William III of England

King William III
Portrait of William III, (1650-1702).jpg
Reign February 12, 1689 - March 8, 1702
(with Mary II until December 28, 1694)
Born November 14, 1650
The Hague
Died March 8 1702 (aged 51)
Buried Westminster Abbey
Predecessor James II
Successor Anne
Consort Mary II (joint monarch)
Royal House Orange
Father William II, Prince of Orange
Mother Mary Henrietta Stuart

William III of England (The Hague, November 14, 1650 – Kensington Palace, March 8, 1702; also known as William II of Scotland and William III of Orange) was a Dutch aristocrat and a Protestant Prince of Orange from his birth, Stadtholder of the main provinces of the Dutch Republic from June 28, 1672, King of England and King of Ireland from February 13, 1689, and King of Scotland from April 11, 1689, in each case until his death.

Born a member of the House of Orange-Nassau, William III won the English, Scottish and Irish Crowns following the Glorious Revolution, during which his uncle and father-in-law, James II, was deposed. In England, Scotland and Ireland, William ruled jointly with his wife, Mary II, until her death on December 28, 1694. He reigned as 'William II' in Scotland, but 'William III' in all his other realms. Among Unionists in Northern Ireland, he is today informally known as King Billy.


William III was appointed to the Dutch post of Stadtholder on June 28, 1672 (Old Style), and remained in office until he died. In that context, he is sometimes referred to as 'William Henry, Prince of Orange', as a translation of his Dutch title, Willem Hendrik, Prins van Oranje. A Protestant, William participated in many wars against the powerful Catholic King Louis XIV of France. Many Protestants heralded him as a champion of their faith; it was partly due to this reputation that he was able to take the crown of England as many of the English were intensely fearful of Catholicism and the papacy. His success might also be attributed to his army and a fleet four times larger than the famed Spanish Armada. His reign marked the beginning of the transition from the personal control of government of the Stuarts to the Parliamentary type rule of the House of Hanover.

Early life

William of Orange, the son and only child of stadtholder William II, Prince of Orange and Mary, Princess Royal of England, was born in The Hague, The Netherlands. Eight days before he was born, his father died from smallpox; thus William became the Sovereign Prince of Orange at the moment of his birth. Immediately a conflict ensued between the Princess Royal and William II's mother, Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, over the name to be given to the infant. Mary wanted to name him Charles after her brother, her mother-in-law insisted however on giving him the name William or Willem to bolster his prospects of becoming stadtholder. William II had appointed his wife as guardian in his will; however, the document had remained unsigned and thus was void. On August 13, 1651 the Hoge Raad (Supreme Council) ruled that guardianship would be shared between Mary, Amalia and Frederick William, the Elector of Brandenburg. The Prussian—and suitably Protestant—prince was chosen for this honor because he could act as a neutral party mediating between the two women but also because as a possible heir he had a vivid interest in protecting the Orange family fortune that Amalia feared would be squandered by the rather frivolous Mary.

William's mother showed little personal interest in her son. She was sometimes absent for years on end to enjoy the luxuries of the French court and deliberately kept herself apart from Dutch society, affecting not even to understand the Dutch language. His education was first laid in the hands of several Dutch governesses and some of English descent, including Walburg Howard (a stepdaughter of the future Countess of Chesterfield and half-sister of the future 1st Earl of Bellomont); from April 1656 a Calvinist preacher, Cornelis Trigland, a follower of the very puritan theologian Gisbertus Voetius, was chosen to daily instruct the prince in the state religion, Calvinism. A short treatise is known, perhaps by Christiaan Huygens, on the ideal education for William: the Discours sur la nourriture de S.H. Monseigneur le Prince d'Orange. The prince, a very serious little boy, became convinced by these lessons that he was predestined to become an instrument of God under the guidance of Divine Providence, fulfilling the historical destiny of the House of Orange.

