When the Emperor Napoleon proposed that his younger brother Louis Napoleon Bonaparte should become the king of a new kingdom, a state that would replace and succeed the age-old Dutch republic, at that time called the "Batavian Republic", he chose the name "Holland", the name of the most important province, as "Hollande" was much used in France as a name for the Netherlands or "Pays-Bas".
The statute described the royal arms and mentioned a royal crown. On the 20th of May 1807 a precise drawing of the royal coat of arms was approved by the king. The crown was topped with an orb with a cross.
In practice crowns without a cross became part of the crosses of Louis' Order of Knighthood, the Order of the Union, and the new coins. The second coat of arms, approved on the 6th of February 1806, showed no cross.
As the country was ruined by the Napoleonic wars and the resulting lack of trade there was no opportunity for a coronation. The crown existed on paper alone until the French annexed the country in 1810. In 1813 the Dutch "chose" a new sovereign ruler, later king, William I who had a new crown, the crown of the Netherlands designed and wrought in gilded silver.
Famous quotes containing the words coat of, coat, arms, kingdom and/or holland:
“Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
—Second Amendment, U.S. Constitution (1791)
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
—Bible: New Testament, Mark 10:25.
Jesus.
“The tragedy of Northern Ireland is that it is now a society in which the dead console the living.”
—Jack Holland (b. 1947)