Queen Sophie of the Netherlands

Suppose King William III of the Netherlands' wife, Queen Emma had not had a daughter, Princess Wilhelmina.
After William the new monarch is Princess Sophie, Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
Sophie is the daughter of King William II of the Netherlands.
How would Sophie reign as Queen?
 
Well, she did the standard stuff that a woman of her rank was supposed to do: she took an interest in Goethe's works, founded schools, patronised worthy causes, that sort of thing. She would by no means be a bad Queen. She fell into an awful funk after her eldest son died in 1894, but I don't see why he would have to die then with a PoD in 1880 - he had TB, but another three years of life isn't unreasonable. At any rate, the Grand Dukes of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach will continue as Kings of the Netherlands, barring deposition, etc. I suppose whoever was King-Grand Duke during WW1 (which would still happen, I expect) would side with the Central Powers. If they won, the Dutch might get Flanders back, and maybe join the German Empire if it goes really well. If the CP lose, well, say hello to the Dutch Republic.

There is the question of whether the Dutch would accept the Weimar dynasty, as they were German and the major members were notoriously unpopular. However, the next heir was the Queen of Denmark, necessitating a personal union, and the agnatic heir was Adolphe, Duke of Nassau. However, the Nassau Family Pact of 1783 was very clear that the Netherlands were not to pass outside the House of Orange-Nassau, being a non-Imperial territory pursuant to the Peace of Westphalia. Therefore, it was a choice between personal union with Weimar and personal union with Denmark, so it wasn't worth anyone's while to block Sophie from the throne, IMO. Still, her descendants wouldn't be that popular.
 
nah, the stadholders & kings/queens in the Netherlands never had total power.
The monarch has to stay out of politics, politics is the field the estates general & prime-minister & cabinet.

at this point in time any attempt of the monarch to get too deep in politics will lead to forced abdication.
The Netherlands would still be neutral.
actually the dutch would probably have a slightly better military leadership, since in otl Wilhelmina protected general Snijders, something which now probably will not happen, and he probably will get sack for someone less pro-german and less defeatist

her daughter would become queen after her because:
William Ernst however had stated repeatedly that he had no wish to inherit the throne if given the opportunity, as the Dutch constitution required that he would have to give up his title as Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Marie_Alexandrine_of_Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

and also, in cases like this the list heirs gets far less absolute, they will go along the list until the find someone politically suitable, and if that doesn't work, there is always the fallback of re-establishing the republic of the United Provinces (not unreasonable, since after the 3 williams monarchy was not very popular)
 
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Well, she did the standard stuff that a woman of her rank was supposed to do: she took an interest in Goethe's works, founded schools, patronised worthy causes, that sort of thing. She would by no means be a bad Queen. She fell into an awful funk after her eldest son died in 1894, but I don't see why he would have to die then with a PoD in 1880 - he had TB, but another three years of life isn't unreasonable. At any rate, the Grand Dukes of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach will continue as Kings of the Netherlands, barring deposition, etc. I suppose whoever was King-Grand Duke during WW1 (which would still happen, I expect) would side with the Central Powers. If they won, the Dutch might get Flanders back, and maybe join the German Empire if it goes really well. If the CP lose, well, say hello to the Dutch Republic.

There is the question of whether the Dutch would accept the Weimar dynasty, as they were German and the major members were notoriously unpopular. However, the next heir was the Queen of Denmark, necessitating a personal union, and the agnatic heir was Adolphe, Duke of Nassau. However, the Nassau Family Pact of 1783 was very clear that the Netherlands were not to pass outside the House of Orange-Nassau, being a non-Imperial territory pursuant to the Peace of Westphalia. Therefore, it was a choice between personal union with Weimar and personal union with Denmark, so it wasn't worth anyone's while to block Sophie from the throne, IMO. Still, her descendants wouldn't be that popular.

There's no need for a personal union with Denmark and it wouldn't become a reality until 1926.

I assume by Queen of Denmark, you are referring to Louise of Sweden, wife of King Frederick VIII of Denmark. She did not become Queen Consort of Denmark for 16 years after the death of King Wilhelm III and there would be no actual personal union until 1926, when Louise died and her eldest son, Christian (by then King of Denmark since 1912), would also become King of the Netherlands.