Early in 1659 William went for seven years to the University of Leyden for a more formal education—though never officially enrolling as a student—under the guidance of professor of ethics Hendrik Bornius. Until February 1660 Protestant scholar Samuel Chappuzeau taught him French. The prince showed little inclination to read the great philosophers or classical literature but preferred the study of the arts, especially painting, architecture and gardening, which flowered during the Dutch Golden Age. While residing in the Prinsenhof at Leyden, William had a small personal retinue, and a new governor: Frederik van Nassau, Lord Zuylestein, the bastard son of stadtholder Frederick Henry of Orange, William's grandfather. Also present was a page of honor, Hans Willem Bentinck. William, who always was fiercely loyal to his friends, formed a deep emotional attachment to both men.

On September 25, 1660 the States of Holland resolved to take charge of William's education to ensure he would acquire the necessary skills to be employed in some, as yet undetermined, future state function. This first involvement of the authorities would not last long however. On December 23, 1660, when William was just ten years old, his mother died of smallpox at Whitehall Palace, London while visiting her brother King Charles II. In her will, Mary designated Charles as William's legal guardian. Charles now demanded the States of Holland would end their interference; to appease the powerful king they complied on September 30, 1661. Charles delegated his share of the responsibility to William's paternal grandmother, the Princess Dowager Amalia, with the understanding that Charles's advice would be sought whenever it was needed. This arrangement did not prevent Charles from corresponding with his nephew. In 1661, Lord Zuylestein began to work for Charles, cooperating with the English ambassador George Downing, the de facto English spymaster in the Dutch Republic. He made William write letters to the English king asking his uncle to interfere on his behalf to improve his prospects on the stadtholderate. Charles exploited this issue for political leverage, trying to sow dissension in Dutch society between the Orangists and the republican "States" faction.

The Dutch authorities at first did their best to ignore all these intrigues, but in the Second Anglo-Dutch War they became impossible to avoid as one of Charles's standard peace conditions was the improvement of the position of his nephew. As a countermeasure in 1666, when William was 16, the States of Holland officially made him a ward of the government, or a "Child of State," a legal novum. Amalia's consent was obtained by granting her a considerable state pension, for which William would never forgive her. This was supposedly done in order to prepare William for a role in the nation's government, although what this role would be exactly, was again left unspecified. A direct result was that all pro-English elements, first of all Lord Zuylestein, were removed from William's company. William was heartbroken by this and in tears begged Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt to allow Lord Zuylestein to stay. This was refused, but De Witt, the leading politician of the Republic, took part of William's education into his own hands, instructing him weekly in state matters and joining him in a regular game of real tennis. William and De Witt, both having an introvert and outwardly emotionally restrained character, failed to become personal friends. In 1667, the core of the English navy was destroyed by the Raid on the Medway and the Treaty of Breda made no mention of William. In September 1668 Amalia and Frederick William declared that William had reached the age of majority; an illegal act as boys only attained majority at 23 and a special permit had to be obtained for an earlier age. Although this never happened, it was condoned by the authorities in order to avoid raising political tensions.

Silver crown coin of William III, dated 1695. The Latin inscription is (obverse) GVLIELMVS III DEI GRA[tia] (reverse) MAG[nae] BR[itanniae], FRA[nciae], ET HIB[erniae] REX 1695. English: "William III, By the grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, 1695." The reverse shows the arms, clockwise from top, of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, centered on William's personal arms of the House of Orange-Nassau.

Early offices

William II held, in official feudal order, the office of stadtholder of Guelders, Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, and Overijssel. All these five provinces however, suspended the office of stadtholder upon William II's death. During the "First Stadtholderless Era," power was de facto held from 1653 by Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt. The Treaty of Westminster (1654), ending the First Anglo-Dutch War, had a secret annex attached on demand of Oliver Cromwell, the Act of Seclusion, forbidding the province of Holland ever to appoint a member of the House of Orange as stadtholder. After the English Restoration the Act of Seclusion, which had not remained a secret for very long, was declared void as the English Commonwealth with which the treaty had been concluded no longer existed. Mary and Amalia in September 1660 tried to convince several provincial States to designate William as their future stadtholder, but all eventually refused.

