WILLIAM OF ORANGE

On Tuesday, the 10th of July, 1584, at about half-past twelve, the Prince, with his wife on his arm, and followed by the ladies and gentlemen of his family, was going to the dining-room. 40 William the Silent was dressed upon that day, according to his usual custom, in very plain fashion. He wore a wide-leaved, loosely-shaped hat of dark felt, with a silken cord round the crown-such as had been worn by the Beggars in the early days of the revolt. A high ruff encircled his neck, from which also depended one of the Beggars' medals, with the motto, "Fidèles au roy jusqu'à la besace," i while a loose surcoat of grey frieze cloth, over cloth, over a tawny leather doublet, with wide, slashed underclothes, com1 Faithful to the King even to beggary

pleted his costume. Gérard presented
himself at the doorway, and demanded
a passport. The Princess, struck with
the pale and agitated countenance of
the man, anxiously questioned her hus-
band concerning the stranger. The
Prince carelessly observed that “it was
merely a person who came for a pass-
port," ordering, at the same time, a
secretary forthwith to prepare one. 10
The Princess, still not relieved, ob-
served in an under-tone that "she had
never seen so villanous a countenance."
Orange, however, not at all impressed
with the appearance of Gérard, con-
ducted himself at table with his usual
cheerfulness, conversing much with the
burgomaster of Leewarden, the only
guest present at the family dinner, con-
cerning the political and religious 20
aspects of Friesland. At two o'clock
the company rose from table.

The

These were the last words he ever spoke, save that when his sister, Catherine of Schwartzburg, immediately afterwards asked him if he commended his soul to Jesus Christ, he faintly answered, "Yes." His master of the horse, Jacob van Maldere, had caught him in his arms as the fatal shot was fired. The Prince was then placed on the stairs for an instant, when he immediately began to swoon. He was afterwards laid upon a couch in the dining-room, where in a few minutes he breathed his last in the arms of his wife and sister.

The murderer succeeded in making his escape through the side door, and sped swiftly up the narrow lane. He had almost reached the ramparts, from which he intended to spring into the moat, when he stumbled over a heap of rubbish. As he rose, he was seized by several pages and halberdiers, who had pursued him from the house. He had dropped his pistols upon the spot where he had committed the crime, and upon his person were found a couple of bladders, provided with a piece of pipe, with which he had intended to assist himself across the moat, beyond which a horse was waiting for him. ing for him. He made no effort to deny his identity, but boldly avowed himself and his deed. He was brought back to the house, where he immediately underwent a preliminary examination before the city magistrates. He was afterwards subjected to excruciating tortures; for the fury against the

Prince led the way, intending to pass to his private apartments above. The dining-room, which was on the ground floor, opened into a little square vestibule, which communicated, through an arched passageway, with the main entrance into the court-yard. This vestibule was also directly at the foot of 30 the wooden staircase leading to the next floor, and was scarcely six feet in width. Upon its left side, as one approached the stairway, was an obscure arch, sunk deep in the wall, and completely in the shadow of the door. Behind this arch a portal opened to the narrow lane at the side of the house. The stairs themselves were completely lighted by a large window, half way up 40 wretch who had destroyed the Father

the flight. The Prince came from the dining-room, and began leisurely to ascend. He had only reached the second stair, when a man emerged from the sunken arch, and standing within a foot or two of him, discharged a pistol full at his heart. Three balls entered his body, one of which, passing quite through him, struck with violence against the wall beyond. The Prince 50 exclaimed in French, as he felt the wound, "O my God, have mercy upon my soul! O my God, have mercy upon this poor people!"

of the country was uncontrollable, and William the Silent was no longer alive to intercede as he had often done before-in behalf of those who assailed his life.

The organization of Balthazar Gérard would furnish a subject of profound study, both for the physiologist and the metaphysician. Neither wholly a fanatic, nor entirely a ruffian, he combined the most dangerous elements of both characters. In his puny body and mean exterior were enclosed considerable mental powers and ac

complishments, a daring ambition, and
a courage almost superhuman. Yet
those qualities led him only to form
upon the threshold of life a deliberate
determination to achieve greatness by
the assassin's trade. The rewards held
out by the ban, combining with his re-
ligious bigotry and his passion for dis-
tinction, fixed all his energies with pa-
tient concentration upon the one great 10
purpose for which he seemed to have
been born, and after seven years' prepa-
ration, he had at last fulfilled his design.

