Koningen en burgerdeugd. Het ontstaan van de Orde van Oranje-Nassau

Abstract

Kings and Civic Virtue: the institution of the Order of Orange-Nassau. In the nineteenth century so-called ‘state-orders’ were instituted as prominent forms of public honours all over Europe. These decorations marked a new phase in the development of the age-old orders of chivalry. Up to the first half of the nineteenth century these orders were above all instruments for the royal pleasure. Considered as private property of the prince, they were at his free disposal to reward the loyalty of his subjects. Constitutional monarchy meant of course a limitation of this freedom, which however, as this article shows for the Netherlands, did not come about without tensions and difficulties. The article deals in particular with the events which gave rise to the institution of the Order of Orange-Nassau in 1892. This new state-order is described as a product of dynastical and social-political factors and also as a typical result of an ongoing process of democratization, in which the lower classes gradually come to play a more important role in the distribution of public honours.