William of Orange, at the period of his death, was aged fifty-one years and sixteen days.  He left twelve children.  By his first wife, Anne of Egmont, he had one son, Philip, and one daughter, Mary, afterwards married to Count Hohenlo.  By his second wife, Anna of Saxony; he had one son, the celebrated Maurice of Nassau, and two daughters, Anna, married afterwards to her cousin, Count William Louis, and Emilie, who espoused the Pretender of Portugal, Prince Emanuel.  By Charlotte of Bourbon, his third wife, he had six daughters; and by his fourth, Louisa de Coligny, one son, Frederic William, afterwards stadholder of the Republic in her most palmy days.  The Prince was entombed on the 3rd of August, at Delft, amid the tears of a whole nation.  Never was a more extensive, unaffected, and legitimate sorrow felt at the death of any human being.

The life and labors of Orange had established the emancipated common-wealth upon a secure foundation, but his death rendered the union of all the Netherlands into one republic hopeless.  The efforts of the Malcontent nobles, the religious discord, the consummate ability, both political and military, of Parma, all combined with the lamentable loss of William the Silent to separate for ever the southern and Catholic provinces from the northern confederacy.  So long as the Prince remained alive, he was the Father of the whole country; the Netherlands—­saving only the two Walloon provinces—­constituting a whole.  Notwithstanding the spirit of faction and the blight of the long civil war, there was at least one country; or the hope of a country, one strong heart, one guiding head, for the patriotic party throughout the land.  Philip and Granvelle were right in their estimate of the advantage to be derived from the Prince’s death, in believing that an assassin’s hand could achieve more than all the wiles which Spanish or Italian statesmanship could teach, or all the armies which Spain or Italy could muster.  The pistol of the insignificant Gerard destroyed the possibility of a united Netherland state, while during the life of William there was union in the policy, unity in the history of the country.

In the following year, Antwerp, hitherto the centre around which all the national interests and historical events group themselves, fell before the scientific efforts of Parma.  The city which had so long been the freest, as well as the most opulent, capital in Europe, sank for ever to the position of a provincial town.  With its fall, combined with other circumstances, which it is not necessary to narrate in anticipation, the final separation of the Netherlands was completed.  On the other hand, at the death of Orange, whose formal inauguration as sovereign Count had not yet taken place, the states of Holland and Zealand reassumed the Sovereignty.  The commonwealth which William had liberated for ever from Spanish tyranny continued to exist as a great and flourishing republic during, more than two centuries, under the successive stadholderates of his sons and descendants.