Robert Stewart

Murder made easy

issue 14 May 2005

What is one to make of this little book? There is much that is good in it, about new handguns, their use in crime and warfare and their role as fashionable accessories (notably in portraiture) of the rich and proud; about the ‘spinning’ rife in Renaissance pamphlet wars; and about that age’s wantonly cruel methods of torture and execution. But does it make sense? Its central contention, that the assassination in 1584 of William of Orange was a landmark in history because it was carried out with a pistol, is more asserted than argued and it remains highly dubious.

In the battle that raged across Reformation Europe in the second half of the 16th century the revolt of the Dutch provinces, deeply infected with Calvinism, against the rule of the Catholic Habsburg empire occupied centre stage. William of Orange, chosen by Emperor Philip II of Spain to be the stadholder (or governor) of the Low Countries in 1559, at first tried to mediate between the two camps, but was driven by Spanish tyranny and religious intolerance to cast his lot with the Protestant rebels.

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