William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland (20 July 1649-23 November 1709) was a Dutch-born English nobleman and an early favorite of King William III of England.
Biography[]
Hans Willem Bentinck was born in Diepenheim, Overijssel, Netherlands in 1649, descended from an ancient and noble family of Guelders and Overijssel. As a page to Stadtholder William III of Orange, he nursed the prince back to health after he suffered from smallpox in 1675, and he became William's enduring friend. In 1677, he secured the hand of Princess Mary of England for his stadtholder, and he again took part in diplomatic missions to England in 1683 and 1685. In 1688, he secured the support or neutrality of several German nobles ahead of the Glorious Revolution that elevated William and Mary to the rulership of the British Isles. Bentinck was promptly made a Groom of the Stole, First Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and a Privy Counsellor, and was made Earl of Portland in 1689. He commanded some cavalry at the Battle of the Boyne, was wounded at the Battle of Landen, and fought at the Siege of Namur during the War of the Grand Alliance. In 1696, he thwarted a Jacobite plot to kill the king, and he helped negotiate an end to the war with France in 1697 before serving as ambassador to Paris for six months in 1698. In 1699, he resigned from the royal household to protest the rising influence of Arnold van Keppel, and he received 135,000 acres of land in Ireland from the king. He was occasionally employed on public business under Queen Anne until his death at his Buckinghamshire residence in 1709; his son Henry Bentinck, 1st Duke of Portland succeeded him.