18 July 1809, kha-a40-iv–51 and ‘accounts 1809–1814’, kha-ix–88 and 89. 107 Salter and Lobel, County of Oxford iii, 1–38. 108 Garrard, William Howley. 1 09 William ii’s dinner guests have been retrieved from letters from Constant to William i of 7 November 1809 and 22 May 1810, kha-a40-iv–51; and George Robert Chinnery to Margaret Chinnery, 24 November 1809, Chinnery Papers. 110 Achard, Rosalie de Constant, 328; Van Tuyll van Serooskerken, ‘De Erfprins te Oxford’, 10–11, 14, 18. 111 William ii to Mimi, 6 August 1809, kha-a40-via–39. 112 William ii to Mimi, 18 July 1809 and 27 July 1809, kha-a40-via–39; Van Tuyll van Serooskerken, ‘De Erfprins te Oxford’, 11. 113 Travel diary, kha-a40-iv–59. 114 Mullen and Munson, ‘The Smell of the Continent’, ix–xiii; Ousby, The Englishman’s England, 44–71. 115 Travel diary, kha-a40-iv–59; Fritzsche, Stranded, 92–130; Morgan, Manners, passim. 116 Lockhart, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott 2, 208–18; MacCunn, Sir Walter Scott’s Friends, 96–8. 117 Travel diary, kha-a40-iv–57; Constant to William i, 15 October 1810, kha-a40-iv–51. 338

References

118 Van Tuyll van Serooskerken, ‘De Erfprins te Oxford’, 25. 119 Malmesbury to Constant, 29 August 1809, na, 2.21.008.01, inv. no. 41. 120 kha-a40-iv–59; Brownlow [Emma Edgecumbe], Slight Reminiscences, 19. 121 Howley to Constant, 23 September 1809, na, 2.21.008.01, inv. no. 41; Van Tuyll van Serooskerken, ‘De Erfprins te Oxford’, 15. 122 Letters from William i from Berlin, kha-a40-iv–51/A35-iia–4. 123 Constant to William i, 22 May 1810, kha-a40-iv–50. 124 Idem. 125 William ii to William i, 29 May 1810, kha-a40-iv–50. 126 William i to William ii, 7 July 1810, kha-a35-viiia–94. 127 Mimi to William ii, 7 July 1810, kha-a36-iv–5. 128 Wilhelmina of Prussia to William i, 2 June 1807, kha-a35-viiia–26. 129 William i to Hendrik Fagel, 2–11 February 1811, Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vi–3, 1806. 130 See also William’s later complaint in his autobiographical notes, September 1821, kha-g54–32. 131 William i to William ii, 18 February 1811, kha-a40-iv–51/A35-iia–4 and 10 April 1811, kha-a35-viiia–94; cf. Lord Malmesbury to Hendrik Fagel, 11 April 1811, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vi–3, 1814. 132 Constant to William i, 9 May 1811, kha-a40-iv–51/A35-iia–4; Wellington to William i, 15 May 1811, kha-a40iv–51/A35-iia–4; Holmes, Wellington, 179–80; Hibbert, Wellington, 95. 133 William ii, Travel diary, kha-a40iv–60. 134 William ii, Travel diary, kha-a40iv–60; to his mother William called the Portuguese ‘orang-utans’: William ii to Mimi, 4 September 1811, kha-a40-via–41. 135 Esdaile, Peninsular War (London 2002); Esdaile, Fighting Napoleon; ‘The Spanish labyrinth’ is derived from Brenan’s study, The Spanish Labyrinth; in Spain the fight against Napoleon is referred to as the war of independence. 136 Esdaile, Fighting Napoleon, 28–60. 137 Fraser, Napoleon’s Cursed War, 56–81; Englund, Napoleon, 339–43. 138 Hibbert, Wellington, 88–91. 139 William ii, Travel diary, kha-a40iv–60; William ii to John Bull, 15 October 1811, photographic copy of original is in private ownership; with thanks to Allan Maki of Berryhill & Sturgeon, Ltd., New York; William ii, Autobiographical notes, September 1821, khag54–32. 140 Glover, Peninsular War, 173–8; Oman, Peninsular War iv, passim. 141 William ii to Mimi, 29 September 1811, kha-a40-via–41. 142 Constant to William i, 20 November 1811, kha-a40-iv–51/A35-iia–4; cf. Wellington to Lord Liverpool, 29 September 1811, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vi–3, 1820. 143 William ii to William i, 21 February 1812, kha-a35-iia–04/a40-iv–51. 144 Recollections of the Storming of the Castle, 42; Maxwell, Peninsular Sketches, 267–304; Glover, Peninsular War, 187. 145 Hibbert, Wellington, 117–21; Blakeney, Boy in the Peninsular War, 274. 146 William ii to Howley, 20 May 1812, Howley Papers, ms 2184, f.71. 147 William ii, Travel diary, kha-a40iv–61. 339

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148 William ii, Travel diary, kha-a40iv–60. 149 William ii to Mimi, 2 December 1812, Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 155. 150 Louise to William i, 14 and 16 April and 28 May 1812, in idem, 82–3, 95; William i to Louise, 5 May 1812, kha-a33–84. 151 Louise to William i, 19 April and 10 and 11 May 1812, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 155, 86, 90; cf. Zamoyski, 1812, 163. 152 William i to Louise, 5 May 1812, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 84. 153 William i to William ii, 25 June 1812 and 18 February 1813, kha-a35-viiia–94. 154 Zamoyski, 1812, 287–8; 538–9; Ellis, Napoleon, 90. 155 William i to William ii, 8 January 1813, kha-a35-viiia–94; Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 157.

3  A New Royal House, 1813–15 1 Paulmann, Pomp und Politik; Zamoyski, Rites. 2 Wilhelmina of Prussia to William i, 5 March 1813, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 176–7; compare Naber, Prinses Wilhelmina, 275–6. 3 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 10 March 1813, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 184; Naber, Prinses Wilhelmina, 276. 4 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 4 June 1813, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 209. 5 Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 26–35, 41–5. 6 William i to Castlereagh, 20 February 1813, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vi–3, 1857–1858. 7 Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 40; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 133. 8 Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 142. 9 Malmesbury to Hendrik Fagel, 29 April 1813, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vi–3, 1879; Bathurst to Wellington, 20 April 1813 in idem, 1872–1873. 10 Wellington to Bathurst, 18 May 1813, in idem, 1883. 11 Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 141; Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 40; William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 16 August 1813, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 216. 12 Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 39; William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 7 October 1813, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 223–4. 13 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 7 October 1813, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 226. 14 William i to Gagern, 2 November 1813, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vi–3, 1949. 15 Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 61–71. 16 William i to Castlereagh, 9 November 1813, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vi–3, 1954–1956; Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 17, 43–4; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 142–143; William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 7 October 1813, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 224. 17 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 15 November 1813, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 232–5; William i to Louise, 5 and 22 November 1813. 340

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18 Castlereagh to William i, 20 November 1813, 5 p.m., in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vi–3, 1970. 19 Van Hogendorp, Proclamation, The Hague, 17 November 1813, in Bank, Huizinga and Minderaa, Delta 3, 71; Velema, ‘Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp’, 205; Schama, Patriots and Liberators, 641; Belgian historian Rolf Falter speaks not without justification of ‘exaggerated self-liberation in the nationalist written history of the Netherlands’, Falter, 1830, 324. 20 Cramer, ‘De kroon op het werk’, 20; Vles, Twee weken in November, 75. 21 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, iv–64, 22 November 1813; William i to Louise, 22 November 1813, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 234–6. 22 Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 4, 45, 75. 23 Van Zanten, ‘Strand van Scheveningen’, 61–3, 67–8; Vles, Twee weken in November, 109–12; Van der Horst, Van Republiek tot Koninkrijk, 188; Van Hogendorp, Brieven, 43–4. 24 Vles, Twee weken in November, 113. 25 Uitterhoeve, Cornelis Kraijenhoff, 80–91; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 152, 224. 26 Dagblad van de Zuiderzee, extra edition, 2 December 1813. 27 This contrasts with the French king, whose choice for the name Louis xviii was intended to emphasize continuity. Scholz, Imaginierte Restauration, 58. 28 William i, 2 December 1813, in Colenbrander, Ontstaan der Grondwet i, 26; Vles, Twee weken in November, 116; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 157. 29 Cramer, ‘De kroon op het werk’, 22, 28. 30 Dagblad van de Zuiderzee, extra edition, 1 December 1813; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 151. 31 Willem de Clercq, Dagboeken, 307–8, 323; Noske, ‘Muziekleven’, 39–40. 32 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 3 December 1813, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 236–7. 33 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 18 December 1813, in idem, 241. 34 William ii, Autobiographical notes, September 1821, kha-g54–32. 35 The Examiner, 19 December 1813. 36 Investiture speech of 30 March 1814, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 3. 37 Bury, Diary of a lady-in-waiting i, 10. 38 Smith, George iv, 155–66; Holme, Prinny’s Daughter, 72–80; 83–93; Plowden, Caroline & Charlotte, 109–26. 39 Aspinall, ed., Letters of the Princess Charlotte, 55, 87; Goddyn, Charlotte en Leopold, 39, 42–8. 40 Aspinall, ed., Letters of the Princess Charlotte, 65–6. 41 Idem, 72. 42 William ii, Travel Journal, kha-a40-iv–64 43 William ii, ‘Livre de notes’, kha-a40-xii–3. 44 Idem. 45 Idem. William’s description agrees with that of Charlotte: Autobiography of Miss Cornelia Knight i, 266–67. 46 Aspinall, ed., Letters of the Princess Charlotte, 92. 341

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47 Autobiography of Miss Cornelia Knight i, 266. 48 Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 18 December 1813; Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 20 December 1813; hand-written speech given on 14 December 1813, kha-a40-xii–2. 49 William ii to Wilhelmina (Mimi), 22 December 1813, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 243. 50 Weigall, Brief Memoir, 96–7; Goddyn, Charlotte en Leopold, 46–7. 51 Bury, Diary Illustrative, 321; William ii would only ever bear the title of British king as consort. 52 Smith, George iv, 160–64; Aspinall, ed., Letters of the Princess Charlotte, 112–15. 53 Autobiography of Miss Cornelia Knight i, 284; Goddyn, Charlotte en Leopold, 66; Thomas Creevey to his wife, 21 June 1814, The Creevey Papers, 197–9. 54 House of Commons, 21 April 1814, Parliamentary Debates xxvii, 460–61; William ii to William i, 3 May 1814, kha-a40-via–9. 55 Smith, George iv, 162; after the marriage contract had been signed there was actually no way back, see also Winkelhofer, Feine Gesellschaft, 93–100; Zamoyski, Rites, 204–17. 56 William ii, ‘Livre de notes’, kha-a40-xii–3. 57 Documents concerning the proposed marriage of the Hereditary Prince [William ii] to Princess Charlotte of England, kha-a40-ii–2; Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken v, 587–8. 58 Weigall, Brief memoir; Goddyn, Charlotte en Leopold, 69; Plowden, Caroline & Charlotte, 149–50. 59 William ii to William i, 17 June 1814, kha-a40-via–9, with an annexed copy of Charlotte’s letter of 16 June; see also Aspinall, ed., Letters of the Princess Charlotte, 117–18; letter from Van Limburg Stirum and Van der Duyn: kha-a40-vic-l10 and kha-a40-vic-d24. 60 Brownlow, Slight reminiscences, 107; [Brougham,] Life and Times 2, 231; Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 110–11. 61 FitzRoy Somerset to William ii, 12 July 1814, kha-a40-vis–19; Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vii, 630; Lake, History of Portsmouth, 77–88; Gedenkschriften van den graaf Van der Duyn, 471–2. 62 Brownlow, Slight reminiscences, 107–8. 63 Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 110. 64 William ii, Autobiographical notes, September 1821, kha-g54–32; for relations between the Netherlands and Britain, see Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 62–3, 110–11; see also [Castlereagh,] Memoirs, 60–65; Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vii, 152–8. 65 William ii, Autobiographical notes, September 1821, kha-g54–32. 66 Koch, ‘King as Father’, 263–80. 67 Intercepted letter from a gentleman of Brussels to one of his friends in Ghent, 6 January 1814. Annex to the letter from Clancarty to Castlereagh, 5 February 1814, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vii, 41–3. 68 Clancarty to Castlereagh, 9 February 1814, in idem, 53. 69 Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 72. 342

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70 Van Hogendorp, Brieven, 81; Van Zanten, Schielijk, 25; Van Hogendorp to William i, 15 December 1813, in Colenbrander, Ontstaan der Grondwet i, 2, 31–2; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 202. 71 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 10 March 1813, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 184; William i to Gagern, 2 November 1813, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vi–3, 1949; Velema, ‘Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp’, 206–9; Van Hogendorp, ‘[Schets eener] Grondwet voor het Koninkrijk Holland, eerste en tweede redactie’, in Colenbrander, Ontstaan der Grondwet i, 8, 9, 11; Van Zanten, Schielijk, 26–8; Pieterman, ‘Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp’, 359–64; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 180, 193, 207. 72 Van Sas, Metamorfose, 462; Van der Pot and Donner, Handboek van het Nederlandse staatsrecht, 104. 73 William ii, Livre de Notes 1813–1814, kha-a40-xii–3. These notes are not dated, but were in all probability written between December 1813 and March 1814. 74 Constitution of 1814, art. 139 and 140, in Bannier, Grondwetten, 277–8; Van Zanten, ‘Die Niederlande’, 432–4. 75 Constitution of 1814, art 40 and 71 (1815, art. 61 and 123), in Bannier, Grondwetten, 262, 265, 302, 318; ‘Aanmerkingen van den Souvereinen Vorst op de Schets van Van Hogendorp’, 19 December 1813, in Colenbrander, Ontstaan der Grondwet i, 34–5. 76 Constitution of 1815, art. 80, in Bannier, Grondwetten, 308. 77 Beekelaar and De Schepper, ‘First Chamber’, 279–81; compare for the Northern Netherlands Brusse and Mijnhardt, Towards a new template, 87–90; De Bruin, Bedreigd door Napoleon, 488–93; ‘Aanmerkingen van den Souvereinen Vorst op de Schets van Van Hogendorp’, 19 December 1813, in Colenbrander, Ontstaan der Grondwet i, 34–5. 78 Constitution of 1815, art. 73, in Bannier, Grondwetten, 308; Cramer, ‘De kroon op het werk’, 46; Van Zanten, Schielijk, 35; idem, ‘Die Niederlande’; after French example, the Staatsregeling of 1798 also started with a summary of basic rights, see Rosendaal, Staatsregeling, 60–71. 79 De Jong, Schoenmaker and Van Zanten, Waterloo, 237–9. 80 Speech from the throne, 7 November 1814, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 6. 81 Castlereagh to Clancarty, 14 July 1814, in Colenbrander, Ontstaan der Grondwet ii, 40–42. 82 Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 98–100; Zamoyski, Rites, 385–403; Kraehe, ‘The Congress of Vienna’, 64–6. 83 Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 241–2, 261–2. 84 ‘Note sur le pays de Liège et celui de Stavelot’, April 1814, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vii, 107. 85 Falck, Gedenkschriften, 165: Zamoyski, Rites, 457. 86 William ii to William i, 13 March 1815, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 263; compare Van Hogendorp to William i, 10 March 1815, in Van Hogendorp, Brieven, 514–15. 87 William i to Van Nagell, 12 March 1815, in Colenbrander, Ontstaan der Grondwet ii, 64–5. 343

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88 William i to Louise, 15 March 1815, in Naber, Correspondentie v, 264. 89 Speech on accepting the title of King, 16 March 1815, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 8; ‘Programma van het ceremonieel ter gelegenheid van de plegtige Proclamatie van den Souvereinen Vorst’, 16 March 1815, kha-a35-xviii–46; Falck, Gedenkschriften, 161; Cramer, ‘De kroon op het werk’, 43. 90 Falck, Gedenkschriften, 161. 91 Black, The Battle of Waterloo, 65–6; Paret, ‘Napoleon and the Revolution in War’, 123–42, especially 131. 92 Scholz, Imaginierte Restauration, 130. 93 De Jong, Schoenmaker and Van Zanten, Waterloo, 63–6. 94 Falck, Gedenkschriften, 165; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 330–32. 95 Longford, Wellington, 397–8; Wellington to Bathurst, 28 April 1815, in Wellington, Supplementary despatches, 167–8; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 330–32; [Caroline Capel,] The Capel Letters, 68, 102. 96 William ii, Autobiographical notes, September 1821, kha-g54–32. 97 Sophie of Württemberg, ‘l’Histoire de ma vie. Deuxième Partie’ [1865, 1866], kha-a46-vii–14. 98 Robinson, Battle of QuatreBras, 27–8; De Bas and De T’ Serclaes de Wommersom, La Campagne de 1815 i, 345–69; Hofschröer, 1815, 161–209; Muilwijk, 1815. 99 For Constant’s role, see his diary, na, 2.21.008.01, inv. no. 25. 1 00 Sinnema, The Wake of Wellington; William Makepeace Thackeray wrote that Wellington led the army ‘dancing and feasting, as it were, up to the very brink of battle’. See Vanity Fair, 136; Longford, Wellington, 416–17; for a good analysis of Wellington’s attitude on 15 June 1815 see Holmes, Wellington, 222–4; Bainbridge, British Poetry and the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars; Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837. 101 Constant’s diary, na, 2.21.008.01, inv. no. 25; for the reports, see na, 2.13.14.01, inv. no. 8. 102 Constant’s diary, na, 2.21.008.01, inv. no. 25; kha-a40-vic-w10. 103 Bowles to Malmesbury, 19 June 1815, [Malmesbury,] A series of letters, 440–47. 104 Message from Van der Capellen to William i, 15 June 1815, na 2.02.01, inv. no. 6585. 105 De Jongh, ‘Veldtocht van den Jare 1815’, 1–27, 71–89; Robinson, Battle of Quatre-Bras, 180; Report by Van Zuylen van Nyevelt, 22 March 1841, na, 2.21.180, inv. no. 37; De Bas and De T’Serclaes de Wommersom, La Campagne de 1815 i, 495. 106 De Jongh, ‘Veldtocht van den Jare 1815’, 11–13; De Bas and De T’Serclaes de Wommersom, La Campagne de 1815 iii, 288–353. 107 De Bas and De T’Serclaes de Wommersom, La Campagne de 1815 iii, 316. 108 Black, The Battle of Waterloo, 109–10; De Bas and De T’Serclaes de Wommersom, La Campagne de 1815 i, 507–8; Maaskamp, Veldslag van het schoon verbond, 34–5; Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek vii, 763–5. 109 De Bas and De T’Serclaes de Wommersom, La Campagne de 1815 iii, 564. 110 Montholon, Récits de la captivité 2, 182–4; Gourgaud, Journal inédit i, 500–504. 344

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111 Englund, Napoleon, 448–56. 112 De Jong, Schoenmaker and Van Zanten, Waterloo; Black, The Battle of Waterloo. 113 De Vos, Het einde van Napoleon, 81. 114 Zamoyski, 1812; Black, The Battle of Waterloo; Barbero, Waterloo, 311. 115 Adkin, The Waterloo Companion; Black, The Battle of Waterloo; Barbero, Waterloo. 116 Pflugk-Harttung, Belle Alliance, 130–31. 117 Barbero, Waterloo, 310–11. 118 Crumplin, ‘Surgery at Waterloo’, 38–42. 119 Report from the surgeons, na, 2.02.01, inv. no. 6585; kha-a40-xiii–35. 120 Van der Capellen to William i, message of 10.30 pm on 18 June 1815, na, 2.02.01, inv. no. 6585. 121 Falck, Gedenkschriften, 167; Van der Capellen to William i of 19 June 1815, na, 2.02.01, inv.no. 6585. 122 William ii to William i and Wilhelmina (Mimi), 18–19 June 1815, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 270. 123 William i to William ii, 20 June 1815, in idem, 272. 124 Mimi to William ii, 19 June 1815, kha-a36-iv–5; William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 19 June 1815, in idem, 271; see also Falck, Gedenkschriften, 166–7. 125 For negative assessments of William ii’s actions at Waterloo, see Siborne, The Waterloo Campaign 1815, 177–9; Hooper, Waterloo, 130–131. See also for criticism of William, De Bruine Ploos van Amstel, ‘De Prins van Oranje bij Quatre-Bras’, 25–38; Heyer, An Infamous Army; Weller, Wellington at Waterloo, 31–3, 212. For a critical view on Siborne, see Balen, Model Victory; Hamilton-Williams, Waterloo, 11–30. 126 De Jong, Schoenmaker and Van Zanten, Waterloo, 252–8. 127 Zamoyski, Rites, 506; Cannadine, ‘Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual’, 116; for Wellington as a hero in England, see Zamoyski, Rites, 487–9; Houghton, Victorian Frame of Mind, 309–10; Mullen and Munson, ‘The Smell of the Continent’, 313; for Blücher as the German hero, see Mann, Deutsche Geschichte, 93; for Blücher and Wellington as heroes of Waterloo, see Venohr, ‘Neithardt von Gneisenau’, 113; for Gneisenau as ‘eigentlicher Besieger Napoleons’ and as the man who decided the political and military fate of the continent, see idem, 88, 94. These high-ranking officers saw themselves, or were seen by others, as the saviours of Europe and the world. Tsar Alexander i developed a saviour complex, as did Austrian Chancellor Metternich; see Zamoyski, Rites, 65, 78, 83. 128 William i to Castlereagh, 9 November 1813, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vi–3, 1954–6; Memorandum van den Souvereinen Vorst, 26 December 1813, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vii, 19; Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 57. 129 Wilhelmina of Prussia to Maria Pavlovna, 16 July 1815, thhstaw-A-xxv-N35. 130 J.-B. Pisson, ‘Monument de Waterloo’, 20 July 1815, na 2.02.01, inv. no. 6585; Fonteyn, ‘Waterloo: de Leeuw’, 72–81; Raxhon, ‘De Leeuw van Waterloo’, 179–89; William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 345

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21 March 1816, kha-a3249; Mullen and Munson, ‘The Smell of the Continent’, 25, 60–61; ‘Fiches en lijsten van tekeningen en plaatwerk, en aardrijkskundige en militaire kaarten’, kha-a35-xiii.9–15; Didier, De ridder en de grootvorstin, 57–69, 139–41; Weijermars, Stiefbroeders, 49–57. 131 William i to William ii, 19 June 1815, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 272. 132 Frederick to Louise, 6 August 1815, kha-a33–94; compare Frederick to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 16 July 1815, kha-a32–58. 133 Speech from the throne of 8 August 1815, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 9–10. 134 Rapport ‘Esprit Public’, Ghent, 21 June 1815, na 2.02.01, inv. no. 6585: Waterloo; Cramer, ‘De kroon op het werk’, 49. 135 Bosscha, Willem den Tweede, 341. 136 Sultana, From Abbotsford to Paris, 13; Scott, Paris Revisited, 64–5. 137 Rosendaal, ed., Staatsregeling, 33–5. 138 Article 6, Treaty of London, June 1814, in Rovers, ‘Dan liever de lucht in!’, 26–7; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 278–9; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 232–3. 139 Van Zanden and Van Riel, Nederland 1780–1914, 117; Jonker, Merchants, Bankers, Middelmen, 85–90; De Meyere, ‘Het amortisatiesyndicaat (1822–1840)’, in Van oud en nieuw recht, 125–6. 140 Van Zanden and Van Riel, Nederland 1780–1914, 115–17, 128; compare Witte, Constructie van België, 35. 141 William i to Van Nagell, 16 May 1814, in Colenbrander, Ontstaan der Grondwet ii, 14–15; Constitution 1814, art. 133, Bannier, Grondwetten, 277; Van Hogendorp, Brieven, 87. 142 Von Aretin, Papacy, 41–4; Duffy, Saints and Sinners, 273–9; De Valk, Roomser dan de paus?, 51–79; Burleigh, Earthly Powers, 136–43; Lantink, ‘Gallicanisme en Germania Sacra’, 239–57; Koch, ‘Een pauselijk katholicisme’, 283–96; Viaene, Belgium and the Holy See, 46–59; Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart. 143 Quoted in Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 346. 144 Bos, In dienst van het Koninkrijk, 93–103; Bijleveld, Voor God,Volk en Vaderland, 23–7. 145 Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 354–5, 371; De Valk, Roomser dan de paus?, 52–68, 92. 146 Bos, Souvereiniteit en Religie, 177–82; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 33; Van Hogendorp, Brieven, 166–7. 147 Engelen, Van 2 naar 16 miljoen mensen; Van Zanten, Schielijk, 36; Colenbrander gives the population of the Northern Netherlands as two million and that of the South as over 3.2 million; see Willem i. Part i, 352. 148 Meeting of the constitutional commission of Monday 5 June 1815, in Colenbrander, Ontstaan der Grondwet ii, 307–8. 149 Falck to Van der Capellen, 11 August 1815, quoted in Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 347. 150 Colenbrander, Ontstaan der Grondwet ii, lxxxix; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 348. 151 Falck to William i, 22 August 1815, in Colenbrander, Ontstaan der Grondwet ii, 617. 346

References

152 William i to Falck, 22 August 1815, in idem, 617. 153 Announcement of the constitution, 24 August 1815, in Colenbrander, Ontstaan der Grondwet ii, 619. 154 Prak, Republikeinse veelheid, 22–7, 259: Prak calls the arithmetic manipulation of votes an ‘embedded democratic custom’; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 202–3; an example from the Batavian Republic – the adoption of the proposed constitution in 1801 – can be found in Aerts, ‘Een staat in verbouwing’, 43; later in the nineteenth century, when the Netherlands had a district-based system, a more modern variant of arithmetic manipulation of votes emerged, known as gerrymandering. De Jong, Van standspolitiek naar partijloyaliteit, 12. 155 William ii to William i, 30 July 1815, kha-a40–11–6. 156 Wilhelmina of Prussia had already referred to ‘le pauvre maniaque Paul’: Wilhelmina of Prussia to Louise, 5 February 1800, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie iv, 20; Hughes, The Romanovs, 144. 157 Colenbrander, Willem i. Part i, 296; more generally, see Winterhofer, Feine Gesellschaft, 79–82. 158 Didier, De ridder en de grootvorstin, 73. 159 William i to William ii, 30 July 1815, kha-a40-via–10. 160 Deneckere, Leopold i, 100–130. 161 For a description of the ceremony, see Russian State Historic Archive, St Petersburg, Fond 469, Opis 2, Delo 55 and 182; sea also ‘s Gravenhaagsche Courant, 6 March 1816. 162 William ii to William i and Wilhelmina (Mimi), 4 March 1816, kha-a40-via–11. 163 William ii to William i, 21 February 1816, kha-a40-via–11. 164 Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 279.

