William I of the Netherlands
William I was the first king of the Netherlands and lost half his kingdom to a revolution. Born in The Hague in 1772, he was the son of the last stadtholder, William V, and fled to England in 1795 when French revolutionary armies overran the republic. He fought against France, was defeated at Jena in 1806 while in Prussian service, and spent years in exile in Berlin and Vienna. The Congress of Vienna, wanting a strong buffer on France's northern frontier, joined the former Dutch Republic with the Austrian Netherlands and Luxembourg, and made him sovereign in 1815. He was an energetic and autocratic ruler, nicknamed the Merchant King. He founded the Netherlands Trading Society in 1824 to revive commerce, dug canals including the North Holland Canal, promoted industry in the southern provinces, and introduced the cultivation system in Java, which forced peasants to grow export crops and produced enormous revenue at severe human cost. The union was unworkable. The south was Catholic, French-speaking in part, industrial and more populous; the north was Protestant, Dutch-speaking and commercial. William gave both equal representation, which the south resented, imposed Dutch as the official language, and interfered in Catholic education and seminary training. The southern provinces revolted in August 1830 and declared independence as Belgium. He refused to accept it, sent an army in 1831 that won militarily and was stopped by French intervention, and then kept the country mobilised for eight years at ruinous expense before recognising Belgium in 1839. He abdicated in 1840 and died in 1843.
- Lived: 1772 CE – 1843 CE
- Nationality: Dutch
- Roles: king, head_of_state
