Second Stadtholderless Period - The Complicated Succession of William III in His Regnal Titles and Possessions

The Complicated Succession of William III in His Regnal Titles and Possessions

When he died, William was king in his own right of England, Scotland and Ireland, but the Bill of Rights 1689 and the Act of Settlement 1701 firmly placed the succession in these kingdoms in the hands of his sister-in-law Anne, Queen of Great Britain. What, however, of his other titles and offices? Here is where it became complicated. As William died without (legitimate) issue, he had to make provisions in his last will and testament to prevent any uncertainty. Indeed, he made John William Friso, Prince of Orange, head of the cadet branch of Nassau-Dietz of the family, his general heir, both privately and politically.

Unfortunately, there was doubt if he had the authority to dispose of the complex of titles and lands, connected with the title Prince of Orange, as he saw fit. As he undoubtedly knew, his grandfather Frederick Henry had made a fideicommis (Fee tail) in his will that established cognatic succession in his own line as the general succession rule in the House of Orange. This provision gave the succession to the male offspring of his eldest daughter Luise Henriette of Nassau in case his own male line would become extinct. (At the time Frederick Henry died his only son William II, Prince of Orange did not yet have a legitimate heir, so the entailment made sense at the time, if he wanted to prevent the inheritance from falling into the hands of distant relatives). Such an entailment was quite common in aristocratic circles, to ensure the integrity of the inheritance. The problem was, that an entailment in general view limits the power of the possessors of the entailed inheritance to dispose of it as they see fit. William probably intended to override this provision, but the entailment made his will vulnerable to dispute.

And disputed it was, on the ground that it clashed with Frederick Henry's entailment, by the beneficiary of that entailment, Luise Henriette's son Frederick I of Prussia. But Frederick was not the only person who contested William's Will. Frederick Henry's entailment happened to be the last in a long line of entailments by previous holders of the title Prince of Orange, beginning with René of Châlon, who had founded the dynasty by willing the title to his nephew William the Silent, the progenitor of most of the claimants. René had made an entailment that gave the succession to the female line of his nephew, in case the male line would become extinct. This overruled the agnatic succession apparently prevailing before this time for the title. It would be interesting to know who would inherit according to this rule, but apparently there was no claimant, basing himself on it. (The two eldest daughters of William the Silent, one of which was married to William Louis, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg, the brother of John William Friso's ancestor, died without issue).

However, Philip William, Prince of Orange William the Silent's eldest son, made an entailment that would override René's entailment, restoring the agnatic succession, and giving it to the male line of John VI, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg, William the Silent's brother. As it happened, the beneficiary of this provision was one William Hyacinth of Nassau-Siegen, who also vigorously contested the will in 1702. To complete the confusion, Maurice, Prince of Orange, Philip William's half-brother made an entailment that would give the succession to the male line of Ernst Casimir of Nassau-Dietz, a younger son of John VI, and the progenitor of John William Friso. This was (next to William's Will) the main claim to the inheritance of John William Friso. (Interestingly, Frederick Henry's entailment overturned this entailment of his half-brother, if such a thing would have been possible; apparently he did not fancy the succession by Willem Frederik of Nassau-Dietz, who would otherwise have benefited).

All these claims and counter-claims set the stage for vigorous litigation, especially between Frederick of Prussia and Henriëtte Amalia van Anhalt-Dessau, the mother of John Wiliam Friso, as the latter was still a minor in 1702. This litigation was to go on for thirty years between the offspring of the two main claimants, until the matter was finally settled out of court with the Treaty of Partition between William IV, Prince of Orange, John William Friso's son, and Frederick William I of Prussia, Frederick's son, in 1732. Unfortunately, the latter had in the meantime ceded the principality of Orange to Louis XIV of France by one of the treaties, comprising the Peace of Utrecht (in exchange for Prussian territorial gains in Upper-Guelders), thereby making the matter of succession to the title rather immaterial (the two claimants decided to henceforth both use the title). The remaining inheritance was shared between the two rivals.

The import of this story is, that young John William Friso's claim to the title of Prince of Orange was contested during the crucial years immediately following William III's death, thereby depriving him of an important source of prestige and power. He already was stadtholder of Friesland and Groningen, as this office had been made hereditary in 1675 and he had succeeded his father Henry Casimir II, Prince of Nassau-Dietz in 1696, be it under the regency of his mother, as he was only nine at the time. He now hoped to inherit the office in Holland and Zeeland also, especially as William III had groomed him for the office, and had made him his political heir, and the office was hereditary. However, that provision had been contingent on a natural male heir for William III. The Holland regents did not feel bound by a testamentary provision.

Nine days after William's death the Grand Pensionary of Holland, Anthonie Heinsius, appeared before the States General and declared that the States of Holland had decided not to fill the vacancy of stadtholder in their province. The old patents from December, 1650, conveying the prerogatives of the stadtholder in matters of election of magistrates to the city governments were once more put in force. Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overijssel, and even Drenthe (which usually followed Groningen in the matter of stadtholders, but had appointed William III in 1696) followed suit. The Regeringsreglementen of 1675 were retracted and the situation pre-1672 restored.

The immediate effect was that regents from the old States-Party faction were restored to their old positions (i.e. in most cases members of their families, as the old regents had died) at the expense of Orangist regents who had been appointed by William. This purge occurred generally peacefully in Holland, but in Zeeland, and especially Gelderland, there was sometimes long-drawnout civil unrest, which sometimes had to be suppressed by calling out the militia, or even federal troops. In Gelderland there was even a genuine "democratic" impulse behind this unrest as the would-be newcomers (the nieuwe plooi or "new crew") availed themselves of the support of the common people who demanded a check by the pre-Habsburg councils of gemeenslieden, and generally of the representatives of militias and guilds, on the regent city governments, a development deplored by States-Party and Orangist regents alike.

Any inclination Holland and the other four provinces might have had to appoint Friso as stadtholder probably was negated by the fraught international situation. A new conflict with the France of Louis XIV was about to break out (William III indeed had spent the last days of his life finalizing the preparations) and this was no time to experiment with a fifteen-year-old boy in such important offices as that of stadtholder and captain-general of the Dutch States Army. Besides, the States-General did not want to offend an important ally like Frederick I of Prussia, who had already in March, 1702, occupied the counties of Lingen and Moers (which belonged to William's patrimony) and was not too subtly threatening to defect to the French side in the coming war if he were thwarted in his quest for his "rightful" inheritance.