4  Bulwark of Europe, 1815–30 1 Van Hogendorp, Proclamation, The Hague 17 November 1813; Lyons, Post-Revolutionary Europe, 5–21; Zamoyski, Rites; De Haan, ‘Een nieuwe staat’, 9–12, 18–21. 2 Burleigh, Earthly Powers, 112–43; Paulmann, Pomp und Politik, 58–66. 3 Lyons, Post-Revolutionary Europe, 29–30; Mann, Deutsche Geschichte, 436. 4 Zamoyski, Phantom Terror, 107 et seq.; Scholz, Imaginierte Restauration. 5 Dollinger, ‘Leitbild des Bürgerkönigtums’, 325–64; Van Osta, Europese Monarchie; Van Osta, ‘Plaats en functie’, 63–87; Fichtner, The Habsburgs, 170–77. 6 Romein, ‘Willem de Eerste’. For Romein, the king’s character fulfils Max Weber’s ideal type of the Protestant entrepreneur, almost to the extent of a caricature. Weber, The Protestant Ethic. 7 Wasson, Aristocracy, 51, 72; Van Ditzhuyzen, Oranje-Nassau, 246; Brownlow, Slight Reminiscences, 41–2; Dorothea von Lieven to Metternich, 6 June 1821, in [Lieven,] The Private Letters, 136. 8 Van Velzen, De ongekende ministeriële verantwoordelijkheid. 9 Goslinga, Willem i als verlicht despoot; Chappin SJ and De Valk, ‘Koning Willem i: een verlicht despoot?’, 84–109; Van Sas, Metamorfose, 413; Bornewasser calls William i ‘in essence an enlightened absolute ruler’, 347

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see Bornewasser, ‘Koning Willem i’, 257; De Haan and Van Zanten, ‘Lodewijk als wegbereider van Willem?’, 285–301. 10 Gellner, Nations and Nationalism. 11 Aerts, ‘Een staat in verbouwing’, 68–9; Tamse and Witte, ‘Inleiding’, 20–21; Van Sas, Metamorfose, 413–18; Chappin SJ and De Valk, ‘Koning Willem i: een verlicht despoot?, 84–109; De Valk, ‘Landsvader en landspaus’, 76–97. 12 Kossmann, Lage Landen, 75. 13 Francesco Capaccini quoted in De Valk, Roomser dan de paus?, 110–11; Van Zanten, Schielijk, 104, 130. 14 Lemmens, ‘Une terre hospitalière et libre?, 263–84; Palmer, Twelve who Ruled; Falck, Gedenkschriften, 185–90; Karsten, ‘Fransche uitgewekenen’, 65–87; Sautijn Kluit, ‘Dagblad-vervolgingen’, 307–94. 15 Roeder’s report, annexed to a letter from Gneisenau to Hardenberg, 12 June 1815, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vii, xxvii; compare Van Hogendorp, Brieven, 66; Dorothea von Lieven to Metternich, 6 June 1821, [Lieven,] The Private Letters, 136. 16 Roeder’s report, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vii, xxviii; Van Hogendorp, Brieven, 66. 17 Anna Pavlovna to Maria Feodorovna, 12 December/30 November 1817 [the second date is according to the Julian calendar used in Russia], kha A41-iiib–1a. Also in Jackman, ed., Romanov Relations, 58–69. 18 Idem. 19 Idem; in his study of the war in 1794–5, Sabron does not mention fighting at Quatre-Bras. Military despatches from William Frederick (William i) to his brother Frederick show that the former was at Waterloo at the beginning of July 1794: Sabron, De oorlog van 1794–95 i, 52, 113–14. 20 Anna Pavlovna to Maria Feodorovna, 12 December/30 November 1817, kha-a41-iiib–1a; William i to William ii; May 1817, quoted in Fokkens, Grootvader, 98–9; William ii, Autobiographical notes, September 1821, passage inserted between pages 9 and 10, kha-g54–32; Winkelhofer, Feine Gesellschaft, 26–7. 21 William i to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 21 October 1818, kha-a32–51; William ii, Autobiographical notes, September 1821, kha-g54–32. 22 Lyons, Post-Revolutionary Europe, 56–63; Lyons describes the behaviour of many French officers after Napoleon’s return, of the Carbonari, many of whom were also in Brussels, and of the Decembrists; Seigel, Bohemian Paris, 20–25; Herzen, Feiten en gedachten i, 70–92; the classical literary portrayal of this theme can be found in Le rouge et le noir, Stendhal’s novel from 1830; the term ‘armed Bohemians’ is derived from studies on the behaviour and psyche of First World War veterans. Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, 317. 23 Zamoyski, Phantom Terror, 238–9, 282–95. 24 Palmer, Twelve who Ruled; Lazare Carnot was and continues to be seen in France as l’organisateur de la victoire. 25 Colenbrander, Willem ii, 41–2. 26 William ii, Autobiographical notes, September 1821, kha-g54–32. 27 William ii, ‘Essai sur le siècle dans lequel je vis’, Soestdijk, 10 June 1818, kha-g54–33. 348

References

28 William ii, Autobiographical notes, September 1821, kha-g54–32. 29 Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken viii–1, 601–2, 605–9. 30 Alexander to Willem ii, 3 and 15 March 1817, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken viii–1, 609–12; for Alexander’s opinion of Louis xviii – l’homme le plus nul d’Europe – see Wesseling, Scheffer, 74. 31 Colenbrander, Willem ii, 63–4; Robert Fagel to William i, 31 March 1817, Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken viii–2, 99–100. 32 Prince William as ‘the little Bonaparte’: Wilhelmina of Prussia to William i, 20 November 1817, kha-a32–56; Van Hogendorp, Brieven, 174. 33 On this southern border, see Uitterhoeve, Cornelis Kraijenhoff, 289–318. 34 Van Zanten, Schielijk, 94–100; Colenbrander, Willem ii, 48. 35 Anna Pavlovna to Maria Feodorovna, 12 December/30 November 1817, kha-a41-iiib–1a. 36 Van de Sande, Prins Frederik, 106–32, 187–97, 221–46; on the political and anti-clerical radicalism of the Belgian Freemasons, see Min, De eeuw van Brussel, 161, 376 n. 364; Bos, Souvereiniteit en Religie, 257; Wright, De Jezuïeten, 218–22, 227–30; King’s Office, Couranten, 1828–40, kha-a35-xxii–5; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 320–21. 37 William ii, ‘Essai sur le siècle dans lequel je vis’, Soestdijk 10 June 1818, kha-g54–33, a hand-written summary of Mirabeau’s Aperçu de la situation de la France [1790], kha-g54–52, and William ii’s autobiographical notes, 1821–3, kha-g54–32; the work of Mirabeau had been brought to the prince’s attention by August Marie Raymond d’Arenberg, Mirabeau’s executor who had access to the latter’s manuscripts; Quack, ‘Mirabeau’s verraad’. 38 William ii, Hand-written summary of Mirabeau’s Aperçu de la situation de la France, kha-g54–52; William ii, ‘Essai sur le siècle dans lequel je vis’, Soestdijk 10 June 1818, kha-g54–33. 39 Staats-Courant, 2 December 1813; Bergvelt, ‘Koning Willem i als verzamelaar’, 261–85; Van der Beek, De muntslag ten tijde van Koning Willem i; Van der Beek, ‘Onbeschrijflijk is het genoegen’, 267–80. 40 Speech from the throne of 8 August 1815, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 9; Falter, 1830, 27; Lok, Windvanen, 124; for a more general treatment, see Dijkhuis, Monarchia, 156–84. 41 Sperber, Revolutionary Europe, 270–76, 314–18; Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 22–3; Scholz, Imaginierte Restauration, 73–116; Mansel, Louis xviii. 42 Gerretson, Gesprekken met den koning, 11–12; Marmier’s account was translated shortly after the abdication of William i: Een Bezoek bij Koning Willem i ; Bornewasser, ‘Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden 1815– 1830’, 237. 43 Record of Wednesday morning audiences, register of petitions, gratifications, 1830–39, kha-a35-xxii–34; ‘Aart en William Robert Veder op Audiëntie bij koning Willem i (1832)’, 311–13. 44 Van Hogendorp, ‘Advijs op de tienjarige Begrooting’, 24 December 1819, in idem, Bijdragen tot de huishouding van de Staat iv, 315. 45 If European states were not weighed down with old debts, they had been forced to borrow money more recently to pay for the wars 349

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against Napoleon. Riemens, Het Amortisatie-Syndicaat; De Meyere, ‘Het amortisatiesyndicaat (1822–1840)’, in Eclectica; De Meyere, ‘Het amortisatiesyndicaat (1822–1840)’, in Heirbaut and Lambrecht, ed., Van oud en nieuw recht, 125–41. 46 Van Zanten, Schielijk, 176–90; Van Zanten, ‘Die Niederlande’, 425–75. 47 The idea was much older; around 1600, Jan Zamoyski declared in the Polish parliament: ‘Rex regnat, sed non gubernat.’ 48 Anderson, Europe in the Eighteenth Century, 141–6; Blanning, Das Alte Europa, 298–326; Dijkhuis, Monarchia, 127–8. 49 Another nickname for Louis-Philippe was le Roi des barricades; Lyons, Post-Revolutionary Europe, 100–102; Dijkhuis, Monarchia, 127–8; Scholz, Imaginierte Restauration. 50 Clark, Preußen, 373–81; Hampson, The Enlightenment, 170; Van Osta, Europese Monarchie. 51 ‘Gesprek tusschen den Koning [William I] en den Prins van Oranje [William II] 20 februari 1820’, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken viii–2, 235. 52 Gedenkschriften van Van der Duyn, quoted in Van Velzen, De ongekende ministeriële verantwoordelijkheid, 215; Romein, ‘Willem de Eerste’, 619–21. 53 Thorbecke, ‘Anton Reinhard Falck’, 175. 54 ‘Gesprek tusschen den Koning [William I] en den Prins van Oranje [William II] 20 februari 1820’ in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken viii–2, 235. 55 Van Hogendorp, Brieven, 71–2, 173. 56 In 1814, a third of the national budget was reserved for the Ministry of War. After 1819, this fell to a quarter. Amersfoort, Koning en kanton, 65–6, 80, 233; Amersfoort, ‘De strijd om het leger (1813–1840)’, 190–99. 57 Swart, Ambitious gentlemen; Swart, ‘Subjecten en sujetten’, 91–105; De Gabriëls, ‘Betrouwbaar of bekwaam’, 34–55; Jansen, Op weg naar Breda, 330–52; Van de Sande, Prins Frederik, 103, 141–5. 58 Lok, Windvanen, 11–14, 75–116; De Haan and Van Zanten, ‘Lodewijk als wegbereider van Willem?’, 285–301; Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 29–32; Mayhew, Malthus, 25–6, 34. 59 Compare Gellner, Nations and Nationalism. 60 Hobsbawm, Age of Revolution, 287–92, 330–31; Dollinger, ‘Das Leitbild des Bürgerkönigtums’, 335; Wasson, Aristocracy, 77–8. 61 Inventory of the furniture and other objects in the Royal Palace at ‘s-Gravenhage (1840/1847), khae9a-iv.ba–1, 42–3. 62 Steur, ‘Staatssecretarie en Kabinet des Konings onder Willem i’, 100. 63 Van Hogendorp, Brieven, 71. 64 Website of the National Archives in The Hague, accessed on 17 October 2017. The file is designated as ‘no. 2.02.01 Staatssecretarie 1813–1840’. It is divided into 7,029 separate sections; compare Steur, ‘Staatssecretarie en Kabinet des Konings onder Willem i’, 97–8. When Steur wrote his article, the archive covered 825 metres. The part of the secret files that Willem i had transferred to Berlin in 1840 after his abdication was returned in 1960; Falck, Gedenkschriften, 204. 350

References

65 Bülow to his wife, 5 June 1815, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken vii, xxvii–xxviii. 66 Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes. 67 Beijer, Gedenkboek van Neerlands Watersnood; Arnhemsche Courant, 16 February 1825; Leeuwarder Courant, 25 February 1825; Thorbecke to his parents, 18 February 1825, Het Thorbecke Archief, 1798–1872 ii, 396–7. 68 The Van Oostrom Commission, established by the Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science, was responsible for compiling the canon; Grever, Jonker, Ribbens and Stuurman, Controverses rond de canon. 69 Van Zanden and Van Riel, Nederland 1780–1914, 107–42; Engelen, Van 2 naar 16 miljoen mensen, 11–13; Filarski, Kanalen van de koning-koopman, 373; Westebbe, ‘State Entrepreneurship’, 205–32; informative descriptions of the United Kingdom are (for the Northern Netherlands) Van Lennep, Nederland in den goeden ouden tijd and (for the Southern Netherlands) Van der Willigen, Levensloop. 70 For the development of the national debt from 1810, see Aerts, De Liagre Böhl, De Rooy and Te Velde, Land van kleine gebaren, 381. 71 Speech from the throne of 2 May 1814, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 5, 7; Koolhaas-Grosfeld, Ontdekking van de Nederlander, 23–41; Janse, De geest van Jan Salie, 24–43; Westebbe, ‘State Entrepreneurship’, 207. 72 Documents relating to the participation of King William i in the National Delayed and Actual Debt, 1815–1822; this includes the ‘Generale Lijst naar volgorde der nummers van de zesde uitloting der kansbiljetten van de uitgestelde schuld. Bij Wet bepaald van den 24sten December op 5,000 nummers’, kha-a35-xii.37; Van Zanden and Van Riel, Nederland 1780–1914, 121–3; Postma, ‘De tiërcering van 1810’, 163–88. 73 Preamble to and articles 13 and 14 of the Royal Decree of 29 March 1824, no. 163; De Graaf, Voor handel en maatschappij, 45–51; Van Zanden and Van Riel, Nederland 1780–1914, 139; Mansvelt, Nederlandsche Handel-maatschappij. 74 According to Colenbrander, William i was above all ‘a financier’: Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 44. 75 Speeches from the throne in 1817, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 17, 46; Van Zanden and Van Riel, Nederland 1780–1914; Jonker and Sluyterman, Thuis op de wereldmarkt, 153; Prak, Gouden Eeuw, 99–136; Schöffer, ‘De Republiek’, 194–7. 76 Preamble to and articles 13 and 14 of the Royal Decree of 29 March 1824, no. 163; Mansvelt, Nederlandsche Handel-maatschappij. 77 Westebbe, ‘State Entrepreneurship’, 205–32; Filarski, Kanalen van de koning-koopman, with an overview of the most important canals on p. 15. Filarski compares the investments in the canal system with those in the Delta Project between 1955 and 1986, which was designed to protect the Dutch coast from flooding. Uitterhoeve uses the same comparison for the construction of the Southern Frontier, the line of fortifications along the border with France. For both authors, the comparison serves to illustrate the costs in relation to national income. Uitterhoeve, Cornelis Kraijenhoff, 314, 359. 351

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78 Westebbe, ‘State Entrepreneurship’; Van Zanden and Van Riel, Nederland 1780–1914, 127. 79 Filarski, Kanalen van de koning-koopman, 67–8. 80 Memorandum of 1 June 1821, William Frederick to his minister of finance Cornelis Elout, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken viii–2, 279; Westebbe, ‘State Entrepreneurship’, 207; De Meyere, ‘Het amortisatiesyndicaat (1822–1840)’, in Eclectica, 29. 81 1815 Constitution, art. 31, in Bannier, Grondwetten, 292–3; De Meyere, ‘Het amortisatiesyndicaat (1822–1840)’, in Eclectica, 31; De Meyere, ‘Het amortisatiesyndicaat (1822–1840)’, in Dirk Heirbaut and Daniel Lambrecht, ed., Van oud en nieuw recht, 129, 134. Until 1830, the operations of the Amortization Syndicate would be the only cause of the deterioration in public finances; Riemens, Het AmortisatieSyndicaat, 238. 82 Aerts, De Liagre Böhl, De Rooy and Te Velde, Land van kleine gebaren, 381. 83 Van Zanten, Schielijk, 171–2; in assessing William i’s financial administration, Filarski hesitates between creative bookkeeping and fraud: Filarski, Kanalen van de koning-koopman, 358, 366–7. Roman senator Cato allegedly ended all his speeches by saying ‘Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.’ The phrase has often been used as a call to war. 84 Fulcher, Capitalism, 38–41; compare Hobsbawm’s conclusion: ‘[Economic] liberalism was the anarchism of the bourgeoisie,’ in Hobsbawm, Age of Empire, 40. 85 Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 14–15. 86 Mansvelt, Nederlandsche Handelmaatschappij i, 104; Fritschy, ‘Staatsvorming en financieel beleid’, 220; Van der Woud, Het lege land, 180, 525; Riemens, Het Amortisatie-Syndicaat, 11; Vanthoor, De Nederlandsche Bank 1814–1998, 35. 87 Prince Pyotr Kozlovsky to field marshal Ivan Paskevich, 28/16 June 1839, Russian State Historic Archive, St Petersburg, Fond 1018 Opis 8 Delo I; for a list of the king’s participation in various enterprises, see kha-a35-xii.28, 30–33 and 35.1–12. 88 Van Zanten, Schielijk, 179–83. The Dutch Trading Company was what economists call a monopsonist: an exclusive buyer which determines the purchase price. 89 Guizot declared: ‘Éclairez-vous, enrichissez-vous, améliorez-vous la condition morale et matérielle de notre France.’; Lyons, PostRevolutionary Europe, 218; Hobsbawm, Age of Revolution, 369; for ‘who pays, says’, see ‘Gesprek tussen de koning [William I] en de prins van Oranje [William II] 20 February 1820’, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken viii–2, 236. 90 See for example: Copies of documents from the Van Maanen archive on the question of whether the guarantee provided by King William Frederick to the Dutch Trading Company [regarding the interest of 4.5 per cent] was not private in nature, 1840, kha-a35-xii.29; Woelderink, Geschiedenis van de Thesaurie, 48–62; Riemens, Het AmortisatieSyndicaat; Van der Woud, Het lege land, 23–31, 508–13; Van Zanten, 352

References

Schielijk, 181; Mansvelt, Nederlandsche Handelmaatschappij i, 103–4 and annex i. 91 Westebbe, ‘State Entrepreneurship’, 215, 217. 92 The other colonies were Veenhuizen, Ommerschans, Wortel and Merksplas. Horsten, Landlopers; Jansen, Het pauperparadijs; Schackmann, De proefkolonie; De Rooy, ‘De armen’, 234–8. 93 Speech from the throne of 1820 in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 24. 94 Jansen, Het pauperparadijs. 95 In the words of Thomas Malthus: ‘Dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful’. See Mayhew, Malthus, 71–2; on productive virtue, see Stuurman, Wacht op onze daden, 209–48, especially 237–8; on the Algemene Nederlandsche Maatschappij ter begunstiging van de Volksvlijt (de Société Général), see Van der Wee and Verbreyt, De Generale Bank, 18–29. 96 Ricklefs, History of Modern Indonesia, 112–13. 97 1815 Constitution, art. 60, in Bannier, Grondwetten, 302–3; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 194; Fasseur, Kultuurstelsel; Breman, Mobilizing Labour; Blussé, ‘Koning Willem i en de schepping van de koloniale staat’, 145–71. 98 Van Zanden and Van Riel, Nederland 1780–1914, 142–8; De Graaf, Voor handel en maatschappij, 47–9. 99 Hendrik Tollens, ‘Op de Beeldtenis des Konings, geschilderd door Den Heer Paelinck en gezonden naar Batavia’, in Oosterwijk, Koning van de koopvaart, 279; ‘national self-adulation’ as typical of Tollens’s work is derived from Conrad Busken Huet. 1 00 Nasar, Grand Pursuit, 189. 101 Van Zanten, Schielijk; Falter, 1830, 23–37; Bos, Souvereiniteit en Religie, 185–213, 267–74, 283–357. 102 This taboo is clearly illustrated in the following passages in the correspondence between Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer and Abraham Kuyper. In 1869, ten years before Kuyper set up the first political party in the Netherlands, the Anti-Revolutionary Party, they wrote of ‘the widespread suspicion of political parties’, the ‘spectre of political factions’ and the ‘defamation of political parties’; Groen to Kuyper, 24 November 1869, Kuyper to Groen, 26 November 1869, see Goslinga, ed., Briefwisseling van Mr. Groen van Prinsterer met Dr. A. Kuyper; Koch, Abraham Kuyper, 118. 103 Witte, Constructie van België; Witte, ‘Natievorming onder Willem i’, 147–71; Tollebeek, ‘Enthousiasme en evidentie’, 57–74; Rovers, ‘Dan liever de lucht in!’, 71–84. 1 04 Bornewasser, ‘Koning Willem i’, 247, 255; Bos, In dienst van het Koninkrijk; Van Zanten, Schielijk, 39–58. 105 Van Maanen has been compared to Talleyrand. The political term ‘weather vane’ comes from the French girouette. Lok, Windvanen; Kluit, Cornelis Felix van Maanen. 106 Lok, Windvanen, 111, 336. 107 Janssens and Steyaert, Het onderwijs in het Nederlands, 42–8; De Jonghe, Taalpolitiek van Willem i ; Fischman, ‘Language and Nationalism’, 157. 353

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108 ‘Besluit van den 15 September 1819, houdende bepalingen omtrent het gebruik der landtaal in publieke akten tot gerief en in het belang der ingezetenen’, article 5, in De Jonghe, Taalpolitiek van Willem i, 275. 109 Janssens and Steyaert, Het onderwijs in het Nederlands, 47–9. 110 Idem, 43, 51, 58. 111 The term ‘Nut Protestantism’ is from Groen van Prinsterer, Schriftelijke nalatenschap i, 397; Janssens and Steyaert, Het onderwijs in het Nederlands, 77–88; Bos, Souvereiniteit en Religie, 184; Kloek and Mijnhardt, 1800, 302–5. 112 Falck’s notes, December 1821, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken viii–3, 254. 113 Goubau d’Hovorst to William i, 8 December 1823, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken viii–3, 239; Bos, Souvereiniteit en Religie, 184; for Joseph ii’s anti-clerical policies, see Fichtner, The Habsburgs, 147–52. 114 The educational map developed by the commission for statistics in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands shows that this gap had still not closed in 1829. See Randeraad, Het onberekenbare Europa, 58; Janssens and Steyaert, Het onderwijs in het Nederlands, 78. The Northern Netherlands had one of the highest literacy levels in Europe. This was due to the Protestant duty to read the Bible independently, a relatively high level of prosperity, urbanization and an orientation towards trade. See Knippenberg and De Pater, De eenwording van Nederland, 174–7. 115 Roos, Het Nederlands Kloosterwezen (1795–1960), 16–19. 116 De Valk, Roomser dan de paus?, 87–8. 117 Goubau d’Hovorst to R. Falck, 15 April 1823, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken viii–3, 170–71. 118 The Collegium Philosophicum had 167 students in 1825, 208 in 1826, 124 in 1827, 44 in 1828 and 8 in 1829: Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 314; Bos, Souvereiniteit en Religie, 195–204; Witte, Constructie van België, 36–40; for ‘Collegium Diabolicum’, see De Valk, Roomser dan de paus?, 88; Van der Meulen, Willem den Koppigen ii, 52. 119 The contrast with Leopold i, who sought support from his Catholic subjects, cannot be greater. See Deneckere, Leopold i, 382–90. 1 20 Bos, Souvereiniteit en Religie, 195–204. 121 Englund, Napoleon, 180–84; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 232–56; Bornewasser, ‘Het credo’, 117–31. 122 Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 246–50; Lantink, ‘Gallicanisme en Germania Sacra’, 239–57; Bos, Souvereiniteit en Religie, 240. 123 Bornewasser, ‘Het credo’, 129–30; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 256. 124 Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 43 n. 1. 125 Bornewasser, ‘Het credo’, 131–2. 126 ‘Opstel van de Koning’, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken ix–2, 319–24; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 259–64. Colenbrander dated this paper in July 1827, a month after the announcement of the concordat. According to Bornewasser, however, William i did not complete it until November: Bornewasser, ‘Het credo’, 137. 127 Bos, In dienst van het Koninkrijk; Rasker, Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk vanaf 1795; Clark, Preußen, 474–87. 354

References

128 ‘Opstel van de Koning’, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken ix–2, 321, 324; De Valk, ‘Landsvader en landspaus’, 76–9. 129 ‘Opstel van de Koning’, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken ix–2, 322; Raedts, ‘Romantische visies op middeleeuws pausschap’, 276, 281. 130 ‘Opstel van de Koning’, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken ix–2, 323–4; Bornewasser, ‘Het credo’, 132–3, 138. William i was possibly inspired by the ideas of Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim (Febronius). Goubau d’Hovorst was strongly influenced by the ideas of this eighteenth-century Bishop of Trier. Febronius propagated a nationalcorporatist state church that would ultimately include Catholics and Protestants. Lantink, ‘Gallicanisme en Germania Sacra’, 253. 131 Conversation between Röell and the King, 27 December 1826, in Gerretson, Gesprekken met den koning, 24–5. 132 Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 264. 133 Compare Gellner, Nations and Nationalism. 134 Lyons, Post-Revolutionary Europe, 98–112; Zamoyski, Phantom Terror; Talmon, Romanticism and Revolt; Chadwick, Secularization, 125. 135 Stengers, ‘Le vocabulaire national’, 11–13; Witte, Constructie van België, 35; Falter, 1830, 30; De Jonghe, Taalpolitiek van Willem i. 136 Bos, Souvereiniteit en Religie, 208; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 315–16, 320–21. 137 Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 54; Witte, Constructie van België, 48, 50; Rovers, ‘Dan liever de lucht in!’, 35. 138 Van Zanten, Schielijk, 163–6; Bos, Souvereiniteit en Religie, 209; Clemens, ‘Confessie, kerk, natie en staat’, 163–6; on the Catholic side, these new ideas were disseminated by French priest Félicité de Lamennais, who gained much influence in Belgium after 1830. Von Aretin, Papacy, 51–8; Chadwick, History of the Popes, 12–18; Koch, ‘Een pauselijk katholicisme’, 288. 139 Eliëns, Kunst, nijverheid, kunstnijverheid, 35–6. 140 Schuermans to Van Maanen, 12 August 1830, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken ix–2, 839–40.

