Prince's Flag

The Prince's Flag (Dutch: Prinsenvlag) is a Dutch historical flag, originally used by the Dutch Republic during the Eighty Years War, as observed during the first battle of Den Briel. The Prince's Flag is based on the Flag of Prince William of Orange-Nassau, hence the name. The colors are orange, white and blue, which is why the flag is often called oranje-blanje-bleu (or even: ranje-blanje-bleu) in Dutch. The color orange represents the Principality of Orange which Prince William inherited from René of Chalon, the white stripe represents the struggle for freedom and supremacy, and the blue color is the signature color of the former Nassau County.

History

When the Beggars captured Brielle, they carried banners along with these colors. In 1587, the Admiralty of Zeeland ordered these flags to fly on their warships. Soon it was the flag of the uprising and was used as the flag of the Republic of the United Netherlands in the first years. Later, about 1630, the orange was replaced by red.

During the period of the Batavian Republic, orange lost its luster: the people clearly chose red (in favor of the French) over orange (representing the House of Orange). In the following period of the Kingdom of Holland, there was also no place for Orange and the Bonapartist King Louis I chose red. In 1813, when the French were expelled, the Prince's Flag was resurrected for a short time. King William I, however, left everything as it was and preferred the French colors: red, white and blue. In that year, for the first time, the red, white and blue flag was flown, with an orange pennant, which has remained the custom in the Netherlands.

In the 1930s, the supporters of the NSB chose the orange-white-blue and the Prince's Flag as their symbol. Queen Wilhelmina in 1937 signed a Royal Decree that the colors red, white and blue are set as the official colors of the Dutch flag, partly as a signal directed at the NSB.

Current use

Today, the Prince's Flag is used as a symbol of the Greater Netherlands and Dutch Pan-nationalisthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Edit_summary politics. In 2011, two members of parliament for the Party for Freedom (PVV) had the Prince's flag hanging in their offices in the parliament's building. When this was received with scrutiny, the flags were removed. Former Dutch MP Wim Kortenoeven, having romantic nationalist sentiment, said he regrets that the flag has some negative connotations because it has been hijacked by the NSB in war-time Netherlands. The party denounces the defunct NSB and far-right movements.^[1] At a PVV protest on 21 september 2013 in The Hague, several attendants were carrying Prince's flags. When Geert Wilders was speaking in House of Representatives the same week, Alexander Pechtold refered to the flags as 'NSB-flags', implying Wilders is a nazi, to which Wilders called Pechtold a sad, measly, hypocritical little man.^[2]^[3] In protest of this remark, at least five members of PVV, Martin Bosma, Reinette Klever, Machiel de Graaf, Harm Beertema and Barry Madlener wore a Prince's flag lapel pin in the House of Representatives.^[4]^[5]

The Prince's Flag is sometimes used by far right political groups, such as the Nederlandse Volks-Unie (NVU)^[6] and Voorpost^[7]. In the past it has been used by the (now defunct) Nationalist Peoples Movement (NVB).^[8]

Dutch colonies

The Prince's Flag served as the basis for the earlier flag of South Africa. This flag was adopted in 1928 and was inspired by the former Dutch flag. In the white part of the flag are the flags of (left to right) the United Kingdom, the Orange Free State and Transvaal, representing the Union of South Africa's British colonial and republican predecessor states. In 1994 the flag was replaced by the current flag of South Africa.

As a consequence of its beginnings as the Dutch colony of New Netherland, several places in New York State use variants of the Prinsenvlag as their official flags. These places include New York City, The Bronx, Albany and Nassau County (Long Island).