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There's some contention over the issue. William was brought up a Lutheran, but converted to Catholicism in the service of the Holy Roman Empire Charles V.

This could of course be seen to be a purely political move, in order to gain promotion and not be penalised by the growing Catholic "counter reformation" and he was thus a 'crypto protestant': effectively pretending to be Catholic.

However, one must not be too quick to judge. When the Eighty Year's War broke out and he became a prominent (soon to be the most well known name of all the leader) he didn't renounce his Catholicism, rather focusing on the idea of religious freedom.

Explanations for this may have simply been he was against the worst excesses of Philip II's (who succeeded Charles V as ruler of the Hapsburg Netherlands) infamous inquisition and thus began to believe in personal belief not being ascribed by the state, or it may be that he was simply a Christian and not interested in its forms. I personally think it was more likely to be the former, considering the general intellectual currents of the time the latter would be very radical indeed, but that is as much a hunch as a substantiated claim.

In short, we will never know for sure.

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13y ago

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