Obs. [f. SOVEREIGN a.] The state or condition of being sovereign.
1387–8. T. Usk, Test. Love, II. ii. (Skeat), l. 85. But soverainnesse ayenward shulde thinke in this wyse: ‘I am servaunt of these creatures to me delivered.’
1615. Brathwait, Strappado (1878), 190. The body is the couer, and in it The minds internall soueraignnesse doth sit As a great Princesse.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, Warwicksh., III. (1662), 115. I confess its far short in Sovereigness against Serpents of the Italian Ash.
