2 - Maurice of Nassau: defender of the Republic

Summary

Prince William was slain during the morning of 10 July. At noon the States General met and decided that the struggle against Spain would go on without interruption. On 18 August they entrusted the government of the country “for the present time” (bij provisie) to a Council of State of eighteen members, consisting of deputies from the provinces, including Brabant, Flanders and Mechelen in the South, and with Maurice, the second son of the late Prince of Orange, as the only individual member. He was appointed at the urging of John van Oldenbarnevelt, the pensionary (political–legal secretary) of Rotterdam who was already a powerful voice in the States of Holland. The action recognized the special status of the House of Orange in both the Netherlands as a whole and in the provinces of Holland and Zeeland in particular.

The appointment of the sixteen-year-old Maurice was more an anticipation of his future role than a grant of immediate power. The States of Holland and Zeeland did not at once name him stadholder in his father's place, although it was assumed that the governorship would be given to him when he reached adequate age. There was virtually no thought of skipping over him, even though he was too young to assert a full claim to the position of his father. The feeling was strong that William's offices came to Maurice, as the older available son (the eldest son, Philip William in Spain, who became the new Prince of Orange, was beyond consideration, and Frederick Henry, born only that January, was a babe in arms), by a kind of dynastic right.