5  Crisis Years, 1828–40

1 Witte, Constructie van België, 43–83. 2 Falter, 1830; Colenbrander, Afscheiding van België, 76; Harris, Talleyrand, 294–307; Deneckere, Leopold i, 188–94. 3 Thorbecke to Groen van Prinsterer, 9 November 1830, Thorbecke, Briefwisseling i, 28–9; Van Zanten, Schielijk, 284. 4 Groen van Prinsterer, Handboek, 881. 5 Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 19–23; Anderson, Imagined Communities, 104; De Vroede, ‘Een overgangstijd’, 16; Mann, Deutsche Geschichte, 97–8. 6 Knoop, Herinneringen aan de Belgische omwenteling, 49. 7 Handelingen van de Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 19 December 1828, 206; the speaker is Etienne de Gerlache; see also Bos, Souvereiniteit en Religie, 201. 355

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8 Handelingen van de Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 20 December 1828, 211; the speaker is Charles de Brouckère. 9 Van Sas, Metamorfose, 453–4. 10 1814 Constitution, art. 104; 1815 Constitution, art. 177, in Bannier, Grondwetten; Van Velzen, Ongekende ministeriële verantwoordelijkheid. 11 Colenbrander, ‘Gesprekken met koning Willem i’, 265–7. 12 William ii to Nicholas i, 1 September 1829, Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken ix–1, 381. 13 Van Zanten, Schielijk, 277–8. 14 1815 Constitution, art. 161:, Bannier, Grondwetten, 328–9. 15 Talsma, Recht van petitie, 30, 37–8. 16 Van der Meulen, Willem den Koppigen ii, 194–5. 17 François, ‘Petitiebeweging’, 122–70. 18 The following passage is based on the report by Groen van Prinsterer, ‘Reis des Konings, mei-juni 1829’, in idem, Schriftelijke nalatenschap i, 338–412, 442–68, 585–614. 19 The Wilhelmus became the official national anthem of the Netherlands in 1932. Grijp, ‘Nationale hymnen’, 44–73. 20 Groen van Prinsterer, ‘Reis des Konings, mei-juni 1829’, 381–2, 447. 21 Idem, 373, 468. 22 Idem, 368; Falter, 1830, 12–13. 23 Groen van Prinsterer, ‘Reis des Konings’, 390, 392, 397, 455–6. 24 Idem, 487; a verbatim report of the king’s speech was published in the Courrier de la Meuse, 27 June 1829; Falter, 1830, 13; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 327. 25 Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 303–6; Witte, Constructie van België, 49. 26 Conversation between William i and Etienne de Gerlache, quoted in Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 344. 27 Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken ix–2, 678–9; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 345–6; Van Velzen, Ongekende ministeriële verantwoordelijkheid, 319–53, quote 329. 28 Smits, 1830 i, 65. 29 De Knijff de Gontroeul to Van Maanen, 2 August 1830; Schuermans to Van Maanen, 3 August 1830, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken ix–2, 824–6. 30 Dagblad van ‘s Gravenhage, 30 August 1830; Rovers, ‘Dan liever de lucht in!’, 37; Falter, 1830, 36; Colenbrander, Willem i. Part ii, 356. 31 Hobsbawm, Age of Revolution, 310–11; Erickson, Schubert’s Vienna, 22–3, 237; Jensen, Verheerlijking; Burrow, Crisis of Reason, 1–30. 32 See the warnings by the Austrian ambassador Count Félix von Mier to Metternich, in Falter, 1830, 39–40, and by Van Maanen to William i, 7 August 1830, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken ix–2, 833; for the worldwide popularity of Auber’s opera, see Hobsbawm, Age of Revolution, map 5 ‘Western Culture 1815–1848: Opera’. 33 Rovers, ‘Dan liever de lucht in!’, 36–8; Falter, 1830, 39–45; in 2011, the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie did not dare risk performing Auber’s La Muette de Portici, as it might threaten Belgian unity. See ‘Opera die België vormde, is nu bedreigend’, in nrc Handelsblad, 18 August 2011. 356

References

34 Speech from the throne, 13 September 1830, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 50–51. 35 Falter, 1830, 81. 36 ‘Afschrift autobiografie, met dagboekaantekeningen’, na, Elout, 2.21.059, inv. no. 268; Tets van Goudriaan to Thorbecke, 19 September 1838, in Thorbecke, Briefwisseling iii, 212. 37 William ii to William i, 28 August 1829, kha-a40-vi-a37. 38 William ii to Nicholas i, 10 December 1829, Russian State Historic Archive Moscow, Fond 728, Opis 1, Delo 1466.3. 39 Van Bylandt, Verhaal van het oproer te Brussel; Gerretson, Muiterij ii. 40 Bosscha, Willem den Tweede, 428–30. 41 Gerretson, Muiterij i, 3–4. 42 Falter, 1830, 59–87. 43 De Bas, Prins Frederik iv–1, 362–3; ‘Mémoires du lieutenant général Du Monceau adjudant-général et chef de la maison militaire de S.M le roi Guilaume iii’, in Buffin, ed., Mémoires et documents i, 454–5. 44 ‘Mémoires du lieutenant général Du Monceau adjudant-général et chef de la maison militaire de S. M. le roi Guilaume iii’, in Buffin, ed., Mémoires et documents i, 462–6; ‘Opgave van den kamerheer Grovestins over het wedervaren van den Prins van Oranje te Brussel’, na, 2.21.114, inv. no. 168; De Bas, Prins Frederik iv–1, 363–4; Bosscha, Willem den Tweede, 444–9. 45 ‘Mémoires du lieutenant général Du Monceau adjudant-général et chef de la maison militaire de S. M. le roi Guilaume iii’, in Buffin, ed., Mémoires et documents i, 466–7. 46 Extraits du journal du lieutenant général de Constant Rebecque’, in Buffin, ed., Mémoires et documents ii, 19–21; Falter, 1830, 70. 47 Garsou, Alexandre Gendebien, 221–5. 48 Idem, 226. 49 Deneckere, Leopold i, 192–4; Verstolk van Soelen and Van Maanen to William Frederick, 17 November 1830, see Van Greevenbroek, Verdriet om België, 31–3. 50 Gerretson, Muiterij i, 18–19. 51 Falter, 1830, 89–106. 52 Van Zanten, Schielijk, 283. 53 Falter, 1830, 55–8. 54 Witte, Constructie van België, 60–61. 55 Idem, 50, 59. 56 William i to Prince Frederick, September 1830, quoted in Falter, 1830, 105. 57 Text accompanying the proclamation of Prince Frederick, 21 September 1830, in Colenbrander, Afscheiding van België, 28–9. 58 Tocqueville, Recollections, 14; Church, Europe in 1830, 45–6. 59 Proclamation by William i, 5 October 1830, quoted in Falter, 1830, 163. 60 Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 300–303. 61 William ii to Anna Pavlovna, 6 and 12 October 1830, kha-g54–67; Witte, Constructie van België, 69. 62 Gerretson, Muiterij i, 28. 63 Garsou, Alexandre Gendebien, 227. 357

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64 Colenbrander, Willem ii, 71. 65 Proclamation by William ii, 16 October 1830, in Smits, 1830 ii, 206–9; Colenbrander, Afscheiding van België, 49, 158. 66 Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 310; Groen van Prinsterer to Van Assen, 21 October 1830, Groen van Prinsterer, Schriftelijke nalatenschap i, 355; Falter, 1830, 169. 67 Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 52–4; De Bas, Prins Frederik iv–1, 481; the British ambassador was also convinced that Willem i knew of Prince William’s plans; see Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot, 310 n. 45. 68 Willem ii to Anna Pavlovna, 22 October 1830, kha-g54–67. 69 Church, Europe in 1830; Gildea, Barricades and Borders, 70–75; Lyons, Post-Revolutionary Europe, 109–11. 70 Colenbrander, Afscheiding van België, 76; Witte, Constructie van België, 77–8. 71 Witte, Constructie van België, 78. 72 Colenbrander, Afscheiding van België, 93–6, 107–9. 73 Falter, 1830, 222–3. 74 Decree no. 5, 24 November 1830, on the permanent exclusion of the family of Orange-Nassau from any power in Belgium. In 2001, 2003 and 2007, Flemish nationalists tried to have the decree rescinded on the basis that William i’s language policy may have offered Flemishspeakers some degree of protection. The proposals were rejected. See also Deneckere, Leopold i, 191. 75 Falter, 1830, 215, 266; Knoop, Herinneringen aan de Belgische omwenteling, 167; Verstolk van Soelen and Van Maanen to William Frederick, 17 November 1830, in Van Greevenbroek, Verdriet om België, 31–3. 76 Deneckere, Leopold i, 192–3. 77 Idem, 188–94. 78 Witte, Verloren koninkrijk, chapter 3 ‘De strijd om de troon van de Oranjes’, 169–225. 79 Falck, Gedenkschriften, 311; William ii to Nicholas i, 5 December 1830, Russian State Historic Archive, Moscow, Fond 728 Opis 1 Delo 1466.4. 80 William ii to Anna Pavlovna, 19 and 20 November 1830, kha-g54–68; De Bas, Prins Frederik iv–1, 529; Gedenkschriften van den graaf Van der Duyn, 158. 81 Witte, Constructie van België, 72–7; Deneckere, Leopold i, 188–202. 82 Grey to William iv, 13 January 1831, [Grey] Correspondence i, 53–4. 83 Cromwell, Dorothea Lieven, 132–5. 84 Idem, 134. 85 William ii to Anna Pavlovna, 11 and 28 January 1831, kha-g54–68. 86 Falck, Gedenkschriften, 312; Colenbrander, Willem ii, 82–4. 87 Wouters, Fonteinen van de Oranjeberg iii, 3–12. 88 Witte, Verloren koninkrijk, 208–12; Van Opstal, België beeft . . . , 26–69; Leconte, Les deux généraux. 89 Pater Noster National. Reproduced in Het verloren koninkrijk, 29. 90 Jensen, Verheerlijking, 146–53; Rovers, ‘Dan liever de lucht in!’ 91 Van Sas, ‘1830 en de Tiendaagse Veldtocht’, 146–53; Van de Sande, Prins Frederik, 168–77. 358

References

92 For the Ten Days Campaign, see Wüppermann, Geschiedenis van den Tiendaagschen veldtocht; Knoop, Tiendaagsche Veldtogt; De Bas, Prins Frederik iv–1, 608–798. 93 Deneckere, Leopold i, 234; Falter, 1830, 312–13. 94 Colenbrander, Willem ii, 98; Anna Pavlovna to Nicholas i, 8 to 17 August 1931, kha-a41-iiib–4 and 8; Queen Wilhelmina (Mimi) and Princess Marianne to William ii, 14 August 1831, kha-a36-iv–1–5. 95 Van Sas, Metamorfose, 445; Van Zanten, Schielijk, 150–51; Schouwenaar, Tussen Beurs en Binnenhof, 53, 154–68; Tamse and Witte, ‘Inleiding’, 23; Worst, ‘Koning Willem i’, 63–4; Chappin SJ and De Valk, ‘Koning Willem I: een verlicht despoot?’, 93–4. 96 Deneckere, Leopold i, 185–215, 367–9, 582–3; besides the radically changed position of the monarch and of the Catholic Church, there was considerable continuity between the basic laws of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the new Belgium: Witte, ‘Grondwet van het Verenigd Koninkrijk’, especially 40–41. 97 Zamoyski, Rites, 550–69. 98 Paulmann, Pomp und Politik, 139–46. 99 Witte, Verloren koninkrijk; Te Velde and Haks, ed., Oranje onder. 100 The background and organization of the movement are discussed in detail in Witte, Verloren koninkrijk, chapters 1 and 4; see also Witte, ‘Belgische orangisten’, 25–39. 101 Van der Willigen, Revolutionair, 84. 102 Deneckere, Leopold i, 239–45. 103 Witte, Verloren koninkrijk, chapter 6; Sperber, Revolutionary Europe, 274, 275; Zamoyski, Rites, 270–71, 290–91, 329–30; Harris, Talleyrand, 243. 104 Van der Meulen, Willem den Koppigen. 105 De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 iv, 40–41. 106 The burgomaster later denied the account, see Algemeen Handelsblad, 15 November 1841. 107 Archives of the Ministry of Justice, A.G.A. van Rappard and the King’s Office: na, 2.09.01, inv. no. 4651, 4652, 4653, 4654; na, 2.21.135, inv. no. 54; na, 2.02.14, inv. no. 9142; na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4532. 108 Van der Meere, Documents historique, 236–9; Bronne, Conspiration des paniers percés, 83–5. Colenbrander, ‘Studiën over de Nederlandsche restauratie’, 283–303; Colenbrander, ‘Orangisme’, 64–79; Deschamps, La Belgique; Leconte, Les deux généraux. 109 Grégoire to William ii, 24 March 1844, Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken x–5, 709–10; secret archives of the Ministry of Justice, na, 2.09.01, inv. no. 4651, 4652, 4653, 4654; King’s Office, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4532; Bronne, Conspiration des paniers percés, 83–5; Van Opstal, België beeft . . ., 111–18; Falck, Gedenkschriften, 687. 110 The term ‘culture of nostalgia’ (in Dutch heimweecultus) comes from Witte, Verloren koninkrijk, chapters 8 and 9; see also Witte, ‘Belgische orangisten’, 25–38. 111 Dirk Donker Curtius, August 1830, quoted in Stuurman, Wacht op onze daden, 113. 112 Boogman, ‘Bevrijding van 1813’, 101–2. 359

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113 Speech from the throne of 17 October 1831; the term ‘Old Netherlands’ was used in the 1831 speech three times, and also in those of 1832 and 1833, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 55–7, 59–60. 114 Veenendaal, Spoorwegen, 27–8, 56; speech from the throne of 1839, Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 74. 115 Speeches from the throne of 1831–40, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 56, 58, 61, 63, 65–6, 68, 72, 74; Fasseur, Kultuurstelsel; Breman, Mobilizing Labour; De Graaf, Voor handel en maatschappij, 47–9. 116 Anna Pavlovna to Nicholas i, 7 July and 21 October 1832, in Jackman, ed., Romanov Relations, 247–8; speeches from the throne of 1831 and 1832, Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 56, 59; ‘t Hart, Utrecht en de cholera, 7–17, 172–80; there is a table showing deaths from cholera by province between 1832 and 1919 on p. 303. 117 Colenbrander, Afscheiding van België, 118–20; Witte, Constructie van België, 83. 118 Van Velzen, Ongekende ministeriële verantwoordelijkheid, 368–94; Van Zanten, Schielijk, 321–6. 119 1815 Constitution, art. 1, in Bannier, Grondwetten, 284–5. 120 Kossmann, Lage Landen, 111. 121 Note from June 1832: Van der Willigen, Levensloop, 634. 122 Hooykaas, ‘Politieke ontwikkeling’, 311; Van Zanten, Schielijk, 328–30; Fritschy, ‘Staatsvorming en financieel beleid’, 233; Aerts, De Liagre Böhl, De Rooy and Te Velde, Land van kleine gebaren, 381. 123 Van Zanden and Van Riel, Nederland 1780–1914, 199–201, 209–11; Houwink, ‘Een halve eeuw Nederlandsche staatsschuld’, 599–603; Riemens, Het Amortisatie-Syndicaat, 198–204, 231–5; Landheer, ‘Afrekenen met het verleden’, 226–7. 124 Thorbecke to L. C. Luzac, 10 March 1836, in Thorbecke, Briefwisseling ii, 471; Thorbecke to J.G.H. van Tets, 14 November 1838, in idem iii, 229; Drentje, Thorbecke, 273. 125 ‘Over het bestaan der centralisatie bij ons, en de middelen om dezelve te verbeteren’ by R., in De Tijdgenoot. Verzameling van stukken betrekkelijk den tegenwoordigen toestand des Vaderlands 1843 iii, 631–6; Steur, ‘Staatssecretarie en Kabinet des Konings onder Willem i’, 99, 104. 126 Van Zanten, Schielijk, 40–45, 104, 327; Lok, Windvanen, 253; Janse, Geest van Jan Salie; Krüger, Biedermeier. 127 This description of the king’s psyche comes from the historian Colenbrander in ‘Gesprekken met koning Willem i’, 259–60; L. J. Rogier, ‘Voorwoord’, in Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk. 128 ‘Algemeen Reglement voor het Bestuur der Hervormde Kerk in het Koningrijk der Nederlanden’, Royal Decree, 7 January 1816 No. 1; Mulder, Revolte der fijnen; Rasker, De Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk vanaf 1795, 55–70. 129 Knippenberg, Religieuze Kaart, 68–70; Bos, In dienst van het Koninkrijk, 93–128; Bos, Souvereiniteit en Religie, 283–366; De Jong-Slagman, Hofpredikers. 130 De Cock, Hendrik de Cock, 543; Bos, Souvereiniteit en Religie, 297, 358; Schlingmann, Koning Willem i, 185–201. 360

References

131 Schutte, Groen van Prinsterer, 55–65; the verse from the Bible that legitimises reformation of the church is Romans 12:2, which emphasizes the need to ‘renew the mind’ from time to time; Chadwick, Secularization, 26. 132 Conversation between William i and Groen van Prinsterer, 8 July 1836, in Colenbrander, ‘Gesprekken met koning Willem i’, 275; in this conversation, William i expressed the essence of enlightened Protestant theology; see also Rasker, Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk vanaf 1795, 32–44, 166. 133 Meeter, Holland, 9; Robijns, Radicalen, 98–133. 134 Koch, ‘Le Roi décide seul’, 49–58; Van Zanten, Schielijk; Van Velzen, Ongekende ministeriële verantwoordelijkheid; Van Sas, Metamorfose, 418–19, 431–3; Robijns, Radicalen. 135 Van Sas, Metamorfose, 453–4. 136 Handelingen van de Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 9 March 1837; the speaker is François Frets, 71–2; Speech from the throne of 17 October 1836, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 68; Van Zanten, Schielijk, 322–3; Hooykaas, ‘Politieke ontwikkeling’, 310. 137 Rietbergen and Verschaffel, Broedertwist, 47–8; Riemens, Het Amortisatie-Syndicaat, 231–5. 138 Falter, 1830, 305–6. 139 Van Velzen, Ongekende ministeriële verantwoordelijkheid, 421–4; Thorbecke to Van Assen, 16 September 1839, in Thorbecke, Briefwisseling iii, 291; Van Sas, Metamorfose, 458–80; Drentje, Thorbecke, 267–424; Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 78. 140 Baron van Keverberg van Kessel, report on a conversation with William i on 11 March 1840 (April 1840) in Colenbrander, ‘Gesprekken met koning Willem i’, 288–92. 141 Van Sas, Metamorfose, 471. 142 Article 73 of the 1815 constitution was replaced by articles 75, 76 and 77 of the 1840 constitution, Bannier, Grondwetten, 372; C. F. van Maanen, ‘Aanteekening omtrent ‘s Konings afstand van de Regeering’, in Colenbrander, ‘Gesprekken met koning Willem i’, 299–300, 302.

6  Palace Secrets and Family Intrigues, 1795–1849 1 Quoted in Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 63–4. A left-handed, or morganatic, marriage is one between people of unequal social rank, in which the low-ranked spouse has no claims on their partner’s rights or titles. 2 Algemeen Handelsblad, 28 September and 5 October 1839, quoted in Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 65–8; Schouwenaar, Tussen Beurs en Binnenhof. 3 ‘Aan zijne Majesteit, den Koning der Nederlanden, de predikanten der Christelijke Hervormde Gemeente van Amsterdam’, March 1840, see Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 78, 112–14, 302–3. 4 Senfft von Pilsach to Metternich, 23 October 1839, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken x–3, 364–5; Sophie of Württemberg, ‘l’Histoire de ma vie. Deuxième partie’, khaa46-vii–14; Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 78. 361

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5 Schouwenaar, Tussen Beurs en Binnenhof, 250–58; Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 103–4, 294–5. 6 Henriette d’Oultremont to William ii, 17 July 1839, in Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 33–4. 7 Lyons, Post-Revolutionary Europe, 114. This statement was made in 1846 by Massimo Taparelli d’Azeglio. This Piedmontese aristocrat believed that the new society was controlled on the one hand by the constitutional state and on the other hand by public opinion; Chadwick, Secularization, 37–45. 8 ‘Lead a private life publicly’ is how Van Osta summarizes English publicist Walter Bagehot’s description of the task of the royal family in The English Constitution, 85–6, 259; Bagehot is also responsible for the phrase ‘a family on the throne’; Van Osta, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, 182; Dijkhuis, Monarchia, 244–5; for aristocratic freedom and civic morality, see Winkelhofer, Feine Gesellschaft; Müller, ‘Stabilizing a “Great Historic System”’, 5–8. 9 Jacob van den Biesen quoted in Schouwenaar, Tussen Beurs en Binnenhof, 252; Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 104, 108. 10 Algemeen Handelsblad, 9 March 1840, quoted in Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 107. 11 See, for example, Senfft von Pilsach to Metternich, 15 March 1840, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken x–3, 380; Sophie of Württemberg, ‘l’Histoire de ma vie. Deuxième partie’, first version, unpublished, kha-a46-vii–14. 12 H. Box to J. R. Thorbecke, 12 March 1840, in Thorbecke, Briefwisseling iii, 379; Schouwenaar, Tussen Beurs en Binnenhof, 253. 13 William i to Henriette d’Oultremont, 22 March 1840, quoted in Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 120–21; Colenbrander, ‘Gesprekken met koning Willem i’, 288. 14 Henriette d’Oultremont to William ii, 17 July 1839, in Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 33–4. 15 Anton Falck to D. J. van Lennep, 16 August 1839, quoted in De Jong-Slagman, Nobele en pieuse carrière, 133. 16 Falck, ‘De levensavond met zijn verrassing’, in Colenbrander, ‘Gesprekken met koning Willem i’, 278. 17 Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 91, 174, 179. 18 Van der Leer and De Liefde-van Brakel, Prinses Marianne, 28–30; for Wilhelmine von Dietz, see kha-e8-xiib–1–25; Wilhelmina of Prussia to William i, 2 June 1807, kha-a35-viiia–26; Wilhelmina of Prussia’s advice referred to the first Wilhelmine von Dietz, born in 1807. The fact that she had the same name as the daughter born in 1812 indicates that the older Wilhelmine had died in the meantime. No information is available on the two sons of Julie van der Goltz and William Frederick, born and baptized in 1809 and 1810; Woelderink, Geschiedenis van de Thesaurie, 53 n. 13. 19 Queen Wilhelmina (Mimi) lost a great deal of weight from the early 1820s onwards: ‘Lijst waarop het lichaamsgewicht van leden van het Koninklijk Huis en de hofhouding is aangegeven over de jaren 1822–1828’, khaa35-x–20; Bulletin on the health of the Queen, 1827, kha–36-v.1. 362

