William the Silent

“ 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. ”

“ There were, however, among the other twenty-two grandchildren of William the Silent, three who were distinguished, one of whom, Turenne (10) , ranks among the highest. The origin of the genius of William the Silent is not quite clear, since none of his ancestry in several degrees of remoteness were worthy of being called great, although they were of the sterling sort and above mediocrity. So William the Silent himself can not be taken as an instance of heredity, though all his descendants can. ”

“ William the Silent was a shining example of the old maxim that “those who wish to rule the world must know the world.” He began life as a very fashionable and rich young man, enjoying a most enviable social position as the confidential secretary of the greatest monarch of his time. ”

“ Let the historian's verdict stand as ours, "His life was a noble Christian epic."
A statesman is a man of his own and succeeding ages, and in him, therefore, is much anticipatory. He outruns his time. The vision William the Silent had, which outran the simple patriot in him, was the vision of religious tolerance. This might serve him for crown had he no other. What the world has learned to do, that this Dutch prince taught—virtually first of modern statesmen. In an utterly intolerant age and country, he apostled manly tolerance. ”

“ Thus far events have been given in their chronological order, a process needful no longer, the steps having been shown by which William of Orange, a Catholic prince, loyal to and trusted by Charles V, has come to be a rebel against the Church and Philip II, with a price put upon his head. His remaining life is one long, bloody, tireless, valorous, magnificent, though often hopeless, effort to consummate the freeing of his native land from ecclesiastical and civil tyranny.
William the Silent must be studied as soldier, for such he unquestionably was. Men are best pictured by comparisons. ”

“ A humble submissiveness to the government bought off the blame and suspicion which this munificence might have thrown on his intentions. But this liberality secured for him the affections of the people, whom nothing gratified so much as to see the riches of their country displayed before admiring foreigners, and the high pinnacle of fortune on which he stood enhanced the value of the courtesy to which he condescended. No one, probably, was better fitted by nature for the leader of a conspiracy than William the Silent. ”

“ He could read Philip and Margaret, Egmont or Berlaymont, Alva or Viglius, but he had no plummet to sound the depths of a mind like that of William the Silent. His genius was adroit and subtle, but not profound. He aimed at power by making the powerful subservient, but he had not the intellect which deals in the daylight face to face with great events and great minds. In the violent political struggle of which his administration consisted, he was foiled and thrown by the superior strength of a man whose warfare was open and manly, and who had no defence against the poisoned weapons of his foe. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Probably the only strain in modern times, in royalty or out, that can show such a quantity of eminent relationship, and of such a high degree, is the same region about William the Silent that we have shown we consider the origin of this. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The characters, the events, the amphibious battles, desperate sieges, slippery alliances, the traits of generosity, audacity and cruelty, the generous confidence, the broken faith seem so closely to repeat themselves, that History appears to present the self-same drama played over and over again, with but a change of actors and of costume. There is more than a fanciful resemblance between Civilis and William the Silent, two heroes of ancient German stock, who had learned the arts of war and peace in the service of a foreign and haughty world-empire. ”

“ Here is my head, over which no prince, no monarch, has power but yourselves. Dispose of it for your good, for the preservation of your republic, but if you judge that the moderate amount of experience and industry which is in me, if you judge that the remainder of my property and of my life can yet be of service to you, I dedicate them afresh to you and to the country."
Such was the spirit in which William encountered the dastardly menaces of Philip. The true temper of the man and the true lesson of his life are exhibited in these touching words. ”

“ No man certainly understood the tendency of his age more exactly, took a broader and more comprehensive view than he did of the policy necessary to preserve the largest portion of the results of the past three-quarters of a century, or had pondered the relative value of great conflicting forces more skilfully. Had his counsels been always followed, had illustrious birth placed him virtually upon a throne, as was the case with William the Silent, and thus allowed him occasionally to carry out the designs of a great mind with almost despotic authority, it might have been better for the world. ”

“ To the Dutch Republic, even more than to Florence at an earlier day, is the world indebted for practical instruction in that great science of political equilibrium which must always become more and more important as the various states of the civilized world are pressed more closely together, and as the struggle for pre-eminence becomes more feverish and fatal. Courage and skill in political and military combinations enabled William the Silent to overcome the most powerful and unscrupulous monarch of his age. ”

“ Midnight, fourth, we were at war, and midday, fifth, I was a soldier. Must have been some sort of instinct.... Sometimes I tell myself what a blazing fool I am.
"That's sometimes. Other times——"
He was silent for so long that William concluded the flow of his confidence had ceased.
"When you live in a crowd," he said at last, "you can always make excuses for yourself. Most likely you don't need to. If you're a fool or a coward you herd with a lot of other fools and cowards, and you all back each other up. So you never come face to face with yourself." ”

