So I went to the Netherlands this summer. Got a really cool mug from Amsterdam.
Learned a lot of stuff, too! I was over there ostensibly learning about the history of the Dutch Republic
and trade and the modern economy and all of that kind of stuff so I want to do a lecture
series on the history of the Dutch Republic. And I'm going to start that lecture series
by answering what might seem to be a very simple question, but it's not, and that question is,
"What is a stadtholder?" Who is this guy that keeps coming up in the history of the
Dutch Republic and what does this title mean? It seems nebulous and all of that kind of
stuff - seems complex. Who is he? What did this person do? That's the question that I
want to answer first of all in this lecture series on the history of the Dutch Republic.
So what is a stadtholder? Let start with the word, stadtholder. This comes from a Dutch
word, stadhouder. How's my Dutch? Stadhouder means "placeholder" in the sense that someone
is standing in place of or in stead of. Now, keep in mind that the Dutch language is almost
like the German language and the English language got together and had an illegitimate child
or something like that and that illegitimate child is Dutch. Not to say that Dutch is illegitimate!
I LOVE the language. Okay?
And so the stadtholder is a placeholder. And really, part of why this word seems so nebulous
and so hard to comprehend is it doesn't always mean the same thing all the time. The stadtholdership
really goes through three phases and those three phases - the 3 R's sounds all nice and
teacherly and easy to remember - a royal steward, a rebel leader, and a republican head of state(s).
So the stadtholder starts off as a steward. Now, when I think steward, I think Lord of
the Rings. Great little story here, alright? Because I was going through a flea market
when I was in Amsterdam and all of a sudden, I zoomed in on... WAAAAAAAH... In de Ban van
de Ring. Or de Ring [makes Dutch g sound]. I guess you would say it like that, okay,
because when the Dutch when they see a g they're like [makes guttural sound] something like
that. Alright. But this is The Fellowship of the Ring in Dutch. Now unfortunately, I
don't have any idea what any of this stuff says but... that's Mordor. It's the same in
Dutch. But I'm so excited to have this book that I can't read. Y'all know how much I love
Lord of the Rings.
But, anyway, as far as the steward goes... This is the person who is there instead of
a higher lord who would have the nominal right to that territory. So the stadtholder would
govern this territory in the absence of higher absentee nobles. And in the 15th and 16th
century, the Netherlands was ruled by the Habsburg emperors. And the Habsburg emperors
would appoint stadtholders. And William of Orange was appointed Stadtholder of Holland,
Zeeland, and Utrecht. And what we have here is a case of the stadtholder, after some reluctant
self-reflection, becoming the leader of the rebellion against his lord. So William of
Orange, the stadtholder, becomes the leader of the Dutch Revolt. And so now, the stadtholdership
goes from being the royal steward to the rebel general - that now, William of Orange is George
Washington. William of Orange is Robert E. Lee.
So William of Orange is the Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht and the thing
is that now, as a confederation - now, keep in mind that the Dutch Republic was not a
nation. It was not a unitary government. Each province appointed its own stadtholder, so
he wasn't stadtholder of the Netherlands or anything like that. So that States of Holland
would appoint their own stadtholder; and hopefully, enough people would agree so that there was
a bit of unity. So William of Orange was also the stadtholder also of Friesland ends up
appointing him as the stadtholder, as well, so there are four provinces that end up appointing
William of Orange as their stadtholder. But as a confederation, several provinces would
often appoint the same stadtholder but, then again, if you look at 1625, you see that sometimes
provinces named different stadtholders - typically descendants of William of Orange, but you'll
have one stadtholder in Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht - and in this case, Gelderland
- and then, Overijssel, Drenthe, and Friesland have their own stadtholder. So you have two
different stadtholders. That's okay because each province appoints their stadtholder.
So, what IS a stadtholder? Now, what's funny about this is one of the best sources we have
about the stadtholdership is James Madison's Notes on Ancient and Modern Confederacies.
James Madison wrote this when he was preparing for the Constitutional Convention and he writes
these notes really based on a lot of European scholarship. This isn't actually original
scholarship on Madison's part and he's making notes about all of these texts he's reading
because he wants to find out what were the strong points of previous confederations and
what were the defects? So, as he's going through, he's looking at Sir William Temple. He's looking
at Charles-Joseph Panckoucke - or [struggles with pronunciation] or whatever, okay? Something
like that. Sorry for you pronunciation snobs. And Hugo Grotius, who was actually a Dutch
scholar. And so Madison's observations are based on his readings of these European philosophers
- in many cases, books that Thomas Jefferson had sent him from Europe.
So, let's go into the civil powers of the stadtholder as head of state(s) - now, notice
I'm not saying "head of state" because the Dutch Republic wasn't a "state" so to speak
as much of a confederation provinces and states. There are eight powers that Madison identifies
as belonging to the stadtholder:
First of all, the power to settle differences between provinces.
Second, to recommend and influence the appointment of ambassadors.
Third, to be an ex officio member of the Council of State.
Four: to preside in the Provincial Courts of Justice where his names is prefixed to
all public acts.
Five: the supreme curator of most of the universities.
Six: to appoint town magistrates.
Seven: to give audiences to ambassadors.
And Eight: the power of pardon.
Now, a lot of these powers sound a lot like the powers of the president of the United
States or most heads of state today. Now, also the stadtholder tended to be the captain
general - the commander in chief of the armed forces. Keep in mind that this didn't automatically
come with the stadtholdership but was typically conferred upon the stadtholder. Whoever held
that office would also hold the office of captain general and of admiral general - the
head of the navy - so he could control all of the armed forces and pretty much lead the
rebel army, so to speak, and rebel navy.
