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The Hague, a Royal City
Jan ten Compe, The Hofvijver, as Seen from Lange Vijverberg. c. 1750. Canvas, 73.5 × 94.5 cm. Haags Historisch Museum.
‘The beautiful houses, the broad squares, the magnificent trees and the air which is fresher than in other Dutch towns I have seen, here unite all the advantages of this land rich in art with those provided by Nature.’
Thérèse Huber, Bemerkungen über Holland (1811)
A visitor to The Hague at the beginning of the nineteenth century would have found that the town offered many attractions. The small city centre round the Hofvijver was splendid. First of all there was, of course, the lake itself, with its little island for swans, against the backdrop of the stately Parliament buildings with to the left of them the Mauritshuis, built by the architect Jacob van Campen in the seventeenth century. Along the longer, northern bank of the Vijver a series of classical and baroque facades, some
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I. Ouwater, The Buitenhof. 1728. Canvas. Haags Historisch Museum.
Jan Steen, Fishmarket in The Hague. 17th century. Canvas. Haags Historisch Museum.
by the French architect Daniel Marot, embellished the Vijverberg. To the west the medieval state prison of the Gevangenpoort could be seen, while behind it soared the towers of the Grote Kerk. The view of the Hofvijver's eastern bank was framed by the sturdy St Sebastian's Doelen, built in the same classical style as the Mauritshuis. A walk near the Hofvijver through
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the trees in the Voorhout would have been a most agreeable experience, and it was equally pleasant to stroll across the Plein or the courtyard. You walked through the Binnenhof, alongside the Ridderzaal (the Hall of the Knights, the old reception hall of the Counts of Holland), through the Mauritspoort and across the Buitenhof. You would pass by the Vijverhof, the house in which Prince William v kept his ‘Cabinet of Natural Curiosities’. The house would in fact have looked lifeless, for the French had stolen the entire collections of art and curiosities and the Prince and his family had fled to England. The traveller could then have visited the lively fishmarket or the little shops near the Town Hall on Groenmarkt. He could have remained within the old ring of canals laid out by Prince Maurice at the beginning of the seventeenth century or crossed over Nieuwe Uitleg and walked as far as Princessegracht.
For those who wanted to travel further afield, near Spui you could catch the mail coach or the barge to Delft and Rotterdam. You could also visit the romantic fishing village of Scheveningen. The road from The Hague to Scheveningen was considered one of the most attractive in the whole world. The road ran diagonally for two kilometres through the dunes and consisted of a broad carriage way flanked by two narrower paths for those on foot. ‘The road is bordered by particularly fine trees in splendid condition and with lots of foliage,’ was the enthusiastic description of Carlo Pilati di Tassulo in his Voyage de la Hollande (1790). Denis Diderot, another visitor to The Hague, sighed that ‘nothing is so charming as a fine avenue which runs down to the sea’ (Voyage en Hollande, 1819).
The fact that The Hague was such an attractive city around 1800 is hardly surprising. The intimate scale of the neatly laid out city centre, the fine vistas (across the Malieveld for example) and the peace and quiet were such a relief after the hustle and bustle of towns like Amsterdam and Rotterdam, although those doing the ‘Grand Tour’ did of course visit other towns as
Dutch School, The Binnenhof with the Ridderzaal. c.1650. Canvas. Haags Historisch Museum.
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well. Yet it must be said that in 1800 The Hague had a rather run-down air to it, for a feature of the French occupation (1795-1813) was the neglect of its monuments. The Ridderzaal, for example, was on the point of collapse and was overgrown with weeds. The rest of the Binnenhof, too, was in poor shape and indeed did not get a thorough renovation until the time of Pierre Cuypers, the government architect at the end of the nineteenth century. Then it was done so vigorously that much of the old character of the area was swept away. And the nineteenth century brought more radical changes to the topography of the town. For extensive new areas of urban development to the north of the town (Archipel, Statenkwartier and Benoordenhout), to the west (Zeeheldenbuurt) and to the South (Schilderswijk and Transvaalbuurt) provided housing for a population which, encouraged by industrialisation, was increasing rapidly.
