II
WILLIAM THE SILENT
1533–1584
Je maintiendrai
William of Orange of Nassau, or William the Silent as he is known, was an extraordinarily interesting man, if only from the fact that everything about him, from his titles and his circumstances to his character, was a contradiction. For one thing, the name “Silent” gives quite a wrong impression of him. It sounds as though he might have been taciturn, shy, or difficult to get on with, but he happened to be particularly easy and sympathetic, delightful as a companion, and eloquent in speech. How this misnomer came about will be related later.
William of Orange took his title from the smallest of his lands, a tiny province in France, near Avignon, of which he was the sovereign prince. He was a German count and a Flemish magnate; a Lutheran by birth, he was educated as a Catholic, but died a Calvinist. His character was just as varied and full of contrasts as his circumstances, so he interests and appeals to a great number of people, and we are agreed that he is one of the most lovable and heroic characters in history.
William was born in 1533 in the German castle of Dillenburg, the eldest of twelve children. His mother, Juliana of Stolberg, was a woman of great character—a wise woman and religious in the truest sense of the word. To the end of her life she was the adviser of her sons and a support and comfort to her many children. Several of them inherited her character, and principally William of Orange himself, and another, Louis. William’s father, also called William, was a good man who had gone through hard times, and who had finally, slowly but surely embraced the Protestant religion. He appears to us to be rather a washed-out edition of his remarkable son.
Orange spent the first eleven years of his life at Dillenburg. The great fortress rose from a rocky bend of a river, with towers and battlements and gateways such as one sees in mediæval pictures, and could hold a thousand people. Here all his mother’s children were born, and she managed her huge household in such a way as to become quite celebrated as the best mother and housewife in the country.
WILLIAM THE SILENT
When William was eleven years old he inherited, through the death of a cousin, great lands in the Netherlands, and the little province of Orange. Thus he became, in spite of his tender years, a very important person, and through the wish of the Emperor Charles V, King of Spain and the Netherlands, who had a great regard for the Nassau family, he was sent to Brussels to be educated as a Catholic. Also at the Emperor’s request he became a page at his court, and by the time he was fifteen the Emperor had made an intimate friend of him, taking him into his complete confidence, and allowing him to be present at the gravest and most secret conclaves. He would ask William’s advice about important matters of State and go by his judgments. This might have been enough to turn the head of any one more than double the boy’s age, but it did not appear to spoil William. He seemed only to profit and to put to the best possible use all the knowledge he got of human nature and of public affairs by being, so to speak, behind the scenes in this very confidential and important position. Charles, who took pride in discovering great men, showed in the case of Orange a great deal of insight into character.
When he was eighteen the Emperor gave him a wife, a young girl of noble family, Anne of Egmont. She lived six years and they had two children. Judging by Orange’s letters to his wife he must have been a faithful and loving husband, but he could not have seen much of her, as he was nearly always away from home fighting for his master. Charles had made him, at the age of twenty-one, General-in-Chief of his army on the frontier of France, with which country Charles was at war.