historical and political thought in the seventeenth - RePub - Erasmus ...

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Chapter 4. Times of success. Defending the fatherland
the possibility that civil discord would erupt is especially present where religious
pluriformity and religious factions offer ambitious men the opportunity
to usurp political power under the pretence of religious arguments. To
prevent this from happening, Boxhorn hopes that the Dutch would find in
their ancient virtues, in ‘our modesty, … consistency, and loyalty, the soldiers,
the artillery, the weapons, and, so to speak, the instruments of every war, not
only to preserve the eternity of this peace for us, but also to bequeath it to our
offspring’. 106
Internal discord was not the only matter that threatened to shatter the still
fragile peace. The Oratio panegyrica de Belgarum pace shows that Boxhorn’s
awareness that the endurance of the peace depended on what happened in
the international arena. 107 There, matters were not looking good. France was
still officially at war with Spain and the emperor, while on the British Isles
the ongoing war between Charles I and his subjects headed into a new phase.
In his oration Boxhorn admits that it is ‘God’s judgement and very just stewardship’
that allow people to suffer the punishments of wars. 108 Yet he still
hopes that Louis XIV (1638-1715) would remember that the French and the
Germans descended from the same ancestors and would come to terms with
the emperor, and he prays that God would reconcile Charles I with his parliament
and his subjects and unite them in a unbreakable peace. 109 His first
potentiorum de imperio certamina, arbitrium potius hominum & homines quam leges, imperent (felicium
fere mala, quae turbant inprimis domi pacem ac convellunt) quovis bello nocentiorem, & quam
ista post se vitia trahunt, civium discordiam arceat.’ See Sallust, The Jugurthine War, XLI.1-5, p. 83. ‘The
custom of parties and factions and, then, of all evil practices arose at Rome a few years before from inactivity
and an abundance of those things which mortals consider to be priorities. For before the destruction
of Carthage the Roman people and senate managed the commonwealth placidly and restrainedly
betweem them. There was no struggle amongst the citizens either for glory or for domination: dread
of an enemy maintained the community in its good practices. But, when that source of alarm left their
minds, recklessness and haughtiness – things, to be sure, which favourable circumstances attract – made
their entrance. So the inactivity which in adverse circumstances they had craved was, once acquired,
more harsh and bitter. For the nobility began to turn their rank and the people their freedom, into matters
of whim: every man for himself appropriated, looted and seized. So the whole was split into two
parties, and the commonwealth, which had been neutral, was rent apart.’
106 Ibidem, pp. 125-26. ‘Ut in nostra domi modestia, in ipsa hostium (quanquam nec jam hostium)
& nostrorum constantia ac fide (de quibus publice ac magnifice pronunciatum Romae olim, Nullam
Gentem Fide Esse Ante Germanos) miles, tormenta, arma, & omnis velut belli apparatus sint, pro conservanda
non nobis tantum, sed & tradenda posteris nostris, pacis hujus aeternitate.’ The quotation is
from Tacitus, The Annals, XIII.54.3.
107 Simon Groenveld, “Achtergronden en betekenis van de Vrede van Westfalen”, in Jan Melissen
(ed.), Europese diplomatie: in de schaduw van Westfalen (Van Gorcum; Assen, 2000), p. 63.
108 Boxhorn, “Oratio panegyrica de Belgarum pace”, p. 128. ‘… idem numen, cujus non improvidentia
aut neglectu, sed justitia, sed judicio, sed aequissima dispensatione haec immitti gentibus mala
agnoscimus.’
109 Ibidem, pp. 132-33. ‘Vt denique, si quas jam Europae gentes trahant intestina, pejora longe externis,
& quae nullos triumphos habent, bella ac depascant, imprimis proximam & reginam insularum
Britanniam, illam tot jam per annos, & inter ipsa statim horum, quae nunc finiuntur, bellorum initia
amicam nostram & sociam, domi forisque hactenus invictam, sed nunc hostem sibi, & suorum tantum
sanguine madentem, reges proceresque ac subjectos regibus, inprimis Carolum, principem augustis-