Dealing often with the most adroit and most treacherous of princes and statesmen, he frequently carried his point, and he never stooped to flattery.  From the time when, attended by his “twelve disciples,” he assumed the most prominent part in the negotiations with Margaret of Parma, through all the various scenes of the revolution, through, all the conferences with Spaniards, Italians, Huguenots.  Malcontents, Flemish councillors, or German princes, he was the consistent and unflinching supporter of religious liberty and constitutional law.  The battle of Heiliger Lee and the capture of Mons were his most signal triumphs, but the fruits of both were annihilated by subsequent disaster.  His headlong courage was his chief foible.  The French accused him of losing the battle of Moncontour by his impatience to engage; yet they acknowledged that to his masterly conduct it was owing that their retreat was effected in so successful, and even so brilliant a manner.  He was censured for rashness and precipitancy in this last and fatal enterprise, but the reproach seems entirely without foundation.  The expedition as already stated, had been deliberately arranged, with the full co-operation of his brother, and had been preparing several months.  That he was able to set no larger force on foot than that which he led into Gueldres was not his fault.  But for the floating ice which barred his passage of the Meuse, he would have surprised Maestricht; but for the mutiny, which rendered his mercenary soldiers cowards, he might have defeated Avila at Mookerheyde.  Had he done so he would have joined his brother in the Isle of Bommel in triumph; the Spaniards would, probably, have been expelled from Holland, and Leyden saved the horrors of that memorable siege which she was soon called, upon to endure.  These results were not in his destiny.  Providence had decreed that he should perish in the midst of his usefulness; that the Prince, in his death,’should lose the right hand which had been so swift to execute his various plans, and the faithful fraternal heart which had always responded so readily to every throb of his own.

In figure, he was below the middle height, but martial and noble in his bearing.  The expression of his countenance was lively; his manner frank and engaging.  All who knew him personally loved him, and he was the idol of his gallant brethren:  His mother always addressed him as her dearly beloved, her heart’s-cherished Louis.  “You must come soon to me,” she wrote in the last year of his life, “for I have many matters to ask your advice upon; and I thank you beforehand, for you have loved me as your mother all the days of your life; for which may God Almighty have you in his holy keeping.”