William the Silent

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William of Orange (1650-1702). Prince William Henry of Orange and King William III of England (1688-1702) was the hereditary stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, grandson of King Charles I of England and, despite being deformed, beloved husband of Mary, the daughter of James II. But above all he was a robust champion of Protestantism at a time when his father-in-law compounded the Stuart family propensity for religious folly by his overt Catholicism. Thus in 1688 he and Mary were invited to become joint rulers of England while James II fled to the court of his patron Louis XIV, and three centuries of involvement in the wars of continental Europe began.

It was also thanks to Louis XIV that William was able to exercise authority over the Netherlands. The latter had decided that no future ruler should be both the political (stadtholder) and military (captain general) leader, but when in 1672 Louis and Charles II of England declared war and the French overran three provinces, minds were concentrated. William at first could only defend, but after he rebuilt the Netherlands army and allied with the Holy Roman Emperor and the elector of Brandenburg, the provinces were recovered. The invitation to co-rule in England came at the end of the only prolonged lull the aggressive Louis granted him, and he never regarded England as much more than an added resource in his lifelong struggle against the Sun King. During the League of Augsburg war there was a brief moment when, if Louis had considered it worthwhile, England could have been invaded, but instead James II was sent to put himself at the head of an Irish and Jacobite rebellion in 1790 and to be defeated by William's Irish campaign culminating at the Boyne. William's generalship was dogged, not inspired. In 1792 he not only failed to save Namur from Louis and Vauban, but was also trounced at the battle of Steenkirk. Mary died in 1694 without issue, so England was even less of a priority for the remainder of William's life. He recaptured Namur in 1695 and the League he did so much to keep together managed to contain Louis; but five years later it was business as usual with the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession, and a year later William died. In his absence party politics evolved in England, which has kept the oligarchy entertained ever since.

— Hugh Bicheno

The Dutch statesman William the Silent (1533-1584), or William I, Prince of Orange and Count of Nassau, led the revolt of the Low Countries against Spain and created the independent republic of the United Provinces.

A German nobleman by birth, William the Silent became the leader of a rebellion in the Netherlands against the king of Spain. Passionately devoted to the cause of the unity of the Netherlands, he saw the country dividing into distinct northern and southern states under the impact of military events and religious antagonisms. At various times a Lutheran, a Roman Catholic, and a Calvinist, William was most of all dedicated to Erasmian tolerance in religion; yet in the end he had to rely upon fanatical Calvinists in order to stand up to the assaults of conquering Spanish armies. A wealthy, luxury-loving noble in his younger years, he learned to live the meager life of an exile and rebel and came to love the Dutch people, high and low, for whom he gave his life and who loved him as Father of the Fatherland. Trying ceaselessly to persuade foreign princes to take over the sovereignty of the Low Countries in order to save it, he ended by becoming the founder of a free and independent Dutch republic, and only his assassination prevented Holland from making him its count.

Early Years

William was born on April 24, 1533, at Dillenburg, the ancestral castle of the Nassaus near Wiesbaden, Germany, to Count William of Nassau-Dillenburg and Juliana von Stolberg. His early life was one of simple comforts and close family affection - a rough and easy life in a castle in the countryside. His mother raised him as a Lutheran, but after he inherited the vast possessions of his cousin, René of Châlon-Nassau, in 1544 (including the principality of Orange and numerous baronies and manors in France and in the Low Countries), Emperor Charles V, as a condition of his receiving his heritage in the Netherlands, required that William come there in 1545 to be raised as a Roman Catholic.

Under the guidance of the regent, Mary of Hungary, William grew into a handsome young nobleman, elegant and well-spoken in French and Dutch as well as in his native German, and intelligent and at ease with people. He married a wealthy heiress, Anne of Egmont and Büren, in 1551, thus becoming the richest nobleman in the Netherlands. Charles V was particularly fond of him, and during his abdication at Brussels on Oct. 25, 1555, he rested his weary arms upon young Orange's shoulders.

Appointment as Stadholder

Given military commands in the war against France in 1555, William proved to have little talent as a warrior, but he clearly displayed political ability on diplomatic missions to Germany and in the peace negotiations at Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559. Philip II, who had inherited the Netherlands as well as Spain from Charles V, made William a member of the Council of State in 1555 and a knight of the Golden Fleece, the Burgundian chivalric order, in 1556. In 1558 Anne of Egmont and Büren, who had given him a son, Philip William, and a daughter, died. Philip II recognized William's preeminence among the nobility by making him stadholder of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht in 1559.

William's second marriage was to Anne, the daughter of Elector Maurice of Saxony; she was a Lutheran princess who was even wealthier than Anne of Egmont and Büren had been. This 1561 marriage was a sign that William was not a passive instrument of his sovereign. When he returned to Brussels from the wedding in Leipzig, William joined the counts of Egmont and Hoorn, his colleagues in the Council of State, in resistance to the centralizing absolutist policies of Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, who was Philip's principal agent in the Netherlands while Margaret of Parma, the King's half sister, acted as regent. They were able to compel the King, who depended upon them as the most influential persons in the country for effective government, to recall Granvelle in 1564. But Philip would make no concession in the matter of repression of Protestant heresy, although William, a nominal Roman Catholic at the time, strongly urged a policy of tolerance on the principle that men's consciences should not be forced. However, William was aware that his young brother, Louis of Nassau, was one of the leaders of the movement of the lower nobility to prevent enforcement of the ordinances introducing the Inquisition.

Opposition to the Duke of Alba

William was shocked by the "image-breaking" movement of fanatical Calvinists in 1566, which made Philip decide to replace Margaret of Parma with the Duke of Alba, who brought an army of Spanish regulars to the Low Countries in 1567 in order to crush all resistance to the King's will. William, forewarned of Alba's task of terror, resigned his offices and withdrew beyond the duke's reach into Germany, where from his refuge at Dillenburg he renewed efforts to thwart the suppression of the Netherlands. Military expeditions led by himself and by Louis of Nassau in 1568 failed in the face of Alba's superior generalship and the people's passivity. During the next 4 years, while Alba ruled the Netherlands without visible hindrance, William and his brother Louis spent their time, after a year in service with the French Huguenots under Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, in preparing to return to the struggle in the Low Countries.

In 1570 the secret resistance movement in Holland encouraged William to attempt another expedition against Alba, which also failed. However, in 1572, after the "Sea Beggars" had seized Brill, they attempted a second campaign in the southern Netherlands, which failed. William, whose hopes of help from the French Huguenots were dashed by their destruction in the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, thereupon decided to join the rebels in Holland and Zeeland "to find my grave there." These provinces, which continued to recognize William as their stadholder, thus maintaining the fiction that they were fighting not Philip II but only his general, Alba, became the base of William's new strategy of resistance. William became a Calvinist, although a moderate one, in order to hold the support of the most vigorous opponents of Spain, and he reorganized the governments of Holland and Zeeland upon the basis of the authority of their States, with himself as governor and commander. William was able to relieve Leiden in 1574 after a long siege, and he established a university there as the city's reward.

