over England. Instead of such vigorous action, it was thought
wiser to send commissioners, to make protocols, to ask for armistices, to
give profusely to the enemy that which he was most in need of--time.
Meanwhile the Hollanders and English could quarrel comfortably among
themselves, and the little republic, for want of a legal head, could come
as near as possible to its dissolution.

Young Maurice--deep thinker for his years and peremptory in action--was
not the man to see his great father's life-work annihilated before his
eyes, so long as he had an arm and brain of his own. He accepted his
position at the head of the government of Holland and Zeeland, and as
chief of the war-party. The council of state, mainly composed of
Leicester's creatures, whose commissions would soon expire by their own
limitation, could offer but a feeble resistance to such determined
individuals as Maurice, Buys, and Barneveld. The party made rapid
progress. On the other hand, the English Leicestrians did their best to
foment discord in the Provinces. Sonoy was sustained in his rebellion in
North Holland, not only by the Earl's partizans, but by Elizabeth
herself. Her rebukes to Maurice, when Maurice was pursuing the only
course which seemed to him consistent with honour and sound policy, were
sharper than a sword. Well might Duplessis Mornay observe, that the
commonwealth had been rather strangled than embraced by the English
Queen. Sonoy, in the name of Leicester, took arms against Maurice and the
States; Maurice marched against him; and Lord Willoughby,
commander-in-chief of the English forces, was anxious to march against
Maurice. It was a spectacle to make angels weep, that of Englishmen and
Hollanders preparing to cut each other's throats, at the moment when
Philip and Parma were bending all their energies to crush England and
Holland at once.

Indeed, the interregnum between the departure of Leicester and his
abdication was diligently employed by his more reckless partizans to
defeat and destroy the authority of the States. By prolonging the
interval, it was hoped that no government would be possible except the
arbitrary rule of the Earl, or of a successor with similar views: for a
republic--a free commonwealth--was thought an absurdity. To entrust
supreme power to advocates; merchants, and mechanics, seemed as hopeless
as it was vulgar. Willoughby; much devoted to Leicester and much
detesting Barneveld, had small scruple in fanning