Unlike modern political parties, the States Party and the Orangists were not necessarily distinguished by ideology. At the provincial level, choice of sides was driven by the contest for power between members of the Regenten class. Local groups often simply adopted the opposite position taken by their factional opponents, a reality made more complex by the rivalry between individual provinces. There was little explicit ideological coherence, and what there was often changed over time.[1]:10
The supremacy of the provincial States was first defended by François Vranck in his debate with Thomas Wilkes in 1587 during the rule of the Earl of Leicester as governor-general under the English protectorate, and later taken up by Hugo Grotius in his De antiquitate reipublicae Batavicae (On the Antiquity of the Batavian Republic).[lower-alpha 5] The theme was taken up again during the conflict between stadtholder William II and the States of Holland in 1650, in which first the Prince prevailed, and after his death the States, ushering in the "True Freedom" of the First Stadtholderless Period.[1]:17
The doctrine of the "True Freedom" was expounded by political philosophers like the Grand PensionaryJohan de Witt in his "Deduction"[2] and Pieter de la Court in his the Interest van Holland (Interest of Holland) and De stadthouderlijcke regeeringe in Hollandt ende West-Vrieslandt (History of the stadholders of Holland and West-Friesland). In these works the doctrine was extended into a distinctly anti-monarchical and pro-republican direction as a justification for the de facto abolition of the office of stadtholder in most provinces as "superfluous" and "positively harmful to the general welfare.."[3]:758–790
Notable representatives
Some of the most important representatives of the States Party in the history of the Republic were:
In the days that there were stadtholders who were not members of that House, the factions did not yet exist.
The States-party regenten were equally opposed to the democratic tendencies among the Patriots as the Orangist regenten.
At this time, the States Party was often referred to as the Loevesteiners, after the state prison at Loevestein, where the leaders of the Oldenbarnevelt faction had been incarcerated)
During their trial for treason the Loevesteiners disputed the competency of the ad hoc court that tried them on the ground that the court had been established by the States-General in an usurpation of the sovereignty of the States of Holland.
Deductie, ofte Declaratie, uyt de Fondamenten der Regieringe, tot justificatie vande Acten van Seclusie, raeckende 't employ vanden Prince van Oraigne (Deduction, or Declaration, from the foundations of the government, as justification of the Act of Seclusion, concerning the employment of the Prince of Orange).
Israel, J.I. (1995). The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477-1806. Oxford U.P. ISBN0-19-873072-1.
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