appellations, was a misnomer. William of Orange was neither "silent" nor
"taciturn," yet these are the epithets which will be forever associated
with the name of a man who, in private, was the most affable, cheerful,
and delightful of companions, and who on a thousand great public
occasions was to prove himself, both by pen and by speech, the most
eloquent man of his age. His mental accomplishments were considerable:
He had studied history with attention, and he spoke and wrote with
facility Latin, French, German, Flemish, and Spanish.

The man, however, in whose hands the administration of the Netherlands
was in reality placed, was Anthony Perrenot, then Bishop of Arras, soon
to be known by the more celebrated title of Cardinal Granvelle. He was
the chief of the Consults, or secret council of three, by whose
deliberations the Duchess Regent was to be governed. His father,
Nicholas Perrenot, of an obscure family in Burgundy, had been long the
favorite minister and man of business to the Emperor Charles. Anthony,
the eldest of thirteen children, was born in 1517. He was early
distinguished for his talents. He studied at Dole, Padua, Paris, and
Louvain. At, the age of twenty he spoke seven languages with perfect
facility, while his acquaintance with civil and ecclesiastical laws was
considered prodigious. At the age of twenty-three he became a canon of
Liege Cathedral. The necessary eight quarters of gentility produced upon
that occasion have accordingly been displayed by his panegyrists in
triumphant refutation of that theory which gave him a blacksmith for his
grandfather. At the same period, although he had not reached the
requisite age, the rich bishopric of Arras had already been prepared
for him by his father's care. Three years afterwards, in 1543, he
distinguished himself by a most learned and brilliant harangue before
the Council of Trent, by which display he so much charmed the Emperor,
that he created him councillor of state. A few years afterwards he