sudden and indefinite interregnum, a provisional, an abnormal, and an
impotent government. To the state-council was deputed the executive
authority. But the state-council was a creature of the States-General,
acting in concert with the governor-general, and having no actual life of
its own. It was a board of consultation, not of decision, for it could
neither enact its own decrees nor interpose a veto upon the decrees of
the governor.

Certainly the selection of Leicester to fill so important a post had not
been a very fortunate one; and the enthusiasm which had greeted him, "as
if he had been a Messiah," on his arrival, had very rapidly dwindled
away, as his personal character became known. The leading politicians of
the country had already been aware of the error which they had committed
in clothing with almost sovereign powers the delegate of one who had
refused the sovereignty. They, were too adroit to neglect the
opportunity, which her Majesty's anger offered them, of repairing what
they considered their blunder. When at last the quarrel, which looked so
much like a lovers' quarrel, between Elizabeth and 'Sweet Robin,' had
been appeased to the satisfaction of Robin, his royal mistress became
more angry with the States for circumscribing than she had before been
for their exaggeration of his authority. Hence the implacable hatred of
Leicester to Paul Buys and Barneveld.

Those two statesmen, for eloquence, learning, readiness, administrative
faculty, surpassed by few who have ever wielded the destinies of free
commonwealths, were fully equal to the task thrown upon their hands by
the progress of events. That task was no slight one, for it was to the
leading statesmen of Holland and England, sustained by the indomitable
resistance to despotism almost universal in the English and Dutch
nations, that the liberty of Europe was entrusted at that, momentous