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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] William III Biography WILLIAM III (1650-1702). King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1689 to 1702. He was the posthumous and only son of William II of Orange, Stadtholder of the United Netherlands. His mother was Mary, eldest daughter of Charles I of England. He was born at The Hague on November 14 (old style, Nov. 4), 1650. The ambitions of the elder William to increase the power of the Stadtholder had aroused an aristocratic reaction under Jan De Witt (q.v.) which created much trouble for the young prince. The alliance of his family with the Stuarts excited the jealousy of Oliver Cromwell, by whose influence William and his descendants were excluded, in 1654, from the Stadtholdership. The restoration of the Stuarts to the English throne, however, caused the revocation of this act, and on the invasion of Holland by Louis XIV of France in 1672 William was elected Stadtholder, Captain-General, and Admiral. By the wisdom and determination of the young Stadtholder the contest with France was brought to a close by the Treaty of Nimeguen (q.v.) in 1678. Before the close of the war he had married his cousin,, the Princess Mary, eldest daughter of the Duke of York, who became King James II (q.v.) of England in 1685. As the tyranny of James soon began to estrange the affections of every class of his subjects, the eyes of all were turned towards the Stadtholder as their only hope. Accepting an invitation signed by seven representative leaders of the two English parties, Williarn with an army of 15,000 English and Dutch landed at Torbay, Nov. 5, 1688. His success was rapid and bloodless, and on December 18 he entered London as a national deliverer. On Feb. 13, 1689, William and Mary, after accepting the Declaration of Rights, were proclaimed King and Queen of England. The adherents of James held out for some time in Scotland and Ireland. The death of Dundee (see GRAHAM, JOHN) in 1689 ended their resistance in the former country, but in the latter they kept up a vigorous contest until the battle of the Boyne (July, 1690) broke the power of the Jacobites. William was now able to combat Louis XIV with the united forces of England and Holland. He himself took the field in the Belgian Netherlands, but was unable to cope with Marshal Luxembourg, who defeated him at Steenkerke in 1692 and at Neerwinden in 1693. Reluctantly he signed the Peace of Ryswick (1697) , which, however, proved highly popular. In spite of his sterling qualities, and of the debt which they owed him, the English never really liked William III. The death in 1694 of his wife, on whom the crown had been conferred jointly with himself, materially injured his position. His schemes were thwarted by Parliament and continual plots for his assassination were hatched by the adherents of James. The succession of Philip of Anjou to the throne of Spain on the death of Charles II in 1700, tending to the aggrandizement of France, was a blow to William's policy. He persevered with unflagging vigor in his determination to unite Europe against France, and he left England at the bead of the Grand Alliance. (See SUCCESSION WARS.) He died on March 19 (old style, March 8), 1702, in consequence of a fall from his horse. The massacre of the Macdonalds of Glencoe (q.v.) is a blot on William's reputation which his most thoroughgoing apologists have been unable to efface. His services, however, both to England and to his native country can hardly be overrated. In his reign the Bank of England was founded, the modern system of finance introduced, ministerial responsibility recognized, and the liberty of the press secured. William's manner was wholly Dutch, and even his countrymen thought him blunt. "In his intercourse with the world in general," says Macaulay, "he appeared ignorant or negligent of those arts which double the value of a favor, and take away the sting of a refusal." The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XXIII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 575-576. |