As to the talents of the Prince, there was no difference of opinion.  His enemies never contested the subtlety and breadth of his intellect, his adroitness and capacity in conducting state affairs, his knowledge of human nature, and the profoundness of his views.  In many respects it must be confessed that his surname of The Silent, like many similar appellations, was a misnomer.  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.