WILLIAM (1533-1584), surnamed the Silent, prince of Orange, count of Nassau, was born at the castle of Dillenburg in Nassau on 16th April 1533. He was the eldest son of William of Nassau (died 1559) and his second wife, Juliana of Stolberg, a woman of remarkable piety and discretion, who devoted much thought and care to the training of her children. In 1544 he inherited from his cousin René or Renatus the principality of Orange and the great estates belonging to his family in the Netherlands (see Holland, vol. xii. p. 74 sqf He was educated at the court of Brussels in the Roman Catholic faith. Having attracted the attention of Charles V., he was invested by the emperor at the age of twenty-two with the command of the army on the French frontier; and it was on his shoulder that Charles V. leaned when in 1555, in the presence of a great assembly at Brussels, he transferred to his son Philip the sovereignty of the Netherlands. Orange was also selected to carry the insignia of the empire to Ferdinand, king of the Romans, when Charles resigned the imperial crown. He took part in Philip II.’s first war with France, and negotiated the preliminary arrangements for the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559). He was one of the hostages sent to France for the due execution of the treaty, and during his stay in that country Henry II., who entirely misunderstood his character, revealed to him a plan for the massacre of all Protestants in France and the Netherlands. The prince was horrified by this disclosure, but said nothing; and it was on account of his extraordinary discretion on this occasion that he received the surname of “the Silent.” The epithet is apt to convey a mistaken impression as to his general character. He was of a frank, open, and generous nature, without a touch of moroseness in the ordinary intercourse of life.
The persecution of the Protestants in the Netherlands, carried on with such reckless ferocity by Cardinal Granvella, led Orange, Egmont, and Horn, the most prominent of the great nobles, to protest against the violence of the Government; and in 1563 they wrote to Philip urging him to withdraw Granvella, and ceased to attend the state council. In the following year Granvella was displaced, whereupon they resumed their seats at the council; yet shortly afterwards it was decided by Philip that the canons of the Council of Trent, the edicts, and the Inquisition should be immediately promulgated in every town and village of the provinces, and that the process should be repeated every six months. At the meeting of the state council at which this was formally decided Orange disclaimed any responsibility for the consequences, and he whispered to his neighbour that now the most extraordinary tragedy the world had ever seen was about to begin. The proceedings of the Gueux or reforming party so alarmed the regent, Margaret of Parma, that she was persuaded to sign an accord, declaring the abolition of the Inquisition and granting liberty of worship in all places where the new forms of religion had been already accepted. In consequence of these concessions the great nobles undertook to restore order, the prince of Orange especially distinguishing himself at Antwerp. But Philip, who had been longing for an excuse to crush the independent spirits of the Nether landers, now resolved to send the duke of Alva into the country, with a Spanish force. Orange, since he could not count upon the hearty support of Egmont or Horn, had no alternative but to resign his offices and withdraw from the Netherlands (1567), taking up his residence at Dillenburg. He was warmly attached to Egmont, and before his departure, at an interview at Willebroeck, urged him to seek refuge in some foreign land; but Egmont was not to be persuaded, and the two friends parted never to see one another again.
