1

new life to the dead body of civil law, and gave a fresh impulse to the study of Roman and international law, which, before Grotius, he attempted to establish on a non-theological basis.2 His De Jure Belli combined for the first time, it is said, the practical discussions of Catholic theologians with the Protestant theory of natural law. It criticised and systematized the rules for the conduct of warfare, and has been called a legal commentary on the events of the sixteenth century. ✓ In addition to this he wrote an apology for Machiavelli, and also a treatise favoring the supreme power of the prince, which he dedicated to James the First.* Herein he tried to prove the prince to be an absolute monarch, and have arbitrary power over the lives and estates of his people. Since the people had conferred on him all their rule and power, he need acknowledge no superior but God, whose will was sufficient reason, and whose reason was absolute law. The prince possessed and enjoyed dominion over everything; he was above the civil law, and only under the law of God, of nature and of nations. He was cautioned, however, to use his power justly, otherwise trouble would follow. This book by Gentile was not many years later to call forth an indignant Puritan refutation." "The author's

1 Fulbeck, Direction to the Study of Law, 1620.

2 Il Principe, Preface by Burd, p. 63.

8 Contained in De legationibus libri tres, London, 1585. * Regales Disputationes Tres de Potestate Regis Absolutis, 1605.

5 England's Monarch, or a conviction and refutation by the Common Law of those false principles and insinuating flatteries

name is Albericus, . . . what countryman I know not, but his name as also his principles seem to speak him a stranger by birth." The ideas underlying absolute monarchy were not English; their root was foreign, and British soil did not prove congenial to their growth. In most cases Machiavelli was regarded as their promoter and prime mover; for his English readers of that time abstracted from his writings only the arguments favoring the absolute rule of the prince. To sixteenth century Europe, Machiavelli represented✓ something entirely different from what we see in him to-day; to the men of the Renaissance, he seemed the apologist of tyranny, the teacher of subtle methods of how to enslave a free people. He was in fact known rather by the books of his opponents than his own writings, which were not translated till later. Innocent Gentillet, a French Huguenot, wrote the most celebrated of these denunciations, and fixed on Machiavelli the responsibility for the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, pointing out the supposed influence of the great Florentine on the politics and statecraft of the time. From this book, most subsequent denunciations were taken. In its English rendering' the translator referred to Machiavelli taking faith away from princes, authority and majesty from laws, and liberty

of Albericus. . . . Together with a general confutation all absolute monarchy, London, 1644.

1 A Discourse upon the means of well-governing a kingdom against Nicholas Machiavell the Florentine (by I. Gentillet). Translated into the English by Simon Patericke, London, 1602.

X

from the people, and called his book "this deadly poison sent out of Italy." A like opinion of Machiavelli was then current in England. Contemporary literature was full of it. Men judged him rather from hearsay than by his actual writings, though they too were known. A whole school grew up, whose conception of statecraft, resting on a common basis of falsehood and fraud, exaggerated his ideas.1 Carefully selected passages in Gentillet further convinced Englishmen of his wickedness. His influence with the dramatists, especially Greene and Marlowe, will be considered later, but in ordinary life and conversation his very name passed into a byword. Some idea of his general reputation may perhaps be obtained from a letter of advice written by a friend to a young Englishman in Italy' of how best to profit from his travels; after urging him to study the Italian language and civil law, he advised him to read the Discourse on Livy, by one whom he called the "vile, treacherous, devilish person whom you would call him devil is Machiavelli." He should remember, however, that to be called by his name was a disgrace and an infamy. Machiavelli's influence was thus, in part, an imaginary one, many things being attributed to him which he never advocated. At the same time, the new spirit of rational inquiry in state affairs, the historic sense and illustration, and even the leaning toward absolutism, can all be traced

1 Janet, Science Politique, I, 542.

2 All Souls Library (Oxford), Ms. CLV, f. 77 b, dated 27th February, 1599.

n the influence of his writings. His popularity in England was shown in other ways: Gabriel Harvey, fresh from Cambridge, asked for the books of "the great founder and master of policies," claiming that his works had supplanted all others; and the Prince and Discourses, it is said, were both printed in London at this time.2

III

Nannini's Civil Considerations, a treatise on practical government based on Guicciardini, was only one of the numerous Italian books then translated into English. More important than the problems it discussed, and the working side of the state it presented, in preference to its theoretical ideal, was its new method of treatment by historical illustrations. Questions were put in their relation to actual life, and not the ideal possibilities they might contain.

Another book of this period in which the influence of the Italian method can be found was Sir Thomas Smith's work on England, written on a plan similar to Contarini's Venice. Smith, it should be remembered, had studied under Alciati, the reformer of civil law, and listened to Accoramboni and Rubeo, at Padua, where he graduated a doctor of laws. The book he was later to write showed the power of systematic analysis so characteristic of the Italian treatises of the time. In discussing the merits of different

1 Letter-Book, p. 174 et seq.

2 Nineteenth Century, December, 1896, p. 915.

forms of government, he gave the qualities and defects of each, considering that state the best which was most in accordance with the nature of its people.

The actual influence of the Italian historical method was gathered not only from books but from men; Tito Livio of Forli and Polydore Vergil offered early instances of Italian historians in England, and later Pietro Bizari came over as well. On the other hand, Nicholas Sanders, an English controversialist and historian, remained long in Rome, where he lived under the protection of Cardinal Morone.

The Italian influence in William Thomas was evident in his historical work. In the History of Italy, before describing the sights of each city came an account of the place, written, as he frankly stated,' by comparing together the works of different authors; he borrowed especially from Machiavelli's account of Florence. Machiavelli's history was later translated by Bedingfield,' who prefaced the book with his arguments in favor of absolute monarchy. The history itself equalled or excelled, in his judgment, any hitherto written, not only in the method of presentation, but on account of the observations of the author, who left aside all partiality and flattery and tried only to arrive at the truth. His method of writing was to set forth the causes and effects of every action rather than to extoll or condemn the per

1 Op. cit., p. 140.

2 The Florentine History, translated by T[homas] B[edingfield], 1595.