Prince of Orange

“ To take a glass of Holland’s gin,
To cheer our voice, and make us sing.
The Prince of Orange shall be King.
⁠Success attend our noble Guards,
And may they meet with good rewards,
The Prince of Orange to attend;
No doubt but he will be their friend.
So wives and sweethearts cease to mourn,
No fear but they will safe return;
So let your voices loudly ring,
The prince of Orange shall be King.
FINIS.
Falkirk—T. Johnston, Printer.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ The prince of Orange, throughout his whole life, was peculiarly happy in the situations in which he was placed. He saved his own country from ruin, he restored the liberties of these kingdoms, he supported the general independency of Europe. And thus, though his virtue, it is confessed, be not the purest which we meet with in history, it will be difficult to find any person whose actions and conduct have contributed more eminently to the general interests of society and of mankind. ”

“ Such petty, formal restrictions are very galling to the arrogant young Prince of Orange, for he is one of those men who desire, at all cost, to make a noise in the world, and who would set fire to Solomon's Temple or to the Delphian Temple, it mattered not which, so long as they made people talk about them. ”

“ He was a man of more quickness and acuteness than his father had been, but if possible more mischievous both to friend and foe; being subtle, restless, intriguing, fickle; ambitious, and deceitful. The Prince of Orange was considered a man of very ordinary intelligence, not more than half witted, according to Queen Elizabeth, and it was probable that the peculiar circumstances of his life would extinguish any influence that he might otherwise have attained with either party. ”

“ Orange issued a justification of his conduct, but even this was held to be an act of defiance against the authority of Philip. The once loyal subject determined to expel the King's troops from the Low Countries, believing himself chosen by God to save the reformers from the pitiless oppression of the Spanish. He had {90} already changed his views on religion. Prudence seemed to have forsaken the astute Prince of Orange. He proceeded to raise an army, though he had not enough money to pay his mercenaries. ”

“ We know of nothing finer in all history, than their unequal but triumphant struggle with le Grand Monarque. The spirit which animated the young and gallant Prince of Orange, was that of the whole nation. ”

“ After an observation intimating no great confidence in the orthodoxy of the prince of Orange, he remarks: "Though the prince shows me a friendly face, when absent he is full of discontent. They have formed a league against me," he continues, "and threaten my life. But I have little fear on that score, as I think they are much too wise to attempt any such thing. They complain of my excluding them from office, and endeavoring to secure an absolute authority for your majesty. All which they repeat openly at their banquets, with no good effect on the people. ”

“ Caring little for true glory, they allowed their ambition to decide which party they should take; for the ambition of base minds prefers to bow beneath the hard yoke of compulsion rather than submit to the gentle sway of a superior intellect. Small would have been the value of the favor conferred had they bestowed themselves on the Prince of Orange; but their connection with royalty made them so much the more formidable as opponents. There their names would have been lost among his numerous adherents and in the splendor of their rival. ”

“ To-morrow our great Duke is to unveil before the eyes of his admiring worshippers the mighty statue he has erected to his own honour. Men’s thoughts and tongues will wag different ways, I suspect, at the spectacle; but all will be eager to show themselves present—magistrates and people, soldiers and civilians. The streets will be empty, and many a strong post left unguarded. It is a pity the Prince of Orange has not a few thousand men ready to rush in on one side of the city while the Spanish hero is singing his own praises on the other. ”

“ This movement was so grave, and likely to be followed by such formidable results, that it seemed absolutely necessary for Orange and his friends to take some previous cognizance of it before it was finally arranged. The Prince had no power, nor was there any reason why he should have the inclination, to prevent the measure, but he felt it his duty to do what he could to control the vehemence of the men who were moving so rashly forward, and to take from their manifesto, as much as possible, the character of a menace. ”

“ Little brother, when our father was ruined, penniless, after that awful siege of Haarlem, which is still a hideous memory to him, the Prince of Orange helped him with friendship and money to re-establish his commerce, he stood by him loyally, constantly, until more prosperous days dawned upon our house. ”

