Democracy after Virtue: Toward

Pragmatic Confucian Democracy

Sungmoon Kim
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Democracy after Virtue
ii

Studies in Comparative Political Theory

Series editor: Diego A. von Vacano,Texas A&M University

Consulting editors: Andrew March, Harvard University,

and Loubna El Amine, Northwestern University

Democracy after Virtue: Toward Pragmatic Confucian Democracy

Sungmoon Kim
Democr acy
after Virtue
Toward Pragmatic Confucian Democracy

Sungmoon Kim

1
iv

1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

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© Oxford University Press 2018

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You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

Names: Kim, Sungmoon, author.
Title: Democracy after virtue : toward pragmatic Confucian democracy / Sungmoon Kim.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, [2018] |
Series: Studies in comparative political theory |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017046496 (print) | LCCN 2017060211 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190671242 (Updf) | ISBN 9780190671259 (Epub) |
ISBN 9780190671235 (hardcover : acid-free paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Democracy—Philosophy. | Democracy—Religious
aspects—Confucianism. | Democracy—East Asia. | Confucianism—Political aspects. |
East Asia—Politics and government.
Classification: LCC JC423 (ebook) | LCC JC423 .K4727 2018 (print) | DDC 321.8—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017046496

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
In memory of
Benjamin R. Barber (1939–​2017)
vi
CONTENTS

Preface  ix

Introduction: Toward Pragmatic Confucian Democracy   1

PART I: Democracy
1. Political Participation   23
2. Value of Democracy   50
3. Procedure and Substance   79

PART II: Justice

4. State Coercion and Criminal Punishment   111
5. Sufficiency and Equality   136
6. Humanitarian Intervention   165

Conclusion: The Future of Confucian Political Theory—​A Methodological

Suggestion  189

Notes  197
Bibliography  235
Index  247
vi
P R E FA C E

After the publication of my first book Confucian Democracy in East

Asia: Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2014), I received two
sets of comments from my critics. On the one hand, my fellow Confucian
political theorists—​scholars philosophically inspired by the (mainly pre-​
Qin) Confucian classics—​raised questions regarding the Confucian creden-
tial of my idea of Confucian democracy, wondering if the Confucianism in
my theory is not playing merely an auxiliary role, like a “cheerleader,” for
otherwise liberal democratic constitutional structures. The most frequent
question I received was how distinctively “Confucian” my Confucian dem-
ocratic theory is. My second book Public Reason Confucianism: Democratic
Perfectionism and Constitutionalism in East Asia (Cambridge University
Press, 2016) was motivated to offer a rejoinder to this pressing question
by articulating my normative vision of democratic Confucianism in a way
that is not only philosophically appealing but also socially relevant in con-
temporary East Asia. I presented this vision in terms of public reason
Confucianism, a particular style of democratic perfectionism in which (par-
tially) comprehensive Confucianism is connected with perfectionism via a
distinctive form of public reason that is permeated by, among other things,
Confucian moral sentiments.
On the other hand, my democratic critics, who are largely unfamiliar
with Confucianism, raised a question of a different nature. While noting
significant differences between my Confucian democratic theory and main-
stream liberal democratic theory (thus acknowledging the distinctively
Confucian nature of my theory), these scholars pressed me, as a demo-
cratic theorist working in the East Asian Confucian context, to clarify
whether there is any generic mode of democracy in my idea of Confucian
democracy, be it Schumpeterian minimal democracy, Habermasian delib-
erative democracy, Rousseauian populist democracy, or Lockean constitu-
tional democracy. This book aims to answer this question by presenting
pragmatic democracy (roughly in the Deweyan sense) as a conception of
x

democracy that best describes the nature of Confucian democracy offered

here. In offering pragmatic Confucian democracy as my normative concep-
tion of Confucian democracy and, as shall be shown, further exploring its
implications for criminal, distributive, and international justice, my hope
is to place Confucian democratic theory on firmer normative ground, thus
without suffering internal incoherence, philosophical laxness, or practical
irrelevance. Readers who have read my earlier books will also find this book
fully engaging in several important normative questions that were previ-
ously left either untouched or insufficiently treated.
In writing this book, I have incurred numerous debts. As was the
case with my earlier works, I benefited immensely from intermittent
daily conversations with my colleagues at the Center for East Asian
and Comparative Philosophy and the Department of Public Policy
of City University of Hong Kong. They include P. J. Ivanhoe, Ruiping
Fan, Eirik Harris, Hsin-​wen Lee, Youngsun Back, Lawrence Yung, Shea
Robinson, Daniel Stephens, and Ellen Yan. Some colleagues in neigh-
boring universities of Hong Kong made themselves available for con-
versation, and I am especially grateful to Joseph Chan, Jiwei Ci, and
Yong Huang, for their open-​mindedness and generosity. Jung In Kang
at Sogang University in South Korea invited me twice to hold special
seminars on Confucian political theory both for faculty and especially
for graduate students in the Department of Political Science, and I am
grateful to him and those who attended my seminars, especially for
helping me to think more deeply on the justifiability of Confucian de-
mocracy to non-​Confucians. Brooke Ackerly kindly invited me to present
an earlier version of Chapter 1 at Vanderbilt University’s social and polit-
ical thought workshop, and I would like to thank her and her colleagues
and students including Emily Nacol and Kristin Michelitch for raising
several important questions and making suggestions. A slightly different
version of the same chapter was also presented in the mini-​workshop or-
ganized at City University of Hong Kong on “Confucianism and political
participation” as well as in the international conference on “Equality,
Freedom, and Governance in the Making of Modern Democracy and
Market Economy” organized by the Institute for Advanced Studies in
Humanities and Social Sciences at National Taiwan University, and
I am grateful to Rogers Smith, Joseph Chan, P. J. Ivanhoe, Chun-​chieh
Huang, Kiril Thompson, Alan Wood, John Tucker, and Alan Patten
for their written or oral comments on my paper and Confucian polit-
ical theory in general. An earlier version of Chapter 2 was presented at
Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, where I spent a

