William II of the Netherlands
William II | |
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| |
Reign | 7 October 1840 – 17 March 1849 |
Inauguration | 28 November 1840 |
Predecessor | William I |
Successor | William III |
Born | Noordeinde Palace, The Hague, Dutch Republic | 6 December 1792
Died | 17 March 1849 Tilburg, Netherlands | (aged 56)
Spouse | |
Issue | |
House | Orange-Nassau |
Father | William I of the Netherlands |
Mother | Wilhelmine of Prussia |
Religion | Dutch Reformed Church |
Signature | |
Military service | |
Battles/wars | (incomplete)
|
William II (
William II was the son of
William II was married to Anna Pavlovna of Russia. They had four sons and one daughter. William II died on 17 March 1849 and was succeeded by his son William III.
Early life and education
Willem Frederik George Lodewijk was born on 6 December 1792 in
When William was two, he and his family fled to England after allied British-Hanoverian troops left the republic and entering French troops defeated the army of the United Provinces, claiming liberation by joining the anti-Orangist Patriots. William spent his youth in Berlin at the Prussian court, where he followed a military education and served in the Prussian Army. After this, he studied civil law at Christ Church, University of Oxford.[1][2][3]
Military service
He entered the
On 8 July 1814, he was promoted to
Military historian
Marriage
In 1814, William was briefly engaged to Princess
Already in 1819, he was
Belgian Revolution
William II enjoyed considerable popularity in what is now Belgium (then the Southern Netherlands), as well as in parts of the rest of the Netherlands for his affability and moderation, and in 1830, on the outbreak of the Belgian Revolution, he did his utmost in Brussels as a peace broker, to bring about a settlement based on administrative autonomy for the southern provinces, under the House of Orange-Nassau. His father then rejected the terms of accommodation that the son had proposed without further consultation; afterwards, relations with his father were once again tense.
In April 1831, William II was sent by his father to be the military leader during the
Reign
On 7 October 1840, on his father's abdication, he acceded to the throne as William II. Although he shared his father's conservative inclinations, he did not intervene in governmental affairs nearly as much as his father had. There was increased agitation for broad constitutional reform and a wider electoral franchise. Although William was certainly no democrat, he acted with sense and moderation.
The
The new document provided that the
He swore in his first and only cabinet under the terms of the new constitution a few months before his sudden death in Tilburg, North Brabant (1849).
In fiction
He is a recurring character in the historical novels of
William appears as a character in the
Honours
- Military William Order, 8 July 1815[20]
- Luxembourg: Founder of the Order of the Oak Crown, 29 December 1841[21]
- Baden:[22]
- Knight of the House Order of Fidelity, 1841
- Grand Cross of the Order of the Zähringer Lion, 1841
- Kingdom of Hanover:
- Knight of the Order of St. George, 1840[23]
- Grand Cross of the Royal Guelphic Order
- Kingdom of Prussia: Knight of the Order of the Black Eagle, 17 December 1808[24]
- Russian Empire:[25]
- Knight of the Order of St. Andrew, 22 June 1814
- Knight of the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky, 22 June 1814
- Knight of the Order of St. George, 2nd Class, 8 July 1815
- Austrian Empire: Commander of the Military Order of Maria Theresa[26]
- Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach: Grand Cross of the Order of the White Falcon, 24 June 1838[27]
- Spain: Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, 18 September 1814[28]
- Württemberg: Grand Cross of the Military Merit Order, 1819[29]
Relationships
William II had a string of relationships with both men and women which led him to be blackmailed.[30][31][32][33] The homosexual relationships that William II had as crown prince and as king were reported by journalist Eillert Meeter .[34] The king surrounded himself with male servants whom he could not dismiss because of his 'abominable motive' for hiring them in the first place.[35] One of his closest friends was the Wallonian aristocrat Albéric du Chastel. William II was blackmailed for the first time for his intimacies with men in 1818. After the Dutch secret police captured the blackmailers they were deported to the Dutch overseas colonies.[36]
Issue
William II and queen Anna Pavlovna had five children:
- William Alexander Paul Frederick Louis (1817–1890), William III, King of the Netherlands (1849 to 1890).
- William Alexander Frederick Constantine Nicolas Michael (1818–1848). Nicknamed Sascha. Never married.
- Princess Marie of Prussia, but had no issue.
- Prince William Alexander Ernst Frederick Casimir(1822), died in infancy
- Karl Alexander, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and had issue.
Ancestry
Ancestors of William II of the Netherlands |
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See also
- Orange, New South Wales, Australian city named for William II by Thomas Mitchell
- Place Guillaume II, a square in Luxembourg City
- Willem II (football club), a Dutch football club from Tilburg named after the King.