Upon being interrogated by the mag-
istrates, he manifested neither despair
nor contrition, but rather a quiet exul-
tation. "Like David," he said, "he
had slain Goliath of Gath." When
falsely informed that his victim was
not dead, he showed no credulity or 20
disappointment. He had discharged
three poisoned balls into the Prince's
stomach, and he knew that death must
have already ensued. He expressed re-
gret, however, that the resistance of
the halberdiers had prevented him.
from using his second pistol, and
averred that if he were a thousand
leagues away he would return in order
to do the deed again, if possible: He 30
deliberately wrote a detailed confes-
sion of his crime, and of the motives.
and manner of its commission, taking
care, however, not to implicate Parma
in the transaction. After sustaining
day after day the most horrible tor-
tures, he subsequently related his inter-
views with Assonleville and with the
president of the Jesuit college at
Tréves, adding that he had been influ- 40
enced in his work by the assurance of
obtaining the rewards promised by the
ban. During the intervals of repose
from the rack he conversed with ease,
and even eloquence, answering all
questions addressed to him with ap-
parent sincerity. His constancy in
suffering so astounded his judges that
they believed him supported by witch-
craft. "Ecce homo!" he exclaimed, 50
from time to time, with insane blas-
phemy, as he raised his blood-stream-
ing head from the bench. In order to
destroy the charm which seemed to

render him insensible to pain, they
sent for the shirt of a hospital patient,
supposed
supposed to be a sorcerer. When
clothed in this garment, however,
Balthazar was none the less superior to
the arts of the tormentors, enduring
all their inflictions, according to an
eye-witness, "without once exclaiming,
Ah me!" and avowing that he would
repeat his enterprise, if possible, were
he to die a thousand deaths in conse-
quence. Some of those present refused
to believe that he was a man at all.
Others asked him how long since he
had sold himself to the devil? to which
questions he replied, mildly, that he
had no acquaintance whatever with the
devil. He thanked the judges politely
for the food which he received in
prison, and promised to recompense
them for the favour. Upon being
asked how that was possible, he re-
plied, that he would serve as their
advocate in Paradise.

The sentence pronounced against the assassin was execrable-a crime against the memory of the great man whom it professed to avenge. It was decreed that the right hand of Gérard should be burned off with a red-hot iron, that his flesh should be torn from his bones with pincers in six different places, that he should be quartered and disembowelled alive, that his heart should be torn from his bosom and flung in his face, and that, finally, his head should be taken off. Not even his horrible crime, with its endless consequences, nor the natural frenzy of indignation which it had excited, could justify this savage decree, to rebuke which the murdered hero might have almost risen from the sleep of death. The sentence was literally executed on the 14th of July, the criminal supporting its horrors with the same astonishing fortitude. So calm were his nerves, crippled and half roasted as he was ere he mounted the scaffold, that when one of the executioners was slightly injured in the ear by the flying from the handle of the hammer with which he was breaking the fatal pistol in pieces, as the first step in the execution—a

circumstance which produced a general laugh in the crowd-a smile was observed upon Balthazar's face in sympathy with the general hilarity. His lips were seen to move up to the moment when his heart was thrown in his face "Then," said a looker-on, "he gave up the ghost."

20

sixteen days. He left twelve children. By his first wife, Anne of Egmont, he had one son, Philip, and one daughter, Mary, afterwards married to Count Hohenlo. By his second wife, Anna of Saxony, he had one son, the celebrated Maurice of Nassau, and two daughters, Anna, married afterwards to her cousin, Count William Louis, and

the Pretender of Portugal. By Charlotte of Bourbon, his third wife, he had six daughters; and by his fourth, Louisa de Coligny, one son, Frederic William, afterwards stadholder of the republic in her most palmy days. The Prince was entombed on the 3rd of August, at Delft, amid the tears of a whole nation. Never was a more extensive, unaffected, and legitimate sorrow felt at the death of any human being.

The reward promised by Philip to the man who should murder Orange 10 Emilie, who espoused Emanuel, son of was paid to the heirs of Gérard. Parma informed his sovereign that the "poor man" had been executed, but that his father and mother were still living, to whom he recommended the payment of that "merced" which "the laudable and generous deed had so well deserved." This was accordingly done, and the excellent parents, ennobled and enriched by the crime of their son, received, instead of the twentyfive thousand crowns promised in the ban, the three seignories of Lievremont, Hostal, and Dampmartin, in the Franche Comté, and took their place at once among the landed aristocracy. Thus the bounty of the Prince had furnished the weapon by which his life was destroyed, and his estates supplied the fund out of which the assassin's 30 family received the price of blood. At a later day, when the unfortunate eldest son of Orange returned from Spain after twenty-seven years' absence, a changeling and a Spaniard, the restoration of those very estates was offered to him by Philip the Second, provided he would continue to pay a fixed proportion of their rents to the family of his father's murderer. The education 40 which Philip William had received, under the King's auspices, had, however, not entirely destroyed all his human feelings, and he rejected the proposal with scorn. The estates remained with the Gérard family, and the patents of nobility which they had received were used to justify their exemption from certain taxes, until the union of Franche Comté with France, when a 50 French governor tore the documents in pieces and trampled them under foot.

