HISTORY OF ENGLAND. William, CHAPTER VII. THE place which William Henry, Prince | cheek pale, thin, and deeply furrowed of Orange Nassau, occupies in by sickness and by care. That pensive, Prince of the history of England and of severe, and solemn aspect could scarcely Orange. mankind is so great that it have belonged to a happy or a goodmay be desirable to portray with some humoured man. But it indicates in a minuteness the strong lineaments of manner not to be mistaken capacity his character.* equal to the most arduous enterprises, and fortitude not to be shaken by reverses or dangers. His ap His early education. He was now in his thirty-seventh year. But both in body and pearance. in mind he was older than Nature had largely endowed William other men of the same age. Indeed it with the qualities of a great might be said that he had never been ruler; and education had deve- life and young. His external appearance is loped those qualities in no almost as well known to us as to his common degree. With strong natural own captains and counsellors. Sculp- sense, and rare force of will, he found tors, painters, and medallists exerted himself, when first his mind began to their utmost skill in the work of trans- open, a fatherless and motherless child, mitting his features to posterity; and the chief of a great but depressed and his features were such as no artist disheartened party, and the heir to vast could fail to seize, and such as, once and indefinite pretensions, which exseen, could never be forgotten. His cited the dread and aversion of the name at once calls up before us a oligarchy then supreme in the United slender and feeble frame, a lofty and Provinces. The common people, fondly ample forehead, a nose curved like the attached during three generations to beak of an eagle, an eye rivalling that of an eagle in brightness and keenness, a thoughtful and somewhat sullen brow, a firm and somewhat peevish mouth, a his house, indicated, whenever they saw him, in a manner not to be mistaken, that they regarded him as their rightful head. The able and experienced ministers of the republic, mortal * The chief materials from which I have enemies of his name, came every day to taken my description of the Prince of Orange will be found in Burnet's History, in Temple's pay their feigned civilities to him, and and Gourville's Memoirs, in the Negotiations to observe the progress of his mind. of the Counts of Estrades and Avaux, in Sir The first movements of his ambition George Downing's Letters to Lord Chancellor Clarendon, in Wagenaar's voluminous History, were carefully watched: every unin Van Kamper's Karakterkunde der Vader guarded word uttered by him was landsche Geschiedenis, and, above all, in noted down; nor had he near him any William's own confidential correspondence, of which the Duke of Portland permitted Sir adviser on whose judgment reliance could be placed. He was scarcely James Mackintosh to take a copy. VOL. II. B fifteen years old when all the domestics | a child he listened with interest when who were attached to his interest, or high questions of alliance, finance, and who enjoyed any share of his confidence, war were discussed. Of geometry he were removed from under his roof by learned as much as was necessary for the jealous government. He remon- the construction of a ravelin or a hornstrated with energy beyond his years, work. Of languages, by the help of but in vain. Vigilant observers saw a memory singularly powerful, he the tears more than once rise in the learned as much as was necessary to eyes of the young state prisoner. His enable him to comprehend and answer health, naturally delicate, sank for a without assistance everything that was time under the emotions which his said to him, and every letter which he desolate situation had produced. Such received. The Dutch was his own situations bewilder and unnerve the tongue. With the French he was not weak, but call forth all the strength of less familiar. He understood Latin, the strong. Surrounded by snares in Italian, and Spanish. He spoke and which an ordinary youth would have wrote English and German, inelegantly, perished, William learned to tread at it is true, and inexactly, but fluently once warily and firmly. Long before and intelligibly. No qualification he reached manhood he knew how to could be more important to a man keep secrets, how to baffle curiosity by whose life was to be passed in organisdry and guarded answers, how to ing great alliances, and in commanding conceal all passions under the same armies assembled from different counshow of grave tranquillity. Meanwhile tries. he made little proficiency in fashionable One class of philosophical questions or literary accomplishments. The man- had been forced on his atten- His theoners of the Dutch nobility of that age tion by circumstances, and logical wanted the grace which was found in seems to have interested