Wilhelmina of Holland

WILHELMINA OF HOLLAND KEES V AN HoEK N September 6th, 1898, a fair girl of eighteen, clad in a long O white silken robe, an ermine-caped red velvet cloak em broidered with golden lions hanging royally from her slim shoulders, rose amidst the great of her land and the princes of her oriental empire, solemnly to swear allegiance to the Constitu tion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. After eight years of minority, since the death of her father, she now became in fact what she had been in name from her tenth year: Queen in her own right. Times change. This maxim must surely be pondered now by Queen Wilhelmina of Holland, doyenne of the ruling mon archs of the world. For the changes which she witnessed during her reign are so sweeping that one hardly believes the evidence of one's own eyes. Revolutions chased the Kings of Portugal and Spain far from their countries. The Emperor of Germany, at the zenith of his power when she mounted her throne, has already been an exile in Holland now for half the time of her own reign; not a solitary ruler is left of that multitude of kings and grand dukes, princes and princelings, then wielding autocratic power, to-day already completely forgotten by their former subjects. The mighty Emperor Francis Joseph died, his country does not even exist any more, and there is a warrant out for the arrest of his heir. The Czar of Russia has been exterminated with his whole family. The King of Italy-of the only family which can compete with her House in age-barely holds his own by the tolerance of a popular dictator. Turkey dismissed its Sultan, and in place of the "Shadow of God on Earth" has come a General in a bowler hat, who turned his back to Europe and founded his own brand new capital in Asia Minor. Serbia, by an entirely local method, acquired a new dynasty. All Wilhelmina's other contemporaries on the thrones of the world forty years ago have since died; in London reigns the fourth successor to Queen Vic toria, still on the throne at the beginning of Wilhelmina's own reign. Even greater changes than the "Almanach de Gotha", the maps show. Norway separated from Sweden in mutual under- 280 THE DALHOUSIE REVIEW standing, as grown-up people of culture do. Great Britain gave Eire her freedom, and the other Dominions, among which a united South Africa had then not yet appeared. Poland was reborn, Finland became independent, and countries of which no one had ever suspected the existence-Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania--were carved out of the Russian cadaver. A brand new Czechoslovakia, an aggrandized Yugoslavia, a terribly mutilated Hungary and an unnaturally swollen Rumania, be came heirs to the Hapsburgs. Interminable Balkan quarrels made the puppet state of Albania possible. Forty years ago there were on nineteen European states eigh teen crowned heads (Germany sharing no fewer than four); to day the face of Europe has been revolutionised into twenty-seven independent countries, with in all only twelve monarchies left. "Safe in the Midst of the Waves" has been the motto of Wilhelmina's House. Our momentous times underline its aptness .... * * * * The House of Orange-Nassau may claim to be the oldest family among reigning dynasties, since its origin can be traced as far back as the year 800. N assaus settled in Holland in 1400, and a century later the Principality of Orange came into the family, through a French marriage. The first Prince of Orange Nassau, young William, continued at the explicit wish of the Emperor Charles V, whose favourite he was, to reside in the Netherlands. As William the Silent, he became the first ruler of an in dependent Holland, Father of the Fatherland. From him Wil helmina descends, eleventh in a succession of seven Stadholders (as the hereditary Presidents of the Republic of the United Provinces were called in those days) and of three Kings. Four centuries of service by her family to her country are represented in her. Often the last hope of the dynasty was a small child. William Ill, the later King of England, was yet unborn when his father died, and on his birth solemnly proclaimed Holland's "Child of State". William V had to flee the country in the time of the French Revolution, but his son returned, carried through the surf by enthusiastic Scheveningen fishermen who could not await the landing of his boat. One King abdicated. The last King saw his wife, his three stalwart sons and his only brother die within a short span of years; remarrying, he became father again at the age of sixty-three, when tiny Wilhelmina was the last slender hope of an age-old dynasty, all but annihilat ed by the shocks of doom. WILHELMINA OF HOLLAND 281 For