on individual "free anti-revolutionary" tickets and formed a free anti-revolutionary faction in parliament with six members. In 1896 they set up a committee to found a new party. In the 1897 election the individual free anti-revolutionaries won five seats. The Christian Historical Voters' League, another dissenting anti-revolutionary party, also won a seat, taken by Dutch Reformed minister De Visser. In 1898 the free anti revolutionaries founded a separate party the Free Anti Revolutionary Party. In the 1901 elections the party won nine seats, four more than the five the free Anti Revolutionaries had won as individual candidates in 1897. The religious parties won a majority in this election, a cabinet was formed by ARP leader Kuyper, which the VAR supported without providing any ministers. The Frisian League, another dissenting anti revolutionary party also won one seat, taken by Dutch Reformed minister Schokking. In 1903 the VAR merged with the Christian Historical Voters' League to form the Christian Historical Party. In 1908 the Christian Historical Party merged with the Frisian League to found the Christian Historical Union. 1908–1945 Between 1908 and 1913 the CHU supported a minority confessional cabinet of ARP and the Catholic General League. In the 1909 election the party won 10 seats, two more than the CHP and Frisian League had won in 1905. In the 1913 election the party stayed stable. Between 1913 and 1918 the country was governed by an extra parliamentary cabinet formed by liberals. Its main goal was to implement a constitutional reform combining both male universal suffrage and equal payment for religious schools. At the end of the cabinets term, two CHU ministers joined the cabinet, as they were relatively neutral politicians. In the 1918 elections, in which male universal suffrage and proportional representation were used for the first time, the party lost three seats. Together the ARP, CHU and the Catholic RKSP won fifty seats. The CHU started to cooperate fully in the confessional coalition. They formed a cabinet led by the Catholic Charles Ruijs de Beerenbrouck. The CHU provided only one minister (De Visser became minister of Education, Arts and Sciences) and two non-partisan sympathisers of the CHU were appointed. During the cabinet's term one CHU member, Dirk Jan de Geer and another CHU sympathiser were appointed as ministers, while the two CHU-sympathisers stepped down. In the 1922 election the party won four seats and the cabinet of Ruys de Beerenbrouck