born April 24, 1533, Dillenburg, Nassau
died July 10, 1584, Delft, Holland

in full William, Prince Of Orange, Count Of Nassau, byname William The Silent, Dutch Willem, Prins Van Oranje, Graaf Van Nassau, or Willem De Zwijger

first of the hereditary stadholders (1572–84) of the United Provinces of the Netherlands and leader of the revolt of the Netherlands against Spanish rule and the Catholic religion.

Family and inheritance.

William, the eldest son of William, count of Nassau-Dillenburg, grew up in a cultivated Lutheran environment. Far richer than his father's ancestral possessions in the region of the Lahn River in Nassau were the estates that, since 1404, another branch of the family had obtained in Brabant and elsewhere in the Low Countries, where its main seat was at Breda. At the time of William's birth, the Brabant branch was represented by his father's elder brother Henry and by Henry's only son, René, who in 1530 had inherited from a maternal uncle the domains of the House of Chalon-Arlay, so becoming the greatest seigneur of the Franche-Comté and ruler of the Provençal principality of Orange. René of Orange was killed in 1544, leaving the combined wealth of the houses of Nassau-Breda and of Chalon-Orange to his cousin William, then aged 11.

In view of the importance of this heritage, the lord of the Burgundian Netherlands, the Habsburg emperor Charles V, stipulated that William's parents should renounce his guardianship and that the young prince should be educated in his new fatherland as a Catholic. So William passed his formative years at Breda and Brussels, under the guidance of suitable tutors, and was duly imbued with the principles proper to a youth of his standing. French became his daily language, and he acquired a colloquial command of Dutch.

In spite of his immense landed property, his financial circumstances were straitened from the beginning. Scarcity of liquid assets continued to hamper him, even after his marriage (July 8, 1551) to a wealthy heiress, Countess Anne of Egmond-Buren, who brought him several additional baronies, mainly in Holland. These “structural? pecuniary straits he shared with most of his class and with the Burgundian government itself.

A favourite with Charles V and with the court at Brussels, the Prince faithfully discharged the social, military, and diplomatic duties that were expected of him. He continued to do so under Philip II, the Emperor's son and successor as king of Spain and lord of the Burgundian dominions. Together with his later enemies Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, bishop of Arras, and the Duque de Alba, he was a negotiator of the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559), which, in ending prolonged strife between Burgundy-Habsburg and France, released from French occupation his princedom of Orange and made the Netherlands accessible to Calvinist preachers from France. Philip II, at his accession in 1555, had admitted William to the Council of State, and, now before his departure to Spain, the King appointed him his stadholder (governor and commander in chief) in Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht (August 1559) and afterward in Franche-Comté (February 1561).

Loyal opposition to the King's government.

From about 1561 William, the prince of Orange, together with other great lords who felt themselves excluded from their rightful share in the country's government, began to protest openly against the conduct of the Brussels administration, in which Granvelle, the principal adviser of the regent Margaret, duchess of Parma, was the most powerful figure. At first religious questions were not prominent among the causes of discontent, but they gradually became so with the spread of Protestant ideas and the determination of Philip II not to tolerate any deviation from the strictest Catholic orthodoxy. The Prince and his associates, in varying degrees influenced by the comprehensive views of the Humanist Desiderius Erasmus, shared in this respect the feelings of the majority of their countrymen, who, while remaining conventional Roman Catholics, resented religious persecution. Besides, several of the nobles had, as had William, friends and parents among the Protestants. On Aug. 25, 1561, the Prince, a widower since 1558, reinforced his Lutheran and German connections by taking as his second wife Anna of Saxony.

In the mind of William, the prince of Orange, the religious issue gradually assumed paramount importance. In a sensational speech in the Council of State, he argued that it was not feasible to enforce religious unity and that it was not right for princes to presume to rule over the consciences of their subjects. But the King in October 1565 gave strict orders that the ordinances against heretics should be inexorably applied.