Now, the stadholdership was a republican institution, meaning that this was not a king. This was
not hereditary. This wasn't something that automatically passed to his son. This is not
something that was permanent. It wasn't institutionalized until very late in the Republic.
Now, William of Orange was the model stadtholder. When you go to the Netherlands, everyone knows
about Willem van Oranje. He's a national hero. He's the father of their country. Before this,
nobody really would have thought of a Dutch nation or anything like that - of the Netherlands
as being its own thing - so really, the father of their country. And according to an outside
observer, an Englishman who was visiting Delft - I had the privilege of visiting Willem van
Oranje's house at the Prinsenhof in Delft - and I read this thing that really struck
me as very "small r" republican, so to speak, where this English observer said,
"His clothes look like those of a humble student, his jacket is a knitted sweater, like those
worn by one of our ferrymen. His friends are citizens of this beer-brewing city of Delft,
and he fits in perfectly."
So although he is a high noble from this important house, he realizes how to get along in a republic
and he's able to make himself into this republican sort of figure, which is part of the reason
why people loved him so much. And this is really illustrated well at this kind of copy
of Willem van Oranje's grave at the Prinsenhof. You can see that he's lying down - he's got
his fancy little whatever they put around their necks there - and then you see that
he's sort of in some sort of sleeping cap... and then at his feet, a dog. Alright? That,
you know... it's like, "Hey, I'm just lying down with my dog, you know? I'm not just some
high nobleman or something like that. I'm one of you. Alright? I'm just a guy who takes
a nap with his dog." When you look at Dutch art from this period, dogs are all over the
place, but I just thought that was really cool that he's just got that dog at his feet.
Just seems like such a normal guy...
Now, as much as William of Orange might have projected republican simplicity, that wasn't
necessarily the case with stadtholders that followed him. In a lot of cases, the pretensions
of the office and the trappings of the court and all of that stuff... that they would become
more elevated over time as things often do. And the House of Orange-Nassau typically held
the stadtholdership. All - or nearly all - of the republican stadtholders were descendants
of William of Orange. And this presents a bit of a problem when you're looking at the
history of the Dutch Republic. The republic's constitution presented some contradictions
because on one hand, you've got a federal republic, which really is a lot like the young
United States that's going to come along later... but the figurehead is a semi-hereditary noble.
Now, nominally elected, but at the same time all coming from the same noble house and all
of that kind of stuff, so is it a republic? Is it a monarchy? Is it somewhere in between?
Keep in mind that this is a government that was cobbled together during a rebellion. They
weren't necessarily starting from scratch. They were starting with what they had. But
the House of Orange is a very prominent feature in the Dutch Republic and... it's a bit of
a contradiction. James Madison is reflecting - possibly through someone else but saying
that "this is a strange effect of human contradictions... Men too jealous to confide their liberty to
their representatives who are their equals abandoned it to a prince who might the more
easily abuse it." To somebody like Madison, it seems a little weird that they would let
a hereditary nobleman be their figurehead... but it seemed to work for them.
Now, there were some people who didn't like the influence of the House of Orange - people
who wanted a less centralized government. And so you had conflicts between the Orangists
and people who wanted to see more of a role for the states. Now, I plan to do another
lecture on this topic and when I do, I'll put a little card or some kind of link there
so you can access it.
So the Orangists and the States are often going after each other but the thing is that
this republic, being in the midst of all of these European monarchies - these much stronger
states - that it's very difficult, as Madison said, that "It is certain that so many independent
Corps & interests could not be kept together without such a center of Union as the Stadtholdership"
- that the stadtholdership is the glue that keeps this thing together. Now, the tried
a few stadtholderless periods, these people who wanted the States to have more influence
and did not want this central unifying figure of the stadtholder, but every time they brought
the stadtholder back. Madison, citing William Temple, wrote that "In the intermission of
the Stadtholdership Holland by her riches & authority... drew the others into a sort
of dependence." So typically, this movement to reduce the influence of the House of Orange
was driven by the Hollanders because the Hollanders had more money. The controlled trade. Amsterdam
is there and all of that kind of stuff. So Holland liked this sort of arrangement because
they got to call the shots. Now, people in the other provinces, they tended to prefer
the Oranges because the Oranges would unite everyone and keep Holland from running the
show.
"With such a government the Union never could have subsisted, if in effect the provinces
had not withing themselves a spring capable of quickening their tardiness and impelling
them to the same way of thinking.
"This spring is the stadtholder."
So in 1754, really the Orangists end up winning this thing and the stadtholdership is institutionalized
- that a hereditary stadtholder general is established in the late Dutch Republic so
you have William IV and William V... but alas, it does not last forever because in 1795,
enter Napoleon and that is the end of that. And William V runs off to Britain in exile.
Now of course, that's not the end of the House of Orange. The current king of the Netherlands
is of the House of Orange so they haven't gone anywhere. You see where they've got those
orange flowers and those oranges - which kind of ironically, oranges in Dutch are not referred
to as oranje, like the color, but they're referred to as sinaasappels. So, he's got
oranje flowers and sinaasappels. Go figure.
So what is a stadtholder? It's pretty complicated but it was an important unifying figure in
the Dutch Republic - a royal steward, a rebel leader, and a republican head of state. And
this person unified a republic that might not otherwise have been able to exist.
Hopefully, you learned a little something and I hope to continue some more lecture on
the history of the Dutch Republic so if you want to see those, be sure to subscribe. TomRichey.net,
my website. Twitter. Instagram. All of that kind of stuff. Find me on Facebook. I'll be
back with some more lectures soon. Until next time.
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