References
- ^ "Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek. Deel 1". DBNL (in Dutch). Retrieved 1 September 2017.
- ^ "Z.M. (koning Willem II) koning Willem Frederik George Lodewijk, koning der Nederlanden, groothertog van Luxemburg, hertog van Limburg, prins van Oranje-Nassau". parlement.com (in Dutch). Retrieved 1 September 2017.
- ^ "Willem Frederik George Lodewijk (1792–1849)". scheveningen1813-2013.nl. Retrieved 1 September 2017.
- ^ "No. 16494". The London Gazette. 11 June 1811. p. 1068.
- ^ "No. 16533". The London Gazette. 22 October 1811. p. 2033.
- ^ "No. 16642". The London Gazette. 8 September 1812. p. 1812.
- ^ "No. 16824". The London Gazette. 14 December 1813. p. 2528.
- ^ Andrew Bamford (2014). "The British Army in the Low Countries, 1813–1814" (PDF). The Napoleon Series. Retrieved 16 August 2015.
- ^ "No. 16915". The London Gazette. 9 July 1814. p. 1393.
- ^ "No. 16924". The London Gazette. 9 August 1814. p. 1609.
- ^ Hofschröer, Peter, 1815, The Waterloo Campaign, The German Victory pp. 137, 200.
- ^ "William, Prince of Orange, wounded at the Battle of Waterloo, 1815 | Online Collection | National Army Museum, London". collection.nam.ac.uk. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
- ^ "Willem II, Koning (1792-1849)". Het Koninklijk Huis (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 24 August 2014. Retrieved 15 December 2014.
- ^ "Geschiedenis van het Paleis Soestdijk". Paleis Soestdijk (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 10 December 2016. Retrieved 16 June 2015.
- ^ Siborne, William. "History of the War in France and Belgium in 1815", 1844
- ^ Knoop, Willem Jan. "Beschouwingen over Siborne’s Geschiedenis van den Oorlog van 1815", 1846
- ^ Historisch Nieuwsblad, June 2015: "Willem II en de Slag bij Waterloo – 1815"
- ^ Jaeger, Toef (29 November 2013). "Koning Willem II gechanteerd wegens homoseksualiteit". NRC.
- ISBN 978-9035131149, 2007.
- ^ "Militaire Willems-Orde: Oranje-Nassau, Willem Frederik George Lodewijk, Prins van" [Military William Order: Orange-Nassau, William Frederick George Louis, Prince of]. Ministerie van Defensie (in Dutch). 8 July 1815. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
- ^ Mémorial A n° 1 du 03.01.1842, Arrêté royal grand-ducal du 29 décembre 1841, Litt. A, portant institution, pour le Grand-Duché du Luxembourg d'un Ordre de la Couronne de Chêne. (Foundation of the Order)
- ^ Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Großherzogtum Baden (1845), "Großherzogliche Orden" pp. 32, 48
- ^ Hof- und Staatshandbuch für das Königreich Hannover: 1846. Berenberg. 1846. p. 36.
- ^ Liste der Ritter des Königlich Preußischen Hohen Ordens vom Schwarzen Adler (1851), "Von Seiner Majestät dem Könige Friedrich Wilhelm III. ernannte Ritter" p. 16
- ^ Almanach de la cour: pour l'année ... 1817. l'Académie Imp. des Sciences. 1817. pp. 63, 78, 91.
- ^ "Ritter-Orden", Hof- und Staatshandbuch des Österreichischen Kaiserthumes, 1847, p. 11, retrieved 28 July 2020
- ^ Staatshandbuch für das Großherzogtum Sachsen / Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (1843), "Großherzogliche Hausorden" p. 8 Archived 6 July 2020 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Guerra, Francisco (1819), "Caballeros Existentes en la Insignie Orden del Toison de Oro", Calendario Manual y Guía de Forasteros en Madrid (in Spanish): 42, retrieved 17 March 2020
- ^ Staatshandbuch für Württemberg. Guttenberg. 1833. p. 35.
- ^ "Intense Male Friendships Made King Willem II Liable to Blackmail". gay-news.com. Retrieved 1 September 2017.
- OCLC 864666575.
- ^ "Willem II: intelligent, chantabel en in de knel". NRC (in Dutch). Retrieved 1 September 2017.
- ^ "Boeken: Jeroen van Zanten, Koning Willem II (1792–1849)". Historisch Nieuwsblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 1 September 2017.
- ^ Meeter, E. (1857). Holland: its institutions, its press, kings and prisons.
- ^ Meeter, E. (1857). Holland: its institutions, its press, kings and prisons. pp. 320.
- ^ Jeroen van Zanten, Koning Willem II: 1792-1849, p. 274.
External links
- Edmundson, George (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). p. 670.
- Media related to William II of the Netherlands at Wikimedia Commons