Balthasar Gérard

Who was Balthasar Gérard?

Balthasar Gérard was the assassin of the Dutch independence leader, William I of Orange. He killed William I in Delft on July 10, 1584, by shooting him twice with a pistol, and was afterwards tried, convicted, and gruesomely executed.

Gérard was born in Franche-Comté. He came from a Roman Catholic family with 11 children and was a great admirer of Philip II, king of Spain and the Netherlands. He studied law at the University of Dole. King Philip offered a reward of 25,000 crowns to anyone who killed William the Silent, to whom he referred as a "pest on the whole of Christianity and the enemy of the human race".