Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/619

Rh ORANGE.] WILLIAM 583 of Brussels in the Roman Catholic faith. Having attracted the attention of Charles V., he was invested by the emperor at the age of twenty-two with the command of the army on the French frontier ; and it was on his shoulder that Charles V. leaned when in 1555, in the presence of a great assembly at Brussels, he transferred to his son Philip the sovereignty of the Netherlands. Orange was also selected to carry the insignia of the empire to Ferdinand, king of the Romans, when Charles resigned the imperial crown. He took part in Philip II. s first war with France, and negotiated the preliminary arrangements for the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis (1559). He was one of the hostages sent to France for the due execution of the treaty, and during his stay in that country Henry II., who entirely misunderstood his character, revealed to him a plan for the massacre of all Protestants in France and the Netherlands. The prince was horrified by this disclosure, but said nothing; and it was on account of his extraordinary discretion on this occasion that he received the surname of &quot; the Silent.&quot; The epithet is apt to convey a mistaken impression as to his general character. He was of a frank, open, and generous nature, without a touch of moroseness in the ordinary intercourse of life. The persecution of the Protestants in the Netherlands, carried on with such reckless ferocity by Cardinal Gran- vella, led Orange, Egmont, and Horn, the most prominent of the great nobles, to protest against the violence of the Government; and in 1563 they wrote to Philip urging him to withdraw Granvella, and ceased to attend the state council. In the following year Granvella was displaced, whereupon they resumed their seats at the council ; yet shortly afterwards it was decided by Philip that the canons of the Council of Trent, the edicts, and the Inquisition should be immediately promulgated in every town and village of the provinces, and that the process should be repeated every six months. At the meeting of the state council at which this was formally decided Orange dis claimed any responsibility for the consequences, and he whispered to his neighbour that now the most extra ordinary tragedy the world had ever seen was about to begin. The proceedings of the Gueux or reforming party so alarmed the regent, Margaret of Parma, that she was persuaded to sign an accord, declaring the abolition of the Inquisition and granting liberty of worship in all places where the new forms of religion had been already accepted. In consequence of these concessions the great nobles undertook to restore order, the prince of Orange especially distinguishing himself at Antwerp. But Philip, who had been longing for an excuse to crush the inde pendent spirits of the Netherlander^, now resolved to send the duke of Alva into the country, with a Spanish force. Orange, since he could not count upon the hearty support of Egmont or Horn, had no alternative but to resign his offices and withdraw from the Netherlands (1567), taking up his residence at Dillenburg. He was warmly attached to Egmont, and before his departure, at an interview at Willebroeck, urged him to seek refuge in some foreign land ; but Egmont was not to be persuaded, and the two friends parted never to see one another again. Orange was repeatedly summoned to Brussels ; but he declined to appear before the Council of Disturbances, on the ground that it had no jurisdiction over an inde pendent prince and a knight of the order of the Fleece. The havoc wrought by Alva filled him with grief and anger ; and in 1568 he contrived to collect two forces, one of which, commanded by his brothers Louis and Adolphus, gained a victory in Groningen, where Adolphus fell. Alva, having ordered the execution of Egmont and Horn, advanced against Louis and defeated him in East Fries- land. Orange then invaded Brabant, but could neither bring Alva to a decisive engagement nor induce the people to rise against him. The army had therefore to be dis banded, and its disappointed leader joined Wolfgang of Zweibriicken in an attempt to aid the Huguenots. Acting on the advice of Coligny, Orange issued letters of mark to seamen against the Spaniards ; and for years the &quot; sea beggars &quot; harassed the enemy along the coast, and often did no little harm to their own countrymen. In 1572 the revolt against Spain was so far successful that Orange resumed the functions of stadtholder of Holland and Zealand, a position to which he had been appointed in 1559 ; but he professed to rule in the name of the king, for as yet the people had no wish to throw off their allegiance to the Spanish crown. Orange had won their confidence not only by acting as their champion but by accepting the Protestant faith. He had never been an enthusiastic Catholic, and as a Protestant he was dis tinguished among the eminent men of his time by his mastery of the true principles of toleration. Meanwhile he had been using the utmost diligence in bringing to gether an army, and his brother Louis, by a brilliant stroke, had captured the city of Mons. On 15th July 1572 the estates of Holland met at Dort, and, recognizing Orange as the legal stadtholder of Holland, Zealand, Fries- land, and Utrecht, voted the sums necessary for the pro secution of the war. In August he crossed the Meuse at the head of an army, trusting mainly to the promised co-operation of France. All his hopes, however, were shattered by the massacre of St Bartholomew. He was obliged to disband his troops, and Mons was re-taken by the Spaniards. On 14th April 1574, at the village of Mook, near Nimeguen, the patriots were again routed, and Orange s brothers, Louis and Henry, slain. But many fortified places held out, and on 3d October Orange, who had ordered the country to be inundated, was able to relieve Leyden, which had for months been defended with splendid bravery and self-sacrifice. At length the brutality and despotism of the Spaniards were so fiercely and gener ally resented that Orange was able to enter upon a series of negotiations, which resulted on 8th November 1576 in the pacification of Ghent, signed on behalf of nearly all the provinces. By this treaty the provinces bound them selves to drive the Spaniards from the Netherlands, to convoke the states -general, and to establish freedom of worship both for Roman Catholics and for Protestants. Don John of Austria, Spanish regent of the Netherlands (1576-78), granted all the demands of the states; but Orange was suspicious of the intentions of the Govern ment, and in no- way relaxed his vigilance. Troubles soon broke out, and Orange was called to Brussels to the aid of the states, being elected ruwaard (governor) of Brabant. When the archduke Matthias (afterwards emperor) was invited by the Catholic nobles to accept the position of governor-general, Orange prudently refrained from resist ing the scheme ; and he acted with equal discretion in regard to the duke of Alengon, who came nominally as the protector of the liberties of the Netherlands. Orange, however, retained in his own hands complete control over the movement in the seven northern provinces, which by the Union of Utrecht, signed on behalf of five of the pro vinces on 23d January 1579, laid the foundations of the commonwealth of the L T nited Netherlands. Orange s rela tion to the new federal republic was somewhat vaguely defined ; but in his lifetime it was not felt that there was any very urgent need for an exact delimitation of the relative functions of the executive and the legislative authorities. Negotiations for the conclusion of peace with Spain were carried on for some time in vain ; and in 1580 Philip issued a ban against the prince, and set a price of 25,000 gold crowns upon his head. Orange pub-