WILLIAM III

This article appears in Volume V28, Page 670 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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WILLIAM III . (1817-189o), king of the Netherlands, son of William II., was born at Brussels on the 19th of February 1817. He married in 1839

Sophia

SOPHIA (1630-1714)

, daughter of William I., king of Wurttemberg.

Sophia

SOPHIA (1630-1714)

was an accomplished woman of high intelligence, but unfortunately the relations between the royal pair were far from cordial and finally ended in complete disagreement, and the breach between them continued until the death of the queen in 1877. The private life of the king in fact gave rise to much scandal; nevertheless he was an excellent constitutional monarch, and, though he never sought to win popular favour, succeeded in winning and retaining in a remark-able degree his people's affectionate loyalty. He had no sympathy with political liberalism, but throughout his long reign of

forty

FORTY

-two years, with a constant interchange of ministries and many ministerial crises, he never had a serious conflict with the states-general, and his ministers could always count upon his

fair

FAIR

-mindedness and an

earnest

EARNEST (probably a corruption of the obsolete arles or erles, adapted from Lat. equivalent arrha, due to a confusion with the adjective " earnest," serious, O. Eng. eornust, cognate with Ger. ernst)

desire to help them to further the national welfare. He was economical, and gave up a third of his civil

list

LIST (O.E.
lisle
- LISLE, ALICE (c. 1614-1685)
, a Teutonic word, cf. Dut. lust, Ger. Leiste, adapted in Ital. lista and Fr.
lisle
- LISLE, ALICE (c. 1614-1685)
)
LIST, FRIEDRICH (1789-1846)

in order to help forward the task of establishing an equilibrium in the annual budget, and he was always ready from his large private fortune to help forward all schemes for the social or industrial progress of the country. It was largely due to his prudent diplomacy that Holland passed pacifically through the difficult period of the Luxemburg settlement in x866 and the Franco-German War of 1870.
William III. had two sons by his

marriage

MARRIAGE

with Sophia of Wurttemberg, William (1841-1879), and Alexander (1843-1884). Both of them died unmarried. The decease of Prince Alexander left the

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

of Orange without a direct

heir

HEIR (Lat. heres, from a root meaning to grasp, seen in heres or erus, master of a
house
- HOUSE
- HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
  Gothic
  - GOTHIC
  it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)
, Gr. xeip, hand, Sans. hat ana, hand)

male, but the prospect of a disputed succession had fortunately been averted by the

marriage

MARRIAGE

of the king in 1879 with the princess Emma of Waldeck-Pyrmont. From this union a daughter, Wilhelmina, was born in 1880. On her father's death at the Loo, on the 23rd of November 189o, she succeeded as queen of the Nether-lands under the regency of her mother.
William was grand duke of Luxemburg by a personal title, and his death severed the dynastic relation between the kingdom of the Netherlands and the grand duchy. The sovereignty of the Luxemburg duchy passed to the next

heir

HEIR (Lat. heres, from a root meaning to grasp, seen in heres or erus, master of a house, Gr. xeip, hand, Sans. hat ana, hand)

male of the house of Nassau, Adolphus, ex-duke of Nassau.
See J. A. Bruijne, Geschiedenis van Nederland in onzen tijd. (5 vols., Schiedam, 18891906); P. Blok, Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Volk (Leiden, 1908), vol. viii.; and G. L. Keppers, De regeering van Koning Willem III. (Groningen, 1887). (G. E.)

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