The opposition came, of course, from the Barneveld party.

"They are in no great haste to offer the sovereignty," said Wilkes.

"First some towns of Holland made bones thereat, and now they say that Zeeland is not resolved." The nature and the causes of the opposition offered by Barneveld and the States of Holland have been sufficiently explained.

Buys, maddened by his long and unjustifiable imprisonment, had just been released by the express desire of Hohenlo; and that unruly chieftain, who guided the German and Dutch magnates; such as Moeurs and Overstein, and who even much influenced Maurice and his cousin Count Lewis William, was himself governed by Barneveld.

It would have been far from impossible for Leicester, even then, to conciliate the whole party.