to the institutions. Power, actually, if not nominally, was in the hands
of many who had achieved the greatness to which they had not been born.

The assemblies of the estates were rather diplomatic than representative.
They consisted, generally, of the nobles and of the deputations from the
cities. In Holland, the clergy had neither influence nor seats in the
parliamentary body. Measures were proposed by the stadholder, who
represented the sovereign. A request, for example, of pecuniary,
accommodation, was made by that functionary or by the count himself in
person. The nobles then voted upon the demand, generally as one body,
but sometimes by heads. The measure was then laid before the burghers.
If they had been specially commissioned to act upon the matter; they
voted, each city as a city, not each deputy, individually. If they had
received no instructions, they took back the proposition to lay before
the councils of their respective cities, in order to return a decision
at an adjourned session, or at a subsequent diet. It will be seen,
therefore, that the principle of national, popular representation was
but imperfectly developed. The municipal deputies acted only under
instructions. Each city was a little independent state, suspicious not
only of the sovereign and nobles, but of its sister cities. This mutual
jealousy hastened the general humiliation now impending. The centre of
the system waging daily more powerful, it more easily unsphered these
feebler and mutually repulsive bodies.

Philip's first step, upon assuming the government, was to issue a
declaration, through the council of Holland, that the privileges and
constitutions, which he had sworn to as Ruward, or guardian, during
the period in which Jacqueline had still retained a nominal sovereignty,
were to be considered null and void, unless afterwards confirmed by him
as count. At a single blow he thus severed the whole knot of pledges,