Members of the elder or Netherland branch had for several generations rendered distinguished services to their Burgundian and Habsburg sovereigns.

This elder branch became extinct in the person of Rene, the son of Henry of Nassau, one of Charles V's most trusted friends and advisers, by Claude, sister of Philibert, Prince of Orange-Chalons.

Philibert being childless bequeathed his small principality to Rene; and Rene in his turn, being killed at the siege of St Dizier in 1544, left by will all his possessions to his cousin William, who thus became Prince of Orange.

His parents were Lutherans, but Charles insisted that William, at that time eleven years of age, should be brought up as a Catholic at the Court of Mary of Hungary.

Here he became a great favourite of the emperor, who in 1550 conferred on him the hand of a great heiress, Anne of Egmont, only child of the Count of Buren.