Pacification of Ghent

Also in 1574, William's marriage to Anne of Saxony, who had run off with another man and was obviously mentally unbalanced, was annulled, and in 1575 he married Princess Charlotte de Bourbon-Montpensier, who became an affectionate stepmother to his children. Negotiations in Breda for peace the same year with Luis de Lúñiga y Requesens, the Spanish commander, shortly before Requesens' death, failed over the question of religion. After a mutiny of Spanish troops in 1576, William was able to arrange an agreement among all the provinces, north and south, called the Pacification of Ghent, which enabled him to maintain their common resistance to Don John of Austria, the new governor general from Spain. He persuaded the Austrian archduke Matthias to accept appointment as governor general from the States General, but William's attempt to preserve the unity of the provinces failed due to the intransigence of religious extremists on both sides. The northern provinces, under the urging of his oldest brother, John of Nassau, joined together in the Union of Utrecht in January 1579, a union that William accepted reluctantly at first. Meanwhile Alessandro Farnese forged the almost simultaneous Union of Arras among Roman Catholics and Walloons in the opposite camp. The civil war resumed with new fury.

Last Years and Assassination

Philip II put William under the ban of outlawry in 1580, to which he replied in a bitter Apology. The States General abjured the sovereignty of Philip in 1581, and the French Duke of Alençon and Anjou was called in to take his place as a constitutional sovereign. An attempt upon William's life by Jean Jaureguy on March 18, 1582, almost succeeded; Princess Charlotte, who nursed him through a difficult recovery, died of overstrain. In January 1583 Anjou, revealing his true purpose of becoming an absolute lord in the Netherlands, unleashed his troops on Antwerp in the so-called French Fury, but he was saved from the revenge of the populace by William. That April, William married Louise de Coligny, a French Huguenot noblewoman, at Antwerp, and then moved his residence to Holland, despairing at last of keeping the Low Countries, though divided in religion, united against Spain.

During 1584 the States of Holland and Zeeland proposed to give William the title of count with limited powers, but he was slain on July 10 by Balthasar Gérard, a Roman Catholic from Franche-Comté, at the Prinsenhof in Delft before any action was taken. The last words attributed to him, "God, have pity on me and this poor people," expressed his devotion to the cause for which he had fought so long. This cause was to triumph, although not before 6 more decades had passed, under the leadership of his sons Maurice of Nassau and Frederick Henry, and then only in the northern provinces, which became the Dutch Republic. The United Provinces, which accepted the Union of Utrecht, constituted only a fragment of the Low Countries that he had sought to hold together. But it endured, became rich and powerful, and was the direct historical origin of the modern kingdom of the Netherlands (Holland).

Further Reading

As readable biographies, Frederic Harrison, William the Silent (1910; repr. 1970), and Ruth Putnam, William the Silent, Prince of Orange, and the Revolt of the Netherlands (1911), have been superseded by C. V. Wedgwood's brilliant William the Silent (1944). For historical background see Pieter Geyl, The Revolt of the Netherlands, 1555-1609 (1931; trans. 1932), and B. H. M. Vlekke, Evolution of the Dutch Nation (1945).

Additional Sources

Swart, K. W. (Koenraad Wolter), William the Silent and the revolt of the Netherlands, London: Historical Association, 1978.

William the Silent, also William of Orange, Regent of the Netherlands, Duke of Orange and Count of Nassau (Nassau, 1533-84, Delft). Although educated as a Roman Catholic at the court of Karl V in Spain, William became a leader of the Protestant cause and is regarded as the founder of the Dutch Republic. At the approach of Duke Alva to the Netherlands he went to Germany (1567). After raising forces and leading the resistance against the Spanish troops with temporary success, he was elected by the Dutch Estates to succeed Duke Alva as regent of the Netherlands. He strove vainly for an effective peace settlement with Spain during the continued unrest of the 1570s. In 1580 Philip II of Spain banned him and placed a price on his head. He was assassinated four years later.

William is the original of Oranien in Goethe's tragedy Egmont.

William of Orange (1533–1584), Dutch statesman, leader of the Dutch Revolt, and founding father of the Dutch Republic. Also known as William the Silent, William of Orange was the oldest son of the German count of Nassau, William the Rich, and Juliana of Stolbergen. His life was changed by the cannonball that killed his childless uncle René of Chalons during the Habsburg siege of the French town of Saint-Didier in 1544. As the last representative of the house of Nassau-Breda, Chalons had appointed his young nephew as his heir. The heritage included not only large possessions in the Netherlands, but also the principality of Orange in southern France. From now on, William was no longer the son of an insignificant German count, but a prince by blood. Emperor Charles V (ruled 1519–1556) summoned the young boy from his family's castle at Dillenburg to the Netherlands, where he became a page at the imperial court and was raised as a loyal and Catholic nobleman. The years that followed saw the remarkable transformation of the son of a Lutheran German count into a French-speaking Burgundian grand seigneur, ready to serve the Habsburgs. A brilliant career followed, with honorable military charges, an appointment in the Council of State, admittance to the Order of the Golden Fleece, and, in 1559, the office of governor or stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht. William of Orange had become one of the wealthiest and mightiest noblemen in the Netherlands. His 1558 marriage to Anna van Buren of the Egmont family confirmed his new standing.

In the 1560s, under the regime of Charles V's successor, Philip II of Spain (ruled 1556–1598), everything changed dramatically. From being a central pillar of royal authority, William of Orange became the leader of an armed opposition to Habsburg rule in the Low Countries. In hindsight, it is clear that the split between Orange and the regime started in 1561, with William's second marriage to Anna of Saxony, the niece of the elector of Saxony. It was a prestigious but hardly tactful marriage. Anna had many powerful relatives, but they were all Lutherans, and most of them were old enemies of the Habsburgs. In order to profit fully from his new German connections, Orange was, according to some historians, forced to become more critical of the persecutions and executions of Protestants in the Netherlands and, in the end, of Catholicism itself. Certainly, the marriage heightened the suspicions in government circles concerning the prince's religious loyalty. Lacking strong commitment to any confession, Orange himself became more and more convinced of the disastrous consequences of Philip II's stubborn religious policy. Instead, he championed a policy of religious compromise. In December 1564, in a famous speech to the members of the Council of State, Orange criticized frankly those rulers who sought to force the consciences of their subjects.

