62 Facts About William III of England

William III of England ruled Great Britain and Ireland with his wife, Queen Mary II, and their joint reign is known as that of William and Mary.

William III of England's father died a week before his birth, making William III the prince of Orange from birth.

In 1696 the Jacobites, a faction loyal to the deposed James, plotted unsuccessfully to assassinate William III of England and restore James to the throne.

Eight days before William III of England was born, his father died of smallpox; thus, William III of England was the sovereign Prince of Orange from the moment of his birth.

Mary wanted to name him Charles after her brother, but her mother-in-law insisted on giving him the name William III of England to bolster his prospects of becoming stadtholder.

William III of England II had intended to appoint his wife as their son's guardian in his will; however, the document remained unsigned at William III of England II's death and was therefore void.

William III of England's mother showed little personal interest in her son, sometimes being absent for years, and had always deliberately kept herself apart from Dutch society.

William III of England's education was first laid in the hands of several Dutch governesses, some of English descent, including Walburg Howard and the Scottish noblewoman Lady Anna Mackenzie.

The ideal education for William was described in Discours sur la nourriture de S H Monseigneur le Prince d'Orange, a short treatise, perhaps by one of William's tutors, Constantijn Huygens.

William III of England was seen, despite his youth, as the leader of the "Orangist" party, heir to the stadholderships of several provinces and the office of Captain-General of the Union.

William III of England was viewed as the leader of the nation in its independence movement and its protector from foreign threats.

From early 1659, William III of England spent seven years at the University of Leiden for a formal education, under the guidance of ethics professor Hendrik Bornius.

That year, Zuylenstein began to work for Charles and induced William III of England to write letters to his uncle asking him to help William III of England become stadtholder someday.

William III of England begged De Witt to allow Zuylenstein to stay, but he refused.

In 1667, as William III approached the age of 18, the Orangist party again attempted to bring him to power by securing for him the offices of stadtholder and Captain-General.

William III of England saw all this as a defeat, but the arrangement was a compromise: De Witt would have preferred to ignore the prince completely, but now his eventual rise to the office of supreme army commander was implicit.

De Witt further conceded that William III of England would be admitted as a member of the Raad van State, the Council of State, then the generality organ administering the defence budget.

Charles was unable to pay, but William III of England agreed to reduce the amount owed to 1,800,000 guilders.

In view of the threat, the States of Gelderland wanted William III of England to be appointed Captain-General of the Dutch States Army as soon as possible, despite his youth and inexperience.

When William III of England refused, Arlington threatened that William III of England would witness the end of the Republic's existence.

Subsequently, William III of England replaced many of the Dutch regents with his followers.

The resolute defence by John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen and Hans Willem van Aylva in the north of the Dutch Republic finally forced the troops of Munster and Cologne to withdraw, while William III of England crossed the Dutch Waterline and recaptured Naarden.

William III of England refused but obtained a special mandate from the States General to appoint all delegates in the States of these provinces anew.

The negative reactions to this from Zeeland and the city of Amsterdam made William III of England ultimately decide to decline these honours; he was instead appointed stadtholder of Gelderland and Overijssel.

William III of England took the offensive and sought to bring on a battle by outflanking the French positions but the broken ground forced him to divide his army into three separate columns.

Frustrated, William III of England joined the army under Rabenhaupt with 10,000 troops instead of campaigning further in the Spanish Netherlands.

The Dutch were split by internal disputes; the powerful Amsterdam mercantile body was anxious to end an expensive war once their commercial interests were secured, while William III of England saw France as a long-term threat that had to be defeated.

The French then took a defensive posture, afraid that more success would force William III of England to intervene on the side of the Allies.

Luxembourg withdrew and William III of England thus ensured Mons would remain in Spanish hands.

Mary was eleven years his junior and he anticipated resistance to a Stuart match from the Amsterdam merchants who had disliked his mother, but William believed that marrying Mary would increase his chances of succeeding to Charles's kingdoms, and would draw England's monarch away from his pro-French policies.

