William Of Nassau, surnamed the Silent, prince of Orange, founder of the independence of the Netherlands, born at the palace of Dillenburg, Nassau, April 16, 1533, assassinated in Delft, July 10, 1584. He was the elder son of Count William the Elder of Nassau and of his second wife Juliane von Stolberg. In 1544 he inherited from his childless cousin René the principality of Orange, in Provence. Although the son of a Protestant, he was brought up at the Catholic court of Queen Mary of Hungary in Brussels, and as a page at that of Charles V., who in 1554 put him in command of troops and employed him in diplomacy. Under Philip II. he paved the way for the treaty of CateauCambrésis (1559), and Henry II. of France detained him and Alva as hostages for its execution. William was of a gay and lively disposition, and was called "the Silent" from the skill with which he concealed his emotions when the French king incautiously revealed to him his plot to exterminate " that accursed vermin " the Protestants. On Philip's departure for Spain he appointed William a member of the council of state which was to assist his half sister Margaret of Parma in the regency of the Netherlands. He opposed the persecution of the Protestants, and finally, in conjunction with Egmont, Horn, and others, brought about the removal of their principal enemy, Cardinal Granvelle (1564). But he was unable to prevent the introduction of the inquisition and the increasing rigor against heretics, though he refused to enforce the king's edicts in the provinces of Holland, Friesland, and Utrecht, of which he was the stadtholder.

He disapproved of the rash measures of the gueux or "beggars;" but when pacific resistance became evidently unavailing, he proposed to Egmont and Horn, though in vain, forcible measures against the threatened invasion of Spanish troops. In 1567 he pacified Antwerp, where the Calvinists had risen in insurrection, and shortly afterward resigned all his offices and withdrew to Germany, four months before Alva's arrival at Brussels with a Spanish army. Horn and Egmont were seized as traitors; the "blood council" was established, and as William disregarded the summons (January, 1568) to appear before it, he was proscribed, his property was confiscated, and his son the count of Buren was sent to Spain as a hostage. William published an eloquent "Justification against the False Blame of his Calumniators," and began to raise money and troops in concert with the Protestant princes of Germany. The first operations miscarried; his brother Louis was driven back from Friesland, and William with 30,000 men in vain sought to engage Alva in battle in Brabant, and was forced to retire to French Flanders; and in the spring of 1569 he and his brothers Louis and Henry and 1,200 of his soldiers joined the Huguenots under Coligni. He had been approaching the reformed worship step by step, but it was not until four years after this that he first publicly attended communion at a Calvinist meeting.

In the autumn of 1569 he returned to Germany, where he issued letters of marque to privateers to prey upon Spanish ships. The capture of Briel in April, 1572, by these "beggars of the sea," was followed by an almost instantaneous rising throughout the provinces. Flushing, Leyden, Haarlem, Dort, and many other cities, as well as the see of Utrecht, recognized William's authority. In July he crossed the Rhine with 24,000 troops, captured Roermond, and occupied other towns, while his brother Louis had in the mean time taken Mons. But the massacre of St. Bartholomew cut him off from all hope of further assistance from France, and once more he was compelled to disband his army. Mons surrendered to the Spaniards, as well as other towns of Brabant and Flanders. In July, 1573, they sacked Haarlem, after a siege of seven months, in which they had lost upward of 10,000 men; but they failed to reduce Alkmaar, and the patriots achieved naval victories and took Middelburg. William in the mean time had collected 6,000 troops at Bommel, and early in 1574 sent orders to Louis to join him.

On the way from France the latter was defeated by Avila, and perished, together with his brother Henry. The siege of Leyden, which had been interrupted by the Spaniards in order to intercept Louis, was now resumed; but William inundated the country by cutting the dikes, and sent Admiral Boisot with a fleet to relieve the place, the Spaniards taking to flight on the approach of the ships. In October, 1574, the estates of Holland placed nearly all authority in the hands of the prince. A conference with the Spanish commissioners at Breda in March, 1575, led to no result. A mutiny among the Spanish soldiers engaged in pillage induced the five provinces which had adhered to Spain to join William and send delegates to the states general at Ghent (October, 1576), at which a league was formed (November) against the common enemy, and freedom of worship was granted to all denominations. In February, 1577, the new Spanish governor, Don John of Austria, issued an edict pretending to grant nearly all the demands of the patriots; but William repelled his attempts, which he had reason to believe were treacherous.

His popularity now gave umbrage to a portion of the Roman Catholic nobility, who invited the young archduke Matthias to act as governor general; but his administration was only nominal, while William as lieutenant general was the virtual ruler in conjunction with the states general. Hostilities broke out anew. Don John of Austria overwhelmed the Netherlanders near Gembloux, Jan. 31,1578, and occupied Louvain and other places. Amsterdam, however, sided with William, and Queen Elizabeth, jealous of the designs of the duke of Anjou, who at the instance of the Catholic nobles had arrived with troops from France, with the double purpose of repelling the Spaniards and supplanting William, subsidized another army of 12,000 men under the count palatine John Casimir; but both expeditions proved abortive. Alexander Farnese, succeeding as governor on the death of Don John, gained over the Walloon provinces, where William had incurred hostility by quelling an outbreak among the Catholics, and in 1579'80 took possession of Maestricht, Mechlin, and Groningen. Before this, however, the prince, through his brother John, had succeeded in uniting Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Friesland, Groningen, Overyssel, and Gelderland in a league for mutual defence and assistance.

This union, which is generally regarded as the foundation of the Dutch republic, was concluded at Utrecht in January, 1579; and on July 26, 1581, the United Provinces, in an assembly at the Hague, solemnly proclaimed their independence. The sovereignty was offered to the duke of Anjou. Although " Father William," as he was popularly called, had the confidence of the whole people, he contented himself with the governorship of Holland and Zealand, in order not to give umbrage to France, and Anjou assumed the administration of the other provinces. Even after the expulsion of the latter in 1582, William refused the general government. The duke died in France in June, 1584, and before measures could be taken to appoint his successor William of Orange was assassinated. Several attempts upon his life had been made under the influence of the reward of 25,000 crowns and a patent of nobility offered by Philip II. since 1580 for his assassination, and once he was dangerously wounded. The task was at last undertaken by Baltazar Gérard, a Burgundian fanatic, who shot him through the body as he was leaving the dining room. William expired a few minutes afterward in the arms of his wife and sister.

The assassin, after undergoing frightful tortures, was beheaded on July 14; but his family was ennobled by Philip and endowed with confiscated estates of the prince. William was about the middle height, and well made, but spare. His complexion was brown, his head was small and symmetrical, and his brow capacious. Next to piety his chief characteristic was firmness. His military genius was early recognized by Charles V., and in political sagacity he had no superior. He left 12 children. By Anne of Egmont he had one son, the count of Buren, and a daughter; by his second wife, Anna of Saxony, two daughters and the celebrated Maurice of Nassau; by Charlotte of Bourbon, six daughters; and by his fourth wife, the widowed Louise de Teligny, daughter of Coligni, one son, Frederick Henry (1584 - 1647), who succeeded Maurice as stadtholder. A memorial tower in his honor was inaugurated at Dillenburg, June 29, 1875. - See Schiller, Geschichte des Abfalls der Niederlande; Gachard, Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne (5 vols., Brussels, 1847-'65); Motley, "The Rise of the Dutch Republic" (3 vols., London and New York, 1856); Klose, Wilnelm I. von Oranien (edited by Wuttke, Leipsic, 1864); and Ernst Herrmann, Wilhelm von Oranien (Stuttgart, 1873).