Dutch treat
CHARLES WILSON
Orange and Stuart: 1641-1672 Peter Geyl (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 65s)
In the English mind, the connection between the Houses of Orange and Stuart most commonly begins (and ends) with William and Mary. In truth there was much more to it than the warming pan and Lillibullero. Geyl's study probes into every recess of a long, complex, often unedifying but vital his- tory of dynastic intrigue which begins on the eve of England's civil war and bedevils Dutch politics down to the French Revolu- tion.
The real starting point is not 1688 nor 1677 but 1641. A few days before Strafford's head fell on Tower Hill, William If of Orange. grandson of the Silent and father of our 'Dutch William', was married in the chapel at Whitehall to Mary, eldest daughter of Charles I. The ceremony represented the successful conclusion of long negotiations by the Stadholder, Frederik Henry, to raise the prestige of his line by forging a link with an undoubted monarchy, though one already in difficulties. (The journal of the principal negotiator, Francois Aerssens van Sommels- dijk, containing the strange narration of the bargaining amidst the gathering storm of 1640, was sold at Sotheby's earlier this year.) A parallel scheme to marry off an Orange
princess to the Prince of Wales was drop, Nearly a century and a half later a Du politician declared that all the calamities the Netherlands grew from 'that hapless ti• lock'. Geyl himself regarded the Ora Stuart dynastic union (with further marria in 1677 and 1734) as an indispensable to the understanding of Dutch poh strife. Certainly the marriage at once sh pened the already bitter conflict between House of Orange and its supporters amon clergy and populace, and the so-cal Loevestein (patrician) party of republic Regents. 'A furore mottarchorum Lib nos, Domine' cried the leading voice of opposition. Dynasticism had always been nightmare of the Dutch rebels. They trusted its threatened Orange manifestati as much as they had the Habsburg vari They wanted peace; quiet and prosperity.
William's coup d'etat of 1650 threaten to give them instead an absolutism. F tunately he died when out hunting, and lighted Regents hastened to praise the dom of the Almighty as they filled the boxes with thank offerings for his demise. began a sordid squabble for the regency tween two equally disagreeable women— dead William's German mother Amalia his widow Mary, who possessed all brainless arrogance of which only the Ste were capable, but none of their occasio charm.
Beyond the personal struggle lay permanent clash of Calvinist Orangists secular republican patricians. Thus began exceedingly odd and confused quadn danced to the dynastic tune, in which vinist Orangists • were partnered by Eng High Church absolutist royalists while Du republicans, doing their best not to tread the toes of the English Roundheads, fo themselves denounced as pro-Spanish pa by their Orangist opponents. Thus Ad Tromp was suspected by the Dutch Reg• of provoking the first war with England cause he was pro-Orange, and the attitude both Dutch parties to this war was dicta partly by their hopes and fears arising f the dynastic situation. Contrariwise, the liamentarians believed the Dutch were Stuart. The Royalists didn't care tup whether Parliament or the Dutch won.
After the Restoration, the ruling patrici in Holland were nervous lest Charles sh give his young Dutch nephew a leg up throne, while Charles's ministers preten' that the second war with the Dutch a machination of de Witt and his pam faction, moved by hatred of the y Prince of Orange. When Charles signed Treaty of Dover with the French, he further to divide the already divided D by promising special (but unspecified) sideration for young William. But y William was not so easily deceived. months holiday with his uncle was en to open his eyes. When the Dutch turned to rend the de Witts, he emerge' his uncle's chagrin—as the saviour of Republic against France and England. Geyl left the story in 1672. He had enough to demonstrate that this is prob his best work, technically at any rate. relies here less on assumption and asst tion than in some of his writings on Revolt. Every paragraph rests on original research. There is an intensity argument as well as feeling which he always achieve elsewhere. Even if 0 and Stuart is not likely to be his most lar work, it is probably his most profess
The publishers are to be congratula
making available a work (originally pub fished in Dutch thirty years ago) crucial ti our understanding of the domestic and inter national politics of the seventeenth century Arnold Pomerans has handled with skill tin far from easy task of translating Geyl's prow with its curious blend of oracular and vernacular,
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