s fifteenth to his twenty-first year he was in
constant attendance at the court of Charles V, who loved, trusted, and
honored him. He was at this age, rich, frivolous, spendthrift; in
short, a petted nobleman of the greatest monarch in Christendom. He
had evident gifts; was generous to lavishness; mortgaged his estate to
gratify his luxurious tastes; was given to political expediency, caring
less for conviction than popularity with his sovereign; wearing his
religion, if he may be said to have possessed any, as lightly as a
lady's favor; lacking in reverence, he was flippant rather than
irreligious, but a youth of fashion, pleasure, and luxury. Charles V,
discovering in him extraordinary parts, invested him, at the age of
twenty-two, with command of the imperial forces before Marienburg, and
at his abdication leaned affectionately on William's shoulder. Count
Egmont alone excepted, Orange was the most distinguished Flemish
nobleman who passed from Charles to Philip as part of the emperor's
bequest. Early in Philip's reign, Orange was made one of the king's
counselors and Knight of the Golden Fleece, at that time most coveted
and honorable of any military knighthood. At the age of twenty-six, he
was one of the peace commissioners between Henry II and Philip II, and
at this time he came into possession of that secret which changed his
life. Here ends the youth of William of Nassau. Let us get this man
more clearly in the eye. He was above middle height, spare, sinewy;
dark in complexion; had gentle brown eyes, auburn hair and beard; face
thin, nose aquiline; head small, but well formed; his hair luxuriant,
his beard trimmed to a point; about his neck the superb collar of the
Golden Fleece. He is married, and his home is Breda.

Between the young king and his Flemish Stadtholder was never any warmth
of feeling. When Orange, pursuant to his resolution formed in the
French king's presence, spurred the States to demand the removal of the
Spanish soldiers from the Netherlands, with a pertinacity dogged and
changeless till the king, in sheer desperation, acquiesced in the just
demand, though with a chagrin of spirit toward the instrument of his
defeat which became settled hatred, and never lifted from his heart for
a moment in those long succeeding years, when the king, like a recluse
in the Escurial, brooded over his defeat. His troops forced from
Flemish territories, Philip himself departed from a region he had nev