Stadtholder
In the Low Countries, a stadtholder (Dutch: stadhouder [ˈstɑtˌɦʌudər] ⓘ) was a steward, first appointed as a medieval official and ultimately functioning as a national leader.
[1] The title was used for the highest executive official of each province performing several duties, such as appointing lower administrators and maintaining peace and order, in the early Dutch Republic.
Its component parts literally translate as "place holder," from Latin locum tenens, or as a direct cognate, "stead holder" (in modern Dutch "stad" means "city", but the older meaning of "stad" – also "stede" – was "place", and it is a cognate of English "stead", as "instead of"); it was a term for a "steward" or "lieutenant".
Stadtholders continued to be appointed to represent Charles and King Philip II, his son and successor in Spain and the Low Countries (the electoral Imperial title would be held by his brother Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and his heirs in the separate Austrian branch of Habsburgs).
Due to the centralist and absolutist policies of Philip, the actual power of the stadtholders strongly diminished, compared to the landvoogd (es) or governor-general.
The United Provinces were struggling to adapt existing feudal concepts and institutions to the new situation and tended to be conservative in this matter, as they had after all rebelled against the king to defend their ancient rights.
Maurice in 1618 and William III of Orange from 1672 replaced entire city councils with their partisans to increase their power: the so-called "Changings of the Legislative" (Wetsverzettingen).
By intimidation, the stadtholders tried to extend their right of affirmation, while they also attempted to add the remaining stadholderships like Friesland and Groningen to their other holdings.
The misgovernment of this regency caused much resentment, which issued in 1780 in the Patriot movement, seeking to permanently limit the powers of the stadholderate.
Through Prussian military intervention in 1787, Prince William V of Orange was able to suppress this opposition, and many leaders of the Patriot movement went into exile in France.
William V fled to England, and the office of stadtholder was abolished that year,[10] when the French revolutionary forces installed the Batavian Republic.
Similarly, while from 1572 in the Southern Netherlands the Habsburg lords continued to appoint provincial stadtholders for the region, this ceased when they were annexed by France in 1794.