William of Orange, at the period of his death, was aged fifty-one years and

The life and labours of Orange had established the emancipated commonwealth upon a secure foundation, but his death rendered the union of all the Netherlands into one republic hopeless. The efforts of the Malcontent nobles, the religious discord, the consummate ability, both political and military, of Parma, all combined with the lamentable loss of William the Silent to separate for ever the southern and Catholic provinces from the northern confederacy. So long as the Prince remained alive, he was the Father of the whole country; the Netherlands-saving only the two Walloon provincesconstituting a whole. Notwithstanding the spirit of faction and the blight of the long civil war, there was at least one country, or the hope of a country, one strong heart, one guiding head, for the patriotic party throughout the land. Philip and Granvelle were right in their estimate of the advantage to be derived from the Prince's death; in believing that an assassin's hand could achieve more than all the wiles which Spanish or Italian statesmanship could teach, or all the armies which Spain or Italy could muster. The pistol of the insignificant Gérard destroyed the

possibility of a united Netherland state, while during the life of William there was union in the policy, unity in the history of the country.

land Republic has been at the same time the biography of William the Silent. This, while it gives unity to the narrative, renders an elaborate description of his character superfluous. That life was a noble Christian epic; inspired with one great purpose from its commencement to its close; the stream flowing ever from one fountain with expanding fulness, but retaining all its original purity. A few general observations are all which are necessary by way of conclusion.

In the following year, Antwerp, hitherto the centre around which all the national interests and historical events group themselves, fell before the scientific efforts of Parma. The city which had so long been the freest, as 10 well as the most opulent, capital in Europe, sank for ever to the position of a provincial town. With its fall, combined with other circumstances, which it is not necessary to narrate in anticipation, the final separation of the Netherlands was completed. On the other hand, at the death of Orange, whose formal inauguration as sovereign Count had not yet taken place, 20 ness and compactness characteristic of

the states of Holland and Zeland reassumed the sovereignty. The commonwealth which William had liberated for ever from Spanish tyranny continued to exist as a great and flourishing republic during more than two centuries, under the successive stadholderates of his sons and descendants.

In person, Orange was above the middle height, perfectly well made and sinewy, but rather spare than stout. His eyes, hair, beard, and complexion were brown. His head was small, symmetrically shaped, combining the alert

the soldier, with the capacious brow furrowed prematurely with the horizontal lines of thought, denoting the statesman and the sage. His physical appearance was, therefore, in harmony with his organization, which was of antique model. Of his moral qualities, the most prominent was his piety. He was more than anything else a religious man. From his trust in God, he ever derived support and consolation in the darkest hours. Implicitly relying upon Almighty wisdom and goodness, he looked danger in the face with a constant smile, and endured incessant labours and trials with a serenity which seemed more than human. While, however, his soul was full of piety, it was tolerant of error. Sin40 cerely and deliberately himself a convert to the Reformed Church, he was ready to extend freedom of worship to Catholics on the one hand, and to Anabaptists on the other, for no man ever felt more keenly than he, that the reformer who becomes in his turn a bigot is doubly odious.

His life gave existence to an inde- 30 pendent country-his death defined its limits. Had he lived twenty years longer, it is probable that the seven provinces would have been seventeen; and that the Spanish title would have been for ever extinguished both in Nether Germany and Celtic Gaul. Although there was to be the length of two human generations more of warfare ere Spain acknowledged the new government, yet before the termination of that period the united states had become the first naval power and one of the most considerable commonwealths in the world; while the civil and religious liberty, the political independence of the land, together with the total expulsion of the ancient foreign tyranny from the soil, had been achieved ere the eyes of William were 50 closed. The republic existed, in fact, from the moment of the abjuration in 1581.

The history of the rise of the Nether

His firmness was allied to his piety. His constancy in bearing the whole. weight of as unequal a struggle as men have ever undertaken, was the theme of admiration even to his enemies. The rock in the ocean, "tranquil amid raging billows," was the favourite em-.