The Prince of Orange should be their lord and master, and none other.

It lay only in his self-denying character that he had not been clothed with this dignity long before.

He had, however, persisted in the hope that all the provinces might be brought to acknowledge the Duke of Anjou as their sovereign, under conditions which constituted a free commonwealth with an hereditary chief, and in this hope he had constantly refused concession to the wishes of the northern provinces.

He in reality exercised sovereign power over nearly the whole population, of the Netherlands.

Already in 1580, at the assembly held in April, the states of Holland had formally requested him to assume the full sovereignty over them, with the title of Count of Holland and Zealand forfeited by Philip.