In politics William of Orange was above all an ambitious nobleman, seeking power and prestige. And as a natural advisor in military and political issues, he felt himself under the new regime more and more excluded from all-important decision making. In the figure of Philip II's new right-hand man in Brussels, Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, Orange and his noble friends found their bête noire. For a traditional nobleman such as Orange, Granvelle was nothing more than an upstart civil servant from the Franche-Comté, an example of the rising new bureaucrats of non-noble background. And as the new archbishop of Malines, he was the personification of the new bishoprics, by many falsely associated with the Spanish Inquisition.

Orange and other nobles formed an anti-Granvelle league. By the end of 1563 Granvelle had lost the game in Madrid, and on 13 March 1564 he left the Netherlands. But William of Orange and his fellow noblemen never managed either to overcome the paralysis into which the government had fallen or to moderate Philip's policy. In the end, the king's reinforced religious persecutions sparked rebellion: in 1566 the Netherlands witnessed a profound political crisis, with rebellious Protestant members of the middling and lower nobility (the League of Compromise), a wave of iconoclasm (the Beeldenstorm), and military actions of the league of armed nobles known as the Gueux ('beggars').

As a politique, 'mediator between extremes', Orange tried to steer a middle course during the upheaval. He supported the political opposition but tried at the same time to prevent social unrest and chaos and to maintain good relations with the government. His attempt failed. Both sides mistrusted him. In April 1567, with the opposition in the Netherlands losing momentum and Don Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, third duke of Alba, at the head of ten thousand Spanish troops on the way, William of Orange fled to the Dillenburg to find rest and peace among his friends.

He was not to find it. His property was confiscated when he refused Alba's summons to appear before the Council of Blood, and his eldest son, Philips William, had been seized by the royalists at the university town of Louvain and taken to Spain. William of Orange had become a dishonorable exile. In an attempt to redeem his lost reputation, and that of the house of Nassau, Orange decided on armed opposition to Habsburg rule in the Netherlands, and in 1568 he launched a military campaign. It was accompanied by a stream of well-crafted propaganda, elaborating on "Spanish cruelty" and tyranny, and stressing the godliness and heroism of William of Orange. In military affairs, however, Orange was no match for Alba. The campaign was a failure, and in the years that followed Orange was unable to mount further large-scale invasions to save the "worthy inhabitants who enjoyed freedom in former times from unbearable slavery," as he had promised.

On 1 April 1572, however, six hundred Sea Beggars, pirates carrying letters of marque by William of Orange, seized the small port of Brill. In the months that followed, one town after another in Holland and Zeeland opened its gates for Orange and the Sea Beggars, with the notable exception of Amsterdam, which stayed in the royalist camp until 1578. Alienated by Alba's tax policy and unwilling to billet Spanish garrisons, the citizenry choose what they thought was the lesser of two evils. At least the troops of the Sea Beggars included some countrymen and exiled townsmen who had fled the Netherlands in 1567. The Estates of Holland took matters into their own hands. On 19 July the Orangist Holland towns assembled at Dordrecht and accepted William of Orange as their stadtholder, recognizing him "in the absence of His Royal Majesty" as "Protector" of the Netherlands as a whole. In exchange, Orange promised through his secretary Philips Marnix, Lord of St. Aldegonde, that he would not govern Holland without the consent of the States. In the autumn of 1572, Orange, whose own efforts to stir up the cities of Brabant and Flanders had failed, decided to withdraw to Holland, convinced that he would find his grave there.

Dark years of civil war followed, including religious cleansing, mutual atrocities, and massacres of nuns, monks, and priests. Orange was powerless to prevent the elimination of Catholicism in Holland and Zeeland as an officially tolerated church, in spite of his own tolerant attitudes in religion. In the autumn of 1573 he became a Calvinist.

As a political leader, however, William of Orange experienced his finest hour. He proved to be a charismatic leader, pragmatic, keen, unwilling to compromise, and provided with an unflagging faith in God. It was largely as a result of his leadership that the rebels overcame their differences and continued their military struggle. Seizing the opportunities caused by the large-scale mutinies of the unpaid and unsupplied Spanish troops, the rebellious provinces of Holland and Zeeland in 1576 signed a treaty with the States-General, the Pacification of Ghent. It seemed a victory for Orange, the first step toward a reunification of the Netherlands under a new constitution. In September 1577 Orange entered Brussels in triumph, as a new "messiah." But the new coalition was too fragile; Orange never managed to overcome the differences between Holland and the moderate noblemen in the south, or to moderate the demands of the radical Calvinists in Brabant and Flanders. In the end, north and south drifted apart, as was illustrated by the two "Unions" concluded in 1578: the Union of Arras, which aimed to reconcile the State of the Catholic-dominated provinces in the southern Netherlands with the king of Spain, and the Union of Utrecht, which was meant as a military alliance among the rebellious provinces "for all time."

In September 1583 William of Orange returned to Holland from Antwerp. Declared a traitor and outlawed by Philip II, who had in 1581 promised a reward for the assassination of the prince, and confronted by the steady military advance of the new governor-general, Alexander Farnese, duke of Parma, Orange faced an insecure future. He defended himself in a fierce Apologia, but his popularity had reached rock bottom, largely because of his disastrous pro-French policy. He had always been convinced that the revolt could only succeed with the help of the French and had in 1580 offered the governor-generalship of the Netherlands to Francis, the duke of Anjou and Alençon, who was the brother of the French king. The eventual result was political crisis and mutinous soldiers (the French Fury of January 1583). Orange's pro-French politics was symbolized in his private life by his marriage with Louise de Coligny in 1582. It was his fourth marriage, after Anna van Buren, the disastrous affair with Anna of Saxony, from whom he was divorced in 1575, and Charlotte de Bourbon. Louise de Coligny would give birth to Frederik Hendrik, Orange's youngest son, after Philips William from his first marriage and Maurice from his second. He had six daughters with Charlotte de Bourbon.

When on 10 July 1584 the French Catholic zealot Balthazar Gérard fired his fatal pistol shots in Delft, the realization of Orange's goals for the Netherlands seemed farther away than ever. No wonder therefore, that an English visitor, Fyne Moryson, described the original grave of the prince as "the poorest that ever I saw for such a person, being only of rough stones and mortar, with posts of wood, colored over with black, and very little erected from the ground" (quoted in Swart, forthcoming). It was only some twenty years later that the newly founded Dutch Republic erected the monument that William of Orange deserved as the founding father of a new state and the advocate of religious tolerance—Hendrick de Keyser's monumental tomb in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft.

Bibliography

Israel, Jonathan. The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477–1806. Oxford, 1995.

Motley, J. L. The Rise of the Dutch Republic: A History. 3 vols. London, 1929.

