August 1564 Philip issued an order for carrying out the decrees of the Council of Trent, and for the strict execution of the placards against heretics. Protests, letters, personal missions were in vain, the king's will was not to be moved from its purpose. The spirit of resistance spread first to the lesser nobles, then to the people. In the memorable year 1566 came “the Compromise,” “the Request,” the banquet at the Hotel Culemburg with its cries of “Vivent les Gueux” followed by the wild iconoclastic riots and outrages by bodies of fanatical Protestant sectaries at Antwerp and elsewhere. The effect of this last outbreak was disastrous. Philip was filled with anger and vowed vengeance. The national leaders drew back, afraid to identify themselves with revolutionary movements, or the cause of extreme Protestantism. Egmont was a good Catholic, and took active steps to suppress disorder, and Orange himself at the request of the regent betook himself to Antwerp, where the citizens in arms were on the point of engaging in civil strife. At the risk of his life the prince succeeded in bringing about an accord, and as he proclaimed its terms to a sullen and half-hostile crowd he uttered for the last time the words, “Long live the King!” It was his final act of loyal service to a sovereign, who from secret emissaries that he kept at Madrid, he knew to be plotting the destruction of himself and his friends. In vain he endeavoured to rouse Egmont to a sense of his danger, and to induce him and other prominent leaders to take steps, if necessary by armed resistance, to avert their doom. Finding all his efforts fruitless William, after resigning all his posts, left the country (22nd of April 1567), and took up his residence with his family at the ancestral home of the Nassaus at Dillenburg.
At that very time Alva was quitting Madrid for his terrible mission of vengeance in the Netherlands (see Alva). The story of the Council of Blood and of the executions of Egmont and Hoorn is told elsewhere. The prince of Orange was out of reach of the tyrant's arm, but by an act of imprudence he had left his eldest son, Philip William, count of Buren, studying at the university of Louvain. He was seized (February 1568) and carried off to Spain, to be brought up as an enemy to the political and religious principles of his father. He himself was outlawed, and his property confiscated. In March he published a lengthy defence of his conduct, entitled “Justification of the Prince of Orange against his Calumniators,” and meanwhile strained every nerve to enlist an armed force for the invasion of the Netherlands. To raise money his brother, John of Nassau, pledged his estates, William himself sold his plate and jewels. An attack was made in three directions, but with disastrous results. The force under Louis of Nassau indeed gained a victory at Heiligerlee in Friesland (May 23rd), but met with a crushing defeat at the hands of Alva in person (July 21st) at Jemmingen. All seemed lost, but William's indomitable spirit did not despair. “With God's help,” he wrote to his brother Louis, “I am determined to go on.” In September he himself crossed the Meuse at the head of 18,000 infantry and 7000 cavalry. But Alva, while clinging to his steps, refused to fight, and William, through lack of funds, was compelled to disband his mercenaries, and withdraw over the French frontier (November 17th).
Then followed the most miserable period of Orange's life. In fear of assassination, in fear of creditors, he wandered about from place to place, and his misfortunes were aggravated by the bad conduct of his wife, Anne of Saxony, who left him. She was finally, on the ground of insanity, placed in closing confinement by her own family, and remained incarcerated until her death six years later. During the years 1569-1572 the brothers William and Louis, the one in Germany, the other in France, were, however, actively preparing for a renewal of the struggle for the freedom of the Netherlands. The barbarities of Alva had caused Spanish rule to be universally hated, and the agents of the Nassaus were busy in the provinces rousing the spirit of resistance and trying to raise funds. In 1569 eighteen vessels provided with letters of marque from the prince of Orange were preying upon Spanish commerce in the narrow seas. Stimulated by the hope of plunder their number rapidly grew, until the wild and fierce corsairs—named “Beggars of the sea” (Gueux de mer)—became a terror to their enemies. The refusal of Queen Elizabeth in 1572 to allow the Beggars to refit in English harbours led to the first success of the patriot cause. On the 1st of April a force under the command of Lumbres and Tresling, being compelled to take refuge in the Maas, seized the town of Brill by surprise. Encouraged by their success they likewise took by assault the important sea-port of Flushing. Like wildfire the revolt spread through Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht and Friesland, and the principal towns, one after the other, submitted themselves to the authority of the prince of Orange as their lawful stadtholder. Louis of Nassau immediately afterwards dashed with a small force from France into Hainault, and captured Valenciennes and Mons. In Mons, however, Louis was blockaded by a superior Spanish force, and eventually forced to surrender. William crossed the Rhine with 20,000 men to relieve him, but he was out-generalled by Alva, nearly lost his life during a night attack on his camp at Harmignies (September 11th), and retired into Holland. Delft became henceforth his home, and he cast in his lot for good and all with the brave Hollanders and Zeelanders in their struggle for freedom, “being resolved,” as he wrote to his brother John, “to maintain the affair there as long as possible and decided to find there my grave.” It was his spirit that animated the desperate resistance that was offered to the Spanish arms at Haarlem and Alkmaar, and it was through his personal and unremitting exertions that, despite an attack of fever which kept him to his bed, the relief of Leiden, on the 3rd of October 1574, was effected just as the town had been reduced to the last extremity.
In order to identify himself more closely with the cause for which he was fighting. Orange had, on October 23rd, 1573, made a public profession of the Calvinist religion. But he was never a bigot in religious matters. The three conditions which he laid down as the irreducible minimum on which negotiations could be based, and from which he never departed, were: (1) freedom of worship and liberty to preach the Gospel according to the word of God; (2) the restoration and maintenance of all the ancient charters, privileges and liberties of the land; (3) the withdrawal of all Spaniards and other foreigners from all posts and employments, civil and military. On these points he was inflexible, but he was a thoroughly moderate man. He hated religious tyranny whether it were exercised by Papist or Calvinist, and his political aims were not self-seeking. His object was to prevent the liberties of the Netherlands from being trampled underfoot by a foreign despotism, and he did not counsel the provinces to abjure their allegiance to Philip, until he found the Spanish monarch was intractable. But when the abjuration became a necessity he sought to find in Elizabeth of England or the duke of Anjou, a sovereign possessing sufficient resources to protect the land from the Spaniard.
William (24th of June 1575) took as his third wife, Charlotte de Bourbon, daughter of the duke of Montpensier. This marriage gave great offence to the Catholic party, for Charlotte was a renegade nun, having been abbess of Jouarre, and Anne of Saxony was still alive. In April 1576, an act of Union between Holland and Zeeland was agreed upon and signed at Delft, by which supreme authority was conferred upon the prince, as ad interim ruler. In this year (1576) the outrages of the Spanish troops in the southern Netherlands, who had mutinied for want of pay, caused a revulsion of feeling. The horrors of the “Spanish Fury” at Antwerp (November 4th) led to a definite treaty being concluded, known as the Pacification of Ghent, by which under the leadership of the prince of Orange, the whole seventeen provinces bound themselves together to drive the foreigners out of the country. This was supplemented by the Union of Brussels (January 1577) by which the Southerners pledged themselves to expel the Spaniards, but to maintain the Catholic religion and the king's authority. To these conditions William willingly assented; he desired to force no man's conscience, and as yet he professed to be acting as stadtholder under the king's commission. On September 23rd he entered Brussels in triumph as the acknowledged leader of the whole people of the Netherlands, Catholic as well as Protestant, in