Consequently, the situation became increasingly dangerous. The leadership of the opposition was now taken over by a confederation of lesser nobles and gentlemen, some of them Calvinists, who were more desperate than the magnates and less averse to a violent solution; they and their followers soon came to be called the Gueux (Beggars). The great lords kept aloof, but William and a few others showed sympathy for the movement, with which the Prince was personally in touch through his brother, Count Louis of Nassau, a Lutheran with Calvinistic leanings. Orange persuaded the confederates not to resort to armed action but instead to petition the regent Margaret for a suspension of the decrees against Protestants. The Duchess did indeed promise a moderation of the antiheretical measures, but it was already too late for minor relaxations to avert trouble. Misery caused by the economic depression contributed to the violent explosions of religious fanaticism that shook the Low Countries in August 1566. Calvinist mobs forcibly entered churches, smashing the images and destroying the furnishings. Besides causing irreparable damage, these excesses had a threefold effect: peaceful coexistence of Catholics and Protestants became more difficult; the opposition movement was weakened because its responsible members felt it necessary to defend the church; and, finally, it caused King Philip to resort to force in an attempt to crush heresy and rebellion at one blow. To this end, in December 1566, he appointed the Duque de Alba as his captain general in the Netherlands.

Orange seems to have contemplated immediate active resistance but in the end did nothing because the popular hero Lamoral, graf van Egmond, stadholder of Flanders and Artois, would not support him. He allowed the Protestants, now openly rebellious, to hail him as their defender, but he upheld public order. As hereditary viscount of Antwerp he quelled an insurrection of the numerous Calvinists there, and he kept the city gates closed to rebels and government forces alike. He protested his loyalty to the king, yet he refused to take the new oath of unconditional obedience that the Regent required from all officeholders and prudently retired in April 1567 to the family seat at Dillenburg. Many thousands followed William's example or had preceded him; a general exodus to England, Germany, and France took place.

Open revolt and alliance with Calvinism.

By May 1567 order was everywhere restored. Nevertheless, in August Alba entered Brussels at the head of a well-trained army and inaugurated a reign of terror. In September a special court, the Council of Troubles, was set up to try all cases of rebellion and heresy, and more than 1,000 executions took place (including those of the counts of Egmond and Hoorne). Orange, summoned to appear before the court, replied with a dignified Justification of his conduct. But his possessions in Philip's dominions were confiscated, and his son Philip William, a student at Louvain, was deported to Spain.

Once again the cause of liberty, no less than that of religion, was clearly seen to be at stake. The opposition, however secret, became much more widespread, and Orange was justified in expecting a general rising when he should appear as a liberator. He saw his own fortunes irrevocably bound up with those of the Netherlands, and he no longer hesitated to proceed to military action. Though disappointed in his hopes of substantial support from the Lutheran German princes (he himself had reverted to the creed of his childhood) or from the emperor Maximilian II, he managed, mainly through the aid of his relatives, to raise a number of troops. In April 1568 two invasions of the Low Countries were inaugurated, but both badly miscarried. One of the attacking forces was destroyed by Alba on the banks of the Ems River. The Prince himself took the field in the beginning of October and marched toward Brabant, but the expected rising did not materialize, and he was obliged to retire to France. There he stayed for a time with the Huguenots, the Calvinist party then in rebellion against the royal government, before returning, in October 1569, to Germany. Count Louis remained in France as his personal representative. The abortive campaigns had at least popularized Orange as the champion against oppression. The Calvinists were ready to forgive him for failing to take up arms in 1566, while he had come to appreciate them as the hardcore of the resistance movement, though he disliked their Puritanism and intolerance. Moreover, Calvinism was an “international? power, and from its adherents in Germany and France he had hitherto received his most effective support. So a rapprochement took place, but it was not until 1573 that he finally joined the Reformed Church.

