Editing Elective monarchy (section)

====Dutch Republic====
In the [[Dutch Republic]] of the 17th and 18th centuries there was the office of the [[Stadtholder]], whose powers fell short of those of a monarch, and which was elective. Each of the seven Dutch provinces could separately elect its own Stadtholder, and it did not have to be the same person in all of them. In theory anyone could be elected Stadtholder, though in practice it was restricted to members of the [[House of Orange]]. There was no obligation to elect a Stadtholder at all, and the leaders of the Dutch Republican faction, such as [[Johan van Oldenbarnevelt|Oldenbarnevelt]] and [[Johan de Witt|De Witt]], repeatedly tried to abolish the office of Stadtholder or leave it vacant – which it was for several decades of Dutch history. Conversely, the House of Orange and its adherents tried to increase the powers of the Stadtholder to approximate those of a monarch, to make it officially hereditary (which it became in the later part of the 18th century) and finally to transform it into a full-fledged monarchy – as it was in 1815.{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}