Reginald Pole and the the Reception of the Principe in Henrician England

Allusions to Machiavelli’s Principe in early Tudor England include two diametrically opposed evaluations: in his Apologia ad Carolum Quintum, written in 1539, Cardinal Reginald Pole refers to the book as “scriptum ab hoste humani generis ... Satanae digito scriptum”; on the other hand, in a letter dated 13 February 1539 which accompanied the gift of an Italian copy of the Istorie Fiorentine, Henry Parker, Lord Morley, urged Thomas Cromwell to read both this book and the Principe, adding a short description of both, and noting how the Principe in particular was “surely a good thing for your Lordship and for our Sovereign Lord in Council”. Traditionally, the Tudor reception of Machiavelli has been read as superficial and impressionistic at best: both the admiration and the revulsion he inspired were dictated, in the opinion of scholars, not by an actual knowledge of the Florentine’s works but by the bogus image that was presented on the Elizabethan stage, or fearfully evoked on the pages of sensational and polemical pamphlets. Instead, the two reactions quoted above spring from an attentive and detailed knowledge of Machiavelli’s works: both Pole and Parker were scrupulous readers, and their knowledge of the Principe is evident if we examine their writings. Their diametrically opposite reactions thus become symptoms of an interesting phenomenon: they help us to gauge the extent to which Machiavelli’s works, then as now, could be used by their readers, variously interpreted to suit different ideological purposes or opposite political manoeuvres. At the same time, Pole’s and Parker’s reactions can offer useful indication to the penetration of Machiavelli’s works in the England of Henry VIII. There is little doubt that the Principe, in its early Italian editions, had already crossed the Channel: while the copies of Machiavelli’s works sent to Cromwell have been identified with the 1532 Giunta editions, Reginald Pole’s attack was answered by Richard Morison, who in his Invective ayenste the great and detestable vice, treason (1539) included a passage warning against conspiracy based upon the Discorsi sopra la Prima Deca di Tito Livio: as Sydney Anglo has noted, this makes the passage “the earliest published translation into English of any part of Machiavelli’s work”. While Machiavelli’s name was not yet a byword, his works were already available, and circulated in their original version: the case is further supported by the existence of the so-called Charlecote manuscript, one of the very few Italian manuscripts of the Principe that belong to the period between Machiavelli’s composition of the work (1513) and its first printing (1532), and is now in Charlecote Park, Warwickshire. After surveying what is known of the circulation of Machiavelli’s Principe in Henrician England, the present essay intends to focus on Pole’s Apologia, read as a case study for the reception of the controversial work.