William of Orange was neither "silent" nor
"taciturn," yet these are the epithets which will be forever associated
with the name of a man who, in private, was the most affable, cheerful,
and delightful of companions, and who on a thousand great public
occasions was to prove himself, both by pen and by speech, the most
eloquent man of his age. His mental accomplishments were considerable: He
had studied history with attention, and he spoke and wrote with facility
Latin, French, German, Flemish, and Spanish.

The man, however, in whose hands the administration of the Netherlands
was in reality placed, was Anthony Perrenot, then Bishop of Arras, soon
to be known by the more celebrated title of Cardinal Granvelle. He was
the chief of the Consults, or secret council of three, by whose
deliberations the Duchess Regent was to be governed. His father, Nicholas
Perrenot, of an obscure family in Burgundy, had been long the favorite
minister and man of business to the Emperor Charles. Anthony, the eldest
of thirteen children, was born in 1517. He was early distinguished for
his talents. He studied at Dole, Padua, Paris, and Louvain. At, the age
of twenty he spoke seven languages with perfect facility, while his
acquaintance with civil and ecclesiastical laws was considered
prodigious. At the age of twenty-three he became a canon of Liege
Cathedral. The necessary eight quarters of gentility produced upon that
occasion have accordingly been displayed by his panegyrists in triumphant
refutation of that theory which gave him a blacksmith for his
grandfather. At the same period, although he had not reached the
requisite age, the rich bishopric of Arras had already been prepared for
him by his father's care. Three years afterwards, in 1543, he
distinguished himself by a most learned and brilliant harangue before the
Council of Trent, by which display he so much charmed the Emperor, that
he created him councillor of state. A few years afterwards he rendered
the unscrupulous Charles still more valuable proofs of devotion and
dexterity by the part he played in the memorable imprisonment of the
Landgrave of Hesse and the Saxon Dukes. He was thereafter constantly
employed in embassies and other offices of trust and profit.

There was no doubt as to his profound and varied learning, nor as to his
natural quickness and dexterity. He was ready witted, smooth and fluent
of tongue, fertile in expedients, courageous, resolute. He thoroughly
under