The title--Prince of Orange--is derived from the town of Orange (ancient Awrasio), in the southeast of France, department of Vaucluse. In the middle ages this town was the capital of a principality, which for a considerable period belonged to the house of Nassau; and William Henry was then the incumbent both of the title and the domain. After his death the title passed to his heir, the King of Prussia, and is still retained in the royal family of Holland; but the principality whence the title is derived, has been since ceded to France. The father of William, who was Stadtholder of the Dutch provinces, died in 1650, and the office, which was not inherent, but elective, remained in abeyance, under the management of the brothers De Witt, until 1672, when England and France declared war against Holland. William laid claim to the office of his father, but was opposed by the De Witts. The emergency pointed out William as the choice of those opposed to the claims of France, and the De Witts, still opposing, became the victims of an assassination, said to have been concocted by William. This placed William at the head both of civil and military affairs, which, however unscrupulous were the means of attainment, he conducted with great ability, and saved Holland from subjugation to the French king. From 1672 to 1677, the war continued with various success. At the close of that year's campaign, William visited England by invitation, and Charles, in order to terminate a war which was unpopular with the majority of his nobles, acceded to the proposal of his counsellors, to pave the way for an alliance with Holland, by espousing Mary, the eldest daughter of James, then Duke of York, to the Stadtholder. This marriage, which took place shortly after, gave William, who was then both nephew and son-in-law to James, the right of heir-presumptive; and, the immediate result of it was a peace between England and Holland, at Nimeguen, in 1678. William was a very ill-favored prince, weak of body, ungraceful in gait and manner, and of a forbidding countenance at once expressive of cruelty and unscrupulousness. He was not a statesman, nor yet an able diplomatist, but possessed a keenness of perception, that enabled him to see through the motives of men, a reticence of habit, which protected him from importunity, and a will subservient to the call of ambition. Yet though he was the acknowledged head of the Protestant league, and conformed to the ceremonies of exterior worship, he was a most confirmed sceptic, and averse to all religious disquisition. He, however, possessed those qualities which the enemies of James most desired. He was ambitious of power, an able soldier, the ostensible champion of Protestantism, and the irreconcilable enemy of the French monarch.