It was raised to a countship in 1492, and passed by marriage to the family of Orange-Nassau.

In 1791 he married Frederica Wilhelmina, daughter of Frederick William II., king of Prussia, thus cementing very closely the relations between the houses of Orange-Nassau and Hohenzollern.

raised it to a countship, and in 1551 it passed by marriage to Prince William of Orange Nassau.

St Maartensdyk on the adjoining island of Tolen was formerly the seat of a lordship which belonged successively to the families of Van Borssele, Burren and Orange-Nassau.

Six of the seven states forming the confederation of the United Netherlands took as their stadtholder William of Orange-Nassau, called "the Silent," and his descendants during three generations.

Though the stadtholders of the house of Orange-Nassau were of princely rank and intermarried with the royal families of Europe, they were not sovereign princes.

WILHELMINA [WILHELMINA HELENA PAULINE MARIA OF ORANGE-NASSAU] (1880-), queen of the Netherlands, was born at the Hague on the 31st of August 1880.

The congress of Vienna (1814-1815) erected Luxemburg into a grand-duchy, added part of the duchy of Bouillon to it, and assigned it to William king of the Netherlands, in return for the German territories of the house of Orange-Nassau, which Napoleon had confistated in 1806, and which were given by the congress to the king of Prussia.

In 1892 Queen Wilhelmina instituted the Order of Orange-Nassau with five classes.

This royal alliance gave added influence and position to the house of Orange-Nassau.

On the of the 10th of November the National Congress, consisting of 200 deputies, met at Brussels and came to three important decisions: (I) the independence of the country - carried unanimously; (2) a constitutional hereditary monarchy - 174 votes against 13; (3) the perpetual exclusion of the Orange-Nassau family-161 votes against 28.

GERHARD TERSTEEGEN (1697-1769), German religious writer, was born on the 25th of November 1697, at Mors, at that time the capital of a countship belonging to the house of Orange-Nassau (it fell to Prussia in 1702), which formed a Protestant enclave in the midst of a Catholic country.

William of Orange-Nassau was but eleven years old when he succeeded to the principality.

of Orange Nassau in 1777.

The popular feeling throughout the United Provinces was strongly antagonistic to the act of Seclusion, by which at the dictation of a foreign power a ban of exclusion was pronounced against the house of Orange-Nassau, to which the republic owed its independence.