CHAPTER X. Should Elizabeth accept the Sovereignty?--The Effects of her Anger-- Quarrels between the Earl and the Staten--The Earl's three Counsellors--Leicester's Finance--Chamber--Discontent of the Mercantile Classes--Paul Buys and the Opposition--Been Insight of Paul Buys--Truchsess becomes a Spy upon him--Intrigues of Buys with Denmark--His Imprisonment--The Earl's Unpopularity--His Quarrels with the States--And with the Norrises--His Counsellors Wilkes and Clerke--Letter from the Queen to Leicester--A Supper Party at Hohenlo's--A drunken Quarrel--Hohenlo's Assault upon Edward Norris-- Ill Effects of the Riot.The brief period of sunshine had been swiftly followed by storms. TheGovernor Absolute had, from the outset, been placed in a false position.Before he came to the Netherlands the Queen had refused the sovereignty.Perhaps it was wise in her to decline so magnificent an offer; yetcertainly her acceptance would have been perfectly honourable. Theconstituted authorities of the Provinces formally made the proposition.There is no doubt whatever that the whole population ardently desired tobecome her subjects. So far as the Netherlands were concerned, then, shewould have been fully justified in extending her sceptre over a freepeople, who, under no compulsion and without any, diplomatic chicane, hadselected her for their hereditary chief. So far as regarded England, theannexation to that country of a continental cluster of states, inhabitedby a race closely allied to it by blood, religion, and the instinct forpolitical freedom, seemed, on the whole, desirable.In a financial point of view, England would certainly lose nothing by theunion. The resources of the Provinces were at leant equal to her own.We have seen the astonishment which the wealth and strength of theNetherlands excited in their English visitors. They were amazed by the