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

Chapter 5. Times of trouble. Taking a stand
to recruit or discharge soldiers, nor to pay them. These rights remain in the
hands of the States General, whose permission the captain-general needs for
every military action he wants to take. 129 During military campaigns his powers
are less restricted; he can, for example, appoint who ever he wants and
he may execute punishments to enforce military discipline. 130 He also has the
right to sit in the Council of State and thus partake in decision-making.
The stadholderate is a provincial office and the prerogatives connected
to this office differ in every province. 131 The same goes for the stadholder’s
authority (auctoritas), even more so, since within each province a distinction
can be made between the authority the stadholder has because of his office
and because of his assets. 132 The stadholder’s main task is to see to it that
the decisions that are made by the States General or the provincial States are
indeed executed. The stadholder is obligated to swear obedience to the States
General and to the provincial States. 133 Within the States General and the provincial
States ‘he has no other authority than to give advice’. 134 However, he
129 Boxhorn, Commentariolus, IV.6-8, pp. 57-59. Thus, Maurits, although he vigorously opposed the
plan, was compelled to lead the army to do battle at Nieuwpoort, a decision ‘that held as much foolishness,
as its outcome was fortunate’. Idem, Institutiones politicae, I.12, p. 200. ‘Belgae sanè pro arcano
Dominationis id habent, ne unquam praelio decernant, & unicum ferè tantum eorum praelium sub
Mauritio Flandricum memoratur, in quo ipso tantum in consilio imprudentiae fuit, quantum in eventu
felicitatis.’ C.E.H.J. Verhoef, Nieuwpoort 1600: de bekendste slag uit de Tachtigjarige Oorlog (Aspekt; Soesterberg,
2000), pp. 54-56. Thus, the States General’s deputies in Frederik Hendrik’s camp insisted that he
would withdraw the army when, in 1631, it faced the Spanish army at the canal from Ghent to Bruges.
However much Frederik Hendrik disliked this kind of interference, he preferred to keep the deputies
close at hand ‘because their presence facilitated approval of his plans and activities by the States General’.
Herbert H. Rowen, The Princes of Orange: The Stadholders in the Dutch Republic (Cambridge University
Press; Cambridge, 1 st ed. 1988, 1990), p. 62. This enabled Frederik Hendrik to operate more freely
than his predecessors ever had done. He did so probably much too Boxhorn’s liking. In the Institutiones
politicae Boxhorn explained the logic of having a general who was not bound by the restrictions that
were laid upon him by his principals. Boxhorn, Institutiones politicae, I.12.24, pp. 186-87. ‘Imperator …
& libera potius utatur, quam mandatorum legibus adstricta potestate, praesertim iis in bellis gerundis,
quorum diversi casus ante consilia & mandata non possunt provideri …’
130 Ibidem, IV.6-8, pp. 57-59.
131 Thus, in the province of Zeeland the stadholder was the first nobleman and owned the marquisates
of Vlissingen and Veere, giving him three of the seven votes in the provincial States. Boxhorn,
Commentariolus, pp. 68-69.
132 Within the province of Holland, for example, the towns Leerdam (city rights in 1407), Ysselstein
(city rights between 1331-1360), and Geertruidenberg (city rights since 1213; the town was sold by the
English to the Spaniards in 1589 and recaptured by Maurits in 1593) were the property of the prince of
Orange, who at the same time was also the stadholder of Holland. See Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Toneel
ofte beschryvinge Der Steden van Hollandt … (Jacob Keyns; Amsterdam, 1634), pp. 290, 303, 311.
133 Boxhorn, Commentariolus, IV.10-14, pp. 61-63. In the first ten years after the Union of Utrecht was
signed it was common that the States General appointed a stadholder at the province’s request. The
stadholder first swore an oath to the States General and then to the provincial States. In the seventeenth
century, however, this custom changed and the election and appointment became an exclusive provincial
affair. Fruin, Geschiedenis der Staatsinstellingen, pp. 214-15.
134 Ibidem, IV.26, pp. 66-67. ‘In Comitiis Ordinum vel Generalium vel Particularium nullam nisi
consulendi habet authoritatem, quare & receptum nunc moribus est, ut Ordinum, qui Hagae agunt,
Syndici, Praesidesque quotidie ante horam Conventui indictam, conveniant Gubernatorem, ejusque
sententiam perrogent, de iis, quae ventura sunt in deliberationem.’
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