These were his darkest years. With Alba securely in power and his own designs frustrated, having lost a brother (Adolph) and many of his friends, and bereft of his son, his estates, and his offices, he was also harassed by financial difficulties and by the wayward conduct of his wife, Anna of Saxony, whom he divorced in 1571. Orangist propaganda was active, but military operations were mainly confined to the exploits of the Sea Beggars, who had taken to the sea to combat the King of Spain from foreign bases. Their blockading activities contributed to the economic malaise in the Netherlands and so to the discontent nourished by Alba's harsh administration. This was especially the case in the seafaring province of Holland.

For the summer of 1572 Orange planned a number of coordinated attacks, counting on help from France, but on April 1, well ahead of any officially planned move, a fleet of Sea Beggars, driven from English ports, surprised and captured the port of Brielle in Zuid-Holland. Their success triggered off the desired popular rising in Holland and Zeeland, most towns declaring themselves for the Prince, so that by July only Amsterdam, Middelburg, and two other towns in Zeeland remained in loyalist hands. By the initiative of Orange, the provincial States of Holland met at Dordrecht (July 19–23) and recognized the Prince as still being their stadholder, nominally on behalf of the King, and they themselves assumed an effective share in the government. Equal rights for Catholics and Calvinists were proclaimed, pending a decision by the States General, the joint assembly of all the provinces.

Meanwhile, large parts of Gelderland and Friesland joined the revolt, as Alba and his army were retained in the south to counter the main attack, which had been launched from France. Louis of Nassau had captured Mons and was besieged there by the Spanish. Orange himself marched into Brabant, and several towns opened their gates to him. Hopes of French support were soon dashed, however, when the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day destroyed Huguenot influence at the French court. Louis was obliged to capitulate in September, and Orange disbanded his mercenaries. The fighting in the south had at least provided breathing space for the two rebellious northern provinces to consolidate their position. The Prince decided to join them, landing at Enkhuizen on October 21.

For four heroic years (1572–76), William, the prince of Orange, led the desperate resistance of the two maritime provinces against the Spanish armies sent to subdue them. Two more of his brothers—Louis and Henry—fell in a serious defeat near Nijmegen in April 1574. Meanwhile, his agents were active in the subdued provinces, in England, Germany, and France, and on June 12, 1575, he married Charlotte of Bourbon-Montpensier, a former abbess who had joined the Reformed Church. The Prince needed all his authority, tact, and tenacity of purpose to hold his followers together and prevent their pursuing divisive interests. He tried to check the excesses and mitigate the intolerance of the Protestants but was unable to maintain the equality of the Catholic and Reformed churches that he had previously advocated, and in 1573 Catholic worship was forbidden. In the closer unions Orange brought about between the different parts of Holland (July 1575) and between Holland and Zeeland (April 1576), he was recognized as “Chief and Supreme Authority? for the duration of the war, but liberty of worship was specifically excluded, though liberty of conscience was recognized.

The Prince's triumph

A temporary collapse of Spanish power in the Low Countries in 1576 gave the Prince a fresh chance. In the absence of a governor-general after the death of Alba's successor, Luis de Requesens y Zúñiga, and confronted with mutinous Spanish troops, the Council of State ventured to convene the States General. These, pretending to act in the name of the King but in fact usurping viceregal powers, immediately opened negotiations with the rebellious provinces. The Pacification of Ghent (Nov. 8, 1576) was the result. It has been supposed that Orange's influence and agents were primarily responsible for this achievement. Certainly this peace, supplemented by the first Union of Brussels (January 1577), heralded the realization of his ambitions and ideals: not only were his governorships confirmed and his possessions restored to him, but the union of the so-called 17 Netherlands under a national government seemed about to be accomplished. But the idea of a “common fatherland,? though steadily growing, was not yet strong enough to overcome particularistic or religious divisions. Because of the Perpetual Edict of 1577, the treaty the States General concluded with the new governor-general, Don John of Austria, specified that the Roman Catholic religion was to be maintained all over the country, and because of the absence of provisions for the maintenance of the Pacification, the deputies of Holland and Zeeland left the assembly.

