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

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Chapter 9. The working of politics. The Disquisitiones politicae
down now, Alva continued, he would lose his authority; only through violence
could the king hope to restore the Netherlands to its original state of
obedience.
Philip II, as we all know, chose to follow the advise of the duke of Alva and
lost a part of his Dutch dominions.
And if anyone should ask me why this is so, I may come up with no
other reason, than that that advice of Alva could be more easily supported
with reasons during deliberations, than that it could be carried
out effectively in this state of affairs and times. Thus, advices concerning
public matters should not only be weight simply according to
[their] reasons, but should also be weight seriously according to the
future possibility or impossibility of carrying them out. 71
In the Institutiones politicae Boxhorn had explained that to find out what is
possible or impossible in this or that situation demanded of the policy maker
that he was well informed about the local circumstances, the people’s character,
and the commonwealth’s institutions. It is here where history, as a methodological
tool of investigation, plays a crucial role. Then, after acquiring this
knowledge, he should led his political decisions be guided by it; ‘everything
should be adjusted to the circumstances and times.’ 72 Philip II had failed to do
so, for he underestimated the Dutch zeal to protect their freedom, a mistake
that cost him dearly. 73
In this sense, then, the Disquisitiones politicae gives a firm expression to
what Boxhorn also expounds in the first chapter of the Institutiones politicae:
71 Ibidem, p. 274. ‘Cujus rei si quis ex me causam quaeret, non aliam attulerim, quam quod hoc
Albani consilium facilius inter deliberandum rationibus probari poterat, quam hoc rerum ac temporum
statu executioni utiliter mandari. Publica consilia igitur non ex rationibus simpliciter; sed ex futura
etiam executione possibili aut impossibili expendenda serio sunt.’ Boxhorn, Arcana Imperii Detecta, LXV,
p. 338. ‘… the reason whereof, if any should ask me, I should give no other than this; That it was an
easier matter in a Debate to approve of this advice of the Duke of Alva, and the Reasons thereof, than in
that state of Time and Things, to put the same purpose in execution; thereof publick Councels are not
simply to be weighed by the Reasons given for them, but the possibility or impossibility of the future
execution of them ought seriously to be considered.’ For the discussions in the secret council of Philip
II during the first years of the Dutch Revolt, see Geoffrey Parker, The Grand Strategy of Philip II (Yale
University Press; New Haven/London, 1st ed. 1998, 2000), pp. 115-46, and Koenigsberger, Monarchies,
States Generals and Parliaments, pp. 216-24.
72 Ibidem, XXXIII, p. 154. ‘Omnia rebus ac temporibus accommodanda sunt.’
73 For a more positive verdict on Philip’s decision-making capacities, see Boxhorn, Institutiones
politicae, I.1, p. 6. ‘Prout itaque ingenia, & tempora patiuntur, ita in usu scientia mutari debet; In ingeniis
respiciendum, ut volentibus imperia imponantur & illa quae efficere possint: In tempore maximè
ad futura respiciendum. Quâ arte excelluit Philippus II. Hispaniarum Rex, qui omnia sua consilia ad
futurum tempus dirigebat.’ In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Philip II’s prudentia had become
almost proverbial.