Rare Royalty 1857 Prince William IV Orange Netherlands Royal Envelope Wax Seal For Sale

LOT-P97. For your consideration is an exceedingly rare and historically important c.1857 royal envelope bearing the Royal wax seal of HRH Prince William IV of Orange-Nassau. Royal envelope measures 5.25\" x 4.75\". Royal wax seal intact. Condition is original. Guaranteed authentic.

William, Prince of Orange (Willem Nicolaas Alexander Frederik Karel Hendrik; 4 September 1840 – 11 June 1879), was heir apparent to the Dutch throne as the eldest son of King William III from 17 March 1849 until his death.

Prince William was the eldest son of King William III of the Netherlands and his first wife, Princess Sophie of Württemberg. His nickname was Wiwill. At his birth, he held the third position in the line of succession to the Dutch throne. He was also seventeenth in the line of succession to the British throne, his claim being through his mother\'s great-grandmother Princess Augusta of Great Britain.

On 7 October 1840, only a month after his birth, his great-grandfather, the reigning King William I of the Netherlands, abdicated the throne due to disappointment over the recent Treaty of London, which recognized the independence of Belgium (previously provinces of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands), and the intention of marrying a Roman Catholic and Belgian noblewoman, Henrietta d\'Oultremont. In 1849, after the death of his grandfather King William II of the Netherlands, he became Prince of Orange as heir apparent. His Victorian upbringing turned out to be a disaster.

Heavily disillusioned with his situation in the Netherlands, Prince William then went into exile in Paris, where he threw himself into a life of sex, drinking and gambling. He shared this life with Henriette Hauser (also Hausser), his Parisian mistress, a \"boulevard theatre\" actress. The Duke de Gramont-Caderousse, a French fellow hedonist, gave him the nickname \"Prince Lemon\" [le prince Citron in French]; the nickname became popular among the regulars in the recently created boulevards and the Parisian newspapers when they reported about his debauched lifestyle. Prince William died at the age of 38 in his apartment in the Rue Auber, near the Paris Opera from a combination of typhus, liver complaints and total exhaustion. On 26 June 1879 his body was entombed in the royal crypt at the New Church of Delft. On his coffin there was a wreath from French empress Eugénie de Montijo and one from the future King Edward VII, who had been his fellow debauchee.

After his death, his brother Alexander became heir-apparent and Prince of Orange. However he also died before their father, who was now without sons. The States-General adopted cognatic primogeniture in 1888.