References

20 Wilhelmina of Prussia to William i, 2 June 1807, kha-a35-viiia–26; Van de Pol, ‘Autobiografisch geheugen’, 106–25; ‘Alles besoff sich an Champagner, fraß die größten Leckereien, frönte allen Lüsten’, according to a contemporary at the court of Friedrich Wilhelm ii: Philipps, Frederike von Preußen, 50–51; the brother of Wilhelmina of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm iii, was also completely opposed to his father’s frivolous court life; see De Bruyn, Preußens Luise, 20–21, 30–31; the two wives, the mistresses and the two morganatic marriages of Friedrich Wilhelm ii are described in the ‘biographisch kommentiertes Personenregister’ in Lehndorff, Am Hof der Königin Luise, 463–4. 21 Report from the commission drawing up the statement of the estate of Her Late Majesty Frederica Louise Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands, 23 November 1837, kha-a36-ii–2-b. The commission requested Mimi’s letters from her correspondents, very many of whom responded. See also N. Japikse, ‘Introduction’ to the inventory of the archive of King William i, kha-a35. The destruction of the correspondence was ordered by government decree no. 1632 of 26 November 1837. 22 Mimi to William i, kha-a36-iv–2. The letters date from the following years: 1795 (14 letters), 1796 (36), 1798 (4), 1799 (44), 1800 (14), 1802 (54), 1803 (2), 1806 (7), 1807 (15), 1808 (11), 1811 (6), 1812 (60), 1813 (14) and 1815 (1). Eight of the letters are undated. The archive of King William i contains two more letters from Mimi from 1821: kha-a35-viiia–13. 23 Compare the comments of Count Lehndorff, Am Hof der Königin Luise, 220–21. 24 Mimi to William i, 23 December 1806 and 15 January 1807, kha-a36-iv–2. 25 Mimi to William i, for example 11 and 15 August 1807, 3 and 8 September 1812, kha-a36-iv–2; see also Mimi to William i, 1 and 30 March 1802, kha-a36-iv–2; Voss, Neunundsechzig Jahre, 131–2. 26 See her opinion of General Peter zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenhausen in Mimi to William i, 14 March 1813, kha-a36-iv–2; for the great impression made by Wittgenstein, see also Wilhelmina of Prussia to William i, 15 March 1815; Louise to William i, 19 and 21 March 1813, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 192, 194–6. 27 Wasson, Aristocracy, 63–4. 28 Mimi to William i, 2 November 1802, kha-a36-iv–2. It is not clear which Prince Reuß this was. Prince Anton Heinrich Radziwill was also found in Mimi’s company conspicuously frequently. 29 Louise to William i, 22 October 1809, kha-a35-viiia–77. Naber omitted the last sentence: Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 42–3. 30 William ii, Autobiographical notes, September 1821, kha-g54–32. 31 Huyssen van Kattendijke to van Doorn van Westcapelle, 3 March 1841, kha-a35-iii–2. 32 William ii to William i, 23 February 1841, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken x–5, 707–8; see also William ii to Marianne, 7 April 1841, in Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 223–4. 363

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33 A calculation of the capital accumulated illegitimately by William i appeared in the Nijmeegsche Vreemdenlijst of Weekblaadje, 13 March 1841, quoted in Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 271; examples of cartoons, idem, 172–3; Meeter, Holland, 27–8. 34 This cousin was Emile d’Oultremont de Wégimont de Cattoire; Falck, 20 March 1841 in Colenbrander, ‘Gesprekken met koning Willem i’, 311–12; Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 102, 131, 194; Viaene, Belgium and the Holy See, 220–22. 35 Notes by C. F. van Maanen (November 1819) in the collection of papers on the blackmail of the Prince of Orange, kha-a35-xviii–64a. 36 Winkelhofer, Feine Gesellschaft, 155–89; Lyons, Post-Revolutionary Europe, 164, 167. 37 Robb, Strangers, 17–193; Hekma, Homoseksualiteit in Nederland; Van der Meer, Sodoms zaad; O’Donnell et al., ed., Love, Sex Intimacy; Harvey, Sex in Georgian England. 38 William ii, Travel Diary, kha-a40-iv–60; Hatzfeldt to Friedrich Wilhelm iii, 9 February 1817, Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken viii–1, 355; H. Box to J. R. Thorbecke, 22 February 1833, in Thorbecke, Briefwisseling i, 397–8. 39 William ii, Autobiographical notes, September 1821, kha-g54– 32; Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken viii–1, 417–22, 431–7; Du Chastel to William ii, 22 March 1843, kha-a40-vic–19d; Salomon, ‘Freundschaftskult’, 279–308; Labrie, ‘Eenzaamheid en sociabiliteit’, 68–88; Robb, Strangers, 84–121. 40 Salviati to Friedrich Wilhelm iii, 8 August 1820, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken viii–1, 417; C. J. van Assen to Groen van Prinsterer, 26 February 1830, in Groen van Prinsterer, Schriftelijke nalatenschap i, 268–9. 41 William ii to William i, 15, 18 and 31 July 1819, kha-a40-via–15; William ii, Autobiographical notes, September 1821, kha-g54–32; Clancarty to Castlereagh, 15 August 1820, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken viii–1, 147–9. 42 MacCarthy, Byron, 38. 43 Harvey, Sex in Georgian England, 126. 44 Papers on the blackmail of the Prince of Orange, kha-a351841, xviii–64a; Van Boven, ‘Reuvens, Jan Everard’, Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland; Verburg, Ministerie van Justitie i, 124–5. 45 Nominative list of all persons present at the arrest of ‘A. Vermeulen’ on 3 November 1819, kha-a35-xviii–64a; police interrogation of Boers by the director of the Amsterdam police Wiselius and Fallée on 6 and 10 November, together with a description of the arrest by Range, 12 November 1819, by Wiselius on 18 November, kha-a35-xviii–64a. 46 Report of the arrest of Bouwens van der Boyen by Fallée, 15 November 1819, kha-a35-xviii–64a. 47 Letter from Boers to Wiselius, February or March 1820, kha-a35xviii–64a; William ii to William i, 26 February, 13, 15 and 16 April 1820, kha-a40-via–37; Colenbrander, ‘Willem i en de mogendheden’, 398–403. 364

References

48 H. Box to Van Assen, 14 April 1849, na–2.21.008.77, inv. no. 56a; Verburg, Ministerie van Justitie i, 235–7. 49 H. Box to Van Assen, 14 April and 18 December 1849, na, 2.21.008.77, inv. no. 56a. 50 Ampt to Van Maanen, 21 February 1833, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken x–5, 204. 51 Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk, 11–15; Robijns, Radicalen, 87–8, 103, 112, 170, 203–5, 207; Meeter, Holland, 30–34; Rüter, Rapporten van de gouverneurs i, 59–61; Colenbrander, Willem ii, 49–52; Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 103–12. 52 Alberts, Baud en Thorbecke, 128. 53 Van Andringa de Kempenaer to William ii, 13 January, 15 and 24 December 1844, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4503. These letters also reveal the relationship with Bouwens van der Boyen. Moreover, there is reference to ‘a hussar and a prince of the blood’. The hussar is Du Chastel; Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk, 154. 54 Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk, 124. 55 Petrus Jansen to Anna Pavlovna, 10 January 1850, kha-g54–178. 56 Dijkhuis, Monarchia, 231–4; Winkelhofer, Feine Gesellschaft, 17, 86, 190–92. 57 Louise to Wilhelmina of Prussia, 19 March 1813, in Naber, ed., Correspondentie v, 194; Zamoyski, 1812, 26–7, 330–31, 527–8; Zamoyski, Rites, 103–5, 273–4; Lyons, Post-Revolutionary Europe, 13; Burleigh, Earthly Powers, 119–21. 58 Van der Leer and De Liefde-van Brakel, Prinses Marianne, 23. 59 Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 25, 27, 288, 337. 60 Willem Hendrik Warnsinck, ‘De tiendaagsche veldtogt’ (1831); Jensen, Verheerlijking. 61 See above, chapter 5. Proclamation by William ii, 16 October 1830, in Smits, 1830 ii, 206–9; Colenbrander, Afscheiding van België, 49. 62 William ii, Autobiographical notes, winter 1822, kha-g54–32. 63 Vinogradoff, Visit to St. Petersburg; Cornélie, Dagboek, 154–5. 64 Vinogradoff, Visit to St. Petersburg, 51. 65 William ii to William i, 5 June 1825, kha-a40-via–37. 66 William ii to William i, 6 July 1825, kha-a40-via–37; Vinogradoff, Visit to St. Petersburg, 137–8; Cornélie, Dagboek, 239–42. 67 William ii to William i, 11 May 1825, kha-a40-via–37. For his description of Moscow, see William ii to Anna Pavlovna, 6 May 1825, kha-g54–65; Zamoyski, 1812; Runia, Pathologie van de veldslag; Hughes, Romanovs, 153, 165, 215, 216. 68 William ii to Anna Pavlovna, 11 July 1825, kha-g54–64; Pipes, ‘Russian Military Colonies’, 205–19; Jenkins, Arakcheev. 69 William ii to Nicholas i, May 1828, Russian State Historic Archive, Moscow, Fond 728, Opis 1, Delo 1466.3. 70 Herzen, Feiten en gedachten i, 70–79; Mazour, First Russian Revolution, 46–63; Raeff, Decembrist Movement; Saunders, Russia in The Age of Reaction; Zamoyski, Phantom Terror, 232–54. 71 William ii to Anna Pavlovna, 15 and 30 January 1826, kha-g54–65; William ii to William i, 1 February 1826, kha-a40-via–21. 365

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72 William ii to William i, 22 February 1826, kha-a40-via–37. 73 Letters from William ii to Nicholas i, 29 October and 26 November 1828, Russian State Historic Archive, Moscow, Fond 728, Opis 1, Delo 1466.3 ; for the influence of Alexander’s ideas on William ii, see William ii to Nicholas i, 25 January 1828, Russian State Historic Archive, Moscow, Fond 728, Opis 1, Delo 1466.3. 74 Louis-Toussaint, Marquis de La Moussaye to Paris, March 1829, quoted in Colenbrander, Willem ii, 60. 75 William ii to Anna Pavlovna, 4 March 1826, kha-g54–65; Sweetman, Raglan, 79–82; Hughes, Romanovs, 157, 158; see also Kropotkin, Memoires, 109, 110. 76 Maria Feodorovna to Anna Pavlovna, 6 and 9 January and 4 February 1826, kha-g54–86; William ii to William i, 12 March 1826, kha-a40-via–37. 77 Riko, ‘Glanstijdperk’, 107–15; for Tervuren, see for example, Dispositions prises pour la Fête donnée à Sa Majesté la Reine, dans le local du Vaux-Hall joint au Théâtre du Parc, kha-a40-vii–6. 78 Dollinger, ‘Leitbild des Bürgerkönigtums’, 340–44; Koch, Van Zanten and Van der Meulen, ‘Meine Gefühle sind ganz und gar deutsch’, 15–20. 79 Report from the Court Commission, 20 June 1814, and the decision by the Secretary of State of 23 June 1814 regarding the palaces of the Sovereign King, kha-a35-xi–7; Goossens, Paleis Noordeinde, 57–8, 144; Wander, ed., Haagse Huizen van Oranje, 25–7, 53; Cleverens, Koningsvleugel, 9, 11, 15. 80 Molitor, Janssens, Vermeire and De Greef, Koninklijk Paleis Brussel, 73–5; Bergé, ‘Monumenten in België’, 101–4. 81 This building now houses the Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium (rasab): Hasquin and Strauven, Aedes Academiarum. 82 Ubels, ‘Koninklijk architect’, 50–51; Van der Wijck, Nederlandse buitenplaats, 373–400. 83 Bergvelt, ‘Koning Willem i als verzamelaar’, 261–85; Bergvelt, ‘Een vorstelijk museum’, 27–66; Hinterding, Schilderijenverzameling. 84 Werquet, Historismus und Repräsentation; Dehio, Friedrich Wilhelm iv.; Gollwitzer, Ludwig i., 745–65; Mann, Ludwig i.; Girouard, Return to Camelot, 111–28; Meulenkamp, ‘De Koning Bouwt’. Neu Schwanstein Castle, built by ‘Märchenkönig’ Ludwig ii, shows that this fashion persisted at least into the following generation. 85 Dollinger, ‘Leitbild des Bürgerkönigtums’, 340–44. 86 Algemeen Handelsblad, 28 November 1840. 87 Wap, Gedenkboek der inhuldiging, 3–10; Memoires of H. van Zuylen van Nijevelt, na, 2.21.179.02, inv. no. 87. 88 For the organization and planning of the investiture, see kha-a40-ix–14, a40-xi–34 and a40-xi–34a; Statement of the money paid by the Treasurer for the investiture of King William ii at Amsterdam in 1840, kha-a40-ix–14. The total costs were 68,289 guilders and 49½ cents. 89 Disbrowe, Old Days in Diplomacy, 282, 283. 90 Wap, Gedenkboek der inhuldiging, 26–9; De Clercq, Dagboek De Clercq 1840, Réveil archives, uba special collections, ra-f-xxvii–4. 366

References

91 Anna Pavlovna to Nicholas i, 9 December 1841, kha-a41-iiib–6. 92 Friedrich-Franz von Maltitz to Nesselrode, 10 December 1840, in Colenbrander, ed., Gedenkstukken x–3, 667–8. 93 William ii to William i, 12 December 1840, kha-a40-vi–33. 94 Algemeen Handelsblad, 30 November 1840; De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 iv, 8. 95 De Noord-Brabander, 3 December 1840; ‘Symbolen van het staatsregt’, Weekblad van het Regt, 21 December 1840. 96 Algemeen Handelsblad, 1 December 1840; Arnhemsche Courant, 1 December 1840; Middelburgsche Courant, 3 December 1840; De Clercq, Dagboek De Clercq 1840, Réveil archives, uba special collections, ra-f-xxvii–4. 97 Princess Sophie, ‘Mon journal, 1840’, thhstaw, a-xxvii–194i. 98 William ii, Autobiographical notes,Winter 1822, kha-g54–32. 99 Mémoire sur la manière de traiter mon fils pendant les années de son enfance proprement dite, no date, but written before the birth of Alexander in August 1818, khag54–36. 100 Idem; But et circonstances observer dans l’éducation de mes fils, manuscript written by William ii, 1822, kha–45-V-I. 101 Turpijn and Van Zanten, ‘Opvoeding van Willem en Wiwill’, 160–61; ‘Erziehungskatastrophe’ in Winkelhofer, Feine Gesellschaft, 49. 102 Winkelhofer, Feine Gesellschaft, 49–78. 103 Article 72 of the 1815 Constitution specifies that the ‘Prince of Orange’ becomes a member of the Council of State ‘when his eighteenth year has been completed’; Bannier, Grondwetten, 304. 104 Th.J. de Constant Rebecque de Villars to William ii, 19 September 1824, kha-a45-v–1; Rapport sur l’instruction donnée aux Princes Fils de A.A.M. monseigneur le Prince d’Orange pendant le 4me trimestre 1826, kha-a45-v6; Rapport sur l’Instruction et la Conduite des Princes depuis le 1er Octobre 1829, jusq’au 1er Avril 1830, kha-a45-v2; teaching schedule for the princes William, Alexander and Henry for the winter of 1829–30, drawn up by De Constant Rebecque de Villars, 1829, kha-a45-v–5. 105 C. J. van Assen to G. Groen van Prinsterer, 11 or 12 December 1832, in Groen van Prinsterer, Schriftelijke nalatenschap ii, 642. At the end of 1832, William iii was only fifteen years old; Lecture notes, mostly written by Prince William on various subjects and sciences, kha-a45-v–10. 106 Wasson, Aristocracy, 88–93; Montijn, Hoog geboren, 201–17. 107 William iii to his brother Alexander, 11 October 1837, kha-a42-va–4. 108 De Casembroot, Memories, 1852–1853, na 2.21.008.72, inv. no. 3, notes from 23 May 1852. 109 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 15 August 1846, in Haasse and Jackman, Vreemdelinge in Den Haag, 59; Burrow, Crisis of Reason, 42–52, 68–108; Hermans, Dwaaltocht van het sociaaldarwinisme; Van der Heide, Darwin; Kemperink, Verloren paradijs, 79–108. 110 De Casembroot, Memories, 1852–1853, na 2.21.008.72, inv. no. 3. 111 Sophie of Württemberg to W.C.A. von Weckerlin, undated, kha-a46-ivc–314. 367

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112 For general background information, see Winkelhofer, Feine Gesellschaft, 79–154; Dollinger, ‘Leitbild des Bürgerkönigtums’, 353–4. 113 William ii to William i, 14 May 1836, kha-a40-via–29; for the earlier rumours, see Groen van Prinsterer to C. J. van Assen, 20 March 1833, in Groen van Prinsterer, Schriftelijke nalatenschap ii, 652–3. 114 William iii to William ii, 11 October 1837, kha-a40-via–59. 115 Idem. 116 Idem. 117 Olga of Württemberg quoted in Winkelhofer, Feine Gesellschaft, 92. Winkelhofer’s chapter on the dynastic marriage carousel is entitled: ‘Man wird begutachtet wie ein Pferd.’ 118 William iii to William ii, 11 October 1837, kha-a40-via–59. 119 Sophie of Württemberg, l’Histoire de ma vie, 84; Tamse, ‘l’Histoire de ma vie’. 120 Van Zanten, ‘Met verscheidene dolksteken afgemaakt’, 39–49; Sauer, Reformer auf dem Königsthron, 172–7; Mann, Friedrich von Gentz, 327–31. 121 Sophie of Württemberg, l’Histoire de ma vie, 61. 122 Idem, 90. 123 J. C. Rijk, Diary 1843–1844, na–2.21.205.52–2. 124 ‘Lijkrede gehouden door den opperhofpredikant Dr. Ehrenberg’, in Levensschets, 112. 125 Sophie of Württemberg, ‘l’Histoire de ma vie, deuxieme partie’, first version, unpublished, kha-a46-vii14; Documents concerning the birth of William Nicholas Alexander Frederick Charles Henry [Wiwill], Hereditary Prince of Orange, kha-a48–1. 126 Van de Sande, Prins Frederik, 241–72. 127 Paulmann, Pomp und Politik; for an extensive account, with the SakseCoburg family as an example, see Deneckere, Leopold i. 128 Mayer, The Persistence of the Old Regime, 135–52; Cannadine, Ornamentalism, 101–20. 129 Sophie of Württemberg, l’Histoire de ma vie, 81. 130 William ii to William i, 17 January 1816, kha-a40-via–11. 131 Sophie of Württemberg, ‘l’Histoire de ma vie, deuxieme partie’, first version, unpublished, kha-a46-vii–14. 132 Anna Pavlovna to Nicholas i, 6 February and 10 July 1839, in Jackman, ed., Romanov Relations, 279, 290. 133 Sophie of Württemberg, ‘l’Histoire de ma vie, deuxieme partie’, first version, unpublished, kha-a46-vii–14.

7  Constitutional Monarchy, 1840–53 1 Bornewasser, ‘Koning Willem ii’, 292–7. 2 Riemens, Het Amortisatie-Syndicaat, 224–36; Steur, ‘Staatssecretarie en Kabinet des Konings onder Willem i’, 108, 109; ‘Aantekeningen over de opheffing van de Staatssecretarie’, Anthon van Rappard, na 2.21.135, inv. no. 180. 3 Dagblad van ‘s Gravenhage, 13 November 1840; Journal de la Haye, 13 November 1840; Bornewasser, ‘Koning Willem ii’, 293. 4 William ii to William i, 25 January 1841, kha-a35–111–19. 368

References

5 William i to Henriette d’Oultremont, 8 October 1840, in Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 162. 6 William ii to William i, 12 December 1840, kha-a40-vi–33. 7 Koch, ‘Le roi décide seul’, 51–61. 8 Sperber, Revolutionary Europe, 70, 81, 87–9. 9 William ii quoted in Bornewasser, ‘Koning Willem ii’, 299; Karl Alexander, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, was the son of Maria Pavlovna, the elder sister of Anna and Catharina Pavlovna. 10 Lyons, Post-Revolutionary Europe, 22–4, 29–34, 129–31. 11 De Gelder, ‘De regering en het negenmannenvoorstel van 1844–1845’, 37–66. 12 This statement probably dates from early 1845. ‘Diarium’ [1844–1849], papers of Jan Baptist van Son, Archives of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch; see also the letter from Baud to Rochussen, 21 March 1848, in Alberts, Baud en Thorbecke, 126–8. 13 The per capita costs of repayment and interest rose between 1830 and 1840 from four to twelve guilders; see Fritschy, ‘Staatsvorming en financieel beleid onder Willem i’, 233. 14 Aerts, De Liagre Böhl, De Rooy and Te Velde, Land van kleine gebaren, 93, 381; Van Zanden and Van Riel, Nederland 1780–1914, 209–13; as early as 1764, David Hume wrote, ‘Either the nation must destroy public credit [that is, the national debt], or public credit will destroy the nation,’ quoted in Phillipson, Adam Smith, 212. 15 Smit, Omwille der billijkheid, 46; Kroeze, ‘Een typische Hollandse politicus?’, 14–34; Te Velde, Stijlen van leiderschap, 27–32. 16 Riemens, Het Amortisatie-Syndicaat, 224–31; Smit, Omwille der billijkheid, 31–3; De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 iv, 109–55. 17 Colenbrander, Afscheiding van België, 219; William i to William ii, 6 November 1843, quoted in Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 329. 18 Fasseur, Kultuurstelsel, 37–42; Constitution of 1840, art. 59, in Bannier, Grondwetten, 370. 19 De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 iv, 203. 20 Gleichman, ‘Mr. F. A. van Hall als minister i’, 428–36. 21 F. A. van Hall, ‘Herinneringen’, na, 2.21.005.34, inv. no. 28; Kroeze, ‘Een typische Hollandse politicus?’, 29; Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk, 151. 22 Gleichman, ‘Mr. F. A. van Hall als minister i’, 448–51; William ii to his daughter Sophie, 3 April 1844, thhstaw, Großherzogliches Hausarchiv, A-xxvii–183a. 23 Taal der Waarheid, in een eerbiedig vertoogschrift aan den koning over de ongesteldheid van den staat (Amsterdam 1841); De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 iv, 59; Aerts, ‘Een staat in verbouwing’, 90–91. 24 Rüter, Rapporten van de gouverneurs i, 3; ‘Bezuiniging-herziening’, Weekblad van het Regt, 5 December 1840. 25 Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk, 116. 26 Van Zanden and Van Riel, Nederland 1780–1914, 166–78; Lyons, PostRevolutionary Europe, 161–96; Van Tijn, ‘De zwarte jaren 1845–1895’, 131–54. 369

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27 Van Loo, ‘De armenzorg’, 417–34. 28 William ii to William i, 22 October 1841, kha-a40-via–34. 29 Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk, 10; Oostindie, Parels en de Kroon, 25–6. 30 Boogman, Nederland en de Duitse Bond i, 159–63; ‘Staatkundige ophelderingen en beschouwingen’, Johan Gijsbert Verstolk van Soelen, na 2.21.007.53, inv. no. 71; Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk, 134; Blussé, Bewogen betrekkingen, 54–77. 31 Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk; Robijns, Radicalen; Meeter, Holland. 32 Siborne, History of the War in France and Belgium; Knoop, Beschouwingen over Siborne’s Geschiedenis; De Jong, Schoenmaker and Van Zanten, Waterloo, 252–8; Gabriëls, ‘The Belgians ran at the first shot’, 523–43. 33 Minutes of cabinet meeting, 27 April 1845, King’s Office, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4466. 34 See H. Box to C. J. van Assen, 5 November 1846, na, 2.21.008.77, inv. no. 56A. 35 Kossmann, Lage Landen 1780–1980, 167–74; Evans, Political Parties in Britain; Sperber, European Revolutions, 56–108; Lyons, PostRevolutionary Europe, 134–8; Bury, France, 1814–1940, 37–57; Mansel, Paris between Empires, 369–422. 36 Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk, 148, 155; Bosscha, Leven van Willem den Tweede, 694. 37 A memorandum from November 1844 shows that the ministers shared the king’s fear of political partisanship, King’s Office, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4466. 38 Van Nooten, ‘Levensbericht van Mr. Jan Karel Baron van Goltstein’, 69–111. 39 Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk, 169; minutes of cabinet meeting and Van Rappard’s correspondence with the ministers, King’s Office, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4466; Speech from the Throne of 21 October 1844, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 90–91. 40 Handelingen van de Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 1844–5, 1016–17; Colenbrander, ‘Bijdragen tot kennis van het jaar 1848 iii’, 282; Arnhemsche Courant, 25 July 1844; Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 26 July 1844; Rotterdamsche Courant, 27 July 1844. 41 De Gelder, ‘De regering en het negen-mannenvoorstel van 1844–1845’, 18–19; Handelingen van de Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 1844– 1845, 8–53; ibid., session of 27 November, 110–25; De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 iv, 463–75; Drentje, Thorbecke, 327–9. 42 Drentje, Thorbecke, 336, 365. 43 Kossmann, Lage Landen 1780–1980 i, 163. 44 Thorbecke, Briefwisseling iii, 451–2; Aerts, Letterheren, 131–2. 45 Thorbecke, ‘Onverantwoordelijkheid van den Koning’, 130. 46 Thorbecke, Over de hervorming van ons kiesstelsel, vi. 47 Thorbecke, ‘Over het hedendaagsche Staatsburgerschap’, 84–96; De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 iv, 225; Van Sas, Metamorfose, 473; Drentje, Thorbecke, 356–57. 370

