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William III of England

King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1689 to 1702

William III of England (14 November 1650 – 8 March 1702), also known as William II of Scotland and William of Orange, was a Dutch aristocrat and the Prince of Orange from his birth, King of England and Ireland from 13 February 1689, and King of Scotland from 11 April 1689, in each case until his death.

William III by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1680s)

Quotes

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1680s

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  • [T]he Greatness and Security, both of Kings, Royal Families, and of all such as are in Authority, as well as the Happiness of their Subjects and People, depend in a most especial manner, upon the exact observation and maintenance of these their Laws, Liberties, and Customs.
    • The Declaration of His Highness William Henry, By the Grace of God, Prince of Orange, &c. Of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England, for preserving the Protestant Religion, and for restoring the Laws and Liberties of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1688), p. 1
  • Those great and insufferable Oppressions, and the open Contempt of all Law, together with the apprehensions of the sad Consequences that must certainly follow upon it, have put the Subjects under great and just Fears, and have made them look after such lawfull Remedies as are allowed of in all Nations; yet all has been without Effect. And those Evil Counsellours have endeavoured to make all Men apprehend the loss of their Lives, Liberties, Honours, and Estates, if they should go about to preserve themselves from this Oppression by Petitions, Representations, or other Means authorized by Law.
    • The Declaration of His Highness William Henry, By the Grace of God, Prince of Orange, &c. Of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England, for preserving the Protestant Religion, and for restoring the Laws and Liberties of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1688), pp. 2-3
  • And since the English Nation has ever testified a most particular Affection and Esteem, both to our Dearest Consort the Princess, and to Our Selves, We cannot excuse our selves from espousing their Interests in a Matter of such high Consequence, and from contributing all that lies in us for the maintaining both of the Protestant Religion, and of the Laws and Liberties of those Kingdoms, and of the securing to them the continual Enjoyment of all their just Rights. To the doing of which we are most earnestly solicited by a great many Lords both Spiritual and Temporal, and by many Gentlemen and other Subjects of all Ranks.
    Therefore it is that we have thought fit to go over to England, and to carry over with us a Force sufficient, by the Blessing of God, to defend us from the Violence of those Evil Counsellors.
    • The Declaration of His Highness William Henry, By the Grace of God, Prince of Orange, &c. Of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England, for preserving the Protestant Religion, and for restoring the Laws and Liberties of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1688), p. 3
  • [T]his our Expedition is intended for no other Design, but to have a free and lawful Parliament assembled, as soon as possible.
    • The Declaration of His Highness William Henry, By the Grace of God, Prince of Orange, &c. Of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England, for preserving the Protestant Religion, and for restoring the Laws and Liberties of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1688), pp. 3-4
  • And We for our Part, will concur in every thing that may Procure the Peace and Happiness of the Nation, which a free and lawfull Parliament shall determine; since We have nothing before our Eyes in this our Undertaking, but the Preservation of the Protestant Religion, the covering of all Men from Persecution for their Consciences, and the securing to the whole Nation the free Enjoyment of all their Laws, Rights and Liberties, under a just and legal Government.
    • The Declaration of His Highness William Henry, By the Grace of God, Prince of Orange, &c. Of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England, for preserving the Protestant Religion, and for restoring the Laws and Liberties of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1688), p. 4
  • We do in the last place invite and require all Persons whatsoever, all the Peers of the Realm, both Spiritual and Temporal, all Lord Lieutenants, Deputy Lieutenants, and all Gentlemen, Citizens, and other Commons of all Ranks, to come and assist us in order to the executing of this our Design, against all such as shall endeavour to oppose us, that so we may prevent all those Miseries which must needs follow upon the Nations being kept under Arbitrary Government and Slavery; and that all the Violences and Disorders which have overturned the whole Constitution of the English Government, may be fully redressed in a FREE AND LEGAL PARLIAMENT.
    • The Declaration of His Highness William Henry, By the Grace of God, Prince of Orange, &c. Of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England, for preserving the Protestant Religion, and for restoring the Laws and Liberties of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1688), p. 4

