William V, Prince of Orange in the context of "William I of the Netherlands"

The monarchy of the Netherlands is governed by the country's charter and constitution, roughly a third of which explains the mechanics of succession, accession, and abdication; the roles and duties of the monarch; the formalities of communication between the States General of the Netherlands; and the monarch's role in creating laws. The monarch is head of state and de jure head of government of the Netherlands.

The once-sovereign provinces of the Spanish Netherlands were intermittently ruled by members of the House of Orange-Nassau from 1559, when Philip II of Spain appointed William the Silent (William of Orange) as a stadtholder, until 1795, when the last stadtholder, William V, Prince of Orange, fled the country. William the Silent became the leader of the Dutch Revolt and of the independent Dutch Republic. Some of his descendants were later appointed as stadtholders by the provinces and, in 1747, the role of stadtholder became a hereditary position in all provinces of the thus "crowned" Dutch Republic.

In the Low Countries, a stadtholder (Dutch: stadhouder [ˈstɑtˌɦʌudər] , lit. 'stead holder') was a steward, first appointed as a medieval official and ultimately functioning as a provincial and later national leader. The stadtholder was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and Habsburg period (1384 – 1581/1795).

The title was used for the highest executive official of each province performing several duties, such as appointing lower administrators and maintaining peace and order, in the early Dutch Republic. As multiple provinces appointed the same stadtholder, the stadtholder of the powerful province of Holland at times functioned as the de facto head of state of the Dutch Republic as a whole during the 16th to 18th centuries, in an effectively hereditary role. For the last half century of its existence, it became an officially hereditary title under Prince William IV of Orange. His son, Prince William V, was the last stadtholder of all provinces of the Republic, until fleeing French revolutionary troops in 1795. His son, William I of the Netherlands, in 1815 became the first sovereign king of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The Batavian Revolution (Dutch: De Bataafse Revolutie) was a time of political, social and cultural turmoil at the end of the 18th century that marked the end of the Dutch Republic and saw the proclamation of the Batavian Republic.

The initial period, from about 1780 to 1787, is known as the Patriottentijd or "Time of the Patriots". The power of the "Patriots" grew until the stadtholder, William V, felt he had to flee the country in 1785. He asked his brother-in-law Frederick William II of Prussia for help, and in 1787 a relatively small Prussian army restored the Orangists to power with little fighting.

The Patriottentijd (Dutch pronunciation: [pɑtriˈjɔtə(n)ˌtɛit] ; lit. 'Time of the Patriots') was a period of political instability in the Dutch Republic between approximately 1780 and 1787. Its name derives from the Patriots (Patriotten) faction who opposed the rule of the stadtholder, William V, Prince of Orange, and his supporters who were known as Orangists (Orangisten). In 1781 one of the leaders of the Patriots, Joan Derk van der Capellen tot den Pol, influenced by the reformer Richard Price and the dissenter Joseph Priestley, anonymously published a pamphlet, entitled Aan het Volk van Nederland ("To the People of the Netherlands"), in which he advocated, like Andrew Fletcher, the formation of civic militias on the Scottish, Swiss and American model to help restore the republican constitution.

Such militias were subsequently organised in many localities and formed, together with Patriot political clubs, the core of the Patriot movement. From 1785 on, the Patriots managed to gain power in a number of Dutch cities, where they replaced the old system of co-option of regenten with a system of democratically elected representatives. This enabled them to replace the representatives of these cities in the States of several provinces, gaining Patriot majorities in the States of Holland, Groningen and Utrecht, and frequently also in the States General. This helped to emasculate the stadtholder's power as he was deprived of his command over a large part of the Dutch States Army. A low-key civil war ensued that resulted in a military stalemate, until in September–October 1787 the Patriots were defeated by a Prussian army and many were forced into exile.