"The Prince is a dangerous man, subtle, politic, professing to stand by the people, and to champion their interests, even against your edicts, but seeking only the favour of the mob, giving himself out sometimes as a Catholic, sometimes as a Calvinist or Lutheran. He is a man to undertake any enterprise in secret which his own vast ambition and inordinate suspicion may suggest. Better not leave such a man in Flanders. Give him a magnificent embassy or a viceroyalty, or perhaps call him to your own court. As to Egmont, he has been led away by Orange but he is honest, a good Catholic, and can easily be brought round, by appealing to his vanity and his jealousy of the Prince."
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Cardinal Granvelle to Philip II, as quoted in William the Silent (1897) by Frederic Harrison, p. 18
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_the_Silent
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William the Silent
William I, Prince of Orange, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg (24 April 1533 – 10 July 1584), also widely known as William the Silent, was the main leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish Empire that set off the Eighty Years' War and resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1648. He was assassinated in 1584. Today, he is known as the De Vader des Vaderlands, or, in english, Father of the Fatherland.
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