In 1667, as William III approached the age of 18, the pro-Orange party again attempted to bring the Prince to power by securing for him the offices of stadtholder and Captain-General. So as to prevent the restoration of the influence of the House of Orange, De Witt allowed the pensionary of Haarlem Gaspar Fagel to procure on August 5, 1667 the issuance by the States of Holland of the Eternal Edict, which declared that the Captain-General or Admiral-General of the Netherlands could not serve as stadtholder in any province. Furthermore, the province of Holland abolished the very office of stadtholder and the four other provinces in March 1670 followed suit, establishing the so-called "Harmony." De Witt demanded an oath from each Hollandic regent (city council member) to uphold the Edict; all but one complied.

William saw all this as a defeat but in fact this arrangement was a comprise: De Witt would have preferred to ignore the prince completely but now his eventual rise to the office of supreme army commander was implicit; De Witt conceded that William would be allowed as a member of the Raad van State, the Council of State, which was the generality organ administering the defense budget. William was introduced to the council on May 31, 1670, with full voting powers, though De Witt had tried to limit his role to that of an advisor. Another very important victory for William was that the States of Zealand on September 19, 1668 received him in their midst as First Noble, the first in rank of the nobility delegates in the States of that province. William had to escape the attention of his state tutors to secretly travel to Middelburg; it was this event that caused his guardians to prematurely declare him "of age."

In November 1670, William obtained permission to travel to England to urge king Charles to pay back at least a part of the 2,797,859 guilder debt the House of Stuart owed to the House of Orange, but the English crown was not in a position to do much. William was greatly surprised when Charles tried to convert him to Catholicism, recommended as the ideal religion for absolutist kings. His shocked reaction made Charles decide not to make his nephew privy to his secret Treaty of Dover with France, directed at destroying the Dutch Republic and installing William as puppet "sovereign" of a Hollandic rump state. In February 1671, William returned, having disappointed his uncle but also having made a very good impression on several politicians who later would belong to the Whig party.

During 1671, the situation of the Republic deteriorated quickly. Though De Witt was in a state of denial, there were many signs of an impending Anglo-French attack. In view of the threat, many provinces wanted William to be appointed Captain-General as soon as possible, despite his youth and inexperience. On December 15, 1671 the States of Utrecht made this their official policy. On January 19, 1672 the States of Holland made a counterproposal: to appoint William for just a single campaign. The prince refused this and on February 25 a compromise was reached: an appointment by the States-General of the Netherlands for one summer, followed by a permanent one on his twenty-second birthday.

Meanwhile William had written a secret letter to Charles in January 1672, asking his uncle to exploit the situation by exerting pressure on the States-General to have William appointed stadtholder. In return William would make the Republic an ally of England and serve Charles's interests as much as his "honor and the loyalty due to this state" allowed. Charles took no action on this; for him it would have meant a difficult renegotiation with France. He intended to enforce Dutch servitude by means of arms.

Becoming stadtholder

The year 1672 proved calamitous for the Dutch Republic, becoming known as the "disaster year." Although the Anglo-French fleet was disabled by the Battle of Solebay, the Netherlands were invaded by France, under Louis XIV, who had the aid of England, (Third Anglo-Dutch War), Münster, and Cologne. In June the French army quickly overran Gelderland and Utrecht and the States of Overijssel surrendered on July 5 to Münster; William on June 14 withdrew with the remnants of his field army into Holland, where the States on June 8 had ordered to flood the Dutch Water Line. Louis XIV, believing the war was over, began negotiations to extort as large a sum of money from the Dutch as possible. The presence of a large French army in the heart of the Republic caused a general panic. There were many disturbances and in most cities the councils turned orangist. On July 4 the States of Holland appointed William stadtholder; on July 9 he made his oath. On July 5 a special envoy of Charles, Lord Arlington, met with William in Nieuwerbrug, offering to make William Sovereign Prince of Holland if he would capitulate–whereas a stadtholder was a mere civil servant. William refused, upon which Arlington threatened that William would then witness the end of his state. William made his famous answer: "There is one way to avoid this: to die defending it in the last ditch." On July 7, the inundations were complete and the further advance of the French army, to its great surprise, effectively blocked. On July 16 Zealand offered the stadtholderate to William; the same day England promised Louis in the Accord of Heeswijk never to conclude a separate peace. On July 18 William received a letter from Charles, claiming that the only real obstacle to peace was the continued influence of De Witt and his faction. William sent a secret letter back offering ₤400,000, Surinam and Sluys; in return Charles should make him Sovereign Prince and conclude a separate peace. Charles, greatly annoyed, refused, accusing William of scheming behind his back with "Whig" leaders.