1690s

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  • I think My Self obliged to take Notice, how well the Army there [Ireland] have behaved themselves on all Occasions, and born great Hardships with little Pay, and with so much Patience and Willingness, as could not proceed but from an Affectionate Duty to My Service, and a Zeal for the Protestant Religion.
    • Speech to Parliament (2 October 1690), quoted in His Majesties Most Gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament. On Thursday the 2d day of October 1690 (1690), p. 3
  • Now, as I have neither spared My Person, nor My Pains, to do you all the Good I could; so I doubt not, but if you will as cheerfully do your Parts, it is in your Power to make both Me and your selves Happy, and the Nation Great: And on the other hand it is too plain, by what the French have let you see so lately, that if the present War be not prosecuted with Vigour, no Nation in the World is exposed to greater Danger... It is further Necessary to inform you, That the whole Support of the Confederacy abroad, will absolutely depend upon the Speed and Vigour of your Proceedings in this Session.
    • Speech to Parliament (2 October 1690), quoted in His Majesties Most Gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament. On Thursday the 2d day of October 1690 (1690), pp. 3-4
  • [I]t will well Deserve Your Consideration, Whether We are not defective both in the Number of Our Shipping, and in proper Ports to the Westward, for the better Annoying Our Enemies, and Protecting Our Trade, so Essential to the Welfare of this Kingdom.
    • Speech to Parliament (7 November 1693), quoted in White Kennett, A Complete History of England: With the lives of All the Kings and Queens Thereof; From the Earliest Account of Time, to the Death of His late Majesty King William III. Vol. III (1706), p. 665
  • Upon this Occasion I cannot but take notice of the Courage and Bravery which the English Troops have shewn this last Summer; which I may say has answer'd their highest Character in any Age: And it will not be denied, that without the concurrence of the Valour and Power of England, it were impossible to put a Stop to the Ambition and Greatness of France.
    • Speech to Parliament (23 November 1695), quoted in White Kennett, A Complete History of England: With the lives of All the Kings and Queens Thereof; From the Earliest Account of Time, to the Death of His late Majesty King William III. Vol. III (1706), p. 703
  • I did recommend to the last Parliament the Forming some good Bill for the Encouragement and Increase of Seamen; I hope you will not let this Session pass without doing somewhat in it; and that you will consider of such Laws as may be proper for the advancement of Trade, and will have a particular regard to that of the East-Indies, lest it should be lost to the Nation.
    • Speech to Parliament (23 November 1695), quoted in White Kennett, A Complete History of England: With the lives of All the Kings and Queens Thereof; From the Earliest Account of Time, to the Death of His late Majesty King William III. Vol. III (1706), p. 704
  • Our Naval Force being increased to near double what it was at my Accession to the Crown, the Charge of Maintaining it will be proportionably augmented; and it is certainly necessary for the Interest and Reputation of England, to have always a great Strength at Sea.
    The Circumstances of Affairs Abroad are such, that I think my self oblig'd to tell you My Opinion, That for the present, England cannot be Safe without a Land Force, and I hope We shall not give those who mean Us Ill, the opportunity of Effecting that, under the Notion of a Peace, which they could not bring to pass by a War.
    • Speech to Parliament (3 December 1697), quoted in White Kennett, A Complete History of England: With the lives of All the Kings and Queens Thereof; From the Earliest Account of Time, to the Death of His late Majesty King William III. Vol. III (1706), p. 741
  • I shall conclude with telling You, That as I have, with the Hazard of every Thing, Rescued your Religion, Laws and Liberties, when they were in the Extremest Danger; so I shall place the Glory of My Reign in Preserving them Entire, and leaving them so to Posterity.
    • Speech to Parliament (3 December 1697), quoted in White Kennett, A Complete History of England: With the lives of All the Kings and Queens Thereof; From the Earliest Account of Time, to the Death of His late Majesty King William III. Vol. III (1706), p. 741
  • [T]he Flourishing of Trade, the Supporting of Credit, and the Quiet of Peoples Minds at home, will depend upon the Opinion they have of their Security; and to preserve to England the Weight and Influence it has at present on the Councils and Affairs Abroad, it will be requisite Europe should see you will not be wanting to your selves.
    • Speech to Parliament (9 December 1699), quoted in White Kennett, A Complete History of England: With the lives of All the Kings and Queens Thereof; From the Earliest Account of Time, to the Death of His late Majesty King William III. Vol. III (1706), p. 758

