WILLIAM THE SILENT

   Prince of Orange, a cadet of the noble house of Nassau, the first Stadtholder of the Netherlands, a Protestant by birth; he was brought up a Catholic, but being at heart more a patriot than a Catholic, he took up arms in the cause of his country's freedom, and did not rest till he had virtually freed it from the Spanish yoke, which was then the dominant Catholic power; his enemies procured his assassination in the end, and he was murdered by Belthazar Gerard, at Delft; he was brought up at the court of Charles V., where "his circumspect demeanour procured him the surname of Silent, but under the cold exterior he concealed a busy, far-sighted intellect, and a generous, upright, daring heart" (1533-1584).