Land's Advocate of Holland
Encyclopedia
The Land's Advocate of Holland acted as the chairman of the States of Holland
States of Holland
The States of Holland and West Frisia were the representation of the two Estates to the court of the Count of Holland...

. The office started in the early 14th century and ended in 1619, when the title was renamed into Grand Pensionary
Grand Pensionary
The Grand Pensionary was the most important Dutch official during the time of the United Provinces. In theory he was only a civil servant of the Estates of the dominant province among the Seven United Provinces: the county of Holland...

. He was the speaker of the nobility of Holland and had the first say on a subject during a meeting of the Estates. A decision of the Estates was made by a summarizing of all the statements of the other delegates by the Land's Advocate. The Land's Advocate of Holland was the most powerful man of the United Provinces
Dutch Republic
The Dutch Republic — officially known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands , the Republic of the United Netherlands, or the Republic of the Seven United Provinces — was a republic in Europe existing from 1581 to 1795, preceding the Batavian Republic and ultimately...

 when there was no Stadtholder
Stadtholder
A Stadtholder A Stadtholder A Stadtholder (Dutch: stadhouder [], "steward" or "lieutenant", literally place holder, holding someones place, possibly a calque of German Statthalter, French lieutenant, or Middle Latin locum tenens...

 in Holland (because two-thirds of the tax income of the republic came from the county of Holland).

The most powerful land's advocates of Holland were the last two, Paulus Buys
Paulus Buys
Paulus Buys, heer van Zevenhoven and Capelle ter Vliet was Grand Pensionary of Holland between 1572 to 1584.-Life:...

 (1572–1584) and Johan van Oldebarnevelt (1586–1619).
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK