On 15 March 1580, King Philip had offered a reward of 25,000 crowns, peerage and an inheritable estate to anyone who killed or captured William the Silent, to whom he referred in his decree as a "pest on the whole of Christianity and the enemy of the human race.

In Tournai, after holding counsel with a Franciscan, Father Gery, Gérard wrote a letter, a copy of which was deposited with the guardian of the convent, and the original presented personally to the Prince of Parma.

"[1] At first the prince thought him unfit but after consulting Haultepenne and others with the letter he was assigned to Christoffel d'Assonleville, who spoke with Gérard, and asked him to put this in writing, which he did on 11 April 1584.

He requested absolution from the prince of Parma "as he was about to keep company for some time with heretics and atheists, and in some sort to conform himself to their customs".

The exact story surrounding the last moments before his death are lost to history, but according to legend he was asked whether he commended his soul to Christ, he answered in the affirmative.

At the same time more pages and halberdiers of the prince appeared and dragged him back to the house under a rain of fists and beatings with the butt of a sword.

Hearing his assailants chatter and convinced he heard the prince was still alive, he cried "Cursed be the hand that missed!"

[3] After William the Silent's murder, more than 200 years would pass until another head of state was killed by a firearm, when Gustav III, King of Sweden, was fatally wounded at a midnight masquerade in 1792.

Upon being interrogated by the magistrates, he reportedly showed neither despair nor contrition, but rather a quiet exultation, stating: "Like David, he had slain Goliath of Gath."

After several other forms of torture, he was left to pass the night with his hands and feet bound together, like a ball, so sleep would be difficult.

On 14 July, four days after the assassination, the sentence declared at the trial was carried out and Gérard was tortured and executed in the market square of Delft.

[5] Philip II gave Gérard's parents, instead of the reward of 25,000 crowns, three country estates in Lievremont, Hostal, and Dampmartin in the Franche-Comté, and the family was raised to the peerage.

The apostolic vicar Sasbout Vosmeer tried to have Gérard canonized, to which end he removed the dead man's head and showed it to church officials in Rome, but the idea was rejected.