Creaturen van de macht. Cliëntelisme bij Willem Frederik van Nassau
(1613-1664)
Janssen, G.H.
Citation
Janssen, G. H. (2005, February 2). Creaturen van de macht. Cliëntelisme bij Willem
Frederik van Nassau (1613-1664). Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/647
Version:
Corrected Publisher’s Version
License:
Licence agreement concerning inclusion of doctoral thesis in the
Institutional Repository of the University of Leiden
Downloaded from:
https://hdl.handle.net/1887/647
FOR A LON Gtime the image of the Dutch Rep ublic in the seventeenth centu ry w as that of a predominantly bourgeois, egalitarian and , above all, tolerant society. H ierarchical netw orks of patronage d id not sit w ell w ith this image of the *ROGHQ $JH. In the
historiography exam ples of this w ere generally described as ‘un-Dutch’ excesses of corru ption and nepotism w hich became especially visible in the d ecay of Dutch culture in the eighteenth centu ry.
In this book w e are u sing the exam ple of Cou nt William Fred erick of N assau-Dietz (1613-1664) to sketch a more coherent image of the significance and manifestations of patron-client relationships in the Dutch Rep ublic. This high noblem an is suitable for su ch an investigation, not only because of his career as the Stad hold er of the provinces of Friesland , Groningen and Drenthe but also because of the w ealth of the archives he left behind . William Fred erick’s extensive d iaries in particular offer us the opportunity of looking into the consequences for his life in a clientelistic society and making more sense of it as w ell as examining the language in w hich these relations w ere expressed at the tim e.
In this w e d o not regard patronage as a static or unequivocal phenom enon but as a social relationship w hich could develop differently at different social levels. Many early-mod ern contacts had clientelistic qualities but w hich qualities w ere applicable in a given case depended on a number of specific circum stances or factors. This book intend s to id entify som e of these factors.
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The practical consequences of this are to be seen in, amongst other things, the selection criteria William Fred erick applied in recruiting his clients. In his capacity of Stad hold er his patronage w as characterised by the pursuit of religious uniformity. According to William Fred erick, public government had to reflect the ideal ofFRQFRUGLD
or u nity. Along w ith this argum ent, religiou s d iversity w as a severe threat, becau se religiou s sentiments might d isrup t public administration. As a result, William Frederick w as convinced his p ublic clientele had to becom e strictly uniform and Calvinistic in nature. Moreover, the law s of the Republic stated that only members or regular visitors to the Reform ed church w ere allow ed to take p ublic office. It w as therefore self-evident that William Fred erick maintained the requirement of Reformed sym pathies as a requisite of office in his public netw ork. H ow ever, in his role of Count of Nassau William Fred erick found such exclu sivity less necessary. At his court this same patron even maintained a policy of religious tolerance w hich united various d enominations. Religion as su ch had no universal significance hereby under William Frederick’s patronage. The p ublic or the private sphere, and the social role William Fred erick found approp riate herein defined the significance he ascribed to religious preferences. In other respects the com position of his clienteles as Stad holder and as Cou nt contrasted consid erably as w ell. The d egrees of reciprocity, of loyalty and of social control w ere therefore constantly being influenced by the social setting w ithin w hich patron-client relationship s had come about.
These d iscrepancies show that in Friesland at about 1650 there w as hard ly any personal coherence betw een public ad ministration and the noble household of the Stad hold er. Because the Cou nt of N assau d id not recruit his cou rtiers from the provinces in w hich he fu nctioned as Stad hold er his court for the nobles of Friesland and Groningen w as largely a closed w orking environm ent. There w ere in fact attempts to break through this social ‘apartheid ’ but marriages of courtiers and the d aughters of Frisian nobility could not und o the divid e betw een public and private circuits. Moreover, since at court a lot of clients could look back on a family tradition of loyalty to the H ou se of N assau, patronage in this environment led to family com mitment and solid arity from w hich the court families could not easily w ithd raw and into w hich new comers w ere not read ily adm itted .