Johan De Witt had been unable to function as Grand Pensionary after having been wounded by an attempt on his life on June 21. On August 15 William published Charles's letter of July 18 to incite the populace against De Witt. On August 20, he and his brother, Cornelis de Witt, were brutally murdered by an orangist civil militia in The Hague. Today, some historians believe that William may have been directly complicit in the murder. Gaspar Fagel now became Grand Pensionary. After this William replaced 130 regents with his followers. He was also appointed Admiral-General of the Netherlands.

William III continued to fight against the invaders from England and France, allying himself with Spain. In November 1672 he took his army to Maastricht to threaten the French supply lines. In August 1672 Münster had lifted the siege of Groningen and in December the province of Drenthe was liberated. In 1673 the situation further improved. Though Louis took Maastricht and an audacious attack of William against Charleroi failed, Lieutenant-Admiral Michiel de Ruyter defeated the Anglo-French fleet three times, forcing Charles to end England's involvement by the Treaty of Westminster (1674); from late 1673 onwards France slowly withdrew from the territory of the Republic with the exception of Maastricht. Fagel now proposed to treat the liberated provinces of Utrecht, Gelderland (Guelders) and Overijssel as conquered territory (Generality Lands), as punishment for their quick surrender to the enemy. William refused but obtained a special mandate from the States-General to newly appoint all delegates in the States of these provinces. William tried to exploit this to fulfill his desire to become sovereign. His followers in the States of Utrecht on April 26, 1674 appointed him hereditary stadtholder in the male line of descent. The States of Guelders on January 1675 offered the titles of Duke of Guelders and Count of Zutphen. Very negative reactions to this from Zealand and the city of Amsterdam, where the stock market collapsed, made William ultimately decide to decline these honors; in 1675 he was merely appointed stadtholder of Gelderland and Overijssel.

Meanwhile the war lingered on as the French army was much too strong to be decisively defeated in open battle. To strengthen his position, William endeavored to marry his first cousin Mary, the daughter of James, Duke of York (the future James II of England), against the desire of her father, who was forced by Charles to comply. The marriage occurred on November 4, 1677; after a difficult start the marriage was a success although fruitless. His finances exhausted and tired of the war the King of France, Louis XIV, made peace in 1678.

William however remained very suspicious of Louis, thinking the French king desired "Universal Kingship" over Europe, whereas Louis described William as "my mortal enemy" and saw him as an obnoxious warmonger. Continued smaller French annexations in Germany (the Réunion policy) and the recalling of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, causing a surge of Huguenot refugees to the Republic, led William III to join all kinds of anti-French alliances, such as the Association League, culminating in the League of Augsburg (an anti-French coalition which also included the Holy Roman Empire, Sweden, Spain and several German states) of 1686.

After his marriage, William became a possible candidate for the English throne if his father-in-law (and uncle) James would be excluded because of his Catholicism. During the crisis concerning the Exclusion Bill, in 1680 first Charles invited William to come to England to bolster the king's position against the exclusionists; then withdrew his invitation–after which Lord Sunderland also tried to bring William over but now to put pressure on Charles. The ever-cautious stadtholder remained at home, however. Nevertheless he secretly made the States-General send the Insinuation to Charles, beseeching the king, without naming James explicitly, to prevent that any Catholic would be his successor. Receiving indignant reactions by Charles and James, William denied any involvement.

