biography
| name: |
William II (of The Netherlands)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1792–1849)
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| biography:
| King of the Netherlands (1840–9), born in The Hague, W Netherlands, the son of William I. He served in the peninsula as Wellington's ADC, and commanded the Dutch troops in the Waterloo campaign. He was engaged in 1813 to Charlotte, daughter of the Prince Regent of England, but she broke it off, and in 1816 he married Anna Pavlovna of Russia. He was employed by William I as a negotiator with the rebels in the Belgian Revolution, but to the king's mind showed too much sympathy with them. In 1831 he commanded against them in the Ten-Day Campaign successfully until a French army, supported by the British, forced a truce. He succeeded to the throne in 1840 on the abdication of William I, but continued his father's repressive policies. In 1848, the year of revolutions, he suddenly declared his conversion from conservative to liberal, and appointed a commission to draft a new Constitution. |
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