ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an outline of the discourse of counsel during the Tudor ‘monarchy of counsel’, before examining in particular the fundamental shift from a ‘humanist’ discourse of counsel in the early decades of the sixteenth century to a ‘Machiavellian’ discourse from the middle of the century. It examines how this ‘Machiavellian’ discourse became the foundation of the Reason of State tradition, which emphasizes the prioritization of the ‘interest’ of the state often over more moral or religious considerations. The chapter focuses on the Elizabethan discourse of Reason of State and how it fundamentally changed political counsel. The rise of Reason of State literature, a phenomenon first described in print by Giovanni Botero in 1589, meant that the attention shifted to the ‘observations’ of neighbouring states—their geographical positions, policies and ‘interests’—with the aim of advancing one’s own state interest over that of the others.