This fear of loss of influence w as not entirely unreasonable. From this stud y it appears that in the course of his career William Fred erick w as able to exert far-reaching influence on the d ecision-making p rocess in countless Frisian ad ministrative bodies w ith the aid of a pow er brokers netw ork and that he w as largely able to steer the political factions in the province. H is authority to elect magistrates in nine of the Frisian cities and to appoint a large nu mber of ‘regents’ in the provincial ad ministration meant that the urban elite in particular w as entirely d epend ent on the generosity of the Stad hold er. Moreover, using m ilitary appointments William Frederick w as able to intervene in conflicts and by issuing recommend ations he su cceeded in d eveloping a position as patron in the Frisian cou ntrysid e. By the end of William Fred erick’s life this established practise w as even laid d ow n in secret contracts. So it w as that the Stad hold er, w ho w as officially the servant of the Provincial States, could grow to become the central figure in Frisian politics, thanks to a process of patronage. The intensive control w hich he could exercise as a patron on the religious and social behaviour of his clients finally show s us that patronage not only constituted a political mechanism bu t also an instrum ent to imp ose social d iscipline.
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William Fred erick d id not only adapt his patronage roles to the public or private sp heres. As soon as he left Leeuw arden for The H ague the Count engaged in a similar re-orientation. Since he w as in Friesland only a few months a year he spent a good d eal of the time in the role of w hat he called ‘servant of the Boss’. This position as client of his second cou sin, the Prince of Orange w as, in William Fred erick’s opinion, not so much the result of individ ual choices or am bitions as the self-evident consequence of established family trad itions. H is task of marrying a Princess of Orange – w ith the prospect of an inheritance should the line of Orange d ie out - also encouraged him to conform to the norm s of this natural patron as m uch as possible.
w ould repeated ly come back to hau nt the Cou nt in The H ague. William Fred erick himself usually looked for external cau ses of this lack of stability. For instance, he found it quite likely that the tu rm oil and insecurity he experienced as a client in The H ague could be explained by the presence of w om en at the Orange cou rt. H is sexual stereotypes, how ever, brought to light that William Frederick w as not alw ays able to make sense of his ow n contrad ictory experiences and the consequences of his constant changes of roles.
When Prince William II of Orange d ied in 1650 w ithout leaving a m ale su ccessor many positions and relationship s w hich had been unequivocal and self-evid ent for William Fred erick so far, seemed to vanish. The Count w as obliged again to adapt to the new balance of pow er both in his family and the Republic and to red efine his relationship to the H ou se of Orange. That d id not mean in his case that the aristocratic frame of reference w ithin w hich he w as used to view ing this relationship changed in any meaningful w ay but the new circum stances did make him d raw new conclu sions from it. This new transformation of his patronage roles w as accompanied by a political hardening in the ‘Stad hold erless period’ w hereby his clienteles and those of others also appeared to gain a keener substantive profile. In recent stud ies J.I. Israel and J.L. Price drew attention to this ‘ideological’ basis for political factions in the Dutch Republic. The example of William Frederick can be u sed to give nuance to its imp ortance and significance. Pow er shifts after 1650 do not really seem to be the overtu re to m ore id eologically based politics; rather, they ensured a change in the d iscou rse on existing clienteles in the Rep ublic.
In his d iaries and letters William Frederick often attem pted to interpret the developm ents he experienced as patron and client in historic and religiou s term s. The Count probably d id not d o this to conceal his ow n choices or am bitions, it w as more that he felt that his ow n intentions and experiences should be laid d ow n and ju stified w ithin this aristocratic and religiou s frame of reference. H e w as quite sure that the legitimacy of his ow n patronage w as to be found in these contexts. The language of continuity and pred estination in w hich William Frederick constantly expressed him self w as not therefore any rhetorical façad e, it w as a conscious w ay of giving religiou s significance to the great changes and personal efforts he had mad e in his life and explaining them from the point of view of his family history.
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subject to change. These processes d em onstrate that early m odern patronage d id not exist by itself but should be seen in the context of how particular social sp heres accomm odated different responses to religiou s division, family relationship s or political change. The m ore consciou s w e are of this diversity, the more imp ortant it is to recognise that many of those involved united in them selves not one but m any patronage id entities. The m etamorphoses William Frederick underw ent as patron and client illustrate the many w ays in w hich clientelism affected his life.
These transformations in patronage roles not only tell us something abou t the com plicated p rocess that clientelism w as, it also tells u s about the public and private sp heres influencing this process. Perhaps William Fred erick assigned a personal significance to these d istinctive spheres and roles w hich cannot be taken as representative; his case does how ever provid e insight into the form s w hich patronage could assume in the Dutch Republic and shed s light on the factors influencing these variations. In this stud y w e are attempting to id entify these d efining factors on the basis of William Fred erick’s reaction to them.
