Five Brothers and a War

History—1800 to 1900 AD

Koning Willem I

As another interesting aside, present-day Holland has a province named “ Noord (“North”) Brabant ”, but there is no “Zuid (“South”) Brabant”. The reason is that at the time of Willem VI, there was a “Zuid Brabant” province, but when the Belgians seceded, it was included within their borders and renamed “Brabant” instead. The Dutch were unwilling to either change the name of their province, or unwilling to create confusion by dropping the “Noord” from the name to create two Brabants, one in each country. So it was left being Noord Brabant .

holland

The United Kingdom of Netherlands collapsed in 1830, when Belgium revolted and separated. The causes of their revolt were numerous, but fundamentally fell into about three groups. During the time that Belgium and Holland were ruled by different powers, they had grown and developed separately. The differences had become institutionalized, and the citizens were reluctant to give up their identities. There were language differences too. Willem tried to homogenize the languages to Dutch Dutch, but the Flemish, who speak a dialect of Dutch, and the French Belgians opposed this move. Importantly, Holland had become Protestant, whereas Belgium had remained Catholic. Willem I’s wife, Friederike Luise Wilhelmina of Prussia died in 1837. She had been Queen Wilhelmina of Nederland and Grand Duchess (consort) of Luxembourg. She was the cousin of Willem. The marriage had been a political union between the House of Orange and the nation of Prussia, although it turned out to be a happy and successful marriage.

Five Brothers and a War

Page 103