Earliest Years
He was born in 1748, the only son of William IV, who had the year before been restored as stadtholder of the United Provinces. He was only 3 years old when his father died in 1751, and a long regency began. His regents were:
- Dowager Princess Anne, his mother, from 1751 to her death in 1759;
- Dowager Princess Marie Louise, his grandmother, from 1759 to her death in 1765;
- Duke Louis Ernest of Brunswick-Lüneburg, from 1759 to 1766, and kept on as a privy counsellor until October 1784;
- Princess Carolina, his sister (who at the time was an adult aged 22, while he was still a minor at 17), from 1765 to William's majority in 1766.
William was made the 568th Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1752.
Read more about this topic: William V, Prince Of Orange
Famous quotes containing the words earliest and/or years:
“I have all my life been on my guard against the information conveyed by the sense of hearing—it being one of my earliest observations, the universal inclination of humankind is to be led by the ears, and I am sometimes apt to imagine that they are given to men as they are to pitchers, purposely that they may be carried about by them.”
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