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

Chapter 4. Times of success. Defending the fatherland
Years’ Truce, confirms this reading. It reads that king Philip III of Spain (1578-
1621) had concluded the Twelve Years’ Truce ‘for no other reason, like the outcome
has taught, than to injure our unity and peace at home’. 113 In other words,
the peace of Münster did not mean that the Dutch could rest on their laurels.
Watchfulness was required to protect the peace against external foes and
internal disturbances. In the last five years of his life Boxhorn would indeed
find out how fragile the recently won peace really was.
113 Boxhorn, Oratie van de vrede, p. 12. ‘… zijnde maer eenmael door den Treves ghegeven eene
twaelfjaerige ruste tot geenen anderen einde, gelijck de uytkomste wel geleert heeft, als om onse eenicheydt
ende vreede thuys te krencken, ende machtiger als oit te voren te velde te komen.’ Idem, “Oratio
panegyrica de Belgarum pace”, pp. 109-10. ‘… nisi quod duodecim annorum otio dilatum, ut majus &
atrocius resurgeret.’ Although not in the Latin original, the disadvantages and inconveniences that the
Dutch Republic had suffered because of the Twelve Years’ Truce is a topic that frequently recurs in Boxhorn’s
works. See, for example, Boxhorn, Institutiones politicae, I.4, pp. 35-36, and I.13, pp. 214-15. In 1609
both Maurits and Oldenbarnevelt had feared that the truce could lead to internal discord, ‘anarchy’,
and ‘confusion’. So did Grotius. The outcome would prove these three men right. In this sense, Boxhorn
is merely repeating their fears. For Oldenbarnevelt and Maurits, see Groenveld, “‘Natie’ en ‘patria’ bij
de zestiende-eeuwse Nederlanders”, pp. 78-79. For Grotius, see Arthur Eyffinger, ““How Wondrously
Moses Goes Along With The House of Orange!”: Hugo Grotius’ ‘De Republica Emendanda’ in the Context
of the Dutch Revolt”, in Hebraic Political Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2005), pp. 81-85.
117