“ But from these crazing thoughts my brain, escape!
—For weeks the balmy air breathed soft and mild,
And on the gliding vessel Heaven and Ocean smiled.
Some mighty gulph of separation past,
I seemed transported to another world:—
A thought resigned with pain, when from the mast
The impatient mariner the sail unfurl'd,
And whistling, called the wind that hardly curled
The silent sea. From the sweet thoughts of home,
And from all hope I was forever hurled.
For me—farthest from earthly port to roam
Was best, could I but shun the spot where man might come. ”

“ In Holland and England and Germany William and his allies stood for the very reverse of all this, so that it was not only the destinies of the United Kingdom, but those of the greater part of the civilised world that had to be decided, and it was by procuring through mingled victory and defeat, confronted by powerful enemies abroad and by conspiracy and threatened assassination at home, that the worthy descendant of William the Silent proved his real right divine as king of these realms and champion of those principles of which the110 British Empire of to-day is the concrete expression. ”

“ More searching than the breath of spring.
Upon a stone the Woman sits
In agony of silent grief—
From his own thoughts did Peter start;
He longs to press her to his heart,
From love that cannot find relief. ”

“ Undying recollections; Nature there
Was with thee; she, who loved us both, she still
Was with thee; and even so didst thou become
A silent Poet; from the solitude
Of the vast sea didst bring a watchful heart
Still couchant, an inevitable ear,
And an eye practised like a blind man's touch. ”

“ He was pleased with the idea; but presently the conversation fell off from the subject. William's eyes wandered to the texts of the "Silent Comforter" at the foot of his bed. With the air of one who caught the sight of unutterable things, and has not much more to do with the world:
"See," said he, "I have a good verse for this morning." He began to read: "Fear not, I am with thee."
Beginning to cough, I went on: "When thou walkest through the waters, they shall not overflow thee; and through the fire, thou shalt not be burned. That is just right for you, William." ”

“ Thou shouldst have seem'd a treasure-house, a mine
Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven:—
Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine
The very sweetest had to thee been given.
A Picture had it been of lasting ease,
Elysian quiet, without toil or strife;
No motion but the moving tide, a breeze,
Or merely silent Nature's breathing life. ”

“ Eight days after his death, however, his widow, Mary, daughter of Charles I., gave premature birth to the son whose career it is in these pages proposed to trace.
Seldom has a new-born child been the object of such diverse emotions, the centre of so many conflicting hopes and fears among its countrymen as was this infant Prince. To the partisans of the House of Orange he appeared as the God-sent heir—an earlier enfant du miracle vouchsafed by Providence to save the great race of William [Pg 4] the Silent from extinction in the male line. ”

“ But, as you by their faces see,
All silent and all damn'd!
A throbbing pulse the Gazer hath—
Puzzled he was, and now is daunted;
He looks, he cannot choose but look;
Like one intent upon a book—
A book that is enchanted. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So burns yon Taper mid its black recess
Of mountains, silent, dreary, motionless:
The Lake below reflects it not; the sky
Muffled in clouds affords no company
To mitigate and cheer its loneliness. ”

“ From earth to man, from man to earth,
—It is the hour of feeling.
One moment now may give us more
Than fifty years of reason;
Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.
Some silent laws our hearts may make. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The beautiful and fascinating son of the emperor, the hero of Lepanto, who had captured the sacred standard of the Prophet, and shaken the supremacy of the Crescent, was foiled and outwitted by the subtle brain of William. And even the splendid military genius of Alexander of Parma, the most patient, temperate, fearless, and unscrupulous of men, could not turn the scale against the Netherlander. With a few foreign mercenaries who could not be relied on, and a few unarmed burghers who could, the Prince of Orange drove back the invincible legions of Spain, led by their most consummate captains. ”

“ She looked now at the drawing-room step. She saw, through William’s eyes, the shape of a woman, peaceful and silent, with downcast eyes. She sat musing, pondering (she was in grey that day, Lily thought) . Her eyes were bent. She would never lift them. Yes, thought Lily, looking intently, I must have seen her look like that, but not in grey; nor so still, nor so young, nor so peaceful. The figure came readily enough. She was astonishingly beautiful, as William said. But beauty was not everything. Beauty had this penalty—it came too readily, came too completely. It stilled life—froze it. ”

“ 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. ”