Around 1890 The Hague had something like 150,000 inhabitants. It was a city with a growing industrial base and with a large and politically active working class population. However it was also a city with many immigrants, for at the end of the nineteenth century and in the early years of the twentieth many people from the colonies and particularly from Indonesia came to live there. In his book Eline Vere (1889) the author Louis Couperus, who was born in The Hague in 1863 into a family of senior government officials from the Dutch East Indies, portrayed the middle-class milieu of the old Indies hands and the easygoing affluent lifestyle of the city's bourgeoisie.
In the twentieth century the boundaries of the city were further enlarged by projects undertaken by the town planner and architect H.P. Berlage. Finally it became a ‘metropolis’ - with about 442,000 inhabitants it was the third city of the Netherlands. Yet it remained as always ‘the green town in the lea of the dunes’.
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The seat of the rulers of Holland
The fact that The Hague has the image of a ‘green town’ and a ‘special town’ is all due to the fact that for 750 years it has been the town where first the Counts of Holland and later the Stadholders and the Kings of the House of Orange Nassau have lived.
The history of ‘Die Haghe’, as it was known in the Middle Ages, began about 1230. It was about then that Floris iv, Count of Holland, began to build a hunting lodge on a sandy hillock beside a small lake in the dunes (which was later to become the Hofvijver). The sandy site made the construction of the lodge easy; it was a good place to grow crops and there were plenty of opportunities for hunting. The Haagse Bos was the Count's hunting terrain, which in the Middle Ages stretched from 's Gravenzande as far as the Haarlem and Alkmaar Woods. In 1248, when Count William ii (1234-1256) was elected Holy Roman Emperor, the hunting lodge became the permanent residence of the Count. Around the court there settled all kinds of artisans and members of the Count's household. And so the village of ‘Die Haghe’ came into being.
A succession of princely houses ruled over Holland. After the Counts of Holland came the House of Hainault and Bavaria. Then Holland passed into the possession of the Burgundian Duke, Philip the Good. In order to secure
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G. Berckheyde, The Gevangenpoort. 17th century. Canvas. Haags Historisch Museum.
the loyalty of his leading nobles he created in 1430 the Order of the Golden Fleece, which carried with it important privileges. The Order met in The Hague in 1455. Meetings were held over a period of several days in the Ridderzaal and church services were held in the Grote Kerk. Philip chose from among the assembled nobles the stadholders (literally ‘lieutenants’) who were to represent him in the different provinces of the Netherlands. From time to time he summoned the three estates (nobility, clergy and citizenry) to the ‘States General’ in order to set the level of taxation. In doing this he laid the foundations for the present-day political system. The States General of the Burgundian period was the forerunner of the present Parliament which still bears the same name.
The reign of the Habsburg Emperor Charles v (1515-1555) was of great importance for the history of Holland, and consequently for The Hague as well. His Burgundian inheritance, including the Netherlands, had come from his father Philip the Fair. Prince William of Orange-Nassau was one of the richest and most influential noblemen at Charles' court and was to play a leading part in the political and religious struggles of the sixteenth century. William held a number of important military posts and was a member of the Council of State, which advised the Governor of the Netherlands. William was also a powerful and rich ‘grand seigneur’ with extensive estates in Germany, in the Netherlands and in Franche-Comté (Orange). He was to become the leader of the Revolt, the Northern Netherlands' war of independence against Philip ii, who succeeded his father the Emperor Charles v as King of Spain.
The struggle was precipitated by a protest against the high taxes which Philip had imposed, both on the Provinces themselves and on the nobility. Another important factor was the question of religious freedom for the Protestants in these provinces. Philip ii, a fanatical Catholic, did not handle heretics with kid gloves. Many ended up in the Gevangenpoort in The
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Dutch School, The Hofvijver. 17th century. Canvas. Haags Historisch Museum.
Hague where they were tortured and hanged. Their corpses were left hanging by the stone scaffold near the Hofvijver, or on the gibbets outside the town, as a deterrent to others.
The seven Northern Provinces of the Netherlands supported William of Orange, ‘the Silent’, in the Revolt. He used his own money to employ armies of mercenaries, which he recruited to fight in the independence struggle. But in 1584, at the height of the war, William the Silent was shot dead in his residence Het Prinsenhof, a former monastery in Delft. He had only recently gone to live in Delft because his castle in Breda was right in the firing line.
