On the thirtieth of November 1813 a British warship put a 41-year-old prince ashore on the beach at Scheveningen. had spent eighteen years in exile in London, ever since his father fled the country during the . He had left a republic behind him. He was coming back to the wreckage of a French department.
In those eighteen years the Dutch had worked their way through Enlightenment politics, a written constitution, a national parliament and finally annexation by Napoleon. By the time the empire collapsed the country was exhausted and broke, and a group of prominent Dutchmen decided it needed a sovereign. They sent for the prince.
Waiting on the sand was Jacob Pronk, the Scheveningen man who would open the first bathhouse on these dunes five years later. From the beach the prince travelled by carriage to the Lange Voorhout, where a modest and genuinely enthusiastic crowd had gathered.
Two years later he became King Willem I and threw himself into canals, roads and trade. History remembers him as the merchant king, which is a fitting title for a monarch who arrived by sea.
Sources. Story: Canon van Nederland, venster Willem Frederik van Oranje landt bij Scheveningen; Haags Gemeentearchief. Aanwezigheid van Jacob Pronk op het strand in 1813 nog te verifieren. Photos: Public Domain