him opinions. the highest perfection among the gentle- more than might have been expected men of France, and which, in an from his general character. Among inferior degree, embellished the Court the Protestants of the United Provinces, of England; and his manners were as among the Protestants of our island, altogether Dutch. Even his countrymen there were two great religious parties thought him blunt. To foreigners he which almost exactly coincided with often seemed churlish. In his inter- two great political parties. The chiefs course with the world in general he of the municipal oligarchy were Arappeared ignorant or negligent of those minians, and were commonly regarded arts which double the value of a favour by the multitude as little better than and take away the sting of a refusal. Papists. The princes of Orange had He was little interested in letters or generally been the patrons of the Calscience. The discoveries of Newton vinistic divinity, and owed no small and Leibnitz, the poems of Dryden and part of their popularity to their zeal Boileau, were unknown to him. Dra- for the doctrines of election and final matic performances tired him; and he perseverance, a zeal not always enwas glad to turn away from the stage lightened by knowledge or tempered by and to talk about public affairs, while humanity. William had been carefully Orestes was raving, or while Tartuffe instructed from a child in the theolowas pressing Elmira's hand. He had gical system to which his family was indeed some talent for sarcasm, and attached; and he regarded that system not seldom employed, quite uncon- with even more than the partiality sciously, a natural rhetoric, quaint, which men generally feel for a herediindeed, but vigorous and original. He tary faith. He had ruminated on the did not, however, in the least affect the great enigmas which had been discharacter of a wit or of an orator. cussed in the Synod of Dort, and had His attention had been confined to found in the austere and inflexible logic those studies which form strenuous of the Genevese school something which and sagacious men of business. From suited his intellect and his temper. That example of intolerance indeed | mander; and it would be peculiarly which some of his predecessors had set unjust to apply this test to William; he never imitated. For all persecution for it was his fortune to be almost he felt a fixed aversion, which he always opposed to captains who were avowed, not only where the avowal was consummate masters of their art, and obviously politic, but on occasions to troops far superior in discipline to where it seemed that his interest would his own. Yet there is reason to believe have been promoted by dissimulation that he was by no means equal, as a or by silence. His theological opinions, general in the field, to some who ranked however, were even more decided than far below him in intellectual powers. those of his ancestors. The tenet of To those whom he trusted he spoke on predestination was the keystone of his this subject with the magnanimous religion. He often declared that, if he frankness of a man who had done great were to abandon that tenet, he must things, and who could well afford to abandon with it all belief in a superin- acknowledge some deficiencies. He had tending Providence, and must become never, he said, served an apprenticeship a mere Epicurean. Except in this to the military profession. He had single instance, all the sap of his vigor- been placed, while still a boy, at the ous mind was early drawn away from head of an army. Among his officers the speculative to the practical. The there had been none competent to faculties which are necessary for the instruct him. His own blunders and conduct of important business ripened their consequences had been his only in him at a time of life when they have lessons. "I would give," he once exscarcely begun to blossom in ordinary claimed, a good part of my estates to men. Since Octavius the world had have served a few campaigns under the seen no such instance of precocious | Prince of Condé before I had to comstatesmanship. Skilful diplomatists mand against him." It is not improwere surprised to hear the weighty observations which at seventeen the Prince made on public affairs, and still more surprised to see a lad, in situations in which he might have been expected to betray strong passion, preserve a composure as imperturbable as their own. At eighteen he sate among the fathers of the commonwealth, grave, discreet, and judicious as the oldest among them. At twenty one, in a day of gloom and terror, he was placed at the head of the administration. At twenty three he was renowned throughout Europe as a soldier and a politician. He had put domestic factions under his feet; he was the soul of a mighty coalition; and he had contended with honour in the field against some of the greatest generals of the age. bable that the