ABSTRACT
This chapter makes clear that Milton's idea of a common republican project on either side of the North Sea rests on a fundamental misconception. It discusses the Dutch reception of English republican thought, with a specific focus on the radical theorist Pieter de la Court and his reading of and correspondence with James Harrington. The chapter argues that the English and Dutch republican experiences in the 1650s and 1660s were largely dissimilar. English republican writing was of little concern to the Dutch because, essentially, the English republicans were, from a Dutch point of view, nothing but poorly disguised monarchists. This characteristic of the Dutch intellectual context had important implications for the ways in which the Dutch thought about the republican experiment across the North Sea. English republican writing from Milton to Harrington could hardly appeal to this sceptical Dutch audience. To Dutch radicals, English republicans were merely too weak in their anti-monarchism.