providential survival her House certainly holds a unique record. And it holds this equally in a high average of capacity. It is certainly unparallelled for such a long ruling family never to have produced a single mediocrity. They were all men of out standing ability, either as statesmen or as warriors, often as both. And though the shortsightedness of King William I's intolerant religious policy lost him Belgium-united to Holland by the Congress of Vienna-even his severest critics do not deny him great talents as a financier and an organiser, for he rebuilt Holland's prosperity after the ravages of French Revolu tion and Napoleonic wars. Greatest of them all was, undoubtedly, William the Silent. His political career started at that Council of State in Brussels, on New Year's Eve 1564, when he spoke out his mind against his overlord, the King of Spain: "I can not admit that Kings rule over the conscience of their subjects, and that they can deny them freedom of religion." Such a rank heresy caused Viglius, the Chairman, a heart failure. But even though his successors in centuries long persecution of Papists and Dissenters-did not live up to his example, in the long run his family swung back to its inherent wisdom. To-day, four centuries after his birth, he is far from a nebulous figure of the dim past; a shining example yet. He and King-Stadholder William Ill are the favourite heroes of Queen Wilhelmina: one the great Hollander, the other the great European. It was a momentous day when the third William landed at Torbay, and during his first night on English soil slept in a Devon fisherman's hut, above which his princely standard proudly flew. In his harness and white plumed cap he rode on his charger from Newton Abbot to Exeter, from Exeter to Salisbury, from there to Windsor and finally to London, ousting James II with the people's consent. Hallam summed up the epos of his reign in his Constitutional History of England: "It must ever be an honour to the English Crown that it has been worn by so great a man." 0 0 0 0 Wilhelmina succeeded to the throne under circumstances which were not altogether auspicious. Her father had reigned for forty-one years. He had undoubtedly many gifts, but his character had been far from exemplary. Rather unsteady and despotic (his mother was the daughter of a Czar of Russia), he had clashes with the rigid propriety of Dutch court circles, and even more so with the enlightened liberalism of cool and stolid Dutch politicians, which were inevitable. As his rages only made things worse, he withdrew in later years almost completely 282 THE DALHOUSIE REVIEW from personal contacts, loaded on either side with misunder standing and distrust. Ministers saw him only when they had to kiss hand on appointment-and even then he more than once received them sitting with his baby daughter on the floor of a study littered with toys! There is something pathetic in this picture, for he was a man of talents, and a personality. When he died, the love and respect of the nation for the Crown had to be wooed anew. The Dowager Queen shoved for ward with great tact her little daughter, "Orphan of the State," and thus began to rally around the ten years old Queen an affection which, as her character began to develop, turned into devoted love. How she set about this great task, is shown by the historic anecdote which won the nation by storm. Ten years old, having just succeeded her father, Wilhelmina appeared for the first time on the balcony of the Royal Palace at Amsterdam, before the cheering multitude of her subjects. And, looking down on them, she asked her mother in a wondering voice: "Mamma, do all these people belong to me?" There is a world of wisdom in Emma's correction: "No, my child, it is you who belong to all these people." That became the guiding principle of her education to queenship. Though The Hague is the Royal Residence and the Seat of the Government, Wilhelmina spent her youth at the Palace Het Loo. It is a low and wide two-storeyed country seat, a short distance from the townlet of Apeldoorn, in the heart of the Veluwe, Gelderland's vast stretch of woods and moorland, perhaps the only part of the country not under in tensive cultivation. Throughout the centuries it had been the hunting-box of the Princes of Orange, since William and Mary bought it from the Bentincks. Le Notre, the magician of Versailles, had laid out the gardens, and every succeeding Stad holder or King had enlarged and improved the estate, so that gradually Het Loo became the favourite residence, a Dutch Windsor and Sandringham and Balmoral rolled into one; essen tially peaceful, only Napoleon had found it too quiet.

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