In 1685, when James II ascended, William at first attempted to conciliate James, whom he hoped would join the League of Augsburg, while at the same time trying not to offend the Protestant party in England. At the time William and Mary were still direct heirs. But by 1687, it became clear that James would not join the League and in November his wife Mary of Modena was announced to be pregnant. That month, to gain the favor of English Protestants, William in an open letter expressed his disapproval of James's religious policies. Seeing him as a friend, and often having maintained secret contacts with him for years, many English politicians began to negotiate an armed invasion of England.

Glorious Revolution

Main article: Glorious Revolution

William at first opposed the prospect of invasion, but in April 1688, when England concluded a naval agreement with France, began to assemble an expeditionary force. Still, he was hesitant about such an operation, believing that the English people would not react well to a foreign invader. He therefore in April demanded in a letter to Rear-Admiral Arthur Herbert that the most eminent English Protestants first invite him to invade. In June, James II's second wife, Mary of Modena, bore a son (James Francis Edward), who displaced William's wife to become first in the line of succession. Public anger also increased due to the trial of seven bishops who had publicly opposed James II's religious policies and had petitioned him to reform them. The acquittal of the bishops signaled a major defeat for the Government of James II, and encouraged further resistance to its activities.

On June 30, 1688—the same day the bishops were acquitted—a group of political figures known as the "Immortal Seven" complied to William's earlier request, sending him a formal invitation. William's intentions to invade were public knowledge by September 1688. With a Dutch army, William landed at Brixham in southwest England on November 5, 1688. He came ashore from the ship Den Briel ("Brill") carried aloft by a local fisherman Peter Varwell to proclaim "the liberties of England and the Protestant religion I will maintain." William had come ashore with 15,500 foot soldiers and up to 4,000 horses. Gilbert Burnet, the Bishop of Salisbury, was more precise and claimed the figure to be 14,352. On his way to London William stayed at Forde House in Newton Abbot and is alleged to have held his first parliament nearby (Parliament Cottages, as they are now known, can still be seen today). James's support began to dissolve almost immediately upon his arrival; Protestant officers defected from the English army (the most notable of whom was Lord Churchill of Eyemouth, James's most able commander), and influential noblemen across the country declared their support for the invader. Though the invasion and subsequent overthrow of James II is commonly known as the "Glorious Revolution," it was more nearly a coup d'état, with one faction ultimately successful in deposing James II and installing William of Orange in power.

James attempted, at first, to resist William, but saw that his efforts would prove futile. He sent representatives to negotiate with William, but secretly attempted to flee on December 11. A group of fishermen caught him and brought him back to London. He successfully escaped in a second attempt on December 23. William actually permitted James to leave the country, not wanting to make him a martyr for the Roman Catholic cause.

In 1689, a Convention Parliament summoned by the Prince of Orange assembled, and much discussion relating to the appropriate course of action ensued. William III felt insecure about his position; though only his wife was formally eligible to assume the throne, he wished to reign as King in his own right, rather than as a mere consort. The only precedent for a joint monarchy in England dated from the sixteenth century: when Queen Mary I married the Spanish Prince Philip, it was agreed that the latter would take the title of King. But Philip II remained King only during his wife's lifetime, and restrictions were placed on his power. William, on the other hand, demanded that he remain as King even after his wife's death. Although the majority of Tory Lords proposed to acclaim her as sole ruler, Mary, remaining loyal to her husband, refused.


William and Mary were crowned together at Westminster Abbey on April 11, 1689 by the Bishop of London, Henry Compton. Normally, the coronation is performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the Archbishop at the time, William Sancroft, refused to recognize James II's removal. On the day of the coronation, the Convention of the Estates of Scotland—which was much more divided than the English Parliament—finally declared that James was no longer King of Scotland. William and Mary were offered the Scottish Crown; they accepted on May 11. William was officially "William II" of Scotland, for there was only one previous Scottish King named William (see William I).