Charles wanted to use the possibility of marriage to gain leverage in negotiations relating to the war, but William III of England insisted that the two issues be decided separately.

Nevertheless, William III of England secretly induced the States General to send Charles the "Insinuation", a plea beseeching the king to prevent any Catholics from succeeding him, without explicitly naming James.

William III of England, ever looking for ways to diminish the power of France, hoped that James would join the League of Augsburg, but by 1687 it became clear that James would not join the anti-French alliance.

That month, to gain the favour of English Protestants, William III of England wrote an open letter to the English people in which he disapproved of James's pro-Roman Catholic policy of religious toleration.

William III of England came ashore from the ship Den Briel, proclaiming "the liberties of England and the Protestant religion I will maintain".

James at first attempted to resist William III of England, but saw that his efforts would prove futile.

William III of England was discovered and brought back to London by a group of fishermen.

William III of England permitted James to leave the country, not wanting to make him a martyr for the Roman Catholic cause; it was in his interests for James to be perceived as having left the country of his own accord, rather than having been forced or frightened into fleeing.

William III of England felt insecure about his position; though his wife preceded him in the line of succession to the throne, he wished to reign as king in his own right, rather than as a mere consort.

The only precedent for a joint monarchy in William III of England dated from the 16th century, when Queen Mary I married Philip of Spain.

Normally, the coronation is performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the Archbishop at the time, William III of England Sancroft, refused to recognise James's removal.

William III of England sent it a conciliatory letter, while James sent haughty uncompromising orders, swaying a majority in favour of William.

William III of England encouraged the passage of the Toleration Act 1689, which guaranteed religious toleration to Protestant nonconformists.

William III of England was opposed to the imposition of such constraints, but he chose not to engage in a conflict with Parliament and agreed to abide by the statute.

William III of England offered Scottish clans that had taken part in the rising a pardon provided that they signed allegiance by a deadline, and his government in Scotland punished a delay with the 1692 Massacre of Glencoe, which became infamous in Jacobite propaganda as William III of England had countersigned the orders.

The Whigs, a majority in Parliament, had expected to dominate the government, and were disappointed that William III of England denied them this chance.

William III of England dissolved Parliament in 1695, and the new Parliament that assembled that year was led by the Whigs.

William III of England joined the League of Augsburg, which then became known as the Grand Alliance.

Whilst William III of England was away fighting, his wife, Mary II, governed the realm, but acted on his advice.

Each time he returned to William III of England, Mary gave up her power to him without reservation, an arrangement that lasted for the rest of Mary's life.

However, William III of England managed to inflict such damage on the French in these battles that further major French offensives were ruled out.

William III of England did have several close male associates, including two Dutch courtiers to whom he granted English titles: Hans Willem Bentinck became Earl of Portland, and Arnold Joost van Keppel was created Earl of Albemarle.

Whatever the case, Bentinck's closeness to William III of England did arouse jealousies at the royal court.

William III of England sought to prevent the Spanish inheritance from going to either monarch, for he feared that such a calamity would upset the balance of power.

William III of England was William's closest agnatic relative, as well as grandson of William's aunt Henriette Catherine.

William III of England was a great man, an enemy of France, to which he did a great deal of harm, but we owe him our esteem.

Still, William III of England has been blamed by French and British historians for his impatience and recklessness, and for treating lightly his life and the lives of his soldiers.

William III of England commanded several field battles; Battle of Seneffe, Battle of Cassel, Battle of Saint-Denis, Battle of the Boyne, Battle of Steenkerque and the Battle of Landen.

William III of England was up against a strong uniformly organised army with a coalition army.

William III of England did not attach much value to traditional victory signs either.

William III of England considered himself a winner if he managed to inflate French losses to the point where French offensive plans had to be abandoned.

William III of England endowed the College of William III of England and Mary in 1693.