Spinoza vol 3 ebook: Chapter 2: Gender, Dowries and Inheriting the Throne (in the TP)

Chapter 2: Gender, Dowries and Inheriting the Throne 

In the previous chapter, I discussed the controversy surrounding Spinoza’s views on the political life of women in the TP. In this chapter, I shall focus on another aspect of political life and death – the unique situation of how the life and death of a monarch impacts on inheriting the throne and the state or empire which comes with it. I shall extend the feminist philosophy aspect of my interpretation of Spinoza by analysing another passage on the social status of women in his TP. Here, I unpick the various possible meanings of a sentence in Spinoza's chapter 6 of the TP about inheriting the throne, the line of succession and royal dowries and relate it to points he makes in chapter 7 of his TP about royal inheritance and choosing a successor. The key sentence is:

“37. Imperium indivisibile esse debet. Si igitur rex plures liberos procreaverit, illorum maior natu iure succedat, minime autem concedendum, ut imperium inter ipsos dividatur, nec ut indivisum omnibus vel aliquibus tradatur, et multo minus, ut partem imperii dotem filiae dare liceat.”[i]

One way of translating this is, for instance, along the lines of Elwes’s translation:

“The dominion must be indivisible. And so, if the king leaves more than one child, let the eldest one succeed; but by no means be it allowed to divide the dominion between them, or to give it undivided to all or several of them, much less to give a part of it as a daughter's dowry.”[ii]

This is one possible reading of this passage. I'm taking the Latin words in italics to be functioning as a title summary for what follows in section 37. I suggest that, given the TP is an unfinished work intended to be in the form of a mathematical-style deductive demonstration, perhaps the finished treatise would look more similar to the Euclidean style of his Ethics. If so, perhaps the section numbers would, for example, refer to a priori axioms or propositions which would be stated as a heading summary, and the description afterwards would become the synthetic justification, providing a proof for the argument behind the proposition. By working through the propositions and proofs, the reader goes on a journey where they come to realise a body of knowledge and truths through an overarching analytic-style methodology which unfolds the synthetic justifications step by step.

I shall not be using Elwes’s translation of imperium as dominion because, for me, it does not capture Spinoza’s word choice. There are distinct words in Latin for dominion, namely, regnum, ditio (rare Medieval Latin) and dominium. Spinoza knows and uses these (for instance, ditio and dominium in chapter 6 and regnum in chapter 7 of the TP) but does not choose these in this passage. For translation options for imperium see my interlineal chart below. I shall choose the words ‘rule’ or empire from the options below because it reflects Spinoza’s word usage. Empire is a translation option unique to imperium which the other words do not possess so may help to explain why Spinoza chose imperium over other words in this passage. Perhaps he wished to discuss a larger territory and maybe territories which span across many lands so reflected this in his vocabulary here. The word ‘rule’ also encompasses Elwes’s desired meaning of dominion but without the drawback of stretching the precise translation and usage of imperium.

Not advocating giving away part of an empire as a dowry, I suggest, does not pose a feminist problem in itself, regardless of translation. It seems to merely state that one should not divide an empire by giving away part of it to a future husband through the dowry system on marriage. An example of this is when in the 15th century, Margaret of Norway marries James III whereby Norway lost the Shetland Islands and Orkney to Scotland because her dowry was not paid in currency by her father, King of Denmark and Norway, Christian I, since he could not financially afford to do so. Therefore, Scotland acquired the Islands as a financial guarantee in the event of an unpaid dowry. So, presumably, this is one type of situation Spinoza may have had in mind. Another is that a royal daughter is in a position to inherit part of an empire but her family give that inheritance away as a dowry to her future husband when she marries. Thus effectively, her future husband acquires part of an empire off his future wife, who thereby loses her share of the empire, that she could have inherited, by her family essentially selling it off when she marries a man. In this way, he gains what he perhaps would otherwise not be entitled to whereas she loses something she may have otherwise been entitled to through inheritance. This is because, legally, the concept of the dowry involves the future husband profiting from marriage by receiving sole ownership of assets which his bride’s family might have otherwise given their daughter. I think it is worth remembering that this is not a situation a son would find himself in given that dowries were, usually, historically, given by a bride’s family to a groom not vice versa. Therefore, surely this requirement protects royal women? It means she retains her claim to rule over a designated territory and people, does not lose part of her inheritance on marrying a man, and both her assets and the territory are not somehow sold off to a male buyer who wishes to acquire land and power while taking a wife. This not only diminishes the status of the daughter he is marrying, but treats her and her empire/territory/territories as objects to be bought and sold. So, if Spinoza means to disallow this type of circumstance, so much the better! Feminism would conclude the same. It supports justice, both for women and the empire. It is also safer for the empire/territory/territories if men with no claim to the throne do not buy their way into owning or ruling an empire, irrespective of whether the king's daughter ultimately inherits the throne or not. This is the interpretation I think makes the most sense.

