Simon van Slingelandt

Simon van Slingelandt, lord of the manor of Patijnenburg^{[1] [2]} (January 14, 1664, Dordrecht – December 1, 1736, The Hague) was Grand Pensionary of Holland from July 17, 1727 to December 1, 1736.

Simon van Slingelandt was the son of Govert van Slingelandt, lord of Dubbeldam (1623-1690), pensionary of Rotterdam and ambassador to Prussia, Sweden, Poland (1656) and Denmark (1659). He was also the secretary of the Council of State in 1664 ^[3]

Before becoming grand pensionary Van Slingelandt wrote several reports as preparation for the second Great Assembly (Dutch Tweede Grote Vergadering , a kind of Constitutional Convention to reform the constitution of the Dutch Republic, 28 November 1716-14 September 1717), in which he proposed to give the Council of State ("Raad van State") more power. He was convinced of the necessity to restrict the power of the cities and the provinces in order to strengthen the central power of the republic. The Great Assembly however ended in failure when nothing came from Van Slingelandts proposed reforms.

He was powerful in the United Provinces, being the grand pensionary of Holland, which contributed sixty percent of the tax income of the republic. Van Slingelandt was a staunch republican, who wanted to keep the House of Orange out of the centre of power. He was a strong advocate of an alliance with Great Britain; otherwise, he thought, the United Provinces wouldn't survive. He mediated peace between Great Britain and Austria in 1732 and between France and Austria in 1736.

Simon van Slingelandt, a Master of Laws, was married to Susanna de Wildt (1666-1722) and Johanna Margaretha van Coesvelt, his housemaid (1726-1736)

Preceded by Isaac van Hoornbeek	Grand Pensionary of Holland 1727–1736	Succeeded by Anthonie van der Heim

References

Source

• Regeringsleiders van de Nederlanden
• Short biography

Bibliography

• Adriaan Goslinga, Slingelandt's efforts towards European peace, Martinus Nijhoff The Hague 1915.
• Piotr Napierała, Simon van Slingelandt (1664–1736) – last chance of the Dutch Republic, Libron-Filip Lohner, Kraków 2013. ISBN 978-83-62196-89-0

Authority control WorldCat VIAF: 74650423 LCCN: n79054941 ISNI: 0000 0000 6149 5968 GND: 118839845

Persondata
Name	Slingelandt, Simon van
Alternative names
Short description	Grand Pensionary of Holland
Date of birth	January 14, 1664
Place of birth	Dordrecht, Netherlands
Date of death	December 1, 1737
Place of death	The Hague, Netherlands