References

48 De Gelder, ‘De regering en het negen-mannenvoorstel van 1844–1845’, 50. 49 Minutes of cabinet meeting, 11 December 1844, King’s Office, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4466. 50 Minutes of cabinet meeting, 16 December 1844, King’s Office, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4466; ‘Diarium’ [1844–1849], papers of Jan Baptist van Son, Archives of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. 51 De Gelder, ‘De regering en het negenmannenvoorstel van 1844–1845’, 38–9. 52 Minutes of cabinet meeting, 11 December 1844, King’s Office, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4466; Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk, 188. 53 De Gelder, ‘De regering en het negenmannenvoorstel van 1844–1845’, 42; Van Zanten, Schielijk, 221–2. 54 Donker Curtius, De val der Nederlandsche Regering; [Blussé,] Nu of Nooit!, 22; diaries of Julius Constantijn Rijk, 1845–7, na, 2.21.205.52, inv. no. 3 and 4; Von Santen, ‘Amstelsociëteit’, 115, 144–5. 55 Van Sas, Metamorfose, 472–3; Henri Box to C. J. van Assen, 14 April 1849, na, 2.21.008.77, inv. no. 56a. 56 De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 iv, 513, 562–9. 57 [Van Rappard,] ‘Brieven’, 217. It was difficult to understand what Thorbecke was saying during the debates: King’s Office, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4466. 58 ‘Diarium’ [1844–1849], papers of Jan Baptist van Son, Archives of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. 59 Diary of J. C. Rijk, 1845, na, 2.21.205.52, inv. no. 3. 60 Speeches from the Throne of 20 October 1845, 19 October 1846 and 18 October 1847, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 92, 95, 97; Van Tijn, ‘De zwarte jaren 1845–1895’, 131–54. 61 De Ooijevaar, 20 July 1845; De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 v, 82. 62 [Van Rappard,] ‘Brieven’, 224; for a more nuanced view of the relationship between man and wolf, see Van der Meulen, Kinderen van de nacht. 63 This rhyme is the work of the Amsterdam journalist Jan de Vries; see Robijns, Radicalen, 240. 64 ‘Diarium’ [1844–1849], papers of Jan Baptist van Son, Archives of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch; Speech from the Throne of 20 October 1845, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 93–4. 65 Boogman, Rondom 1848, 46–7; Blok, Stemmen en kiezen, 206–26; De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 v, 53; Drentje, Thorbecke, 365. 66 Van Rijn, De eeuw van het debat; Hoffmann, Civil Society; Waling, 1848; Von Santen, ‘Amstelsociëteit’, 47–8; Aerts, Letterheren, 134–40; ‘Notae’, papers of Jan Baptist van Son, Archives of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. 67 Robijns, ‘A.J.E. van Engelbert van Bevervoorde tot Oldenmeule’, 36– 41. 68 Robijns, Radicalen, 194, 201. 69 Périer, Dirk Donker Curtius, 79–83. 371

t h e H o u s e o f O r a n g e in R e v o lu t i o n a nd Wa r

70 Kossmann, Lage Landen 1780–1980 i, 161; Beekelaar, Rond de grondwetsherziening; Rogier, In vrijheid herboren. 71 Prince Henry to Prince Alexander, 10 April 1847, kha-B4-G54–232; [Van Rappard,] ‘Brieven’, 239. 72 [Van Rappard,] ‘Brieven’, 238–9. 73 Prince Henry to Prince Alexander, 28 April 1847, kha-B4-G54–232. 74 William iii to Alexander, 3 April 1847, kha-a42-Va–4; William ii to his daughter Sophie, 31 July 1847, thhstaw, Großherzogliches Hausarchiv, A-xxvii–183a. 75 ‘Diarium’ [1844–1849], papers of Jan Baptist van Son, Archives of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch; cabinet meeting minutes, King’s Office, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4466. 76 Speech from the Throne of 18 October 1847, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 98. 77 Arnhemsche Courant, 29 June 1847; Provinciale Overijsselsche Courant, 29 June 1847; De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 v, 126–7; Boogman, Rondom 1848, 46. 78 ‘Diarium’ [1844–9], papers of Jan Baptist van Son, Archives of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch; Provó Kluit [chief of police of Amsterdam] to the justice minister, 12 August 1847, plus police report, July–Dec., na, 2.09.01, inv. no. 4669. 79 ‘Diarium’ [1844–1849], papers of Jan Baptist van Son, Archives of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. 80 Suttorp, F. A. van Hall, 66–8; Gleichman, ‘Mr. F. A. van Hall als minister ii’, 253–4. 81 Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk, 299. 82 Notes by Van Rappard on a conversation with Van Hall about constitutional reform, 25 September 1847, na, 2.21.135, inv. no. 193. 83 Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk, 295; De Bosch Kemper, Anthon Gerard Alexander Ridder van Rappard, 57. 84 Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk, 290. 85 Te Velde, ‘Van grondwet tot grondwet’, 102–3; De Jong, Van standspolitiek naar partijloyaliteit, 12–13; Van Zanten, ‘Die Niederlande’, 425–75; Sperber, European Revolutions. 86 ‘Vous voyez devant vous un homme, qui de très conservatif est devenu en 24 heures très libéral’, in De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 v, 215–16; also in Colenbrander, Willem ii, 201; Bornewasser, ‘Koning Willem ii’, 302; Hermans and Hooghiemstra, ‘Voor de troon’, 213, 232; and more recently in Withuis, Juliana, 22. On the foreign ambassadors, see Homan, ‘Edward Disbrowe’, 64–9. 87 Sophie of Württemberg, ‘Beschrijving van het jaar 1848’, undated, kha-a46-vii–5. 88 Sperber, European Revolutions; Mansel, Paris between Empires; on the ‘re-enactment’ of the great revolution, see Tocqueville, Recollections, 52–3; Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire: ‘Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historical facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as grand tragedy, the second time as rotten farce.’ 372

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89 Gedenkschriften van den graaf Van der Duyn, 69–71, 202–3; ‘Notae’, papers of Jan Baptist van Son, Archives of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch; cabinet meeting minutes, King’s Office, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4466. 90 Anna Pavlovna to her daughter Sophie, 8 March 1848, thhstaw, Großherzogliches Hausarchiv, A-xx-vii–17; ‘Notae’, papers of Jan Baptist van Son, Archives of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch; cabinet meeting minutes [2, 5, 6, and 7 March], King’s Office, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4466; Bevaart, ‘Koning Willem ii’, 93–118. 91 On the revolutionary carnival in the German states: Herzen, Feiten en gedachten iii, 91; Sperber, European Revolutions, 109–56; Hein, Revolution von 1848/1849; Clark, Iron Kingdom, 468–509. 92 ‘Notae’, papers of Jan Baptist van Son, Archives of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch; ‘Geheime ingekomen en minuten van uitgegane stukken, januari-maart 1848’, na, 2.09.01, inv. no. 4670; Bos, Waarachtige volksvrienden, 38–56. 93 Thorbecke, Briefwisseling v, 100–101; De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 v, 210–11, Colenbrander, Willem ii, 195–6. 94 ‘Notae’, papers of Jan Baptist van Son, Archives of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. 95 Colenbrander, Willem ii, 189, 193; ‘Geheime ingekomen en minuten van uitgegane stukken, maart 1848’, na, 2.09.01, inv. no. 4671. 96 ‘Geheime ingekomen en minuten van uitgegane stukken, maart 1848’, na, 2.09.01, inv. no. 4671; Robijns, Radicalen, 246–7; Bornewasser, ‘Koning Willem ii’, 301–4; De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 v, 238; Von Gagern, Das Leben des Generals Friedrich von Gagern ii, 657; Sophie to William ii and Anna Pavlovna, 9 March 1848, thhstaw, Großherzogliches Hausarchiv, A-xxvii–138. 97 Sophie to William ii and Anna Pavlovna, 9 March 1848, thhstaw, Großherzogliches Hausarchiv, A-xxvii–138. For a summary of Sophie’s letter, see Hendrik to Alexander, 14 March 1848, kha-g54–232; and Anna Pavlovna to her daughter Sophie, 13 March 1848, thhstaw, Großherzogliches Hausarchiv, A-xx-vii–17. 98 [Boreel van Hogelanden,] ‘Herinneringen 1847–1852’, 335, 337. 99 Ibid, 335–6; De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 v, 238. 100 ‘Notae’, papers of Jan Baptist van Son, Archives of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch; Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk, 292. 101 ‘Stukken betreffende de ministeriëele crisis van Maart 1848’, na, 2.21.007.58, inv. no. 632. 102 Tellegen, ‘1848’, 9. 103 William ii to his daughter Sophie, 16 March 1848, thhstaw, Großherzogliches Hausarchiv, A-xxvii–183a. 104 William ii, handwritten summary of Mirabeau’s Aperçu de la situation de la France, kha-g54–52; William ii, ‘Essai sur le siècle dans lequel je vis’, Soestdijk, 10 June 1818, kha-g54–33; ‘Schimmelpennincks Notanda’, 181. 105 Tellegen, ‘1848’, 34–5. 106 ‘Notae’, papers of Jan Baptist van Son, Archives of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch; Dirk Donker Curtius to Boudewijn Donker Curtius, 14 March 1848, quoted in Von Santen, ‘Amstelsociëteit’, 126. 373

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107 Duyverman, Geheime dagboeken van Aeneas Mackay, 37. 108 Robijns, Radicalen, 247–8. 109 Stokvis, ‘Amerikaanse ooggetuigen’, 400–401; Stokvis, De wording van modern Den Haag, 268; Duyverman, Geheime dagboeken van Aeneas Mackay, 39. 110 Van Sas, Metamorfose, 476; Robijns, Radicalen, 246–8; Stokvis, ‘Amerikaanse ooggetuigen’, 400–401. 111 Tellegen, ‘1848’, 35–6; De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 v, 252, 256–7; De Bosch Kemper, Anthon Gerard Alexander Ridder van Rappard, 59. 112 ‘Notae’, papers of Jan Baptist van Son, Archives of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. On William ii’s reaction to Alexander’s death, see Anna Pavlovna to her daughter Sophie, 18 March 1848, thhstaw, Großherzogliches Hausarchiv, A-xxvii–17. 113 Duyverman, Geheime dagboeken van Aeneas Mackay, 39. 114 J. C. Baud to Rochussen, 21 March 1848, in Baud, De semi-officiële en particuliere briefwisseling iii, 247–51; Alberts, Baud en Thorbecke, 128. On the influence of the underworld, see ‘Schimmelpennincks Notanda’, 181, 183–5, 187–8. 115 Albers, Geschiedenis van het herstel der hiërarchie ii, 98; compare Henri Box in the Journal de la Haye: ‘Meanwhile, I still believe that the King was driven to this step by intimidation, Heaven knows from what quarter.’ Box to C. J. van Assen, 28 March 1848, na, 2.21.008.77, inv. no. 56A. 116 Meeter, Holland, 297–8; Renders and Van de Ven, ‘Sinterklaas’, 112–25; on Jansen’s Amsterdam business partner, M. S. Catz (or Cats), see na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4537; for their plans and communications with the palace, see De Noord-Brabander, 20 February 1844; Utrechtsche provinciale en stad-courant, 19 February 1844. 117 P. Jansen to A. van Rappard, 14 July 1844; Van Rappard to William ii, 14 July 1844; E. van Bylandt to A. van Rappard, 25 July 1844, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4169. See also the confession of guilt signed by Jansen on 27 July 1844. The other documents included in the secret report include letters and other writings about Jansen. 118 Letter of 24 June 1846 from the king’s private secretary, A. B. Houtkoper, to the Hague banker A. M. Polak, kha-a40-vid–6; powers of attorney in ‘Processen tegen ‘s konings nalatenschap’, kha-a40-xxii–15, 16, and 17. 119 P. Jansen to William ii, 14 July 1847; ‘Processen tegen ‘s konings nalatenschap’, kha-a40-xxii–13. 1 20 P. Jansen to William ii, 19 August 1847, first and second letters, khaa40-xxii–13. On the possibility that the letters were held back by the director of the King’s Office, Van Rappard, see Jansen to Prince Frederick, 22 January 1848, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4537. 121 Hendrik Jacobus van Buren (via Van Rappard) to William ii, 30 September 1847, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4537; Catz to William ii, undated [probably 23 October 1847]; Catz to William ii, 15 November 1847, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4537. 122 ‘Processen tegen ‘s konings nalatenschap’, kha-a40-xxii–13; Jansen to Van Rappard and/or De Jonge, 21 November 1847, na, 2.02.04, 374

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inv. no. 4537; Jansen to Prince Frederick, 22 January 1848, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4537. 123 Van Andringa de Kempenaer to William ii, 16, 18 October 1847, 11 December 1847, 22 February 1848, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4537; Van Andringa de Kempenaer to Van Rappard, 8 May 1849, na, 2.21.135, inv. no. 178; ‘Processen tegen ‘s konings nalatenschap’, kha-a40-xxii–13; Roppe, Omstreden huwelijk, 103–9, 294, 295. 124 Van Andringa de Kempenaer, Eene geschiedkundige bijdrage, 1–4; various letters and reports about his role in this affair can be found in ‘Processen tegen ‘s konings nalatenschap’ kha-a40-xxii–13, 15, 16, 17; see also Baud to Rochussen, 21 February 1848, in Baud, De semiofficiële en particuliere briefwisseling iii, 238–244. 125 Robijns, Radicalen, 242–3; Van Andringa de Kempenaer, Eene geschiedkundige bijdrage, 4–7; ‘Processen tegen ‘s konings nalatenschap’, kha-a40-xxii–13, 15, 16, 17 and 18. 126 ‘Nota van Ampt’, 12 March, ‘Geheime ingekomen en minuten van uitgegane stukken, maart 1848’, na, 2.09.01, inv. no. 4671. 127 Tellegen, ‘1848’, 37. 128 Boogman, Rondom 1848, 52. 129 Minutes of cabinet meeting, King’s Office, na 2.02.04, inv. no. 4466. 130 Council of State, confidential minutes, 1840–41, na 2.02.06, inv. no. 1081; ‘Nota bevattende de aanwijzing der artikelen van de Grondwet, welker wijziging aan Zijne Majesteit is noodig geschenen, of waaromtrent een nader onderzoek verricht wordt’, kha-a45-xb–6. 131 Prince of Orange [William iii], ‘Nota op het rapport van heeren commissarissen van den Raad van State over de voordrachten van Wet wegens de uitvoering van Art 6 der Grondwet’, 26 February 1844, kha-a45-xb–6. 132 Minutes of cabinet meeting [29 February 1848], King’s Office, na 2.02.04, inv. no. 4466. 133 De Bosch Kemper, Geschiedenis van Nederland na 1830 v, 215–16. 134 De Haan, Beginsel van leven en wasdom; for Thorbecke’s statement, see p. 16; Drentje, Thorbecke, 257 (voluntarist view of nationality), 379 (the nation as the source of change), 477 (politics regarded as the liberation of creative forces); Te Velde, Van regentenmentaliteit tot populisme, 61; on the fact that the leading role of the liberals was taken for granted, Te Velde, Gemeenschapszin, 22–5. 135 Van Raak, In naam van het volmaakte, 101. 136 Drentje, Thorbecke, 404. 137 Van Velzen, Ongekende ministeriële verantwoordelijkheid; Van Sas, Metamorfose, 413–45, 468–71; Slijkerman, Geheim van de ministeriële verantwoordelijkheid, 35–94; Bannier, Grondwetten, 350–61. 138 Van Raak, In naam van het volmaakte, 101. 139 Drentje, Thorbecke, 405–24; Te Velde, ‘Van grondwet tot grondwet’, 100–108; Wielenga, Geschiedenis van Nederland, 235–41. 140 Report on the cabinet meeting of 9 April 1850, na, 2.02.05.02, inv. no. 22; Witlox, Studiën, 13–16. 141 Vidler, The Church in an Age of Revolution, 161–2; Chadwick, History of the Popes, 114–15. 375

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142 Bos, In dienst van het Koninkrijk; Chadwick, Secularization, 125; Zagorin, Religious Toleration. 143 Herman van Sonsbeeck to William iii, 23 March 1850, in De Vries, Grondwettig koningschap, 36–41; De Valk, ‘Meer dan een plaats’, 37–63; Witlox, Studiën, 19–21. 144 Originally written in Latin. Quote based on a Dutch translation in Bronkhorst, Rondom 1853, 159. 145 De Boer, ‘De val van het ministerie Thorbecke’, 136. 146 Anonymous poem, published by J. D. Doorman in Utrecht (‘price 5 cents’; discounts if more than one copy was purchased). 147 ‘Toespraak van Dr. B. ter Haar’, in Adressen tegen de Bisschoppelijke hiërarchie, 8. 148 From a letter from Johannes van Iddekinge to Pieter van Bosse, 16 April 1853, published by Van Raalte in the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant in 1928, but lost in the Second World War. Van Raalte, Staatshoofd en ministers, 99–100, 291. Also in Witlox, Studiën, 30. 149 Hooykaas, ed., ‘Herinneringen van J.P.P. Baron van Zuylen van Nijevelt’, 254, 257. 150 Sperber, Revolutionary Europe, 70, 81, 87–9. 151 Van Osta, ‘Plaats en functie van de negentiende-eeuwse monarchie’, 61–87; Van Osta, Europese Monarchie. 152 Lyons, Post-Revolutionary Europe, 98–103, 108–9; Deneckere, Leopold i, 350–96. 153 Dollinger, ‘Leitbild des Bürgerkönigtums’, 325–64; Didier, De ridder en de grootvorstin. 154 Romein, ‘Willem de Eerste’, 619–47; Filarski, Kanalen van de koningkoopman. 155 Hughes, Romanovs, 164–5; tsarist leadership had also had a very ‘holy’ character before the reign of Peter the Great (1682–1725). After Catharine the Great (1762–1796) the religious element again grew stronger. The national element was new in the nineteenth century. 156 Kohut, Wilhelm ii, 127–223. 157 Fichter, The Habsburgs, 189–256. 158 Bagehot, The English Constitution, 85–6; Jenkins, Gladstone, 334–40; Van Osta, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, 182; Dijkhuis, Monarchia, 240–58; Cannadine describes Bagehot’s theses as recommendations, ‘The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual’, 107 n. 18. 159 Hall, Liberalism; ‘Sei dein eigner Herr und Knecht’ [‘Be your own Lord and Servant’] was the motto of the Bassermann family of merchants in Mannheim; see Gall, Bürgertum, 96–151. 160 Van Hogendorp, ‘Advijs op de tienjarige Begrooting’, 24 December 1819, in Bijdragen iv, 312–15; Kuyper, ‘Ons Program’, 110; Koch, Abraham Kuyper, 184; Hoffmann, Civil Society, 27. 161 Mayer, Persistence of the Old Regime; Paulmann, Pomp und Politik, 141–6; Cannadine, Ornamentalism, 101–20; Hobsbawm, Age of Empire; Te Velde, Gemeenschapszin, 121–61; Fasseur, Wilhelmina. De jonge koningin, 160–76.

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8  A King without Responsibility, 1849–73 1 Hugenholtz, Geheim van Paleis Kneuterdijk, 281; William ii to his daughter Sophie, 15 December 1845, thhstaw, Grossherzogliches Hausarchiv, A-xxvii–183a. 2 William iii to his sister Sophie, 8 October 1848 and Sophie to William iii, 13 October 1848, thhstaw, Grossherzogliches Hausarchiv, ha-xxvii–184. 3 William ii, ‘Reflections sur Votre project’, kha-a45-Xb–13; William ii to William iii, 1 November 1848, thhstaw, Niederlande B, 26. 4 William iii to William ii, 3 November 1848, kha-a45-Xb–13; 1848 Constitution, article 13. 5 Anna Pavlovna to her daughter Sophie, 12 December 1848, thhstaw, A-xxvii–17. 6 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 21 December 1848 and end of January 1849, in Haasse and Jackman, ed., Vreemdelinge in Den Haag, 73–4. 7 For the letters from William iii to Louise-Rose Rouvroy, see kha-a45viic–46. 8 Peeters, Koning Willem ii; Sloet tot Everlo, Koning Willem ii. 9 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 22 March 1849, in Jackman and Haasse, ed., A Stranger in The Hague, 88. 10 Memoires of E.A.O. de Casembroot, 18 March 1849, na, 2.21.008.72, inv. no. 1. 11 Statement by Anna Pavlovna, 19 March 1849, kha-X-a–2; Van de Sande, Prins Frederik, 210. 12 Original of telegram from G. Schimmelpenninck to P. Arriëns, 18 March 1849; quoted in Van Raalte, Staatshoofd en ministers, 66. 13 Van Raalte, Staatshoofd en ministers, 65. 14 Benoist, Souvenirs i, 253–4. 15 A.W.P. Weitzel, Memoires, na, 2.21.007.60, inv. no. 12; Van de Sande, Prins Frederik, 209. 16 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 22 March 1849, in Jackman and Haasse, ed., A Stranger in The Hague, 88; see also Haasse and Jackman, ed., Vreemdelinge in Den Haag, 75. 17 Van Raalte, Staatshoofd en ministers, 70; minutes of cabinet meeting 1849, na, 2.02.05.02, inv. no. 21. 18 Arnhemsche Courant, 20 March 1849. 19 Le Mois: Revue historique et politique, 1 April 1849; Algemeen Handelsblad, 18 May 1849. 20 This portrayal of a ‘bourgeoisie conquérante’ (R. Muchembled) with 1848 as the decisive year is easily recognisable in textbooks on this period. Examples are Hobsbawm, Age of Revolution 1789– 1848 and Age of Capital 1848–1875; volumes 26 and 27 of Fischer Weltgeschichte: Das Zeitalter der europäischen Revolution 1780–1848 and Das bürgerliche Zeitalter; in the Library of European Civilization: Hampson, The First European Revolution 1776–1815, Talmon, Romanticism and Revolt 1815–1848, and Mosse, Liberal Europe: The Age of Bourgeois Realism 1848–1875; see also Sperber, Revolutionary Europe 377

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1780–1850 and Sperber, Europe 1850–1914: Progress, Participation and Apprehension. 21 On the flourishing monarchy, see Mayer, Persistence of the Old Regime, 135–52. 22 Zamoyski, Phantom Terror; Lyons, Post-Revolutionary Europe, 238–48; Rapport, Nineteenth-Century Europe, 161–73. 23 Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 120; Sperber, Revolutionary Europe, 428; Burrow, Crisis of Reason, 1–30; Carsten, Eduard Bernstein, 47–80. 24 Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 78. 25 Kjetsaa, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 70–74; McMillan, Napoleon iii, 82; Pflanze, Bismarck ii, 392–7; for the attack on Victoria, see Jenkins, Gladstone, 342; Sante, Het andere Parijs, 273–4, 276, 297–9. 26 Hughes, Romanovs, 187–8; Kropotkin, Memoires, 361–4, 438; Joll, Anarchists, 99–129; Tuchman, Proud Tower, 71–132. 27 Minister of foreign affairs C.Th. van Lynden van Sandenburg to the Dutch ambassador in St Petersburg, 15 March 1881, in Woltring, ed., Bescheiden betreffende de buitenlandse politiek, second period iii, 39; Van Lynden van Sandenburg to William iii, 31 March 1881, kha-a45-viiic–7. 28 Lok, ‘IJzer en bloed’, 282–410; Figes, Crimea. 29 Paulmann, Pomp und Politik, 131–79. 30 Boogman, Nederland en de Duitse Bond, 727–78. 31 Minutes of cabinet meeting, 11 March 1859, na, 2.02.05.02, inv. no. 31; William iii to the Minister of War, 11 March 1859, in De Vries, Overgrootvader, 187; Bevaart, Nederlandse defensie, 166–7; Van de Sande, Prins Frederik, 215. 32 Wiwill’s journal during a voyage with hm Frigate Doggersbank, in the summer and autumn of 1855, kha-a48-vi-b2. 33 Bevaart, Nederlandse defensie, 455–79; the director of the King’s Office (on behalf of the King) to the Prince of Orange, 16 July 1870, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4274; official report of a meeting of the military staff on 18 August 1870, King’s Office na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4274; report from the Cabinet to William iii, 2 September 1870, King’s Office, na, 2.02.04, inv. no. 4274. 34 Van Heuven-van Nes, ‘Koning Willem iii en de watersnoodramp van 1861’, 69–111; according to some sources, the nickname ‘Water hero of Het Loo’ derived not from his sympathy with the flood victims but from his love of swimming. An aide de camp allegedly gave him the name, for which the king dismissed him on the spot: Van Heuven-van Nes, ‘De badtent bij de grote vijver van Het Loo’, 117; Andriessen, Oranje Nassau, 474–5; see also ‘Stukken i.v.b.m. de Watersnood van 1861 (en 1880)’, kha-a45-xiiic. 35 Schell, Wiwill, 130; Cleverens, Sire . . ., 47. 36 Notes from 25 July 1854, De Casembroot, ‘Herinneringen’, 1854, na, 2.21.008.72, inv. no. 6. 37 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 21 November 1854, in Jackman and Haasse, ed., A Stranger in The Hague, 156; Haasse and Jackman, ed., Vreemdelinge in Den Haag, 128; according to the 378

