28
August 1645 A.D. Hugo
Grotius Dies—Arminianism, Calvinism, Law, Government & 30-Years War
Onuma,
Yasuki. “Hugo Grotius.” Encyclopedia
Britannica. 20 Aug 2013. http://www.britannica.com/bps/user-profile/5583/yasuaki-onuma. Accessed 19 May 2014.
Hugo Grotius, Dutch
Huigh de Groot (born April 10,
1583, Delft, Netherlands—died August 28, 1645, Rostock, Mecklenburg-Schwerin), Dutch jurist and scholar whose masterpiece De
Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625; On
the Law of War and Peace) is considered one of the
greatest contributions to the development of international
law. Also a statesman and diplomat, Grotius has been called the
“father of international law.” 
Early life
Grotius’s father, a
learned man, had been burgomaster of Delft and curator of the recently founded Leiden University (courses then would be similar to high-school classes today).
An extremely gifted child, Hugo Grotius wrote Latin elegies at age 8 and became a student of the
arts faculty at Leiden University at age 11. He studied under
the renowned humanist Joseph
Scaliger, who contributed greatly to Grotius’s development as a
philologist.
In 1598 he
accompanied Johann
van Oldenbarnevelt, the leading Dutch statesman, to France, where he met Henry
IV, who called Grotius the “miracle of Holland.” This
experience is reflected in Pontifex
Romanus (1598), which comprises six monologues on the current
political situation. In 1599 he settled in The
Hague as an advocate, lodging for a time with the court preacher
and theologian Johannes Uyttenbogaert.
In 1601 the States
of Holland requested from Grotius an account of the United Provinces’ revolt against Spain. The resulting work, covering the period from 1559 to 1609, was written in
the manner of the Roman historian Tacitus. Although it was largely finished by 1612, it was published only
posthumously in 1657 as Annales
et Historiae de Rebus Belgicis (“Annals and
Histories of the Revolts of the Low Countries”).
Throughout his life
Grotius wrote in a variety of fields. He edited, with commentary, an
encyclopaedic work on the seven liberal arts by the North African poet Martianus
Capella and the Phaenomena by the Greek astronomer Aratus of Soli. He wrote a number of philological works and a drama, Adamus
Exul (1601; Adam in Exile), which was greatly admired by
the English poet John
Milton. Grotius also published many theological and
politico-theological works, including De
Veritate Religionis Christianae (1627; The
Truth of the Christian Religion), the book that in his
lifetime probably enjoyed the highest popularity among his works.
Involvement in politics
Grotius was deeply
involved in Dutch politics. In the early 17th century the united kingdom of
Spain and Portugal claimed a monopoly on trade with the East Indies. In 1604, after a Dutch admiral had seized the
Portuguese vessel Santa Catarina,
the Dutch
East India Company asked Grotius to produce a work legally defending
the action on the ground that, by claiming a monopoly on the right of trade,
Spain-Portugal had deprived the Dutch of their natural trading rights. The
work, De Jure
Praedae (On the Law of Prize
and Booty), remained unpublished during his lifetime, except for
one chapter—in which Grotius defends free access to the ocean for all
nations—which appeared under the famous title Mare
Liberum (The Freedom of the
Seas) in 1609. The work buttressed the Dutch position in the
negotiations regarding the Twelve Years’ Truce concluded that year with Spain
and was widely circulated and often reprinted.
In 1607 Grotius was
appointed advocaat-fiscaal
(attorney general) of the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, and West Friesland. In the following year he married Maria van Reigersberch, the daughter of
the burgomaster of Veere, an intelligent and courageous woman who stood by him
unwaveringly in the difficult years to come. A member of the Remonstrants (primarily upper-class “regents” siding with Jacobus
Arminius’s tolerant Protestantism), Grotius was engaged in the
bitter political struggle under Oldenbarnevelt
against the Gomarists (orthodox Calvinists led by Franciscus
Gomarus who were dominant among the ministers and the populace),
who were under the leadership of Prince Maurice, for control of the country.
In 1618 Maurice, using his military powers in a coup d’état, ordered the arrest of
Arminian leaders. Oldenbarnevelt was executed for high treason, and Grotius was
sentenced to life imprisonment in the fortress of Loevestein. In 1621, with the aid of his wife, Grotius
made a dramatic escape from the castle by hiding in a chest of books. He fled
to Antwerp and finally to Paris, where he stayed until 1631 under the patronage
of Louis
XIII.