“ But neither prince nor princess had many scruples, political or moral. And looking to what happened afterwards to the whole family, and how near at hand was the time when the Prince of Orange was to drive his aforesaid father-in-law before him out of his own kingdom, the reception given to Monmouth, and the favours lavished on Lady Henrietta, cannot excite much astonishment. ”

“ He came of an ancient Burgundian house, and inherited all the warlike qualities of his ancestry. Of a remarkably fierce and vindictive temperament, he never forgave an injury. His animosity towards François I. originated in a slight offered him by that monarch. At the ceremonial of the baptism of the Dauphin, the Prince of Orange was one of the invited guests, and appeared at the Louvre with a retinue befitting his rank, but he was very coldly received by the king, and the apartments designed for him in the palace were given to another. ”

“ Orange was accustomed to observe, that men of leisure might occupy themselves with philosophical pursuits and with the secrets of nature, but that it was his business to study the hearts of kings. He knew the man and the woman with whom he had to deal. We have seen enough of the policy secretly pursued by Philip and Margaret to appreciate the accuracy with which the Prince, groping as it were in the dark, had judged the whole situation. Had his friends taken his warnings, they might have lived to render services against tyranny. ”

“ In this church is a superb monument raised to the memory of William the First, the great Prince of Orange, in the east end of the church, which is semicircular, and a range of semicircular pillars support the roof: within these pillars is a large space railed off, and paved with black and white marble, under which is the family vault of the House of Orange; in the centre is the monument, a sarcophagus on which is placed a marble figure of the above prince, in his robes after death: at his feet is a dog, the expression of whose countenance is very much admired ”

“ Our full selves bloom slowly. Our life is no mushroom, but a tree, and a tree requires long growth-periods. Orange was so. A grave, moral, and patriotic purpose in itself suffices to shape a career of grandeur and service. Had he been told he would die a Protestant and a rebel, he would have been instant to deny the charge, and this through no duplicity, but from lack of knowledge of his own soul temper, coupled with an inability to forecast a stormy future. We can not walk by sight in action and politics any more than in religion—a thing the prince found out as the turbulent years passed. ”

“ Secondly, Tho' the accession of the Prince of Orange to the throne might at first give occasion to many disputes, and his title be contested, it ought not now to appear doubtful, but must have acquir'd a sufficient authority from those three princes, who have succeeded him upon the same title. Nothing is more usual, tho' nothing may, at first sight, appear more unreasonable, than this way of thinking. ”

“ Down to the successes of the terrible Prince of Parma, the popularity of Orange with the burghers amounted to extravagance. "They love him, they fear him, they want to make him their master," wrote Don John to Philip. "The people believe in no god but in him," wrote Kenon de France. ”

“ The title and domains of Orange were added to the family in the sixteenth century by the marriage of Claude de Chalons, sister and heiress of the then Prince of Orange, with Henry of Nassau, from whose son Réné the principality passed by testamentary bequest to the great Stadtholder of Holland, William, surnamed the Silent, the illustrious liberator of the United Provinces from the yoke of Spain. ”

“ They are seeking every means of escaping from their obligations, and are most desirous of creating general confusion." As to the Prince of Orange, the Cardinal asserted that he owed nine hundred thousand florins, and had hardly twenty-five thousand a-year clear income, while he spent ninety thousand, having counts; barons, and gentlemen in great numbers, in his household. At this point, he suggested that it might be well to find employment for some of these grandees in Spain and other dominions of his Majesty, adding that perhaps Orange might accept the vice-royalty of Sicily. ”

“ This general apprehension of danger led some of the principal men in the kingdom to look to the Prince of Orange for support. They were members of the Church of England: so that, whatever merit attaches to the Revolution, belongs to them, not to the Dissenters. Into the particulars connected with the Prince's arrival, I need not enter at any length, since my narrative properly commences with the period fixed for taking the oaths to William and Mary. ”

