William I of the Netherlands
This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
William I | |
---|---|
Duke of Limburg | |
Reign | 5 September 1839 – 7 October 1840 |
Predecessor | Francis I |
Successor | William II |
King of Dutch East Indies | |
Reign | 1816–1840 |
Born | Huis ten Bosch, The Hague, Dutch Republic | 24 August 1772
Died | 12 December 1843 Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia | (aged 71)
Burial | |
Spouses | |
Issue | |
House | Orange-Nassau |
Father | William V, Prince of Orange |
Mother | Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia |
Religion | Dutch Reformed Church |
Signature | |
Military service | |
Battles/wars | |
William I (Willem Frederik; 24 August 1772 – 12 December 1843) was
William was the son of
William proclaimed himself king of the Netherlands in 1815. In the same year, he concluded a treaty with King
William's disapproval of changes to the constitution, the loss of Belgium and his intention to marry Henrietta d'Oultremont, a Roman Catholic, led to his decision to abdicate in 1840. His eldest son acceded to the throne as King William II. William died in 1843 in Berlin at the age of 71.
Prince of Orange
King William I's parents were the last stadtholder William V, Prince of Orange of the Dutch Republic, and his wife Wilhelmina of Prussia. Until 1806, William was formally known as William VI, Prince of Orange-Nassau,[a] and between 1806 and 1813 also as Prince of Orange. In Berlin on 1 October 1791, William married his maternal first cousin (Frederica Louisa) Wilhelmina of Prussia, born in Potsdam. She was the daughter of King Frederick William II of Prussia. After Wilhelmina died in 1837, William married Countess Henrietta d'Oultremont (28 February 1792, in Maastricht – 26 October 1864, in Schloss Rahe), created countess of Nassau, on 17 February 1841, also in Berlin.
Youth and early military career
As eldest son of the William V, Prince of Orange, William was informally referred to as Erfprins[b] (Hereditary Prince) by contemporaries from his birth until the death of his father in 1806 to distinguish him from William V.
Like his younger brother Prince Frederick of Orange-Nassau he was tutored by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler and the Dutch historian Herman Tollius. They were both tutored in the military arts by General Frederick Stamford. After the Patriot revolt had been suppressed in 1787, he in 1788–89 attended the military academy in Brunswick which was considered an excellent military school, together with his brother. In 1790 he visited a number of foreign courts like the one in Nassau and the Prussian capital Berlin, where he first met his future wife.[2]: 100
William subsequently studied briefly at the
: 101After the
Exile
Soon after the departure to Britain the hereditary prince went back to the continent, where his brother was assembling former members of the States Army in Osnabrück for a planned invasion into the Batavian Republic in the summer of 1795. However, the neutral Prussian government forbade this.[3]: 231–235
In 1799, William landed in the current
When
The stadtholder, feeling betrayed by the British, left for Germany. The hereditary prince, having a more flexible mind, went to visit Napoleon at
When war broke out between the French Empire and Prussia in 1806, William supported his Prussian relatives, though he was nominally a French vassal. He received command of a Prussian division which took part in the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt. The Prussians lost that battle and William was forced to surrender his troops rather ignominiously at Erfurt the day after the battle. He was made a prisoner of war, but was paroled soon. Napoleon punished him for his betrayal, however, by taking away his principality. As a parolee, William was not allowed to take part in the hostilities anymore. After the Peace of Tilsit William received a pension from France in compensation.[4]: 454–469, 471, 501
In the same year, 1806, his father, the Prince of Orange died, and William not only inherited the title, but also his father's claims on the inheritance embodied in the Nassau lands. This would become important a few years later, when developments in Germany coincided to make William the Fürst (Prince) of a diverse assembly of Nassau lands that had belonged to other branches of the House of Nassau.
But before this came about, in 1809 tensions between
Tsar Alexander I of Russia played a central role in the restoration of the Netherlands. Prince William VI (as he was now known), who had been living in exile in Prussia, met with Alexander I in March 1813. Alexander promised to support William and help restore an independent Netherlands with William as king. Russian troops in the Netherlands participated with their Prussian allies in restoring the dynasty. Dynastic considerations of marriage between the royal houses of Great Britain and the Netherlands, assured British approval.