[x] Preface
sabbatical year (2016–​2017) as a Berggruen fellow and completed signif-
icant portions of this book, and I am grateful to both Melissa Williams
and LaGina Gause, who formally discussed my paper, and those who
participated in the seminar including, among others, Jenny Mansbridge,
Meira Levinson, Tomer Perry, Tongdong Bai, Mathias Risse, and Danielle
Allen. I deeply appreciate many useful suggestions and construc-
tive criticisms offered by them. Chapter 4 was presented at the Neo-​
Confucianism seminar at Columbia University, and I am grateful to Tao
Jiang, Ari Borrel, Yung Kun Kim, and Zach Berge-​Becker for their invita-
tion and helpful comments. Versions of Chapter 6 have been presented
at various institutions or academic venues such as University of
Pennsylvania’s Department of Political Science, University of Toronto’s
Department of Political Science, the Berggruen inaugural workshop at
the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, an international conference on
“Democracy in Global Politics” held in Academia Sinica, and an interna-
tional conference on “Political Theory in the East Asian Context” held
at City University of Hong Kong. I am grateful to Rogers Smith, Anne
Norton, Jeffrey Green, Loren Goldman, Juman Kim, Ronald Beiner,
Joseph Carens, Ryan Balot, Ruth Marshall, Chia-​Ming Chen, Jung In
Kang, Brook Ackerly, Mathias Risse, Hui Wang, and Anna Sun, for their
helpful comments and suggestions. The general philosophical framework
and core claims of this book were also presented at the Berggruen fellow
workshop at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences of
Stanford University and Fordham University’s social and political philos-
ophy workshop. I thank Owen Flanagan, Chaihark Hahm, Robin Wang,
Fenrong Liu, Jonathan Jansen, Johan van Benthem, Wenqing Zhao, Jeff
Flynn, Nick Tampio, and Sam Haddad for their valuable comments and
hospitality.
I am also grateful to many others who have read or discussed various
parts of the manuscript and offered valuable comments, suggestions, or
observations. These include Steve Angle, Eric Beerbohm, Daniel Bell, Elton
Chan, Thomas Christiano, Joyce Dehli, Lisa Ellis, Archon Fung, Wenkai He,
Nien-​he Hsieh, Jimmy Hsu, David Kim, Richard Kim, Tae Wan Kim, Franz
Mang, Frank Michelman, Sam Moyn, Andrew Nathan, Shaun O’Dwyer, Henry
Richardson, Susan Shim, and Stephen Soldz. Special thanks go to Jenny
Mansbridge and Melissa Williams (though mentioned earlier) who never
grew tired of discussing my ideas and specific arguments during my stay at
Harvard. I deeply appreciate their comments and suggestions. My gratitude
also goes to Diego von Vacano, the editor of Oxford Studies in Comparative
Political Theory, and Angela Chnapko, my editor at Oxford University Press.

Preface [ xi ]
xi

As noted, several chapters of this book were completed during my

fellowship year at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for
Ethics, and I am grateful for a viable intellectual environment that Safra
provided in which I could fully immerse myself in reading and writing.
I am also grateful to the Berggruen Institute for financial support. City
University of Hong Kong does not have a year-​long leave policy, but
I was able to take the Berggruen fellowship and spent nearly a year at
Harvard thanks to the provost’s special approval. I am deeply grateful
to the provost, the dean of College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences,
and the head of the Department of Public Policy for approving this
special arrangement. Lastly, I acknowledge that in writing this book,
I was partly supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea
Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-​2017S1A3A2065772).
Slightly different versions of Chapter 2 and Chapter 6 were previously
published in the journals under different titles: “Pragmatic Confucian
Democracy: Rethinking the Value of Democracy in East Asia,” Journal
of Politics 79:1 (2017), pp. 237–​ 249 and “Confucian Humanitarian
Intervention? Toward Democratic Theory,” Review of Politics 79:2 (2017),
pp. 187–​213. I am grateful to the University of Chicago Press and the
University of Notre Dame (via Cambridge University Press) for permis-
sion to reproduce these essays.
On April 25, 2017, I was notified that Benjamin R. Barber, one of the
most vigorous champions of strong democracy of our time and my former
teacher, mentor, and friend, had passed away a day before, after a four-​
month battle with cancer. I am deeply saddened by Ben’s sudden death. It
was Ben who introduced me to democratic theory, and it is upon his en-
dorsement and encouragement that I found my first job at the University
of Richmond and later decided to move to Hong Kong. I even worked as
his research associate at Demos, a New York-​based liberal think tank, for
about ten months during the hiatus between my PhD defense and moving
to Richmond, working on what we called “the paradigm paper” on global
democracy and interdependence, which became the groundwork for his
book If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities (Yale
University Press, 2013). Ben’s death was shocking news for me especially
because I had just visited him in early December 2016 at his new office in
Fordham University—​which, as it turned out, was only several days be-
fore his diagnosis of cancer—​and, as always, we had jovial conversations
on many issues: my life in Cambridge, his upcoming book (now published
by Yale University Press as Cool Cities: Urban Sovereignty and the Fix
for Global Warming), the Trump presidency, and Global Parliament of
Mayors, which was his last fascination. During that meeting we agreed to

[ xii ] Preface
spend several days together at his summer house when my family joined
me from Hong Kong the following June. And now, June has come and
my family is about to depart from Hong Kong but, alas, Ben is no longer
here. Though Ben is gone, I am sure that his passion for democracy, civic
education, and global interdependence will always remain with us. I am
proud of having had Ben Barber as my teacher and friend who helped me
to grow as his fellow democrat. I dedicate this book to him with love and
deep gratitude.