Orange was repeatedly summoned to Brussels; but he declined to appear before the Council of Disturbances, on the ground that it had no jurisdiction over an independent prince and a knight of the order of the Fleece. The havoc wrought by Alva filled him with grief and anger; and in 1568 he contrived to collect two forces, one of which, commanded by his brothers Louis and Adolphus, gained a victory in Groningen, where Adolphus fell. Alva, having ordered the execution of Egmont and Horn, advanced against Louis and defeated him in East Friesland. Orange then invaded Brabant, but could neither bring Alva to a decisive engagement nor induce the people to rise against him. The army had therefore to be disbanded, and its disappointed leader joined Wolfgang of Zweibrücken in an attempt to aid the Huguenots. Acting on the advice of Coligny, Orange issued letters of mark to seamen against the Spaniards; and for years the “sea beggars” harassed the enemy along the coast, and often did no little harm to their own countrymen. In 1572 the revolt against Spain was so far successful that Orange resumed the functions of stadtholder of Holland and Zealand, a position to which he had been appointed in 1559; but he professed to rule in the name of the king, for as yet the people had no wish to throw off their allegiance to the Spanish crown. Orange had won their confidence not only by acting as their champion but by accepting the Protestant faith. He had never been an enthusiastic Catholic, and as a Protestant he was distinguished among the eminent men of his time by his mastery of the true principles of toleration. Meanwhile he had been using the utmost diligence in bringing together an army, and his brother Louis, by a brilliant stroke, had captured the city of Mons. On 15th July 1572 the estates of Holland met at Dort, and, recognizing Orange as the legal stadtholder of Holland, Zealand, Friesland, and Utrecht, voted the sums necessary for the prosecution of the war. In August he crossed the Meuse at the head of an army, trusting mainly to the promised co-operation of France. All his hopes, however, were shattered by the massacre of St Bartholomew. He was obliged to disband his troops, and Mons was re-taken by the Spaniards. On 14th April 1574, at the village of Mook, near Nimeguen, the patriots were again routed, and Orange’s brothers, Louis and Henry, slain. But many fortified places held out, and on 3d October Orange, who had ordered the country to be inundated, was able to relieve Leyden, which had for months been defended with splendid bravery and self-sacrifice. At length the brutality and despotism of the Spaniards were so fiercely and generally resented that Orange was able to enter upon a series of negotiations, which resulted on 8th November 1576 in the pacification of Ghent, signed on behalf of nearly all the provinces. By this treaty the provinces bound themselves to drive the Spaniards from the Netherlands, to convoke the states-general, and to establish freedom of worship both for Roman Catholics and for Protestants.
Don John of Austria, Spanish regent of the Netherlands (1576-78), granted all the demands of the states; but Orange was suspicious of the intentions of the Government, and in nσ way relaxed his vigilance. Troubles soon broke out, and Orange was called to Brussels to the aid of the states, being elected τwwaaτd (governor) of Brabant. When the archduke Matthias (afterwards emperor) was invited by the Catholic nobles to accept the position of governor-general, Orange prudently refrained from resisting the scheme; and he acted with equal discretion in regard to the duke of Alençon, who came nominally as the protector of the liberties of the Netherlands. Orange, however, retained in his own hands complete control over the movement in the seven northern provinces, which by the Union of Utrecht, signed on behalf of five of the provinces on 23d January 1579, laid the foundations of the commonwealth of the United Netherlands. Orange’s relation to the new federal republic was somewhat vaguely defined; but in his lifetime it was not felt that there was any very urgent need for an exact delimitation of the relative functions of the executive and the legislative authorities. Negotiations for the conclusion of peace with Spain were carried on for some time in vain; and in 1580 Philip issued a ban against the prince, and set a price of 25,000 gold crowns upon his head. Orange pub lished a vigorous “apology,” and on 26th July 1581 the estates of the United Provinces formally renounced their allegiance to the Spanish crown. An unsuccessful attempt on the life of Orange was made in 1582. But on 10th July 1584 he was shot dead in his house at Delft by Balthazar Gerard, who seems to have been actuated in part by fanaticism, in part by the hope of gain.
William of Orange was tall and well-formed, of a dark complexion, with brown hair and eyes. He was a man of a singularly upright and noble character. He has been charged with excessive ambition; but his ruling motive was undoubtedly a love of justice, for the sake of which he often risked his life and willingly sacrificed his wealth and leisure. He was a born statesman, capable of forming wise and far-reaching plans, and of modifying them to suit the changing circumstances in which it was necessary to execute them. In moments of difficulty he displayed splendid resource and courage, and he had a will of iron, which misfortunes were never able either to bend or to break. To him chiefly belongs the honour of having permanently crippled the tyrannical power of Spain, and of having founded the independence and greatness of the United Provinces.
