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Excerpt from William the Silent, Prince of Orange (1533-1584): And the Revolt of the Netherlands I should have preferred changing the title, having searched in vain for any contemporaneous justification of the adjective Silent as applied to the man. It was the Prince's political critics of a later period who instituted its use as a derogatory term. His own friends would never have recog nised it. But as English readers have adopted it quite without the association of a hostile slur, no alteration is made. It seemed wiser not to incur the risk of confusing this William of Orange with a later king by using the formal title alone. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter xvii the union, the ban, and the abjuration 1578-158I in the summer of 1578, a convention called the Religious Peace was adopted by the StatesGeneral (July 22d) which embodied the Prince's ideas of a just and equitable modus vivendi for fellow-countrymen of different creeds. The two main points were the absence of religious tests for office and the provision that in any locality one hundred householders of one communion were to be free to celebrate their own rites. The articles were not universally accepted by the constituents of the deputies, Guelderland objecting for Protestant, Hainault for Catholic reasons, and there were all shades of dissension in between. And even when accepted they were not put in force except imperfectly at Antwerp, where the measure met with the greatest degree of practical success. The Reformers came rapidly to the fore as soon as leniency was evinced toward them. Exiles returned from England and very shortly there were enough to fill twelve or thirteen churches. Probably, too, the Prince's residence in the city gave the sectarians a greater confidence, while it also ensured fair play for the Catholics. At the same time, his uniform and consistent refusal to ignore Catholic rights alienated many of his devoted evangelical adherents, whose eyes could see nothing but culpable indifference to truth in his course. The criticism was not only bitter but so indiscriminating as to attack Count John too, although, in point of fact, he had scant sympathy with his brother's liberal views and was far more interested in bringing those of the "faith" together than in any abstract question of toleration for all opinions. To the Count's strenuous exertions was chiefly due the extension to a