authority, while merely holding the military office of her Majesty's
lieutenant-general. The authority of governor or stadholder could only
be derived from the supreme power of the country. If her Majesty had
chosen to accept the sovereignty, as the States had ever desired, the
requisite authority could then have been derived from her, as from the
original fountain. As she had resolutely refused that offer however, his
authority was necessarily to be drawn from the States-General, or else
the Queen must content herself with seeing him serve as an English
military officer, only subject to the orders of the supreme power,
wherever that power might reside. In short, Elizabeth's wish that her
general might be clothed with the privileges of her viceroy, while she
declined herself to be the sovereign, was illogical, and could not be
complied with.

Very soon after inditing these last epistles to the Provinces, the Queen
became more reasonable on the subject; and an elaborate communication was
soon received by the state-council, in which the royal acquiescence was
signified to the latest propositions of the States. The various topics,
suggested in previous despatches from Leicester and from the council,
were reviewed, and the whole subject was suddenly placed in a somewhat
different light from that in which it seemed to have been previously
regarded by her Majesty. She alluded to the excuse, offered by the
state-council, which had been drawn from the necessity of the case, and
from their "great liking for her cousin of Leicester," although in
violation of the original contract. "As you acknowledge, however," she
said, "that therein you were justly to be blamed, and do crave pardon for
the same, we cannot, upon this acknowledgment of your fault, but remove
our former dislike."

Nevertheless it would now seem that her "mistake" had proceeded, not from