He was married four times. His wives were (1) Anne of Egmont (died 1558), by whom he had a daughter and a son, Philip William, who was seized by Alva in 1567 and sent to the court at Madrid, where he was educated; (2) Anne of Saxony (divorced in 1575, died in 1577), the mother of several daughters and of Maurice of Orange (see Holland, vol. xii. p. 77); (3) Charlotte of Bourbon (died 1582), who had six daughters; (4) Louisa, Coligny’s daughter, the mother of Frederick Henry of Orange floc. cit., p. 79), who represented the family after the death of his two elder brothers, and succeeded Maurice as stadtholder.
See Schiller, Geschichte des Abfalls der Vereinigten Niederlande ; Klose, Wilhelm I. von Oranien; Gachard, Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne and Correspondu nee de Philippe II. sur les Affaires des Pays-Bas ; Groen van Prinsterer, Archives ou Correspondance Inédite de la Maison d’Orange -Nassau; Juste, Guillaume le Taciturne d'après sa Correspondance et les Papiers d’État ; Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic.
WILLIAM of Holland, second count of the name, was born about 1227, succeeded his brother Floris IV. in 1235, and was chosen king of the Romans by the papal party in 1247. See Germ:any, vol. x. p. 491, and Holland, vol. xii. p. 71. He died on 28th January 1256.
WILLIAM, archbishop of Tyre, was doubtless a native of the Holy Land. He was perhaps born about 1137; but this is a mere inference from his own statement that he was still pursuing his studies “across the seas” when Amalric came to the throne (17th February 1163), and did not return till late in 1166 or early in 1167. As a child he had seen Ralph, the patriarch of Antioch, who died about 1141-42; he remembered the fall of Edessa (December 1144); and he seems to call himself a contemporary historian from the accession of Baldwin III., an event which he dates 10th November 1142 {Hist. Per. Transmarin. i xvi., pref., and xix. 4, 12). Unfortunately the chapter (xix. 12) which relates to his own early life has been excised or omitted from every MS. of his great work now extant,—a remark which holds good, not only for the original Latin, but also for the 13th-century French translation. William was appointed archdeacon of Tyre at the request of Amalric on 31st August 1167. Next summer he was despatched on an embassy to the emperor Manuel. At the time of the disastrous campaign against Damietta (October—December 1169) he had to take refuge at Rome from the “unmerited anger” of his archbishop. About. 1170 he was appointed tutor to Amalric’s son Baldwin, afterwards Baldwin IV. A very few months after Baldwin’s accession William was made chancellor of the kingdom (c. October 1174), and less than a year later (13th June 1175) was consecrated archbishop of Tyre. The former office he still held in 1182. He belonged to the commission which negotiated with Philip of Flanders in 1177; and in the following October (1178) he was one of six bishops sent to represent the Latin Church of the East at the Lateran Council (19th March 1179). He returned home by way of Constantinople, where he stayed seven months (October 1179-April 1180) with Manuel. This is his last authentic appearance in history; but we know from his own works that he was writing his History in 1182 (xix. 20), and that it breaks off abruptly at the end of 1183 or the beginning of 1184. Some fifty years later his first continuator accused Heraclius, patriarch of Jerusalem, of having procured William’s death at Rome. This story, however, seems to be pure legend; nor perhaps is much more credit to be attached to the theory that identifies him with the archbishop of Tyre sent over to Europe to preach a new crusade in 1188. It is true that Matthew Paris speaks of Henry H.’s receiving the cross from the hands of “Willelmus episcopus Tyrensis”; but more contemporary writers omit the Christian name, while others write it Josce or Joscius.
