First Stadtholderless Period
The First Stadtholderless Period was the period in the history of the Dutch Republic in which the office of Stadtholder was vacant in five of the seven Dutch provinces. It coincided with the zenith of the Golden Age of the Republic.
The term has acquired a negative connotation in 19th-century Orangist Dutch historiography, but whether such a negative view is justified is debatable. Republicans argue that the Dutch state functioned very well under the regime of Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt, despite the fact that it was forced to fight two major wars with England, and several minor wars with other European powers. Thanks to friendly relations with France, a cessation of hostilities with Spain, and the relative weakness of other European great powers, the Republic for a while was able to play a pivotal role in the "European Concert" of nations, even imposing a pax nederlandica in the Scandinavian area. A convenient war with Portugal enabled the Dutch East India Company to take over the remnants of the Portuguese Empire in Ceylon and South India. After the end of the war with Spain in 1648, and the attendant end of the Spanish embargo on trade with the Republic that had favored the English, Dutch commerce swept everything before it, in the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean Sea and the Levant, as well as in the Baltic region. Dutch industry, especially textiles, was as yet not hindered by protectionism. As a consequence, the Republic's economy enjoyed its last great economic boom.
Politically, the Staatsgezinde faction of the ruling Dutch Regents such as Cornelis de Graeff and Andries Bicker reigned supreme. They even developed an ideological justification of republicanism that went against the contemporary European trend of monarchical absolutism, but prefigured the "modern" political ideas that led to the American and French constitutions of the 18th century. There was a "monarchical" opposing undertow, however, from adherents of the House of Orange who wanted to restore the young Prince of Orange to the position of Stadtholder that his father, grandfather, great-uncle, and great-grandfather had held. The republicans attempted to rule this out by constitutional prohibitions, like the Act of Seclusion. But they were unsuccessful, and the Rampjaar of 1672 brought about the fall of the De Witt regime and the return to power of the House of Orange.
Timeline
The Stadtholderate of William II
The office of Stadtholder of a province predated the Republic. In the Habsburg Netherlands the Stadtholders were the representatives of the Sovereign, who performed important constitutional functions, like appointing city magistrates, and in times of war acting as provincial commander-in-chief. William the Silent had been such a stadtholder in Holland and Zeeland under the Habsburg regime, until he was removed from office in 1567. After the Dutch Revolt broke out, he simply reassumed that office in 1572 with the connivance of the rebel States of Holland, but still pretended to act in the name of the king. When the rebel provinces formed their defensive Union of Utrecht, whose treaty was to become the "constitution" of the Republic, they built upon the Habsburg constitutional framework, including the office of stadtholder. Even when independence from the King of Spain was declared with the Act of Abjuration there was no reason to change anything: the act simply declared that henceforth the magistrates, amongst whom the stadtholders, would hold their commissions from the from now on sovereign provincial states.Image:Willem II prince of Orange and Maria Stuart.jpg|250px|left|thumb|Willem II, prince of Orange, and his wife Maria Stuart
Still, when after the death of William in 1584, and subsequently the end of the search for a new sovereign after the departure of Leicester the States General reluctantly accepted that they had to be sovereign in 1588, the office took on a vestigial character. Had it not been that the stadtholder of Holland was usually also elected to the confederal office of Captain general of the Union, which was an important office in time of war, one would have expected that the office might have been left vacant much earlier than eventually happened. However, in the circumstances of the ongoing war with Spain, the Captain-general was indispensable. And the office of stadtholder remained an important power-base, enabling its holder to exert an influence far beyond its formal powers.
Prince Maurice demonstrated this in the constitutional crisis of 1618, when the States of Holland under Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, asserting supreme provincial sovereignty, tried to hire provincial troops rather than federal troops under Maurice's command. Maurice stopped this with a coup d'état and subsequently asserted a federal sovereignty that superseded the provincial one. He also purged the Holland regents that supported the provincial-sovereignty pretensions of Oldenbarnevelt and so managed to acquire a political dominance in the government of the Republic that assumed almost monarchical proportions. His brother, and successor as stadtholder, Frederick Henry held on to this ascendancy, due to a deft policy of divide-and conquer, playing off the regent factions against each other.
When Frederick Henry died in March 1647, his son William II was appointed stadtholder in Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Overijssel, and Gelderland. But he did not have the stature of his father, also because Frederick Henry did not think highly of his capabilities and had refused to allow him to lead troops in the field during the war against Spain that was then in its last stages. William was opposed to the peace with Spain, but he was largely ignored by the politicians in the States General, especially the representatives of the city of Amsterdam, Andries and Cornelis Bicker, the leaders of the do called "Bickerse league", as well as Cornelis de Graeff. The Peace of Münster was duly concluded in 1648, in spite of the opposition of the province of Zeeland and William, the latter deliberately absenting himself from the discussions to masque his impotence.