Within the Province of Northern Ireland there are many famous paintings and murals painted of King William III in recognition of victory at the Battle of the Boyne. Many visitors come to Northern Ireland to see these Murals and often have their photo taken there. When they return home, many put it on their mantlepiece or hang it in their hall so that the world can see that King William is on the Wall.

Revolution Settlement

William III of England encouraged the passage of the Act of Toleration 1689, which guaranteed religious toleration to certain Protestant nonconformists. It did not, however, extend toleration to Roman Catholics or those of non-Christian faiths. Thus, the Act was not as wide-ranging as James II's Declaration of Indulgence, which attempted to grant freedom of conscience to people of all faiths.



Rule with Mary II

William continued to be absent from the realm for extended periods during his war with France. England joined the League of Augsburg, which then became known as the "Grand Alliance." Whilst William was away fighting, his wife, Mary II, governed the realm, but acted on his advice. Each time he returned to England, Mary gave up her power to him ungrudgingly. Such an arrangement lasted for the rest of Mary's life.

Although most in England accepted William as Sovereign, he faced considerable opposition in Scotland and Ireland. The Scottish Jacobites—those who believed that James II was the legitimate monarch—won a stunning victory on July 27, 1689 at the Battle of Killiecrankie, but were nevertheless subdued within a month. William's reputation suffered following the Massacre of Glencoe (1692), in which 78 Highland Scots were murdered or died of exposure for not properly pledging their allegiance to the new King and Queen. Bowing to public opinion, William dismissed those responsible for the massacre, though they still remained in his favor; in the words of the historian John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, "one became a colonel, another a knight, a third a peer, and a fourth an earl."

In Ireland, where the French aided the rebels, fighting continued for much longer, although James II had perforce to flee the island after the Battle of the Boyne (1690). The victory in Ireland is commemorated annually by the The Twelfth. After the Anglo-Dutch fleet defeated a French fleet at La Hogue in 1692, the allies for a short period controlled the seas, and Ireland was conquered shortly thereafter. At the same time, the Grand Alliance fared poorly on land. William lost Namur in the Spanish Netherlands in 1692, and was disastrously beaten at the Battle of Landen in 1693.

Mary II died of smallpox in 1694, leaving William III to rule alone. Although he had previously mistreated his wife and kept mistresses (the best-known of which was Elizabeth Villiers), William deeply mourned his wife's death. Although he was brought up as a Calvinist, he converted to Anglicanism. His popularity, however, plummeted during his reign as a sole Sovereign.

During the 1690s rumors of William's homosexual inclinations grew and lead to the publication of many satirical pamphlets.[1] He had several male favorites, including a Rotterdam bailiff Van Zuylen van Nijveld, and two Dutch courtiers to whom he granted English dignities: Hans Willem Bentinck became Earl of Portland, and Arnold Joost van Keppel was created Earl of Albemarle. William was especially close to his fellow Dutch countrymen and made little headway into his new dominions as a monarch, always something of an outsider to his British subjects. He himself expressed it this way: "I clearly perceive that this people was not made for me, nor was I made for this people"[2].

Later years

A Statue of King William III marking the center of Petersfield, Hampshire

In 1696, the Dutch province of Drenthe made William its Stadtholder. In the same year, Jacobites made an attempt to restore James to the English throne by assassinating William III, but the plot failed. Considering the failure, Louis XIV offered to have James elected King of Poland in the same year. James feared that acceptance of the Polish Crown might (in the minds of the English people) render him ineligible as King of England. In rejecting this offer, James made what would prove a fateful decision: less than a year later, France ceased to sponsor him. In accordance with the Treaty of Ryswick (September 20, 1697), which ended the War of the Grand Alliance, Louis recognized William III as King of England, and undertook to give no further assistance to James II. Thus, deprived of French dynastic backing after 1697, Jacobites did not pose any further serious threats during William's reign.



