Episode 7 Inside Versailles

Bonjour, and welcome to Inside Versailles.

Pretty gripping episode.

We're seeing Louis coming face-to-face

with his deadly rival, William of Orange.

And so we're joined by Professor Guy Rowlands.

Why bother with Holland?

Holland is the Pocket Hercules of the international system

in the 17th century.

So Holland has banking, it has insurance,

it has tremendous trade links,

not only inside Europe, but outside Europe.

What is the Netherlands, in terms of its political structure?

You could almost call it a monster.

I mean, it is seven provinces joined together,

plus other territories on the fringes

that the seven provinces also control.

It is a republic,

but one which accords special status to the House of Orange.

-So, they don't have kings...

-They don't have kings.

..but they do have princes who have a sort of long-established power.

-Yes.

-And we see in the drama

William is trying to get back into power,

but there are people in the way - the de Witt brothers.

Jan de Witt - he is what's called the Grand Pensionary of Holland.

He is effectively the Prime Minister of the province of Holland,

and he is determined to not only keep the House of Orange down,

but to kick it while it's down as much as he can,

until it gets to the mid-1660s,

when he knows that, ultimately, one day, William is going to rise,

so it's better to control William than to continue to kick him.

-Which then brings us to the way that William comes to power.

-Mm.

-The de Witts are brutally murdered.

-Yes.

-Has William got anything to do with that?

-It's all very shady.

What we certainly know is that William was genuinely disgusted

by the butchering of the de Witts,

but it's fairly certain that members of William's entourage

were using their links with the mob of The Hague

in order to basically exact vengeance

against the de Witts, to pay them back,

when they - the de Witts - are at their most vulnerable.

So, Louis, we see him say that William is his great enemy.

-Mm-hm.

-Is that true?

They were certainly great political enemies from about 1670.

-Then, slowly, it becomes personal...

-GREG CHUCKLES

..not least because Louis would actually like to put William in

as a king in the inner core of the Dutch Republic

and then strip it of the rest of its territories.

So Louis really sees him, potentially,

as a puppet at this point.

And the Netherlands, being a small geographical landmass,

how do they cope with a big army coming at them?

They have a ring of fortresses.

They have a tremendous navy that they can put to sea

pretty much at the drop of a hat.

So when the French come at them,

well, everybody thinks they'll be able to cope with it

but, in fact, very quickly, they collapse.

-Yeah, it's called the disaster year, isn't it, in Dutch history?

-It is.

1672. Which suggests that it hasn't gone well for them.

When Louis effectively kicks the front door in of the Dutch Republic,

the whole house is then at risk of falling down.

And the Dutch haven't even got enough men

inside their fortifications to defend those.

So they do rush enough troops in to the right fortifications

in the inner defensive ring

but, even so, the French get very, very close to Amsterdam

and in order to stop them, then you do actually have to flood

this sort of lowland area of the Netherlands.

-Which we see in the drama and it's a fairly dramatic moment.

-Yes.

And the flooding stops just, what, cavalry, infantry?

They can't cross it? What does it do?

-Well, initially, at first, it's merely just soggy ground...

-OK.

..but then the waters start to rise and it gets to the point

where you'll simply be unable to put artillery through.

You might be able to get marching men through.

You might even be able to get horses through certain parts of it.

The real risk, though, is, of course,

when you get to the winter of 1672-73

when the polders freeze,

the French then could actually drive forward,

finally ending in Amsterdam, by coming over the ice.

Fortunately, just in the nick of time,

the ice melts before the French can get their troops

sufficiently concentrated to move on Amsterdam.

So it's called the disaster year, but, actually,

it's more of a sort of lucky break year.

-The Dutch kind of get away with it.

-Yes, they do, but at the same time,

the French are also overextended

and they have to start withdrawing out of the Dutch Republic,

having achieved very, very little,

except to show to the world that they do have such tremendous power

that the rest of the world really ought to stand up against them.

We've got William, great enemy of Louis,

but we would know him in Britain much better as King William III -

William II of Scotland - who ruled with Mary as joint monarchs.

And one of the reasons why William III

decides to become King of Great Britain and Ireland

is so that he can bring the British Isles into the war effort.

And once he's got Britain into that war effort,

he realises he has to remodel

the British political and financial system

by promoting the establishment of the Bank of England

and the Bank of Scotland.

So, the Bank of England is born from war?

The Bank of England is exactly born from war

as a way of propping up the British government's finances.

-So he can go and fight his old enemy...

-Louis XIV.

..who, of course, likes to spend

-an awful lot of money on war, as well.

-Indeed.

-Thank you so much.

-Thank you.

-And thank you for joining us at home.

I hope you'll join us next week for more interesting insights

into Louis XIV's court.

-Until then, bonsoir.

-Bonsoir!