Oranje-blanje-bleu

The Prince's Flag (Dutch: Prinsenvlag, German: Prinzenflagge) is a Dutch flag, first used in the Dutch Revolt during the late 16th century.

The Prince's Flag is based on the Flag of Prince William of Orange-Nassau, hence the name. The colours are orange, white and blue, which is why the flag is often called oranje-blanje-bleu (or even: ranje-blanje-bleu) in Dutch, and orange-weiß-blau in German.

The colours orange, white and blue (Dutch: Oranje, Wit, Blauw or Oranje, Blanje, Bleu, from French Orange, Blanche, Bleu) are associated with William Prince of Orange (1533–1584). William is reported to have used these colours as early as 1577, as part of his procession entering Ghent. Jacob Duym also reports that in the siege of Leiden in 1574, the Dutch officers wore orange-white-blue brassards. From this, Rey (1837) concludes that the combination of orange-white-blue was certainly used by the Prince of Orange in the 1570s. The first reference to a naval flag in these colours dates to 1587, when the Admiralty of Zeeland ordered these flags to fly on their warships . The naval flag was used by the Watergeuzen (Gueux de mer, "Sea Beggars"), the pro-Dutch privateers during the Dutch Revolt. According to de Waard (1900), the Dutch navy between 1588 and 1630 always displayed the Prince's Flag, and after 1663 always the red-white-blue Statenvlag. The latter was introduced gradually during the 1630s to 1650s, and named "States' Flag" in 1664.

The orange-white-blue flag formed the basis for the South African flag of 1928. It is also the basis for the flags of New York City and Albany, New York. After the republican Patriots, aided by the French, seized control over the Netherlands in 1795, the Prince's Flag was forbidden and the red-white-blue flag became the only official flag, to the content of the French, analogous as they were to their own tricolour, chosen just a few months earlier. In the following period of the Kingdom of Holland, there was also no place for Orange and the Bonapartist King Louis I chose red.

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