Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1913.djvu/1186

 100)4 NETHERLANDS (THE).

(KonijStkrijk der Nederlanden.)

Reigning Sovereign. Wilhelmina Helena Pauline Maria, i^orn August 3i, 188O,

daughter of the late Kincr Willem III., and of his seconrt wife, Princess Emma, born August 2, 1858, daughter of Prince George Victor of Waldeck ; succeeded to the throne on the death of her father, November 23, 1890 ; came of age August 31, 1898, and was crowned September 6 of that year; married to Prince Henry of Mecklenburg- Schwerin, Febraary 7, 1901. Offspring : Princess Juliana Louis3 Emma Marie Wilhelmina, born April 30, 1909.

The royal family of the Netherlands, known as the House of Orange, descends from a German Count Walram, who lived in the eleventh century. Through the marriage of Count Engelbrecht, of the branch of Otto, Count of Nassau, with Jane of Polanen, in 1404, the family acquired the barony of Breda, and thereby became settled in the Netherlands. The alliance with another heiress, only sister of the childless Prince of Orange and Count of Chalons, brought to the house a rich province in the south of France ; and a third matrimonial union, that of Prince Willem III. of Orange with a daughter of King James II., led to the transfer of the crown of Great Britain to that prince. Previous to this period, the members of the family had acquired great influence in the United Provinces of the Netherlands under the name of ' stadtholders, ' or governors. The dignity was formally declared to be hereditary in 1747, in Willem IV. ; but his successor, Willem V., had to fly to England, in 1795, at the invasion of the French republican army. The family did not return till November, 1813, when the fate of the old United Provinces, released from French incorporation, was under discussion at the Congress of Vienna. After various diplomatic negotiations, the Belgian provinces, subject before the French revolution to the House of Austria, were ordered by the Congress to be joined to the Northern Nether- lands, and the whole to be erected into a kingdom, with the son of the last stadtholder, Willem V., as hereditary sovereign. In consequence, the latter was proclaimed King of the Netherlands at the Hague on the 16th ot March, 1815, and recognised as sovereign by all the Powers of Europe. The union thus established between the northern and southern Netherlands was dissolved by the Belgian revolution of 1830, and their political relations were not readjusted until the signing of the treaty of London, April 19, 1839, which constituted Belgium an independent kingdom. King Willem I. abdicated in 1840, bequeathing the croM'n to his son Willem II., who, after a reign of nine years, left it to his heir, Willem III. This king reigned 41 years, and died in 1890 ; in default of male heirs, he was succeeded by his only daughter Wilhelmina.

The Sovereign has a civil list of 600, 000 guilders. There is also a large revenue from domains, and in addition an allowance of 50,000 guilders for the maintenance of the royal palaces. The family of Orange is, besides, in the possession of a very large private fortune, acquired in greater part by King .Willem I. in the prosecution of yast enterprises t3nding to raise the commerce of the Netherlands.