In the years directly following the peace a number of conflicts erupted between the stadtholder and especially the States of Holland about policy. William keenly supported the Calvinist die-hards in their attempts to force the Protestant religion on the Catholic inhabitants of the recently acquired Generality Lands. William managed to gain much popularity by this hard-line policy among the more orthodox lower classes in the Republic-proper, but especially the Holland regents thwarted the policy, because they were aware of the needless resentment it caused.
This was, however, just political posturing on William's part, cynically exploiting certain prejudices in an attempt to gain ascendancy over the regents. More important as a matter of principle was the conflict over the reduction of the standing army that arose during 1649 and 1650. The regents around the Bicker family, Adriaan Pauw and De Graeff understandably did not quite see the need for an expensive, large, mercenary standing army in peacetime. Holland demanded a reduction of the army to 26,000, whereas William argued that the personnel needs were now appreciably larger, because the territory to be protected by garrisoned fortresses was now a great deal larger. Though the parties came close to an agreement on a total of about 29,000 men, the final difference of a few hundred men proved to be insurmountable.
The policy conflict had become a test of wills. And it soon grew into a constitutional conflict, reminiscent of the crisis of 1618. The majority in the States of Holland now revived the old constitutional theory of Oldenbarnevelt and Hugo Grotius, stating that the provinces' sovereignty, and not that of the federal state, was supreme, and that Holland was entitled to disband troops that were paid out of its contribution to the federal war budget, without the consent of the other provinces. The implication of this was, of course, that the dissolution of the Union was a possibility, with a probability of civil war.
Like his uncle Maurice, William now felt he needed to save the Union, if need be by force. In collusion with his colleague-stadtholder of Friesland and Groningen, Willem Frederik of Nassau-Dietz, he embarked on a campaign of intimidation of the Holland regents that would ultimately lead to the use of force. On 30 July 1650 William had six leading Holland regents arrested in The Hague, while Willem Frederik attempted to take the city of Amsterdam by surprise with federal troops. Though this coup de main failed and Amsterdam managed to keep the troops outside the gates, the city was sufficiently intimidated to give in to William's demands to purge his opponents from the Amsterdam city council. The States of Holland then capitulated and rescinded its order to disband the troops. The theory of provincial supremacy was disavowed also.
However, William was stricken with smallpox in his hour of triumph. He died suddenly in November 1650. His wife Mary Stuart was pregnant and gave birth to his only legitimate son William III a week after his death. The office of stadtholder had become vacant in five of the provinces.
The Republican regime and Johan de Witt
If the Republic had been a monarchy, or if the office of stadtholder had already been hereditary the posthumous child would no doubt have been acclaimed stadtholder automatically, and a Regency would have been put into place, as happened in 1751, when three-year-old William V succeeded his deceased father in office in all seven provinces. As a matter of fact, this was proposed by the Orangist faction in the Republic, and especially by Willem Frederik, who proposed himself in the role of Lieutenant-Stadtholder in the five provinces in which he was not already stadtholder in his own right, until baby William would come of age. But this proposal elicited little enthusiasm from the Holland regents, who still vividly remembered his role in the recent coup.On the other hand, if the office of stadtholder was indispensable, the States of the five provinces with a vacancy could and would have appointed a successor, though not necessarily someone from the Nassau families. As a matter of fact, there were the precedents of Willem IV van den Bergh and Adolf van Nieuwenaar in Gelderland in early Republican times. But the Holland regents did not feel a pressing need to appoint anyone, especially in view of recent events. They acted very quickly to undo the effects of William's coup, freeing the captive regents and reinstating them in their offices. The Gecommitteerde Raden of the States of Holland moved immediately to reassert their authority over the army and convened a plenary session of the States. Next Holland proposed in the States General that a so-called Great Assembly should be convened at short notice, to amend the Union of Utrecht.
The States of Holland did not await this assembly, however, but for their own province immediately started to make constitutional alterations. On 8 December 1650 the States formally took over their Stadtholders' powers. The eighteen voting towns in the States were given the option to apply for a charter that enabled them to henceforth elect their own vroedschap members and magistrates, under ultimate supervision of the States, but otherwise without the usual drawing up of double lists, for outsiders to choose from. This did not apply to the non-voting towns, however, that still had to present double lists, but now to the States, instead of the Stadtholder. The States also assumed the power to appoint magistrates in the unincorporated countryside, like drosten and baljuws.