1700s

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  • The Owning and Setting up the Pretended Prince of Wales for King of England, is not only the highest Indignity offered to Me and the whole Nation, but does so nearly concern every Man, who has a Regard for the Protestant Religion, or the present and future Quiet and Happiness of your Country, that I need not Press you to lay it seriously to Heart, and to consider what further effectual Means may be used for securing the Succession of the Crown in the Protestant Line, and Extinguishing the Hopes of all Pretenders, and their open or Secret Abettors.
    • Speech to Parliament (30 December 1701), quoted in White Kennett, A Complete History of England: With the lives of All the Kings and Queens Thereof; From the Earliest Account of Time, to the Death of His late Majesty King William III. Vol. III (1706), p. 827
  • By the French King's placing his Grandson on the Throne of Spain, he is in a Condition to oppress the rest of Europe, unless speedy and effectual Measures be taken. Under this pretence, he is become the real Master of the whole Spanish Monarchy; he has made it to be entirely depending on France, and disposes of it as of his own Dominions, and by that means he has surrounded his Neighbours in such a manner, that though the Name of Peace may be said to continue, yet they are put to the Expence and Inconveniences of War.
    This must affect England in the nearest and most sensible Manner, in respect to our Trade, which will soon become precarious in all the valuable Branches of it; in respect to our Peace and Safety at Home, which we cannot hope should long continue; and in respect to that part which England ought to take in the Preservation of the Liberty of Europe.
    • Speech to Parliament (30 December 1701), quoted in White Kennett, A Complete History of England: With the lives of All the Kings and Queens Thereof; From the Earliest Account of Time, to the Death of His late Majesty King William III. Vol. III (1706), pp. 827-828
  • In order to obviate the general Calamity with which the rest of Christendom is threatned by this Exorbitant Power of France, I have concluded several Alliances, according to the Encouragement given Me by Both Houses of Parliament; which I will direct shall be laid before you, and which I do not doubt you will enable Me to make good.
    • Speech to Parliament (30 December 1701), quoted in White Kennett, A Complete History of England: With the lives of All the Kings and Queens Thereof; From the Earliest Account of Time, to the Death of His late Majesty King William III. Vol. III (1706), p. 828
  • It is fit I should tell you, the Eyes of all Europe are upon this Parliament, all Matters are at a stand till your Resolutions are known, and therefore no Time ought to be lost.
    You have yet an opportunity, by God's Blessing, to secure to you and your Posterity the quiet Enjoyment of your Religion and Liberties, if you are not wanting to your selves, but will exert the Ancient Vigor of the English Nation: But I tell you plainly My Opinion is, If you do not lay hold on this Occasion, you have no Reason to hope for another.
    • Speech to Parliament (30 December 1701), quoted in White Kennett, A Complete History of England: With the lives of All the Kings and Queens Thereof; From the Earliest Account of Time, to the Death of His late Majesty King William III. Vol. III (1706), p. 828
  • Let Me conjure you to disappoint the only Hopes of Our Enemies, by your Unanimity. I have shewn, and will always shew, how desirous I am to be the Common Father of all My People: Do you in like manner lay aside Parties and Divisions; Let there be no other Distinction heard of among Us for the future, but of those who are for the Protestant Religion and the present Establishment, and of those who mean a Popish Prince and a French Government.
    I will only add this, If you do in good earnest desire to see England hold the Balance of Europe, and to be indeed at the Head of the Protestant Interest, it will appear by your right improving the present Opportunity.
    • Speech to Parliament (30 December 1701), quoted in White Kennett, A Complete History of England: With the lives of All the Kings and Queens Thereof; From the Earliest Account of Time, to the Death of His late Majesty King William III. Vol. III (1706), p. 828
  • Can this last long?
    • Last words, 19 March, 1702; Quoted in: Herbert Lockyer (1969). 700 Final Quotes from the Famous, the Infamous, and the Inspiring Figures of History. p. 83.
    • William III, suffering from a broken collar-bone, was speaking to his physician.

