1 - William I: from courtier to rebel

Summary

At first glance William I, Prince of Orange and Count of Nassau, as the ranking nobleman in the country, might well have seemed the least likely person to lead the revolt that broke out in the Netherlands in 1566. Born 25 April 1533, he had been sent as a boy from his birthplace in Germany to take up the inheritance of his cousin, René of Chalon. René had been the first to combine the sovereignty of the tiny principality of Orange, an enclave in southern France, with the vast wealth and the leading military and political role of the counts of Nassau in the Low Countries. Growing to manhood, William adapted to the plush luxuriance of his new life at the Brussels court of Charles V, but retained in his relations with persons of all classes an earthiness that had been characteristic of the first ten years of his life in the Nassau castle at Dillenburg. Although even before the Emperor's abdication Charles's son Philip seems to have resented the confidence and affection that his father bestowed upon the Prince of Orange, it was not until the four years of Philip's residence in the Netherlands ended with his departure for his native Spain in 1559 that the king clearly came to look upon William with a suspicious eye.