Balthazar Gerards became famous by assassinating the Dutch independence leader, William the Silent. Gerards was born in 1557 in Vuillafans, France number 3 in the street now called Rue Gerard. He came from a Roman Catholic family with 11 children and was a great admirer of Philip II, the king of Spain and the Netherlands. He studied law on the University of Dole, a nearby city in Provence. Even before the reward Philip II offered, he told his fellow students that he would put a knife in William the Silent's heart.
Philip II offered his reward of 25000 crowns on William the Silent, calling him a 'pest on the whole of Christianity and the enemy of the human race'.
It is quite obvious Balthazar Gerards' year of death is 1584.
After the ban was published he came to Luxemburg where he learned that John Jaureguy was attempting the assassination. Before long it became know that that attempt was a failure. In March 1584 he left Luxemburg and went to Treves. There he put his plan before the regent of the Jesuits but another Jesuit convinced him to change his original scheme and go to the prince of Parma.
In Tournay he held council with a celebrated Franciscan, Father Gery. There he wrote a letter of which a copy was deposited with the guardian of the Franciscan convent. The original was presented by himself to the Prince of Parma, to whom he said: "The vassal ought always to prefer justice and the will of the king to his own life."
He explained his scheme but didn't tell of the exact nature of his trap and bait. At first the prince thought him unfit but after consulting Haultepenne and others with the letter he was assigned to Christoffel d' Assonleville.
Assonleville spoke with Balthazar and asked that he would write down his plan, which was done on April 11, 1584.
He requested absolution of the prince of Parma "as he was about to keep company for some time with heretics and atheists, and in some sort to conform himself to their customs."
For his first expenses he begged for 50 crowns which were refused. "I will provide myself out of my own purse," said he to Assonleville, "and within six weeks you will hear of me."--"Go forth, my son," said Assonleville, paternally, upon this spirited reply, "and if you succeed in your enterprise, the King will fulfill all his promises, and you will gain an immortal name beside."
The first opportunity he had for his crime he was unprepared and had no plan of escape. At that time William lay unarmed and alone in bed. He controlled his hatred and awaited another chance.
On Sunday July 8 he loitered in the courtyard examining the premises. A halberdier asked him why he waited here and he excused himself by saying that in his shabby clothings and without a new pair of shoes he was unfit to join the congregation in the church opposite.
The good-natured sergeant had no suspicion of Balthazar's real purpose and through communications with an officer arranged a gift of 50 crowns for William.
The following morning Gerards purchased a pair of pistols from a soldier, bargaining the price for a long time because the soldier couldn't supply the particular chopped bullets or slugs he wanted. On hearing the proceedings of the following day, this soldier stabbed himself to death after hearing what the price for this sale really had been.
As William the Silent climbed the stairs to the first floor (that is the one right above ground level, called the second floor in the US), he was spoken to by the English captain Roger Williams who knelt before him. William put him hand on the bowed head of the old captain at which moment Balthazar Gerards jumped out of a dark corner. With a wild expression Gerards drew his weapon and fired three shots at the stadtholder. William the Silent collapsed.
His sister knelt besides him, but it was too late.
William the Silent was shot a few times from close range and died on the spot. For this murder Gerards was tortured and executed in the marketplace. 'Mon Dieu, ayez patié de moi et de mon pauvre peuple.' are reportedly his last words. Generations of Dutch children had to learn these words at school. This translates as 'My God, have mercy on my soul and on these poor people.'
In the mean time, Balthazar Gerards had fled through the side door and ran across the narrow lane. He had almost reached the ramparts from which he intended to spring into the moat. On the other side stood a saddled horse ready. Because he couldn't swim he had a pigs blatter around his waist which he could use as a swimming belt. But alas, he stumbled over a heap of rubbish. A servant and a halberdier of the prince who had raced after him caught him.
"Hellish traitor!" they screamed.
His cool answer was "I am no traitor; I am a loyal servant of my lord."
"Which lord?" they asked.
"Of my lord and master, the king of Spain".
At the same time more pages and halberdiers of the prince appeared and dragged him back to the house under a rain of fists and beatings with the butt of a sword. From the talk he heard he thought that the prince was still alive. "Cursed be the hand that missed!" he yelled.
At the house he immediately underwent a preliminary examination before the city magistrates.
Upon being interrogated by the magistrates, he manifested neither despair nor contrition, but rather a quiet exultation. He said that "Like David, he had slain Goliath of Gath."
The magistrates sentenced that the right hand of Balthazar should be burned off with a red-hot iron, that his flesh should be torn from his bones with pincers in six different places, that he should be quartered and disemboweled alive, that his heart should be torn from his bosom and flung in his face, and that, finally, his head should be taken off.
In the first night of his imprisonment Balthazar Gerards was hung on a pole and lashed with a whip. After that his wounds were smeared with honey and a goat was brought to lick off the honey off his bruised skin with his sharp tongue. The goat however refused to touch the body of the sentenced.
After this cruel lashing and other tortures he was left the night with his hands and feet bound together, as a ball, so he couldn't sleep. In the following three days, among many mockings, he was hung on the pole with his hands tied on his back. Then on each of his big toes a weight of 300 pounds was attached for half an hour.
After this half hour he got shoes put on made out of raw dog's leather, well oiled, and two fingers shorter than his feet were. In this state he was put before a fire. When the shoes felt the fire they, together with the feet in them, shrunk and became stumps. With the awful removal of these shoes his half broiled skin was torn off.
After his feet were damaged, his armpits were branded. Still not satisfied with this they put on him a shirt soaked in alcohol. Then burning bacon fat was pured over him and sharp nails were stuck between the flesh and the nails of his hands and feet.
Nonetheless reportedly Balthazar remained calm during all of this horrific torment. He endured it all patiently without any moaning or sign of sorrow. This made the executioners even angrier and they continued even crueler and poured old stinking piss over him.
In the end he was dragged out to the market where four pulling horses were tied to his limbs, and he was drawn and quartered.
Even though this assassination is called cowardly in the Netherlands, the people in the former realms of Phillip have a wholly different perspective on the matter.
Philip II gave Balthazar's parents, instead of the reward of 25000 crowns, three country estates in Lievremont, Hostal, and Dampmartin in the Franche Comte and the family was raised to the peerage. Later, when the unfortunate eldest son of Orange, who had been kidnapped as a child and raised in Madrid returned from Spain after twenty-seven years'
absence, a changeling and a Spaniard, the restoration of those very estates was offered to him by Philip II, provided he would continue to pay a fixed proportion of their rents to the family of his father's murderer. This was rejected with scorn. The estates remained with the Gerard family.
A certain Sasbout Vosmeer tried to canonize Balthazar by stealing Balthazar's head and showing it to the church officials in Rome. They thought that idea had gone too far.
Preparations
The shooting on Tuesday, July 10
The murder of William the Silent by Balthazar Gerards.The flight
The city magistrates
An account of the tortures
His death, the reward, and a canonization?
External link