Flanders and Holland, and distinguished himself as much as his uncle Engelbert, in the service of the Burgundo-Austrian house.  The confidential friend of Charles the Fifth, whose governor he had been in that Emperor’s boyhood, he was ever his most efficient and reliable adherent.  It was he whose influence placed the imperial crown upon the head of Charles.  In 1515 he espoused Claudia de Chalons, sister of Prince Philibert of Orange, “in order,” as he wrote to his father, “to be obedient to his imperial Majesty, to please the King of France, and more particularly for the sake of his own honor and profit.”

His son Rene de Nassau-Chalons succeeded Philibert.  The little principality of Orange, so pleasantly situated between Provence and Dauphiny, but in such dangerous proximity to the seat of the “Babylonian captivity” of the popes at Avignon, thus passed to the family of Nassau.  The title was of high antiquity.  Already in the reign of Charlemagne, Guillaume au Court-Nez, or “William with the Short Nose,” had defended the little—­town of Orange against the assaults of the Saracens.  The interest and authority acquired in the demesnes thus preserved by his valor became extensive, and in process of time hereditary in his race.  The principality became an absolute and free sovereignty, and had already descended, in defiance of the Salic law, through the three distinct families of Orange, Baux, and Chalons.

In 1544, Prince Rene died at the Emperor’s feet in the trenches of Saint Dizier.  Having no legitimate children, he left all his titles and estates to his cousin-german, William of Nassau, son of his father’s brother William, who thus at the age of eleven years became William the Ninth of Orange.  For this child, whom the future was to summon to such high destinies and such heroic sacrifices, the past and present seemed to have gathered riches and power together from many sources.  He was the descendant of the Othos, the Engelberts, and the Henries, of the Netherlands, the representative of the Philiberts and the Renes of France; the chief of a house, humbler in resources and position in Germany, but still of high rank, and which had already done good service to humanity by being among the first to embrace the great principles of the Reformation.

His father, younger brother of the Emperor’s friend Henry, was called William the Rich.  He was, however, only rich in children.  Of these he had five sons and seven daughters by his wife Juliana of Stolberg.  She was a person of most exemplary character and unaffected piety.  She instilled into the minds of all her children the elements of that devotional sentiment which was her own striking characteristic, and it was destined that the seed sown early should increase to an abundant harvest.  Nothing can be more tender or more touching than the letters which still exist from her hand, written to her illustrious sons in hours of anxiety or anguish, and to the last, recommending to them with as much earnest simplicity as if they were still little children at her knee, to rely always in the midst of the trials and dangers which were to beset their paths through life, upon the great hand of God.  Among the mothers of great men, Juliana of Stolberg deserves a foremost place, and it is no slight eulogy that she was worthy to have been the mother of William of Orange and of Lewis, Adolphus, Henry, and John of Nassau.