Quotes about William III

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  • De Witt's administration coincided with the greatest period of prosperity and the greatest cultural and artistic achievements of Dutch history. Later, looking back in less prosperous times to this golden age, men tended to blame William III for beginning the decline of the Republic. But William did not inherit a golden age. He inherited the Water Line, a defeated army, a country half occupied and more than half beaten. That William's age was less prosperous than de Witt's is at least partially the Pensionary's fault. That the Republic survived at all, that time was given for it to have a silver age if not another golden one, is due very largely to the Prince.
  • By saving the Republic from the French he had become a real hero. He was still very young, not yet twenty-four. Yet no one could think of treating him as his father had been treated. For the rest of his life, no matter how bitterly he became involved in party politics, no matter what mistakes he seemed to make, his enemies had to treat him with respect. He was the Redeemer of the Fatherland. He had a claim on the gratitude of his people which could never be repaid.
  • It is to William III that the Dutch Republic owed her survival, when the mistakes of de Witt had made survival extremely unlikely... Obviously enough, William III was the Deliverer of England from the tyranny and arbitrary government of the Stuarts, as he was the Deliverer of Europe from the tyranny of Louis XIV. But in England he was more than this. He repaired and improved an obsolete system of government, and left it strong enough to withstand the stresses of the next century virtually unchanged. The army of Marlborough, and that of Wellington, and to a large extent that of Raglan, was the creation of William III. So too was the independence of the judiciary.
  • The steps which were taken, at that time, to compose, to reconcile, to unite, and to discipline all Europe against the growth of France, certainly furnish to a statesman the finest and most interesting part in the history of that great period. It formed the master-piece of King William's policy, dexterity, and perseverance. Full of the idea of preserving, not only a local civil liberty, united with order, to our country, but to embody it in the political liberty, the order, and the independence of nations united under a natural head, the King called upon his Parliament to put itself into a posture to preserve to England the weight and influence it at present had on the counsels and affairs ABROAD. "It will be requisite Europe should see you will not be wanting to yourselves."
  • He persevered to expel the fears of his people, by his fortitude; to steady their fickleness, by his constancy; to expand their narrow prudence, by his enlarged wisdom; to sink their factious temper in his public spirit. In spite of his people, he resolved to make them great and glorious; to make England, inclined to shrink into her narrow self, the Arbitress of Europe, the tutelary Angel of the human race. In spite of the Ministers, who staggered under the weight that his mind imposed upon theirs, unsupported as they felt themselves by the popular spirit, he infused into them his own soul; he renewed in them their ancient heart; he rallied them in the same cause.
  • I considered him as a person raised up by God to resist the power of France, and the progress of tyranny and persecution: the series of the five princes of Orange, that was now ended in him, was the noblest succession of heroes that we find in any history: and the thirty years, from the year 1672 to his death, in which he acted so great a part, carry in them so many amazing steps of a glorious and distinguishing providence, that in the words of David he may be called, the man of God's right hand, whom he made strong for himself: after all the abatements that may be allowed for his errors and faults, he ought still to be reckoned among the greatest princes that our history, or indeed that any other, can afford.
    • Gilbert Burnet, Bishop Burnet's History of His Own Time, Vol. IV (1833), p. 567
  • King William was a brave and warlike king: he would have been glad of more power than he ought to have; but his parliaments kept him within due bounds against his will. To the Revolution we again owe our liberties.
    • Lord Chesterfield to his son (1742), quoted in Letters Written by Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield to His Son. 1737–1768 (1890), p. 91
  • James II's replacement by William III in February 1689 was one of the most decisive changes of monarch in England since the coming of the first William in 1066. Even on a personal level the change was dramatic. James II had been devotedly Catholic, blinkered and narrowly English in outlook. He was hostile to the pretensions of parliament, impatient of the restrictions that the law imposed on his powers. William, though James's nephew by blood, was anything but English in most ways. While he indulged his wife's Anglicanism, his personal sympathies lay with the starkly un-English Calvinism of the Dutch Reformed Church. His favourite friends were as foreign as his accent. His intelligence was acute and his tastes cosmopolitan. His political preoccupations were European, far removed from the average Englishman's insularity. He had no great love of representative institutions, but had learned to live with them in the United Provinces and accepted that he must do so in England.
    • Geoffrey Holmes, 'Revolution, War and Politics 1689–1714', in Blair Worden (ed.), Stuart England (1986), p. 199
  • Despite the considerable opposition he faced, William achieved much as King. He retained the crown; guided the nation through a protracted war; established Britain as central to the anti-French alliance; committed the nation to the Hanoverian succession; oversaw the transformation of public finances; altered the relationship between Church and State; and worked with Parliament. This last point distinguished him from Charles II and James II. They preferred to use the legislature only occasionally, managing to reign without it for long periods. William had no such choice. And though he was not always able to get his way—witness his failures over triennial parliaments and Irish estates—he was able to avoid a fundamental breakdown in relations between Crown and Parliament. That was not easy, for he was a foreign invader who spent vast amounts of English tax revenues abroad. Fundamental to his success was his Protestantism and his appreciation of the need to rule through Parliament via English ministers. These were no small matters, for James had failed on both counts. Moreover, as time passed, William was able to tie more and more of the political nation to his regime.
