WILLIAM III (1650–1702), king of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was born on 4 Nov. 1650 at the Hague, in the stadholder's apartments in the old palace of the counts of Holland. William Henry, as he was named in a baptismal service celebrated with inopportune pomp, was the posthumous and only child of William II, Prince of Orange, and his consort Mary [q. v.], the eldest daughter of King Charles I and princess royal of England. At the time of his birth the prospects of the house of Orange seemed hopelessly darkened by a shadow which was to dominate the whole of his youth. Eight days before his birth his father had suddenly died, in the midst of schemes for redeeming the failure of his recent coup d'état, designed to raise the authority of the stadholderate at the cost of the provincial liberties and peace. Although the States-General were the sponsors of the young prince, it was inevitable that the opportunity of his father's death should be seized by the wealthy and powerful province of Holland, under the guidance from 1652 onwards of the far-sighted and resolute grand pensionary, John de Witt. Without a chief, the friends of the house of Orange could rest their hopes merely on its traditional hold over the masses, on their Calvinistic antipathies against the existing régime.
William inherited the baleful lustre, without the substantial power, which his ancestors had given to the name of Orange. He grew up among enemies, and became artful, suspicious and self-controlled, concealing his feeling behind the mask of an immobile, almost repulsive, coldness. Like Charles XII. of Sweden and the younger Pitt, he was a wonderful example of premature mental development.
In 1672 Louis XIV. suddenly invaded Dutch territory. The startling successes of the French produced a revolution among the Dutch people, who naturally turned for help to the scion of the house of Orange. On the 8th of July 1672 the states general revived the stadtholderate, and declared William stadtholder, captain-general and admiral for life. This revolution was followed by a riot, in which John de Witt and his brother Cornelius were murdered by the mob at the Hague. Evidence may be sought in vain to connect William with the outrage, but since he lavishly rewarded its leaders and promoters this circumstance is not very much to his credit. The cold cynicism with which he acted towards de Witt is only matched by the heroic obstinacy with which he confronted Louis. Resolved as he said “to die in the last ditch,” he rejected all thought of surrender and appealed to the last resource of Dutch patriotism by opening the sluices and laying vast tracts under water. The French army could not advance, while the French and English fleets were defeated by the Dutch admiral, De Ruyter. William summoned Brandenburg to his aid (1672) and made treaties with Austria and Spain (1673). In August 1674 he fought his first great battle at Seneffe, where, though the struggle was not unequal, the honours lay with Condé. The French evacuated Dutch territory early in 1674, but continued to hold places on the Rhine and in Flanders. In April 1677 William was badly beaten at St Omer, but balanced his military defeat by France by a diplomatic victory over England. In November 1677 he married Mary, eldest daughter of James, duke of York, afterwards King James II., and undertook negotiations with England in the following year which forced Louis to make terms and sign the treaty of Nijmwegen in August 1678, which gave Franche Comté and other places in Spanish Flanders to France. For some reason never yet made clear, but perhaps in order to produce a modification of terms which threatened the balance of power, William attacked the French army at Mons four days after the signature of peace. Luxembourg defeated him after a sanguinary and resultless struggle, and William gained nothing by his inexplicable action.
After the war Louis continued a course of aggression, absorbing frontier-towns in imperial or Spanish territory. William started a new coalition against him in October 1681 by making a treaty with Sweden, and subsequently with the empire, Spain and several German princes. After absorbing Strassburg (1681), Louis invaded Spanish Flanders and took Luxemburg (1684). Even then the new league would not fight and allowed Louis to retain his conquests by the truce of Regensburg (1685), but none the less these humiliations gave rise to a more closely knit and aggressive coalition, which was organized in 1686 and known as the League of Augsburg.
From 1677 onwards William had carefully watched the politics of England. On the accession of James II. in 1685 he forced the duke of Monmouth to leave Holland, and sought to dissuade him from his ill-starred expedition to England. He apparently tried to conciliate his father-in-law in the hope of bringing him into the League of Augsburg. At the same time he astutely avoided offending the party in England which was opposed to James. By November 1687 he had decided that it was hopeless to expect that James would join the league against Louis, and he therefore turned for support to the English opposition. He caused his chief minister Fagel to write a letter expressing his disapprobation of the religious policy of James, which was published in November 1687.
This announcement of his views was received with wild enthusiasm by the English who saw in him the friend of their liberties and their Church. But he knew too much of the English to suppose they would tolerate an armed invasion, and he accordingly made it clear that he would not undertake active interference unless he received a definite invitation from leading Englishmen. On the 30th of June 1688 Admiral Herbert, disguised as a bluejacket, set out from England with a letter from seven influential Englishmen, asking William to “bring over an army and secure the infringed liberties” of England.
William set out from Holland with an army on the 2nd of November and landed at Torbay (Nov. 5th 1688). After a few days of hesitation, many influential noblemen declared for him in different parts of the country. James, who had at first joined his army at Salisbury, fell back to London and tried to negotiate. While his commissioners were amusing William, James sent off his wife and son to France, and tried to follow them. He was stopped in his flight by some fishermen at Faversham, and was forced to return to London. William insisted that he should be sent to Rochester, and there allowed him to escape to France. After this final flight of James, William, on the advice of an assembly of notables, summoned a convention parliament on the 22nd of January 1689. After a great deal of discussion, William was at length proclaimed joint-sovereign of England in conjunction with his wife, Mary (Feb. 13th 1689).
A constitutional settlement was effected by the end of 1689, almost all the disputed points between king and parliament being settled in favour of the latter. Though William by no means appreciated this confinement of his prerogative, he was too wise to oppose it. His own initiative is more clearly traceable in the Toleration Act, extending liberty of private worship to Dissenters. He also succeeded in passing an Act of Grace and Indemnity in 1690, by which he calmed the violence of party passion. But in general his domestic policy was not very fortunate, and he can hardly claim any personal credit for the reassessment of the land tax (1602), the creation of the national debt or the re coinage act (1693–1695). Further, he threatened the existence of the Bank of England, by lending his support to a counter-institution, the Land Bank, which ignominiously collapsed. Though he was not blind to the commercial interests of England, he was neglectful of the administration and affairs of her oversea colonies.
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