sounded, cautiously and secretly, so men believed, by the
Princess-Dowager, Louise de Coligny, widow of William the silent, as to
the feasibility of procuring the sovereignty for Maurice. She had done
this at the instigation of Maurice, who had expressed his belief that the
favourable influence of the Advocate would make success certain and who
had represented to her that, as he was himself resolved never to marry,
the inheritance after his death would fall to her son Frederick Henry.
The Princess, who was of a most amiable disposition, adored her son.
Devoted to the House of Nassau and a great admirer of its chief, she had
a long interview with Barneveld, in which she urged the scheme upon his
attention without in any probability revealing that she had come to him
at the solicitation of Maurice.

The Advocate spoke to her with frankness and out of the depths of his
heart. He professed an ardent attachment to her family, a profound
reverence for the virtues, sacrifices, and achievements of her lamented
husband, and a warm desire to do everything to further the interests of
the son who had proved himself so worthy of his parentage.

But he proved to her that Maurice, in seeking the sovereignty, was
seeking his ruin. The Hollanders, he said, liked to be persuaded and not
forced. Having triumphantly shaken off the yoke of a powerful king, they
would scarcely consent now to accept the rule of any personal sovereign.
The desire to save themselves from the claws of Spain had led them
formerly to offer the dominion over them to various potentates. Now that
they had achieved peace and independence and were delivered from the
fears of Spanish ferocity and French intrigue, they shuddered at the
dangers from royal hands out of which they had at last escaped. He
believed that they would be capable of tearing in pieces any one who
might make the desired proposition. After all, he urged, Maurice was a
hundred times more fortunate as he was than if he should succeed in
desires so opposed to his own good. This splendour of sovereignty was a
false glare which would lead him to a precipice. He had now the power of
a sovereign without the envy which ever followed it. Having essentially
such power, he ought, like his father, to despise an empty name, which
would only make him hated. For it was well known that William the Silent
had only yielded to much solicitation, agreeing to accept that which then
seemed desirable for the country's go