Key Arguments

• In sole-prince systems, all others are merely servants by grace and favor, lacking independent bases of affection or authority.
• In prince-with-barons systems, nobles hold rank by antiquity of blood, possess their own states and subjects, and are loved and recognized as rulers.
• Because of these structural differences, obedience in sole-prince systems is to the prince alone and his officers, while in baronial systems there are multiple power centers with popular followings.

Source Quotes

Nevertheless, his successors were able to keep their hold, and found in doing so no other difficulty than arose from their own ambition and mutual jealousies. If any one think this strange and ask the cause, I answer, that all the Princedoms of which we have record have been governed in one or other of two ways, either by a sole Prince, all others being his servants permitted by his grace and favour to assist in governing the kingdom as his ministers; or else, by a Prince with his Barons who hold their rank, not by the favour of a superior Lord, but by antiquity of blood, and who have States and subjects of their own who recognize them as their rulers and entertain for them a natural affection. States governed by a sole Prince and by his servants vest in him a more complete authority; because throughout the land none but he is recognized as sovereign, and if obedience be yielded to any others, it is yielded as to his ministers and officers for whom personally no special love is felt.

If any one think this strange and ask the cause, I answer, that all the Princedoms of which we have record have been governed in one or other of two ways, either by a sole Prince, all others being his servants permitted by his grace and favour to assist in governing the kingdom as his ministers; or else, by a Prince with his Barons who hold their rank, not by the favour of a superior Lord, but by antiquity of blood, and who have States and subjects of their own who recognize them as their rulers and entertain for them a natural affection. States governed by a sole Prince and by his servants vest in him a more complete authority; because throughout the land none but he is recognized as sovereign, and if obedience be yielded to any others, it is yielded as to his ministers and officers for whom personally no special love is felt. Of these two forms of government we have examples in our own days in the Turk and the King of France.

Key Concepts

• all the Princedoms of which we have record have been governed in one or other of two ways
• either by a sole Prince, all others being his servants permitted by his grace and favour to assist in governing the kingdom as his ministers; or else, by a Prince with his Barons who hold their rank, not by the favour of a superior Lord, but by antiquity of blood
• who have States and subjects of their own who recognize them as their rulers and entertain for them a natural affection.
• States governed by a sole Prince and by his servants vest in him a more complete authority; because throughout the land none but he is recognized as sovereign

Context

Chapter 4 opens by classifying political orders to explain post-conquest stability; this typology underpins the subsequent comparative analysis of the Turk and France.