Reign
| Royal styles of Wilhelmina of the Netherlands |
|
|---|---|
| Reference style | Her Majesty |
| Spoken style | Your Majesty |
| Alternative style | Ma'am |
Tactful, and careful to operate within the limits of what was expected by the Dutch people and their elected representatives, the strong-willed Wilhelmina became a forceful personality who spoke and acted her mind. These qualities showed up early in her reign when, at the age of 20, Queen Wilhelmina ordered a Dutch warship to South Africa to rescue Paul Kruger, the embattled President of the Transvaal.
Wilhelmina had a stern dislike of the United Kingdom, which had annexed the republics of Transvaal and Orange Free State in the Boer War. The Boers were descendants of early Dutch colonists, to whom Wilhelmina felt very closely linked. Nevertheless, in 1940, King George VI sent the warship HMS Hereward, to rescue Wilhelmina, her family and her Government and bring them to safety in the UK, which offered the Netherlands facilities including broadcasting time on the BBC.
Queen Wilhelmina also had a keen understanding of business matters and her investments made her a very rich woman, a status retained by her daughter, Queen Juliana, and by her granddaughter, Queen Beatrix.
Before the First World War started, the young Wilhelmina visited the powerful German Emperor Wilhelm II, who boasted to the Queen of a relatively small country, "my guards are seven feet tall and yours are only shoulder-high to them." Wilhelmina smiled politely and replied, "Quite true, Your Majesty, your guards are seven feet tall. But when we open our dikes, the water is ten feet deep!"
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Famous quotes containing the word reign:
“I am monarch of all I survey;
My right there is none to dispute;
From the center all round to the sea
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
O Solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
Than reign in this horrible place.”
—William Cowper (1731–1800)
“Nature seemed to have adorned herself for our departure with a profusion of fringes and curls, mingled with the bright tints of flowers, reflected in the water. But we missed the white water-lily, which is the queen of river flowers, its reign being over for this season.... Many of this species inhabit our Concord water.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Here reign the simplicity and purity of a primitive age, and a health and hope far remote from towns and cities.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)