Political Science Of The State

CONFEDERATIONS. 233
the same office had in Holland. Holland itself made the
proposition that his office should be hereditary, and the other
provinces concurred. On his death, as King of England
vacancy in this (1689-1702), and stadtholder of the provinces,
office' the failure of male descendants of his body
brought up anew the question of a stadtholder, and the states
of Holland, on suggestion of the pensionary Heinsius, gave
the states-general to understand that they wanted no stadt-
holder for the future. A time of confusion followed in sev-
eral of the provinces, the main cause of which was the at-
tempt of the more democratic party in the towns to alter and
get possession of the town governments. Only Friesland
had a stadtholder in the person of John William Friso, a
member of the Orange family, who, however, died at the age
of twenty-four in 1711, a little before the birth of his only
child, William Charles Henry Friso. The affairs of state were
in the hands principally of Heinsius the pensionary, who on
his death, in 1720, was succeeded by Van Hoornbeck, who
was raised by the estates of Holland from, the office of pen-
sionary of Rotterdam to that of grand pensionary of the
council of the province. The young Prince William Friso,
by birth stadtholder in Friesland, was chosen to the same
stadthoidership dignity at the age of seven, in Groningen, and
restored. an(j a^ eleven with limitations in Guelders. In
1746, during the danger of a French invasion, the common
people of Zeeland cried out again for the restoration of this
office, and forced the government to yield. In the same
year the nobility or noblesse of Holland proposed to confer
on him the office, as a hereditary one both in the male and
female line. The estates of Holland accepted the proposal.
Only such of his descendants were excluded as should hold
a royal or electoral dignity, or should not be conformed to
the reformed religion (the Dutch Reformed Church), or should
be married to a man of any other confession. All the prov-
inces in turn accepted him in this capacity with nearly simi-
lar extent of power, and conferred on him other high offices
besides, including that of governor in chief of the Dutch pos-