page_title: History of the Netherlands
section_title: Franco-Dutch War and Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672–1702)
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Netherlands / Dutch Republic: Regents and Stadholders (1649–1784) / Franco-Dutch War and Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672–1702)
caption_attribution_description: See https://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/artists-a-z/k/artist/sir-godfrey-kneller/object/william-iii-1650-1702-pg-2788 for details
context_page_description: The History of the Netherlands is a history of seafaring people thriving on a lowland river delta on the North Sea in northwestern Europe. Records begin with the four centuries during which the region formed a militarized border zone of the Roman Empire. This came under increasing pressure from Germanic peoples moving westwards. As Roman power collapsed and the Middle Ages began, three dominant Germanic peoples coalesced in the area, Frisians in the north and coastal areas, Low Saxons in the northeast, and the Franks in the south.
  During the Middle Ages, the descendants of the Carolingian dynasty came to dominate the area and then extended their rule to a large part of Western Europe. The region nowadays corresponding to the Netherlands therefore became part of Lower Lotharingia within the Frankish Holy Roman Empire. For several centuries, lordships such as Brabant, Holland, Zeeland, Friesland, Guelders and others held a changing patchwork of territories. There was no unified equivalent of the modern Netherlands.
context_section_description: The year 1672 is known in the Netherlands as the "Disaster Year" (Rampjaar). England declared war on the Republic, (the Third Anglo-Dutch War), followed by France, Münster and Cologne, which had all signed alliances against the Republic. France, Cologne and Münster invaded the Republic. Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis, who had accomplished a diplomatic balancing act for a long time, were now the obvious scapegoats. They were lynched, and a new stadtholder, William III, was appointed.
  An Anglo-French attempt to land on the Dutch shore was barely repelled in three desperate naval battles under command of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. The advance of French troops from the south was halted by a costly inundation of its own heartland, by breaching river dikes. With the aid of friendly German princes, the Dutch succeeded in fighting back Cologne and Münster, after which the peace was signed with both of them, although some territory in the east was lost forever. Peace was signed with England as well, in 1674 (Second Treaty of Westminster). In 1678, peace was made with France at the Treaty of Nijmegen, although France's Spanish and German allies felt betrayed by this.
  In 1688, the relations with England reached crisis level once again. Stadtholder William III decided he had to take a huge gamble when he was invited to invade England by Protestant British nobles feuding with William's father-in-law the Catholic James II of England. This led to the Glorious Revolution and cemented the principle of parliamentary rule and Protestant ascendency in England.  James fled to France, and William ascended to the English throne as co-monarch with his wife Mary, James' eldest daughter.  This manoeuvre secured England as a critical ally of the United Provinces in its ongoing wars with Louis XIV of France.  William was the commander of the Dutch and English armies and fleets until his death in 1702.  During William's reign as King of England, his primary focus was leveraging British manpower and finances to aid the Dutch against the French.  The combination continued after his death as the combined Dutch, British, and mercenary army conquered Flanders and Brabant, and invaded French territory before the alliance collapsed in 1713 due to British political infighting.
caption: Willem III, Prince of Orange, born 1650, died 1702, reigned as William III of England from 1689 to 1702 after the Glorious Revolution.
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