Parker, Geoffrey. The Dutch Revolt. London, 1977.

Swart, K. W. William of Orange and the Dutch Revolt, 1572–1584. Forthcoming.

——. William the Silent and the Revolt of the Netherlands. London, 1978.

Wedgwood, C. V. William the Silent, William of Nassau, Prince of Orange 1533–1584. London, 1944.

—PAUL KNEVEL

William I, Prince of Orange
William the Silent, portrayed by Adriaen Thomas Key (ca. 1570–1584)
Prince of Orange
In office 1544 – 1584
Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Friesland Leader of the Dutch Revolt
In office 1559 – 1584
Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht
In office 1559 – 1567 (removed from office after flight)
Monarch	Philip II of Spain
Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht (reinstated by States General)
In office 1572 – 1584 (assassination)
Republican Stadtholder of Friesland
In office 1580 – 1584 (assassination)
Born	April 24, 1533(1533-04-24), Dillenburg, Nassau, Holy Roman Empire (now Germany)
Died	July 10, 1584 (aged 51), Delft, Netherlands

William I, Prince of Orange (April 24, 1533—July 10, 1584), also widely known as William the Silent (Dutch: Willem de Zwijger), or simply William of Orange (Dutch: Willem van Oranje), was the main leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish that set off the Eighty Years' War and resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1648. He was born into the House of Nassau as a count of Nassau-Dillenburg. He became Prince of Orange in 1544 and is thereby the founder of the branch House of Orange-Nassau.

A wealthy nobleman, William originally served the Habsburgs as a member of the court of Margaret of Parma, governor of the Spanish Netherlands. Unhappy with the centralisation of political power away from the local estates and the Spanish persecution of Dutch Protestants, William joined the Dutch uprising and turned against his former masters. The most influential and politically capable of the rebels, he led the Dutch to several successes in the fight against the Spanish. Declared an outlaw by the Spanish king in 1580, he was assassinated by Balthasar Gérard (also written as 'Gerardts') in Delft four years later.

William explained his conflict with king Philip II to the Council of State in the following way: "I can not approve that monarchs desire to rule over the conscience of their subjects and take away from them their freedom of belief and religion." (Dutch: Ik kan niet goedkeuren dat vorsten over het geweten van hun onderdanen willen heersen en hun de vrijheid van geloof en godsdienst ontnemen.)

Contents 1 Early life 2 From politician to rebel 3 War 4 Declaration of independence 5 Assassination 6 Legacy 7 Nickname 8 Issue 9 Ancestry 10 See also 11 Notes 12 References

Early life

Castle of Dillenburg in the duchy Nassau, the birth place of William the Silent

William was born on 24 April 1533 in the castle of Dillenburg in Nassau, present-day Germany. He was the eldest son of William, Count of Nassau and Juliana of Stolberg-Werningerode, and was raised a Lutheran. He had four younger brothers and seven younger sisters: John, Hermanna, Louis, Mary, Anna, Elisabeth, Katharine, Juliane, Magdalene, Adolf and Henry.

When his cousin, René of Châlon, Prince of Orange, died childless in 1544, the eleven-year-old William inherited all Châlon's property, including the title Prince of Orange, on the condition that he receive a Roman Catholic education. Besides Châlon's properties, he also inherited vast estates in the Low Countries (present-day Netherlands and Belgium). Because of his young age, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V served as the regent of the principality until William was fit to rule. William was sent to Brussels to study under the supervision of Mary of Habsburg (aka Mary of Hungary), the sister of Charles V and governor of the Habsburg Netherlands (Seventeen Provinces). In Brussels, he was taught foreign languages and received military and diplomatic education.^[1]

William the Silent in 1555

Anna of Egmond in c. 1550

On 6 July 1551, he married Anna van Egmond en Buren, the wealthy heir to the lands of her father, and William gained the titles Lord of Egmond and Count of Buren. They had three children. Later that same year, William was appointed captain in the cavalry. Favoured by Charles V, he was rapidly promoted, and became commander of one of the Emperor's armies at age 22. He was made a member of the Raad van State, the highest political advisory council in the Netherlands^[2] in 1555; the same year, Charles abdicated in favour of his son, Philip II of Spain. It was on the shoulder of William that the gout-afflicted Emperor leaned during his abdication ceremony.^[3]

His wife Anna died on March 24, 1558. Later, William had a brief relationship with Eva Elincx, leading to the birth of their illegitimate son, Justinus van Nassau:^[4][5] William officially recognised him and took responsibility for his education — Justinus would become an admiral in his later years.

In 1559, Philip appointed William as the stadtholder (governor) of the provinces Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht and Burgundy, thereby greatly increasing his political power.^[6]

From politician to rebel

Although he never directly opposed the Spanish king, William soon became one of the most prominent members of the opposition in the Raad van State, together with Philip de Montmorency, Count of Hoorn and Lamoral, Count of Egmont. They were mainly seeking more political power for the Dutch nobility, and complained that too many Spaniards were involved in governing the Netherlands. William was also dissatisfied with the increasing persecution of Protestants in the Netherlands. Brought up as both a Lutheran and later a Catholic, William was very religious but still was a proponent of freedom of religion for all people. The inquisition policy in the Netherlands, carried out by Cardinal Granvelle, prime minister to the new governor Margaret of Parma (1522–83) (natural half-sister to Philip II), increased opposition to the Spanish rule among the — then mostly Catholic — population of the Netherlands.

Anna of Saxony, second wife of William the Silent

On 25 August 1561, William of Orange married for the second time. His new wife, Anna of Saxony, was described by contemporaries as "self-absorbed, weak, assertive, and cruel"^[7], and it is generally assumed that William married her to gain more influence in Saxony, Hesse and the Palatine^[8]. The couple had five children. In early 1565, a large group of lesser noblemen, including William's younger brother Louis, formed the Confederacy of Noblemen. On 5 April, they offered a petition to Margaret of Austria, requesting an end to the persecution of Protestants. From August to October 1566, a wave of iconoclasm (known as the Beeldenstorm) spread through the Low Countries. Calvinists, Anabaptists and Mennonites, angry with their being persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church and opposed to the Catholic images of saints (which in their eyes conflicted with the Second Commandment), destroyed statues in hundreds of churches and monasteries throughout the Netherlands.

Following the Beeldenstorm, unrest in the Netherlands grew, and Margaret agreed to grant the wishes of the Confederacy, provided the noblemen would help to restore order. She also allowed more important noblemen, including William of Orange, to assist the Confederacy. In late 1566, and early 1567, it became clear that she would not be allowed to fulfill her promises, and when several minor rebellions failed, many Calvinists (the major Protestant denomination) and Lutherans fled the country. Following the announcement that Philip II, unhappy with the situation in the Netherlands, would dispatch his loyal general Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba (also known as "The Iron Duke") to restore order, William laid down his functions and retreated to his native Nassau in April 1567. He had been (financially) involved with several of the rebellions.

Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, portrait by Anthonis Mor

After his arrival in August 1567, Alba established the Council of Troubles (known to the people as the Council of Blood) to judge those involved with the rebellion and the iconoclasm. William was one of the 10,000 to be summoned before the Council, but he failed to appear. He was subsequently declared an outlaw, and his properties were confiscated. As one of the most prominent and popular politicians of the Netherlands, William of Orange emerged as the leader of an armed resistance. He financed the Watergeuzen, refugee Protestants who formed bands of corsairs and raided the coastal cities of the Netherlands (often killing Spanish and Dutch alike). He also raised an army, consisting mostly of German mercenaries to fight Alba on land. William allied with the French Huguenots, following the end the second Religious War in France when they had troops to spare.^[9] Led by his brother Louis, the army invaded the northern Netherlands in 1568. However the plan failed almost from the start. The Huguenots were defeated by French Royal Troops before they could invade, and a small force under Jean de Villers was captured within two days. Villers gave all the plans to the campaign to the Spanish following this capture.^[10] On 23 May, the army under the command of Louis won the Battle of Heiligerlee in the northern province of Groningen against a Spanish army led by the stadtholder of the northern provinces, Jean de Ligne, Duke of Aremberg. Aremberg was killed in the battle, as was William's brother Adolf. Alba countered by killing a number of convicted noblemen (including the Counts of Egmont and Hoorn on 6 June), and then by leading an expedition to Groningen. There, he annihilated Louis’ forces on German territory in the Battle of Jemmingen on 21 July, although Louis managed to escape.^[11] These two battles are now considered to be the start of the Eighty Years' War.

War

The so-called Prinsenvlag (Prince's flag), based on the colours in the coat of arms of William of Orange, was used by the Dutch rebels, and was the basis of the current flag of the Netherlands.

Coat of arms of the House of Nassau (since the 13th century)

Charlotte de Bourbon-Menpensier

William responded by leading a large army into Brabant, but Alba carefully avoided a decisive confrontation, expecting the army to fall apart quickly. As William advanced, riots broke out in his army, and with winter approaching and money running out, William decided to turn back.^[12] William made several more plans to invade in the next few years, but little came of it, lacking support and money. He remained popular with the public, partially through an extensive propaganda campaign through pamphlets. One of his most important claims, with which he attempted to justify his actions, was that he was not fighting the rightful owner of the land, the Spanish king, but only the inadequate rule of the foreign governors in the Netherlands, and the presence of foreign soldiers. On April 1, 1572 a band of Watergeuzen captured the city of Brielle, which had been left unattended by the Spanish garrison. Contrary to their normal "hit and run" tactics, they occupied the town and claimed it for the prince by raising the Prince of Orange's flag above the city.^[13] This event was followed by other cities in opening their gates for the Watergeuzen, and soon most cities in Holland and Zeeland were in the hands of the rebels, notable exceptions being Amsterdam and Middelburg. The rebel cities then called a meeting of the Staten Generaal (which they were technically unqualified to do), and reinstated William as the stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland.

Concurrently, rebel armies captured cities throughout the entire country, from Deventer to Mons. William himself then advanced with his own army and marched into several cities in the south, including Roermond and Leuven. William had counted on intervention from the French Protestants (Huguenots) as well, but this plan was thwarted after the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre on 24 August, which signalled the start of a wave of violence against the Huguenots. After a successful Spanish attack on his army, William had to flee and he retreated to Enkhuizen, in Holland. The Spanish then organised countermeasures, and sacked several rebel cities, sometimes massacring their inhabitants, such as in Mechelen or Zutphen. They had more trouble with the cities in Holland, where they took Haarlem after seven months and a loss of 8,000 soldiers, and they had to give up their siege of Alkmaar.

In 1573, William went over to the Calvinist Church.^[14]

In 1574, William's armies won several minor battles, including several naval encounters. The Spanish, lead by Don Luis de Zúñiga y Requesens since Philip replaced Alba in 1573, also had their successes. Their decisive victory in the Battle of Mookerheyde in the south east, on the Meuse embankment, on 14 April cost the lives of two of William's brothers, Louis and Henry. Requesens's armies also besieged the city of Leiden. They broke up their siege when nearby dykes were cut by the Dutch. William was very content with the victory, and established the University of Leiden, the first university in the Northern Provinces.

William had his previous marriage legally disbanded in 1571, on claims that his wife Anna was insane. He then married for the third time on 24 April 1575 to Charlotte de Bourbon-Monpensier, a former French nun, who was also popular with the public. Together, they had six daughters.

After failed peace negotiations in Breda in 1575, the war lingered on. The situation improved for the rebels when Don Requesens died unexpectedly in March 1576, and a large group of Spanish soldiers, not having received their salary in months, mutinied in November of that year and unleashed the Spanish Fury on the city of Antwerp, a tremendous propaganda coup for the Dutch Revolt. While the new governor, Don John of Austria, was under way, William of Orange managed to have most of the provinces and cities sign the Pacification of Ghent, in which they declared to fight for the expulsion of Spanish troops together. However, he failed to achieve unity in matters of religion. Catholic cities and provinces would not allow freedom for Calvinists, and vice versa.

When Don John signed the Perpetual Edict in February 1577, promising to comply with the conditions of the Pacification of Ghent, it seemed that the war had been decided in favour of the rebels. However, after Don John took the city of Namur in 1577, the uprising spread throughout the entire Netherlands. Don John attempted to negotiate peace, but the prince intentionally let the negotiations fail. On 24 September 1577, he made his triumphal entry in the capital Brussels. At the same time, Calvinist rebels grew more radical, and attempted to forbid Catholicism in their areas of control. William was opposed to this both for personal and political reasons. He desired freedom of religion, and he also needed the support of the less radical Protestants and Catholics to reach his political goals. On 6 January 1579, several southern provinces, unhappy with William's radical following, sealed the Treaty of Arras, in which they agreed to accept their governor, Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma (who had succeeded Don John).

Five northern provinces, later followed by most cities in Brabant and Flanders, then signed the Union of Utrecht on 23 January, confirming their unity. William was initially opposed to the Union, as he still hoped to unite all provinces. Nevertheless, he formally gave his support on 3 May. The Union of Utrecht would later become a de facto constitution, and would remain the only formal connection between the Dutch provinces until 1795.

Declaration of independence

The Duke of Anjou, who had been attracted by William as the new sovereign of the Netherlands, was hugely unpopular with the public.

