Professor Lisa Jardine CBE's "Going Dutch" (2009) - How William Prince of Orange's "Declaration" was developed - "a masterly effort in collaborative drafting"

(Image above from 2015 obituary in The Independent)

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"...While the invasion was still in the early planning stages, English aristocrats sympathetic to William's cause, and corresponding regularly with his closest Dutch advisers, Willem Bentinck, Everard Weede, Heer van Dijkvelt and Frederick van Nassau, Count Zuylestein, argued that a widely distributed manifesto was vital for the success of any bid for the English throne: if he wanted to keep England 'in humour', William must 'entertain it by papers'.

They also provided advice and information on the content and distribution of pamphlets, and established connections with local printers and publishers. Jacobite pamphleteers attributed the ready acceptance of regime change to the Prince of Orange's 'debauching' of the English people with his well-judged propaganda publications.

The carefully reasoned case made in the Prince of Orange’s Declaration ‘of the reasons inducing him to appear in armes in the Kingdome of England’ — composed in the greatest secrecy, and then blanket-distributed to all those likely to be affected by the invasion — has shaped the telling of the story of the Glorious Revolution ever since.

As a piece of writing, William of Orange’s Declaration was a masterly effort in collaborative drafting on the part of the Prince, his English and Dutch advisers at The Hague, and selected members of the English expatriate community there.

It originated in a series of discussions discreetly held in England in 1687, between Dijkvelt, who had been sent by William to sound out opinion concerning James II’s policies for the English succession, and a group of English aristocrats. The final text was produced months ahead of the campaign, during the early autumn of 1688, by Gaspar Fagel — a leading political figure in the States of Holland, and William’s chief spokesman in the Dutch government. It was further edited and translated into English by Gilbert Burnet, an expatriate Scottish cleric who had become close confidant and adviser to William and Mary, and who was to play a leading part in orchestrating the acceptance of the new English royal couple.

Specially commissioned printers worked simultaneously at The Hague, Amsterdam and Rotterdam to print the manifesto at speed, in an unprecedented run of sixty thousand copies. To ensure that the invasion and its aftermath went according to plan, enormous care was taken to conceal the contents of the pamphlet even from those sympathetic to William’s cause until immediately before the invasion, with Bentinck keeping all copies under lock and key in his personal lodgings. He subsequently arranged, through his agents, for stocks of copies to be carried to (and concealed in) key locations across England and Scotland, and then authorised their release simultaneously at all these places as the fleet left the Low Countries.

Enormous care was taken to avoid leaking the contents of the manifesto prior to the Prince’s landing. As soon as he heard of its existence, James II’s ambassador at The Hague tried to obtain a copy, entirely without success. On 28 September (new style), James's Secretary of State pressed him:

‘It would be of the greatest importance imaginable to his Majestie to see the Declaration they intend to sett out, as soon as possible, and this I am well assured, that you have us'd your best endeavours to gett it, yet the better to enable you, you are to spare no money, nor stick at any summe, that may procure it.’

It was to no avail. ‘You may imagine I have taken all possible care to come by the Declaration which | hear is on the press,’ the Ambassador responded, ‘but the States printer is not to be corrupted; I have employ’d some to see if any of his servants can be; they are all sworn, and their places so lucrative they will not endanger them.’ Three days later he reported that ‘the manifesto or Declaration can not yet be had at any rate for | have offer’d considerably for it, and you will, I believe, see it there [in England] sooner than we here.”

In fact, William signed and sealed the final, agreed text of the Declaration on 10 October. On 15 October, the English consul at Amsterdam reported that ‘order is come hither from The Hague for the printing of 20,000 copies of the Prince’s manifest’, and that ‘a proportionable number is printing at Rotterdam and at The Hague’, but that he too was unable to obtain a copy. ‘They are to be distributed at the same time that the Fleet putts to sea.’

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