“ It is evident that the Prince of Orange suffered himself to be misled by hatred and revenge. The reality of a crime cannot be believed when neither the end nor motives for it can be perceived, and Philip was certainly interested in the queen's life. Some writers, after having supposed that the crime was committed, have endeavoured to discover the cause, and some romance-writers have thought that they discovered it in the pretended intrigue with Don Carlos. ”

“ It was hoped that the name of the Prince of Orange, who had sought refuge in England, might prevent any opposition; and it was determined, in the firat place, to secure the Cape of Good Hope, by friendly negotiation if possible, but if not by force. ”

“ It is necessary to allude to certain important events contemporaneous with those recorded in the last chapter, that the reader may thoroughly understand the position of the leading personages in this great drama at the close of the year 1566.
The Prince of Orange had, as we have seen, bean exerting all his energies faithfully to accomplish the pacification of the commercial metropolis, upon the basis assented to beforehand by the Duchess. He had established a temporary religious peace, by which alone at that crisis the gathering tempest could be averted ”

“ The opposition of those mindes that hate me,
A wise-man spyns his owne fate and secures it.
Nor can I, that have powre to perswade men dye,
Want living frends to iustifie my Creadit.
Goe in and get me meat now; invyte my frends,
I am determind to be high and merry.
Thou hast lost thy Charge; wee'll have another, Will;
It shall goe hard els. The Prince of Orange now
Will find what frends I have, and of what reckning;
And when he seekes this life, he must make passage
Through thousands more and those he little dreames of.
Son. I wonder how he got that speritt, Sir, to dye soe? ”

“ No subject of either crown could ignore at whom the first blow would be struck, after the pressure of the foreign war had been removed. [684] Nor, in the execution of their plans, could either monarch imagine himself to stand in need of the assistance of his royal brother; for it was not an open war to be carried on, but as yet a struggle with persons, numerous without doubt, but, nevertheless, suspected rather than convicted of heresy, and discovered, for the most part, only by diligent search.
The Prince of Orange learns Henry's and Philip's designs. ”

“ The whole nation shivered at the prospect; its leaders, Whig and moderate Tory alike, would wait no longer, The invitation to the Dutch Prince of Orange, 1688.and a secret message was at once dispatched to Prince William, begging him to come over to England, either to turn out King James or to teach him by force (for nothing but force would ever convince such a character) to govern better.
Character of William of Orange.Prince William of Orange was the son of Charles I’s daughter Mary. ”

“ He never affected to undervalue the mind of Orange. "'Tis a man of profound genius, vast ambition—dangerous, acute, politic," he wrote to the King at a very early period. The original relations between himself and the Prince bad been very amicable. It hardly needed the prelate's great penetration to be aware that the friendship of so exalted a personage as the youthful heir to the principality of Orange, and to the vast possessions of the Chalons-Nassau house in Burgundy and the Netherlands, would be advantageous to the ambitious son of the Burgundian Councillor Granvelle. ”

“ He is a person whose dispositions may, I am confident, be proved to make him as partial to England as those of his predecessor (De Witt) were esteemed to France, in case there were any composition of those two interests here. The point upon which I judge this to turn chiefly is that of religion, in which I find him by his discourses very warm, and hear by others that he hath it very much at heart."—Temple's Works, iv. 33. ↑ The Prince of Orange was passionately fond of hunting ”

“ It was said that he was determined to concentrate all the powers of government in the state council, which was thus to become an omnipotent and irresponsible senate, while the King would be reduced to the condition of a Venetian Doge. It was, of course, suggested that it was the aim of Orange to govern the new Tribunal of Ten. No doubt the Prince was ambitious. Birth, wealth, genius, and virtue could not have been bestowed in such eminent degree on any man without carrying with them the determination to assert their value. ”