mixture of hereditary
sovereignty with popular representation, to which they were accustomed.
They did not devise an a priori constitution. Philip having violated the
law of reason and the statutes of the land, was deposed, and a new chief
magistrate was to be elected in his stead. This was popular sovereignty
in fact, but not in words. The deposition and election could be legally
justified only by the inherent right of the 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 fantasie