Louise de Coligny

Prince Frederik Hendrik of Orange

In spite of the renewed union, the Duke of Parma was successful in reconquering most of the southern part of the Netherlands. Because he had agreed to remove the Spanish troops from the provinces under the Treaty of Arras, and because Philip II needed them elsewhere subsequently, the Duke of Parma was unable to advance any further until the end of 1581. In the mean time, William and his supporters were looking for foreign support. The prince had already sought French assistance on several occasions, and this time he managed to gain the support of François, Duke of Anjou, brother of king Henry III of France. On September 29, 1580, the Staten Generaal (with the exception of Zeeland and Holland) signed the Treaty of Plessis-les-Tours with the Duke of Anjou. The Duke would gain the title "Protector of the Liberty of the Netherlands" and become the new sovereign. This, however, required that the Staten Generaal and William would let go of their formal support of the King of Spain, which they had maintained officially up to that moment.

On July 22, 1581, the Staten Generaal declared their decision to no longer recognise Philip II as their king, in the Act of Abjuration. This formal declaration of independence enabled the Duke of Anjou to come to the aid of the resisters. He did not arrive until February 10, 1582, when he was officially welcomed by William in Flushing. On March 18, the Spaniard Juan de Jáuregui attempted to assassinate William in Antwerp. Although William suffered severe injuries, he survived thanks to the care of his wife Charlotte and his sister Mary. While William slowly recovered, the intensive care by Charlotte took its toll, and she died on May 5. The Duke of Anjou was not very popular with the population. The provinces of Zeeland and Holland refused to recognise him as their sovereign, and William was widely criticised for what were called his "French politics". When the Anjou's French troops arrived in late 1582, William's plan seemed to pay off, as even the Duke of Parma feared that the Dutch would now gain the upper hand.

However, the Duke of Anjou himself was displeased with his limited power, and decided to take the city of Antwerp by force on January 18, 1583. The citizens, who were warned in time, defended their city in what is known as the "French Fury". Anjou's entire army was killed, and he received reprimands from both Catherine de Medici and Elizabeth I of England (who he had courted). The position of Anjou after this attack became impossible to hold, and he eventually left the country in June. His leave also discredited William, who nevertheless maintained his support for Anjou. He stood virtually alone on this issue, and became politically isolated. Holland and Zeeland nevertheless maintained him as their stadtholder, and attempted to declare him count of Holland and Zeeland, thus making him the official sovereign. In the middle of all this, William had married for the fourth and final time on April 12, 1583 to Louise de Coligny, a French Huguenot and daughter of Gaspard de Coligny. She would be the mother of Frederick Henry (1584–1647), William's fourth legitimate son.

Assassination

William the Silent was killed at his home by Balthasar Gérard on July 10, 1584.

The Catholic Frenchman Balthasar Gérard (born 1557) was a supporter of Philip II, and in his opinion, William of Orange had betrayed the Spanish king and the Catholic religion. After Philip II declared William an outlaw and promised a reward of 25,000 crowns for his assassination, which Gérard found out in 1581, he decided to travel to the Netherlands to kill William. He served in the army of the governor of Luxembourg, Peter Ernst I von Mansfeld-Vorderort for two years, hoping to get close to William when the armies met. This never happened, and Gérard left the army in 1584. He went to the Duke of Parma to present his plans, but the Duke was unimpressed. In May 1584, he presented himself to William as a French nobleman, and gave him the seal of the Count of Mansfelt. This seal would allow for forgeries of messages of Mansfelt. William sent Gérard back to France to pass the seal to his French allies.

Gérard returned in July, having bought pistols on his return voyage. On 10 July, he made an appointment with William of Orange in his home in Delft, nowadays known as the Prinsenhof. That day, William was having dinner with his guest Rombertus van Uylenburgh. After William left the dining room and climbed down the stairs, Van Uylenburgh heard how Gérard shot William in the chest from close range. Gérard fled to collect his reward.

According to official records, his last words are said to have been:^[15]

“

Mon Dieu, ayez pitié de mon âme; mon Dieu, ayez pitié de ce pauvre peuple."[16]

”

("My God, have pity on my soul; my God, have pity on this poor people.")

Gérard was caught before he could flee Delft, and imprisoned. He was tortured before his trial on 13 July, where he was sentenced to be brutally — even by the standards of that time — killed. The magistrates sentenced that the right hand of Gérard should be burned off with a red-hot iron, that his flesh should be torn from his bones with pincers in six different places, that he should be quartered and disemboweled alive, that his heart should be torn from his bosom and flung in his face, and that, finally, his head should be cut off.^[17]

Traditionally, members of the Nassau family were buried in Breda, but as that city was in Spanish hands when William died, he was buried in the New Church in Delft. His grave monument was originally very sober, but it was replaced in 1623 by a new one, made by Hendrik de Keyser and his son Pieter. Since then, most of the members of the House of Orange-Nassau, including all Dutch monarchs have been buried in the same church. His great-grandson William the third, King of England and Scotland and Stadtholder in the Netherlands was buried in Westminster Abbey

According to British historian of science Lisa Jardine, he is reputed to be the first world head of state assassinated through use of a handgun, though this is debatable since William was not officially head of state, and the Scottish Regent Moray was shot 13 years earlier.

Legacy

A statue of William of Orange in The Hague. His finger originally pointed towards the Binnenhof, but the statue has since been moved. A similar statue stands in Voorhees Mall on the campus of Rutgers University.

Philip William, William's eldest son from his first marriage, to Anna of Egmond, succeeded him as Prince of Orange at the suggestion of Johan van Oldenbarneveldt. Phillip William died in Brussels on February 20, 1618 and was succeeded by his half-brother Maurice, the eldest son from William's second marriage, to Anna of Saxony, who became Prince of Orange. A strong military leader, he won several victories over the Spanish. Van Oldenbarneveldt managed to sign a very favourable twelve-year armistice in 1609, although Maurice was unhappy with this. Maurice was a heavy drinker and died on April 23, 1625 from liver disease. Maurice had several sons with Margaretha van Mechelen, but he never married her. So, Frederick Henry, Maurice's half-brother (and William's youngest son from his fourth marriage, to Louise de Coligny) inherited the title of Prince of Orange. Frederick Henry continued the battle against the Spanish. Frederick Henry died on March 14, 1647 and is buried with his father William "The Silent" in Nieuwe Kerk, Delft.^[18] The Netherlands became formally independent after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