Nevertheless, for the purpose of giving a thorough, balanced analysis, I shall offer a further possible option for reading this passage. Although Elwes and I translate dotem as a dowry, or giving a dowry, there is an outside chance that it could also mean a dower, if translated as being the accusative singular of the noun dos, dotis which has a range of meanings including dowry, dower, talent, quality. On this view, filiae would be dative singular (rather than genitive singular or nominative plural) so it would be translated as giving the dower to the daughter in question. A dower refers to a bride or wife acquiring her groom’s or deceased husband’s property or estate so she is provided for in case she becomes a widow. In this case, the property or estate in question is an empire, which, unlike other assets, is potentially politically fraught. It would also disrupt the succession to the throne because the widow would inherit part of his empire (or presumably the whole empire if that were given to her as a dower) instead of his heir who should be first in line to the throne. Hence, if Spinoza had meant dower not dowry, then one can see why he could equally think this is politically inadvisable. However, a problem for this view is that it does not explain the question: why would Spinoza refer to these women as a daughter, rather than a bride, a wife or widow? Or perhaps, more precisely, a daughter-in-law, given that just beforehand, the heirs are written in relation to the king. So the daughter mentioned should be his daughter to fit alongside the overall point of the king’s children being his heirs.

Interestingly, in this passage, when Spinoza is discussing a king’s children, and who is heir to his throne, he uses gender neutral language when referring to the children, until he specifies the daughter. So nothing in this sentence specifies that only sons should be heirs to the throne and inherit an empire but not daughters. No words specifying a male are used in this sentence. Spinoza’s main point seems to be that an empire should not be divided between his children or that several of them inherit the whole empire. This is in keeping with standard royal practice. In the UK, it is expected that future heirs to the throne will be the sole heir, for example, Prince Charles becomes king of the whole of the UK. It is not expected to be divided up or shared between him and his three siblings or that he will share it with other heirs to the throne, namely, Prince William. 

A further point Spinoza makes in this sentence, is that the eldest child succeeds the king by right.  

There are two words here I wish to discuss in the phrase “maior natu”[iii]. Elwes has it down as “the eldest one”[iv]. I think this could be based on the phrase maior natu which means older in relation to age, birth, years. I agree with Elwes that this is the most likely meaning, as the eldest child is usually the heir to the throne. However, I think it is worth bearing in mind that, strictly speaking, the Latin only specifies the comparative ‘older’, not the superlative ‘eldest’. If there were more than two children then, logically, the middle child would be older than the youngest but not the eldest. Why didn’t Spinoza use primogenitus, which specifies the eldest, first-born, rather than maior, which comes from magus merely meaning big or great? The related noun to primogenitus is primogenitum which includes the concept of birth-right and the right of the first-born. So this would have both encompassed the sense of being an heir by right, without needing the additional word for right (iure), as well as saying that this right belongs to the eldest, first-born child. The importance of asking the question why Spinoza wrote maior natu[v] rather than primogenitus is that it impacts on who Spinoza thinks has the greatest right to inherit the throne. Is it the first-born or some other older child who has a greater claim to the throne than the eldest so has a greater right to it? For instance, the eldest child may not survive, meaning one of the surviving older children succeed the throne instead. Also, what if the eldest child of a king is deemed illegitimate at some point?

This has happened in history in very unpredictable ways. One fascinating problem case for analysing Spinoza’s passage on how the king’s children inherit the throne is Henry VIII and his children. While Henry VIII was king, both his legitimate daughters (Mary and Elizabeth) were retrospectively declared illegitimate through acts of parliament, which is a very extraordinary event to happen. Mary was the first-born child to survive, followed by Elizabeth, the only other surviving daughter. The First Succession Act passed 1534, made Mary illegitimate, after “Cranmer declared Henry's marriage” to her mother “invalid” the previous year[vi]. This made Elizabeth heir to the crown. This may show that Spinoza would be right not to assume that the first-born will have a legal right to be the heir to the throne, over younger siblings. I suggest, this provides a good reason why Spinoza chose to describe the child with the right to the crown as the older but not the first-born and emphasises the word for legal right by explicitly using the word “iure”[vii]. If one thinks of Henry VIII’s children, one sees that the heirs in question may be male or female, so Spinoza is correct in stating the King’s child or children in gender neutral terms in this passage, rather than specifying the male gender. Nevertheless, when it came to Henry VIII’s children, matters became more complicated. A Second Succession Act was passed in 1536 which made both half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate. Again, by declaring a child illegitimate, it removed that child from the line of succession to the throne. So neither of Henry VIII’s sole children were legitimate, meaning none of his children would be heirs to the throne, thus, leaving Henry VIII free to nominate whoever he pleased as his successor. This is an important detail because, in his chapter 7[viii], Spinoza argues against a king having the freedom to choose his successor himself.

