Have you ever wondered why the Dutch national colour is orange? I mean, their flag is red,
white, and blue, but whenever the Dutch people are celebrating their nationalism, or their
football team is playing, they’re always dressed head to toe in orange, and never in
red, white, and blue.
So why is this?
Well, the short answer is fairly simple. It’s because of William of Orange.
William I, Prince of Orange, also known as William the Silent, led the Dutch in their
revolt against Philip II and Spanish rule, known as the Eighty Years War. He was the
first Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, declaring their independence in 1581.
He was called “William of Orange” because of his Prince of Orange noble title. So where
was the Principality of Orange? Well, probably not where you might expect, it’s in modern-day
south-eastern France.
There still exists a small town in France today called Orange with a population of about
30,000. The settlement dates back to the Romans, being founded in 35 BC by veterans of the
Second Legion. It was originally called Arausio, named after the Celtic water god.
Over the years, the name became corrupted in Latin, and many years later when a certain
fruit arrived in Europe, its name in the local dialect of Old Provençal sounded an awful
lot like the name of the principality. The two words therefore became conflated in Old
French, since oranges came to northern France through that area.
Now Orange becomes relevant to the Dutch through political marriage. William of Orange was
actually from the House of Nassau, which originated from what is today western Germany.
In 1515, Henry III of Nassau-Breda married Claudia of Chalon-Orange. Their son René
therefore became Prince of Orange. When he died without any heirs in 1544, the Prince
of Orange title was passed to his first cousin, William of Nassau-Dillenburg. William had
no family relation to Orange, René inherited the title from his mother’s side, and passed
it to his father’s side.
This began the House of Nassau-Orange, as William added ‘Prince of Orange’ to his
list of noble titles. He was already Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, and Friesland.
It was around this time that Europe was divided by religious conflict, started by the Protestant
Reformation. After the abdication of Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor, he split his inheritance
between his son and his brother, and the Seventeen Provinces came under Spanish rule. Philip
II began to persecute Protestants, and impose extremely high taxes, which led to the Dutch
Revolt. This was led by William of Orange, as he had become known.
Seven of the seventeen provinces declared their independence in 1581 as the United Provinces,
also known as the Dutch Republic. This would be the predecessor of the modern-day country
of the Netherlands.
William of Orange was assassinated in 1584, and was remembered as a Dutch hero, who helped
fight against the Spanish for their country’s independence.
The title “Orange” and the colour again became conflated during the lifetime of William
of Orange, who would often wear the colour orange. The colour therefore developed into
a symbol for Dutch nationalism.
Now, you might be wondering why, earlier in the video, I was talking about the orange
fruit and not the orange color. Well, it’s because the name of the fruit came first.
The first time that “orange” was used to refer to the color in Europe was in the
Late Middle Ages. Before that, people just referred to the colour as “yellow-red”
or something similar.
William used the colour orange as early as 1577. The Prince’s Flag, or the Prinsenvlag,
was the first flag used by the Dutch Republic, with orange, white, and blue horizontal stripes,
the predecessor of the modern Dutch flag.
So this leads to the obvious question… if the the Dutch flag is based off of Prince
William’s flag, and orange is still the national colour to this day, then why does
the flag have red, and not orange on it?
Well, apparently with the Prince’s flag, the orange colour tended to fade over time
with exposure to the elements and quickly turned red. The flags started to become manufactured
with red instead of orange, because the orange flags would just fade to red anyway. It wasn’t
actually until 1937 that an official decree stated that the colour on the flag was red.
It had already become the de facto colour for some time anyway.
The colour orange used by the Dutch extends far beyond the modern-day country of the Netherlands,
both directly and indirectly.
Take New York City, for example. The flag of New York has orange on it. This is because
of the city’s Dutch origin. The first permanent settlement in what is today New York was established
by the Dutch in 1624, even though, for some reason the flag says 1625… but anyway, it
was originally called New Amsterdam until it was taken over by the English 1664, and
renamed New York.
A little further north and the state capital, Albany, also has orange on its flag. Again,
this is because of its Dutch origins. Not only does this city have orange on its flag
though, its original name before the English was literally “Fort Orange”.
Sticking with New York State, and there’s Orange County. Now this should not be confused
with Orange County, California… that was named after the fruit… but Orange County,
New York was named after William of Orange.
However, Orange County was founded in 1683… but this was after the English had taken over
all of the Dutch possessions in North America… so why was it named after William of Orange?
Well, “William of Orange” said without context generally refers to one of TWO people.
There were several princes of Orange called William, but the two most influential were
William the first, who I’ve already mentioned several times in this video, and William the
third. To Dutch people, “William of Orange” generally means William I, however to British
people, “William of Orange” generally refers to William III. Why? Because he became
King of England, Scotland, and Ireland in the so-called “Glorious Revolution” in
1688.
This brings us to another use of the colour orange that has been influenced by the Dutch.
The orange on the flag of Ireland.
At the time of the aforementioned “Glorious Revolution”, the majority of people in Great
Britain were Protestant, but their King, James II, was Catholic. This made many people uneasy,
and therefore the Dutch Stadtholder, William III, was “invited” to the British Isles
to depose their current king and take the throne for himself.
This was greatly welcomed by the vast majority of British people… in Ireland however, not
so much. There were Protestant majority provinces in the northern parts of the island, but as
a whole Ireland remained predominantly Catholic. The Revolution was… not quite so Glorious
from their perspective.
Anyway, when Ireland began to fight for their independence, the tricolour flag or green,
white, and orange was used to represent Irish nationalism. The green represents Catholics,
and the orange Protestants, while the white symbolises the peace and unity between them.
Finally, the orange influence reaches as far as Southern Africa. Up until 1994, the flag
of South Africa was orange, white, and blue… and the little vertical flag in the middle
there is the flag of the Orange Free State, an independent Boer republic until it became
a British colony, and then part of South Africa.
Now in this case, the Orange Free State was originally the Orange River Sovereignty, a
short-lived British colony. Which, unsurprisingly, was named after the Orange River, which passed
through its territory. The Orange River was named after William of Orange. But, yet another
William - William V.
Now, are the Dutch the only ones to have a national colour NOT on their flag? Well, no,
actually, there are a few more.
The national colour of New Zealand is black. It’s the reason their national rugby team
plays in all black, and indeed their name is the “All Blacks”. The colour black
is associated with the Māori culture, the indigenous peoples of New Zealand. Now in
2015, New Zealand had a referendum to potentially change their national flag. 4 of the 5 potential
new flags featured the colour black. In the end though, the original flag was favoured
by 56% of the voters and therefore remains the flag to this day.
The national colours of Australia are gold and green. Apparently the gold represents
Australia’s beaches, mineral wealth, and grain harvests, while the green represents
forests, eucalyptus trees and pastures of the Australian landscape. The Australian football
team wears a gold jersey with green shorts…
A few more national football teams wear colours not on their flag… Germany wears a mostly
white strip, this is because of Prussia, the Kingdom which united Germany. Italy wears
blue, the official colour of the House of Savoy, the royal family the ruled Italy from
its unification until it became a republic. And finally, there’s Japan, which also plays
in blue, although the reason why, isn’t actually known...
And so, that’s why the Dutch use the colour orange as their national colour, and why their
national football team’s strip is orange. It’s because of William of Orange. And the
title of Orange originated from a small principality now in modern-day France when northern Frenchmen
mixed up the name of the fruit with the Latinized name of a Celtic god.
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