by Susan Flantzer  © Unofficial Royalty 2016

Willem V, Prince of Orange, the last Stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, was born on March 8, 1748, in The Hague. His father was Willem IV, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of Friesland, Stadtholder of Groningen, and Stadtholder of Guelders. In April 1747, the French army threatened the Netherlands, which was weakened by internal division. The Dutch decided their country needed a single strong executive and turned to the House of Orange. On May 4, 1747, the States-General of the Netherlands named William IV, Prince of Orange, General Stadtholder of all seven of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and made the position hereditary for the first time.

Willem V’s mother was Anne, Princess Royal, the eldest daughter of King George II of Great Britain. Therefore, Willem V was the grandson of the British monarch. Among his first cousins were King George III of the United Kingdom; Caroline Matilda of Wales, Queen of Denmark; King Christian VII of Denmark, and Sophia Magdalena of Denmark, Queen of Sweden.

Willem had two older sisters, but only one survived childhood:

• Carolina of Orange-Nassau (1743 – 1787), married Karl Christian of Nassau-Weilburg, had issue
• Anna (born and died 1746)

Willem IV died at age 40 from a stroke on October 22, 1751, at Huis ten Bosch in The Hague and was succeeded by Willem (V) who was only three years old. Willem V would not reach his majority for fifteen years, and until then, he had several regents.

• Anne, Dowager Princess of Orange, his mother, from 1751 until her death in 1759
• Marie Louise, Dowager Princess of Orange, his paternal grandmother, from 1759 until her death in 1765
• Duke Ludwig Ernst of Brunswick-Lüneburg, from 1759 – 1766, was a privy counselor until 1784
• Princess Carolina, his sister, from 1765 until William’s majority in 1766

In 1752, Willem’s grandfather King George II of Great Britain created his four-year-old grandson a Knight of the Order of the Garter. From the death of Willem’s mother Anne in 1759 until Willem’s majority in 1766, Duke Ludwig Ernst of Brunswick-Lüneburg was William’s guardian and conducted the Dutch Republic’s state affairs in his name. Ludwig Ernst was basically William’s second father. On his 18th birthday, March 8, 1766, Willem was declared of age and took over the duties as Stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands.

On October 4, 1767, in Berlin, Prussia, Willem married 16-year-old Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia, daughter of Prince Augustus William of Prussia and Luise of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Wilhelmina was the favorite niece of King Friedrich II of Prussia (Frederick the Great) and was the sister of his successor King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia.

Willem and Wilhelmina had five children, but only three survived infancy:

• Unnamed son (born and died 1769), lived only one day
• Louise of Orange-Nassau (1770 – 1819), married Karl, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick, no issue
• Unnamed son (born and died August 6, 1771)
• Willem I, King of the Netherlands (1772 – 1843), married (1) Wilhelmine of Prussia, had issue (2) morganatic marriage after his abdication, Countess Henriëtte d’Oultremont de Wégimont, no issue
• Frederik of Orange-Nassau (1774 – 1799), unmarried, no issue

In 1783, after the signing of the Treaty of Paris which ended the American Revolutionary War, there was growing restlessness in the United Provinces. A group of revolutionaries called Patriots was challenging Willem V’s authority. In September of 1787, the Patriots were defeated by a Prussian army and many of the Patriots fled to France. In 1793, after the French Revolution, Willem V joined the First Coalition which fought against revolutionary France in 1793. The next year, the Dutch Republic was threatened by invading French armies. In 1795, the revolutionary Patriots, now supported by the French Army, returned and replaced the Dutch Republic with the Batavian Republic which remained in power until 1806.

Willem V and his family fled to England where they lived in exile until 1802 in the part of Kew Palace known as the Dutch House with the permission of Willem’s first cousin King George III. In 1802, the family went to the European mainland where they lived in the Principality of Orange-Nassau and the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Willem spent the rest of his life in exile. During his exile, Willem was viewed quite negatively in England and the Netherlands.

On April 9, 1806, Willem V died at the age of 58 in Brunswick, Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, now in Lower Saxony, Germany, and was buried there. That same year Napoleon created the Kingdom of Holland for his brother Louis and the Batavian Republic came to an end. Aware of the discontent of the Dutch under French rule, Willem V’s son, also named Willem met with Alexander I, Emperor of All Russia for assistance in 1813 to appeal for help in restoring him to the Netherlands. Alexander agreed to help, and following Napoleon’s defeat at Leipzig later that year, the Dutch provisional government agreed to accept Willem as the first King of the Netherlands following the departure of the French. He was also proclaimed Grand Duke of Luxembourg and Duke of Nassau, uniting the Low Countries. The Netherlands was formally proclaimed a kingdom at the Congress of Vienna.

Willem V’s wife Wilhelmina survived long enough to see her son become King Willem I of the Netherlands, and she returned to live in the Netherlands in 1814. Wilhelmina died in 1829 at the age of 68 at Het Loo in Apeldoorn where she was buried. In 1831, she was reinterred at the new crypt of the House of Orange at the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft, The Netherlands.

On April 29, 1958, after more than 150 years of lying in peace in Brunswick, Willem V, Prince of Orange was reinterred at the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft, the traditional burial site of the Dutch House of Orange. Willem was vilified during his lifetime and he is still considered to be a failure as a ruler. Queen Wilhelmina refused to attend the reburial of Willem V. When asked why, she said that she did not want to walk behind the coffin of a fool.

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Works Cited
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“Wilhelmina of Prussia, Princess of orange.” Wikipedia. N.p.: Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Feb. 2016. Web. 18 Sept. 2016.
“Wilhelmina van Pruisen (1751-1820).” Wikipedia. N.p.: Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Jan. 2016. Web. 18 Sept. 2016.
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