Simply put, Spinoza argues in the TP that a king cannot transfer his empire “to whom he please” in virtue of having an “absolute right” to be king himself[ix]. The reason for this is that the right of the king is the “will of the multitude”[x].  Hence, according to Spinoza, the king should not will that X takes over in ruling the empire unless the multitude agree with it and also will it[xi]. This helps create a healthy power balance between the monarch and the subjects and encourages a focus on their welfare: “the people’s welfare is the highest law, or the king’s utmost right”[xii] and the monarch is “most independent” when seeking “the multitude’s welfare”[xiii]. Despite this similarity of willing, there is a crucial difference between the king and his subjects. Unlike everyone else who is merely living within the state, the king, however, is the state itself (“rex ipsa civitas”[xiv]).

So, on Spinoza’s view, the very state itself (or an empire) lives and dies with the king[xv]. Hence, “the civil state naturally returns to the state of nature” when a king dies and “the supreme authority” goes back to the multitude[xvi]. The multitude elected the first monarch hence the monarch in power has that position thanks to the multitude[xvii]. That election to be ruled by a monarchy, if possible, should last forever[xviii] but is tenuous if the heir to the throne is unclear. This is why a civil state needs a robust and clear succession line, otherwise supreme authority periodically returns to the multitude on the death of a monarch which, Spinoza argues, is an “an extreme and, therefore, exceedingly dangerous change”[xix]. So Spinoza’s readers come to see why there should be robust succession rules which are followed automatically to ensure there is no such gap in royal supreme authority to maintain political stability by avoiding extreme swings between types of rule, for instance in this case, between rule by monarchy or rule of the multitude. Perhaps Spinoza was sensitive to the civil unrest such swings in rule can cause, through experiencing the conflict between the Orangists (Royalists, named the Prinsgezinden) and the Republicans (Staatsgezinden), which resulted in the murder of the Republican deWitt brothers whom he actively supported. Furthermore, Spinoza’s thinking here is in line with general and current tradition of how future monarchs ascend the throne. They are usually automatically chosen from the existing line of succession which follows succession rules. It is relatively rare that a king makes a statement in letters patent or his will that he wishes to choose his successor, rather than follow the automatic line of succession rules. Nevertheless, both Henry VIII and his son Edward VI did so, illustrating how doing so introduces political and legal confusion and instability.

The third child of Henry VIII to survive infancy was Prince Edward who, as a son, became the heir to the throne. Nonetheless, when Prince Edward was five, the Third Succession Act (1543) reinstated his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth as heirs to the throne, in the event that he dies with no heirs, despite their continued illegitimate status. However, their status as heirs was complex, both in Henry VIII’s will and the third act, because they could not strictly speaking inherit due to their illegitimacy. They are merely permitted to become queen under certain conditions. Thus, on Henry VIII’s death, his son became King Edward VI in virtue of being a male heir, not because he was the first-born or eldest. So again, when discussing children gender neutrally, one cannot assume the first-born has the legal right to assume the throne if male heirs are given priority irrespective of age. Nevertheless, the complexities of inheriting the throne did not end there. King Edward VI tried to choose his next heir by naming Lady Jane Grey as his successor in letters patent in 1553. However, this contravened the Third Succession Act. This is a problem mainly because the letters patent in 1553 were never passed through parliament to become an act so it doesn’t override the Third Succession Act. 

I suggest this is an intriguing possible example of Spinoza’s principle which I interpret as stating that inheriting (adeo: take possession through inheritance) a monarchical empire (imperium monarchicum) should involve establishing (instituendum) that everything happens only by the king’s decree, this is to say, all law is set forth as the will of the king; but on the other hand, by no means is all that the king wills, law[xx]. In other words, every law has been willed by the monarch, and is referred to as the monarch's decree. Nonetheless, everything a monarch wills, including any whims, should not transform into a law of the land. Thus, on acquiring a monarchical empire through inheritance, it should be established that the running of the empire and the laws that are made, will be in accordance with what the monarch decrees. This is on the understanding that the laws are a reflection of what the monarch legitimately wills, not a reflection of something that has been arbitrarily willed  simply in virtue of being the head of the state or empire. 

