But however nourishing the shade of those blessed beams might prove to Leicester’s disease, it was not so easy to bring about a very sunny condition in the Provinces.  It was easier for Elizabeth to mend the broken heart of the governor than to repair the damage which had been caused to the commonwealth by her caprice and her deceit.  The dispute concerning the government absolute had died away, but the authority of the Earl had got a “crack in it” which never could be handsomely made whole.  The States, during the long period of Leicester’s discredit—­feeling more and more doubtful as to the secret intentions of Elizabeth—­disappointed in the condition of the auxiliary troops and in the amount of supplies furnished from England, and, above all, having had time to regret their delegation of a power which they began to find agreeable to exercise with their own hands, became indisposed to entrust the Earl with the administration and full inspection of their resources.  To the enthusiasm which had greeted the first arrival of Elizabeth’s representative had succeeded a jealous, carping, suspicious sentiment.  The two hundred thousand florins monthly were paid, according to the original agreement, but the four hundred thousand of extra service-money subsequently voted were withheld, and withheld expressly on account of Heneage’s original mission to disgrace the governor.”

“The late return of Sir Thomas Heneage,” said Lord North, “hath put such busses in their heads, as they march forward with leaden heels and doubtful hearts.”

In truth, through the discredit cast by the Queen upon the Earl in this important affair, the supreme authority was forced back into the hands of the States, at the very moment when they had most freely divested themselves of power.  After the Queen had become more reasonable, it was too late to induce them to part, a second time, so freely with the immediate control of their own affairs.  Leicester had become, to a certain extent, disgraced and disliked by the Estates.  He thought himself, by the necessity of the case, forced to appeal to the people against their legal representatives, and thus the foundation of a nominally democratic party, in opposition to the municipal one, was already laid.  Nothing could be more unfortunate at that juncture; for we shall, in future, find the Earl in perpetual opposition to the most distinguished statesmen in the Provinces; to the very men indeed who had been most influential in offering the sovereignty to England, and in placing him in the position which he had so much coveted.  No sooner therefore had he been confirmed by Elizabeth in that high office than his arrogance broke forth, and the quarrels between himself and the representative body became incessant.