By Fred Taylor Everyone knows the basic antique furniture
styles, right? Queen Anne with the rounded chair shoulders,
vase-shaped splat, and cabriole legs, Chippendale with the ball-
and-claw foot and the pierced splat, and, of course, William and
Mary, one of those dark, clunky, old English styles that used to
be in castles in the Middle Ages. It falls in the same category
as those other clunky English styles like Jacobean, Elizabethan,
and Tudor. On the other hand, that is not the case at all. We
owe more to the William and Mary style than most people — even
knowledgeable collectors — often realize. Why? And who were
William and Mary, that we should be grateful to them? William
III (1650 – 1702), known as William of Orange, was the son of
the Dutch Prince of Orange, and his English wife, Mary. In 1677,
young William III married another English woman named Mary, who
was his cousin and was the daughter of the King of England,
James II (1633 – 1701). It was confusing. James II was a
Catholic, and when a son was