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Algemeen Handelsblad of 20 November 1854, the victim was not ‘lethally wounded’. 38 Aerts, Thorbecke wil het, 494; Van der Wal, Of geweld zal worden gebruikt!, 122–5. 39 ‘Inventaire des objets mobiliers compris dans la location de la Villa Richelieu remise à bail à Sa Majesté Guillaume iii, Roi des Pays-Bas’, Mayor family collection, Glion (Switzerland). 40 Willem, Baron van Heeckeren van Kell, director of the King’s Office, to minister of foreign affairs Heemskerk Azn., 7 August 1875; Heemskerk to Van Heeckeren, 12 August 1875; Heemskerk to William iii, 18 August 1875, King’s Office, na, 2.02.04 inv. no. 4278. 41 ‘Goedkeuring van een tusschen Nederland en Zwitserland gesloten tractaat van vestiging en handel, 19 August 1875’, www.resourcessgd. kb.nl. 42 Van ‘t Veer, ed., Maar Majesteit!, 63. 43 Van ‘t Veer, De Atjehoorlog; Bossenbroek, Holland op zijn breedst, 26–7. 44 Oud, Honderd jaren, 48; Oud, Staatkundige vormgeving, 46–7. 45 De Jong, Van standspolitiek naar partijloyaliteit, 30–31; Van Raak, In naam van het volmaakte, 91–100. 46 Gleichman, Mr. F. A. van Hall als minister, 168–70. 47 Draft letter from J. C. Baud to F. de Kock, 25 May 1856, na 2.21.007.58, inv. no. 821. 48 P. P. van Bosse to Thorbecke, 5 March 1858, in Thorbecke, Briefwisseling vi, 307–8. 49 Drentje, Thorbecke, 426–8. 50 Duyverman, Geheime dagboeken van Aeneas Mackay, 69; Van Raak, In naam van het volmaakte, 119. 51 For more details on the camarilla, see Barclay, ‘The Court Camarilla’, 123–8. 52 Van Raak, In naam van het volmaakte. 53 Boels, De Jong and Tamse, ed., Eer en fortuin, 255. 54 F. de Kock to H. Forstner van Dambenoy, 12 September 1853 and 20 May 1851, na 2.21.065, inv. no. 64; in the records of the private secretaries of the King in the Royal Archives (kha-a45-xiv-c), there is a conspicuous gap in the period from 1851 to 1863. 1863 was the year in which De Kock was dismissed from the position. 55 F. de Kock to J. C. Baud, 18 May 1856, na, 2.21.007.58, inv. no. 821. 56 Notes in the margin of a draft letter from J. C. Baud to F. de Kock, 25 May 1856; draft letter from J. C. Baud to William iii, 8 June 1856, na 221.007.58, inv. no. 821. 57 P. P. van Bosse to Thorbecke, 5 March 1858, in Thorbecke, Briefwisseling vi, 307. 58 Bevaart, De Nederlandse defensie (1839–1874), 171–202. 59 Director of the King’s Office F. de Kock to minister of colonies P. Mijer, 16 February 1856, quoted in Fasseur, Kultuurstelsel, 164–6. 60 Thorbecke quoted in Oud, Staatkundige vormgeving, 60. 61 Diary of the formation of the government, A. Thorbecke-Solger, 17–31 January 1862, in Thorbecke, Briefwisseling vi, 565–78, quote 567. 379

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62 Private Deed of Separation between King William iii and Queen Sophie, 25 December 1855, kha-a46–11–3. 63 Philippe Baudin to Lionel de Moustier, 15 March 1867, in Calmes, 1867, 73. 64 ‘t Veer, ed., Maar Majesteit!, 47–8. 65 Ibid. 66 Barth, Het geheim van Noordeinde, 30 et.seq.; Boogman, ‘Het eerste ministerie-Thorbecke 1849–1853’, 358. 67 Dooyeweerd, De ministerraad, 408–11; Oud, Honderd jaren, 29; Van Raalte, Staatshoofd en ministers, 79. 68 Thorbecke to William iii, 12 March 1850, the ministers to William iii, 30 March 1850 and Van Rappard to the Cabinet, 3 April 1850, King’s Office, na 2.02.04, inv. no. 4212; A.G.A van Rappard and Thorbecke, ‘Het ontslag van Commissarissen des konings’, 158–73. 69 Thorbecke to William iii, 1 August 1850, King’s Office, na 2.02.04, inv. no. 4212; Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, xviii–xxiii; A. van Rappard to the Cabinet, 15 September 1852 and P. P. van Bosse to William iii, 17 September, King’s Office, na 2.02.04, inv. no. 4233. 70 Memoires of E.A.O. de Casembroot, na 2.21.008.72, inv. no. 1. Notes dated 21 May 1853. 71 Thorbecke, undated note, in Thorbecke, Briefwisseling v, 530. 72 Bagehot, The English Constitution, 111; Dijkhuis, Monarchia, 241. 73 Tamse, ‘Het tweede kabinet-Thorbecke 1862–1866’, 399–404; Alberts, ‘Redder van de slaven’, 70–77. 74 Duyverman, Geheime dagboeken van Aeneas Mackay, 130. 75 Idem, 136. 76 Van der Wal, Motie-Keuchenius, 251–2; Hamstra, Luxemburgsche kwestie; Oud, Staatkundige vormgeving, 73–85. 77 ‘Naherinneringen’ of A. Mackay, in Duyverman, Geheime dagboeken van Aeneas Mackay, 174. 78 Van der Wal, Motie-Keuchenius, 121, 129, 152; Van Raak, In naam van het volmaakte, 160–67. 79 Handelingen van de Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 26 September 1866. 80 Huizinga, ed., ‘Herinneringen van J.P.J.A. van Zuylen van Nijevelt’, 292. 81 Groen van Prinsterer to J. Wensinck, 4 October 1866, in Groen van Prinsterer, Schriftelijke nalatenschap v, 6. 82 Handelingen van de Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2 March 1868; Oud, Staatkundige vormgeving, 83; Duyverman, Geheime dagboeken van Aeneas Mackay, 139. 83 Oud, Staatkundige vormgeving, 84. The formulation here comes from Oud and Bosmans; Te Velde, ‘Van grondwet tot grondwet’, 119. 84 The distinction between the ‘dignified’ and the ‘efficient parts’ of the constitutional state is from Walter Bagehot. See Crossman, ‘Introduction’, 1–57; Dijkhuis, Monarchia, 241–50; Van Klinken, Actieve burgers. 85 Lok, ‘IJzer en bloed’, 282–410; Schroeder, ‘International politics’, 165–83. 86 Dagblad van Zuidholland en ‘s-Gravenhage, 25 November 1856. 87 McMillan, Napoleon iii, 73–4, 93–7; Pflanze, Bismarck ii, 246–78, 415–41 and iii, 70–95; Abrams, Bismarck, 20–40. 380

References

88 Helmert and Usczeck, Preußischdeutsche Kriege, 43–82. 89 J.P.J.A. van Zuylen van Nijevelt to William iii, 12 June 1866, King’s Office, na 2.02.04, inv. no. 4270. 90 McMillan, Napoleon iii, 74–5. 91 Tamse, Nederland en België in Europa, 45, 123–4, 149; Deneckere, Leopold i, 548. 92 As recorded by professor G. W. Vreede, quoted in Middelburgsche Courant, 17 May 1862. 93 Van Ditzhuyzen, Oranje-Nassau, 234. 94 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 6 July 1866, in Jackman and Haasse, ed., A Stranger in The Hague, 285; Haasse and Jackman, ed., Vreemdelinge in Den Haag, 221. 95 Hamstra, Luxemburgsche kwestie, 44; Huizinga, ed., ‘Herinneringen van J.P.J.A. Graaf van Zuylen van Nijevelt’, 297. 96 Hamstra, Luxemburgsche kwestie, 19. 97 Telegram from Philippe Baudin to Lionel de Moustier, 28 March 1867, and Napoleon iii to William iii, 30 March 1867, in Origines Diplomatiques de la Guerre de 1870–1871, 184, 203; Hamstra, Luxemburgsche kwestie, 38–9. 98 Philippe Baudin to Lionel de Moustier, 3 April 1867, in Origines Diplomatiques de la Guerre de 1870–1871, 266. 99 Hamstra, Luxemburgsche kwestie, 22; Fletcher, The Mission of Vincent Benedetti, 128–30. 100 Boogman, ‘Een eenzijdig boek over koning Willem iii’, 66. 101 Murat, My Memoirs, 85–6; [Fontenoy,] The Marquise de Fontenoy’s Revelation, 427–8; Doorn, Willem iii, Emma en Sophie, 190–93; Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 29 July 1864, in Jackman and Haasse, ed., A Stranger in The Hague, 245. 102 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 29 July 1864, in Jackman and Haasse, ed., A Stranger in The Hague, 245; Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 6 February 1866, in Haasse and Jackman, ed., Vreemdelinge in Den Haag, 217; Matschoss, Die Kriegsgefahr von 1867, 62, 71; Tamse, Nederland en België in Europa, 45. 103 De Vries, Overgrootvader, 214; Calmes, 1867, 275; Matschoss, Die Kriegsgefahr von 1867, 71. 1 04 Ollivier, L’Empire libéral, 311. 105 Kuitenbrouwer, Nederland en de opkomst van het moderne imperialisme. 106 With the approval of Benjamin Disraeli’s Royal Titles Bill in February 1876, Victoria became ‘Empress of India’; Cannadine, Ornamentalism, 101–20; Grever, ‘Colonial Queens’, 99–114; Kohut, Wilhelm ii, 141–54, 177–98. 107 Quote from the Daily Mail (1897), in Eldridge, Victorian Imperialism, illustration section; Oostindie, De parels en de kroon. 108 Fasseur, Wilhelmina: De jonge koningin, 449–73; Bossenbroek, Holland op zijn breedst, 317–42; Van Koppen, Geuzen van de Negentiende Eeuw. 1 09 Van Houtte et al., ed., ‘Nederlandse expansie in Indonesië’; Fieldhouse, Kolonialreiche, 278–9; for the full text of the ‘Short Declaration’ in Malay and Dutch, see Somer, De Korte Verklaring, 360–63. 381

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110 Locher-Scholten, Ethiek in fragmenten, 194–203; Kuitenbrouwer, Nederland en de opkomst van het moderne imperialisme, 200–227; Betts, The False Dawn, 81. 111 From a ‘special letter from Elmina, on the guinea coast’, 20 March 1871, in Javabode, 16 June 1871. 112 Kuitenbrouwer, Nederland en de opkomst van het moderne imperialisme, 40, 59–67; Van ‘t Veer, De Atjeh-oorlog. 113 Rickleffs, History of Modern Indonesia, 125–39; Jonker and Van Zanden, Van nieuwkomer tot marktleider, 15–85. 114 Van der Meulen, Multatuli. 115 Multatuli, Max Havelaar, part 2, 410–11. 116 Handelingen van de Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 25 September 1860. 117 Schimmelpenninck van der Oije during a debate on the budget for the East Indies in the Upper House, Handelingen van de Eerste Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 2 December 1868. 118 Fasseur, Kultuurstelsel; Breman, Mobilizing Labour. 119 Multatuli, quoted in Fasseur, Kultuurstelsel, xvii, Memorandum from Multatuli to governor-general Duymaer van Twist, 9 April 1856, Multatuli, Volledige werken ix, 613. 1 20 Money, Java, v, xi, 95. 121 Wesseling, Verdeel en heers, 103–18; Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost; Leopold ii also started to correspond with Money, idem, 37. 122 Thorbecke to William iii, 1 February 1863, quoted in De Vries, De ongekende Thorbecke, 114; Fasseur, ‘Van suikercontractant tot kamerlid’, 88 (1975), 333–54. 123 Handelingen van de Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, 28 May 1863. 124 Breman, Mobilizing Labour; Oud, Staatkundige vormgeving, 86–7. 125 Kuyper, ‘Ons Program’, 337–41; Koch, Abraham Kuyper, 192–3. 126 Van Deventer, ‘Eene eereschuld’; also in Fasseur, Geld en geweten, 186–99. 127 Locher-Scholten, Ethiek in fragmenten. 128 Broersma, Eene Zaak van Regt en Billijkheid, 28–40. 129 Alberts, ‘Redder van de slaven’, 70–77. 130 Legêne, De bagage van Blomhoff en Van Bruegel, 382–3; Janse, De afschaffers, 55–9. 131 Committee of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to William iii, 6 April 1859 and 5 December 1862, kha-a45-Xb–17 and kha-a45Xb–17a; original of a letter sent of behalf of the king, written by a clerk and signed by De Kock, to ‘His Excellency the Ambassador of the Netherlands’, The Hague, 3 February 1863, kha-e14a-I–69, agenda number 21/63. 132 Quoted in Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 1 November 1862; Alberts, ‘Redder van de slaven’, 70–77. 133 Van Kempen, Een geschiedenis van de Surinaamse literatuur iii, 248. See also Oostindie, De parels en de kroon, 32. 134 Quoted in Kropotkin, Memoires, 130. 135 Oostindie, De parels en de kroon. 136 Grafschriften, 30–33.

382

References



9  A Family on the Throne, 1849–90

1 Van ‘t Veer, ed., Maar Majesteit!, 61; Van Raalte, Staatshoofd en ministers, 127–9. 2 Van Melle, ‘25 jaar op de troon’; Algemeen Handelsblad, 14 and 15 May 1874; Asmodée, 28 May 1874. 3 Maas, Nederlandsche spectator, 149. 4 Van der Woud, Een nieuwe wereld; Van der Woud, De nieuwe mens. 5 De Vries, Overgrootvader, 155–6; De Kock to the cabinet on behalf of William iii, 27 December 1859, King’s Office, na 2.02.04, inv. no. 4328; Sinninghe Damsté, Het Noordzeekanaal, 50, 54. 6 Speech from the throne of 21 October 1839, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 74; Filarski, Kanalen van de koning-koopman, 256–8, 317, 321; Bank and Van Buuren, 1900, 117–18; Veenendaal, Spoorwegen in Nederland, 35, 100–219. 7 Bank and Van Buuren, 1900, 265–72; Bouwman and Steenhuis, Wij van de hbs. 8 Knippenberg, Religieuze Kaart, 92–106; Bank and Van Buuren, 1900, 329–437; Koch, Abraham Kuyper, 573–5; Van Rooden, Religieuze regimes, 17–45; Bos, Waarachtige volksvrienden; Bos, ed., Willem iii: Koning Gorilla. 9 Van der Woud, De nieuwe mens, 41–7, 54–70, 112–25; Wolf, Een plek om lief te hebben. 10 Wasson, Aristocracy, 27–8, 176–7; Montijn, Hoog geboren, 345–52; Cannadine, ‘The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual’, 101–64. 11 See the third section ‘Popular Monarchy in the Age of Mass Media’, in Deploige and Deneckere, ed., Mystifying the Monarch, 159–234. 12 Te Velde, Gemeenschapszin, 123–42. 13 Van Osta, Theater van de Staat, 75–113. 14 Chadwick, History of the Popes; Koch, ‘Een pauselijk katholicisme’, 283– 96; De Valk, ‘De cultus van de paus, 319–36; Staal, ‘Kunst en kitsch voor de paus’, 337–45; Harris, Lourdes; Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart. 15 Nye Jr., Soft Power, 6–7; Nye developed his concept for the analysis of international politics, but it can also be used to study the monarchy, see Müller and Mehrkens, eds, Royal Heirs and the Uses of Soft Power in Nineteenth-Century Europe; Van Osta, Theater van de Staat, 9, 96, 151; Mayer, The Persistence of the Old Regime, 135–52. 16 Bagehot, The English Constitution, 85–6; here, too, there are parallels with Christianity, which increasingly became a family religion for both Protestants and Catholics in the nineteenth century, exemplified by the Catholic devotion to the Sacred Family and the growing importance of Christmas as a time of festivities. See Chadwick, Secularization, 113–14; Brown, Death of Christian Britain. 17 Winkelhofer, Feine Gesellschaft; Van der Leer and De Liefde-van Brakel, Prinses Marianne, 64–73. 18 Bagehot, The English Constitution, 100. 19 P. P. van Bosse to William iii, 11 November 1852, King’s Office, na 2.02.04, inv. no. 4233; Thorbecke drew up the letter; Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, xviii, xix–xxiii. 383

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20 Speech from the throne of 17 September 1883, in Van Raalte, ed., Troonredes, 161–3, 166; Huizinga, Heemskerk, 181, 189; annex to the minutes of the cabinet meeting, 13 November 1887, na 2.02.05.02, inv. no. 107. 21 Bloembergen, Koloniale vertoning, 64–5, 362 n. 14; Suriname: Koloniaal nieuws- en advertentieblad, 29 May 1883; ‘Herinneringen als Hofarts’, memoires of Sytze Greidanus, kha-a45-viiie–5. 22 Bloembergen, Koloniale vertoning, 71–3; Bossenbroek, Holland op zijn breedst, 213. 23 Multatuli to N. Braunius Oeberius, 6 May 1883; almost the same words are to be found in Multatuli to G. C. de Haas-Hanau, 6 May 1883, in Multatuli, Volledige werken xxii, 606, 610. 24 Looyenga, ‘Ideologie, architectuur en historisch erfgoed in Nederland’, 59; for the art room at Het Loo, see L. H. Eberson, ‘Affaires de S. M. le Roi Guillaume iii au Palais du Loo. Journal’, kha-g24–3–1; Van Voorst tot Voorst, ‘De kunstzaal van Paleis het Loo’, 9–29. 25 Perry, Ons fatsoen als natie, 215–16; Van der Plas, Vader Thijm, 432, 593–6. 26 Randeraad, Het onberekenbare Europa, 198–9. 27 Tamse, Huis van Oranje, 307–8; Ernest Renan to Sophie of Württemberg, 30 October 1876, kha-a46-ivc–257; Wesseling, Scheffer, Renan, Psichari, 207–21; Heinrich Schliemann to Sophie of Württemberg, 2 March 1876, in Schliemann, Briefwechsel, 36. 28 Quoted in Verheul, Atlantische pelgrim, 228; see also 227–9, 327–31; Sophie of Württemberg to J. L. Motley, 17 December [no year], khaa46-ivc–235. 29 Krabbendam, ‘Zielenverbrijzelaars en zondelozen’, 46–8. 30 Idem, 52–3; Koch, Abraham Kuyper, 157–69. 31 Tamse, Huis van Oranje, 366–7. 32 Sophie of Württemberg to W.C.A. von Weckerlin, no date, khaa46ivc–314. 33 Notes from 23 May 1850. De Casembroot, ‘Herinneringen’, 1849–51, na, 2.21.008.72, inv. no. 1. 34 Notes from June 1850. De Casembroot, ‘Herinneringen’, 1849–51, na, 2.21.008.72, inv. no. 1. 35 Algemeen Handelsblad, 1 April 1857; De Tijd: Godsdienstig-staatkundig dagblad, 20 February 1857; Duff, Eugenie and Napoleon iii, 154–5. 36 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 11 February 1858, in Jackman and Haasse, ed., A Stranger in The Hague, 181–2; Haasse and Jackman, ed., Vreemdelinge in Den Haag, 141; Gibbels, ‘Klopgeesten in Paleis Noordeinde’, 151–61. 37 Gibbels, ‘Klopgeesten in Paleis Noordeinde’, 156; Doorn, Willem iii, Emma en Sophie, 164–6. 38 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 5 January, 10 February and 16 July 1851, in Jackman and Haasse, ed., A Stranger in The Hague, 129–31; Haasse and Jackman, ed., Vreemdelinge in Den Haag, 110–12; Van Ditzhuyzen, Oranje-Nassau, 221. 39 William iii to J. W. Holtrop, 3 [= 4] June 1850, in De Vries, Overgrootvader, 51–2. William must have backdated the letter unintentionally. 384

References

40 Cornelia van den Broek (daughter of William iii’s court chaplain) to François Marie Leon, Baron of Geen, private secretary to Queen Wilhelmina, 2 August 1918, kha-a45-viiie–4. 41 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 31 August 1849, in Jackman and Haasse, ed., A Stranger in The Hague, 64–5; Haasse and Jackman, ed., Vreemdelinge in Den Haag, 59. 42 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 15 August 1846, in Jackman and Haasse, ed., A Stranger in The Hague, 117; Haasse and Jackman, ed., Vreemdelinge in Den Haag, 100; Scheffer, Henry Tindal, 26–32; Tamse, Huis van Oranje, 338–42; Van de Sande, Prins Frederik, 65–72. 43 Notes from 18 February 1855, De Casembroot, ‘Herinneringen’, 1855, na 2.21.008.72, inv. no. 6. 44 See various undated letters from Sophie of Württemberg to W.C.A. von Weckerlin, kha-a46-ivc–314; Ambre, Une diva; Arditi, My reminiscences, 205–6; Cleverens, Sire . . ., 83. 45 Cleverens, Sire . . . (ii), 9–13. 46 Winkelhofer, Feine Gesellschaft, 71–2; http://edithsparis.com/wp/?p=256; Van Ditzhuyzen, Oranje-Nassau, 273; Hoitink, ‘Lichte zeden, grote misère’; Ridley, ‘Bertie Prince of Wales’, 123–38. 47 Winkelhofer, Feine Gesellschaft, 224–45. 48 The Belgian public would make her acquaintance later. In 1909, five days before he died, Leopold ii and Caroline Lacroix were married in church. The marriage was blessed by the court chaplain and sanctioned by the Vatican. Winkelhofer, Feine Gesellschaft, 141–4, 158–9; Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 221–4; Sante, Het andere Parijs, 142, 148; the observation about class-transcending immorality is by Randolph Churchill, the father of Winston: Pearson, The Private Lives of Winston Churchill. 49 See Tuchman, The Proud Tower, 387; Kohut, Wilhelm ii, 39, 107–14. 50 Note of 23 May 1850. E.A.O. de Casembroot, ‘Herinneringen’, 1852–3, na, 2.21.008.72, inv. no. 3; this was not the first time William iii had made a fool of De Haze Bomme: Cleverens, Sire . . ., 38. 51 Cleverens, Sire . . ., 33–4. 52 Darwin, The Expression of Emotions; Morris, The Naked Ape; De Waal, Chimpansee-politiek; De Waal, Verzoening. 53 See the list of books sent from the Hereditary Prince’s library to Poznań in 1799. Also lists of books, maps, etc. which are not definitely listed as having been sent, kha-a35-xiii–2; Van Hamel, ‘‘s Erfprinsen toevluchtsoord’, 219–42. 54 Peeters, Koning Willem ii, 8–11; Sloet tot Everlo, Koning Willem ii. 55 Van ‘t Veer, Maar Majesteit!, 25–8. 56 Slob, ‘Willem iii, koning-hereboer’, 91. 57 There are various versions of this anecdote. This one is based on Gram, Willem iii, 43–4. 58 Addens, ‘De Algemeene Koninklijke Landbouw-Vereeniging 1856– 1863’, 2–3; Woelderink, ‘Bezoekers op het paleis Het Loo in 1852’, 129–41. 59 Quoted in Addens, ‘De Algemeene Koninklijke Landbouw-Vereeniging 1856–1863’, 4. 385

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60 Addens, ‘De Algemeene Koninklijke Landbouw-Vereeniging 1856–1863’, 40–47; Woelderink, ‘Bezoekers op het paleis Het Loo in 1852’, 129–30; Ummels, ‘Ten dienste van het Hof’, 69–70. 61 Van der Meulen, Het bedwongen bos, 157–8. 62 Van de Wall, De valkerij op Het Loo, 110–21; Schlegel, De dieren van Nederland, 70–74; Van Everdingen, Het Loo, de Oranjes en de jacht, 145–50, 155–7. 63 Woelderink, Geschiedenis van de Thesaurie, 77–99. 64 Anna Pavlovna to Nicholas i, 1 October 1849 and accompanying correspondence, kha-a41-iiib–7 and 8. 65 Catalogue des tableaux anciens et modernes, de diverses écoles, dessins et statues, formant la Galerie du feu Sa Majesté Guillaume ii (Amsterdam 1850); Catalogue des tableaux anciens et modernes, de diverses écoles, dessins et estampes encadrés, formant la seconde partie de la Galerie du feu Sa Majesté Guillaume ii (Amsterdam 1851), with the revenues and the names of buyers in pencil, library of the Royal Archives; ‘Overzigt van de in Augustus 1850 gehouden verkooping van de schilderijen, beelden en teekeningen, uitmakende de gallerij van Zijne Majesteit Koning Willem ii’, kha-a40-xv–5; Woelderink, Geschiedenis van de Thesaurie, 85, 97–8. 66 ‘De Kunstzaal op Het Loo’, in Eigen Haard, vol. 1876, no. 35, 285–8, with an illustration of the art room; Van Voorst tot Voorst, ‘De kunstzaal in Paleis Het Loo’, 9–29; Fleurbaay, ‘Kunstaankopen’, 1–12. 67 ‘De pensionnaires van Z. M. Koning Willem iii’, kha, ‘Dossier 801’; [Fleurbaay en Van der Wal,] Koning Willem iii en Arti, 17–25, 50–52; Kraaij, ‘Leve de Koning!’, 51–7. 68 Cleverens, Sire . . ., 79–81; Van Heuven-van Nes, ‘Vertoning op Het Loo’, 127. 69 Bakker-van de Weg, ‘Willem iii, Koning van de Nederlandse muziek?’, 116–29; Tamse, Nederland en België in Europa, 262, 267. 70 ‘Enige programma’s voor muziekuitvoeringen op Het Loo en te ‘s-Gravenhage. 1868, 1873–1876’, kha-a45-xiii-d–7; the first auditions were held in 1873, before the opening of the college in Brussels. 71 A.d.W., ‘Willem Kes over Liszt, Wieniawski en koning Willem iii’, in Het Vaderland, 21 June 1923. 72 Ernest Reyer, quoted in Bakker-van de Weg, ‘Willem iii, Koning van de Nederlandse muziek?’, 119; Cleverens, Sire . . ., 81. 73 William iii to J.P.P. Baron van Zuylen van Nyevelt, 30 May 1876, correspondence between Van Zuylen and various persons regarding the ‘pensionnaires’ of His Majesty the King, kha-g8-iv; Algemeen Handelsblad, 20 August 1876; Fitzlyon, Maria Malibran, 103–4. 74 Programme 6 May 1875, kha-a45-xiii-d–7. 75 A.d.W., ‘Willem Kes over Liszt, Wieniawski en koning Willem iii’, in Het Vaderland, 21 June 1923. 76 Liszt to Olga von Meyendorff, 3 May 1875, in [Liszt,] Letters, 192; see also Liszt to Olga von Meyendorff, 18 May 1876, in idem, 242–3. 77 Mörke, Willem van Oranje, 152–70. 78 Van der Zeijden, Katholieke identiteit, 283. 79 Idem, 269–85; Groot, ‘Vlaggen in top’, 179–83; Koch, Abraham Kuyper, 107–9; Van der Plas, Vader Thijm, 411–19. 386

