Quidditas Volume 41 Article 7 2020 Explanations and Justifications of arW in the British Kingdoms in the Seventeenth Century Roger B. Manning Cleveland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/rmmra Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, History Commons, Philosophy Commons, and the Renaissance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Manning, Roger B. (2020) "Explanations and Justifications of arW in the British Kingdoms in the Seventeenth Century," Quidditas: Vol. 41 , Article 7. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/rmmra/vol41/iss1/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Quidditas by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact
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[email protected]. Quidditas 41 (2020) 134 Explanations and Justifications of War in the British Kingdoms in the Seventeenth Century Roger B. Manning Cleveland State University The influence of Machiavelli on English and Scottish political discourse can be detected not just on politicians and military men, but also among clerics and the well educated elite– even when they do not cite him directly. In England and Scotland, as in mainland European countries, Machiavellian discourse placed war at the center of discussion. Some justified their bellicosity in the secularized language of Roman historians and Italian humanists and thought that since war was the main theme of history and could be regarded as an inevitable phenomenon, England might as well profit by it. This necessarily brought England into conflict with the Spanish in the Low Countries, on the high seas and in the Indies.