8 - The second stadholderless period: doldrums

Summary

In the absence of a direct male heir, the States in Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland and Overijssel refrained from naming a new stadholder. What Dutch historians call the “second stadholderless period” began.

The name is not strictly accurate, for John William Friso was already stadholder in Friesland and Groningen, although at fourteen years of age he was too young to exercise the office himself. Yet, without the stadholdership of Holland, he – or whoever acted for him until he came of age – had little in the way of real power, and the historical label for the period is essentially correct.

Those who decided against calling John William Friso down from Leeuwarden were not passionate believers in the “True Freedom” seizing an unanticipated opportunity, but men safely and securely in offices to which they had been named by William III or at his behest. The most important officeholder in the country was the councilor pensionary of Holland, and Heinsius was a gifted servant of those in power; but he was no leader, no master: he was cast in the mold of Cats, not of Oldenbarnevelt or De Witt. The “grief and consternation” into which he said the country was thrown by William's death were certainly his own, and he took the lead when the States of Holland came as a body to the States General on 25 March to urge that the other provinces “join hands” in mutual trust and fidelity to “heal this deep wound”, the deprivation of a “supreme head.”