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ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF NASSAU,

body of Germans out of Suabia, and settled on the banks of the Rhine, at Triers; certain it is that an estate, on that very spot of ground, belonged to the family within the last century: unquestionably its antiquity has been established by an uninterrupted succession of several centuries; and its nobility, by the imperial dignity having been vested in the person of Adolphus of Nassau, the successor of Rodolph of Hapsburg.

Otho, Count of Nassau, who lived about seven hundred years ago, had two wives: the first brought him in marriage the country of Guelderland, the second the province of Zutphen, which remained for above three centuries in the possession of his house. About the expiration of that period, another Count Otho married the Countess of Vianden, the heiress of considerable territories in the Low Countries.

His grandson Engelbert, the first of that name, Count of Nassau, espoused the heiress of Loeke and Breda, in 1404, and was grandfather to Engelbert II. of Nassau, a prince equally celebrated in war and in politics: he won the battle of Guinegate, suppressed the rebellion at Bruges, and was governor-general of the Low Countries for the Emperor Maximilian I. He died without issue, leaving to his brother John of Nassau the inheritance of all his possessions.

This Count John had two sons, Henry and William to Henry, the eldest, he bequeathed his territories in the Low Countries; to William, his

ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF NASSAU.

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domains in Germany. It was to this Henry of Nassau that Charles V. was in no small degree beholden for his advancement to the imperial dignity, in consequence of his active and prevailing solicitations against Francis I. of France; and it was he who, upon the day of his coronation, placed the crown of the empire on his head. Being afterwards, at the conclusion of the peace, sent into France by the emperor to do homage for the counties of Flanders and Artois, Francis I., generously forgetting the past, gave him in marriage Claudia de Châlons, the only sister of Philibert de Châlons, Prince of Orange, by virtue of which marriage his only son, Réné of Nassau and Châlons, succeeded to the principality of Orange after the death of his uncle without issue.

William, the younger brother, embraced the reformed doctrines, and banished the Roman catholic religion from his territories. He had five sons and seven daughters, by his wife Juliana, Countess of Stolberg his eldest son was the famous William, Prince of Orange, who, after the death of his cousin, killed at the siege of St. Dizier, obtained the principality, and became lord of all the possessions of the house of Châlons. Three of his sons, Louis, Adolphus, and Henry, distinguished themselves in the civil wars of France and the Low Countries, and all fell, gloriously fighting in the cause of religious liberty, against the oppressive and bigoted tyranny of Philip II. of Spain. The younger, John, left behind him a numerous offspring. Of his daugh

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ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF NASSAU.

ters, one was married to the Count of Bergues, the other to sovereign counts of Germany.

William Prince of Orange, whose name, as the deliverer of the United Provinces, is worthily handed down to posterity, was, at a very early age, delivered by Charles V. to his sister Mary, queen of Hungary, to be brought up in the Romish faith, which he outwardly professed so long as that monarch lived. That the shining abilities and soundness of judgment of this extraordinary man had early attracted the notice of Charles, is obvious from his having, when he was only twenty-two, during the temporary absence of Philibert Emanuel, Duke of Savoy, intrusted him with the command of his army, in preference to the Count d'Egmont, who was twelve years his senior. It was upon his arm that Charles leaned for support when he performed at Brussels his celebrated last public act of abdication, in 1555, at which time he earnestly recommended him to the regard and confidence of his son and successor Philip II.

But the noble and high-minded character of William was ill suited to the prejudiced, bigoted, crafty, and tyrannical Philip, who hated that greatness and those talents he could not emulate, and dreaded the influence of that judgment and discrimination so well calculated to see through and thwart his own dark and dangerous designs. Thence arose that celebrated, and finally successful, struggle for religious toleration and liberty of conscience, against popish bigotry and inquisitorial tyranny,

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which placed the name of William I., Prince of Orange, far above that of every sovereign of his time. After having seen the United Provinces rescued from the yoke of Spain, he was assassinated at Delft, by Balthazzar Gerard, a native of Franche-Comté, in the fifty-first year of his age. His motto was, "Sævis tranquillus in undis," intimating his composure and firmness of mind amidst all the storms to which he was exposed.

By his first wife, Anne d'Egmont, daughter of Count de Buren, he had Philip William, Prince of Orange, and a daughter, Mary, married to the Count de Hohenlohe.

By his second wife, Anne of Saxony, daughter of the great Maurice, he had the celebrated Prince. Maurice, and a daughter, Emilia, married to Antony, son of Emanuel King of Portugal.

By his third wife, Charlotte de Bourbon, of the house of Montpensier, who had been a nun, he had six daughters.

Louisa Juliana, married to Frederick IV., father to the unfortunate King of Bohemia; Elizabeth, wife to Henry de la Tour, Duc de Bouillon, so celebrated in the wars of Henry IV.; Catherine, married to Philip Louis, Count of Hanau; Charlotte Brabantina (mother to the celebrated Countess of Derby), the wife of Claude, Duc de la Trémouille; Charlotte Flandrina, who turned Roman catholic, and died abbess of St. Croix in Poictiers; Emilia, married to Frederick Casimir, Duke of Lansberg.

By his fourth wife, who survived him, Louise de Coligni, widow of Monsieur de Teligny, killed in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and daughter of the great Admiral de Chastillon, he had only one son, the famous Henry Frederick, Prince of Orange.

Philip William, Prince of Orange, being carried early into Spain, was retained there in a kind of honourable captivity; and, being debarred the benefit of all education, he adopted the Roman catholic religion. Although Philip II. restored him, after a lapse of some years, to his domains in the Low Countries and Franche-Comté, the states of the United Provinces conceived such a distrust of him, that he was not suffered so much as to visit, still less to reside amongst them. He married Eleanor de Bourbon, sister of the Prince of Condé, and died, without issue, in 1628.

Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange, who succeeded to the honours and possessions of his family on the death of his brother, is said to have equalled his father in prudence and greatness of soul, while he surpassed him in martial exercises. He defeated the Spaniards in three signal battles, obtained several victories at sea, and may be said to have gloriously carried on the work William had commenced. The execution of Barneveldt has left a stain on his reputation which his warmest admirers will vainly seek to efface. He died unmarried, in 1635, when the Marquis of Spinola was besieging Breda; from irritation, it is said, in consequence of being unable to relieve the place.