The Spanish inheritance, however, was not the only one concerned William. His marriage with Mary II had not yielded any children, and he did not seem likely to remarry. Mary's sister, the Princess Anne, had borne numerous children, all of whom died during childhood. The death of William, Duke of Gloucester in 1700 left the Princess Anne as the only individual left in the line of succession established by the Bill of Rights. As the complete exhaustion of the line of succession would have encouraged a restoration of James II's line, Parliament saw fit to pass the Act of Settlement 1701, in which it was provided that the Crown would be inherited by a distant relative, Sophia, Electress of Hanover and her Protestant heirs if Princess Anne died without surviving issue, and if William III failed to have surviving issue by any subsequent marriage. (Several Catholics with genealogically senior claims to Sophia were omitted.) The Act extended to England and Ireland, but not to Scotland, whose Estates had not been consulted before the selection of Sophia.

Like the Bill of Rights before it, the Act of Settlement not only addressed succession to the Throne, but also limited the power of the Crown. Future sovereigns were forbidden to use English resources to defend any of their other realms, unless parliamentary consent was first obtained. To ensure the independence of the judiciary, it was enacted that judges would serve during good behavior, rather than at the pleasure of the Sovereign. It was also enacted that a pardon issued by the Sovereign could not impede an impeachment.


In 1702, William died of pneumonia, a complication from a broken collarbone, resulting from a fall off his horse. It was believed by some that his horse had stumbled into a mole's burrow, and as a result many Jacobites toasted "the little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat." Years later, Sir Winston Churchill, in his epic the History of the English Speaking Peoples, put it more poetically when he said that the fall "opened the trapdoor to a host of lurking foes."

William was buried in Westminster Abbey alongside his wife. The reign of William's successor, Anne, was marked by attempts to extend the provisions of the Act of Settlement to Scotland. Angered by the English Parliament's failure to consult with them before choosing Sophia of Hanover, the Estates of Scotland enacted the Act of Security, forcing Anne to grant the Royal Assent by threatening to withdraw troops from the army fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession. The Act provided that, if Anne died without a child, the Estates could elect the next monarch from amongst the Protestant descendants of previous Scottish Kings, but could not choose the English successor unless various religious, political and economic conditions were met. In turn, the English Parliament attempted to force the Scots to capitulate by restricting trade, thereby crippling the Scottish economy. The Scottish Estates were forced to agree to the Act of Union 1707, which united England and Scotland into a single realm called Great Britain; succession was to be under the terms established by the Act of Settlement.

William's death also brought an end to the Dutch House of Orange-Nassau, which had governed the Netherlands since the time of William the Silent (William I). The five provinces over which William III ruled—Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland and Overijssel—all suspended the office of Stadtholder after William III's death. The remaining two provinces—Friesland and Groningen—were never governed by William III, and continued to retain a separate Stadtholder, Johan Willem Friso. Under William III's will, Friso stood to inherit the Principality of Orange as well as several lordships in the Netherlands. He was an agnatic relative of the princes of Orange-Nassau, as well as a descendant of William the Silent through a female. However, the Prussian King Frederick I also claimed the Principality as the senior cognatic heir, stadtholder Frederick Henry having been his maternal grandfather and William III his first cousin.

Johan Willem Friso died in 1711, leaving his claim to his son, William. Under the Treaty of Utrecht, which was agreed to in 1713, Frederick I of Prussia (who kept the title as part of his titulary) allowed the King of France, Louis XIV, to take the lands of Orange; William Friso, or William IV, who had no resources to fight for lands located in southern France, was left with the title of "Prince of Orange" which had accumulated high prestige in the Netherlands as well as in the entire Protestant world. William IV was also restored to the office of Stadtholder in 1747. (From 1747 onwards, there was one Stadtholder for the entire Republic, rather than a separate Stadtholder for each province.)


