CIRCA - 1572 🇳🇱 - horizontal tricolor of red (top), white (middle) & blue (bottom) equal stripes

HISTORY:  In continuous use for 4+ centuries, the tricolor evolved from the Prinsenvlag, (Prince's Flag) flown in the 16c Dutch

Revolt against the Habsburgs. It featured a lighter blue🔍, then as well as orange, rather than the red of the future 1652

nations flag, as the colors were taken from the livery of leader of the revolt, Prince William I | House of Orange-Nassau

(soon to be of different William of Orange fame.)

It may also have drawn from contemporary Low Country Provinces, like Spanish Netherlands' tricolor of red-white-yellow,

or even older 10c red-white triband of Lower Lotharingia, (identical to today's Austrian Flag🔍)

Another William, ('the Silent', famousWill's great-grandfather) gradually transitioned the orange to

red in the 17c (for reasons uncertain.)* The blue was darkened in 18c, and the red-white-blue adopted,

1st by Batavia c.1796, then by Holland c.1806, & the United Netherlands c.1813, (re-affirmed in 1937.)

VEXILLOLOGY:** Historically signifying loyalty to the House of Orange-Nassau & the quest for autonomy;

• The   RED Stripe   was originally ORANGE, a direct nod to the Principality of Orange† in southern France, (from which William I derived his title.) but unofficially the RED is now associated with valor & sacrifice.

• The WHITE Stripe  is unofficially linked to equity & peace ☮︎, but may also have meant sincerity & innocence. It along with...

• The   BLUE Stripe were both drawn from the other side of Prince William's ancestry, the Nassau lineage arms, in the German Rhineland; where the azure blue symbolized loyalty & truthfulness, reflecting the family's reputation for trustworthiness, (not far rom the common modern unofficially association with fidelity & vigilance.)

  
  

† Oddly not etymologically linked to the color or the fruit - place name "Orange" derives from ancient Roman settlement Arausio, (which may have Celtic origins, to a local water

god or term meaning high place.) Orange 🍊 the fruit is from Sanskrit naranga, (passing through Arabic before reaching English,) and the color ORANGE was named for the

fruit. As both were commonly known by the 1540s, the place & House of Orange were quickly associated with the color, around the time of the 1st Prince William & his flag..

       Nearly identical to Luxembourg🔍 and similar to that of Croatia🔍, Russia🔍 & even France🔍  turned on it's side, but the similarities aren't intentional.

* Possibilities include dye inconsistencies, aesthetic preferences, or to avoid confusion with foreign ensigns

** The STUDY of FLAGS; their history, symbolism, usage, and design. From Latin vexillum - referring to a Roman military standard / flag (from velum= cloth/ covering/sail/curtain

    [PIE🔍 root weg = to weave / to cover]) + Greek suffix -logia = study]