Frederick Henry, or
Frederik Hendrik in
Dutch (
29 January 1584 –
14 March 1647), was the sovereign
Prince of Orange and
stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel from 1625 to 1647.
Biography
Early life
Frederick Henry was born on
29 January 1584 in
Delft,
Holland,
Dutch Republic. He was the youngest child of
William the Silent and
Louise de Coligny. His father William was stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, and Friesland. His mother Louise was daughter of the Huguenot leader
Gaspard de Coligny, and was the fourth wife of his father.
Frederick Henry was born six months before his father's
assassination on
10 July 1584. The boy was trained to arms by his elder brother
Maurice, one of the finest generals of his age. Frederick Henry was married in 1625 to
Amalia of Solms-Braunfels.
Stadtholder
On the death of Maurice in 1625, Frederick Henry succeeded him in his paternal dignities and estates, and also in the
stadtholderates of the five provinces of
Holland,
Zeeland,
Utrecht,
Overijssel and
Guelders, and in the important posts of captain and admiral-general of the Union.
Frederick Henry proved himself almost as good a general as his brother, and a far more capable statesman and politician. For twenty-two years he remained at the head of government in the United Provinces, and in his time the power of the stadtholderate reached its highest point. The "Period of Frederick Henry," as it is usually styled by Dutch writers, is generally accounted the
golden age of the republic. It was marked by great military and naval triumphs, by world-wide maritime and commercial expansion, and by a wonderful outburst of activity in the domains of art and literature.
The chief military exploits of Frederick Henry were the sieges and captures of
Grol in 1627,
's-Hertogenbosch in 1629, of
Maastricht in 1632, of
Breda in 1637, of
Sas van Gent in 1644, and of
Hulst in 1645. During the greater part of his administration the alliance with France against Spain had been the pivot of Frederick Henry's foreign policy, but in his last years he sacrificed the French alliance for the sake of concluding a separate peace with Spain, by which the United Provinces obtained from that power all the advantages they had been seeking for eighty years.
Frederick Henry built the
country houses
Huis Honselaarsdijk,
Huis ter Nieuwburg, and for his wife
Huis ten Bosch, and he renovated the
Noordeinde Palace in
The Hague. Huis Honselaarsdijk and Huis ter Nieuwburg are now demolished.
[ ]Death
Frederick Henry died on
14 March 1647 in
The Hague, Holland, Dutch Republic. He left a wife, a son
William II, Prince of Orange, and four daughters.
On Frederick Henry's death, he was buried with great pomp beside his father and brother at Delft. The
treaty of Munster, ending the long struggle between the Dutch and the Spaniards, was not actually signed until
January 30,
1648, the illness and death of the stadtholder having caused a delay in the negotiations. Frederick Henry left an account of his campaigns in his
Mémoires de Frédéric Henri (Amsterdam, 1743). See
Cambridge Mod. Hist. vol. iv. chap. 24.
Children
thumb|right|Frederick and Amalia's surviving daughtersFrederick Henry and his wife Amalia van Solms had nine children:
- Henriëtte Amalia of Nassau (1628)
- Elisabeth of Nassau (1630)
- Isabella Charlotte of Nassau (1632—42)
- Hendrik Lodewijk of Nassau (1639)
- Maria of Nassau (1642—88)
Ancestors
