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Chapter 6 - Sidney’s Rebellious Vision

from Part III - Works of Exile

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

Gaby Mahlberg
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Summary

Chapter 6 focuses on the republican vision set out in Algernon Sidney’s posthumously published Court Maxims, which can be read as call to arms directed at the exile community on the Continent. This short work, written in the form of a philosophical dialogue, openly condemns the Restoration monarchy in England as tyrannical and calls for rebellion against the Stuarts. What marks out Court Maxims as a work of exile is Sidney’s increasing preoccupation with the balance of power in Europe, which he now came to see from another perspective as he was lobbying foreign governments to support his cause. Yet Court Maxims is also a deeply religious and heartfelt work, whose emotive attacks on the tyranny of the Stuarts and the persecution of Protestant dissenters ally Sidney at times more closely with Ludlow and a radical Puritan agenda than with the level-headed classical constitutionalism of Neville. Court Maxims also shares many key points with Sidney’s later Discourses, including its attack on divine-right patriarchalism, absolutism and the hereditary principle. Both works also address the issue of conquest and the people’s right to rise against unjust rulers, and advocate the rule of law and religious liberty.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Sidney’s Rebellious Vision
  • Gaby Mahlberg, University of Warwick
  • Book: The English Republican Exiles in Europe during the Restoration
  • Online publication: 18 September 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108894463.010
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  • Sidney’s Rebellious Vision
  • Gaby Mahlberg, University of Warwick
  • Book: The English Republican Exiles in Europe during the Restoration
  • Online publication: 18 September 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108894463.010
Available formats
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  • Sidney’s Rebellious Vision
  • Gaby Mahlberg, University of Warwick
  • Book: The English Republican Exiles in Europe during the Restoration
  • Online publication: 18 September 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108894463.010
Available formats
×