Rebels and Reformers: Biographies for Young People

by Baron Arthur Ponsonby Ponsonby; Dorothea Ponsonby

Now, his wife, Anne of Saxony, having left him and become insane, Orange married again for the third time—Charlotte of Bourbon, who had been a nun. This gave further offense to the Catholics.

The years 1576–78 were almost the most crowded, the most desperate, and yet the most triumphant of William’s life. He was, he writes to his brother, overwhelmed with work and grief and care. The terrible Spanish army, storming the cities of the Netherlands and butchering their inhabitants, seemed to have got the best of it. Many towns fell to them, and Orange at one moment felt at the end of his tether, when the fortunate occurrence of a mutiny for pay in the Spanish army and the death of its Grand Commander gave Orange his opportunity. While Philip hesitated, Orange acted. This brought about the union of Holland and Zeeland, which is known as the Union of Delft, a crucial act and the foundation of a great Power to come. Orange was given supreme authority as ruler. He was to support the Reformed Religion, but no inquisition was to be allowed into any man’s faith or conscience. For not only had Orange to fight the Catholics, but he had to hold back the Calvinists, who, immediately their power and numbers increased, revenged themselves most horribly on those of different creeds. The horrors of the Spanish Fury continued to increase. William called a conference of the States General and drew up the Pacification of Ghent. By this treaty all the seventeen provinces bound themselves into a solemn league to expel the Spaniards, and made it law that the ultimate settlement of all questions was to rest with the States General.

William’s appeals to the people of the Netherlands were masterpieces of eloquence and reason. He put it that disunion had been their ruin—union would save them. A stick is, he said, easily broken; a faggot of sticks bound together resists. He appealed not only to Protestants but to Catholics, asking them not to be taken in by the superstitious idea that loyalty means absolutely cringing to the every wish of a king, who is probably of all the people the most ignorant as to all that is being done in his name. The States were stirred by his appeals, and the Pacification was hailed with shouts of joy and relief. Orange at this moment reached the height of his career, and he was persuaded by his people to make a public entry into Brussels as their acknowledged leader. He received a tremendously enthusiastic and brilliant welcome. A little later, however, he had to suffer disappointment in the breaking away of the Southern from the Northern Netherlands. The persecution in the South had done its work and Philip gained the allegiance of Belgium. Henceforward they had separate histories and are known as Holland and Belgium. In his further struggles against Philip, Orange felt scarcely strong enough to hold his United Provinces without assistance from another country. He turned to France, offering to make the Duc d’Anjou, brother of the French King, sovereign of the United Provinces. His offer was accepted. The Duke proved to be a weak and treacherous man; he was a complete failure, and, making himself odious and impossible to his subjects, his rule was brought to an end.

The awful Granvelle had meanwhile whispered to Philip that they might assassinate Orange (1580), and they finally drew up together a ban putting a price upon the Prince’s head. They declared him a traitor and as such banished him “perpetually from our realms.”

Orange, living quietly with his wife at Delft, took it very calmly. He showed no fear; the Lord, he said, would dispose as He thought fit. But he wrote and published his famous Apology, a very lengthy document which is interesting as a history of his life. In it he answers the accusations brought against him in the ban—that he is a foreigner, a heretic, an enemy, a rebel, and so on.

The ban soon began to bear fruit, and several attempts were made on the Prince’s life; one, a year later, was very nearly successful. A youth offered him a petition, and as Orange took it he discharged a pistol at the Prince’s head. The bullet went through his neck and through the roof of his mouth, carrying away some teeth. The Prince was blinded and stunned. When he came to his senses he called out, “Don’t kill him! I forgive him my death.” Every one thought he had been mortally wounded, and crowds went to the churches to offer up prayers for his recovery; and he did recover, but his poor wife Charlotte, who had nursed him devotedly, died of the shock. This had been a perfect marriage, lasting seven years, and Charlotte had had six daughters, all of whom had afterwards interesting and eventful histories. A year later William married Louise de Coligny, the daughter of the famous French general. She was one of the noblest and most attractive women of her day, and gave her husband one son, a remarkable person and the first of many illustrious Stadtholders.

In Delft, William with his wife, surrounded by his many children, ranging in age from two to nearly thirty years, lived a very happy, simple life. Their large plain house was in a pleasant street planted with lime-trees, so that in June the surface of the canal they looked upon was covered with their fallen blossoms. There in the street William of Orange would sometimes be seen looking like any ordinary burgher, very plainly dressed in a loose coat of gray frieze over a tawny leather doublet, a high ruff round his neck and a wide-brimmed hat of dark felt with a cord round it. In appearance, Orange was rather tall, well-made and strong, but thin. His hair and complexion were brown, and his eyes were brown, too, and very bright and large. His head was small and well-shaped, but the brow was broad, and now, late in life, very much wrinkled and furrowed with thought and care. His mouth was firmly closed and rather melancholy. His whole appearance was that of a man of great strength of character and of self-control. At this time, though weary after many strenuous years of toil, he was never more cheerful, amusing, and sympathetic. He was busy still as the practical ruler of his devoted people—“Father of the Country,” as they called him; but when the States begged him to become their sovereign he refused. He had quite enough reward and consolation, he said, in the devotion of Holland and Zeeland, and he wanted rest in his advanced age. He was only fifty-one, but no doubt felt old, for he was old in experience and sorrow, and so he asked to be excused more cares and responsibilities.

In the summer of 1584, the Prince was one day with his wife going to his dining-room for dinner, when a man presented himself at the door of the dining-room and demanded a passport. The Princess was so much alarmed at the man’s looks that she asked her husband about him. The Prince said he was only a man who wanted a passport, and ordered his secretary to prepare one. He then ate his meal quite calmly and happily, and at the end of it walked out of the room leading the way to his own apartments up some stairs. He had just begun to ascend them when a figure emerged from a dark archway near the staircase and shot a pistol straight at the Prince’s heart. One bullet went right through him, and he, feeling his wound, cried out, “Oh, my God, have mercy upon my soul! Oh, my God, have mercy upon this poor people!” and then he died.

The murderer’s name was Balthazar Gerard. He had pretended to be a Calvinist, and in this manner had approached Orange with all sorts of pathetic stories to arouse his sympathy, and had got to know all Orange’s habits and movements. Now he was seized by the Prince’s devoted people and, in the barbarous custom of that day, tortured in a most hideous fashion until he died, all of which he bore with great bravery. He was an absolute fanatic, and believed he was doing a very fine thing in ridding the world of Orange. Being dead, he could not receive himself the reward promised by Philip, but his parents were enriched and ennobled for their son’s act.

The Great Leader was no more, and it is easy to picture the indignation and misery among his people. How were they to get on without his kind, commanding figure, without his tact, his patience and resolution? His death was indeed a calamity which put back the fortunes of the Netherlands for many years, for his second son Maurice, who became Governor, was only seventeen years old, and it was hard work to continue the struggle. But Orange’s labors had not been in vain. He was the real founder of the Dutch Republic, and he knew before he died that the cause he had suffered for would at last succeed, that the Hollanders were now in a position to offer successful resistance to Philip. And his blood ran, too, in the veins of many noble descendants—his children, and later his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who were to carry on his work. Some inherited his extraordinary powers of statesmanship and others became great soldiers.