This is a political biography of William III (1650-1702): prince of Orange; stadhouder in the Netherlands from 1672; and (in a novel joint monarchy with his wife, Mary), king of England, Scotland, and Ireland after the revolution of 1688-9.
William III explains how William overcame huge disadvantages at his birth to regain his family-s traditional dominance of Dutch politics; how he dedicated his life to the defeat of Louis XIV of France; how this brought him to the Stuart thrones in Britain and Ireland; and how he managed a war from 1689 which shifted the balance of Europe. William achieved these remarkable successes by being a new kind of -hybrid- ruler. He befitted the traditional roles of aristocratic leadership and royalty: acting as a war leader, displaying personal and court magnificence, manipulating dynastic ties, and performing an authoritative masculinity. Yet he was also a master of an emerging public politics in which the opinions of others, and even wide
