to the throne with the Act of Settlement 1701. Upon his death in 1702, the king was succeeded in Britain by Anne and as titular Prince of Orange by his cousin John William Friso, beginning the Second Stadtholderless period. Early life Birth and family William III was born in The Hague in the Dutch Republic on 4 November 1650. Baptised William Henry (), he was the only child of Mary, Princess Royal, and stadtholder William II, Prince of Orange. His mother was the eldest daughter of King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and sister of King Charles II and King James II and VII. Eight days before William was born, his father died of smallpox; thus William was the sovereign Prince of Orange from the moment of his birth. Immediately, a conflict ensued between his mother and paternal grandmother, Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, over the name to be given to the infant. Mary wanted to name him Charles after her brother, but her mother-in-law insisted on giving him the name William (Willem) to bolster his prospects of becoming stadtholder. William II had appointed his wife as their son's guardian in his will; however, the document remained unsigned at William II's death and was void. On 13 August 1651, the Hoge Raad van Holland en Zeeland (Supreme Court) ruled that guardianship would be shared between his mother, his paternal grandmother and Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, whose wife, Louise Henriette, was William II's eldest sister. Childhood and education William's mother showed little personal interest in her son, sometimes being absent for years, and had always deliberately kept herself apart from Dutch society. William's education was first laid in the hands of several Dutch governesses, some of English descent, including Walburg Howard and the Scottish noblewoman, Lady Anna Mackenzie. From April 1656, the prince received daily instruction in the Reformed religion from the Calvinist preacher Cornelis Trigland, a follower of the Contra-Remonstrant theologian Gisbertus Voetius. The ideal education for William was described in Discours sur la nourriture de S. H. Monseigneur le Prince d'Orange, a short treatise, perhaps by one of William's tutors, Constantijn Huygens. In these lessons, the prince was taught that he was predestined to become an instrument of Divine Providence, fulfilling the historical destiny of the House of Orange-Nassau. From early 1659, William spent seven years at the University of Leiden for a formal education, under the guidance