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

Chapter 9. The working of politics. The Disquisitiones politicae
ing principle if tensions arise between the well-being of the commonwealth
and the subjects’ rights: ancient laws, present-day needs, or expectations
about the future?
Past, present, future.
The direction of politics
In two specific cases Boxhorn addresses the tensions between the well-being
of the commonwealth and the subjects’ rights and privileges head on. The
first case concerns the siege of Antwerp in 1584-85. During the siege there
had been heated debates in the town about who should lead its defence: a
new ‘extraordinary authority’ or, as was customary, the entire town council?
In the end those who defended the ‘ancient constitution’ had won the day:
a new ‘extraordinary authority’, they had pleaded, was against the ancient
privileges and a new law to make a new ‘extraordinary authority’ possible
would diminish the legitimacy of the laws already in force. The result was
disastrous: without any central steering the town’s defenders were no match
for the troops of Alexander Farnese (1545-1592), the duke of Parma; the town
fell and was plundered by her besiegers. 54 Boxhorn’s conclusion is as harsh
as it is clear.
315
Public privileges should not be taken for granted, when, with the
changing of circumstances and times, they can do more harm than
good. Thus, to use them continuously and unchanged, is rather
stubbornness than prudence. Everything should be adjusted to the
circumstances and times. The old order of commanding that is presented
in extraordinary circumstances and that is acquired for other
circumstances, is, if it is kept without interruption, confusion, not
order in the commonwealth. 55
populi suprema lex esto.’ This is at least the way James Steuart read Boxhorn’s defence of jus dominationis.
See Steuart, Jus Populi Vindicatum, p. 154.
54 For the internal conflicts among the defenders of Antwerp during the siege of 1584-85, see C.E.H.J.
Verhoef, De val van Antwerpen in 1585 (De Vries-Brouwers; Amsterdam/Antwerp, 1985), pp. 21-25.
55 Boxhorn, Disquisitiones politicae, XXXIII, p. 154. ‘Privilegia publica, uti non indulta haberi debent,
cum mutata rerum ac temporum conditione nocere magis possunt quam prodesse. In perpetuo igitur &
immoto ipsorum usu, non tam prudentia est, quam contumacia. Omnia rebus ac temporibus accommodanda
sunt. Vetus Imperii ordo in extraordinariis rebus oblatus, & ad res alias comparatus, si continuo
observatur, confusio in Republica est non ordo.’ Idem, Arcana Imperii Detecta, XX, p. 91. ‘Publick Priviledges
ought to be esteemed as if they were not in being, when, upon the Change of the Circumstances
of Times and Things, they may do more hurt than good; and therefore to use them constantly and
without intermission, does not savour so much of Prudence as Obstinancy: All things are to be suited