By Scott Shephard
If you are important enough, you get a nice tomb in a nice church. In the Netherlands, few are as important as William of Orange (aka William the Silent and aka “Father of the Fatherland”). I’ll spare you much of the history, but you should know that William was the leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish Hapsburgs and helped create what eventually became the nation state of The Netherlands. You might also be interested in knowing that William is the first head of state to be assassinated with a hand gun and that the assassin was executed in a most horrific manner. Read more about William and the assassin’s hand, intestines, head and heart here.
This is William’s tomb in the New Church in Delft. Interestingly, I never took a photo of the whole tomb. It was William’s forlorn dog that caught my complete attention. The dog (whose name isn’t given) has guarded his master’s tomb for close to 400 years and likely will be there for a while longer. A cat would have jumped down and found a more private place a long time ago.
Canon 5D 1/13 sec f/4 800 ISO
Here’s a more complete view:
By Alexander Williams - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80947669