Since his resignation it had been entrusted by the States-General with high executive functions, especially in war matters.
It was an assembly of learned counsellors appointed from the various provinces for wisdom and experience, usually about eighteen in number, and sworn in all things to be faithful to the whole republic.

The allegiance of all was rendered to the nation.

Each individual member was required to "forswear his native province in order to be true to the generality." They deliberated in common for the general good, and were not hampered by instructions from the provincial diets, nor compelled to refer to those diets for decision when important questions were at issue.
It was an independent executive committee for the whole republic.
But Leicester had made it unpopular.

His intrigues, in the name of democracy, to obtain possession of sovereign power, to inflame the lower classes against the municipal magistracies, and to excite the clergy to claim a political influence to which they were not entitled and which was most mischievous in its effects, had exposed the state council, with which he had been in the habit of consulting, to suspicion.
The Queen of England, by virtue of her treaty had the right to appoint two of her subjects to be members of the council.

The governor of her auxiliary forces was also entitled to a seat there.