Willem Bentinck van Rhoon

Willem, Count Bentinck, Lord of Rhoon and Pendrecht (6 November 1704 – 13 October 1774) was a Dutch nobleman and politician, and the eldest son from the second marriage of William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland. He was created Count (Graf) Bentinck of the Holy Roman Empire in 1732. Bentinck played a leading role in the Orangist revolution of 1747 in the Netherlands.

Bentinck was the first son in the marriage of William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland and his second wife Jane Martha Temple. As there was an older brother from the first marriage, Henry Bentinck, 1st Duke of Portland, he did not inherit the English possessions of his father under the rules of primogeniture, but he and his brother Charles did inherit some of their father's Dutch estates, Willem inheriting the lordships of Rhoon and Pendrecht which gave him a seat in the Ridderschap, the estate of nobles in the States of Holland and West Friesland, which would become his power base in the Dutch politics of the Second Stadtholderless Period as an Orangist partisan. In 1719 Willem and his younger brother Charles were sent to the Netherlands to complete their education under the guardianship of Johan Hendrik, Count of Wassenaar. He first enrolled at Leiden university and completed his studies in The Hague. From 1725 till 1728 he went on the usual Grand Tour through most of western Continental Europe. After his return to the Netherlands and his elevation to the States of Holland in 1727 he made an arranged marriage with Charlotte Sophie of Aldenburg in 1733. As the social status of the spouses was considered too unequal (Willem being the social inferior) Bentinck bought his elevation to the rank of Imperial Count of the Holy Roman Empire in 1732 from the German emperor. The marriage was not happy and the wife soon entered an adulterous relationship, leading to a factual separation in 1738 and a formal divorce in 1743, after which Charlotte attempted to regain the possessions she had brought into the marriage, which had been granted to Willem. This led to a series of lawsuits between the former spouses which brought eventual success to Willem, but meanwhile were a heavy burden on his finances.

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