president of the Council of Finance and Viglius president of the Privy
Council. By far the most important member of the Council of State, as he
was much the ablest, was the Bishop of Arras; and he, with Barlaymont
and Viglius, formed an inner confidential council from whom alone the
regent asked advice. The members of this inner council, nicknamed the
_Consulta_, were all devoted to the interests of Philip. Egmont and
Orange, because of their great influence and popularity with the people,
were allowed to be nominally Councillors of State, but they were rarely
consulted and were practically shut out from confidential access to the
regent. It is no wonder that both were discontented with their position
and soon showed openly their dissatisfaction.

Egmont, a man of showy rather than of solid qualities, held in 1559 the
important posts of Stadholder of Flanders and Artois. The Prince of
Orange was the eldest of the five sons of William, Count of
Nassau-Dillenburg, head of the younger or German branch of the famous
house of Nassau. Members of the elder or Netherland branch had for
several generations rendered distinguished services to their Burgundian
and Habsburg sovereigns. This elder branch became extinct in the person
of Réné, the son of Henry of Nassau, one of Charles V's most trusted
friends and advisers, by Claude, sister of Philibert, Prince of
Orange-Châlons. Philibert being childless bequeathed his small
principality to Réné; and Réné in his turn, being killed at the siege of
St Dizier in 1544, left by will all his possessions to his cousin
William, who thus became Prince of Orange. His parents were Lutherans,
but Charles insisted that William, at that time eleven years of age,
should be brought up as a Catholic at the Court of Mary of Hungary. Here
he became a great favourite of the emperor, who in 1550 conferred on him
the hand of a great heiress, Anne of Egmont, only child of the Count of
Buren. Anne died in 1558, leaving two children, a son, Philip William,