the coup d’état described above forced his country into a policy of alliance with Austria against Prussia. Nevertheless his devotion to the cause of Germanic union is proved by the eagerness with which he helped the formation of the Zollverein (1828–1830), and in spite of his conflicts with his chambers he achieved unusual popularity among his subjects. He died on the 25th of June 1864, and was succeeded by his son Charles.
See Nick, Wilhelm I., König von Württemberg, und seine Regierung (Stuttgart, 1864); P. Stalin, “König Wilhelm I. von Württemberg,” Zeitschrift für allgemeine Geschichte, 1885, pp. 353-367, 417-434.
WILLIAM IV., landgrave of Hesse (1532–1592), was the son and successor of the landgrave Philip the Magnanimous. He took a leading part in safeguarding the results of the Reformation and was indefatigable in his endeavours to unite the different sections of Protestantism for the sake of effective resistance against the Catholic reaction. His counsels were marred by his reluctance to appeal to arms at the critical moments of action, and by the slenderness of his own resources, but they deserve attention for their broad common sense and spirit of tolerance. As an administrator of his principality he displayed rare energy, issuing numerous ordinances, appointing expert officials, and in particular establishing the finances on a scientific basis. By a law of primogeniture he secured his land against such testamentary divisions as had diminished his own portion of his father's estate. He not only patronized art and science, but continued as ruler the intercourse with scholars which he had cultivated in his youth.
William was a pioneer in astronomical research and perhaps owes his most lasting fame to his discoveries in this branch of study. Most of the mechanical contrivances which made Tycho Brahe’s instruments so superior to those of his contemporaries were adopted at Cassel about 1584, and from that time the observations made there seem to have been about as accurate as Tycho’s; but the resulting longitudes were 6′ too great in consequence of the adopted solar parallax of 3′. The principal fruit of the observations was a catalogue of about a thousand stars, the places of which were determined by the methods usually employed in the 16th century, connecting a fundamental star by means of Venus with the sun, and thus finding its longitude and latitude, while other stars could at any time be referred to the fundamental star. It should be noticed that clocks, on which Tycho Brahe depended very little, were used at Cassel for finding the difference of right ascension between Venus and the sun before sunset; Tycho preferred observing the angular distance between the sun and Venus when the latter was visible in the daytime. The Hessian star catalogue was published in Lucius Barettus’s Historia coelestis (Augsburg, 1668), and a number of other observations are to be found in Coeli et siderum in eo errantium observationes Hassiacae (Leiden, 1618), edited by Willebrord Snell. R. Wolf, in his “Astronomische Mittheilungen,” No. 45 (Vierteljahrsschrift der naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Zürich, 1878), has given a résumé of the manuscripts still preserved at Cassel, which throw much light on the methods adopted in the observations and reductions.
WILLIAM (1533–1584), surnamed the Silent, prince of Orange and count of Nassau, was born at the castle of Dillenburg in Nassau, on the 25th of April 1533. His grandfather, John, count of Nassau, had left his Netherland possessions to his elder son Henry, his German to his younger son William. This William of Nassau (d. 1559) had by his wife, Juliana of Stolberg, a family of five sons, of whom the subject of this notice was the eldest, and seven daughters. Henry became the trusted friend and counsellor of Charles V., and married (1515) Claude, sister of Philibert, prince of Orange. Philibert, having no issue, made Réné, the son of Henry and Claude, his heir. Réné, at the age of twenty-six, was killed at the siege of St Dizier in 1544, and left his titles and great possessions by will to his cousin William, who thus became prince of Orange. William’s parents were Lutherans, but the emperor insisted that the boy-successor to Réné’s heritage should be brought up in his court at Brussels, as a Catholic. The remembrance of his ancestors’ services and his own high qualities endeared William to Charles, who secured for him, at the age of seventeen, the hand of Anne of Egmont, heiress of the count of Buren. Anne died in 1558, leaving issue a son Philip William, prince of Orange and count of Buren, and a daughter. It was on the shoulder of the young prince of Orange that Charles V. leant when, in 1555, in the presence of a great assembly at Brussels, he abdicated, in favour of his son Philip, the sovereignty of the Netherlands. William was also selected to carry the insignia of the empire to Ferdinand, king of the Romans, when Charles resigned the imperial crown. He had, at the age of twenty-one, been placed by the emperor, before his abdication, at the head of an army of 20,000 men in the war with France, and he continued to fill that post under Philip in 1556, but without distinction. His services, as a diplomatist, were much more brilliant. He was one of the three plenipotentiaries who negotiated the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559), and was largely responsible for bringing about a settlement so favourable to Spanish interests. After the conclusion of the peace, the prince spent some time at the French court, in the capacity of a state hostage for the carrying out of the treaty. It was during his sojourn in France that William by his discreetness acquired the sobriquet of le Taciturne (the Silent), which has ever since clung to his name. The appellation is in no way expressive of the character of the man, who was fond of conversation, most eloquent in speech, and a master of persuasion. His two great adversaries of the decade, which followed the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, were in 1559 closely associated with him; Granvelle as a plenipotentiary, Alva as a fellow hostage.
Up to this time the life of Orange had been marked by lavish display and extravagance. As a grand seigneur in one of the most splendid of courts, he surrounded himself with a retinue of gay young noblemen and dependents, kept open house in his magnificent Nassau palace at Brussels, and indulged in every kind of pleasure and dissipation. The revenue of his vast estates was not sufficient to prevent him being crippled by debt. But after his return from France, a change began to come over Orange. Philip made him councillor of state, knight of the Golden Fleece, and stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht; but there was a latent antagonism between the natures of the two men which speedily developed into relations of coolness and then of distrust. The harshness with which the stern laws against heretics were carried out, the presence of Spanish troops, the filling up of ministerial offices by Spaniards and other foreigners had, even before the departure of Philip for Spain (August 1539), stirred the most influential Netherland noblemen—foremost among them the prince of Orange, and the counts of Egmont and Hoorn—to a policy of constitutional opposition. With the advent of Margaret of Parma the situation became more serious. All state business was carried out by the Consulta; all power virtually placed in the hands of Cardinal Granvelle; the edicts against heretics enforced with the utmost severity; the number of bishoprics increased from three to fourteen (see Netherlands). As a protest, Orange, Egmont and Hoorn withdrew from the council of state, and wrote to the king setting forth their grievances. At this time Orange was still nominally a Catholic, but his marriage in August 1561 with Anne, daughter and heiress of the elector Maurice of Saxony, with Lutheran rites, at Dresden, was significant of what was to come. It marked the beginning of that gradual change in his religious opinions, which was to lead William through Lutheranism to that moderate Calvinism which he professed after 1573. Of the sincerity of the man during this period of transformation there can be little doubt. Policy possibly played its part in dictating the particular moments at which the changes of faith were acknowledged. No student of the prince’s voluminous correspondence can fail, however, to see that he was a deeply religious man. The charges of insincerity brought against him by his enemies arise from the fact that in an age of bigotry and fanaticism the statesmanlike breadth and tolerance of William's treatment of religious questions, and his aversion to persecution for matters of opinion, were misunderstood. His point of view was in advance of that of his time.
In the spring of 1564 the constitutional opposition of the great nobles to the policy of the king appeared to be successful. Granvelle was withdrawn, the Consulta abolished, and Orange, Egmont and Hoorn took their seats once more on the Council. They speedily found, however, that things did not mend. Granvelle had gone, but the royal policy was unchanged. In
