Regenten

Since the Late Middle Ages Dutch cities had been run by the richer merchant families, who gradually formed a closed group.

At first the lower-class citizens in the guilds and schutterijen could unite to form a certain counterbalance to the regenten, but in the course of the 15th century the administration of the cities and towns became oligarchical in character.

[1] This newly acquired autonomy brought into being a new group of "managers" next to the sovereign's deputy, the schout, to run the city.

Philip the Good promoted the situation in which the regenten could exert a greater control over the city and her inhabitants, by diminishing the influence of the guilds.

The vroedschap was the body that nominated candidates for burgemeesters and schepenen in annual or biannual elections, by drawing up double lists from which the ducal stadtholder made a selection.

In 1581 the Northern provinces renounced their ruler, Philip II, by the Act of Abjuration; after failed experiments with other foreign sovereigns, from 1588 on sovereignty was assumed by the provincial states and the states-general.

For instance, though there was no more scope for the stadtholders to represent a deposed king, the new republic found a new role for them, though they now received their commissions from the sovereign provincial states.

Such arrangements helped to close the oligarchy even more in the 18th century, which explained the increasing intensity of the partisanship between the Orangist and Republican (under various names) factions during that era.

They instead became representatives of the rentier class that came into being because of the enormous growth of the Dutch public debt as a consequence of the turn-of-the-century conflicts with France.