that proved later to be fully justified, for both
these officers were Catholics and had formerly been in the Spanish
service. Leicester had also taken other steps that were ill-judged. West
Friesland had for many years been united to Holland and was known as the
North-Quarter. The governor-general, however, appointed Sonoy Stadholder
of West Friesland, and was thus infringing the rights and jurisdiction
of Maurice of Nassau. Maurice also held the post of Admiral-General of
Holland and Zeeland, but Leicester took it upon himself to create three
distinct Admiralty Colleges, those of Holland, Zeeland, and the
North-Quarter, thus further dividing authority in a land where greater
unity was the chief thing to be aimed at. Leicester was equally unwise
in the part he took in regard to religious matters. Oldenbarneveldt,
Paul Buys and the great majority of burgher-regents in Holland belonged
to the moderate or, as it was called, the "libertine" party, to which
William the Silent had adhered and whose principles of toleration he had
strongly upheld. Leicester, largely influenced by spite against
Oldenbarneveldt and the Hollanders for their opposition to his edict
about trade with the enemy and to his appointment of Sonoy, threw
himself into the arms of the extreme Calvinists, who were at heart as
fanatical persecutors as the Spanish inquisitors themselves. These
"precisian" zealots held, by the governor-general's permission and under
his protection, a synod at Dort, June, 1586, and endeavoured to organise
the Reformed Church in accordance with their strict principles of
exclusiveness.

By this series of maladroit acts Leicester had made himself so unpopular
and distrusted in Holland that the Estates of that predominant province
lost no opportunity of inflicting rebuffs upon him. Stung by the
opposition he met and weary of a thankless task, the governor determined
at the end of November to pay a visit to England. The Council of State
was left in charge of the administration during his absence.

His departure had the very important effect of bringing the question of
State-rights acutely to the front. The dislike and distrust felt by the
Hollanders towards the English governor-general was greatly increased by
the treachery of Yorke and Stanley, who delivered the fort at Zutphen
and the town of Deventer, with the defence of which they had been
charged, into the hands of the Spaniards. The town of Gelder and the
fort at Wouw were l