It makes sense for a Dutch schoolbook to paint William the first as a hero and liberator of the opressed Dutch people. But I've lately gotten to wonder, is the founder of our nation really such a hero, or was he more interested in a power grab for himself?
Who was the real man that became William of Orange?
William the Silent and King William I are two different people. William the Silent was William I, Prince of Orange (that is, the first William to be Prince of Orange). He lived from 1533 to 1584. King William I of the Netherlands was William VI, Prince of Orange (that is, the first William to be king of the Netherlands and the sixth William to be Prince of Orange). He lived from 1772 to 1843 and became king in 1815. King William I is the great-great-great-great-grandson of an uncle of William the Silent (the grandfather of William the Silent is also an ancestor to William I). I just wanted to be absolutely clear about the the difference between William the Silent and King William I.
On to what to make of William I, Prince of Orange then. It is certainly true that William the Silent is often made out to be some kind of a hero. Robert Fruin had a short bit to say about William of Orange in the introduction to his Tien jaren uit de Tachtigjarige Oorlog (1857). Fruin, one of the eminent Dutch historians of the 19th century, paints a picture of William of Orange being the only one able to keep the Dutch Revolt going in the 1580s. Spain was pressing the rebellious provinces hard, there was infighting between the provinces and cities, and things looked bleak. Then, in 1584, William of Orange is assasinated:
En hoe klom nog de nood toen Oranje aan het vaderland ontviel. Wel mocht hij stervend Gods medelijden inroepen voor het arme Nederlandse volk. De tweedracht der gewesten, der steden, der invloedrijke personen, door zijn gezag bezwaarlijk in toom gehouden, ging nu onbeteugeld voort; de moed, door hem ook aan de kleinmoedigen ingeboezemd, ontzonk hun weder; wanhopend greep men het laatste redmiddel aan, en zocht aan Frankrijk of aan Engeland de regering, maar dan tevens de verdediging tegen Spanje, op te dringen.
Translation (mine):
And how the distress rose when the Fatherland lost Orange. As he died he was able to invoke Gods pity for the poor Dutch people.[1] The discord between provinces, between cities, between influential people, kept in check with difficulty by his authority, now continued unbridled; the courage, inspired by him even into the faint-hearted, sank again; in despair the Dutch grasped their last straw, and sought to thrust upon France or upon England the government, but then also the defense against Spain.
[1] William's last words were: “Mon Dieu, ayez pitié de mon âme; mon Dieu, ayez pitié de ce pauvre peuple.” (“My God, have pity on my soul; my God, have pity on this poor people”). These words were reported to the States General very soon after his death (within hours) and are considered to be his actual words.
Fruin describes the dire state of the Revolt at William's death. William had been the only thing keeping it together. The question is though, is that true? Indeed a few years after William's death the rebellious provinces took the irrevocable decision to form their own state, seperate from the other Dutch provinces – something which William had wanted to avoid at all costs. He wanted all 17 provinces united, under a single government and with some measure of religious freedom. It should be clear to anyone studying this period that that goal was never going to be attained. Had William lived, it is likely that some sort of split would have happened anyway. How William would have reacted to that, could have changed our view of him considerably. If he had kept opposing the split (as he likely would), he might be seen as someone opposing the creation of a Dutch Republic and he may not have been as uncontroversial as he is today. To put it bluntly, William died at the right time, before things got to the point where he would have to make unpopular choices.
That said though, William was the driving force behind the Dutch Revolt. He championed the rights of the people, supported a measure of religous freedom, and opposed Spanish brutalities. The whole thing started more mundane though. The Dutch nobles were dissatisfied with the way they (not the people) were treated by the Spanish king and his governor in the Netherlands. Spanish advisors had too much influence and the Dutch nobles too little. The king ignored petitions by the Dutch nobles.
At the same time the Reformation swept through the Netherlands and some of the nobles disagreed with how the king reacted to it. The king wanted to weed out the reformation by force, whereas some nobles just wanted to keep the peace by allowing some religious freedom. For the catholic king, this was not an option. He considered the nobles who spoke in defense of the protestants to be traitors. Two nobles (Egmont and Horne) were executed, a third (William of Orange) fled to his birthplace in Germany. King Philip II placed a bounty of 25000 crowns (millions of euros in today's money) on William's head.
William's flight to Germany and the bounty on his head meant that William now had no other option than to support the Revolt. William no longer had access to the income from his estates in the Netherlands. The only way to get access to them again was by siding with the Revolt and winning it. In your school books you likely have heard about William's religious tolerance and his desire of keeping the Netherlands united, but money really was an important factor too. William's income from his estates again would come to millions of euros in today's money per year!
From Germany William led armies into the Netherlands (with very limited success). He also had propagandists working for him spreading all kinds of propaganda across the Netherlands. An uncritical reading of this propoganda would contribute to the heroic aura of William and the demonisation of the Spanish (called “the Black Legend”). This propaganda was very effective and it's been only in the last century or so that Dutch historians have started to take a critical look at it. The Spanish Fury at Antwerp for instance was a sack of the city in which tens of thousands of people died according to William's propaganda. Now we believe 'only' a few hundred people died, but many sources and books will still list a number in the thousands thanks to the effective propaganda.
All of this is to say that William was forced by circumstances (Spanish prosecution, his flight, his bounty) to unequivocally join the Revolt. Once he had done that, he was the uniting figure for the Revolt. He kept persuing his goals and made sure everyone was following him; once he died the goals were no longer followed, though as I said it's doubtful if William could have attained them if he had lived longer. We remember him by his ideals though, and that makes him a hero for many.
((edits for typo's, spelling and grammar))
Just for clarification: King William the first was not William the Silent. William of Orange never became king, and was killed almost 200 years before William I, the first king of the Netherlands, was even born. The title of your post could cause some confusion.