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Sixteenth-century capital
His widow Louise de Coligny would not stay in Delft any longer after her husband's murder and she and her baby, Prince Frederick Henry, went to The Hague at the invitation of the States General. She lived in the Huis van Brandwijk, which later became the Noordeinde Palace and which was built specially for her. While Prince Philip William, the oldest son of William of Orange, remained a hostage in Spain, Maurice, William's second son from his marriage to Anne of Saxony took up residence in the Binnenhof on his appointment as Stadholder of Holland and Zeeland and Captain-General and Admiral of the Provinces. Later he became Stadholder of the Republic as a whole. The arrival of the Stadholder's court in The Hague was the beginning of a glorious period for the city.
Maurice built the Mauritstoren in the Binnenhof. It was there that he had his personal apartments and it was from The Hague that he planned his military campaigns against the Spanish army - for the struggle was to continue until 1609. The sovereign independence of the Republic was then recognised by Spain and for a period of 12 years both sides kept what territory they held when the truce began. While Louise de Coligny with her son and stepdaughters (children from William of Orange's previous marriages) led
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a tranquil existence, the court of Maurice, who remained unmarried, resembled an army camp, characterised by gambling, drunkenness and duelling. After the death of his brother Philip William in 1618 Maurice became Prince of Orange. Three years later the 12-Year Truce ended and the armies of the Republic and Spain faced each other once more. Four years after that, just when the prospects for the States' army were not looking too good, Maurice died. His half-brother Frederick Henry became the energetic new head of the army and navy, and in the same year succeeded in regaining from the Spaniards the Nassau town of Breda - a victory which first led to his being called the ‘conqueror of cities’.
The States General appointed Prince Frederick Henry Commander-in-Chief of the Navy and the Army and Stadholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland and Overijssel. The Provinces of Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe chose his nephew, Count Ernest Casimir, as the successor to Prince Maurice.
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The grandeur of Frederick Henry
When Prince Maurice felt death approaching he put pressure on his 40 year old half-brother to marry so that the dynasty would survive. Frederick Henry had had his eye for some time on his second cousin, Countess Amalia van Solms, the beautiful lady in waiting to Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of the King of England. Elizabeth and her Protestant husband, Frederick of the Palatinate, their children and all their court (some 200 people in all) had fled to The Hague after being chased out of Prague by the Habsburg king. They had ruled there for only one winter. Frederick, who as a result was called the ‘Winter King’ had nowhere else to go except to the widow of his grandfather
M. van Mierevelt, Frederick Henry. 17th century. Panel. Haags Historisch Museum.
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Gerard van Honthorst (?), Prince William II and Mary Stuart. 17th century. Panel. Haags Historisch Museum.
William of Orange, Louise de Coligny. The court of the Winter King lived at their palace on Kneuterdijk in The Hague until 1661 (long after the death of Frederick himself in 1632). Because there was a shortage of accommodation at the palace, part of the household had to lodge in inns and private houses in The Hague. The States General must have been thoroughly frustrated at seeing the extravagance of this court, for whose stay in The Hague the Republic itself was partly paying.
Frederick Henry married Amalia van Solms in 1625 and went to live in the Binnenhof. He had a couple of splendid country seats built: Honselaarsdijk at Naaldwijk and Huis ter Nieuburch at Rijswijk, both built in the same style as the Luxembourg Palace in Paris. The symmetrical gardens too were laid out in the French style. Later he built Huis ten Bosch as the summer residence of Amalia van Solms. Today it is the residence of Queen Beatrix.
In a tight little quarter around the Binnenhof lived and worked a large number of diplomats, some foreign and some from Holland itself. Among these was the Prince's secretary, the writer Constantine Huygens. Senior military figures too came to live in the royal capital from time to time. Some Dutch towns had their own ‘lodgings’ for their delegations to the States General. Amsterdam and Rotterdam, for example, each had a prestigious Residence on the Plein. The small closely packed area round the Hofvijver was where everything to do with the court took place. Courtiers strolled across the Plein and along the Voorhout and the Vijverberg. In Hofstraat there were a number of fashionable shops where every midday le beau monde displayed themselves in the latest fashions. Those ambassadors who
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lived in the vicinity of the court with their large establishments would regularly parade in a cours de carosses along the Voorhout.