The son of Frederick Henry, William II of Orange succeeded his father as stadtholder, as did his son, William III of Orange. The latter also became king of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1689. Although he was married to Mary II, Queen of Scotland and England for 17 years, he died childless in 1702. He appointed his cousin Johan Willem Friso (William's great-great-great-grandson) as his successor. Because Albertine Agnes, a daughter of Frederick Henry, married William Frederik of Nassau-Dietz, the present royal house of the Netherlands descends from William the Silent through the female line. See House of Orange for a more extensive overview. As the chief financer and political and military leader of the early years of the Dutch revolt, William is considered a national hero in the Netherlands, even though he was born in Germany, and usually spoke French. Many of the Dutch national symbols can be traced back to William of Orange:

• The flag of the Netherlands (red, white and blue) is derived from the flag of the prince, which was orange, white and blue.
• The coat of arms of the Netherlands is based on that of William of Orange. Its motto Je maintiendrai (French, "I will maintain") was also used by William of Orange, who based it on the motto of his cousin René of Châlon, who used Je maintiendrai Châlon.
• The national anthem of the Netherlands, Het Wilhelmus, was originally a propaganda song for William. It was probably written by Philips van Marnix, lord of Sint-Aldegonde, a supporter of William of Orange.
• The national colour of the Netherlands is orange, and it is used, among other things, in clothing of Dutch athletes.
• The orange sash of the Prussian Order of the Black Eagle was in honour of the Dutch Dynasty of William the Silent, since the order's founder, Frederick I of Prussia's mother, Louise Henrietta of Nassau, was the grandaughter of William the Silent.
• A statue of William the Silent stands at the main campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, a legacy of the university's founding by ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1766. The statue is commonly known to students and alumni as "Willie the Silent" and contains an inscription referring to William as "Father of his Fatherland."^[19][20]
• In January 2008, a planetoid was named after him.^[21]

Nickname

There are several explanations for the origin of his nickname, "William the Silent". The most common one relates to his prudence in regard to a conversation with the king of France.

One day, during a stag-hunt in the Bois de Vincennes, Henry, finding himself alone with the Prince, began to speak of the great number of Protestant sectaries who, during the late war, had increased so much in his kingdom to his great sorrow. His conscience, said the King, would not be easy nor his realm secure until he could see it purged of the " accursed vermin," who would one day overthrow his government, under pretence of religion, if they were allowed to get the upper hand. This was the more to be feared since some of the chief men in the kingdom, and even some princes of the blood, were on their side. But he hoped by the grace of God and the good understanding that he had with his new son, the King of Spain, that he would soon master them. The King talked on thus to Orange in the full conviction that he was cognisant of the secret agreement recently made with the Duke of Alva for the extirpation of heresy. But the Prince, subtle and adroit as he was, answered the good King in such a way as to leave him still under the impression that he, the Prince, was in full possession of the scheme propounded by Alva ; and under this belief the King revealed all the details of the plan arranged between the King of Spain and himself for the rooting out and rigorous punishment of the heretics, from the lowest to the highest rank, and in this service the Spanish troops were to be mainly employed.^[22]

In the Netherlands, he is also known as the Vader des Vaderlands, "Father of the Fatherland", and the Dutch national anthem, Het Wilhelmus,^[23] was written in his honour.

Issue

Name	Birth	Death	Notes
By Anna of Egmond (married 6 July 1551; b. est 1534, d. 24 March 1558)
Countess Maria von Nassau.	22 November 1553	ca. 23 July 1555	Died in infancy.
Philip William, Prince of Orange	19 December 1554	20 February 1618	married Eleonora of Bourbon-Condé.
Countess Maria of Nassau	7 February 1556	10 October 1616	married Count Philip of Hohenlohe-Neuenstein
By Anna of Saxony (married 25 August 1561 annulled 22 March 1571; b. 23 December 1544, d. 18 December 1577)
Countess Anna von Nassau	31 October 1562	23 November 1562	Died in infancy
Countess Anna of Nassau	5 November 1563	13 June 1588	married Count Wilhelm Ludwig von Nassau-Dillenburg
Maurice August Phillip von Nassau	18 December 1564	8 December 1566	Count, Died in infancy.
Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange	14 November 1567	23 April 1625	never married
Countess Emilia of Nassau	10 April 1569	16 March 1629	married Manuel de Portugal(son of pretender to the Portuguese throne António, Prior of Crato), 10 children
By Charlotte of Bourbon (married 24 June 1575; b. about 1546, d. 5 May 1582)
Countess Louise Juliana of Nassau	31 March 1576	15 March 1644	married Frederick IV, Elector Palatine, 8 children
Countess Elisabeth of Nassau	1577	1642	married to Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, and had issue, including Frédéric Maurice, duc de Bouillon and Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne
Catharina Belgica of Nassau	1578	1648	Countess, married to Count Philip Louis II of Hanau-Münzenberg
Charlotte Flandrina of Nassau, Sister	1579	1640	After her mother's death in 1582 her French grandfather asked for Charlotte Flandrina to stay with him. She became a Roman Catholic and entered a convent in 1593.
Charlotte Brabantina of Nassau	1580	1631	married Claude, Duc de Thouars, and had issue, including Charlotte Stanley, Countess of Derby.
Emilia Antwerpiana of Nassau	1581	1657	married Frederick Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Landsberg
By Louise de Coligny (married 24 April 1583; b. 23 September 1555, d. 13 November 1620)
Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange and Count of Nassau	b. 29 January 1584	d. 14 March 1647	married to Countess Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, father of William II and grandfather of William III, King of England, Scotland, Ireland and Stadtholder of the Netherlands

Between his first and second marriage, William had an extramarital relation with one Eva Elincx. They had a son, Justinus van Nassau (1559–1631), whom William acknowledged.

Ancestry

v • d • e Ancestors of William the Silent

16. Engelbert I, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg               8. John IV of Nassau-Dillenburg                       17. Johanna of Polanen               4. John V of Nassau-Dillenburg                             18. Johann II of Heinsberg               9. Maria of Heinsberg                       19. Anna of Solms-Braunfels               2. William I, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg                                   20. Louis I, Landgrave of Hesse               10. Henry III, Landgrave of Hesse                       21. Anna of Saxony               5. Elisabeth of Hesse                             22. Philipp, Count of Katzenelnbogen               11. Anna of Katzenelnbogen                       23. Anna of Württemberg               1. William the Silent                                         24. Botho I, Count of Stolberg               12. Henry IX, Count of Stolberg                       25. Anna of Schwarzburg-Blankenburg               6. Botho VIII, Count of Stolberg-Wernigerode                             26. Volrad II, Count of Mansfeld               13. Mathilde of Mansfeld                       27. Margareta of Schlesien-Sagan               3. Juliana of Stolberg-Wernigerode                                   28. Eberhard III of Eppstein               14. Philip I of Eppstein                       29. Anna of Nassau-Wiesbaden-Idstein               7. Anna of Eppstein-Königstein                             30. Louis de La Marck, Count of Rochefort               15. Louise de La Marck                       31. Nicole d'Aspremont