References

80 Van der Zeijden, Katholieke identiteit, 285–96; Bank and Van Buuren, 1900, 60–71. 81 Van ‘t Veer, ed., Maar Majesteit!, 164; Van Ditzhuyzen, Oranje-Nassau, 25–6. 82 William iii to Prince Henry, 28 January 1862, kha-g54–245. 83 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 1 March 1865, in Jackman and Haasse, ed., A Stranger in The Hague, 267; Haasse and Jackman, ed., Vreemdelinge in Den Haag, 209–10. 84 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 9 March 1865, in Jackman and Haasse, ed., A Stranger in The Hague, 268; Haasse and Jackman, ed., Vreemdelinge in Den Haag, 210. 85 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 20 February 1865, in Jackman and Haasse, ed., A Stranger in The Hague, 277. 86 Telegram to the Chef de la Police Municipale, 7 January 1876, Paris. Les archives de la Préfecture de Police, Paris, dossier ‘de Buren (Comte) nom pris par le Roi de Hollande dans son Voyage en France’, inv. no. ba 987; Staatscourant, 7 and 11 November 1875. 87 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 29 December 1875, in Haasse and Jackman, ed., Vreemdelinge in Den Haag, 260. 88 Note by C. Smit from 1982 on the diary of P. P. van Bosse, na, 2.21.272, inv. no. 65. 89 Van ‘t Veer, ed., Maar Majesteit!, 123. 90 ‘Plechtige Begrafenis van wijlen Hare Majesteit de Koningin der Nederlanden’, in Algemeen Handelsblad, 21 June 1877. 91 Les archives de la Préfecture de Police, Paris, ba 1207. See also Wesseling, Vele ideeën, 53–60. 92 Notes of officer ‘Léon’, 17 January 1877, Les archives de la Préfecture de Police, Paris, ba 1207; Patijn, public prosecutor, and the Prince of Orange, 4 April 1877, dossier ‘Oplichtingen’, kha-a48-ixf-I–17; Van Raalte, Staatshoofd en ministers, 157. 93 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 5 September 1857 and 30 September 1860, in Jackman and Haasse, ed., A Stranger in The Hague, 178, 212; Haasse and Jackman, ed., Vreemdelinge in Den Haag, 139, 167. 94 Sophie of Württemberg to Lady Malet, 28 January 1868 and 3 February 1877, in Jackman and Haasse, ed., Stranger in The Hague, 304, 357–8; Haasse and Jackman, ed., Vreemdelinge in Den Haag, 231, 262; Van ‘t Veer, ed., Maar Majesteit!, 110, 122. 95 Memorandum, no date or signature, in two copies, kha-a48-vii–1a. 96 The Prince of Orange [Wiwill] to William iii, 19 September 1877, quoted in Van ‘t Veer, ed., Maar Majesteit!, 129–30. 97 Memorandum, no date or signature [1872 of 1873], in two copies, khaa48-vii–1a. Another copy, with the names Van de Putte and Weitzel, in the National Archives and reproduced in Van ‘t Veer, ed., Maar Majesteit!, 93–101. 98 Van Ditzhuyzen, Oranje-Nassau, 202. 99 Cleverens, Sire . . ., (ii), 5; De Locomotief, 6 November 1877; Algemeen Handelsblad, 8 August 1877; Van ‘t Veer, ed., Maar Majesteit!, 76. 100 Van ‘t Veer, ed., Maar Majesteit!, 73; Cleverens, Sire . . ., (ii), 9–12. 387

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101 Memorandum to the King from Frederick of the Netherlands, draft, 15 September 1877, kha-a37–201. 102 William iii to Frederick of the Netherlands, 11 February 1878; Frederick of the Netherlands to William iii, 11 February 1878, kha-a37–201. 103 Ambre, Une diva; Arditi, My reminiscences, 205–6. 104 R. J. Schimmelpenninck van Nijenhuis to J.P.P. van Zuylen van Nijevelt, 30 May and 15 June 1878, kha-g8-V-I. 105 Frederick of the Netherlands to King Christian ix of Denmark, 11 May 1878, draft; King Christian ix of Denmark to Frederick of the Netherlands, 16 May 1878, copy in Prince Frederick’s handwriting, khaa37-202. 106 R. J. Schimmelpenninck van Nijenhuis to J.P.P. van Zuylen van Nijevelt, 20 June 1878, kha-g8-V-I. 107 Elisabeth of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach to Karl Alexander of Saxe-WeimarEisenach, 11 August 1878, quoted in Coppens, Sophie in Weimar, 509–10. 108 Van Ditzhuyzen, Oranje-Nassau, 90. 109 Fasseur, Wilhelmina: De jonge koningin, 43–5. 110 See, for example, W. van Italie-van Embden, ‘Op audiëntie bij H. M. de Koningin-Moeder’, in Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 9 January 1929; Van Heuven-van Nes, ‘Königin Emma 1858–1934’; Cleverens, Sire . . . (ii), 23–5. 111 Parliamentary proceedings 1878–1879, no. 55. www. statengeneraaldigitaal.nl. 112 Marriage agreement ratified by William iii, Het Loo, 9 December 1878, kha-a45-iiia–8; marriage agreement signed by George Victor of Waldeck and Pyrmont, Arolsen, 9 December 1878, kha-a45-iiia9. 113 Ten Kate, ‘Epiloog’, in Algemeen Handelsblad, 10 January 1879. 114 Sophie of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach to William iii, 30 September 1878; Prince Henry to William iii, 11 October 1878, kha-a45-iiia-15; Marianne to Emma, no date, kha-a47-iva–10. 115 Frederick to George Victor of Waldeck and Pyrmont, 19 December 1878, copy in German letters, kha-a37-24. 116 Note from Wiwill (in Dutch), probably intended for Alexander, and in any case preserved in his correspondence, kha-a49b-viia–11. Undated, but marked ‘1879’ in pencil by an unknown writer. 117 Alexander to William iii, 2 October 1878, kha-a45–15a; copy (on blackedged paper), kha-a37–29. 118 William iii (and Emma) to Alexander, 5 October 1878, kha-a37–29. The letter was written in Emma’s hand, as William iii noted elsewhere in the text. 119 Alexander to William iii, 2 October 1878, kha-a45–15a; copy (on blackedged paper) kha-a37–29. 120 Tamse, ed., Koningin Emma. 121 Van Megen, ‘In het panopticum’, 408–9; Van der Woud, De nieuwe mens, 29; Wienfort, ‘Dynastic Heritage and Bourgeois Morals’, 163–79. 122 Romein, Op het breukvlak van twee eeuwen, chapters xviii and xix. 123 The notion of ‘image maintenance’ is based on the German term ‘Imagepflege’, used in Winkelhofer, Feine Gesellschaft, 17; Van Osta, 388

References

Theater van de Staat, 9, 75–113; Widestedt, ‘A Visible Presence’, 45–61; see also the third section ‘Popular Monarchy in the Age of Mass Media’, in Deploige and Deneckere, ed., Mystifying the Monarch. 124 De Rooy, Republiek van rivaliteiten, 77–112; McLeod, Religion, 36: McLeod correctly refers to the ‘pillars’ in Dutch society as examples of ‘ideological ghettos’. 125 Te Velde, Gemeenschapszin, 123–6. 126 Koch, Abraham Kuyper, 256–75; Stellingwerff, Dr. Abraham Kuyper en de Vrije Universiteit, 152–3. 127 Quoted in Domela Nieuwenhuis, Gedenkschriften, 156; Domela Nieuwenhuis, ‘De koning komt’, Recht voor allen, 24 April 1886; Stutje, Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, 117–19, 127–33, 146–9; Ketelaar, ‘Oranje ik ben je beu.’ 128 De Rooy, Een revolutie die niet voorbij ging, 56–80. 129 Wilhelmina, Eenzaam, 40; Te Velde, Gemeenschapszin, 121; Boekholt, ‘Emma en de opvoeding van Wilhelmina’, 38–40; Te Velde, ‘Het “roer van staat” in “zwakke vrouwenhanden”’, 176–86. 130 Tamse, ‘Plaats en functie van de Nederlandse monarchie in de negentiende eeuw’, 126. 131 Rogier, ‘Schrikbeeld’, 212; De Valk, Roomser dan de paus?, 135. 132 De Valk, Roomser dan de paus?, 136. 133 Chadwick, Secularization, 125: Chadwick speaks of ‘motives of passion’. 134 De Bruijn, Abraham Kuyper, 125; Oud, Staatkundige vormgeving, 110; De Valk, Roomser dan de paus?, 363–4. 135 A. F. de Savornin Lohman to Abraham Kuyper, 30 July 1878, De Bruijn, ed., Briefwisseling Kuyper-De Savornin Lohman; Koch, Abraham Kuyper, 178–89; Van Klinken, Actieve burgers, 107–25; Righart, De katholieke zuil in Europa. 136 Pflanze, Bismarck ii, 391–414; Carsten, Eduard Bernstein, 17–46. 137 Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret, 110–11; Seigel, Bohemian Paris, 59–96. 138 Min, Eeuw van Brussel, 205. 139 [Roorda van Eysinga,] Koning Gorilla, 5–7; Bos, ed., Willem iii, Koning Gorilla; Ramaer, ‘De Gorilla-oorlog’, 179–86. 140 Desmond and Moore, Darwin, 451–2, 511; gorillas were rediscovered around 1860; Carthaginian explorer Hanno the Navigator had first seen them in about 510 bc and given them their name. 141 [Roorda van Eysinga,] Koning Gorilla, 12, 22 and 24. 142 See, for example, De Tijd: Godsdienstigstaatkundig dagblad, 25 February 1887. 143 Bos, Waarachtige volksvrienden, 248–56; Bos, ed., Willem iii, Koning Gorilla, 51–62. 1 44 Cohen, Uiterst links, 71–4; Bos, ed., Willem iii, Koning Gorilla, 63–6. 145 Leidsch Dagblad, 7 September 1880, quoted in Fasseur, Wilhelmina: De jonge koningin, 61. 146 ‘Caro Knutselgraag’, ‘Wie is Papa? Samenspraak tusschen Mama en Heintje’, in De roode duivel, 2 October 1893. 147 Willem iii’s medical history, drawn up by Hendrik Jacobus Vinkhuyzen (the son of court physician Cornelis Vinkhuyzen), kha-a45-iv-1; J. Vlaanderen to S. S. Rosenstein, 10 July 1890, kha-a45-iv–2. 389

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148 Buys, ‘De dood van den Kroonprins’, iv; Te Velde, ‘Het “roer van staat” in “zwakke vrouwenhanden”’, 169–95. 149 Van Hasselt, Verzameling van Nederlandse staatsregelingen, 292, 322. 150 Huizinga, Heemskerk, 281, 274 n. 177; Verburg, Koningin Emma, 17. 151 Dijkhuis, Monarchia, 136–7; Tamse, Huis van Oranje, 99–111; Verburg, Koningin Emma, 20–21. 152 Willem iii’s medical history, drawn up by Hendrik Jacobus Vinkhuyzen (the son of court physician Cornelis Vinkhuyzen), kha-a45-iv-1. 153 P. J. Vegelin van Claerbergen to the director of the King’s Office, Alewijn, 12 January and 25 February 1889, na 2.02.04, inv. no. 4282; W.H.J. Hemmes and A. J. Servaas van Roijen, 11 April 1889, kha-a45iv-2a; Verburg, Koningin Emma, 35–9. 154 J. Vlaanderen, health report, khaa47-xi-5. 155 Quoted from Bouman, Op en om Oranje’s troon, 271. 156 Cleverens, Sire . . . (ii), 104–6; Te Velde, Gemeenschapszin, 138–9; Het leven van Z. M. Koning Willem iii, 203–6. 157 Report, apparently based on accounts provided by valet Van den Bosch, published in various newspapers. Also included in Het leven van Z. M. Koning Willem iii, 127.

Epilogue: Orange and Europe, 1789–1918

1 Paulmann, Pomp und Politik; Zamoyski, Phantom Terror. 2 Van Sas, Onze Natuurlijkste Bondgenoot; Kuitenbrouwer, Nederland en de opkomst van het moderne imperialisme. 3 William ii, Livre de Notes 1813–1814, kha-a40-xii-3; Colenbrander, Willem i : Part i, 213–14; Bornewasser, ‘Koning Willem i’, 244. 4 William ii, ‘Essai sur le siècle dans lequel je vis’, Soestdijk 10 June 1818, kha-g54-33. 5 Bossenbroek, Holland op zijn breedst, 23–48, 317–42. 6 See also Chapter 9, ‘Aristocide, 1917–1945’, in Wasson, Aristocracy. 7 Mayer, The Persistence of the Old Regime, 135–52; Müller, ‘Stabilizing a “Great Historic System”’, 1–2. 8 Bagehot, The English Constitution, 100. 9 Winkelhofer, Feine Gesellschaft; Van Osta, Theater van de Staat; Kohut, Wilhelm ii, 127–76; Paxman, On Royalty. 10 That he was assassinated is the only widely known and also the most remembered fact about Franz Ferdinand: Fichtner, The Habsburgs, 257–63; Hannig, ‘Archduke Franz Ferdinand’, 139–60. 11 Joll, Origins of the First World War; Howard, First World War, 1–31; for the widespread ethos of struggle, see Gollwitzer, Europe in the Age of Imperialism. 12 Paulmann, Pomp und Politik, 131. 13 Fichter, The Habsburgs, 257–85; a well known account of the departure of Charles i can be found in Zweig, Welt von Gestern, 326–7. 14 Hughes, Romanovs, 1–6, 217–39. 15 Erdmann, Der Erste Weltkrieg, 221–7, 236–40. 16 Yugoslavia became a kingdom, Bulgaria was ruled by a tsar, and a much enlarged Romania remained a kingdom. 390

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17 De Schaepdrijver, De Groote Oorlog. 18 Moeyes, Buiten schot. 19 Fasseur, Wilhelmina: De jonge koningin, 499–504. 20 Oud, Staatkundige vormgeving, 208–23; Van Klinken, Actieve burgers, 509–37; Loots, Voor het volk, van het volk. 21 Moeyes, Buiten schot, 316–22; 331–4; Fasseur, Wilhelmina: De jonge koningin, 522–6. 22 See for example the diaries of the usually well informed former minister of foreign affairs Willem Hendrik de Beaufort, Dagboeken, 988–90. 23 Fasseur makes no mention of any reaction from Wilhelmina, either in Wilhelmina: De jonge koningin or in Wilhelmina: Krijgshaftig in een vormeloze jas. 24 Moeyes, Buiten schot, 316–22; 341–3; Fasseur, Wilhelmina: De jonge koningin, 544–51. 25 Jacco Pekelder, ‘Leven in een luchtkasteel. De dagboeken van Sigurd von Ilsemann als historisch document over Wilhelm ii’, in Ilsemann, Wilhelm ii in Nederland, xxxvii–xl.

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––, Het lege land: De ruimtelijke orde van Nederland 1798–1848 (Amsterdam 1987, 2007) Wright, Jonathan, De Jezuïeten: Missie, mythen en methoden (Amsterdam 2004) Wüppermann, W.E.A., De geschiedenis van den Tiendaagschen veldtocht in Augustus 1831 (Breda 1900) Zagorin, Perez, How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West (Princeton/Oxford 2003) Zamoyski, Adam, 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow (London 2004) ––, Phantom Terror: The Threat of Revolution and the Repression of Liberty 1789–1848 (London 2014) ––, Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon & the Congress of Vienna (New York 2007) Zanden, Jan Luiten van, and Arthur van Riel, Nederland 1780–1914: Staat, instituties en economische ontwikkeling (Amsterdam 2000) Zanten, Jeroen van, ‘Die Niederlande’, in Werner Daum, ed., Handbuch der europäischen Verfassungsgeschichte im 19. Jahrhundert Band 2: 1815–1847 (Bonn 2011), 425–75 ––, ‘Het strand van Scheveningen: De aankomst van koning Willem i op 30 november 1813’, in Jan Bank and Marita Mathijsen, eds, Plaatsen van herinnering: Nederland in de negentiende eeuw (Amsterdam 2006), 61–71 ––, Koning Willem ii: 1792–1849 (Amsterdam 2013) ––, ‘“Met verscheidene dolksteken afgemaakt”. Moraal en politiek in de berichten over de moord op August van Kotzebue’, in De negentiende eeuw 26 (2003), 1, 39–49 ––, Schielijk,Winzucht, Zwaarhoofd en Bedaard: Politieke discussie en oppositievorming 1813–1840 (Amsterdam 2004) Zeijden, Albert van der, Katholieke identiteit en historisch bewustzijn. W. J.F. Nuyens (1823–1894) en zijn ‘nationale’ geschiedschrijving (Hilversum 2002) Zuber, Uwe, Staat und Kirche im Wandel: Fulda von 1752 bis 1830 (Darmstadt/Marburg 1993) Zweig, Stefan, Die Welt von Gestern: Erinneringen eines Europäers (Frankfurt am Main 1982 [1944])

425

Archive Sources

Koninklijk Huisarchief (Royal Archives), The Hague (kha)

kha archives a31 Prince William v, 1748–1806 a32 Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia, 1751–1820 a33 Princess Louise, 1770–1819 a34 Prince Frederick, 1774–1799 a35 King William i, 1772–1843 a36 Queen Wilhelmina, 1774–1837 a37 Prince Frederick, 1797–1881 a40 King William ii, 1792–1849 a41 Queen Anna Pavlovna, 1795–1865 a42 Prince Alexander, 1818–1848 a43 Prince Henry, 1820–1879 a44a Prince Casimir, 1822–1822 a44b Princess Sophie, 1824–1897 a45 King William iii, 1817–1890 a46 Queen Sophie, 1818–1877 a47 Queen Emma, 1858–1934 a48 Prince William, 1840–1879 a49a Prince Maurice, 1843–1850 a49b Prince Alexander, 1851–1884 a50 Queen Wilhelmina, 1880–1962 e8 Treasury e9a Intendance The Hague e9c Intendance Het Loo e10 Lord Great Chamberlain e14a King’s Private Library e18a Master of Ceremonies e18b Lord Steward of the Household e18c Chamberlains

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kha collections g3 H. Tollius, 1742–1822 g8 Collection of J.P.P. van Zuylen van Nijevelt (1816–1890), Chamberlain to H. M. the Queen 1851, Dutch Ambassador in Paris 1874–84 g10 C. Th. Elout, 1806–1831 g24 Collection of L. H. Eberson (1822–1889), royal architect under King William iii 1874–89 g25 J. W. Baron Huyssen van Kattendijke, 1654–1841 g28 Collection of Lady Marie Louise de Kock (1848–1932), nanny to Princess Wilhelmina g37 Major General C. A. Geisweit van der Netten, 1830–39 g46 Documents provided by Prof. S. W. Jackman and Hella Haasse 1842–77 g54 Documents transferred to the State Archives in Weimar, 1816–80 Archief Bisdom van Den Bosch, Den Bosch Archive and Manuscript Collections, University of Southampton Archives de Montreux, Montreux Archives privées de personnes et de familles, Bibliothèque de Genève Christ Church Archives, Oxford Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin Gelders Archief, Arnhem Gemeente Archief Den Haag, The Hague Huisarchief Twickel, Delden International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam (iisg) Lambeth Palace Library, London Les archives de la Préfecture de Police, Paris National Archives, The Hague (na) Réveil-Archief, University Library, Amsterdam Russian State Historical Archive, St Petersburg State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow Thüringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Weimar (thhstaw)

428

Acknowledgements

The House of Orange in Revolution and War: A European History, 1772–1890 is based on three biographies of the nineteenth-century Dutch kings published by Boom Uitgevers Amsterdam in November 2013 to mark the second centenary of the monarchy of the House of Orange. The biographies – Koning Willem i: 1772–1843 by Jeroen Koch, Koning Willem ii: 1792–1849 by Jeroen van Zanten and Koning Willem iii: 1817–1890 by Dik van der Meulen – attracted much interest, not only in the Netherlands and Belgium, but in Germany, Britain and Russia. Shortly after the biographies were published, we felt the need to make the results of our research accessible to international readers, not only academics but a wider public. Before the texts could be translated, they had to be shortened considerably and forged into a single whole. To ensure a uniform style throughout, this work was entrusted to one of the authors, Jeroen Koch, in close consultation and with the full cooperation of Jeroen van Zanten and Dik van der Meulen. The abridged Dutch edition was published by Boom Uitgevers Amsterdam at the beginning of 2018. The three biographies were extremely suitable for translation, for various reasons. They offer a panoramic overview of nearly a century and a half of history of the House of Orange, and therefore the Low Countries, from the latter years of the Republic to the end of the nineteenth century. The biographies expressly place the lives of the Dutch kings in an international, European context. They are also based on new research in the Royal Archives in The Hague and other Dutch, Belgian, British, German, French, Swiss and Russian archives. The life story of William iii was largely unknown, while there were large gaps in existing biographies of William i and William ii. The texts of the biographies of the three kings were the starting point for this book. Parts have been reproduced integrally and literally, others abridged or paraphrased. While it was compiled by one author, the three biographers share ownership of the research on which it is based; the interpretation, ana­ly­­sis and argumentation are founded on the three biographies and were developed jointly. Abridged chapters and passages were discussed together, and with Joost Dankers, manager of commissioned research at the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University. He was the initiator and supervisor of the original biog­ raphy project, and it was his idea to produce this book for an international readership. To ensure that this summary was a readable and coherent account, many new connecting passages had to be written. Furthermore, as explained in 429

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the introduction, a number of new topics were added that were not addressed in the original biographies. The chosen method of annotation requires some explanation: we decided at an early stage that there was little value in referring to pages in the original biographies. To make the book useful for historical science outside the Nether­ ­lands, the notes contain full references to archive sources and abridged titles of the historical literature listed in the bibliography. So as not to inundate inter­national readers with a deluge of Dutch names, many ministers, courtiers and others in the close vicinity of the three kings are referred to only by their official titles. For the interested reader, their names are given in the notes. We owe our thanks to the following institutions and individuals. First of all to the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, and to former director Adriana Esmeijer. The Cultuurfonds funded both the original biographical research and the writing work for the abridged version. The University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University gave us the freedom to use our research time for the project. This English translation was made possible by a generous grant from the Dutch Foundation for Literature and supplementary financial support from the Cultuur­­fonds. Mireille Berman of the Foundation for Literature and Thijs Tromp, secretary of the Cultuurfonds board, were very active in securing these grants. We are very grateful to Reaktion Books in London for giving us the opportunity to publish an English edition of this book. Our thanks, too, to Eva Wijenbergh of Uitgeverij Boom for liaising with Reaktion Books. Last but not least, we would like to thank our translator Andy Brown, who consistently delivered the translated chapters on time and came up with a range of inventive equivalents for outdated eighteenth- and nineteenth-century prose. The covid-19 pandemic put paid to our plans to meet regularly to discuss the text and the translation. After our first introductory meeting, all contact was by email but it did not prevent us from enjoying a close working relationship.

430

Photo Acknowledgements

The author and publishers wish to express their thanks to the below sources of illustrative material and/or permission to reproduce it. Atlas Van Stolk Museum, Rotterdam, The Netherlands: p. 14; Bridgeman Images: pp. 63 (Palace of Versailles, France), 74 (National Army Museum, London), 75 (Apsley House, The Wellington Museum, London), 99 (De Agostini Picture Library), 157 (© cci), 170 (The Stapleton Collection); British Museum, London (© The Trustees of the British Museum): pp. 88, 92; Central Library, University of Bern, Switzerland (Ryhiner Collection): p. 129; Central Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands: p. 241; Germanisches National Museum, Nuremberg, Germany: p. 167; The Hague Municipal Archives, Denmark: pp. 254, 282, 307, 308, 320, 326; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany/Wikimedia Commons: p. 293; Hessian Regional History Information System (Lagis-Hessen.de): p. 54; Het Loo Palace Museum, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands: pp. 46, 181 (loan from The Amsterdam Museum); Leiden University Library, The Netherlands: p. 236; Dik van der Meulen (Private Collection), Haarlem,The Netherlands: p. 313; Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris, France: pp. 232, 245; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam: p. 77 (Photo: Studio Tromp); National Archives of Belgium, Brussels: p. 150 (Henri Schuermans Archive); National Library of France, Paris/Wikimedia Commons: p. 30; National Museum of World Cultures Foundation, The Netherlands: p. 278; Pavlovsk Palace, St Petersburg, Russia: p. 197; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: pp. 18, 22, 25, 32, 106, 107, 123, 132, 136, 137, 141, 145, 162, 174, 201, 218, 223; Royal Collections, The Hague, Denmark: pp. 111, 184, 189, 200, 205, 245, 248, 257, 301; Teylers Museum, Haarlem, The Netherlands: p. 148; University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands: p. 274 (Special Collections); Van Gijn House Museum, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: p. 114; Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain): pp. 271, 319.