circumstance which prevented William from attaining any eminent dexterity in strategy may have been favourable to the general vigour of his intellect. If his battles were not those of a great tactician, they entitled him to be called a great man. No disaster could for one moment deprive him of his firmness or of the entire possession of all his faculties. His defeats were repaired with such marvellous celerity that, before his enemies had sung the Te Deum, he was again ready for conflict; nor did his adverse fortune ever deprive him of the respect and confidence of his soldiers. That respect and confidence he owed in no small measure to his personal courage. Courage, in the degree which is necessary to carry a soldier without His personal tastes were those rather disgrace through a campaign, is posof a warrior than of a states-sessed, or might, under proper traintary quali- man: but he, like his great-ing, be acquired, by the great majority Scations. grandfather, the silent prince of men. But courage like that of who founded the Batavian common-William is rare indeed. He was proved wealth, occupies a far higher place by every test; by war, by wounds, by among statesmen than among warriors. painful and depressing maladies, by The event of battles, indeed, is not an raging seas, by the imminent and conunfailing test of the abilities of a com- stant risk of assassination, a risk which His mili has shaken very strong nerves, a risk | in truth more than one day which had which severely tried even the adaman- seemed hopelessly lost was retrieved tine fortitude of Cromwell. Yet none by the hardihood with which he rallied could ever discover what that thing his broken battalions and cut down the was which the Prince of Orange feared. cowards who set the example of flight. His advisers could with difficulty in- Sometimes, however, it seemed that he duce him to take any precaution against had a strange pleasure in venturing his the pistols and daggers of conspirators.* person. It was remarked that his Old sailors were amazed at the compo- spirits were never so high and his sure which he preserved amidst roaring manners never so gracious and easy as breakers on a perilous coast. In battle amidst the tumult and carnage of a his bravery made him conspicuous even battle. Even in his pastimes he liked among tens of thousands of brave the excitement of danger. Cards, chess, warriors, drew forth the generous ap- and billiards gave him no pleasure. plause of hostile armies, and was The chase was his favourite recreascarcely ever questioned even by the tion; and he loved it most when it injustice of hostile factions. During was most hazardous. His leaps were his first campaigns he exposed himself sometimes such that his boldest comlike a man who sought for death, was panions did not like to follow him. He always foremost in the charge and last seems even to have thought the most in the retreat, fought, sword in hand, hardy field sports of England effemiin the thickest press, and, with a musket nate, and to have pined in the Great ball in his arm and the blood streaming Park of Windsor for the game which over his cuirass, still stood his ground he had been used to drive to bay in and waved his hat under the hottest fire. His friends adjured him to take more care of a life invaluable to his country; and his most illustrious antagonist, the great Condé, remarked, after the bloody day of Seneff, that the Prince of Orange had in all things borne himself like an old general, except in exposing himself like a young soldier. William denied that he was guilty of temerity. It was, he said, from a sense of duty, and on a cool calculation of what the public interest required, that he was always at the post of danger. The troops which he commanded had been little used to war, and shrank from a close encounter with the veteran soldiery of France. It was necessary that their leader should show them how battles were to be won. And the forests of Guelders, wolves, and wild boars, and huge stags with sixteen antlers.* a His love of his bad health. He The audacity of his spirit was the more remarkable because his physical organization was un- danger: usually delicate. From child he had been weak and sickly. In the prime of manhood his complaints had been aggravated by a severe attack of smallpox. was asthmatic and consumptive. His slender frame was shaken by a constant hoarse cough. He could not sleep unless his head was propped by several pillows, and could scarcely draw his breath in any but the purest air. Cruel headaches frequently tortured him. Exertion soon fatigued him. The physicians constantly kept up the hopes of his enemies by fixing some date beyond which, if there were March 20 * William was earnestly entreated by his friends, after the peace of Ryswick, to speak seriously to the French ambassador about the schemes of assassination which the Jacobites of Saint Germain's were constantly contriving. The cold magnanimity with which these intimations of danger were received is singularly characteristic. To Bentinck, who had sent from Paris very alarming intelligence, William merely replied, at the end of a long letter of business," Pour les assasins je ne luy en ay pas voulu parler, croiant que c'étoit au desons de moy." May. 1698. I keep the ori-gros que je sache avoir jamais pris. II porte ginal orthography, if it is to be so called. *From Windsor he wrote to Bentinck, then ambassador at Paris, "J'ay pris avant hier un cerf dans la forest avec les chains du Pr. de Denm. et ay fait un assez jolie chasse, autant que ce vilain paiis le permest." 