members of the Legion were mercenaries, just like the soldiers of the army. The Legion did not play a role, until the Rhinegrave in September 1786 became commander-in-chief of all forces of the province of Holland, including the States army troops under the Holland , and later also the Free Corps in the provinces of Holland and Utrecht. The events that gave rise to this development were the following. In September 1785, after a number of riots between Patriots and Orangists in The Hague during the Summer of that year, the States of Holland (by then with a slender majority of cities tending toward the Patriot side) decided to deprive the stadtholder of his command of the strong Hague garrison of the States army (though this was only formalized in July 1786). On 15 September 1785 he therefore decided to leave the city and to repair to the Het Loo Palace in Gelderland with his family. Around the same time things had come to a head in Utrecht city and part of the States of Utrecht decided to move to the city of Amersfoort, causing a schism in the States, as the representatives of the city of Utrecht and several other cities remained in Utrecht city. The Amersfoort States subsequently asked the stadtholder to put a garrison of States army troops in Amersfoort and Zeist, which was done in September 1785 with a cavalry division from the Nijmegen garrison. This remained the status quo until in May 1786 the of the Gelderland cities of Hattem and Elburg refused to seat a number of Orangist candidates in defiance of the stadtholder's right of appointment, and with help of Patriot Free Corps of Kampen, Overijssel, Zwolle and Zutphen started to fortify the cities under the command of the young firebrand Patriot Herman Willem Daendels, a Hattem native. The pro-Orangist States of Gelderland then asked the stadtholder to lend a hand in suppressing this "insurrection" and on 4 September a task-force of the Nijmegen garrison duly marched to Hattem and entered that city over light opposition the next day. The troops were allowed to loot the two small cities and desecrate the local churches. Stadtholder William V is said to have exclaimed on the news of the success of the operation: "Have they be hanged? Hell and Damnation. Why not hang the Satan's children?". The "Hattem and Elburg events" electrified the Patriot opposition.