Lists (None yet)

Login to create lists

Tagged (None yet)

Add Tags

Comments (None yet)

Add New Comment

3 corrections, most recently by allanraymond - Show corrections

DEATH OF THE KING OF HOLLAND.

(From the Times, March 20'-) |    

THE announcement which our columns yester- day contained would at any period havo at- tracted the interest of Europe, and is not   likely to be less siguificint at a crisis of poli- tical history when the demise ol a Crown may entail the perplexities of a nation. But though   the death of the King of Holland will not be without its serious influence on the constitu- tional destinies of his country, yet the reflec- tions suggested by the event flow more from memory than anticipation, and are rather concerned with what is past than witli what miy be now to come. In the person of King William II there expired almost the last of that race of sovereigns whose   fortunes were blended with those of ordinary mortals in the whirl of revolutionary storms, and who were driven forth from their palaces and their heritages to adventures even more strange than would commonly fall to the lot of their subjects.

At the very moment when revolutionary France had consummated the confusion of Europe bv the invasion of the Austrian Netherlands, the late King of Holland-the

grandson of tho then Stadtholder of the United Provinces-first saw the light. The situation of his family was no less critical than peculiar. The two parties into which the Dutch popu- lation had long been divided declared towards the end of the century open warfare agianst each other, and in 1783 the Stadtholder, by the influence of the aristocratic party at Amster- dam, was suspended from his principal func- tions. In 1787, however, he had been restored by the armed intervention of Prussia, and the triple alliance between Prussia, Holland, and Great Britain had been formed to guarantee the House of Orange in its hereditary preroga- tives. For five years, therefore, had the family of the young Prince been confirmed in its po- sition, but the circumstances of its restoration still rankled in the mind of a large portion of the people, and the aspect of events daily added strength and confidence to the " patriotic" party. At length came the day of trial. After the victory of Jemappe the Repub- lican troops wcro ordered to pursue the Austrians into Holland, and the integrity of the United Provinces was no longer even nominally regarded. At this moment (on the (6th of December, 1792) Prince William was born. For a few months success seemed to attend the efforts of the new coalition, and the battle of Neerwinden promised peace and se- curity to Holland. But terrorism in Paris soon drove overwhelming hordes of despera- does to the frontiers ; a frost of extraordinary severity destroyed the natural bulwarks of the United Provinces. Dutch ships were taken by charges of French cavalry over fields of ice ; and at the age of thirteen months the infant Prince was curried away from his native coun- try to pass in England the first period of his

life.

Familiarized from his earliest childhood with English habits and institutions, the Prince of Orange became thus almost an adopted son of the Royal House of England, When his years permitted, he betook himself, like most gentlemen of blood and lineage in such times as those, to fight the battles of Europe against him who was regarded as the common oppressor. In 1811 he appeared in the English army on its most famous scene of war ; and by this strange caprice of fortune the name of a crowned head thus finds a place among those veterans whose services, after 40 years delay, have at length been tardily acknow- ledged, Cindad Rodrigo, Badajee, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrcness, Nivelle, are names which the illustrious personage just deceased is egually entitled with the humble subaltern of the Peninsula to inscribe upon his shield. Even at the crowning field of Waterloo he was still found hy the side of his companions in arms, and a mighty monument marks his ser- vices and sufferings on that memorable day which terminated the great European war.

The heir apparent to the new kingdom of the Netherlands was amore powerful, though not   a more popular personngo than the exiled Prince of Orange, and it was at this period not unnaturally presumed that the ancient ties of the House of Orange and the House of Bruns- wick, which had been recently strengthened by the singular course of events, might be now exchanged for a still closer alliance. Nowhere

as it seemed, could there be found for tho fu-   turo Queen of England a worthier or

more becoming consort than in that Prince ' who for more than 20 years had shared all the ' hopes, tho fears, tho dangers, and the triumphs   of Englishmen. But it was not so or-

dered, and the heir of Orange yielded   this, as well as a subsequent prize, to a   competitor of moro conspicuous fortune. It

soon afterwards appeared, as if by a singular   fatality, that even now, when all the world   was at peace, the career of Prince William was     still to be troubled and stormy. The kingdom   of his father, alter fifteen years' existence, was   suddenly rent assunder, and the Belgian revo-   lution proclaimed to the world that the perma-   nent destinies of nations were beyond the regu-   lations of a Congress.  

The scencs in question are almost too recent   to permit or require any scrutiny of the   negotiations which they involved, There was   little personal sympathy between , Prince   William and his father. The young-soldier   had brought with him from his exile those   tastes and habits which were exemplified by     our own Royal exile in so remarkable a degree a centurv and a half before, and the joyous

prodigality of his disposition was altogether in   compatible with the practical and business-   like economy of King William I. To the in   surgcnt citizens of Brussels he was a welome   sojourner, and might have been no disagreeable   Sovereign, But the Fates and the Conference   ruled otherwise the destinies of Belgium, and   after discussions which need occupy no   place in our biographical sketch, Prince  

Leopold of Coburg, for the second   time, superseded Prince William of   Orange. It is not a little remarkable that   during these negotiations, a personage so singu-   larly identified with England and her politics  

should have boen considered not otherwise i than an acceptable choice even by those most   jealously eager to extend French influence in in Belgium. Yet it is a fact that while the suc- cessful competitor was the object of incessant   attack on the score of his presumed English   predilections, the Prince who for so many   years had fought under the orders of Welling-   ton against the hosts of Napoleon was com-   mended as essentially " French" in his lan-   guage, his manners, and his policy.  

The vicissitudes of Prince William's life   were not even yet to end. Nine years after the   events to which we have alluded he was sud-     denly put in premature possession of his in-  

heritanco by the strange and unexpected bias which had been communicated to the dotage of his father. Actuated by the dictates of a   passion which has received some little illus-  

tration from more recent examples, King William I. resigned in 1840 the Royal Crown, which he had been the first of his family to wear. His abdication opened the succession lo the son who has just expired, and prolonged by three years a reign which even thus has  

fallen short of the average opportunities of a sovereign,  

It will be unfortunate if, at such a moment   as this, the tranquillity of one of the few Eu-  

ropean kingdomwhich preserved their ba-   lance through a year ol revolutions should now  

be disturbed by any of those embarrassments occasionally contingent on an unexpected  

opening of the succession to a throne. But tho political condition of Holland has greatly changed from that which was devised at the last European settlement to maintain the Royal dignity then first created for the House of Orange. The richest moiety of the kingdom of the Netherlands is now gone, and the heir to the remaining portion will carry with him to the succession few qualities which might com- pensate, in the eyes of his people, for the per- plexities of a dimembered inheritance. We have hardly, perhaps, seen the last of Euro- pean commotions, but we are entitled to expect trom the wisdom of the Dutch Chambers, now sitting, that they will not reverse the example of dignity and prudence which they have hi- therto given to the world.

Digitisation generously supported by
Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation
Digitisation generously supported by

Zoom

plus
thumb
minus
left
thumb
right
up
thumb
down