1698. The spelling is bad, but not worse than Napoleon's. William wrote in better humour le premier dans Dorewaert, qui est un des plus from Loo. "Nous avons pris deux gros cerfs. seize. Oct. 25. April 1. Coldness of his manners and strength of his His tinck. At anything certain in medical science, it | Batavian race, and destined to be the was impossible that his broken consti- founder of one of the great tution could hold out. Yet, through patrician houses of England. friendship a life which was one long disease, the The fidelity of Bentinck had for Benforce of his mind never failed, on any been tried by no common great occasion, to bear up his suffering test. It was while the United Proand languid body. vinces were struggling for existence He was born with violent passions against the French power that the and quick sensibilities: but the young Prince on whom all their hopes strength of his emotions was were fixed was seized by the smallnot suspected by the world. pox. That disease had been fatal to From the multitude his joy many members of his family, and at emotions, and his grief, his affection and first wore, in his case, a peculiarly his resentment, were hidden by a phleg- malignant aspect. The public conmatic serenity, which made him pass sternation was great. The streets of for the most cold blooded of mankind. the Hague were crowded from dayThose who brought him good news break to sunset by persons anxiously could seldom detect any sign of asking how His Highness was. pleasure. Those who saw him after a length his complaint took a favourable defeat looked in vain for any trace of turn. His escape was attributed partly vexation. He praised and reprimanded, to his own singular equanimity, and rewarded and punished, with the stern partly to the intrepid and indefatigable tranquillity of a Mohawk chief: but friendship of Bentinck. From the those who knew him well and saw hands of Bentinck alone William took him near were aware that under all food and medicine. By Bentinck alone this ice a fierce fire was constantly William was lifted from his bed and burning. It was seldom that anger laid down in it. "Whether Bentinck deprived him of power over himself. slept or not while I was ill," said But when he was really enraged the William to Temple with great tenderfirst outbreak of his passion was ter-ness, I know not. But this I know, rible. It was indeed scarcely safe to that, through sixteen days and nights, approach him. On these rare occasions, I never once called for anything but however, as soon as he regained his that Bentinck was instantly at my selfcommand, he made such ample side." Before the faithful servant had reparation to those whom he had entirely performed his task, he had wronged as tempted them to wish that himself caught the contagion. Still, he would go into a fury again. His however, he bore up against drowsiaffection was as impetuous as his ness and fever till his master was wrath. Where he loved, he loved pronounced convalescent. Then, at with the whole energy of his strong length, Bentinck asked leave to go mind. When death separated him home. from what he loved, the few who witnessed his agonies trembled for his reason and his life. To a very small circle of intima te friends, on whose fidelity and secrecy he could absolutely depend, he was a different man from the reserved and stoical William whom the multitude supposed to be destitute Such was the origin of a friendship of human feelings. He was kind, as warm and pure as any that ancient cordial, open, even convivial and jo- or modern history records. The decose, would sit at table many hours, scendants of Bentinck still preserve and would bear his full share in festive many letters written by William to Conversation. Highest in his favour their ancestor : and it is not too much stood a gentleman of his household to say that no person who has not named Bentinck, sprung from a noble studied those letters can form a correct It was time: for his limbs would no longer support him. He was in great danger, but recovered, and, as soon as he left his bed, hastened to the army, where, during many sharp campaigns, he was ever found, as he had been in peril of a different kind, close to William's side. |