Stadtholder - WikiHQ

thumb|[[William the Silent was a stadtholder during the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish Empire.]]

In the Low Countries, a stadtholder ( , ) was a steward, first appointed as a medieval official and ultimately functioning as a provincial and later national leader. The stadtholder was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and Habsburg period (1384 – 1581/1795).

The title was used for the highest executive official of each province performing several duties, such as appointing lower administrators and maintaining peace and order, in the early Dutch Republic. As multiple provinces appointed the same stadtholder, the stadtholder of the powerful province of Holland at times functioned as the de facto head of state of the Dutch Republic as a whole during the 16th to 18th centuries, in an effectively hereditary role. For the last half century of its existence, it became an officially hereditary title under Prince William IV of Orange. His son, Prince William V, was the last stadtholder of all provinces of the Republic, until fleeing French revolutionary troops in 1795. His son, William I of the Netherlands, in 1815 became the first sovereign king of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The title stadtholder is roughly comparable to the historical titles of Lord Protector in England, Statthalter in the Holy Roman Empire and Governor-General of Norway. In English sources, it is sometimes translated as either "steward", "lieutenant" or even "governor".

Etymology

Stadtholder means "steward". Its component parts literally translate as "place holder," from Latin locum tenens, or as a direct cognate, "stead holder" (in modern Dutch stad means "city", but the older meaning of stad – also stede – was "place", and it is a cognate of English "stead", as "instead of"); it was a term for a "steward" or "lieutenant". However, this is not the word for the military rank of lieutenant, which is in Dutch.

History

Seventeen Provinces

Stadtholders in the Middle Ages were appointed by feudal lords to represent them in their absence. If a lord had several dominions (or, being a vassal, fiefs), some of these could be ruled by a permanent stadtholder, to whom was delegated the full authority of the lord. A stadtholder was thus more powerful than a governor, who had only limited authority, but the stadtholder was not a vassal himself, having no title to the land. The local rulers of the independent provinces of the Low Countries (which included the present-day Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) made extensive use of stadtholders, e.g. the Duke of Guelders appointed a stadtholder to represent him in Groningen.

In the 15th century the Dukes of Burgundy acquired most of the Low Countries, and the constituent parts (duchies, counties, lordships) of these Burgundian Netherlands mostly each had their own stadtholder, appointed by the Duke in his capacity of duke, count or lord.

In the 16th century, the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, also King of Spain, who had inherited the Burgundian Netherlands, completed this process by becoming the sole feudal overlord: Lord of the Netherlands. Only the Prince-Bishopric of Liège and two smaller territories (the Imperial Abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy and the Duchy of Bouillon) remained outside his domains. Stadtholders continued to be appointed to represent Charles and King Philip II, his son and successor in Spain and the Low Countries (the electoral Imperial title would be held by his brother Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and his heirs in the separate Austrian branch of Habsburgs). Due to the centralist and absolutist policies of Philip, the actual power of the stadtholders strongly diminished, compared to the landvoogd (es) or governor-general.

Dutch Republic

When, in 1581, during the Dutch Revolt, seven of the Dutch provinces declared their independence with the Act of Abjuration, the representative function of the stadtholder became obsolete in the rebellious northern Netherlands – the feudal lord himself having been abolished – but the office nevertheless continued in these provinces who now united themselves into the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. The United Provinces were struggling to adapt existing feudal concepts and institutions to the new situation and tended to be conservative in this matter, as they had after all rebelled against the king to defend their ancient rights. The stadtholder no longer represented the lord but became the highest executive official, appointed by the States of each province. Although each province could assign its own stadtholder, most stadtholders held appointments from several provinces at the same time. The highest executive and legislative power was normally exerted by the sovereign States of each province, but the stadtholder had some prerogatives, such as being the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The stadtholder also appointed lower officials and sometimes had the ancient right to affirm the appointment (by co-option) of the members of regent councils or choose burgomasters from a shortlist of candidates. As these councils themselves appointed most members of the States, the stadtholder could very indirectly influence the general policy. In Zeeland, the Princes of Orange, who after the Dutch Revolt most often held the office of stadtholder there, held the dignity of First Noble, and were as such a member of the States of that province, because they held the title of Marquis of Veere and Flushing as one of their patrimonial titles.

On the Republic's central 'confederal' level, the stadtholder of the provinces of Holland and Zeeland was normally also appointed Captain-General of the Dutch States Army and Admiral-General of the confederate fleet, though no stadtholder ever actually commanded a fleet in battle. In the army, he could appoint officers by himself; in the navy only affirm appointments of the five admiralty councils. Legal powers of the stadtholder were thus rather limited, and by law he was a mere official. His real powers, however, were sometimes greater, especially given the martial law atmosphere of the 'permanent' Eighty Years War. Maurice of Orange after 1618 ruled as a military dictator, and William II of Orange attempted the same.

The leader of the Dutch Revolt was William the Silent (William I of Orange); he had been appointed stadtholder in 1572 by the States of the first province to rebel, Holland, as a replacement of the royal stadtholder (He had previously held the post as an appointee of Philip II). His personal influence and reputation was subsequently associated with the office and transferred to members of his house. After his assassination, however, there was a short-lived move to install Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester as governor-general of Elizabeth I before Maurice in 1590 became stadtholder of five provinces, a position he would hold until his death (his cousin William Louis, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg held the post in the remaining two provinces, Friesland and Groningen).

Tensions nonetheless persisted between Orangists and republicans in the United Provinces, sometimes exploding into direct conflict. Maurice in 1618 and William III from 1672 replaced entire city councils with their partisans to increase their power: the so-called "Changings of the Legislative" (Wetsverzettingen). By intimidation, the stadtholders tried to extend their right of affirmation, while they also attempted to add the remaining stadholderships like Friesland and Groningen to their other holdings. and banned his son William from the stadtholdership by an Act of Seclusion, something overcome by popular feeling during the catastrophic events of 1672, the Dutch Year of Disaster (Rampjaar), when the future William III of England was swept to power. After the death of William III in 1702 they again abstained from appointing a stadtholder.

References

Bibliography

Other

Van Dale Etymologisch Woordenboek (Dutch etymology, in Dutch)

External links

WorldStatesmen – the Netherlands
Simon Schama – Patriots and Liberators: : Revolution in the Netherlands, 1780–1813
Dutch language Wikipedia: List of stadtholders