Talk: William I of the Netherlands

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There are really three different people that need to be un-confused here:

• Willem I Count of Holland, (1203-1222)
• Willem I, Stadtholder of Holland died 1584 ([[William I of Orange])
• Willem I King of the Netherlands (this one)

jcwf

It's not that big an issue, at least as far as the title is concerned. The first one is not a problem, since he was count of Holland only. The second, William the Silent never had "of the Netherlands" in his title (stadtholders belonged to each province individually, even if they were stadtholder in most of them at the same time, the United Provinces were not a unified state). So, only the latter was ever properly "William of the Netherlands". A bigger problem would be disambiguating all the different William of Oranges, since the latter could also be called "William I of Orange (Nassau)"... Scipius 18:01 Oct 4, 2002 (UTC)

OK jcwf

'The purpose was exterminating Catholicism and French' is highly non-NPOV and simply untrue. There is no indication of that at all. In fact in protestant cicles there was unhapiness about the king too, because he wanted too much influence on the dutch reformed church. Later there was even a schism about that. The remark that Willem was strongly reformed is probably not accurate either therefore. What is true is that in Belgium this king has long been vilified as 'raison d'être' for the Belgian state. Ironically that is even so in Flanders although the king's insistance of Dutch as national language was one of the main reasons that he lost his mostly francophone/liberal support in the south. Flanders went along with the rebellion because the Catholic church was very powerful there and the Church wanted a political foothold in this part of Europe. The sudden alliance of liberals and catholics is known as the monsteralliance. The Flemish people paid a heavy price for the emergence of the Belgian state however. Their emancipation only came in the 1960s, that of their catholic brethren in the north (still 1/3 of the population there) about a century earlier.

Jcwf

Dates?

On this page the dates of the reign of William I are said to be 1813-1843, but on Dutch monarchy they claim the dates to be 1815-1840. One of these should be corrected. — Asbestos | Talk 09:20, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

William became Sovereign Prince, or some such, in 1813, but the Kingdom of the Netherlands was only created in 1815. He abdicated in 1840, and died in 1843 (as is explained in the article). john k 20:09, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)