the same time it left the country in a very divided condition. This was
inevitable. The Prince had done all that one man could do to hold the
Netherlands together and unite them perpetually into one body politic,
and perhaps, if he had been inspired by a keener personal ambition, this
task might have been accomplished.--The seventeen provinces might have
accepted his dominion, but they would agree to that of no other
sovereign. Providence had not decreed that the country, after its long
agony, should give birth to a single and perfect commonwealth. The
Walloon provinces had already fallen off from the cause, notwithstanding
the entreaties of the Prince. The other Netherlands, after long and
tedious negotiation with Anjou, had at last consented to his supremacy,
but from this arrangement Holland and Zealand held themselves aloof.
By a somewhat anomalous proceeding, they sent deputies along with those
of the other provinces, to the conferences with the Duke, but it was
expressly understood that they would never accept him as sovereign.
They were willing to contract with him and with their sister provinces--
over which he was soon to exercise authority--a firm and perpetual
league, but as to their own chief, their hearts were fixed. The Prince
of Orange should be their lord and master, and none other. It lay only
in his self-denying character that he had not been clothed with this
dignity long before. He had, however, persisted in the hope that all
the provinces might be brought to acknowledge the Duke of Anjou as their
sovereign, under conditions which constituted a free commonwealth with an
hereditary chief, and in this hope he had constantly refused concession
to the wishes of the northern provinces. He in reality exercised
sovereign power over nearly the whole population, of the Netherlands.
Already in 1580, at the assembly held in April, the states of Holland had
formally requested him to assume the full sovereignty over them, with the
title of Count of Holland and Zealand forfeited by Philip. He had not
consented, and the proceedings had been kept comparatively secret. As