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The Golden Age
During Frederick Henry's time the Republic enjoyed a Golden Age. The pillars on which the prosperity and power of the Republic of the United Netherlands rested were its economic growth, its trading strength, the industrial capacity of the towns and financial power. By winning independence from Spain the Princes of Orange had gained great international prestige. In power and standing they were on a par with the Royal Courts of Europe. Frederick Henry set out to obtain strategically important marriages for his children. So he married William, the young Crown Prince, to Mary Stuart, 9-year-old daughter of the King of England. They were married in Whitehall in 1641. The following year Mary came to the Republic, accompanied by her mother and a large retinue, and the English royal household spent a year in the Noordeinde Palace in The Hague, paid for by the States General.
Meanwhile Frederick Henry had begun peace negotiations with Spain. In 1648, a year after the Stadholder's death, the Peace of Münster was signed. Spain recognised the sovereignty of the Republic, the Southern Netherlands were finally separated from the Northern and the Eighty Years' War was brought to an end.
William ii did not long survive his father. He died of smallpox in 1650, aged 24. Eight days later his widow, Mary Stuart gave birth to her first child - who was later to become the King and Stadholder William iii. The period while the child was a minor was declared by the States General to be ‘the first stadholderless period’. To enable the business of government to continue, the so called Great Gathering (a sort of enlarged States General) met for seven months in the Ridderzaal in The Hague.
During this period problems arose with England. England had passed the Navigation Act, which required goods from foreign ports to be brought to England either in English ships or in those of the country of origin. This was a disaster for the Republic, for Dutch trade depended to a large extent on entrepot trade. Three brief naval wars with England ensued. During this time Johan de Witt, Grand Pensionary of Holland, was the most influential man in the Republic.
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The year of disaster
Meanwhile the young William, the King and Stadholder to be, was growing up at the court in The Hague and being given a very English education by his mother, Mary Stuart. In 1672 the Republic was suddenly attacked simultaneously by four powers - France, England, Munster and Cologne and a cry went up from the people for a stadholder from the House of Orange. Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis were murdered in a most gruesome fashion by Orange supporters near the Gevangenpoort in The Hague, only a stone's throw from Johan de Witt's own house on Kneuterdijk. Prince
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William iii became Stadholder and Captain General of the States' army. He managed to avert the military threat and later succeeded his uncle James ii as King of England in 1688, ruling jointly with his wife Mary, James' daughter. He laid the foundations for the Glorious Revolution as a result of which the English Parliament acquired extensive powers. He was also a defender of Protestantism on the international scene. Where the Republic was concerned William was active mainly in foreign affairs. He died childless in 1702. Johan Willem Friso van Nassau-Dietz, the Stadholder of Friesland, was his direct heir, but while travelling to The Hague for negotiations about his inheritance he was accidentally drowned in the Hollands Diep. Seven weeks after his death his son Willem Carel Hendrik Friso was born.
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Stadholder William IV
In May 1747 the 35-year-old Stadholder William iv and his wife, Anna of Hanover, drove in a carriage through The Hague to the acclamation of a great crowd. William had become Stadholder of all seven Provinces of the Republic, as well as Captain General and Admiral of the Union. Hanging from a window of the residence in the Lange Vijverberg in The Hague of the Frisian representative to the States General, Willem van Haren, was a placard with the following text on it: ‘De Fiere Leeuw ontwaakt en brult, De Franschman is met schrik vervult, En sal sig bevend rugwaarts ijlen, Nu Friso pronkt met seven pijlen (= zeven gewesten)’ (‘The proud Lion wakes and roars. The French shrink with fear and will retreat trembling, now Friso displays his seven arrows (= Provinces)’). Clearly much was expected of the new Stadholder. But he was not up to it. He offered little resistance when France invaded the Southern Netherlands. In 1748 the Peace of Aachen, which owed much to the intervention of Great Britain, brought an end to the war and the Republic had its territory restored to it. A large fireworks pavilion was built on the Hofvijver in celebration of this.
William was no more successful with his internal politics. The citizens wanted more say in the government. They hoped that William would clip the wings of the power-hungry regents and end the financial abuses in the Republic. But the Prince brushed these aspirations aside and the population soon became very disillusioned with him. However, William iv did not long survive the turbulent year of 1748, for he died only three years later.
