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

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Chapter 5. Times of trouble. Taking a stand
logic of the Republic’s existence and its apparatus movendi. This is exactly what
the Commentariolus did, and, judging by its success, clearly in an appealing
way. However, the early 1640s and the years 1649-50 do differ on at least one
important point. In the early 1640s the Dutch were still fighting their war with
Spain. In the years 1649-50 that long war had recently ended. Thus, the Commentariolus
was taught in a time of war, but published in a time of peace. This
difference should be kept in mind when reading the Commentariolus.
The Commentariolus begins quite traditionally with a defence of the legitimacy
of the Dutch Revolt against Philip II. 75 Following the popular ‘Batavian myth’
the Commentariolus repeats the well-known Dutch resistance thesis: the seven
Dutch provinces that formed the United Provinces had revolted against Philip
II because he had tried to subdue their ancient privileges and their way of
government that had existed since Roman times. In order to defend their ‘liberties’
and to restore the highest power (summum imperium) to the provincial
States, the Dutch had been forced to take up arms; for this reason they united
themselves in the Union of Utrecht, ‘the only cornerstone and foundation of
this entire confederated alliance’. 76 Three remarks, however, merit attention.
First, in the Dutch translation of the Commentariolus that conglomerate of
seventeen provinces that contemporaries called the Low Countries is indicated
with the singular term ‘Nederlandt’. 77 We have seen this ‘singular view’
before in the Dutch translation of Boxhorn’s Oratio panegyrica de Belgarum
pace, in which Boxhorn had lamented the disintegration of the ‘Dutch body’;
this theme is also visible in the Commentariolus. 78 Second, the Commentariolus
traces the beginning of the tyranny that had befallen the Dutch provinces
not to the reign of Philip II but further back in time to the reign of emperor
Rowen, “The Revolution That wasn’t: The Coup d`État of 1650 in Holland”, in Craige E. Harline (ed.),
The Rhyme and Reason of Politics in Early Modern Europe: Collected Essays of Herbert H. Rowen (Kluwer
Academic Publishers; Dordrecht/Boston/London, 1992), p. 78.
75 The Commentariolus, as it was published in 1649, consists of twelve chapters. They deal with
the following issues: the origin of the United Provinces as an independent political entity and its laws;
the way the Union exercises its power, and the Union’s supreme council; the admiralities; the offices of
captain-general and stadholder; the Republic’s main defences; the Republic’s alliances; the organisation
of the two Dutch India Companies; the reasons why the Union of Utrecht will endure; the organisation
of the provincial government, especially that of Holland; the organisation of Holland’s urban governments;
Holland’s main sources of income. Thus, the Commentariolus first deals with issues that concern
the greater entity, the Union, before exploring its constituent parts, the provinces, with Holland, the
most dominant province, serving as an example for the rest.
76 Boxhorn, Commentariolus, I.5, p. 6. ‘Sic factum est, ut anno 1579. foedus inter eas iniretur Vltrajecti,
& inde Vltrajectinum est appellatum, totius istius foederatae societatis columen unicum ac fundamentum.’
77 Idem, Politijck hant-boecxken, van de Staet van ’t Nederlandt, I.1, p. 2. ‘Nederlandt is begrepen in
seventhien Provincien, ende nae dat eenighen het ghebiedt der Spanjaerden hadden afghezwooren, soo
wort het huyden verdeeldt in het Spaensche ende Vereenighde.’
78 See chapter 4.