(The concept of an empire is relevant to Early Modern England because it was considered an empire once parliament passed the Act in Restraint of Appeals so Henry VIII could be divorced from Catherine of Aragon (Mary I’s mother) without permission from the Pope in Rome[xxi]. This Act explicitly states “that this realm of England is an empire”[xxii]. By empire, the act meant that England was “governed by one supreme head and king who possessed 'whole and entire' authority within the realm”[xxiii].) 

However, as Spinoza argues later, those decisions are only binding (laws/justice) when the king has the sovereign power (gladium, lit. sword) of the state (civitatis) in so much as the law/justice of an empire is only determined by political power[xxiv]. This highlights another important difference between monarch and subjects, stemming from the distinction that the monarch is the state itself, not within the state, as other people are. This distinction impacts on what and how one can will in relation to what happens to one’s property after death. A subject wills that x happens to his property after his death. His will lives on after his death and is carried out because it is in virtue of the political power (potentia) of the state[xxv]. So his will lives on after his death because he is not identical to the state so the state can live on after he dies. Thus, what he wills about his property lives on for as long as the state exists. However, a king is the state so what he wills about his property after his death does not live on after he dies because, in a sense, the state dies with him. Thus, I argue, Spinoza is correct to conceptually disassociate the assumed link between inheritance as a general concept, which is also applied to non-royals, and inheriting the crown. They are distinct concepts which need to be treated differently, both in political philosophy and legally in practice. A key motivation for this, in Spinoza’s political philosophy, is to preserve the political stability of a state or an empire. For peace and social order to be preserved, inheritance of assets and inheritance to the throne must not be conflated because the monarch is the state or empire itself, not a subject under the monarch, living and dying within the state or empire.

So, to apply Spinoza’s theory in practice, who King Edward VI willed to be queen after his death did not remain the overriding civil law concern for long. The act passed by parliament took precedence over Edward VI’s wishes. So the will of Henry VIII rather than King Edward VI was upheld. Perhaps this is because the act was made into official law through parliament, rather than the letters patent which merely expressed the will of a deceased king in a way which had not yet been passed by parliament into law before he died (July 1553). Despite King Edward VI officially declaring that he wanted parliament to pass it into law come September and the writs for it already being written, parliament did not go ahead with passing it as an act posthumously. So, initially, Lady Jane Grey ascended the throne as de facto Queen, in accordance with King Edward VI’s will. Nevertheless, she was never crowned at a coronation ceremony and only ruled for nine days because, ultimately, his will did not conform to the 1543 Third Succession Act which had reinstated Lady Mary as Edward’s successor. After faction infighting, parliament ended up in favour of Mary I becoming queen and finding (de facto Queen) Lady Jane Grey, amongst others, guilty of high treason for interfering with the line of succession and signing herself as the queen. Hence, Mary ascended the throne as the first Queen Regnant (“a queen reigning in her own right rather than a queen through marriage to a king”[xxvi]), in accordance with this 1543 act passed by parliament. This is in keeping with Spinoza’s claim that children (liberi) inherit the throne from their parent (parentum which can mean either father or mother) by civil law rather than by natural right or through the mere will of a deceased king[xxvii]. 

Thus, the first-born child, Mary, was finally given back her right to become queen despite still not being classified as a legitimate child, therefore, not possessing inheritance rights. Queen Mary, in her capacity as a queen, then made herself legitimate after ascending the throne. She had good grounds to do so because she had been born “bona fida parentum”[xxviii]. So she was not reversing it through exercising arbitrary power. However, she did not extend legitimacy to her half-sister, Elizabeth. Hence, when Queen Mary I dies without an heir, Elizabeth, the second born child, takes the throne in accordance with the Third Succession Act, making her the second successive officially illegitimate female child to become monarch. Queen Elizabeth I never reversed her illegitimate status so, held in tension reigning as queen by right through a parliamentary act of law while, at the same time, strictly speaking, not having the inheritance right to the throne due to her illegitimacy. She is queen in virtue of what Spinoza points out in his TP as the key right: she has the civil right through the Third Succession Act, not because she has a natural right or because she was the first born either.

