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portretminiatuur WillemII

A WIFE FOR WILLIAM II

The marriage partners of the children of Stadholder Frederik Hendrik and Amalia of Solms were carefully selected. When it came to a wife for their oldest son William, they turned to the British royal house. Initially the choice fell on Princess Elizabeth (1635-1650), the second daughter of King Charles I, as her older sister Mary was intended for the son of the King of Spain. When this fell through, negotiations began concerning the older daughter, which lasted for over a year. On 12 May 1641 the future Stadholder William II and Princess Mary were finally married. As Mary was only nine years old at the time, she was legally permitted to remain in England until she reached the age of twelve, and could formally consent to the marriage. Political tensions were rising, however, and as civil war threatened, Queen Henrietta Maria fled to the Dutch Republic in March 1642, taking her daughter with her.

MARY IN THE DUTCH REPUBLIC

Mary didn’t get on well with her mother-in-law, Amalia of Solms. Instead, she looked to her aunt, Elizabeth Stuart, the exiled Queen of Bohemia, for support in her battles with Amalia. When Stadholder Frederik Hendrik died in 1647, Prince William II succeeded him. By now, the English Civil War was raging. Mary’s chief concern was to support the Royalists and her brothers, who had fled to the Republic. In 1650 William II fell ill, dying a few days before the birth of their son. The question of what to name the new Prince of Orange created more controversy between Mary and Amalia. Mary wanted to call her son Charles, after her brother and her father, who had been beheaded the previous year. But Amalia got her way. The baby was baptised Willem Hendrik. However, mother and grandmother continued to wrangle over matters such as the child’s guardianship.

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Brief van Maria Stuart aan de Staten van Zeeland

MARY AND THE FIRST STADHOLDERLESS PERIOD

The young widow Mary withdrew increasingly from court life and followed her exiled brothers Charles and James to Cologne and Paris. When the first Anglo-Dutch War ended in 1654 and Cromwell managed to ensure, through the Act of Seclusion, that the Prince of Orange was excluded from the office of stadholder, Mary resisted angrily. The Act was not revoked until the Restoration brought Mary’s brother, Charles II, to the throne. On 4 April 1660 he issued the Declaration of Breda, taking ship for England from Scheveningen a month later. Mary visited England one last time before she contracted smallpox in December 1660. On her deathbed she named her brother as the joint guardian of her son. The regents ignored her wish, however, and the young prince grew up under the supervision of Amalia of Solms.

The Dutch Gift

The States General pulled out all the stops to please the new King of Great Britain, presenting him with the most splendid gift ever offered to a foreign ruler. It consisted of a crib and furnishings originally bought by Prince William II for Mary in France, 24 paintings by Italian masters like Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese, four paintings by Dutch artists, 12 classical sculptures and a handsome yacht, the Mary. On 26 November 1660, the paintings and the crib, symbolising the bond between the House of Orange and the House of Stuart, were presented in the resplendent setting of London’s Banqueting Hall.