Preface [ xiii ]
xvi
Democracy after Virtue
xvi
Introduction
Toward Pragmatic Confucian Democracy

IN SEARCH OF NORMATIVE CONFUCIAN DEMOCRATIC THEORY

In the past two decades contemporary Confucian political theory has been
propelled by the dialectical conversation between Confucianism and de-
mocracy—​Confucian values, ethics, and social practices on one side and
democratic ideals, principles, and institutions on the other. The result has
been a vigorous search for “Confucian democracy” as a form of democracy
best suitable for East Asia’s Confucian societal context and a cultural al-
ternative to Western-​style liberal democracy.1 Even those who assert that
Confucian democracy should not only be a cultural alternative to liberal
democracy but, more crucially, its formidable political rival, thus framing
their normative position in terms of “(Confucian) political meritocracy,”
never completely dismiss the (albeit limited) value of democracy. Often
they incorporate certain democratic institutional components (election
in particular) into their otherwise meritocratic political system and justify
the hybrid system in terms of, as Daniel Bell aptly calls it, “democratic mer-
itocracy.”2 Despite recent meritocratic challenges to democracy by some
Confucian theorists (whom I call Confucian meritocrats in this book), which
sometimes go beyond not just liberal democracy but democracy in toto,3
contemporary Confucian political theory largely revolves around democ-
racy, more specifically what kind or how much of democracy is desirable
in East Asian countries of Confucian heritage. Arguably, the main thrust
of contemporary Confucian political theory has been democratic theory
broadly construed.4
2

What is worth noting is that Confucian political theory has recently

bifurcated into two competing political positions—​one embracing dem-
ocratic principles such as popular sovereignty, political equality, and the
right to political participation as constitutive of its normative theory, and
the other attempting to decouple selectively chosen democratic institutions
and practices from democracy’s underlying moral principles. In addition
to their contrasting attitudes to core democratic principles, it is also their
differing orientations in theory building—​moral perfectionism versus in-
stitutional reform—​that characterize this bifurcation, although the latter
contrast has not always been clear-​cut. It is hard to deny that the emer-
gence of these two competing normative positions has not only signifi-
cantly reshaped the contemporary landscape of Confucian political theory,
with all of its methodological differences and substantive disagreements,
but it has enriched contemporary political theory in general by adding
comparative perspectives.5
The mushrooming of new visions and ideas in Confucian democratic
theory, however, did not come without cost. For one, the absence of a
shared point of reference in developing Confucian democratic theory
(encompassing its democratic-​meritocratic critiques) has made it ex-
tremely difficult to understand the precise points of disagreement be-
tween Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats, or whether the
disagreement is merely a political one or is also of philosophical sig-
nificance. Confucian democrats, generally inspired by John Dewey as
much as by Confucius, stress the importance of the good community in
which individual and society are in a harmonious relationship, the latter
growing symbiotically with the former, immersed in a ceaseless process
of moral self-​cultivation, of which political participation, in their view,
is an important part.6 This communitarian account of Confucian democ-
racy, however, says nearly nothing about the institutional structure of
democracy. Moreover, centrally concerned with the intimate connection
between ritual/​ role practice and moral empowerment, Confucian
democrats do not pay sufficient attention to social equality or common
citizenship, the gist of which lies in objection to all sorts of social dis-
crimination or political domination based on gender, race, ethnicity, reli-
gion, or economic class.7
Equally reticent about social equality, and actively opposing political
equality expressed through the one person one vote principle, Confucian
meritocrats in principle have no objection to the communitarian proj­
ect suggested by Confucian democrats. Not only do most Confucian
meritocrats enthusiastically support building of harmonious local
communities, but they, at least some of them, also value rituals’ potential

[2] Introduction
contribution to both the constructing of social identity and the allevia-
tion of economic inequality that threatens social harmony.8 Furthermore,
Confucian meritocrats are increasingly persuaded that full democratic
participation may be acceptable in the context of local politics. In short,
the Confucian meritocratic critique of democracy is generally concen-
trated on democratic authority exercised in the central government and
on a national level as it works through what they deem to be the universal
and mechanical implementation of popular sovereignty by means of one
person one vote.9
Then, what exactly is the disagreement? One problem with Confucian
democrats is that it is far from clear whether the community they have in
mind refers to a local community in rural areas, where some Confucian-​
style rituals have survived, or whether it extends to an entire political
community with a moral requirement that the polity’s constitutional-​
political structure be completely reconstructed into a democracy, which
in turn calls for a transformation of the polity’s public culture into a
democratic civic culture. In the former case, Confucian democrats’ core
argument is perfectly compatible with that of Confucian meritocrats,
whereas in the latter their lack of interest in democracy as a political
system, on top of a communitarian way of life, is hardly justified. Equally
unclear is the Confucian democrats’ attitude toward political meritoc-
racy, especially in its relation to democracy, which they advocate whole-
heartedly, as they sometimes seem inclined toward rule by virtuous
people without illuminating how such an inclination, if not an active
espousal, can cohere with their underlying commitment to democratic
equality.10
Confucian meritocracy, too, is exposed to similar challenges insomuch
as it presents itself in terms of democratic meritocracy. On what moral
ground can election, operating on the one person one vote mechanism, be
taken apart from its underlying moral principles such as political equality
and popular sovereignty? How can one justify meritocratic institutional
apparatuses such as the nondemocratically selected upper house in the leg-
islature while simultaneously valorizing the good effects commonly asso-
ciated with democratic institutions such as transparency, accountability,
and reciprocity? And, most importantly, can a new mode of public life and
its associated social norms, which follow from the institutionalization of
even partially democratic decision-​making processes and related social
practices, be compatible with political meritocracy? Put differently, is it
possible for democracy and meritocracy to be mixed in a philosophically
non-​arbitrary manner so that Confucian meritocracy can enjoy the merits
of both democracy and meritocracy?