See also

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: William the Silent

• Wheellock pistol
• Het Wilhelmus

Notes

1. ^ Wedgwood (1944) pg. 29.
2. ^ As of 1549, the Low Countries, also known as the "Seventeen Provinces" comprised the present-day Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of northern France.
3. ^ J. Thorold Rogers, The Story of Nations: Holland. London, 1889; Romein, J., and Romein-Verschoor, A. Erflaters van onze beschaving. Amsterdam 1938-1940, p. 150. (Dutch, at DBNL).
4. ^ "Justinus of Nassau is the son, probably born in September 1559, of the Prince and Eva Elinx, who, according to some, was the daughter of a mayor of Emmerich." (Adriaen Valerius, Nederlandtsche gedenck-clanck. P.J. Meertens, N.B. Tenhaeff and A. Komter-Kuipers (eds.). Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam 1942; p. 148, note. (Dutch, on DBNL)).
5. ^ "...our son Justin van Nassau" in letter from William of Orange to Diederik Sonoy dated 16 July 1582, facsimile at [1].
6. ^ Wedgewood (1944) pg. 34.
7. ^ Wedgwood (1944) pg. 50.
8. ^ Wedgwood (1944) pg. 49.
9. ^ Wedgewood (1944) pg. 104.
10. ^ Wedgwood (1944) pf. 105.
11. ^ Wedgwood (1944) pg. 108.
12. ^ Wedgwood (1944) pg. 109.
13. ^ Wedgwood (1944) pg. 120.
14. ^ G. Parker, The Dutch Revolt (revised edition, 1985), p. 148
15. ^ Although commonly accepted, his last words might have been modified for propaganda purposes. See Charles Vergeer, "De laatste woorden van prins Willem", Maatstaf 28 (1981), no. 12, pp. 67-100. The debate has some history, with critics pointing to sources saying that William died immediately after having been shot and proponents stating that there would have been little opportunity to fabricate the words between the time of the assassination and the announcement of the murder to the States-General. Of the final words themselves, several slightly different versions are in circulation, the main differences being of style.
16. ^ Taken from the minutes of the States-General of 10 July 1584, quoted in J.W. Berkelbach van der Sprenkel, De Vader des Vaderlands, Haarlem 1941, p. 29: "Ten desen daghe es geschiet de clachelycke moort van Zijne Excellentie, die tusschen den een ende twee uren na den noen es ghescoten met een pistolet gheladen met dry ballen, deur een genaempt Baltazar Geraert… Ende heeft Zijne Excellentie in het vallen gheroepen: Mijn God, ontfermpt U mijnder ende Uwer ermen ghemeynte (Mon Dieu aiez pitié de mon âme, mon Dieu, aiez pitié de ce pouvre peuple)".
17. ^ Motley, John L. (1856). The Rise of the Dutch Republic, Vol. 3. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4836. 
18. ^ Nieuwekerk-Delft.
19. ^ http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/libs/scua/university_archives/historic_ru_paths.shtml#Willie
20. ^ http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheenachi/3590719700/
21. ^ Planetoïde (12151) Oranje-Nassau
22. ^ William the Silent by Frederic Harrison pp. 22-23
23. ^ The song is named after the first word of the first line, Wilhelmus, a Latinised form of the prince's first name.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: William the Silent

In 2005, an online searchable archive of William's complete correspondence was made publicly accessible by Het Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis (ING), the Institute for Dutch History.^[1]

1. ^ "De correspondentie van Willem van Oranje". Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis. Retrieved on 29 July 2007.

• Various authors (1977). Winkler Prins — Geschiedenis der Nederlanden. Amsterdam: Elsevier. ISBN 90-10-01745-1.
• Lisa Jardine: The Awful End of William the Silent: The First Assassination of a Head of State with A Handgun: London: HarperCollins: 2005: ISBN 0007192576
• Anton van der Lem (1995). De Opstand in de Nederlanden 1555–1609. Utrecht: Kosmos. ISBN 90-215-2574-7.
• De Bello Belgico. Retrieved 1 October 2004.
• Geschiedenis. Een prachtvak. Retrieved 1 October 2004.
• Het Huis van Oranje-Nassau en de Nederlandse geschiedenis. Retrieved 1 October 2004.
• (Dutch) Willem van Oranje. Dutch history website.
• (Dutch) The Complete Correspondence of William I of Orange. Digital archive by the Institute for Dutch History
• Descendants of William the Silent at Genealogics

William the Silent House of Orange-Nassau Cadet branch of the House of Nassau Born: April 24 1533 Died: July 10 1584
Regnal titles
Preceded by René of Châlon	Prince of Orange 1544–1584	Succeeded by Philip William, Prince of Orange
	Baron of Breda 1544–1584
Political offices
Preceded by Maximilian II of Burgundy, Marquess of Veere	Stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland 1559–1567	Succeeded by Maximilian of Hennin (during the Eighty Years War)
	Stadtholder of Utrecht 1559–1567
Preceded by Philip of Noircarmes (during the Eighty Years War)	Stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland 1572–1584	Succeeded by Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange
	Stadtholder of Utrecht 1572–1584	Succeeded by Adolf van Nieuwenaar
New title Creation of the Dutch Republic	Republican Stadtholder of Friesland 1580–1584	Succeeded by William Louis of Nassau

v • d • e Stadtholders of Holland, Zeeland and (from 1528) Utrecht Hugo van Lannoy · Willem van Lalaing · Gozewijn de Wilde · Jan van Lannoy · Lewis de Bruges · Wolfert VI van Borselen · Joost van Lalaing · Jan III van Egmond · Henry III of Nassau-Breda · Antoon van Lalaing · René of Châlon · Louis of Flanders · Maximilian II of Burgundy · William of Orange · Maximilian of Hennin · Philip of Noircarmes · William of Orange · Adolf van Nieuwenaar (Utrecht only) · Maurice of Nassau · Frederick Henry of Orange · William II of Orange · interregnum · William III of Orange · interregnum · William IV of Orange · William V of Orange

v • d • e Stadtholders of Friesland Floris van Egmond • Willem van Roggendorff • Jancko Douwama • Georg Schenck van Tautenburg • Maximiliaan van Egmond • Jean de Ligne • Charles de Brimeu • Gillis van Berlaymont • Caspar de Robles • George van Rennenberg • Francisco Verdugo • William of Orange • Willem Lodewijk • Ernst Casimir • Hendrik Casimir I • Willem Frederik • Hendrik Casimir II • Johan Willem Friso of Orange • William IV of Orange • William V of Orange

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