e people to depose and to
elect; yet the provinces, in their Declaration of Independence, spoke of
the divine right of kings, even while dethroning, by popular right, their
own King!

So also, in the instructions given by the states to their envoys charged
to justify the abjuration before the Imperial diet held at Augsburg,
twelve months later, the highest ground was claimed for the popular right
to elect or depose the sovereign, while at the same time, kings were
spoken of as "appointed by God." It is true that they were described, in
the same clause, as "chosen by the people"--which was, perhaps, as exact
a concurrence in the maxim of Vox populi, vox Dei, as the boldest
democrat of the day could demand. In truth, a more democratic course
would have defeated its own ends. The murderous and mischievous pranks of
Imbize, Ryhove, and such demagogues, at Ghent and elsewhere, with their
wild theories of what they called Grecian, Roman, and Helvetian
republicanism, had inflicted damage enough on the cause of freedom, and
had paved the road for the return of royal despotism. The senators
assembled at the Hague gave more moderate instructions to their delegates
at Augsburg. They were to place the King's tenure upon contract--not an
implied one, but a contract as literal as the lease of a farm. The house
of Austria, they were to maintain, had come into the possession of the
seventeen Netherlands upon certain express conditions, and with the
understanding that its possession was to cease with the first condition
broken. It was a question of law and fact, not of royal or popular right.
They were to take the ground, not only that the contract had been
violated, but that the foundation of perpetual justice upon which it
rested; had likewise been undermined. It was time to vindicate both
written charters and general principles. "God has given absolute power to
no mortal man," said Saint Aldegonde, "to do his own will against all
laws and all reason." "The contracts which the King has broken are no
pedantic fantasies," said the estates, "but laws planted by nature in the
universal heart of mankind, and expressly acquiesced in by prince and
people." All men, at least, who speak the English tongue, will accept the
conclusion of the provinces, that when laws which protected the citizen
against arbitrary imprisonment and guaranteed him a trial in his own
province--which forbade the appointment of foreigners to high
office--which secured