States General

From states, plural of state + general, after Dutch Staten-Generaal, Middle French etats generaux.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /steɪts ˈdʒɛn(ə)ɹəl/

States General

1. (historical) An ad hoc consultative assembly in prerevolutionary France uniting representatives of the three estates of clergy, nobles, and commons. [1302–1789]
   • 1932, Duff Cooper, Talleyrand, Folio Society, published 2010, page 18:

     In 1789, with bankruptcy staring the government in the face, Louis XVI took the momentous decision to summon the States-General.

2. (historical) A similar assembly in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands. [1464–de facto 1632]
3. (historical) A standing executive-legislative council in the Dutch Republic, consisting of delegates of the sovereign Dutch provinces, that functioned as a de facto confederal government and/or collective head of state. [1588–1795]
   • 1712, Francis Hare, The Treaty Between Her Majesty and the States-General for Securing the Succession to the Crown of Great-Britain, and for Settling the Barrier for the States-General Against France, Consider'd‎^[1], page 8:

     It ſhall be Lawful for his Royal Majeſty of Great-Britain, and the States-General, by common Advice, and for the Benefit and Enlargement of the Navigation and Commerce of their Subjects, to ſeize by their Forces, what Lands and Cities they can, belonging to the Spaniſh Dominions in the Indies; (…).

   • 1845, Thomas De Witt, “Sketches of New Netherland”, in Proceedings of the New York Historical Society for the Year 1844‎^[2], page 57:

     Had the States General, early after the discovery by Hudson, directed their attention to this western field, and directly extended their strong fostering influence in planting and nurturing a well-chosen colony, bearing the germ of the institutions of the fatherland– and had the valor, wisdom and patriotism of a Stuyvesant superintended it when the first forming influences were favorable, a basis would have been laid securing probably a long and prosperous continuance.

   • 1988, Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: an Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, Berkeley: University of California Press, pages 64-65:

     The Union of Utrecht which is conventionally taken to be the “founding document” of the Republic was emphatically not a constitution.(…) It made provision for no common institutions of government, the States General being empowered to enact only what had been previously assented to in the separate assemblies of the separate states.(…) Sovereignty, it was affirmed, lay with the States General, whose bidding the Stadholder was to do as once he had done the king’s.

   • 2003, “Memorial to the States General, 19 April 1781”, in Gregg L. Lint, Richard Alan Ryerson, Anne Decker Cecere, Celeste Walker, Jennifer Shea, C. James Taylor., editors, The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams‎^[3], volume 11, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pages 272–282, footnote 2:

     J[ohn] A[dams] was fully aware that the States General would not accept a memorial from the minister of a nation as yet unrecognized, but he nevertheless went through the motions of presenting it. Then, to insure that his initiative would not disappear into the labyrinth of the Dutch political system, JA published the memorial in English, French, and Dutch editions. He chose to rely on public opinion to influence the various provincial states and the instructions they would give their representatives in the States General.

   • 2017, Peter Borschberg, “Lost in Translation? The Languages of Euro-Southeast Asian Diplomacy in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries”, in Susan Richter, Michael Roth, Sebastian Meurer, editors, Konstruktionen Europas in der Frühen Neuzeit: Geographische und historische Imaginationen. Beiträge zur 11. Arbeitstagung der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Frühe Neuzeit‎^[4], Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, →DOI, pages 291-292:

     Early letters by the Malay rulers are addressed to the “king of Holland” whom they affectionately call their “brother”, in other words as their imagined royal counterpart. In practice such letters were received and read by the stadtholder, the States General, or both.

4. The bicameral parliament of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. [from 1815]

• (French assembly): Estates General