STADTII OLDER (Statthalter in German, Stadhonder in Dutch) means lieutenant or governor. The appellative Statthalter is used in the cantons of German Switzerland, to denote the civil officer who is next to the landamman or chief magistrate. In the federal republic of the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands, the stadhouder was himself the first magistrate or president of the Union. When several of the towns of Holland revolted against the tyranny of the Duke of Alba, the lieutenant of King Philip of Spain, they chose for their governor William, prince of Orange, swearing allegiance to him as the king's stadhouder, thus implying that they had revolted against the Duke of Alba and not against King Philip. But it was not until after the death of William, in 1534, that the three united provinces of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht agreed to have one stadhoudcr in common, and appointed to that office Maurice of Nassau, eon of the deceased William. (Puffendorf.) From that time the stadhoudership
continued in the house of Nassau till the death of William M. in 1702, when the male line of William I. becoming extinct, the office remained vacant, and was considered as tacitly abolished. But in 1747, after a struggle between the republican and the Orange parties, the latter, having triumphed, proclaimed William IV., of a collateral branch of the Nassau family, hereditary stadhouder of the Seven United Provinces. His son William V. was expelled by the French in 1795, and resigned the stadhouderahip by treaty with France In 1S02, since which the office has not been revived, the republic of the Netherlands having been transformed into a kingdom.