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William V and the Patriots
William v succeeded his father although he was only three years old. His mother, Anna, the daughter of the British King George ii, became Regent. However, actual power rested with the Duke of Brunswick, who became William's guardian after Anna's death in 1759. Meanwhile turmoil again began to break out among the citizens, who wanted more influence on the way the government was run. The ideas of Rousseau which were being introduced from France, particularly those which touched on the ‘sovereignty of the people’, struck a chord with the citizenry. The imposition of high levels of taxation and widespread poverty were particular irritants to them. A
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Jan ten Compe, The Hofvijver Pavillion, Built on the Occasion of the Peace of Aachen. 1749. Canvas. Haags Historisch Museum.
huge alliance was formed against the Prince, which included those Regents who disagreed with government policy and other dissenters (such as Roman Catholics and Mennonites). They called themselves ‘Patriots’. Opposed to them was the Prince's party consisting of conservative regents, the nobility, the army, orthodox clerics and the bulk of the common people. ‘Down with the Prince; arm the citizenry’ was the rallying cry of the Patriots. The tension between the Patriots and supporters of the Prince led to riots in The Hague. There was one in 1786, for example, when Patriot delegates to the States of Holland tried to leave the Binnenhof through the gate which was kept for the exclusive use of the Stadholder. Zealous Orange supporters barred their way.
It took the support of the Prussian Army to suppress the insurrection. The old Regent clique was triumphantly restored and the Patriots were forced to flee.
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French period
Things changed in 1795, however, when the French army crossed the frozen rivers and entered the Republic with the Patriots at their coat tails. Amid cries of ‘freedom, equality and fraternity’, the French troops were joyfully acclaimed as they entered The Hague after William v and his family had fled helter-skelter to England. The Hague became a ‘residence’ again when Louis Napoleon, brother of the Emperor of France, was created King of Holland (1806-1810) and came to live in the Binnenhof. But a year or so later he moved his court to Utrecht and then on to Amsterdam.
Deprived of Court and Government, The Hague reverted to being just an ordinary provincial town. On 24-25 October 1811 the Emperor Napoleon and his Empress, Marie Louise, paid a visit to what was now an impoverished city. They were received with great tokens of homage and were pre- | |
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sented with the keys to the city on a red velvet cushion. But the great poverty in the city meant that the inhabitants were not all that enthusiastic about the visit. In 1813 the French Empire collapsed; in November the French armies slipped away. In the same month the hereditary Prince who was later to become King William i landed from a sloop on the beach at Scheveningen. The Prince who had returned from England drove through The Hague in an open carriage. The city was illuminated in the evening for a festival celebrating the restoration of the unique centuries-old links between The Hague and the House of Orange. Ever since 1517 members of the princely House of Nassau, or later Orange Nassau had lived, either temporarily or permanently, in The Hague. After a brief interregnum The Hague once again became both a residence for the House of Orange and the seat of government - and has remained so until today. The centuries-old sense of identification which the people feel with the House of Orange and the royal character of The Hague are still thoroughly visible, particularly during ceremonial events such as Queen's Day (30 April) and Prince's Day (the third Tuesday in September) when the government presents the new budget.
marie christine van der sman
Translated by Michael Shaw.
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Further reading
| ditzhuyzen, r.e. van, Het Huis van Oranje. Prinsen, Stadhouders, Koningen en Koninginnen. Houten, 1997. |
| huizinga, j.j. (ed.), Van Leeuwarden naar Den Haag. Rond de verplaatsing van het stadhouderlijk hof in 1747. Franeker, 1997. |
| israel, j.i., The Dutch Republic. Its Rise, Greatness and Fall 1477-1806. Oxford, 1995. |
A catalogue was published in connection with the exhibition of the same name in the Haags Historisch Museum: Vorstelijk Vertoon. Aan het hof van Frederik Hendrik en Amalia (Zwolle, 1997). Also a version in English: Princely Display. The Court of Frederick Henry of Orange and Amalia van Solms in The Hague. Simultaneously there was an exhibition in the Mauritshuis entitled Princely Patrons. The Collection of Frederick Henry of Orange and Amalia van Solms in The Hague. This too has Dutch and English versions of the catalogue. |
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