Reminding them of the care ever taken by himself and his father to hear all their petitions, and to obtain for them a good peace, he observed that he had just heard of their contemplated negotiations with King Philip and Archduke Albert, and of their desire to be declared free states and peoples.  He was amazed, he said, that they should not have given him notice of so important an affair, inasmuch as all the United Provinces belonged to and were fiefs of the holy Roman Empire.  They were warned, therefore, to undertake nothing that might be opposed to the feudal law except with his full knowledge.  This letter was dated the 9th of October.  The States took time to deliberate, and returned no answer until after the new year.

On the 2nd of January, 1608, they informed the emperor that they could never have guessed of his requiring notification as to the approaching conferences.  They had not imagined that the archduke would keep them a secret from his brother, or the king from his uncle-cousin.  Otherwise, the States would have sent due notice to his Majesty.  They well remembered, they said, the appeals made by the provinces to the emperor from time to time, at the imperial diets, for help against the tyranny of the Spaniards.  They well remembered, too, that no help was ever given them in response to those appeals.  They had not forgotten either the famous Cologne negotiations for peace in presence of the imperial envoys, in consequence of which the enemy had carried on war against them with greater ferocity than before.  At that epoch they had made use of an extreme remedy for an intolerable evil, and had solemnly renounced allegiance to the king.  Since that epoch a whole generation of mankind had passed away, and many kings and potentates had recognised their freedom, obtained for just cause and maintained by the armed hand.  After a long and bloody war, Albert and Philip had at last been brought to acknowledge the provinces as free countries over which they pretended to no right, as might be seen by the letters of both, copies of which were forwarded to the emperor.  Full confidence was now expressed, therefore, that the emperor and all Germany would look with favour on such a God-fearing transaction, by which an end would be put to so terrible a war.  Thus the States-General; replying with gentle scorn to the antiquated claim of sovereignty on the part of imperial majesty.  Duly authenticated by citations of investitures, indulgences, and concordates, engrossed on yellowest parchment, sealed with reddest sealing-wax, and reposing in a thousand pigeon-holes in mustiest archives, no claim could be more solemn or stately.  Unfortunately, however, rebel pikes and matchlocks, during the past forty years, had made too many rents in those sacred parchments to leave much hope of their ever being pieced handsomely together again.  As to the historical theory of imperial enfeoffment, the States thought it more delicate to glide smoothly and silently over the whole matter.  It would have been base to acknowledge and impolite to refute the claim.