Return
After Napoleon's defeat at Leipzig (October 1813), the French troops retreated to France from all over Europe. The Netherlands had been annexed to the French Empire by Napoleon in 1810. But now city after city was evacuated by the French occupation troops. In the ensuing power vacuum a number of former Orangist politicians and former Patriots formed a provisional government in November 1813. Although a large number of the members of the provisional government had helped drive out William V 18 years earlier, it was taken for granted that his son would have to head any new government. They also agreed it would be better in the long term for the Dutch to restore him themselves, rather than have the Great Powers impose him on the country. The Dutch population were pleased with the departure of the French, who had ruined the Dutch economy, and this time welcomed the prince.[3]: 634–642
After having been invited by the Triumvirate of 1813, on 30 November 1813 William disembarked from HMS Warrior and landed at Scheveningen beach, only a few yards from the place where he had left the country with his father 18 years before, and on 6 December the provisional government offered him the title of king. William refused, instead proclaiming himself "Sovereign Prince of the Netherlands". He also wanted the rights of the people to be guaranteed by "a wise constitution".[3]: 643
The constitution offered William extensive, nearly absolute powers: ministers were only responsible to him, while a unicameral parliament (the
King of the Netherlands
Feeling threatened by Napoleon, who had escaped from Elba, William proclaimed the Netherlands a kingdom on 16 March 1815 at the urging of the powers gathered at the Congress of Vienna. His son, the future king William II, fought as a commander at the Battle of Waterloo. After Napoleon had been sent into exile, William adopted a new constitution which included many features of the old constitution, such as extensive royal powers. He was formally confirmed as hereditary ruler of what was known as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands at the Congress of Vienna.
Principal changes
The
The constitution was accepted in the north, but not in the south. The under-representation of the south was one of the causes of the Belgian Revolution. Referendum turnout was low, in the southern provinces, but William interpreted all abstentions to be yes votes. He prepared a lavish inauguration for himself in Brussels, where he gave the people copper coins (leading to his first nickname, the Copper King).
The spearhead of King William's policies was economic progress. As he founded many trade institutions, his second nickname was the King-Merchant. In 1822, he founded the
William was also determined to create a unified people, even though the north and the south had drifted far apart culturally and economically since the south was reconquered by Spain after the
Officially, a separation of church and state existed in the kingdom. However, William himself was a strong supporter of the Reformed Church. This led to resentment among the people in the mostly Catholic south. William had also devised controversial language and school policies. Dutch was imposed as the official language in (the Dutch-speaking region of) Flanders; this angered French-speaking aristocrats and industrial workers. Schools throughout the kingdom were required to instruct students in the Reformed faith and the Dutch language. Many in the south feared that the king sought to extinguish Catholicism and the French language.
Revolt of the Southern Provinces
In August 1830 Daniel Auber's opera La muette de Portici, about the repression of Neapolitans, was staged in Brussels. Performances of this opera seemed to crystallize a sense of nationalism and "Hollandophobia" in Brussels, and spread to the rest of the south. Rioting ensued, chiefly aimed at the kingdom's unpopular justice minister, Cornelis Felix van Maanen, who lived in Brussels. An infuriated William responded by sending troops to repress the riots. However, the riots had spread to other southern cities. The riots quickly became popular uprisings. An independent state of Belgium emerged out of the 1830 Revolution.
The next year, William sent his sons
Constitutional changes and abdication in later life
Constitutional changes were initiated in 1840 because the terms which involved the United Kingdom of the Netherlands had to be removed.[
Children
With his wife Wilhelmina, King William I had six children:
- Willem Frederik George Lodewijk (b. The Hague, 6 December 1792 – d. Tilburg, 17 March 1849) later King William II of the Netherlands from 1840. Married Grand Duchess Anna Pavlovna of Russia.
- Stillborn son (Hampton Court, Palace, Middlesex, 18 August 1795).
- Willem Frederik Karel (b. Berlin, 28 February 1797 – d. Wassenaar, 8 September 1881), married on 21 May 1825 his first cousin Louise, daughter of Frederick William III of Prussia.
- Wilhelmina Frederika Louise Pauline Charlotte (b. Berlin, 1 March 1800 – d. Freienwalde, 22 December 1806).
- Stillborn son (Berlin, 30 August 1806).
