Patriottentijd

Common card · No. 370002

The Patriottentijd (Dutch pronunciation: [pɑtriˈjɔtə(n)ˌtɛit] ; lit. 'Time of the Patriots') was a period of political instability in the Dutch Republic between approximately 1780 and 1787. Its name derives from the Patriots (Patriotten) faction who opposed the rule of the stadtholder, William V, Prince of Orange, and his supporters who were known as Orangists (Orangisten). In 1781 one of the leaders of the Patriots, Joan Derk van der Capellen tot den Pol, influenced by the reformer Richard Price and the dissenter Joseph Priestley, anonymously published a pamphlet, entitled Aan het Volk van Nederland ("To the People of the Netherlands"), in which he advocated, like Andrew Fletcher, the formation of civic militias on the Scottish, Swiss and American model to help restore the republican constitution. Such militias were subsequently organised in many localities and formed, together with Patriot political clubs, the core of the Patriot movement. From 1785 on, the Patriots managed to gain power...

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