If not the greatest, William of Tyre is at least among the greatest, of mediaeval historians. His Historia Rerum in Partibus Transmarinis Gestarum is the main authority for the Latin kingdom of the East between 1127, where Fulcher of Chartres leaves off, and 1184, where Ernoul takes up the narrative. It was translated into French in the 13th century, or possibly before the end of the 12th. A little later it was united to Ernoul ’ s chronicle or that of Bernard the Treasurer, and continued in more than one form to 1249, 1261, or 1275. In this shape the combined histories form the Livre d’ Outremer quoted by Joinville (cxvii. § 77),—the standard mediaeval account of the exploits of the Frankish warriors in the East. William’s own work consists of twenty-two books and a fragment (one chapter and a preface) of book xxiii. It extends from the preaching of the first crusade by Peter the Hermit and Urban II. to the end of 1183 or the beginning of 1184. Like William’s other work, the Historia de Orientalibus Principibus, it was undertaken at the request of Amalric, who was himself a lover of history and supplied the author with Arabic MSS.; but, whereas the latter book (now unfortunately lost) was mainly based upon the writings of a certain “Seith, the son of Patrick (Patricii), patriarch of Alexandria,” of the Historia Transmarina its author remarks, “In this work we have had no guide, whether Greek or Arab, but have had recourse to traditions only, save as regards a few things that we have ourselves seen.” The “traditions” here spoken of must be taken to include the Gesta Francorum of Tudebode, Raymund of Agiles, Fulcher of Chartres, and, above all, Albert of Aix. It is only with the accession of Baldwin I., even if so early as this, that William’s claim to originality can fairly be sustained; and even here his narrative, till towards the close of book xiii., is based upon that of Fulcher. From this point William of Tyre is indebted to no other historian. Of the remaining books two are devoted to the reign of Fulk (xiv.-xv.), three to that of Baldwin III. (xvi.-xviii. ), two to that of Amalric, and the rest to that of Baldwin IV.
No mediaeval writer, except perhaps Giraldus Cambrensis, possesses William’s power of delineating the physical and mental features of his heroes. Again, very few had his instinctive insight into what would be of real value to future ages: genealogy, topography, archaeology, social life (political and ecclesiastical), military matters and naval, all find a due exposition in his pages. It is hardly too much to say that from his work alone a fairly detailed map of the Levant, as it was in the 12th century, might be constructed; and it is impossible to praise too highly the scrupulous fidelity with which he defines nearly all the technical terms (whether relating to land or sea) of which he makes use. His chief fault is in the matter of chronology, where indeed he is not unfrequently at discord with himself. In the later books his information, even as regards what was taking place beyond the Nile or the Euphrates, as well as in Europe, is singularly exact. Nor did he consider any trouble too severe if by its means he might attain to the truth. Though a man of great learning and almost certainly acquainted with Arabic and Greek, he is as ready to enliven his pages with a country proverb as to embellish them with quotations from Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, or Plato. He was a prelate of pious character, inclined to see the judgment of God on the iniquities of his fellow-countrymen in every disaster that overtook his native land and every Saracen success.
WILLIAM ofChampeaux. See Scholasticism, vol. xxi. pp. 422-423.
WILLIAM of Lorris, the first author of the Roman de la Pose, derives his surname from a small town about equidistant from Montargis and Gien, in the old district of the Gâtinais, and in the present department of Loiret. This and the fact of his authorship may be said to be the only things positively known about him. The rubric of the poem, where his own part finishes, attributes Jean de Meung’s continuation to a period forty years later than William’s death and the consequent interruption of the romance. Arguing backwards, this death used to be put at about 1260; but Jean de Meung’s own -work has recently been dated earlier, and so the composition of the first part has been thrown back to a period before 1240. The author represents himself as having dreamed the dream which furnished the substance of the poem in his twentieth year, and as having set to work to “rhyme it” five years later. The general characteristics of the Roman will be found noticed under France (see vol. ix. p. 643). It may be added here that, though the later and longer part shows signs of greater intellectual vigour and wider knowledge than the earlier and shorter, William of Lorris has more poetry than his continuator, made a much greater impression on the spirit of his own and following ages, and is to all appearance more original. The great features of his four or five thousand lines are, in the first place, the extraordinary vividness and beauty of his word-pictures, in which for colour, freshness, and individuality he has not many rivals except in the greatest masters, and, secondly, the fashion of allegorical presentation, which, hackneyed and wearisome as it afterwards became, was evidently in his time new and striking. There are of course traces of it before, as in some romances, such as those of Raoul de Houdenc, in the troubadours, and in other writers; but it was unquestionably William of Lorris who fixed the style. And to have fixed a style which captivated Europe for at least two centuries, if not three, does not happen to many of the personages of literary history.
