the book "Prins Wiwill"

Whether he was smart, I don’t know. According to Wiwipedia he might have been, according to other sources, which I can’t remember, he wasn’t particularly. Over the last couple of days I read, almost finished, the book “Prins Wiwill”. The book is a dramatized telling of events. Though an interesting and easy read, it does force the author’s interpretations and opinions about people and events on the reader. I wonder how many times the prince really was in tears and how many times the author decided the prince was.

One such thing, or rather person, victimized by this approach is Queen Sophie. In part the strong opinion ventilated in the book has been brought on by the prince’s personal care taker. This man, De Casembroot, has written a diary in the period he was responsible for the prince’s upbringing. The book is based on that diary. Very likely the author’s opinion about the Queen is mainly based on what De Casembroot wrote. According to De Casembroot, the Queen is a manipulative wench who’s not afraid to use everybody, including her own son, to oppose everything the King says, does and might think and does. In some accounts it is even said she was teaching her son where to lie down on the ground and how to press his ear to the floor to hear best what was going on in the room below.

I’m not sure how much of that is true. I’ve got the feeling a lot of those rumours are what they are; rumours, passed on by all the personnel. Maybe it is true, but there’s no way we’re going to see any evidence for that.

Not only the Queen doesn’t come off lightly, Prince Wiwil doesn’t come off very well either. According to the book he’s an uninspired, lazy, indifferent kid who’s suffering from tantrums and sometimes even shows behaviour foul and mad as his dad’s. Just like his mom, in this book, the view that is shed on him is pepperred in the opninions and ignorance of the time he lived in.

In both cases I believe parts of it, because I read it somewhere else, or because I observed, for as far as I can, certain behaviour before. A lot I will write off as “the view of the time”. For instance, De Casembroot is against everything Thorbeckian, which is very liberal, especially for the time. Thorbecke was once a minister in the 19th century Dutch government. He wrote the constitution we’re living on and extract our rights from to this day. I think it’s no surprise I am, to use the 19th century expression, a Thorbeckian.

In the coming week I planned to read a book about Queen Sophie, based on her letters, if I’m not mistaken. In this case I’m going to have to remind myself, Queen Sophie liked to dramatize everything. That has become very clear from the books about Wiwil and Alexander.

What will be left is to read about Willem III, their father. I think I have a fair amount of information about the man so far. What I’m interested in, in the King’s case, is why his marriage with Sophie didn’t work, but did work with Emma. What were the differences? What did Sophie do to tick the King off and what did Emma do to calm him down?

All this study is to try and understand Wiwil and Alexander. Their tragedy, especially their demise, puzzles me. Both did nothing to save themselves. More and more I start to believe Sophie has been the great cause for that. Sure, King Willem III didn’t help, yet, Queen Wilhelmina talks about her “dear father” and she turned out to be a good Queen. I know Emma has a very big hand in that one. Still, Wilhelmina’s “dear father” stands so far apart from the hatred both Wiwil and Alexander felt. Can one man really manage to have such different and strong effects on persons all by himself. Even so, could the King?