William III of Orange led the resistance of the Netherlands and Europe to Louis XIV of France and orchestrated the Glorious Revolution in England that established parliamentary rule.

The importance of the family grew throughout the 15th and 16th centuries as they became councilors, generals and stadholders of the Habsburgs (see armorial of the great nobles of the Burgundian Netherlands and list of knights of the Golden Fleece).

Discontent arose and William of Orange (with his vague Lutheran childhood) stood up for the Protestant (mainly Calvinist) inhabitants of the Netherlands.

Things went badly after the Eighty Years' War started in 1568, but luck turned to his advantage when Protestant rebels attacking from the North Sea captured Brielle, a coastal town in present-day South Holland in 1572.

His abilities as a commander and the lack of strong leadership in Spain after the death of Philip II (1598) gave Maurits excellent opportunities to conquer large parts of the present-day Dutch territory.

[3]: vol 3, pp243-253 [6] In 1585 Maurits was elected stadtholder of the provinces of Holland and Zealand as his father's successor and as a counterpose to Elizabeth's delegate, the Earl of Leicester.

He was succeeded by his half-brother Frederick Henry (Dutch: Frederik Hendrik), youngest son of William I. Maurits urged his successor on his deathbed to marry as soon as possible.

The Stuarts and the Bourbons came to power at the same time as the Oranges, the Vasas and Oldenburgs were able to establish a hereditary kingship in Sweden and Denmark, and the Hohenzollerns were able to set themselves on a course to the rule of Germany.

Although the institutions of the United Provinces became more republican and entrenched as time went on, William the Silent had been offered the countship of Holland and Zealand, and only his assassination prevented his accession to those offices.

[9]: 75–83 The house of Orange was also related by marriage to several of these key European dynasties of the time, Stuart, Bourbon, and Palatine, Hannover and Hohenzollern.

As an arrière petit fils de France, albeit in the female line, he felt doubly insulted by his cousin Louis XIV's occupation and seizure of his sovereign principality of Orange.

His death without children of his own ensured the passing of Orange to a Dutch cousin and years of squabbles over the same, while securing the British throne to the more distantly related House of Hanover.

The regents found that they had suffered under the powerful leadership of William III as the ruler of the Netherlands and king in the British Isles and they left the stadtholdership vacant for the second time.

The principality was captured by the forces of King Louis XIV of France under François Adhémar de Monteil, Count of Grignan, in the Franco-Dutch War in 1672, and again in August 1682.

[1]: 148–151, 170 After the Nassau-Dietz branch took over, the House of Orange-Nassau had acquired the following territories by the end of the 18th century in the Holy Roman Empire, located in present-day Germany:[citation needed] Around 1742, William IV of Orange established the Hochdeutsche Hofdepartement, an administrative centre located in The Hague inside the Dutch Republic, which looked after the family's possessions in Germany.

In return, he received a few territories like the Free Imperial City of Dortmund, Corvey Abbey and Diocese of Fulda from First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte of the French Republic (Treaty of Amiens), which was established as the Principality of Nassau-Orange-Fulda.

This move was strongly supported by the United Kingdom, which sought ways to strengthen the Netherlands and deny future French aggressors easy access to the Low Countries' Channel ports.

Although William II shared his father's conservative inclinations, in 1848 he accepted an amended constitution that significantly curbed his own authority and transferred the real power to the States General.

Had the House of Orange died out, the throne would likely have passed to Prince Heinrich XXXII Reuss of Köstritz, leading the Netherlands into an undesirably strong influence from the German Empire that would threaten Dutch independence.

[16] Not just Socialists, but now also Anti-Revolutionary politicians including Prime Minister Abraham Kuyper and Liberals such as Samuel van Houten advocated the restoration of the Republic in Parliament in case the marriage remained childless.

[18] A royal marriage controversy occurred in 1966 when Juliana's eldest daughter, the future Queen Beatrix, decided to marry Claus von Amsberg, a German diplomat.

Beatrix's eldest son, Willem-Alexander, was born on April 27, 1967; the first immediate male heir to the Dutch throne since the death of his great-granduncle, Prince Alexander, in 1884.

At one time, the Oranges reportedly owned as much as 25% of the oil company; their stake is in 2001 was estimated at a minimum of 2%, worth $2.7 billion on the May 21 cutoff date for the Billionaires issue.

The family spawned many famous statesmen and generals, including two of the acknowledged "first captains of their age", Maurice of Nassau and the Marshal de Turenne.

Louis of Nassau, Lord of De Lek and Beverweerd was a younger illegitimate son of Prince Maurice and Margaretha van Mechelen.

It was in all likelihood a way of showing independence from the Holy Roman Emperor, who used an eagle in his personal arms and the King of France, who used the famous Fleur-de-lis.

Blue, because of its nearness to purple, which in the northern climes tended to fade (red was the other choice), was also a popular color for those with royal aspirations.

[1]: 29–30  William also started the tradition of keeping the number of billets in the upper left quarter for Nassau at 17 to symbolize the original 17 provinces of the Burgundian/Habsburg Netherlands, which he always hoped would form one united nation.

[2]: 35 Besides being sovereign over the principality of Orange , this is a partial listing of larger estates and titles that William the Silent and his heirs possessed, most enfeoffed to some other sovereign, either the King of France, the Habsburgs, or the States of the provinces of the Netherlands[61] Style of the Dutch sovereign: Dietz , Vianden , Buren , Moers , Leerdam , and Culemborg (1748) Cranendonck , Lands of Cuijk , Eindhoven , City of Grave , Lek , IJsselstein , Acquoy , Diest , Grimbergen /, Herstal , Warneton (Waasten (nl)) , Beilstein , Bentheim-Lingen , Arlay , Nozeroy , and Orpierre ; Bredevoort , Dasburg , Geertruidenberg, Hooge en Lage Zwaluwe , Klundert, 't Loo , Montfort, Naaldwijk , Niervaart, Polanen/lands of Polanen , Steenbergen , Sint-Maartensdijk , Turnhout & Zevenbergen , Willemstad , Bütgenbach, Sankt Vith , and Besançon

In Robert A. Heinlein's 1956 science fiction novel Double Star, the House of Orange reigns over – but does not rule over – an empire of humanity that spans the entire Solar System.