1640 - William and Mary Stewart
In 1640, on the death of Count Henry of Nassau, stadtholder of Friesland and Oroningen, the latter province chose Frederick Henry as its stadtholder, and he thus became chief of six out of the seven United Provinces, in the next year he was able to arrange the marriage of his son William with Mary, eldest daughter of Charles I of England, a match devised by the queen-mother of France, while a refugee in Holland, in order to increase the ill-will between Richelieu and the stadtholder.
Thus began the dynastic relation between the Stewarts and the house of Orange, which led to such great results before the end of the century. The States General were not too well pleased with this alliance, and looked shyly at Henrietta Maria when she came over to Holland to get help for Charles I in 1612. They were becoming alarmed at the great power and growing ambition of France under Richelieu, while they sympathized to a great extent with the English Puritans.
All parties, except the French, being now utterly weary of the war, negotiations fur peace, long talked of, long prepared for, began in earnest at Minister and Osnabruck. Before their close Frederick Henry died in 1617, and was, succeeded in his dignities and offices by his young son William II, and almost immediately afterwards (January 1648), in spite of the opposition of France and the young II prince of Orange, the deputies of the Provinces (with exception of Zealand and Utrecht) signed a separate treaty of peace with Spain, which was confirmed and sworn to in May at Minister.
It was a complete surrender of everything for which Spain so long had fought. The United Provinces were recognized as free and independent, and Spain dropped all her claims; the uti possidetis basis was adopted in the matter of all conquests; the two contracting parries agreed to respect and keep clear of each other's trading-grounds; each should pay, in the ports of the other, only such tolls as natives of the other paid; the Scheldt was entirely closed by the States, so that Amsterdam might strangle Antwerp—the chief harbor of the free Provinces thus ruining the chief harbor of those still subject to Spain. And so ended the so-called Thirty Years' War.
No sooner was the peace concluded than bitter disputes arose between Holland, on the one hand, and the prince of Orange, supported by the army and navy and the smaller provinces, on the other. He was tempted into foolish acts: he arrested six of the deputies of Holland; he even tried to surprise and occupy Amsterdam; he favored the English royalists, now plentiful in the Provinces, while Amsterdam and Holland inclined towards the Commonwealth. Things went so far that William II had almost destroyed the liberties of the Provinces, and was intent on two schemes — the resumption of war against Spain, with a partition with France of the Spanish Netherlands, and interference on behalf of Charles II in England — when his opportune death by small-pox occurred. A few days afterwards his widow, Mary of England, gave birth to a son, who was destined to be a most distinguished man - William III of Holland and England.
