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.

At the age of eleven years, William having thus unexpectedly succeeded to