William V, Prince of Orange - Flight To Britain

Flight To Britain

With the coming of the French Revolution William V joined the First Coalition against Republican France in 1793. His troops fought in the Flanders Campaign, but in 1794 the military situation deteriorated and the Dutch Republic was threatened by invading armies. The year 1795 was a disastrous one for the ancien régime of the Netherlands. Supported by the French Army, the revolutionaries returned from Paris to fight in the Netherlands, and in 1795 William V fled to the safety of England. A few days later the Fall of Amsterdam occurred, and the Dutch Republic was abolished by the victorious French.

The last of the Dutch stadtholders, he died in exile at Brunswick, now in Germany. His body was moved to the Dutch Royal Family crypt in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft on 29 April 1958.

In 1813, his son, King William I returned to the Netherlands and became the first Dutch monarch from the House of Orange. (Note that he was not the first King of Holland; that was Louis Bonaparte (1778–1846), who had reigned from 1806 to 1810.)

Read more about this topic:  William V, Prince Of Orange

Famous quotes containing the words flight and/or britain:

    What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.
    Georges Bernanos (1888–1948)

    I see no cameras! Where are the cameras?
    Mary, Queen of Great Britain (1867–1953)