(Updated October 2022) A three-quarter-length portrait of William III in coronation robes, slightly facing to the left. Behind him on the right, his crown and orb rest on richly ornate fabric and a fluted pillar in the left background.

Born into the House of Orange-Nassau, William took up the English, Scottish and Irish Crowns by Parliamentary invitation following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, in which his uncle and father-in-law, James II, was deposed and he reigned jointly with his wife, Mary II, until her death on 28 December 1694.

As a Protestant, William participated in a number of wars against the Catholic Louis XIV of France, and many Protestants heralded him as a champion of their faith. It was partly due to this that he was able to take the crown of England, since many were intensely fearful of Catholicism, the papacy and the forms of absolutist monarchy that they underpinned in mainland Europe. William’s reign marked the beginning of the transition from the Stuart dynasty’s personal control of government to the Parliamentary rule that developed under the House of Hanover from 1714.

During William's reign, the Bill of Rights of 1689 settled the question of succession to the Crown. After the death of either William or Mary, the other spouse would continue to reign. Next in the line of succession was Mary's sister, Princess - later Queen - Anne (d. 1714), who was the last Stuart monarch.

William was absent from Britain for extended periods of war with France during his joint rule with Mary. While he was away Mary governed in her own right, acting on his advice. When she died of smallpox in 1694, William reigned on alone to his death in 1702 and deeply mourned the loss of his wife. Although he converted to Anglicanism his popularity fell during this period but his reign consolidated the Protestant succession, saw the Act of Settlement of 1701 and resistance of French domination in Europe.

A chronic sufferer from asthma, William died of pneumonia, a complication of injury caused by a fall from his horse while riding at Hampton Court. That and Kensington Palace - both with clear country air at the time - were the main royal residences of his and Mary's reign. By comparison, Greenwich was known for downstream river fogs, which was one of the reasons they granted its former royal palace site for use as a seaman's hospital (i.e residential almshouse, as the term then generally meant).

This portrait is probably one of a studio pair with Mary II (BHC2853) and is inscribed ‘King William’. Both were presented to Greenwich Hospital by Sir John van Hattem (or 'Hatten', 1725-87), of Dinton Hall, Bucks, in 1774. His Dutch grandfather reportedly came to England as a supporter of William but may have arrived as early as 1683.