Statue of an idealized William III by John Michael Rysbrack erected in Queen Square, Bristol in 1736.



William endowed the College of William and Mary (in present day Williamsburg, Virginia) in 1693.

Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, is named after him. Similarly Nassau County, New York the western-most county on Long Island, is a namesake. Long Island itself was also known as Nassau during early Dutch rule.

The modern day Orange Institution is named after William III, and makes a point of celebrating his victory at the Boyne. Orange marches in Ulster, England, Wales, United States, New Zealand, Canada, Ghana, Togo, Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Continental Europe on "the Twelfth" of July (the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne) often carry a picture of him with them. Hence "orange" is often thought of as a "Protestant" color in Ireland. The flag of the Republic of Ireland includes the color orange, as well as white and green, and signifies the aspiration to peace between Protestants and Roman Catholics in Ireland.

New York was briefly renamed New Orange for him. His name was applied to the fort and administrative center for the city on two separate occasions reflecting his different sovereign status–first as Fort Willem Hendrick in 1673 when the Dutch renamed New York to New Orange and then as Fort William in 1691 when the English evicted Colonists who had seized the fort and city.[3]. Orange, Connecticut and The Oranges in northern New Jersey, are named for him.

Russian Tsar Peter the Great greatly admired William, and his Great Embassy visited the England of his time. There the two met a few times and Peter's portrait was painted by William's court artist, Sir Godfrey Kneller.

The Style and arms

The joint style of William III and Mary II was "William and Mary, by the Grace of God, King and Queen of England, France and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, etc." when they ascended the Throne. (The claim to France was only nominal, and had been asserted by every English King since Edward III, regardless of the amount of French territory actually controlled, see English claims to the French throne) From April 11, 1689—when the Estates of Scotland recognized them as Sovereigns—the style "William and Mary, by the Grace of God, King and Queen of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, etc." was used. After Mary's death, William continued to use the same style, omitting the reference to Mary, mutatis mutandis'.



William III's ancestors in three generations
William III Father:
William II, Prince of Orange
Paternal Grandfather:
Frederik Hendrik of Orange
Paternal Great-grandfather:
William the Silent
Paternal Great-grandmother:
Louise de Coligny
Paternal Grandmother:
Amalia of Solms-Braunfels
Paternal Great-grandfather:
Johan Albrecht I of Solms-Braunfels
Paternal Great-grandmother:
Agnes of Sayn-Wittgenstein
Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange
Maternal Grandfather:
Charles I of England
Maternal Great-grandfather:
James I of England
Maternal Great-grandmother:
Anne of Denmark
Maternal Grandmother:
Henrietta Maria of France
Maternal Great-grandfather:
Henry IV of France
Maternal Great-grandmother:
Maria de Medici


  1. J. Black (ed), Culture and Society In Britain, Manchester, 1997. 97
  2. Journaal van Christiaan Huygens, i, 132
  3. Guy Carleton Lee, Guy Carleton Lee Francis and Francis Newton Thorpe, The History of North America by, G. Barrie & sons. Retrieved February 4, 2009.


External links

All links retrieved August 5, 2013.

House of Orange
Cadet Branch of the House of Nassau
Born: 14 November 1650; Died: 8 March 1702
Preceded by:
James II
King of England
(with Mary II from 1689–1694)
Succeeded by:
King of Scotland
(with Mary II from 1689–1694)
King of Ireland
(with Mary II from 1689–1694)
Preceded by:
William II
Prince of Orange
Succeeded by:
Frederick I of Prussia or
Johan Willem Friso of Nassau-Dietz
Preceded by:
William II
Baron of Breda
Succeeded by:
Johan Willem Friso of Nassau-Dietz
Preceded by:
William II of Orange
Stadtholder of Holland and Zealand
Succeeded by:
William IV of Orange
Stadtholder of Utrecht
Stadtholder of Guelders and Overijssel
Preceded by:
James II
Lord High Admiral
Succeeded by:
The Earl of Torrington



