Orangism (Dutch Republic)

[1]: 12  The Orangist party drew its adherents largely from traditionalists – mostly farmers, soldiers, noblemen and orthodox Protestant preachers, though its support fluctuated heavily over the course of the Republic's history and there were never clear-cut socioeconomic divisions.

The Remonstrants were tolerant and republican, with a liberal view on biblical interpretation, no belief in predestination and were led by men like Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and Hugo Grotius.

Stadtholder Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange relied on the counter-remonstrants to oppose van Oldenbarnevelt and support his own policies, and things got so bad that civil war threatened.

Oldenbarnevelt was executed after a sham trial in 1619 and Grotius sentenced to life in prison, and for a number of years the Orangists were in charge under Maurice and later his brother Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange.

It was de Witt who, in the 1654 peace with England and its leader Oliver Cromwell, agreed to include the secret Act of Seclusion barring the infant William III from the stadtholderate.

At the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland in 1799 the young Erfprins Willem Frederik made an not-unsuccessful attempt to get the Batavian Navy to defect to the British in the Vlieter Incident.

[6]: 120 In particular, the Orangists never formulated a desire for absolute sovereignty in the hands of the princes, even though they "lean[ed] heavily on the concept of monarchy", since this would have been problematic in the Republic that wrested its independence from the kings of Spain under William of Orange.

[7]: 47 Attempts to introduce elements of John Locke's natural law and Montesquieu's separation of powers (by Elie Luzac) failed when these same theories were taken over by the opposing Patriot faction in the 1780s.