“ No doubt it was necessary for the champion of Protestants in the Netherlands to be himself a Protestant, but William became their champion because he was always in spirit and in temper a Protestant, he did not become a Protestant in order to remain their champion. Philip, on the other hand, was equally the born champion of the spirit and temper opposed to Protestantism. He was not so much a religious man as a fanatic, a statesman whose whole policy was centred in absolutism and spiritual domination. ”

“ The people of Holland cannot but be inspired by the memories which illuminate the anniversary they are keeping to-day. No people in the world ever maintained a more heroic struggle than their forefathers, to none was a nobler example of devotion and patriotism given than that of William the Silent. ”

“ They had lost the father of their country, "Father William," as his people affectionately and gratefully called him, and the hand that had struck the blow was bribed by the treasure of Spain. The descendants of those little children who shed tears when William died need, however, shed no tears to-day. It is the deliverance of their country that they are gathered to commemorate, and their gratitude for the achievement whose results they still enjoy will assuage their mourning for the man whose life and death assured their freedom. ”

“ All the material forces of a great empire were arrayed on the side of Philip. Spain, when he ascended the throne, was incontestably at the head of the civilized world. He was served by the most renowned and capable warriors, by the most consummate and adroit statesmen. William himself would have been powerless to achieve success if his skill had not been equal and his craft superior to theirs. ”

“ We allow all to injure him in property or life. We expose the said William of Nassau as an enemy of the human race, giving his property to all who may seize it. And if any one of our subjects or any stranger should be found sufficiently generous of heart to rid us of this pest, delivering him to us, alive or dead, or taking his life, we will cause to be furnished to him immediately after the deed shall have been done, the sum of twenty-five thousand crowns in gold. ”

“ In calling him spotless, we do not intend to say that all the acts of his life deserve unstinted praise, but regarded as a whole his life presents in the midst of a corrupt, cruel, and unscrupulous age an example of civic virtue, of personal disinterestedness, of unsullied patriotism, of sustained devotion to truth and liberty, of fortitude in adversity, of moderation in prosperity, of unrivalled statecraft and consummate ability in affairs to which history affords but few parallels. ”

“ There are few places in the world, perhaps, where an interval of three eventful centuries has wrought such slight material changes as the little Dutch town in which William the Silent was murdered, and in whose noble church he lies buried. ”

“ Why have I put my life so often in danger? What reward can I hope after my long services, and the almost total wreck of my earthly fortunes, if not the prize of having acquired, perhaps at the expense of my life, your liberty? ”

“ None but he in his time, or for long afterwards, could have written to the magistracy of Middleburg in language which takes us at once from the age of Philip and the Inquisition into the region of ideas not too readily accepted after three centuries have passed: "We declare to you that you have no right to trouble yourselves with any man's conscience so long as nothing is done to cause private harm or public scandal." We are content to leave the character of William the Silent to be judged by these remarkable words. ”

“ It was a question of life and death, of liberty and tyranny, of the most implacable resolve that ever inspired the brain and armed the will of a bigot and a despot, of the most unflinching resistance to cruelty and usurpation that ever sustained the fortitude of a patient but determined people. ”

“ The name of Philip II. cannot be popular in the Netherlands. The man who was responsible for the deaths, in every circumstance of torture, cruelty, and humiliation, of thousands of peaceful citizens whose only crime was the desire to worship God in their own way, cannot but be remembered with loathing among the descendants of his victims. But sinister as was the influence of Philip, and disastrous as was his policy, they were forces contributory to the result which made the people of the Netherlands a free and self-reliant nation. Philip was the hammer and William was the anvil ”

“ Philip was born to be an inquisitor, William to be a liberator. It is inconceivable that Philip should ever have become a Protestant, though he would, it seems, have consented to abate somewhat of his Catholic austerity for the sake of the Imperial crown. It is equally inconceivable that William should have remained a Catholic in the spiritual turmoil of the sixteenth century. ”

“ It is singular to note how often in the affairs of mankind the opposing tendencies of a particular age and time seem to be personified and typified in the antagonisms of individual men. Such a contrast is exhibited with startling dramatic completeness in the careers of Philip II. and William the Silent. ”