- Wilhelmina Frederika Louise Charlotte Marianne (b. Berlin, 9 May 1810 – d. Schloss Reinhartshausen bei Erbach, 29 May 1883), married on 14 September 1830 with Prince Albert of Prussia. They divorced in 1849.
Honours and Arms
Honours
- Netherlands:
- Founder and Grand Master of the Military Order of William, 30 April 1815
- Founder and Grand Master of the Order of the Netherlands Lion, 29 September 1815
- Founder and
- Sweden: Knight of the Order of the Seraphim, 14 April 1813[6]
- Spain: 876th Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, 5 July 1814[7]
- United Kingdom:
- 648th Knight of the Order of the Garter, 10 August 1814[8]
- Honorary Knight of the Order of the Bath, 16 August 1814;[9] Grand Cross (military), 2 January 1815[10]
- Prussia: Knight of the Order of the Black Eagle, 8 February 1787[11]
- Portugal: Grand Cross of the Sash of the Three Orders, October 1825[12]
- Austria: Grand Cross of the Order of St. Stephen, 1837[13]
- Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach: Grand Cross of the Order of the White Falcon, 20 November 1839[14]
Coat of arms
Royal coat of arms of King William I | Royal monogram |
Ancestry
Ancestors of William I of the Netherlands Duchess Antoinette of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Notes
- John William Friso, Prince of Orange claimed the inheritance of Prince William III of Orangein 1702.
- Erbprinz
- ^ The freule (baroness) Judith Van Dorth tot Holthuizen; see Schama, p. 397
- ^ The States General were the sovereign power in the defunct Dutch Republic; the troops of the States Army had also sworn loyalty to the States General and not the stadtholder.
- ^ This had become a courtesy title for the Dutch crown prince under the new kingdom.
References
- ^ Foissy, M. (1830). La famille Bonaparte depuis 1264 (in French). Paris: Vergne. p. 101.
- ^ a b c d e Bas, François de (1887). Prins Frederik Der Nederlanden en Zijn Tijd, vol. 1. H. A. M. Roelants, 1887. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
- ^ ISBN 0-679-72949-6.
- ^ a b c d e Bas, François de (1891). Prins Frederik der Nederlanden en zijn tijd, Volume 2. H. A. M. Roelants, 1891. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
- ^ James, W. M. (2002). The Naval History of Great Britain: During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Vol. 2 1797–1799 (reprint ed.). Stackpole books. pp. 309–310.
- ISBN 91-630-6744-7.
- ^ "Caballeros de la insigne orden del toisón de oro", Guía Oficial de España (in Spanish), 1842, p. 73, retrieved 10 December 2019
- ^ Shaw, Wm. A. (1906) The Knights of England, I, London, p. 52
- ^ Shaw, p. 178
- ^ Shaw, p. 182
- ^ Liste der Ritter des Königlich Preußischen Hohen Ordens vom Schwarzen Adler (1851), "Von Seiner Majestät dem Könige Friedrich Wilhelm II. ernannte Ritter" p. 12
- ^ Bragança, Jose Vicente de (2014). "Agraciamentos Portugueses Aos Príncipes da Casa Saxe-Coburgo-Gota" [Portuguese Honours awarded to Princes of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha]. Pro Phalaris (in Portuguese). 9–10: 5. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
- ^ "A Szent István Rend tagjai" Archived 22 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Staatshandbuch für das Großherzogtum Sachsen / Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (1843), "Großherzogliche Hausorden" p. 8
- ^ Genealogie ascendante jusqu'au quatrieme degre inclusivement de tous les Rois et Princes de maisons souveraines de l'Europe actuellement vivans [Genealogy up to the fourth degree inclusive of all the Kings and Princes of sovereign houses of Europe currently living] (in French). Bourdeaux: Frederic Guillaume Birnstiel. 1768. pp. 17, 88.
Further reading
- Caraway, David Todd. "Retreat from Liberalism: William I, Freedom of the Press, Political Asylum, and the Foreign Relations of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, 1814–1818" PhD dissertation, U. of Delaware, 2003, 341 pp. Abstract: Dissertation Abstracts International 2003, Vol. 64 Issue 3, p. 1030
- Kossmann, E. H. The Low Countries 1780–1940 (1978) ch 3–4
External links
- Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 669–670. .
- (in Dutch) Willem I, Koning (1772-1843) at the Dutch Royal House website