Of course this gives literally decades to resolve the situation.

Assuming the Dutch government were not prepared to accept a German monarch and selected Louise's line on the death of King William III, Louise had 4 sons. She and her eldest son Christian could renounce their rights, leaving Louise's second son to assume the Dutch throne. Prince Carl of Denmark (the future King Haakon VII of Norway) turned 18 in 1890 when King William III died.

It would be interesting to consider the ramifications for The Netherlands.

Moreso than any other European royal house, the Dutch population buy into the idea of the Oranges, and are more invested in that than the concept of monarchy itself.
 
Moreso than any other European royal house, the Dutch population buy into the idea of the Oranges, and are more invested in that than the concept of monarchy itself.

exactly, and support for the monarchy was very very low after the disaster that were the 3 williams (william III's nickname was king gorilla), so if there is even more trouble with monarchs, it is not unlikely that they will say "just F it, who needs them anyways" and go back to the system of the stadholderless era, a republic without president ( but with prime-minister& cabinet)
 
exactly, and support for the monarchy was very very low after the disaster that were the 3 williams (william III's nickname was king gorilla), so if there is even more trouble with monarchs, it is not unlikely that they will say "just F it, who needs them anyways" and go back to the system of the stadholderless era, a republic without president ( but with prime-minister& cabinet)

Well I'm not sure about that given the time we are talking about, I mean if you look at Norway, even as late as in 1905, they felt under strong pressure to establish a monarchy to fit it and please the great powers of Europe, which were predominantly monarchies. I also think Norway in 1905 was much less conservative than the Netherlands was at the time.

Bringing in a new dynasty, would be a great opportunity to reform the monarchy and reduce its powers, rather than abolish it altogether.

Choosing someone with Orange ancestry but who satisfied the not German requirement, such as Carl of Denmark, might have worked. I suppose if he was adopted as a teenager by William III, he was young enough to be rebranded as an Orange.
 
There are two things to realise with these kind of situations:
1: Personal Unions were forbidden in the Dutch constitution (with Luxemburg as the only exception).
2: To avoid falling into the German sphere of influence the Dutch actualy changed the constitution in 1922 to exclude people to far removed from the Dutch Royal family. It is certainly possible to happen earlier.

I would say that a Dutch Republic is a very likely outcome. Although I guess Sophie is still close enough as long as she and her decendents cut all ties with Germany.
 
I don't see a big dynastic problem, in the sense that the house of Orange-Nassau died out multiple times without anyone really being upset. We just skipped to the next heir and called THEM Orange-Nassau instead (sole exception being Maurits/Maurice who is always called 'of Nassau', being his elder brother was Prince of Orange. And that's way at the outset of the dynasty).

Be it a later son of Denmark or a duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, I imagine much the same will happen. Whoever inherits adopts the name Orange-Nassau and in 50 years everyone half-forgets they weren't really Oranges anyway.
 
An interesting butterfly if Prince Carl is appointed, is the posibility of Prince Harald being elected to become the Norwegian King, which could bring issues later on as his wife Helena was a Nazi Sympathiser and exiled from Denmark after the war.
 
I think the Danish scenario is rather farfetched. Assuming Sophie is out of the question because she's already Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar (as consort to the Grand Duke), she still has descendants who could do the job. Barring her son who is heir to Saxe-Weimar and his two minor children, the obvious candidate is Sophie's daughter Marie, married to one of the countless Heinrichs of the Reuss family. I can't help but wonder if a Dutch Reuss family would have continued the tradition of naming every male member Henry (in this case, probably Hendrik)...

However, assuming Sophie does take the throne, I'd guess she's more likely to be succeeded by her grandson Bernhard, who in OTL died at the age of 22 in 1900. However, I'd guess that his death may be butterflied away.
Another factor to take into consideration, is that a Wil(h/l)e(l)m Ernst who is raised from the 1880s on with the prospect that he's the logical heir to the Dutch throne, might have an entirely different attitude towards this inheritance than the WE of our timeline. One would think that the Dutch royal throne is more prestigious than a 'mere' German grand duchy. So perhaps he would want to succeed as Willem IV, and leave Weimar to his younger brother.

