The matter of the government absolute having been so fully discussed during the preceding four months, and the last opinions of the state-council having been so lucidly expounded in the despatches to be carried by Heneage to England, the matter might be considered as exhausted.  Leicester contented himself, therefore, with once more calling her Majesty’s attention to the fact that if he had not himself accepted the office thus conferred upon him by the States, it would have been bestowed upon some other personage.  It would hardly have comported with her dignity, if Count Maurice of Nassau, or Count William, or Count Moeurs, had been appointed governor absolute, for in that case the Earl, as general of the auxiliary English force, would have been subject to the authority of the chieftain thus selected.  It was impossible, as the state-council had very plainly shown, for Leicester to exercise supreme authority, while merely holding the military office of her Majesty’s lieutenant-general.  The authority of governor or stadholder could only be derived from the supreme power of the country.  If her Majesty had chosen to accept the sovereignty, as the States had ever desired, the requisite authority could then have been derived from her, as from the original fountain.  As she had resolutely refused that offer however, his authority was necessarily to be drawn from the States-General, or else the Queen must content herself with seeing him serve as an English military officer, only subject to the orders of the supreme power, wherever that power might reside.  In short, Elizabeth’s wish that her general might be clothed with the privileges of her viceroy, while she declined herself to be the sovereign, was illogical, and could not be complied with.

Very soon after inditing these last epistles to the Provinces, the Queen became more reasonable on the subject; and an elaborate communication was soon received by the state-council, in which the royal acquiescence was signified to the latest propositions of the States.  The various topics, suggested in previous despatches from Leicester and from the council, were reviewed, and the whole subject was suddenly placed in a somewhat different light from that in which it seemed to have been previously regarded by her Majesty.  She alluded to the excuse, offered by the state-council, which had been drawn from the necessity of the case, and from their “great liking for her cousin of Leicester,” although in violation of the original contract.  “As you acknowledge, however,” she said, “that therein you were justly to be blamed, and do crave pardon for the same, we cannot, upon this acknowledgment of your fault, but remove our former dislike.”

Nevertheless it would now seem that her “mistake” had proceeded, not from the excess, but from the insufficiency of the powers conferred upon the Earl, and she complained, accordingly, that they had given him shadow rather than substance.