Willem van Nassau, Lord of De Lek (also ''Willem van Nassau-LaLecq'', or in French ''Willem LaLecq''; 18 August 1601 – 18 August 1627) was a Dutch soldier from 1620 until 1627. He was the illegitimate son of

stadholder In the Low Countries, ''stadtholder'' ( nl, stadhouder ) was an office of steward, designated a medieval official and then a national leader. The ''stadtholder'' was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and H ...

Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange Maurice of Orange ( nl, Maurits van Oranje; 14 November 1567 – 23 April 1625) was ''stadtholder'' of all the provinces of the Dutch Republic except for Friesland from 1585 at the earliest until his death in 1625. Before he became Prince o ...

and his mistress

Margaretha van Mechelen Margaretha van Mechelen (c. 1580 in Lier – 17 May 1662 in The Hague) was a noblewoman of the Southern Netherlands and (from c.1600 to c.1610) the mistress of Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange, with whom she had 3 sons: * Willem of Nassau, lor ...

. Like their other illegitimate children, he was recognized with the surname Nassau-LaLecq. He went by the title Rijksgraaf (Count of the Holy Roman Empire) van Nassau-LaLecq" and was also popularly known in French as the "Chevalier de Nassau". After 1625 he was granted lands and the title Lord of De Lek. He received his

heerlijkheid A ''heerlijkheid'' (a Dutch word; pl. ''heerlijkheden''; also called ''heerschap''; Latin: ''Dominium'') was a landed estate that served as the lowest administrative and judicial unit in rural areas in the Dutch-speaking Low Countries before 1800. ...

of De Lek as a bequest from his father to him and his descendants. His brother Lodewijk van Nassau had the title "Lord of Beverweerd and Odijk". From his 19th year on, Willem served in the Dutch army fighting Spain in the

Dutch Revolt The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt ( nl, Nederlandse Opstand) (Historiography of the Eighty Years' War#Name and periodisation, c.1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and t ...

(1568–1648). Aged only 24 he received the rank of lieutenant-admiral of

Holland Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th c ...

and West Friesland, replacing stadholder

Frederik Hendrik Frederick Henry ( nl, Frederik Hendrik; 29 January 1584 – 14 March 1647) was the sovereign prince of Orange and stadtholder of County of Holland, Holland, County of Zeeland, Zeeland, Lordship of Utrecht, Utrecht, Guelders, Lordship of Overijss ...

. He led the Dutch ships that participated in the Cádiz expedition of 1625. In the summer of 1627 he was present at the Siege of Grol. On 18 August, not long before the end of the siege, fighting with the French troops at the front, Willem received a bullet wound which later proved fatal. Thus he died on his 27th birthday, with Lodewijk inheriting Willem's fiefdom. On 4 April 1627, 4 months before his death, Willem married Anna van der Noot, lady of Hoogwoud and Aartswoud, in

Sluis Sluis (; zea, label=Zeelandic, Sluus ; french: Écluse) is a town and municipality located in the west of Zeelandic Flanders, in the south-western Dutch province of Zeeland. The current incarnation of the municipality has existed since 1 January ...

. Though he had no children with Anna, he had one illegitimate son by Barbara Augustinus Cocx, Willem Jonker van Nassau (1620–1679) .

References

* A.W.E. Dek, ''Genealogie van het Vorstenhuis Nassau'', Zaltbommel 1970, 148–149 * Reinildis van Ditzhuyzen, ''Oranje-Nassau: Een biografisch woordenboek'', Haarlem 2004, 28, 50, 156–157, 191, 269, 271 {{DEFAULTSORT:Nassau, William of (1601-1627) 1601 births 1627 deaths 17th-century Dutch military personnel Military personnel from The Hague People of the Anglo-Spanish War (1625–1630)