Image:Great_Assembly_of_the_States-General_in_1651_01.jpg|250px|right|thumb|Great Assembly of 1651 by Dirck van Delen
This did imply a significant change in the power structure in the province. The position of the city regents was improved, while the ridderschap lost influence, especially in the countryside. The change also diminished the power of the representative bodies of the Dutch guilds in the cities, that had often acted as a check on the power of the vroedschap with the help of the stadtholder. The change therefore did not go unopposed, and caused some rioting by the groups being disenfranchised.
Holland meanwhile encouraged other provinces to follow its example. In Zeeland a majority of the States voted to also leave the office of stadtholder vacant, and assume its powers. For good measure, the vote of the First Noble in the States of Zeeland was abolished, and the request of the Zeeland ridderschap to sit in his place was denied. In other provinces, the results were mixed. Holland sent a delegation to Gelderland. Willem Frederik, meanwhile, with the help of the States of Friesland, Groningen, and Drenthe exhorted the States of Overijssel and Utrecht to appoint baby William, but to no avail. These provinces decided to await the Great Assembly.
The Great Assembly that was held between January and August 1651, addressed a number of important issues. The first one was that of the stadholderate. Friesland and Groningen led the opposition to Holland, arguing that the Union of Utrecht required the appointment of provincial stadtholders by implication, as the articles 9 and 21 of the treaty stipulated mediation by stadtholders in case of conflicts between provinces. In their interpretation the office of stadtholder thereby acquired a federal aspect. But the other provinces were not convinced. They decided to leave the office vacant indefinitely. It should be noted, however, that the office was not abolished, not even in Holland and Zeeland.
A second important topic was the reorganization of the command structure of army and navy. The office of captain general and admiral general was a federal office. In the absence of the usual occupant of that office, the stadtholder of Holland, the question was who would now fill it. A possibility would have been to appoint Willem Frederik, who was after all a stadtholder, but in view of his role in the coup of the previous year, he did not have the confidence of Holland. It was therefore decided to leave this office also vacant, and to divide its functions between the States General and the Raad van State jointly and the Holland nobleman Jan Wolfert van Brederode as commander-in-chief of the army with the rank of Field Marshal. The latter was only a temporary solution, however, as Brederode soon after died, which caused another round of intrigues to keep Willem Frederik from the top job in the army. As the function of admiral general had usually been only symbolic, the actual command of the fleets having been left in the hands of the lieutenant-admirals of the five Admiralties, this office did not pose a similar political problem.
The Great Assembly also addressed the problem of the Public Church in the country, but left the results of the Synod of Dort in place. It rejected the requests of the provinces of Brabant and Drenthe for representation on the States General. Seemingly, the results of the attempt at constitutional reform were meagre therefore. But appearances were not what they seemed. There had been a sea change in the political balance within the union by the elimination of the person who held five stadtholderships in his hand. The position of Holland became unassailable, on the one hand, because the other provinces were internally divided, and because there was not one leader to lead them in opposition to Holland.
Image:Cornelis de Graeff 1636.jpg|thumb|373x373px|Portrait of Cornelis de Graeff, Regent of Amsterdam |left
On the other hand, there was the fortuitous factor that soon in the province of Holland the office of Raadpensionaris was taken over by the young regent from Dordrecht, Johan de Witt. After the execution of the capable Oldenbarnevelt, this office had usually been filled by men of questionable competency, who in any case were compliant to the will of the Stadtholder, like Jacob Cats. First Adriaan Pauw and Andries Bicker and then De Witt and his uncles Cornelis de Graeff and Andries de Graeff were highly capable men, however, who took an active leading role, not only in the States of Holland, but also as leader of the delegation of Holland in the States General. Holland's potential as leader of the Union was therefore fully employed when De Witt gave direction to its policies. In other words, though formally only the "salaried official" of one of the provinces, De Witt fulfilled in practice the leading role that previously had been fulfilled by the successive stadtholders of Holland. The stadtholder was truly not missed.
But this was not the only thing that changed. The constitutional conflict about the supremacy of the sovereignty of the Generality over provincial sovereignty, that seemed to be settled by the coup of William II, became "unsettled" again after his death. De Witt of course met opposition from other provinces from time to time, and sometimes Holland was even outvoted in the States General. This posed an unenviable dilemma for De Witt. Although decisions were supposed to be unanimous in the States General, this would in practice be unworkable. The principle of majority voting was therefore accepted by all provinces. On the other hand, Holland could not allow the other provinces to go against its wishes, as the major contributor to the Generality's budget. De Witt was therefore only prepared to accept a majority decision if Holland was in the majority. But how to justify this? The solution was to push the old doctrine of the supremacy of provincial sovereignty, first formulated by François Vranck in 1587. And this became the basic constitutional theory of the Republic during the Stadtholderless Era, at least of De Witt's States Party.
Students of modern Dutch politics will recognize in this characterization of De Witt's statecraft the outlines of the venerable Dutch Polder Model.