since the fall of the Roman Empire.

The great dividing-line between the two parties, that of Leicester and
that of Holland, which controlled the action of the States-General, was
the question of sovereignty. After the declaration of independence and
the repudiation of Philip, to whom did the sovereignty belong? To the
people, said the Leicestrians. To the States-General and the States-
Provincial, as legitimate representatives of the people, said the Holland
party. Without looking for the moment more closely into this question,
which we shall soon find ably discussed by the most acute reasoners of
the time, it is only important at present to make a preliminary
reflection. The Earl of Leicester, of all men is the world, would seem
to have been precluded by his own action, and by the action of his Queen,
from taking ground against the States. 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. He was but general of a few
thousand English troops.

The Leicester party, then, proclaimed extreme democratic principles as to
the origin of government and the sovereignty of the people. They sought
to strengthen and to make almost absolute the executive authority of
their chief, on the ground that such was the popular will; and they
denounced with great acrimony the insolence of the upstart members of the
States, half a dozen traders, hired advocates, churls, tinkers, and the