Edward II | Themes

Politics: Machiavellian Style
In Elizabethan England, Niccolo Machiavelli's Il Principe (The Prince, 1505) was considered a treatise on the science of evil statesmanship because it outlined how a cunning tyrant could, through brutal and forceful measures, take and maintain control over a region and a people. In fact, it seemed a veritable handbook for tyranny, with its exhortation that "It is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity." Although The Prince advocates morality...

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