6 - The first stadholderless period: 2 return

Summary

The event of 1660 that shaped Dutch history no less than that of England was the call to Charles II to come home from his travels. The Orangist party passed in an instant from apparent moribundity to vigorous vitality. The governing States party, in accordance with its principle of always staying on good terms if possible with whatever government happened to hold power in London, in the same brief moment went over from a disdainful wariness toward the Stuarts to an effusive welcome.

On his way home, King Charles was entertained in The Hague in the most ostentatious fashion, with gala banquets, receptions and entertainments. His sister, Princess Mary, was in constant attendance in this triumph of her aspirations after a bitter decade of defeat and (for a royal person) poverty. Her son, William III, watched too, although his future rather than his person was at the center of discussion. We know little about how he felt or what he thought then, but he was old enough to realize that much was at stake in these talks between his mother, his uncle and the councilor pensionary who had been the bane of the House of Orange ever since he could remember. Amalia van Solms was almost a stranger at the festivities, present but neglected by the jubilant and triumphant Stuart partisans.

Charles wanted, of course, the abolition of the Act of Seclusion, and it was repealed without fuss; but he also sought the parallel restoration of his nephew, or at least a firm agreement to give him the stadholdership and captaincy-general when he came of age.