The most convenient edition of the Roman de la Rose is that of F. Michel (2 vols., Paris, 1864).
WILLIAM of Malmesbury. See Malmesbury, William of.
WILLIAM of Newburgh, born about 1136, was a canon of Newburgh in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and author of a valuable chronicle of English affairs from the Norman Conquest to 1197. He calls himself Gulielmus Parvus, and is frequently referred to as William Petyt or Little. His work (Gulielmi Neubrigensis Rerum A nglicarum Libri V.) was edited by Silvius at Antwerp in 1567 and by Hearne at Oxford in 1719 (3 vols. 8vo); the latest edition is that by H. C. Hamilton for the English Historical Society (Historia Rerum A nglicarum Willelmi Parvi, S. T.D., Ordinis Sancti Augustini Canonici Regularis in Coenobio B. Mariae de Novoburgo in Agro Eboracensi, 2 vols., 1856).
WILLIAM of Occam. See Occam.
WILLIAM of Wykeham (1324-1404), bishop of Winchester and chancellor of England, was born in 1324 at Wickham in Hampshire. His father was a yeoman; his mother is said to have been of noble descent. He was educated at the priory school, Winchester, at the cost of Sir John Scures, lord of the manor of Wickham and governor of Winchester Castle, who afterwards took him into his service. When he was twenty-two years old he passed into the service of Edingdon, bishop of Winchester. In 1347 the bishop introduced him to the king as a young man likely to be useful from his skill in architecture. Edward III., who ∙was then completing the Round Tower at Windsor, made him his chaplain. But his employment for some time was mainly secular: he acted as guardian of several of the king’s manors and as derk of the works at Henley and elsewhere. In 1356 he was appointed surveyor of the works at Windsor, and a little later surveyor and warden of several other castles. In 1359 he began the building of the great quadrangle to the east of the keep at
Windsor, a work which occupied ten years. This building established his fame as an architect. Two years after its completion he was employed to build Queenborough Castle (Kent). Meanwhile he was also gaining experience in affairs of state. In 1360 he must have been a member of the king’s council, for he appears as a witness to the ratification of the treaty of Brétigny. In 1364 he became keeper of the privy seal. In 1365 he was one of the commissioners to treat for peace with Scotland. And, although he was not yet in holy orders, he was loaded by the king with preferments, one of which, the living of Pulham in Norfolk, involved him (about 1360) in a dispute with the pope. In fact he had attained to such eminence that Froissart says, “At this time there reigned in England a priest called Sir William de Wican, so much in favour with the king that by him everything was done.”
Early in life William had received the tonsure; but it was not till 1362 that he was ordained deacon and priest. In 1363 he became archdeacon of Northampton, and provost and prebendary of Wells. Although at this time he possessed a number of prebends, it appears, from a return which he made in 1366 on account of a papal bull against pluralities, that he only held one benefice with cure of souls. On the translation of Bishop Edingdon in this year from Winchester to Canterbury William was nominated by the king to the vacant bishopric; but the pope withheld his confirmation for some time, and it was not till October 1367 that William was consecrated bishop of Winchester. A month previously he had been made chancellor of England. During his first chancellorship the war with France was renewed and went against the English. The blame for this fell in great measure on the ministry, and in 1371 William resigned the great seal. But in 1373 he was one of a committee of the Lords appointed to confer with the Commons on the question of an aid. About this time he fell out with John of Gaunt, with whom he had previously been on good terms. Since the overthrow of the clerical ministry in 1371 John of Gaunt had been practically head of the government, but the conduct of his supporters caused general discontent. In the “Good Parliament” of 1376 Lord Latimer was impeached, and the bishop was active in promoting his trial and punishment. This was a great blow to John of Gaunt. The death of the Black Prince in June 1376 enabled him to take his revenge. The bishop was attacked in the council on the ground of malversation and misconduct of public affairs during his chancellorship, condemned to pay an enormous fine, and deprived of the temporalities of his see. The other bishops took his side and regarded his punishment as an insult to their order. It was not, however, till after the accession of Richard II. (1377) that William recovered his position. He then received a full pardon, and was reconciled to John of Gaunt.