Introduction [3]
4

That being said, one important reason that a productive conversation

between Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats toward theory
building is frequently baffled, and both parties are often driven to the infe-
licitous state of cross-​purposes, has to do strongly with their widely different
understandings (and in some cases, their less than principled usage) of the
term democracy. As I elaborate later in this book (Chapter 2 more precisely),
while Confucian democrats understand democracy almost exclusively as a
way of life and tend to identify it in terms of what Dewey calls the “Great
Community,” Confucian meritocrats hold to a minimal and overtly institu-
tional definition of democracy with glaring focus on election, hence without
any salient interest in the mode of public life or that of citizenship. Neither
camp, however, has paid (due) attention to the normative dimension of de-
mocracy understood as collective self-​government by free and equal citizens, as
well as the questions that this capacious normative definition of democracy
naturally entails: What does collective self-​government mean? Why does
it matter? Under what circumstances does it matter more, both practically
and normatively? How can collective self-​government be (more) effective
and (more) legitimate? What does “citizens being free and equal” mean,
especially in the Confucian societal context? These questions can hardly
be answered intelligently unless, first, democracy’s two dimensions—​as a
way of life and as a political system—​are analytically distinguished, then
reintegrated coherently into a single conception of democracy.
This book attempts to address, though not resolve, these critical nor-
mative and philosophical challenges for Confucian democratic theory by
constructing an overarching theoretical framework—​what I call pragmatic
Confucian democracy—​that can enable us to identify a deeper normative
ground of disagreement between Confucian democrats and Confucian
meritocrats, which undergirds their practical disagreement with regard
to institutional design and political leadership. By “an overarching frame-
work” I mean a comprehensive philosophical account of Confucian democ-
racy that (1) identifies the social circumstances that require a democracy
as a political system in a Confucian society in the first place, (2) explains
the internal connection between two dimensions of democracy that are
commonly presented in political science as being at odds with one an-
other, (3) makes sense of the value of democracy with reference to its two
dimensions, (4) illuminates the theoretical connection between democratic
procedures and the outcomes they produce, and (5) articulates distinc-
tively Confucian-​democratic principles of justice in criminal punishment,
economic distribution, and international relations (humanitarian inter-
vention in particular) from a pragmatic standpoint.

[4] Introduction
 In proposing pragmatic Confucian democracy as a new point of ref-
erence in Confucian democratic theory, I have no presumption that its
approach and substantive arguments are neutral, especially vis-​ à-​
vis
Confucian meritocratic theory, as it is clearly predisposed to advance-
ment of a more robust democratic theory of Confucian democracy than
the existing proposals. In fact, as far as its specific contents are concerned,
pragmatic Confucian democracy may be found quite controversial even
among Confucian communitarian democrats similarly inspired by Dewey.
Nevertheless, I believe that the merit of constructing a comprehensive
normative framework that is thoroughly democratic and develops and
integrates within it democratic accounts of criminal, distributive, and in-
ternational justice, outweighs whatever problems that might be associ-
ated with this approach.11
On the one hand, when recast from the normative questions en-
gaged by pragmatic Confucian democracy, such as democracy’s intrinsic
and instrumental values and democratic procedures and their substan-
tive outcomes, Confucian meritocratic theory can be understood not
so much as the direct opponent of democracy—​a problematic view,
given its qualified democratic dimension—​but as a kind of democratic
theory that takes a distinctive normative stance with regard to (1) the
(instrumental or intrinsic) value of democracy, (2) the (instrumental or
non-​instrumental) relationship between democratic procedure and its
outcomes, and (3) the (individualistic or social) conception of desert
or merit in relation to criminal and distributive justice. In this way, we
can come to better grips with what kind of democratic theory Confucian
meritocracy is as a democratic meritocracy, whether this concept as em-
ployed by Confucian meritocrats is philosophically meaningful (or pre-
cisely in what respect it is undemocratic), and whether its democratic
and nondemocratic components are connected in a philosophically plau-
sible and normatively compelling manner.
Confucian democratic theory, on the other hand, would be given a
firmer normative ground not only for its controversial (from the traditional
Confucian perspective) embracing of key democratic principles such as
popular sovereignty, political equality, and the right to political participa-
tion, but also for its endorsement of the substantively democratic concep-
tion of justice. As will be demonstrated in this book, pragmatic Confucian
democracy offers not merely a cultural and communitarian alternative to
liberal rights-​based democracy but a morally attractive model of democracy
under the circumstances of modern politics marked by value disagreement
and moral conflict.

