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| | William I (1533-1584) |
 | | At the time of William's birth, the Brabant branch was represented by his father's elder brother Henry and by Henry's only son, René, who in 1530 had inherited from a maternal uncle the domains of the House of Chalon-Arlay, so becoming the greatest seigneur of the Franche-Comté and ruler of the Provençal principality of Orange. |
 | | Philip II, at his accession in 1555, had admitted William to the Council of State, and, now before his departure to Spain, the King appointed him his stadholder (governor and commander in chief) in Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht (August 1559) and afterward in Franche-Comté (February 1561). |
 | | From about 1561 William, the prince of Orange, together with other great lords who felt themselves excluded from their rightful share in the country's government, began to protest openly against the conduct of the Brussels administration, in which Granvelle, the principal adviser of the regent Margaret, duchess of Parma, was the most powerful figure. |
| www.hfac.uh.edu /gbrown/philosophers/leibniz/BritannicaPages/William-I/WilliamI.html (2776 words) |
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