I doubt the king/queen, whoever it will be, will 'reign' that much different than OTL's Emma and Wilhelmina. After all, although Willem III liked occasionally to explore the limits of his constitutional rule, his political role was still very limited. If Sophie ends up queen, she might also be a half-absentee monarch, spending half of her time with her husband in Weimar, which might even speed up the process of reducing the monarch's role.
, a question that is more interesting than the one who would become king or queen, is what this does to the monarchy's popularity. As it has been pointed out, the three Willems (and the last one in particular) were never very popular, and some German foreigner will probably be even less welcomed, despite the Weimars reportedly all knowing Dutch. The Wilhelm Ernst of OTL was particularly unpopular in his own Weimar... In OTL, it's queen Emma who has been credited with 'reinventing' the royal family and boosting its popularity. I don't know, however, how much of this is due to her as a person and how much to having good advisors.
Also, the tradition of koninginnedag was originally invented as a celebration of (Princess) Wilhelmina's birthday; without a Wilhelmina, this would not exist.
 
An interesting butterfly if Prince Carl is appointed, is the posibility of Prince Harald being elected to become the Norwegian King, which could bring issues later on as his wife Helena was a Nazi Sympathiser and exiled from Denmark after the war.

I don't think it means Carl's younger brother Harald would automatically be selected as King of Norway.

Carl's biggest asset to the Norwegians was that he was the son-in-law of Edward VII of the UK.

Harald didn't marry Helena until 1909, assuming he had been selected, he would have been King of Norway for 4 years. He might have been pressurised to marry sooner to secure the succession and he might have been urged to search for a more eligible bride than Helena that would give Norway connections with the great powers.

Princess Alexandra of Fife, Edward VII's oldest grandaughter turned 18 in 1909. Victoria Louise of Prussia, daughter of the Kaiser turned 18 the following year. Both Edward VII and Wilhelm II took an interest in Norway and Carl's selection, assuming that the new King of Norway was unmarried, I suspect they would also take an interest in providing him with a British or German bride.
 
Carl's biggest asset to the Norwegians was that he was the son-in-law of Edward VII of the UK.

And the fact that he could trace his line back to Norwegian kings, and the fact that he came from House Oldenburg (branch line, but still.) which Norway had a memory of as largely benign rulers (although it was just long enough ago that there would be few if any with actual memory of it), his great-grandfather being the one the Norwegian aristrocracy (predominantly transplanted Danish nobles) tried getting as an independent king in 1815 doing Concert of Vienna before Sweden pressed the issue invading, and lastly the fact that he was the grand-nephew of Oscar II of Sweden, from whom they got released from being in a personal Union under.

So his marriage with Princess Maud, while important was only one of many good reasons, and the only one he didn't share with the rest of his family.

Sure Harald wouldn't be the only contender in the selection issue, but neither was Carl
 
And the fact that he could trace his line back to Norwegian kings, and the fact that he came from House Oldenburg (branch line, but still.) which Norway had a memory of as largely benign rulers (although it was just long enough ago that there would be few if any with actual memory of it), his great-grandfather being the one the Norwegian aristrocracy (predominantly transplanted Danish nobles) tried getting as an independent king in 1815 doing Concert of Vienna before Sweden pressed the issue invading, and lastly the fact that he was the grand-nephew of Oscar II of Sweden, from whom they got released from being in a personal Union under.

So his marriage with Princess Maud, while important was only one of many good reasons, and the only one he didn't share with the rest of his family

But again, the most important factor was that he was the British King's son-in-law, who took a strong personal interest in pushing Carl, say might say stronger than Carl himself.

All of the other reasons were minor in comparison.
 
Without Queen Emma's influence

I have read on a number of Dutch royal boards, that Queen Emma pressurised her husband not to change the succession laws to Luxembourg, thereby allowing her cousin Adolf of Nassau to inherit Luxembourg, rather than her daughter Wilhelmina.
 
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