    • Julian Hoppit, A Land of Liberty? England, 1689–1727 (2000), p. 165
  • To have been a Sovereign, yet the champion of liberty,—a revolutionary leader, yet the supporter of social order, is the peculiar glory of William. Till his accession the British Constitution was in its Chaos. It had contained, from a very remote period, the simple elements of an harmonious government. But they were in a state not of amalgamation, but of conflict,—not of equilibrium but of alternate elevation and depression. The tyranny of Charles the first produced civil war and anarchy. Tyranny had now again produced resistance and revolution. And, but for the wisdom of the new King, it seems probable that the same cycle of misery would have been again described.
    • Thomas Babington Macaulay, 'Essay on the Life and Character of King William III' (1822), written for the Greaves Historical Prize at Cambridge, quoted in The Times Literary Supplement (1 May 1969), p. 469
  • But William knew where to pause. He outraged no national prejudice. He abolished no ancient form. He altered no venerable name. He saw that the existing institutions, possessed of the greatest capabilities of excellence, and that stronger sanctions and clearer definitions were alone required to make the practice as admirable as the theory. Thus he imparted to innovation the dignity and stability of antiquity. He transferred to a happier order of things the associations which had attached the people to their former government. As the Roman warrior, before he assaulted Veii, invoked its guardian Gods to leave its walls, and to accept the worship and patronize the cause of the besiegers; this great prince, in attacking a system of oppression, summoned to his aid the venerable principles and deeply seated feelings to which it was indebted for protection. As he avoided violent changes, he also abstained from political persecution. A powerful party had strongly and, in the house of Lords, at first successfully, opposed his elevation to the throne. Many of his ministers and generals were falsely, and some justly accused, of correspondence with his exiled competitor. The world has rarely produced a prince whom such circumstances would not have converted into a vindictive and jealous tyrant.—William did not even resort to a system of exclusion. His conduct displayed a lofty scorn of suspicion which was at once the highest magnanimity and the highest wisdom. He would see nothing.—He would believe nothing.—He fearlessly surrounded his person and his throne with pardoned enemies and calumniated friends, and thus secured the services and conciliated the affection of many whom a less generous policy would have rendered useless or treacherous.
    By such means was the constitution of England established.
    • Thomas Babington Macaulay, 'Essay on the Life and Character of King William III' (1822), written for the Greaves Historical Prize at Cambridge, quoted in The Times Literary Supplement (1 May 1969), p. 469
  • [T]hat great religious radical, King William...intended to raise a goodly fabric of charity, of concord, and of peace, and upon which his admirers of the present day are endeavouring to build the dungeon of their Protestant Constitution. If the views and intentions of King William had been such as are now imputed to him, instead of blessing his arrival as an epoch of glory and happiness to England, we should have had reason to curse the hour when first he printed his footstep on our strand. But he came not here a bigoted polemic, with religious tracts in one hand, and civil persecution in the other; he came to regenerate and avenge the prostrate and insulted liberties of England; he came with peace and toleration on his lips, and with civil and religious liberty in his heart.
    • Lord Palmerston, speech in the House of Commons in favour of Catholic Emancipation (18 March 1829), quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Than Forty Years of Public Life (1852), pp. 84-85
  • After Westphalia brought peace to Europe, the second half of the seventeenth century saw a further spread of resident ambassadors, with Louis XIV’s France leading the way, and French replaced Latin as the lingua franca. There was, however, still scope for summitry, for instance during Peter the Great’s tour of Western Europe in 1697–8. His meetings with William III of England helped bring Russia belatedly into the European diplomatic orbit. In due course, the czar created a “Diplomatic Chancellery” and a network of foreign embassies on the European model.
    • David Reynolds, Summits: Six Meetings that Changed the Twentieth Century (2007), p. 19
  • William III. is now termed a scoundrel, but was not James II. a fool? The character of William is generally considered on too small a scale. To estimate it properly, we must remember that Louis XIV. had formed a vast scheme of conquest, which would have overthrown the liberties of all Europe, have subjected even us to the caprice of French priests and French harlots. The extirpation of the Protestant religion, the abolition of all civil privileges, would have been the infallible consequence. I speak of this scheme not as a partisan, but from the most extensive reading and information on the topic. I say that William III. was the first, if not sole cause, of the complete ruin of this plan of tyranny. The English revolution was but a secondary object, the throne a mere step towards the altar of European liberty. William had recourse to all parties merely to serve this great end, for which he often exposed his own life in the field, and was devoured by constant cares in the cabinet.
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