Introduction [5]
6

PRAGMATIC CONFUCIAN DEMOCRACY

Then, what is pragmatic democracy, of which pragmatic Confucian democ-

racy is a particular cultural instantiation? Throughout this book I define
pragmatic democracy as a mode of democracy whose political institutions
and social practices, which together make democracy a way of life, are justified
on pragmatic grounds under the circumstances of modern politics. Pragmatic
Confucian democracy is a pragmatic democracy suited for a pluralist society
whose civic culture remains characteristically Confucian. Since pragmatic
Confucian democracy has both institutional and cultural components,
however, its pragmatic justification has two dimensions accordingly.
First, so far as its institutional structures are concerned, which consti-
tute democracy as a distinct political system, pragmatic Confucian democ-
racy is justified on moderately consequentialist grounds, that is, on the
grounds of good consequences that democratic political institutions bring
about. Here “good consequences” do not mean the good life or specific
moral or cultural goods typically associated with Confucianism. Rather,
they refer to political goods such as legitimacy and order acquired through
an effective and sustained coordination of complex social, economic, and
political interactions among citizens who have profound moral and eco-
nomic disagreement among themselves. Being most effective in authorita-
tively coordinating social interactions under the circumstances of modern
politics among existing sociopolitical arrangements, democracy holds, be-
fore anything else, an instrumental value for citizens who are publicly
governed by its institutions. In this book, following Jack Knight and James
Johnson, I call this instrumental value of democracy that works through
its institutions democracy’s second-​order value.12 I will offer more clarity on
the nature of democracy’s second-​order value later.
The second component of pragmatic Confucian democracy is con-
cerned with various sorts of social practices that express an equal social
relationship among citizens and enable collective self-​determination on
equal terms. Together with democracy’s formal political institutions, such
social practices make democracy a distinct way of life. However, there is
no fantasy route to a democratic way of life, which according to political
scientists requires not only constitutional but, more critically, behavioral
and attitudinal changes13 to be wholeheartedly embraced and cherished
by the people upon democratic transition, whose social life is still soaked
in Confucian culture despite their strong desire for a new political life.
A series of tensions arise inevitably between democratic practices, which
would render citizens’ participation in formal democratic institutions so-
cially meaningful, and the existing cultural way of life that is replete with

[6] Introduction
undemocratic elements including, most notably, gender inequality. In the
absence of a long process of cultural communication between democratic
and Confucian social practices that facilitates their mutual accommoda-
tion, thereby transforming the otherwise abstract ideal of democracy into
a Confucian democracy, democracy can hardly become the citizens’ way
of life in the genuine sense, and so-​called democratic practices in which
they routinely engage can never be made intelligent to them. Such a pro-
cess of mutual accommodation in civil society is pragmatic in nature be-
cause it is subject to numerous sorts of social experiments and multiple
rounds of public deliberation under no antecedent rule or pre-​politically
given authority that would dictate its mode or direction. For Confucian
democratic citizens, the incongruence between formal democratic political
institutions, introduced chiefly on pragmatic-​consequentialist grounds,
and ongoing social practices that still define the character of their social life,
is a problem, which should be solved provisionally or pragmatically at each
stage of their public life through “social inquiry” informed by Confucian
public reasoning.14 When thusly made intelligent to citizens, democracy
then becomes intrinsically valuable to them.
Thus understood, one of the most important philosophical aims of this
book is to investigate how these two kinds of pragmatic justifications that
simultaneously endorse democracy’s instrumental and intrinsic values can
be coherently integrated within a single normative political theory. Part
I is generally devoted to this question. Here I offer a preliminary expla-
nation for three key background assumptions that underpin pragmatic
Confucian democracy. This will help illuminate the distinctive features of
pragmatic Confucian democracy as a political theory relative to the existing
proposals of Confucian democracy.15 Those background assumptions are
(1) circumstances of modern politics, (2) second-​order value of democracy,
and (3) democracy as a social experience.

THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF MODERN POLITICS IN EAST ASIA

Pre-​modern politics in both West and East are characterized by broad social
acceptance of the moral-​political authority over the matters concerning
people’s moral conduct and political decision making, be it God or Heaven
(tian 天), their human delegates, or traditions, rituals, and customs that
are believed to embody sacred authority. In pre-​modern politics where
politics is often inextricably intertwined with religion or morals, the re-
lationship between the ruler, whose mandate to rule is neither subject to
authorization by nor accountable to the people via any formal institutional

Introduction [7]
8

mechanisms, and the ruled, who are not politically organized as citizens
equipped with civil and political rights, is both epistemic and moral—​not
so different from the relationship between teacher and student.
In the Confucian world in particular, the ideal kings, called sage-​kings
(shengwang 聖王), were routinely envisaged as teachers (shi 師) who had
discovered the right Way (dao 道) toward which to educate the people
mainly by means of rituals (li 禮) and to bring them, otherwise stuck in
a boorish situation either because of their bad human nature (as Xunzi
claimed) or adverse external conditions (as Mencius contended), to
a refined civil culture (wen 文) in which they can live a materially suffi-
cient and morally flourishing life.16 Although religious persecution rarely
happened throughout East Asian history since the firm establishment of
Confucianism as the state ideology, and the ruling elites (the king and the
members of the royal house in particular) in otherwise Confucian East Asia
were occasionally drawn to more overtly religious traditions such as Daoism
and, especially, Buddhism, Confucian orthodoxy in state and society were
seldom challenged by such so-​called “popular religions.” For instance, when
Cheng-​Zhu Neo-​Confucianism had been permeated deep into every nook
and cranny of the Korean society by the late eighteenth-​century, both
as state ideology and intellectual orthodoxy,17 lingering Buddhist social
practices were strictly prohibited among the yangban elite class, although
social and religious practices associated with popular religions were implic-
itly condoned as long as they did not pose an eminent threat to Confucian-​
based moral order and sociopolitical harmony.18 Therefore, in pre-​modern
Confucian East Asia, value pluralism, which neither posits a hierarchy be-
tween values nor accepts a higher moral standard by which to harmonize
them,19 was never acknowledged as the basic social condition to which po-
litical authority ought to be adapted.20 Not surprisingly, moral conflict, the
natural accompaniment of value pluralism, was also never taken seriously
by the ruling elites as something for them to have to address in order to
make sure political power and authority was justified to the ruled.21 For
them, any presence of moral conflict only signified their failure to rule
according to the Way, which would naturally achieve social harmony, and
thus their failure to rule authoritatively.22 As singularly committed to one
right Way, Confucians valued only one particular conception of the good
life—​a life toward Confucian sagehood—​that is incommensurable with
other conceptions of the good life, and this ethical monism was strongly
vindicated by a specific mode of politics that the Confucians pursued,
namely, “virtue politics” (dezhi 德治).23
Virtue politics, as classical Confucians understood it, is propelled by the
ruler’s moral virtue, while aiming at the people’s moral cultivation. What

