Foundations of law: the master/father of a political house

The proverb wants it that when God closes a door, he will open a window. Politically speaking such an alternative window cannot be opened so easily, since the opening up of a new world implies the attempt to close another. I will be dealing with such an attempt in this chapter, an attempt provoked by the opening of another world: a republican one. The Republic had come into being because of the fact that subjects could no longer accept life under the rule of a tyrant. The term ‘tyranny’ had a considerable background in medieval and classical history, but in the years leading up to the Dutch Republic its most direct connotation was King Philip II. With the Plakkaat van Verlatinge, or Act of Abjuration, the States-General of the United Provinces of the Low Countries had proclaimed in 1581:

The word ‘tyrant’ (tyran) is explicitly used in the text, indicating a ruler who considers his subjects to be slaves. In contrast and originally, so the Act argues, this is not how God conceived of ‘people’. Yet, although the English translation uses the term ‘people,’ here, the original uses a specifical politico-juridical term: ondersaten, that is to say: subjects. And even though the translator's choice of ‘people’ could be called adequate, it is only so in the most general sense.