But they were determined that the sovereignty should be a constitutional one, founded upon and limited by the time-honoured laws and traditions of their commonwealth; for they recognised the value of a free republic with an hereditary chief, however anomalous it might in theory appear.

They knew that in Utrecht the Leicestrian party were about to offer the Queen the sovereignty of their Province, without conditions, but they were determined that neither Queen Elizabeth nor any other monarch should ever reign in the Netherlands, except under conditions to be very accurately defined and well secured.
Thus, contrasted, then, were the two great parties in the Netherlands, at the conclusion of Leicester's first year of administration.

It may easily be understood that it was not an auspicious moment to leave the country without a chief.
The strength of the States-party lay in Holland, Zeeland, Friesland.

The main stay of the democratic or Leicester faction was in the city of Utrecht, but the Earl had many partizans in Gelderland, Friesland, and in Overyssel, the capital of which Province, the wealthy and thriving Deventer, second only in the republic to Amsterdam for commercial and political importance, had been but recently secured for the Provinces by the vigorous measures of Sir William Pelham.
The condition of the republic and of the Spanish Provinces was, at that moment, most signally contrasted.

If the effects of despotism and of liberty could ever be exhibited at a single glance, it was certainly only necessary to look for a moment at the picture of the obedient and of the rebel Netherlands.
Since the fall of Antwerp, the desolation of Brabant, Flanders, and of the Walloon territories had become complete.