William III (William Henry; Dutch: Willem Hendrik; 4 November 1650 – 8 March 1702),[b] also known as William of Orange, was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from the 1670s, and King of England, Ireland, and Scotland from 1689 until his death in 1702. He ruled Great Britain and Ireland with his wife, Queen Mary II, and their joint reign is known as that of William and Mary.
William was the only child of William II, Prince of Orange, and Mary, Princess Royal, the daughter of King Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland. His father died a week before his birth, making William III the prince of Orange from birth. In 1677, he married his first cousin Mary, the elder daughter of his maternal uncle James, Duke of York, the younger brother and later successor of King Charles II.
A Protestant, William participated in several wars against the powerful Catholic French ruler Louis XIV in coalition with both Protestant and Catholic powers in Europe. Many Protestants heralded William as a champion of their faith. In 1685, his Catholic uncle and father-in-law, James, became king of England, Scotland, and Ireland. James's reign was unpopular with Protestants in the British Isles, who opposed Catholic Emancipation. Supported by a group of influential British political and religious leaders, William invaded England in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. In 1688, he landed at the south-western English port of Brixham; James was deposed shortly afterward.
William's reputation as a staunch Protestant enabled him and his wife to take power. During the early years of his reign, William was occupied abroad with the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), leaving Mary to govern Britain alone. She died in 1694. In 1696 the Jacobites, a faction loyal to the deposed James, plotted unsuccessfully to assassinate William and restore James to the throne. In Scotland, William's role in ordering the Massacre of Glencoe remains notorious. William's lack of children and the death in 1700 of his nephew the Duke of Gloucester, the son of his sister-in-law Anne, threatened the Protestant succession. The danger was averted by placing William and Mary's cousins, the Protestant Hanoverians, in line to the throne after Anne with the Act of Settlement 1701. Upon his death in 1702, William was succeeded in Britain by Anne and as titular Prince of Orange by his cousin John William Friso.
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William III was born in The Hague in the Dutch Republic on 4 November 1650.[b][2] Baptised William Henry (Dutch: Willem Hendrik), he was the only child of Mary, Princess Royal, and stadtholder William II, Prince of Orange. Mary was the elder daughter of King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and sister of kings Charles II and James II and VII.
Eight days before William was born, his father died of smallpox; thus, William was the sovereign Prince of Orange from the moment of his birth.[3] Immediately, a conflict arose between his mother and his paternal grandmother, Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, over the name to be given to the infant. Mary wanted to name him Charles after her brother, but her mother-in-law insisted on giving him the name William (Willem) to bolster his prospects of becoming stadtholder.[4] William II had intended to appoint his wife as their son's guardian in his will; however, the document remained unsigned at William II's death and was therefore void.[5] On 13 August 1651, the Hoge Raad van Holland en Zeeland (Supreme Court) ruled that guardianship would be shared between his mother, his grandmother and Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, husband of his paternal aunt Louise Henriette.[d]
William's mother showed little personal interest in her son, sometimes being absent for years, and had always deliberately kept herself apart from Dutch society.[6] William's education was first laid in the hands of several Dutch governesses, some of English descent, including Walburg Howard[7] and the Scottish noblewoman Lady Anna Mackenzie.[8] From April 1656, the prince received daily instruction in the Reformed religion from the Calvinist preacher Cornelis Trigland, a follower of the Contra-Remonstrant theologian Gisbertus Voetius.[7]
The ideal education for William was described in Discours sur la nourriture de S. H. Monseigneur le Prince d'Orange, a short treatise, perhaps by one of William's tutors, Constantijn Huygens.[9] In these lessons, the prince was taught that he was predestined to become an instrument of Divine Providence, fulfilling the historical destiny of the House of Orange-Nassau.[10] William was seen, despite his youth, as the leader of the "Orangist" party, heir to the stadholderships of several provinces and the office of Captain-General of the Union (see Politics and government of the Dutch Republic). He was viewed as the leader of the nation in its independence movement and its protector from foreign threats.[11] This was in the tradition of the princes of Orange before him: his great-grandfather William the Silent, his grand-uncle Maurice, his grandfather Frederick Henry, and his father William II.[12][13][14][15]
From early 1659, William spent seven years at the University of Leiden for a formal education, under the guidance of ethics professor Hendrik Bornius (though never officially enrolling as a student).[16] While residing in the Prinsenhof at Delft, William had a small personal retinue including Hans Willem Bentinck, and a new governor, Frederick Nassau de Zuylenstein, who (as an illegitimate son of stadtholder Frederick Henry of Orange) was his paternal uncle.
Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt and his uncle Cornelis de Graeff pushed the States of Holland to take charge of William's education and ensure that he would acquire the skills to serve in a future—though undetermined—state function; the States acted on 25 September 1660.[17] Around this time, the young prince played with De Graeff's sons Pieter and Jacob de Graeff in the park of the country house in Soestdijk. In 1674 Wilhelm bought the estate from Jacob de Graeff, which was later converted into Soestdijk Palace.[18] This first involvement of the authorities did not last long. On 23 December 1660, when William was ten years old, his mother died of smallpox at Whitehall Palace, London, while visiting her brother, the recently restored King Charles II.[17] In her will, Mary requested that Charles look after William's interests, and Charles now demanded that the States of Holland end their interference.[19] To appease Charles, they complied on 30 September 1661.[20] That year, Zuylenstein began to work for Charles and induced William to write letters to his uncle asking him to help William become stadtholder someday.[21] After his mother's death, William's education and guardianship became a point of contention between his dynasty's supporters and the advocates of a more republican Netherlands.[22]
The Dutch authorities did their best at first to ignore these intrigues, but in the Second Anglo-Dutch War, one of Charles's peace conditions was the improvement of the position of his nephew.[21] As a countermeasure in 1666, when William was sixteen, the States officially made him a ward of the government, or a "Child of State".[21] All pro-English courtiers, including Zuylenstein, were removed from William's company.[21] William begged De Witt to allow Zuylenstein to stay, but he refused.[23] De Witt, the leading politician of the Republic, took William's education into his own hands, instructing him weekly in state matters and joining him for regular games of real tennis.[23]
After the death of William's father, most provinces had left the office of stadtholder vacant.[e] At the demand of Oliver Cromwell, the Treaty of Westminster, which ended the First Anglo-Dutch War, had a secret annexe that required the Act of Seclusion, which forbade the province of Holland from appointing a member of the House of Orange as stadtholder.[24] After the English Restoration, the Act of Seclusion, which had not remained a secret for long, was declared void as the English Commonwealth (with which the treaty had been concluded) no longer existed.[25] In 1660, William's mother Mary and grandmother Amalia tried to persuade several provincial States to designate William as their future stadtholder, but they all initially refused.[25]
In 1667, as William III approached the age of 18, the Orangist party again attempted to bring him to power by securing for him the offices of stadtholder and Captain-General. To prevent the restoration of the influence of the House of Orange, De Witt, the leader of the States Party, allowed the pensionary of Haarlem, Gaspar Fagel, to induce the States of Holland to issue the Perpetual Edict.[26] The Edict, supported by the important Amsterdam politicians Andries de Graeff and Gillis Valckenier,[27] declared that the Captain-General or Admiral-General of the Netherlands could not serve as stadtholder in any province.[26] Even so, William's supporters sought ways to enhance his prestige and, on 19 September 1668, the States of Zeeland appointed him as First Noble.[28] To receive this honour, William had to escape the attention of his state tutors and travel secretly to Middelburg.[28] A month later, Amalia allowed William to manage his own household and declared him to be of majority age.[29]
The province of Holland, the centre of anti-Orangism, abolished the office of stadtholder, and four other provinces followed suit in March 1670, establishing the so-called "Harmony".[26] De Witt demanded an oath from each Holland regent (city council member) to uphold the Edict; all but one complied.[26] William saw all this as a defeat, but the arrangement was a compromise: De Witt would have preferred to ignore the prince completely, but now his eventual rise to the office of supreme army commander was implicit.[30] De Witt further conceded that William would be admitted as a member of the Raad van State, the Council of State, then the generality organ administering the defence budget.[31] William was introduced to the council on 31 May 1670 with full voting rights, despite De Witt's attempts to limit his role to that of an advisor.[32]
In November 1670, William obtained permission to travel to England to urge Charles to pay back at least a part of the 2,797,859 guilder debt the House of Stuart owed the House of Orange.[33] Charles was unable to pay, but William agreed to reduce the amount owed to 1,800,000 guilders.[33] Charles found his nephew to be a dedicated Calvinist and patriotic Dutchman and reconsidered his desire to show him the Secret Treaty of Dover with France, directed at destroying the Dutch Republic and installing William as "sovereign" of a Dutch rump state.[33] In addition to differing political outlooks, William found that his lifestyle differed from his uncles Charles and James, who were more concerned with drinking, gambling, and cavorting with mistresses.[34]
The following year, the Republic's security deteriorated quickly as an Anglo-French attack became imminent.[35] In view of the threat, the States of Gelderland wanted William to be appointed Captain-General of the Dutch States Army as soon as possible, despite his youth and inexperience.[36] On 15 December 1671, the States of Utrecht made this their official policy.[37] On 19 January 1672, the States of Holland made a counterproposal: to appoint William for just a single campaign.[38] The prince refused this and on 25 February a compromise was reached: an appointment by the States General for one summer, followed by a permanent appointment on his 22nd birthday.[38]
Meanwhile, William had written a secret letter to Charles in January 1672 asking his uncle to exploit the situation by exerting pressure on the States to appoint William stadtholder.[39] In return, William would ally the Republic with England and serve Charles's interests as much as his "honour and the loyalty due to this state" allowed.[39] Charles took no action on the proposal, and continued his war plans with his French ally.