The father of the Dutch nation began as a favourite of Spain's royal family
William the Silent led the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule and is honoured as the Father of the Fatherland. Yet he was raised Catholic under imperial supervision, and when Emperor Charles V gave up the Low Countries in 1555, the gout-stricken ruler leaned on the young William's shoulder during the ceremony.
William was born in 1533 at Dillenburg Castle, in what is now Hesse in Germany, the eldest of twelve children of a Lutheran count of Nassau. At 11 he unexpectedly inherited everything from a childless cousin, René of Chalon, who died in a siege in 1544: the principality of Orange in southern France, German lands and vast estates in the Low Countries. The condition was a Catholic upbringing. His father agreed, and so the House of Orange-Nassau, ancestors of today's Dutch royal family, began.
Charles V acted as regent and had the boy educated in Breda and Brussels under the watch of his sister Mary of Hungary, who governed the Netherlands. William learned languages, soldiering and diplomacy, and became an imperial favourite. At 22 he commanded an army of 20,000 sent against the French at Bayonne. In 1559 Philip II of Spain made him stadtholder, or governor, of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht.
He grew uneasy with Philip's rule. On the Council of State he joined the counts of Egmont and Hoorn in opposing a narrow clique around Cardinal Granvelle, resenting the number of Spaniards in government and the continued presence of Spanish troops. Deeply religious yet a believer in freedom of worship for everyone, he objected to the Inquisition's persecution of Protestants, which was turning even the mostly Catholic population against Spain.
He eventually broke with his former masters and became the most capable leader of the revolt that began the Eighty Years' War, winning several successes against Spain. Philip declared him an outlaw in 1580, and in 1584 he was assassinated in Delft by Balthasar Gérard. The United Provinces gained formal independence in 1648, and the Dutch national anthem still names him.
Source: William the Silent
