Instinctively and logically therefore the Stadholder found himself the chieftain of the Contra-Remonstrant party, and without the necessity of an apostasy such as had been required of his great contemporary to make himself master of France.
The power of Barneveld and his partisans was now put to a severe strain.
His efforts to bring back the Hague seceders were powerless.

The influence of Uytenbogaert over the Stadholder steadily diminished.

He prayed to be relieved from his post in the Great Church of the Hague, especially objecting to serve with a Contra-Remonstrant preacher whom Maurice wished to officiate there in place of the seceding Rosaeus.

But the Stadholder refused to let him go, fearing his influence in other places.

"There is stuff in him," said Maurice, "to outweigh half a dozen Contra-Remonstrant preachers." Everywhere in Holland the opponents of the Five Points refused to go to the churches, and set up tabernacles for themselves in barns, outhouses, canal-boats.