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

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Chapter 5. Times of trouble. Taking a stand
Union did not mean the end of all these internal disputes, but it was decided
to postpone them ‘until better and more convenient times’. Instead of fighting
among each other over pretended rights, it was considered that it would be
better to unite and fight their common enemy ‘for the preservation of freedom
and the right of all’. 84 The more rich and powerful provinces, however,
had objected that the Union would make them weaker and poorer because it
obliged them to help the poorer and weaker provinces. This complaint was
refuted and with success, because ‘if they would help each other it would be
everybody’s fortune’.
Therefore, the most powerful should consider that they were not so
much helping those who are weaker, as they would be promoting
their own cause through those who are weaker. Finally, they should
once again consider that the power and wealth they would spend to
help those who are weaker, would not so much decline, but rather
increase and grow stronger by the support and loyalty of those who
are weaker. 85
The Union of Utrecht, the foundation of the Dutch Republic, then, was not a
union of love, but a marriage of interests, one out of sheer necessity, amid an
epic struggle between the forces of good and evil. This somewhat reluctant
nature of the Republic’s foundation is also reflected in the development of
what might be called the Republic’s ‘political infrastructure’. First, the deputies
of the provincial States were gathered in the General States of the United
Low Countries that functioned as a sort ad hoc council of war with William
restitution of goods to those Catholics formerly living in Holland and Zeeland, and who fall under
the Pacification of Gent. Article 15 arranges financial compensation to those people who have left, are
will be leaving any convent or monastery. Articles 23, 24, and 25 concern the oaths the stadholders, the
magistrates, and the officers of each province and those who were employed by the Union had to take
on upholding the articles of the Union and the militia. Robert Fruin, Geschiedenis der staatsinstellingen
in Nederland tot den val der Republiek. Uitgegeven door Dr. H.T. Colenbrander (Martinus Nijhoff; The
Hague, 1901), pp. 366-92.
84 Boxhorn, Commentariolus, I.6, p. 18. ‘Verum exceptum ab aliis est, earum rerum cognitionem
in meliora & opportuna magis tempora rejici oportere. Non enim litigandum nunc singulis de jure,
quod in alterum praetenderent, sed communem adversus hostem conjunctis animis litigandum de juris
omnium ac libertatis conservatione.’
85 Ibidem, I.7, p. 19. ‘Quae caeteris potentiores ditioresque erant ditiones, tantò infirmiores pauperioresque
se futuras causabantur, si infirmioribus pauperioribusque juvandis ex foedere obstringerentur.
At verò contra ab aliis exceptum est, non jam considerandum venire, quae ditio potentiâ & opibus
major sit, quae inferior, sed quàm par, nisi mutuo se auxilio complecterentur, futura esset singularum
fortuna. Itaque animadverterent Potentiores, non tam se adjuturas infirmiores, quàm infirmioribus se
esse necessariò juvandas. Denique ad animum suum revocarent, non tam imminui potentiam suam &
opes in subsidium infirmiorum collatas, quam qualicunque etiam operá & fide infirmiorum augeri &
confirmari.’