[8] Introduction
is central to virtue politics is its monistic nature and structure: not only
are all the targeted virtues such as benevolence (ren 仁), righteousness (yi
義), ritual propriety (li 禮), and the ability to tell right from wrong (zhi
智) understood to be essential to realization of Confucian sagehood,24
but in principle there is no qualitative difference between the virtues
with which the ruler pulls the people toward the gambit of his “benevo-
lent government” (ren zheng 仁政) and the virtues at which the people are
to arrive through the process of moral cultivation.25 This latter aspect of
Confucian virtue monism makes it possible that ordinary people, if mor-
ally cultivated, can participate in government by transforming themselves
from passive to active subjects. In fact, all three ancient Confucian mas-
ters (Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi) were unswervingly convinced that
virtue is the most important criterion of merit by which to select public
officials and that there exists a morally noncontroversial way to distinguish
the virtuous from those who are not. All three Confucians agreed that
only if the king—​who has a Heaven-​bestowed mandate (tianming 天命) to
reign all under Heaven (tianxia 天下)—​is virtuous, hence called “the son
of Heaven” (tianzi 天子), can he then identify those who are best qualified
for public service (starting with the prime minister, who will then carry
out the actual selection of public officials)26 and establish political meri-
tocracy understood as, as Bell puts it, the rule in which “political power [is]
distributed in accordance with ability and virtue.”27 In the most profound
sense, the recent proposals for Confucian meritocracy are an attempt to re-
habilitate the traditional Confucian ideal of virtue politics in modern East
Asia by separating the vision of political meritocracy implied in Confucian
virtue politics from its underlying metaphysical and political-​theological
assumptions.28
However, the modern context in which a Confucian alternative to liberal
democracy is being pursued is dramatically different from that in which
traditional Confucian political perfectionism premised on virtue monism
was devised, then eventually prevailed. Today, very few East Asians believe
in Heaven as the bastion of human morality or its mandate as the ultimate
source of political authority and legitimacy, even when their social lives are
still significantly shaped by Confucian values, rituals, and social practices.29
Confucianism no longer enjoys the status as a dominant state ideology or
state religion, nor is it affiliated with one-​man monarchy, the visible car-
rier of the Mandate of Heaven and the institutional backbone of Confucian
virtue politics. With the collapse of the monistic moral-​political basis of
Confucianism, the moral and political hierarchy between Confucianism
and other religious and social values has also been completely dismantled,
rendering Confucianism as traditionally formulated and practiced to be just

Introduction [9]
01

one of many philosophical or moral comprehensive doctrines available

to individuals. And the same is true of traditional Confucian ritual-​based
role ethics that buttressed a deeply gendered social harmony.30 As modern
East Asia is increasingly characterized by value pluralism and moral con-
flict is becoming pervasive throughout its societies, thus giving rise to the
circumstances of modern East Asian politics,31 it has become virtually impos-
sible to support a political meritocracy of the kind undergirded by virtue
monism because the standard by which to identify merit or the merito-
rious has itself become the subject of moral contestation.
The virtual irrelevance of the traditional paradigm of Confucian political
perfectionism in modern East Asia has encouraged some recent Confucian
political theorists to search for a version of Confucian perfectionism that
is completely severed from comprehensive Confucianism, one that is com-
patible with various sorts of comprehensive doctrines.32 However, none of
these scholars have paid due attention to the impact of modernity on the
circumstances of politics, which, as I argue in this book, call for democracy
both as a political system and as a way of life. Largely preoccupied with
constructing modern Confucianism that can accommodate value pluralism,
human rights, and other progressive values, even those most philosophi-
cally innovative in Confucian political theory have yet to embark on a thor-
ough philosophical investigation on the implications of the circumstances
of modern politics in East Asia for a normative theory of Confucian democ-
racy. They tend to regard democracy as merely one of the components of
modern Confucianism that makes it progressive or moderate.33
Pragmatic Confucian democracy is not about Confucianism as such
that is best suited for modern East Asian society, even though in practice
Confucian democracy and democratic Confucianism are two sides of the
same coin.34 As a political theory, pragmatic Confucian democracy explores
a democracy under the circumstances of modern politics in East Asia with
special attention to Confucian civic culture that continues to shape citi-
zens’ shared way of life, notwithstanding their increasing subscriptions
to diverse values as private individuals and the society’s overall liberaliza-
tion. Therefore, it takes for granted a world in which a political theology of
Heaven, the political ideal of sage-​king, the moral metaphysics of virtue,
and traditional Confucian political perfectionism are all no longer in force
or plausible—​a world wherein people meet as equal citizens, values are
plural, and interests are diverse and often in conflict. Pragmatic Confucian
democracy aims to offer a political theory of democracy that is uncon-
strained by and goes beyond various philosophical stipulations affiliated
with traditional Confucian virtue monism—​hence the title of the book,
Democracy after Virtue.35

[ 10 ] Introduction
DEMOCRACY’S SECOND-​O RDER VALUE

Arguably, the most foundational question in normative democratic theory

revolves around the value of democracy or on what basis the value of de-
mocracy is justified. Surprisingly, though, this is one of the least probed
topics in Confucian democratic theory. The virtual absence of the philo-
sophical investigation of the value of democracy in Confucian democratic
theory is all the more surprising against the backdrop of the common per-
ception, widespread in East Asia, that democracy and Confucianism are
incompatible, or in light of the undeniable fact that democracy has never
been developed from Confucianism’s internal social self-​transformation in-
dependent of the encounter with the West. After all, it should be reminded,
Confucian democracy as a political theory and social discourse as we now
engage in is one of the by-​products of the global resurgence of democracy
after democratization’s third wave, originally prompted for political and
socioeconomic but hardly cultural reasons, to which I will return shortly.36
Since the question of the value of democracy will be thoroughly examined
in Chapter 2, here let us briefly survey various accounts on the value of
democracy and discuss why pragmatic Confucian democracy pays special
attention to democracy’s second-​order value as much as to the intrinsic
value of democracy. In doing so, we can see clearly the key features of prag-
matic Confucian democracy that distinguish it not only from Confucian
political meritocracy but also from Confucian communitarian democracy.
Now, I understand, albeit roughly, the geography of the accounts on the
value of democracy as the following.