431

Index of Names

Abercromby, Ralph (1734–1801) 42 Adolf of Nassau, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (1817–1905) 315 Adrian vi, Pope (1459–1523) 142 Albert, Prince of Prussia (1809–1872) 188 Alexander, Prince of the Netherlands (1818–1848) 204, 205, 206–8, 220, 228, 235, 289 Alexander, Prince of the Netherlands, Prince of Orange (1851–1884) 282, 286, 290, 291, 296, 299, 300, 303, 304, 306–8, 314, 315 Alexander i, Tsar of Russia (1777–1825) 64, 65, 79, 83, 93, 106, 112, 113, 120, 121, 196, 197, 198, 199, 207 Alexander ii, Tsar of Russia, Grand Duke (1818–1881) 10, 254, 281, 283 Alfonso xii, King of Spain (1857–1885) 254 Alice, Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1843–1878) 303 Amadeus, King of Spain (1845–1890) 254 Amalia Maria da Gloria Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1830–1872) 300 Ambre, Emilie (1849–1898) 291, 304–6 Andringa de Kempenaer, Regnerus Livius van (1804–1854) 194, 195, 227, 236–8

Anna Pavlovna, Queen of the Netherlands, Grand Duchess (1795–1865) 11, 112–15, 119, 120, 122, 156, 164, 168, 169, 171, 177, 192, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 203, 204, 205, 206–8, 212–14, 216, 231, 235, 250, 256, 296, 300, 317 Auber, Daniel-François-Esprit (1782–1871) 156 Augusta Caroline, Princess of Cambridge (1822–1916) 208 Austen, Jane (1775–1817) 89 Bagehot, Walter (1826–1877) 246, 265, 285, 286, 322 Baud, Jean Chrétien (1789–1859) 219, 220, 233, 236, 239, 260, 261 Beatrix, Queen of the Netherlands (1938–) 322 Beauharnais, Eugène Rose de (1781–1824) 121 Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770–1827) 298 Bentinck, William Henry Cavendish, Duke of Portland (1738–1809) 68 Bernadotte, Jean-Baptiste, Charles xiv John of Sweden (1763–1844) 83 Bernhard, Prince of LippeBiesterfeld (1911–2004) 322 Bevervoorde tot Oldenmeule, Adriaan Jan Eliza van (1820–1851) 227, 228, 235–8 433

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Bignon, Louis (1816–1906) 302 Bismarck, Otto von (1815–1898) 253, 270–72, 312 Blücher, Gerhard Leberecht von (1742–1819) 102, 103, 106 Boers, Adam Adriaan (1781–1850) 193, 194, 237 Boniface, St (673–754) 56 Bosch, Johannes van den (1780–1844) 136, 137, 277 Bouwens van der Boyen, Pierre Mathieu Marie (1795–?) 193–5, 237 Box, Henri (1797–1872) 225 Broglie, Maurice Jean de (1766– 1821) 109, 110, 142 Brunswick, Caroline Amalia Elizabeth of (1768–1821) 66, 89, 91 Brunswick, Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of (1735–1806) 61 Brunswick, Karl Georg August of (1766–1806) 32 Brunswick, Louis Ernest, Duke of (1718–1788) 20 Bülow, Friedrich Wilhelm von (1755–1816) 104, 130 Buys, Johannes Theodoor (1826–1893) 315 Byron, George Gordon, Lord (1788–1824) 193 Caillard, Antoine Bernard (1737–1807) 38 Calvin, John (1509–1564) 146, 242 Capaccini, Francesco (1784–1845) 118 Carnot, Lazare Nicolas Marguerite (1753–1823) 120, 232 Caroline, Princess of OrangeNassau (1743–1787) 306 Caroline Marianne of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1821–1876) 208 Casembroot, Eduard August Otto de (1812–1883) 206, 250, 257, 265, 289–92

Castlereagh, Robert Henry Stewart, Lord (1769–1822) 83–5, 97, 99, 113, 119, 212 Catharina of Württemberg (1783–1835) 272 Catharine Pavlovna, Queen of Württemberg (1788–1819) 93, 197, 208, 213 Cato, Marcus Porcius (234–149 bce) 134 Celles, Antoine de Visscher de (1779–1841) 143 Charles i, Emperor of Austria (1887–1922) 324 Charles i, King of England (1600–1649) 10 Charles v, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) 146 Charles x, King of France (1757– 1836) 123, 124, 126, 156, 199 Charlotte, Princess of Wales (1796–1817) 48, 65–8, 70, 72, 74, 78, 81–3, 87, 88, 89–93, 108, 113, 168, 191, 208 Chassé, David Hendrik (1765– 1849) 104 Chastel de La Howarderie, Ernest Albéric Henri Marie Joseph du (1788–1864) 192, 237 Christian ix, King of Denmark (1818–1906) 305 Clancarty, Richard LePoer Trench (1767–1837) 85, 95, 99 Clarendon, George William Frederick Villiers, Lord (1800–1870) 291 Claus, jonkheer van Amsberg (1926–2002) 322 Clausewitz, Carl von (1780–1831) 66 Coburg-Saalfeld, Frederick Josias, Prince of Saxe (1737–1815) 29 Cockerill, John (1790–1840) 133, 135, 136 Coen, Jan Pieterszoon (1587–1629) 281 Constant-Rebecque, Jean Victor de (1773–1850) 60, 66–72, 76, 101–3, 105, 160, 161 434

Index of Names

Fisher, John (1748–1825) 70 FitzGibbon, John, Earl of Clare (1792–1851) 193 Fockema, Daam (1771–1855) 134 Fransen van de Putte, Isaäc Dignus (1822–1902) 278 Franz ii, Holy Roman Emperor, from 1806 Franz i, Emperor of Austria (1768–1835) 52, 53 Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria (1863–1914) 323 Franz Joseph i, Emperor of Austria (1830–1916) 324 Frederick, Fritz, Prince of OrangeNassau (1774–1799) 22, 25–7, 31, 32, 35 Frederick, Fritz, Prince of Orange-Nassau, Prince of the Netherlands (1797–1881) 38, 62, 79, 84, 107, 118, 122, 127, 152, 158–60, 163, 168, 171, 189, 212, 235, 237, 251, 256, 291, 296, 300, 302, 304, 305, 307 Frederick ii (the Great), King of Prussia (1712–1786) 12, 19, 21, 24, 55, 56, 60, 117, 127 Frederick Henry, stadholder (1584–1647) 17, 196 Friederieke Charlotte, Princess of Prussia (1767–1820) 26 Friedrich Wilhelm ii, King of Prussia (1744–1797) 11, 12, 16, 17, 24, 25, 35, 188 Friedrich Wilhelm iii, King of Prussia (1770–1840) 12, 24, 39, 52, 59, 61, 83, 97, 126, 144, 158, 187 Friedrich Wilhelm iv, King of Prussia (1795–1861) 12, 202

Constantine Pavlovich, Governor of Poland (1779–1831) 156, 197, 198, 199, 207 Cromwell, Oliver (1599–1658) 11 Cuypers, Petrus (Pierre) Josephus Hubertus (1827–1921) 288 Darwin, Charles Robert (1809– 1882) 206 David, Jacques-Louis (1748–1825) 118 Dietz, Wilhelmine Marie von (1812–1836) 188 Dipanegara, Prince Pangeran (1785–1855) 137 Domela Nieuwenhuis, Ferdinand (1846–1919) 310, 312, 314 Donker Curtius, Dirk (1792–1864) 221, 225, 227, 228, 234–8, 251 Dumas, Alexandre (1802–1870) 210, 252 Dumouriez, Charles-François (1739–1823) 28, 29, 53 Edgcumbe, Richard (1764–1839) 70 Edward vii, ‘Bertie’, King of England (1841–1910) 292, 319 Elisabeth (‘Sisi’), Empress of Austria (1837–1898) 323 Elisabeth Sybille, Princess of SaxeWeimar-Eisenach (1854–1908) 305 Emma, Queen-Regent of the Netherlands (1858–1934) 246, 285–7, 299, 304–6, 307, 308, 309, 310, 314–16, 320, 321, 322 Engels, Friedrich (1820–1895) 227, 253 Enghien, Louis Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of (1772–1804) 57 Ensor, James Sidney Edouard (1860–1949) 312

Gendebien, Alexandre Joseph Célestin (1789–1869) 161–3, 165 George, Duke of Cambridge (1819–1904) 208 George iii, King of Great Britain and Ireland (1738–1820) 25, 29, 36, 57, 59, 66, 125, 208

Fagel, Hendrik (1765–1838) 68, 72 Falck, Anton Reinhard (1777–1843) 140, 187, 191 Ferdinand ii, King of Portugal (1816–1885) 202 435

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George iv, Prince Regent, King of Great Britain and Ireland (1762–1830) 66, 89–91, 93 George v, King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions (1865–1936) 323 George v of Hanover (1819–1878) 305 Gneisenau, August Neidhardt von (1760–1831) 104, 106 Goltz, Julie van der (1780–1841) 63, 72, 187, 190 Goubau d’Hovorst, Melchior (1757–1836) 140, 142, 143 Grey, Charles (1764–1845) 166, 168–70 Groen van Prinsterer, Guillaume (1801–1876) 150, 165, 268, 299 Groot, Hugo de (1583–1645) 202 Guizot, François Pierre Guillaume (1787–1874) 135, 253 Gustaaf Vasa of Sweden (1799–1877) 196 Haar, Bernard ter (1806–1880) 243 Hall, Floris Adriaan van (1791– 1866) 218, 219, 221, 225–7, 229, 244, 260 Hauser, Henriette 292, 293 Haze Bomme, Huijbrecht de (1791–1874?) 292, 293 Heemskerk Azn., Jan (1818–1897) 267 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770–1831) 210 Hein, Piet Pieterszoon (1577–1629) 203 Henry, Duke of MecklenburgSchwerin (1876–1934) 322 Henry, Prince of Orange-Nassau (1820–1879) 168, 205, 228, 251, 257, 272, 279, 294, 300, 304, 306–8 Herzen, Alexander (1812–1870) 281 Hoëvell, Wolter Robert van (1812–1879) 277 Hogendorp, Gijsbert Karel van (1762–1843) 84–6, 94–6, 98, 125, 127, 128, 180, 246

Home, Daniel Douglas (1833–1886) 290 Howley, William (1766–1848) 68, 76 Jansen, Petrus (n.d.) 237–9 Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia (1784–1860) 64, 104 John of Saxony (1801–1873) 168 Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain (1768–1844) 73 Joseph ii, Holy Roman Emperor (1741–1790) 56, 110, 117, 127, 140, 141 Juliana, Queen of the Netherlands (1909–2004) 322, 326 Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804) 210 Kappeyne van de Coppello, Joannes (1822–1895) 311 Karl von Habsburg, Archduke (1771–1847) 65, 168, 253 Karl i, King of Württemberg (1823–1891) 209 Karl Alexander of Saxe-WeimarEisenach (1818–1901) 217 Kate, Jan Jakob Lodewijk ten (1819–1889) 306 Kes, Willem (1856–1934) 298 Keuchenius, Levinus Wilhelmus Christiaan (1822–1893) 267–9 Kipling, Rudyard (1865–1936) 279 Knoop, Willem Jan (1811–1894) 221 Kock, Frederik Lodewijk Willem (‘Frits’) de (1818–1881) 261 Koetsveld, Cornelis Eliza van (1807–1893) 316 Kuyper, Abraham (1837–1920) 246, 279, 309, 311, 314 Lacroix, Caroline, also known as Blanche Zélia Joséphine Delacroix (1883–1948) 292 Lansberge, Reinhart Frans Cornelis van (1804–1873) 280 Lenin, pseudonym of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (1870–1924) 324 Leo xii, Pope (1760–1829) 143, 148 Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) 202 436

Index of Names

Leopold i of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, King of the Belgians (1790–1865) 150, 151, 168, 169, 170, 171, 173, 175, 176, 231, 239, 244 Leopold ii, King of the Belgians (1835–1909) 277, 278, 292, 312 Lightenvelt, Leonardus Anthonius (1795–1873) 251 Limburg Stirum, Anna Mathilda (‘Marie’) van (1854–1932) 303 Liszt, Franz (1811–1886) 297, 298 Loudon, James (1824–1900) 261 Louis xiv, King of France (1638–1715) 151, 179 Louis xvi, King of France (1754–1793) 10, 29, 30, 38, 57, 99, 116, 118, 217, 254, 255, 317, 324 Louis xviii, King of France (1755–1824) 99, 100, 120, 121, 123, 126, 199, 230 Louis Napoleon, King of Holland (1778–1846) 34, 59, 117 Louis Charles Philippe Raphaël of Orleans, Duke of Nemours (1814–1896) 168, 169 Louis-Philippe ii, Duke of Orléans, ‘Philippe Égalité’ (1747–1793) 126 Louis-Philippe of Orleans, King of the French (1773–1850) 121, 126, 135, 156, 166, 175, 217, 222, 231, 244 Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1818–1842) 208, 210 Louise of Orléans, Queen of the Belgians (1812–1850) 175 Louise of the Netherlands, Queen of Sweden (1828–1871) 305 Louise, Princess of Orange-Nassau (1770–1819) 22, 24–8, 30, 33–5, 37, 38, 44, 49–53, 57, 58, 61, 65, 66, 79, 85, 190, 211 Ludwig i, King of Bavaria (1786–1861) 202 Ludwig ii, King of Bavaria (1845–1886) 296

Luise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Queen of Prussia (1776–1810) 55, 59, 60, 64 Luther, Martin (1483–1546) 146 Luzac, Louis Casper (1786–1861) 235, 236, 238 Maanen, Cornelis Felix van (1769–1846) 139, 140, 142, 143, 146, 153, 156, 157, 159, 161, 163, 164, 191–4 Malet-Spalding, Marian Dora, Lady (c. 1812–1891) 250, 257, 290 Malibran-García, Maria (1808– 1836) 297 Manet, Édouard (1832–1883) 292, 293 Maria Alexandrovna, Grand Duchess (1853–1920) 303 Maria Feodorovna, Empress consort of Russia, Sophia Dorothea, née Duchess of Württemberg (1759–1828) 197, 198, 199 Maria Pavlovna, Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1786–1859) 197, 210, 211 Marianne, Princess of OrangeNassau (1810–1883) 71, 172, 188, 190, 196, 237, 307 Marie, Princess of Prussia (1855–1888) 304 Marie Frederike Charlotte, Princess of Württemberg (1816–1887) 208, 209 Marie of Wied, Princess of OrangeNassau (1841–1910) 287, 302 Marx, Karl (1818–1883) 227, 253 Mary, Princess of Hanover (1849–1904) 305 Mary Stuart, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland (1662–1694) 66 Maurice, stadholder (1567–1625) 17, 196, 202 Maurice, Prince of the Netherlands (1843–1850) 212, 282, 286, 289–91 Méan de Beaurieux, Franciscus de (1757–1831) 142 437

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Meeter, Eillert (1818–1862) 180 Mercer Elphinstone, Margaret (1788–1867) 89 Metternich, Clemens von (1773–1859) 97, 99, 113, 120, 210, 212, 253 Michael Alexandrovich (‘Michael ii’), Grand Duke of Russia (1878–1918) 324 Michael Pavlovich, Grand Duke of Russia (1798–1849) 197, 198 Michelangelo (1475–1564) 202 Mijer, Pieter (1812–1881) 267, 268, 286 Mirabeau, Honoré Gabriel Riqueti (1749–1791) 122, 197, 234, 320 Money, James William Bayley (1818–1890) 277, 278 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Brède et de (1689–1755) 206 Motley, John Lothrop (1814–1877) 289 Mulder, Gerrit Jan (1802–1880) 261 Multatuli, pseudonym of Eduard Douwes Dekker (1820–1887) 276, 277, 279, 287 Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban (1617–1682) 202 Musard, ‘Madame’, born Eliza Parker (d. c. 1879) 273 Nahuys van Burgst, Huibert Gerard (1782–1858) 194, 195, 236–8 Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French (1769–1821) 7, 10, 11, 43, 44, 47–52, 56–62, 63, 64–6, 68, 73, 79–81, 83, 84, 91, 96–101, 103–6, 109, 110, 112, 116–21, 127, 131, 139, 141, 142, 149, 151, 196, 198, 208, 212, 221, 222, 226, 231, 244, 253, 255, 263, 318 Napoleon iii, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France (1808–1873) 253, 254, 256, 270–73 Ney, Michel (1769–1815) 102, 104

Nicholas i, Tsar of Russia (1796–1855) 153, 158, 168, 197, 198, 199, 209, 214, 222, 253, 254, 296 Nicholas ii, Tsar of Russia (1868–1918) 319, 323, 324 Olga Nikolaevna, Queen of Württemberg (1822–1892) 209 Otto of Bavaria (1815–1867) 168 Oultremont de Wégimont, Henriette Adrienne Louise Flore d’ (1792–1864) 184, 185–7, 190, 191, 195, 196, 211, 216, 238 Oultremont de Wégimont, Pauline d’ (1793–1852) 196 Paul i, Tsar of Russia (1754–1801) 47, 196, 197, 198, 206, 207 Pauline, Princess of Orange-Nassau (1800–1806) 38, 62, 63, 187, 189 Pearsall Smith, Robert (1827–1898) 289 Philip ii, King of Spain (1527–1598) 16, 17, 151, 179 Pitt, William (1759–1806) 39, 47 Pius ix, Pope (1792–1878) 242, 289 Potter, Louis De (1786–1859) 147, 154, 156 Princip, Gavrillo (1894–1918) 323 Pushkin, Alexander Sergeyevich (1799–1837) 114–15 Radetzky, Joseph (1766–1858) 253 Raphael (1483–1520) 202 Rappard, Anthon Gerhard Alexander van (1799–1869) 222, 225, 226, 235, 238 Renan, Ernest (1823–1892) 288 Reuß, Prince of 190 Richmond, Charles Lennox, Duke of (1764–1819) 101 Richmond, Charlotte Lennox, Duchess of (1768–1842) 101 Robespierre, Maximilien de (1758–1794) 29, 57, 79, 118, 120, 232 438

Index of Names

Roeder, Friedrich Erhard von (1768–1834) 118, 119 Roorda van Eysinga, Sicco Ernst Willem (1825–1887) 312, 313 Rossini, Gioacchino (1792–1868) 298 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–1778) 23, 204 Rouvroy, Louise-Rose (1823–1883) 250 Rubens, Peter Paul (1577–1640) 90, 202 Ruyter, Michiel Adriaenszoon de (1607–1676) 202, 203 Schinkel, Karl Friedrich (1781– 1841) 202 Schliemann, Heinrich (1822–1890) 288 Scott, Walter (1771–1832) 69, 108 Siborne, William (1797–1849) 221 Sieyès, Emmanuel-Joseph de (1748–1836) 118 Snijders, Cornelis Jacobus (1852–1939) 325 Sophie Chotek, Duchess of Hohenberg (1868–1914) 323 Sophie, Princess of the Netherlands, Grand Duchess of SaxeWeimar-Eisenach (1824–1897) 204, 205, 217, 228, 233, 234, 249, 298, 303, 305, 307 Sophie of Württemberg, Queen of the Netherlands (1818–1877) 11, 100, 207–10, 212–14, 228, 231, 246, 250, 251, 257, 263, 272, 273, 282, 283, 286, 288–91, 294, 296, 299, 300, 301, 302–5, 307, 321, 322 Speijk, Jan van (1802–1831) 171 Spiegel, Laurens Pieter van de (1736–1800) 20, 24, 27, 30–32 Spohr, Louis (1784–1858) 297 Talleyrand, Charles-Maurice de (1754–1838) 49, 99, 168, 169 Thiers, Adolphe (1797–1877) 125, 126, 222

Thomas, Ambroise (1811–1896) 297, 298 Thorbecke, Johan Rudolf (1798–1872) 8, 11, 127, 150, 178, 182, 221, 223, 224, 225, 227, 230, 231, 234–6, 238–44, 251, 259, 260, 262–6, 268, 270, 278, 284, 318, 327 Thyra, Princess of Denmark (1853–1933) 305 Tollens, Hendrik (1780–1856) 138 Troelstra, Pieter Jelles (1860–1930) 326 Umberto i, King of Italy (1844–1900) 323 Velázquez (1599–1660) 202 Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India (1819–1901) 207, 246, 254, 273, 275, 285, 292, 303, 319 Vieuxtemps, Henri (1820–1881) 297 Voltaire, pseudonym of FrançoisMarie Arouet (1694–1778) 33, 45 Wagner, Richard (1813–1883) 296 Weitzel, August Wilhelm Philip (1816–1896) 258, 263, 264, 294, 299, 302, 304 Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of (1769–1852) 7, 48, 67, 73, 74, 76–8, 83, 89, 99, 100–105, 106, 120–22, 166, 168, 172, 193, 199, 221, 253, 318 Wexy, war horse 102, 104, 175 Wieniawski, Henryk (1835–1880) 297, 298 Wilhelm i, King of Prussia, Emperor of Germany (1797–1888) 254, 312 Wilhelm i, King of Württemberg (1781–1864) 93, 208, 210 Wilhelm ii, Emperor of Germany (1859–1941) 275, 312, 319, 323, 324 Wilhelmina (‘Mimi’), Queen of the Netherlands (1774–1837) 11,

439

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12, 24–6, 28, 32, 38, 55, 62, 63, 66, 71, 79, 91, 99, 105, 107, 172, 185–8, 189, 190, 200, 207, 220 Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands (1880–1962) 9, 274, 275, 299, 304, 308, 309, 310, 314–16, 320, 321, 322, 325, 326 Wilhelmina of Prussia, Princess of Orange (1751–1820) 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19–28, 30, 32, 35, 36, 38, 42, 48, 49, 51–7, 61, 63, 65, 66, 72, 79, 82–5, 106, 188, 204, 211, 305, 326 William of Orange, the Silent, stadholder (1533–1584) 17, 44, 45, 86, 131, 144, 145, 202, 299 William iii, stadholder, Prince of Orange, King of England, Scotland and Ireland (1650–1702) 9, 16, 17, 49, 66, 83, 196 William v, stadholder, Prince of Orange (1748–1806) 7, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18–21, 23, 25–9, 31, 32, 33, 36–41, 43, 48, 50–53, 55–8, 211, 252, 305, 306, 327 William i, King of the Netherlands, William Frederick, William vi, Hereditary Prince, Prince of Orange, Sovereign Prince (1772–1843) 7, 8, 10–13, 15, 21–9, 31, 32, 33, 37–45, 46, 47–50, 52–68, 70–73, 79–87, 91, 93–100, 105–10, 111–12, 113, 114, 117–22, 123, 124–8, 130–35, 136, 138–44, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151–6, 158, 159, 161–9, 170, 171–80, 181, 182, 183, 185–8, 189, 190–93, 195, 201–4, 207, 210–13, 215–20, 238–41, 245, 246, 249, 251, 256, 263,

272, 277, 279, 283, 284, 295, 296, 304, 305, 317, 318 William ii, King of the Netherlands, Guillot, Hereditary Prince, Prince of Orange (1792–1849) 7, 8, 10–13, 28, 32, 38, 48, 62, 65–73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81–3, 85–94, 98–105, 106, 107, 108, 112–15, 119–23, 127, 150, 152, 153, 158–65, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 175–7, 185–7, 189, 190–99, 200, 201, 202–4, 205, 207, 211, 212, 214–29, 231–40, 242, 244, 249–53, 263, 279, 289, 295–7, 317–21 William iii, King of the Netherlands, Hereditary Prince, Prince of Orange (1817–1890) 7–13, 100, 115, 168, 204, 205, 206–13, 217, 228, 229, 239, 240, 241, 242–7, 248, 249–52, 254–6, 257, 258–67, 269, 271–6, 278, 279–81, 282, 283–9, 291–7, 299, 300, 302–6, 307, 308, 310–12, 314–16, 320–22 William, Wiwill, Prince of Orange (1840–1879) 12, 206, 212, 213, 250, 251, 256, 257, 260, 265, 282, 284, 286, 288–90, 292, 293, 294, 296, 299–304, 306–8 William iv, King of Great Britain and Ireland (1765–1837) 169 York, Frederick August, Duke of (1763–1826) 12, 26, 31, 42–4 Zola, Émile (1840–1902) 292 Zuylen van Nijevelt, Jacob Pieter Pompeijus van (1816–1890) 244, 267, 268, 270, 272, 273 Zwijsen, Johannes (1794–1877) 250

440