Thus we can see the historically tenuous situations which occur around how and which monarch’s children have a legal right to inherit or succeed the throne. I have tried to illustrate how the life of a monarch impacts on what happens after their death and the life of potential heirs, with a focus on dowries and inheritance. In addition, for Spinoza, the state itself can live or die with its sovereign. Either way, this can cause swings in political power which risk conflict and faction infighting. This chapter aims to highlight the extra layers of meaning and historical application behind one sentence in section 37 of chapter 6 in Spinoza’s TP and related concepts in his following chapter. I have given a close analysis of the language and political philosophical concepts in Spinoza’s TP and shown how Spinoza’s political theory has bearing on and helps us to understand real life historical events.

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[i] Benedict de Spinoza, Opera: DE INTELLECTUS EMENDATIONE, TRACTATUS POLITICUS, EPISTOLAE., ed. C.H. Bruder, EDITI ONIBUS PRINCIPIBUS DENUO EDIDIT, EDITIO STEREOTYPA, (google e-book), vol. II (Leipzig, Germany: TYPIS ET SUMTIBUS BERNH. TAUCHNITZ JUN., 1844), 83, https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QadzEPDWXpqdc1w64BhFzajGArDBTQxm7-OplWX-YAvgSP9r0aWjRuX_tWKyc91-v3Gs_dl8Bj6OsIx-MXggSVv8YstyN_hv_92hGuIgl7pjaissVrP4yATRaHCCUioseMVU8P140b-vRAVXK3X2671uEoDyNHgJNglQzeqMHaWArZG409KntocN2v_33hMNHHIie-SfXal-O7pNaaJTNnYo5Vdp_tP0ZStSFL2ajcir8s3q1LHnTpfqUrXkIlOd7woTP-bA2LMP2J729nBFPsQz-WHMOw.

[ii] Benedict de Spinoza, THE CHIEF WORKS of BENEDICT DE SPINOZA, trans. R. H. M. Elwes, REVISED EDITION. London, UK, vol. I, BOHN’S PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY. SPINOZA’S WORKS. (London: york street, covent garden: GEORGE BELL & SONS, 1891), 326, http://lf-oll.s3.amazonaws.com/titles/1710/1321.01_Bk.pdf.

[iii] Spinoza, Opera: DE INTELLECTUS EMENDATIONE, TRACTATUS POLITICUS, EPISTOLAE., II:83.

[iv] Spinoza, THE CHIEF WORKS of BENEDICT DE SPINOZA, I:326.

[v] Spinoza, Opera: DE INTELLECTUS EMENDATIONE, TRACTATUS POLITICUS, EPISTOLAE., II:83.

[vi] website content writers for The Royal Household, ‘Henry VIII (r.1509-1547)’, Royal, The Royal Household, No date given, https://www.royal.uk/henry-viii.

[vii] Spinoza, Opera: DE INTELLECTUS EMENDATIONE, TRACTATUS POLITICUS, EPISTOLAE., II:83.

[viii] Spinoza, THE CHIEF WORKS of BENEDICT DE SPINOZA, I:327–44.

[ix] Spinoza, I:339.

[x] Spinoza, I:340.

[xi] Spinoza, I:339.

[xii] Spinoza, I:330.

[xiii] Spinoza, I:318.

[xiv] Spinoza, Opera: DE INTELLECTUS EMENDATIONE, TRACTATUS POLITICUS, EPISTOLAE., II:95.

[xv] Spinoza, II:95–96.

[xvi] Spinoza, THE CHIEF WORKS of BENEDICT DE SPINOZA, I:340.

[xvii] Spinoza, I:339.

[xviii] Spinoza, I:339.

[xix] Spinoza, I:339.

[xx] Spinoza, Opera: DE INTELLECTUS EMENDATIONE, TRACTATUS POLITICUS, EPISTOLAE., II:84.

[xxi] David Starkey, The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics (London: G. Philip, 1985), 106.

[xxii] Starkey, 106.

[xxiii] website content writers for The Royal Household, ‘Henry VIII (r.1509-1547)’.

[xxiv] Spinoza, Opera: DE INTELLECTUS EMENDATIONE, TRACTATUS POLITICUS, EPISTOLAE., II:95.

[xxv] Spinoza, II:95.

[xxvi] website content writers for The Royal Household, ‘Mary I (r.1553-1558)’, Royal, The Royal Household, No date given, https://www.royal.uk/mary-i.

[xxvii] Spinoza, Opera: DE INTELLECTUS EMENDATIONE, TRACTATUS POLITICUS, EPISTOLAE., II:95.

[xxviii] Starkey, The Reign of Henry VIII, 110.