1544 - William the Silent
William I, also named William the Silent, is seen as founder and liberator of The Netherlands. He was descended from a princely German family, that of Nassau, whose origin may be traced with certainty as far back as the 11th century. His ancestors had, as Dukes of Guelders, exercised sovereign rights in the Low Countries 400 years before the accession of the House of Burgundy, and had faithfully served the princes of that house. He became Prince of Orange in 1544, having inherited the little principality of Orange (in France), from which all his family took the historic name that it has ever since preserved. William the Silent was the first head of state to be assassinated by means of a handheld firearm, but was by no means the last.
The revolt of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands against the Spanish monarchy led to the subjugation of the greater part of ten provinces to that power in the year 1578, while the remaining seven provinces, under the Prince of Orange, maintained and ultimately secured their independence in a republican form.
The decisive battle of Gemblours, on the 3lst of January 1578, which terminated in favour of the Spaniards, and in the dispersion of the army of the states, with the loss of all its artillery, baggage, and stores, must be viewed as the event by which the history of the Netherlands is separated from that of the seven united provinces, which were collectively called Holland, after the first of these states. The archduke, better known by the name of Don Juan, having gained this victory, was suddenly arrested by the hand of death whilst following up his success; and his death has generally, but on insufficient evidence, been attributed to the effects of poison.
The Archduke Don Juan, was immediately succeeded in 1578 by the Prince Alexander Farnese (1545–1592), the son of the Duke of Parma and Piacenza, in Italy, by Margaret of Austria, a daughter of the Emperor Charles V, who had formerly governed the Low Countries under the authority of Philip king of Spain. On his accession to the command, the provinces were in a most unsettled state. Don Juan had feared to attack the partisans of the Prince of Orange, who held possession of Brussels; but he was successful in seizing upon Tirlemont, Louvain, Bovines, Philippeville, and several other smaller but fortified places.
These successes were, however, more than counterbalanced by the loss of Amsterdam, where the inhabitants rose on the Spanish garrison, and, having succeeded in driving out the troops, boldly declared in favor of the Prince of Orange. The great strength of the Spanish party in the ten provinces depended more on their union under one clief, and on the discipline of the few regular troops whom they had been able to collect, than on the number of soldiers or the abundance of pecuniary resources.
The people of the Walloon provinces were bigotedly attached to the church of Rome, and were ready to give up their whole civil rights rather than abandon an iota of that faith, or a single religious observance to which they had been accustomed. These constituted the chief reliance of the Spanish monarch; and under obedience to him had remained, or returned, the fortified towns on the frontier towards France, such as Lisle, Valenciennes, Courtray, and several others.
In the party opposed to the Spaniards, though there was a greater number of ‘the population, and a far greater power in warlike stores and in pecuniary resources, yet t ere Were such party divisions and contests, and such struggles for power between chiefs, as tended much to weaken the effect of their efforts to drive out the Spaniards, or even to maintain against them the power which they still held in Brussels, and in the commercial and maritime cities.
Although William Prince of Orange by his talents and his virtues, was at the head of the general confederacy, and, after the independence of the seven provinces had been secured, clothed with unqualified authority within them yet in the transactions of the ten provinces, which were raised up powerful rivals, who impeded his wisest plans. Among those of his party who still adhered to the Catholic faith, and were anxious to preserve it, without yielding up to Spain the civil privileges they had long enjoyed, was the Duke of Arschot, the head of a powerful family, who strove to awaken the jealousy of the aristocracy of Flanders and Brabant against the power which the seven northern provinces had bestowed on William of Orange in order to counterbalance that power, they resolved upon sending an invitation to the Archduke Mathias, the brother of the Emperor Rudolf II, a youth under twenty years of age, to accept the office of governor of Flanders.
A secret messenger was dispatched to Vienna, and communicated with the archduke, who, with the precipitation of youth, ardently accepted the offer; withdrew privately from Vienna without imparting his project to his brother; and with great celerity and secrecy arrived at Maestricht without previously having announced his resolution, which was scarcely expected by the party that had invited him, and quite unexpected by the prince of Orange and his friends.
That prince, with his usual coolness and prudence, expressed neither surprise nor dissatisfaction at this unwarrantable intrigue against his authority; but, on the contrary, he became, or appeared to become, anxious for adopting any measures which could do honor to Mathias, and at the same time increase the security of the country. He framed the outline of the plan upon which his office was to be founded and the power granted to him, but so much under the virtual sovereignty of the states general, as to leave little to the thoughtless youth but the empty title by which he had been tempted to make this wild excursion. The Prince of Orange was appointed his lieutenant in the several civil and military departments of the government, and the Duke of Arschot was left, with little power and less influence, to brood over the disappointment of his ambitious scheme.
As his power was but of small extent, he soon resigned it with good humor; and the states, who had only adopted him in the hope of thereby obtaining foreign assistance, when they found he was not supported by his brother or by the empire, accepted his resignation, and dismissed him with an unanimous vote of thanks for his services. After some difficulty, Mathias was allowed by his brother to return to the Austrian dominions, and was promoted to the government of the hereditary provinces, and entrusted with the command of an army in Hungary against the Turks, by which he acquired much reputation, and ultimately succeeded, after much intrigue and dissension, to the imperial throne, which he filled till his death in 1619. His history belongs rather to that of Austria than to that of the Netherlands.
