It was the States who, by solemn embassy, had offered the sovereignty to Elizabeth.

She had not accepted the offer, but she had deliberated on the subject, and certainly she had never expressed a doubt whether or not the offer had been legally made.

By the States, too, that governor-generalship had been conferred upon the Earl, which had been so thankfully and eagerly accepted.

It was strange, then, that he should deny the existence of the power whence his own authority was derived.

If the States were not sovereigns of the Netherlands, he certainly was nothing.