WILLIAM (1533-1584), surnamed the Silent, count of Nassau and prince of Orange, was born at the castle of Dillenburg in Nassau on April 25, 1533, eldest of the five sons of William count of Nassau and Juliana of Stolberg (see NASSAU). The boy's father had decided leanings towards Lutheranism, his mother was a convinced adherent of the new faith. So it was not without hesi tation that the emperor sanctioned an arrangement by which the great heritage of the Nassau family in his Netherlands dominions and the princedom of Orange would fall to their son, and when he did sanction it, it was on condition that the old count should surrender all claims to the guardianship and that the boy should be educated in the Netherlands, with a household of Netherland ers, and as a Catholic. To this arrangement the father consented.
William of Orange thus grew up, at Brussels and at Breda, a great Netherlands nobleman, marked out for a career in the service of the ruler. In 155r he married Anna van Buren, an heiress of the Egmont family, adding estates in Holland to his already extensive possessions. Charles V. distinguished him with his favour. Philip II., too, began by creating Orange a member of the Brussels Council of State, and before he left the Netherlands for Spain, 1559, he made him his governor (Stadtholder) in the provinces of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht.
If William of Orange's career was soon so startlingly to deviate from the lines of tradition laid down for him by his predecessors, it was due in the first place to the different relationships in which, in his time, the monarchy had come to stand with respect to the Netherlands. The creation of a united Netherlands state had been the historical task of the Burgundian dynasty. By successive marriages of Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold, with Maxi milian of Habsburg, and of their son, Philip the Fair, with Johanna of Spain, that state had become connected with an empire with which it had few interests in common. Under Charles V. already this had created many difficulties, while his son Philip II. looked upon the Netherlands merely as an outpost of the Spanish im perialist policy.
The high nobility of the Netherlands were quick to resent the anti-national tendencies of Philip's government at Brussels. After the king's departure it was carried on by his half-sister, Margaret of Parma, as his regent, but the real force behind her was the bishop of Arras, later archbishop of Mechlin and cardinal, the Franc-Comtois Granvelle, who was made president of the Council of State. Between that zealous and docile minister and the proud, unruly nobles a bitter struggle was soon in progress, in which Orange, with the counts of Egmont and Horn and others, played a conspicuous part. When Orange and Egmont stayed away from
the Council of State as a protest against Granvelle's presence there the public realized that grave issues had been raised. In 1564 Philip gave way and ordered Granvelle to depart, whereupon the Regent tried to govern with the noblemen of the Council of State. It was a victory for the national cause, but at the same time it was a victory for class interests.
One question, which aggravated the difficulties between the ruler and the Netherlands people considerably, had suddenly be come of paramount importance when the dismissal of the cardinal seemed to indicate a slackening of purpose on the part of the dis tant king. All through Charles V.'s reign Lutheranism had been severely kept under. To the Lutheran heresy Calvinism, spreading northward from France, was now added. Public opinion in the Netherlands was generally averse from the savage methods of sup pression imposed on the government by Philip. William of Orange never was a very devout Catholic. He had maintained close relations with his Lutheran kinsmen in Germany. His brother Louis, particularly, who spent much of his time at Orange's court at Brussels or Breda, had great influence over him. In 1561, Anna van Buren having died in 1558, the prince had con tracted a matrimonial alliance with German Protestantism in the person of Anna of Saxony, daughter of the late Elector Maurice, the betrayer and victor of Charles V. In order to gain the present elector's consent, as well as to quiet the objections and suspicions of Philip II.'s Government, Orange had secretly given to both sides flatly contradictory assurances. The episode shows his char acter on its least attractive side. But at any rate his position helped him to realize how impossible it was, in the Netherlands, surrounded by countries where Protestantism had in some form or other achieved some sort of recognition, and always open to in fluences from outside, to enforce a rigid Catholic supremacy. He said so boldly in the Council of State, but it was in vain that he and his friends urged the king to concede some degree of tolera tion. When Philip, after long delay, by the famous letters from Legovia, ordered more relentless persecution than ever, Orange, realizing the impotence of the Council of State, countenanced the action of his brother Louis, and Hendrik van Brederode, who or ganized the lower nobility to petition the governess for liberty of conscience. The question was thus brought before the public and excitement raised to fever pitch.