In July 1577, however, Don John attempted to renew hostilities, thus driving more and more people to support the Prince. Those towns of Holland and Zeeland that had always opposed Orange or had been recovered by Spanish arms now recognized his authority; the last to accede (February 1578) was Amsterdam. The town and province of Utrecht followed suit, and in Flanders, Brabant, Groningen, and elsewhere, the radical Orangists, mostly Calvinistic burghers and craftsmen, gained the upper hand. In September 1577 the States General, to which the representatives of Holland and Zeeland had now returned, invited Orange to come south to Brussels, where he was triumphantly received. Under his influence a new union came into being, providing for joint action by both Roman Catholics and Protestants against “the common enemy of the fatherland.? Meanwhile, the States General, continuing to act with sovereign power, had formed a government headed by the young archduke Matthias, an Austrian nephew of King Philip. Matthias agreed to conditions laid down by the Prince guaranteeing a constitutional system of government. Moreover, in January 1578, Orange was commissioned to act as lieutenant general for Matthias.

The Prince's failure

Orange was now at the zenith of his career, but his triumph proved as short-lived as was the general union of the provinces. His failure to consolidate the newly won unity was primarily due to the excesses of his Calvinist supporters who forcibly introduced popular and intolerant regimes. Thus, the revolutionaries played into the hands of King Philip's new governor-general, Alessandro Farnese, Duke di Parma, the son of the former regent Margaret, who on Oct. 1, 1578, had taken office after the death of Don John.

The Catholic but still anti-Spanish reaction made itself felt first in the southern, French-speaking provinces. Not unnaturally, when seeking for help, their thoughts turned to France, but it was on the Prince of Orange's advice that the States General in August 1578 adopted the Catholic Duke d'Anjou, brother of Henry III of France, as “Defender of the Liberty of the Netherlands.? Soon afterward, the formation of specific unions by smaller groups of provinces began to compromise the general union, which was irrevocably compromised in May 1579 when the Prince gave qualified support to the “Union of Utrecht,? whose main promoter was his brother John, governor of Gelderland and a staunch Calvinist. On March 15 the Prince was outlawed by Philip II and a reward offered for his assassination. He answered the charges of treason with a vehement Apologie, written for him by his court chaplain, and he continued to put his trust in France. Against much Protestant opposition, he persuaded the States General in 1580 to give the Duke d'Anjou the hereditary sovereignty of the Netherlands, and in 1581 they solemnly renounced their allegiance to the king of Spain. Meanwhile, the provinces of Holland and Zeeland, unwilling to grant the French prince any direct authority, planned to create Orange their hereditary count.

Anjou, however, far from aiding the cause of liberty, added to the prevailing confusion. With great difficulty Orange effected his reconciliation with the States General. His own continuing reliance on France is shown by his fourth marriage (1583), to Louise de Coligny, a daughter of the murdered Huguenot leader the Count de Coligny.

As a result of the ban pronounced by Philip II, an attempt was made on the Prince's life at Antwerp in March 1582. With Parma advancing from the south, he retired in July 1582 to Holland, where he moved into his old quarters in a former convent at Delft. There, in 1584, he was shot by a fanatical Catholic, the Franc-Comtois Balthasar Gérard. His last words were a prayer for the people he had tried to lead for so long. The family seat of Breda being then in enemy hands, he was buried in the New Church at Delft.

Additional reading

A full account is Felix Rachfahl, Wilhelm von Oranien und der niederländische Aufstand, 3 vol. (1906–24). A standard biography, on a less heroic scale, is P.J. Blok, Willem de Eerste: Prins van Oranje, 2 vol. (1919–20). Other biographies include C.V. Wedgwood, William the Silent (1944, reissued 1989); and K.W. Swart, William the Silent and the Revolt of the Netherlands (1978).

Adriaan G. Jongkees

The Editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica

Copyright © 1994-2002 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Sources

• Encylopedia Britannica 2002, Expanded Edition DVD

Web

• Wikipedia article