Life in exile: De Jure Belli ac Pacis
While in Paris,
Grotius published his legal masterpiece, De
Jure Belli ac Pacis, in 1625. In writing this
work, which made full use of De
Jure Praedae, he was strongly influenced by the
bitter, violent political struggles both in his own country and in Europe more
broadly, particularly the Thirty
Years’ War, which had broken out in 1618. In one famous passage of De
Jure Belli ac Pacis, Grotius wrote that,
[f]ully convinced…that there is a
common law among nations, which is valid alike
for war and in war, I have had many and weighty reasons for undertaking to write upon this
subject. Throughout the Christian world I observed a lack of restraint in
relation to war, such as even barbarous nations should be ashamed of.
(Prolegomena, 28.)
Grotius sought to
achieve his practical objective to minimize bloodshed in wars by constructing a
general theory of law (jurisprudentia) that would restrain and regulate war between various independent powers,
including states.
Following Roman
law and the work of the Stoics, Grotius placed natural
law at the centre of his jurisprudentia. He argued that a law deduced from man’s inherent nature would have a degree
of validity
even if we should concede that which cannot be conceded
without the utmost wickedness, that there is no God, or that the affairs of men
are of no concern to Him. (Prolegomena, 11.)
He made this daring
argument because he believed that natural law—the most important tool to
restrain and regulate wars in Europe—must be independent of religion, applying to all people regardless of their religious beliefs. He
realized, however, that the goal of restraining and regulating war could not be
achieved by secular law alone. He thus reintroduced various elements of Christianity into his jurisprudentia.
Grotius has often been quoted to “secularize” law or natural
law, but the so-called secularization of law was
hypothetical rather than categorical. In order to understand this critical
character of law in De Jure Belli ac
Pacis, one must understand the entire structure of his
argumentation.
Grotius adopts a
multilayered structure of norms, including various religious ones, to restrain
and regulate both the resort to war and violence in warfare. When Grotius found
it difficult to persuade various kinds of rulers to refrain from resorting to
war or committing cruel acts during the war by means of secular norms either by
natural law or law of nations, he did not hesitate to resort to “law of God,”
mainly taken from the Old Testament, or “law of love” and other similar norms
taken from the New Testament. He even relied on the argument based on utility
as a last resort when he found it difficult to discourage political leaders to
refrain from violence by means of normative argument alone, though he wrote
that consideration of utility was not his concern. This multilayered character
of the argumentation was the vital means to achieve his practical goal:
minimizing bloodshed.
Grotius believed
that only wars with just
causes should be allowed. Because there is no judge for judicial settlement
between nations, war as a means to solve conflicts must be tolerated. However,
causes of war should be limited to causes for litigation. For example, the
defense and restitution of things are just causes of war (see
also just
war). He also developed a theory of crime and punishment, which he used to characterize certain wars as just punishment for crimes
committed by independent powers, including states.
Later life
Prince Maurice died
in 1625, and in 1631 Grotius returned to Holland. After intense debate in the
States of Holland, Grotius was again threatened with arrest. In 1632 he went to
Hamburg, then the centre of Franco-Swedish diplomatic relations. In 1634 the Swedish
chancellor, Axel,
Count Oxenstierna, offered him the position of Swedish
ambassador in Paris. Grotius accepted the appointment and Swedish citizenship.
He settled again in Paris, but his life as a diplomat was not as successful as
his life as a scholar.
In 1636–37 he
worked on the Historia Gotthorum, Vandalorum et
Langobardorum (“History of the Goths, Vandals, and
Lombards”). He showed great interest in the reunification of the Christian
church and published a number of works dealing with this subject. He also
revised, again and again, De Jure Belli ac
Pacis; the last edition including his own revision was
published in 1646, shortly after his death. On the other hand, Grotius was not
appointed to be a negotiator at the important peace conferences of Münster and
Osnabrück that finally resulted in the Peace
of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years’ War. In 1644 Grotius was
relieved of his post of ambassador in Paris. After consultations with Queen Christina, he left Stockholm for Lübeck on Aug. 12, 1645, but was shipwrecked on the
coast of eastern Pomerania. The great man, great not only in the history of international
law but also in natural law, civil law, criminal law, and
modern humanities, soon died of exhaustion at Rostock.
Assessment
Grotius designed
his theory to apply not only to states but also to rulers and subjects of law
in general. De Jure Belli ac Pacis
thus proved useful in the later development of theories of both private and
criminal law. It is in the area of international law, however, that Grotius’s
masterpiece has been most influential. Its general normative framework provided
a foundation to constitute and regulate relations between emerging sovereign
states, which became the basic units of modern international society.
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