During the next ten years he became more and more clearly identified with the constitutional or Lancastrian party. In 1380 and 1381 he was named on commissions for the reform of the king’s household. In 1382 he took part in a conference with the Commons. Next year he successfully opposed a demand from the lords of the Scottish marches for a share in the public funds in order to defray the expense of guarding the border, a duty on the performance of which rested their title to their lands. In 1386 he became one of the commission appointed to examine into the Exchequer and to act as a sort of council of regency. It was before this commission that the five “lords appellant” impeached Richard H.’s favourites, who next year were condemned by the “Merciless Parliament.” A year later (1389) the king suddenly resumed the reins of power. In order, apparently, to conciliate the clergy, Richard at once offered the great seal to the bishop of Winchester, who after some hesitation accepted the charge. His second chancellorship lasted for two years, and was marked by efforts on his part to reform the government and place it on a more constitutional basis. After he had held office for a year he and his colleagues in the ministry resigned their appointments, and challenged a public inquiry into their conduct. This being pronounced satisfactory, they resumed their offices. The chancellor drew up rules for the conduct of business in the council; and from this time minutes of the proceedings were regularly kept. In 1391 he resigned the great seal, and thenceforward retired from public life.
It is, however, as the founder of two great colleges that William is principally known to fame. Immediately after his promotion to the bishopric of Winchester he appears to have begun to carry out his educational schemes. Between 1369 and 1379 he bought the land enclosed in the north-eastern corner of the city walls at Oxford on which New College now stands (see Oxford, vol. xviii. p. 97). Meanwhile he was taking steps to establish the sister foundation at Winchester. In 1378 he obtained a licence from the pope to found a college there, which was confirmed by the king four years later. The ground on which Winchester College stands belonged partly to the bishop and partly to other proprietors, from whom he bought it. In 1387 he began to build, and the buildings were occupied by his scholars in 1393, though they do not appear to have been finished till 1395. When his two colleges were established and endowed, he provided them with statutes, which after several revisions took their final form in 1400. Nor does he appear to have neglected his duties as a bishop. He visited and reformed the hospital of St Cross near Winchester; he corrected the abuses which had crept into the priory of St Swithin; and he rebuilt or transformed the nave of Winchester cathedral. He kept a strict watch on the clergy under his charge, endeavouring to ensure their efficiency by frequently moving them from one living to another, and he promoted the material prosperity of his diocese by repairs of bridges and roads. In the relations between England and the papacy William of Wykeham strongly supported the nationalist policy of Edward III. The Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire met with his full approval. So far he was in accord with Wycliffe, but he showed no sympathy with the doctrinal opinions of the reformer. Bishop Courtenay, who headed the attack on Wycliffe, was a lifelong friend of the bishop of Winchester, who published in 1382 the interdict condemning Wycliffe’s heresies, and in 1392 sat on an episcopal commission to try his follower Henry Crumpe. William of Wykeham died at Waltham on 27th September 1404, and was buried in the cathedral of Winchester.
Authorities.— The episcopal register of William of Wykeham (preserved at Winchester); Walsingham, Historia Anglicana ; Lowth, Life of William of Wykeham, London, 1758; Walcott, William of Wykeham and his Colleges, 1852; Moberly, Life of William of Wykeham, Winchester, 1887.