(1) Democracy is good in itself.

→ First-​Order Value: Democracy is the only way to organize a good po-
litical life. (Democratic Absolutism)
(2) Democracy is good in itself.
→ Intrinsic Value: There may be plural and mutually incommensurable
ways to organize a good political life, of which democracy is one with
its distinctive moral ideals such as collective self-​determination and
public equality. (Democratic Autonomy)
(3) Democracy may not be good in itself but can be valuable for reasons
external to it.
→  Instrumental Value: Democracy is good to the extent that it
contributes to the good life predicated on values independent of
democratic values. (Perfectionism of the Good Life)
(4) Democracy may not be good in itself but can be valuable for reasons
internal to its institutional efficacy.

Introduction [ 11 ]
21

→ Second-​Order Value: Democracy is good relative to alternative polit-

ical arrangements because it is more effective in coordinating com-
plex social interactions among citizens under the circumstances of
modern politics. (Institutional Consequentialism)
(5) Democracy is bad in itself.
→ Intrinsic Disvalue: Democracy is nothing more than a mob rule that
inevitably leads to a tyranny of the majority and thus is never good.
(Pure Political Meritocracy)

Since Confucian meritocrats, at least those discussed in this book, do not

dismiss the value of democracy wholesale, none of them subscribes to
statement (5). Again, even the strongest champions of political meritoc-
racy in Confucian political theory such as Tongdong Bai and Daniel Bell
present themselves as democratic meritocrats rather than pure political
meritocrats. Though being wary of moral and political problems that in
their view are intrinsic to democratic principles of popular sovereignty, po-
litical equality, and the right to political participation (thus rejecting not
only (1) but also (2)), Confucian meritocrats generally agree upon a cer-
tain instrumental value of democracy. And to the extent that they regard
Confucian values as goods that democratic institutional mechanisms can
be instrumental in bringing about, they embrace democracy not only on in-
strumental but also on Confucian perfectionist grounds. That is, Confucian
meritocrats’ shared normative position is best described by (3).37
In marked contrast, Deweyan Confucian democrats who envision their
normative projects largely in communitarian terms tend to valorize de-
mocracy as an end in itself, as a particular way of life in which individual
and community are in a symbiotic ethical relationship. However, as
Confucians they also recognize the crucial instrumental roles that demo-
cratic participation can play in helping individuals morally grow, which is
the telos of Confucian virtue politics. So, insomuch as Deweyan Confucian
democrats pay more attention to moral growth and ritually ordered social
harmony than to equal social relationships among citizens, the central aim
of Deweyan (liberal) democracy, their normative position interestingly
straddles between (1) and (3), leaving their attitude toward (2) quite am-
biguous.38 As we will see in Chapters 1 and 2, this interesting connection
between democratic absolutism and ethical perfectionism in the project of
Confucian communitarian democracy results from Deweyan Confucians’
unique methodology that renders Confucius’s thought in a Deweyan lan-
guage, thus blurring the analytical distinction between Confucianism and
democracy. Despite its hermeneutical originality, I think that this concep-
tion of Confucian democracy has its own costs, as it takes our attention

[ 12 ] Introduction
away from the institutional dimension of democracy and, by implication,
from democracy’s second-​order value.
As such, democracy’s second-​order value has been given no attention,
let alone been engaged, in contemporary Confucian political theory. And
this in part has contributed to the current landscape of Confucian dem-
ocratic theory as marked by a division between moral cultivationists
(Deweyan communitarian democrats) and institutionalists (political
meritocrats), when democracy, properly understood, incorporates both
aspects. The result has been a lack of a Confucian political theory that
integrates (2), (3), and (4) into a coherent philosophical system—​a theory
that mediates between democracy’s two dimensions as a political system
and as a way of life, between democracy’s instrumental and intrinsic
values, and between democratic autonomy and Confucian perfectionism.
Pragmatic Confucian democracy attempts to fill this important lacuna in
Confucian democratic theory.
Specifically, pragmatic Confucian democracy offers a distinctive norma-
tive Confucian democratic theory in two respects. First, it is unambiguously
committed to (2). Pragmatic Confucian democracy cherishes collective self-​
determination by equal citizens, namely democratic autonomy, as intrin-
sically valuable.39 The second distinctive feature of pragmatic Confucian
democracy lies in the fact that, though taking democratic autonomy to be
its ultimate moral goal, it gives priority to democracy’s second-​order value.
Otherwise stated, unlike a Deweyan Confucian communitarian democrat,
a pragmatic Confucian democrat understands democracy primarily as a po-
litical system, that is, as a unique mode of institutional coordination of
social interactions among citizens under the circumstances of modern pol-
itics. Without institutional entrenchment of the democratic-​constitutional
structure, neither an effective and legitimate coordination of complex so-
cial conflicts—​especially those around moral questions, often the most im-
portant reason that citizens want to have a democracy—​nor democratic
autonomy can be realized.
For a pragmatic Confucian democrat, then, democratic autonomy is un-
derstood as the good whose intrinsic value is something that ought to be ac-
quired in the course of both participating in formal democratic institutions
and, more importantly, exercising democratic social practices in civil society
in ways that make sense to their Confucian moral sentiments and public
reason. Or, combining them together, in a pragmatic Confucian democracy,
democratic autonomy is made intelligent and cherished in the course of
living a Confucian-​democratic way of life. As will be discussed in Chapter 3,
the fact that in a pragmatic Confucian democracy the truest sense of dem-
ocratic autonomy is possible only when it is exercised in mediation of

Introduction [ 13 ]
41

Confucian public reason (which in turn is grounded in Confucian mores,

rituals, civilities, and moral sentiments) has profound implications for its
perfectionist structure. To put it briefly: in a pragmatic Confucian democ-
racy, democratic institutional mechanisms do not function merely as an in-
strument for achieving Confucian goods; rather, they are deeply penetrated
by Confucian values and programmed to produce rights, justice, and citi-
zenship that are harmonious with such values.

DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL EXPERIENCE

The third and last assumption of pragmatic Confucian democracy is that

democracy is not so much an abstract moral ideal but rather a series of so-
cial experiences. In a sense, this assumption is already implied in the other
assumptions of pragmatic Confucian democracy that we have examined
thus far. That pragmatic Confucian democracy explores a democratic way
of life under the circumstances of modern politics marked by value plu-
ralism and moral conflict implies that democracy is an outcome of the
people’s sustained collective action in search of a more effective and le-
gitimate coordination of their social, political, and economic interactions,
through which they can exercise coercive power on equal terms and de-
velop an equal social relationship among themselves. Thus democracy in
this understanding is a never-​ending social project, and it is a social expe-
rience precisely in this sense.
That said, in developing a political theory of Confucian democracy best
suitable for the modern East Asian societal context, it is important to rec-
ognize that the circumstances of modern politics, inherent to modernity,
do not exist in East Asia independent of an institutionalized political envi-
ronment that specifically conditions them, which in turn characterizes the
“modern politics” in East Asia as a specific form. And, admittedly, the dom-
inant political environment in the region has been an authoritarian regime
and still is for some countries, including China, be it one-​man dictatorship,
one-​party dictatorship, or military rule. So, as long as a political theory of
Confucian democracy is addressed to citizens, and to the extent that it is
meaningful for citizens in East Asia, it cannot afford to sideline the aspect
of democracy as a new political regime transitioning or having recently
transitioned from the (previous) authoritarian regime. It also cannot lose
sight of how democracy, initially a mere set of formal political institutions
of Western origin, gets consolidated as its institutions are reconstructed,
its social practices are accommodated, and its guiding norms and ideals are
localized and then internalized. In short, by understanding democracy as a

[ 14 ] Introduction
series of social experiences, pragmatic Confucian democracy aims to com-
bine the insight from the political science of democracy, focused on demo-
cratic transition and consolidation, with that from traditional democratic
theory, pivoted around the ideals of democratic autonomy and common
citizenship, thereby contributing to a normative democratic theory that
I hope is more socially relevant in the non-​Western society.
Although it is not this book’s main aim to break a new methodological
ground in political theory by bridging empirical political science and nor-
mative political theory, and while it deals with normative questions more
so than empirical issues, its core argument, especially with regard to the
value of democracy, is premised on the assumption of democracy as a social
experience that involves regime transition, institutional consolidation, so-
cial learning, and internalization of new values and norms. Put differently,
pragmatic Confucian democracy is concerned not only with building new
institutions but, more critically, with new citizenship formation. Both in-
trinsic and second-​order values of democracy can be captured holistically
only against the backdrop of this dynamic and pragmatic understanding
of democracy. As will be shown in Chapters 4 and 5, it is on this ground
that pragmatic Confucian democracy embraces public equality despite its
critical importance not as the foundational moral value that it is in liberal
democratic theory but as the side-​constraint that balances democratic jus-
tice and Confucian values.

OUTLINE OF THE BOOK

This book consists of two parts, each comprising three chapters. In Part I,
I construct a theoretical skeleton of pragmatic Confucian democracy, first
by justifying the right to political participation in reference to democracy’s
second-​order value, second by illuminating the complex relationship be-
tween the instrumental and intrinsic values of democracy in pragmatic
Confucian democracy in relation to democracy’s two dimensions as a po-
litical system and as a way of life, and finally by articulating the perfec-
tionist connection between democratic procedures and their substantive
outcomes in pragmatic Confucian democracy.
In Confucian political theory there is notable disagreement with re-
gard to the value and right of popular political participation: while
Confucian participatory democrats, many of whom are Deweyan commu-
nitarian democrats, are strongly convinced of the value of political par-
ticipation in terms of its critical contribution to personal moral growth,
Confucian meritocrats, equally committed to traditional Confucian ethical

Introduction [ 15 ]
61

perfectionism, refute this so-​called “participation argument” by claiming

that the same result can be achieved equally or even more effectively by
means of nonpolitical social participation. Chapter 1 provides a philosoph-
ical justification for the right to political participation in Confucian democ-
racy by critically examining the philosophical conundrum surrounding it in
Confucian democratic theory from the perspective of democracy’s second-​
order value and with special attention to the circumstances of modern
politics. I argue that the theoretical framework furnished by pragmatic
Confucian democracy can show us a way to look at the conundrum from
a different angle and to potentially resolve it without forfeiting our per-
fectionist commitment to Confucian values. I conclude by stressing that
the conundrum regarding political participation in the modern Confucian
constitutional polity, be it fully or only partially democratic, was caused
by a combination of the strong influence of traditional Confucian ethical
perfectionism on contemporary Confucian political theorists and their in-
complete understanding of democracy either as a political institution (or
simply election) or as a communitarian way of life.
Having laid out the key tenets of pragmatic Confucian democracy and
establishing the right to political participation as its integral component
in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 then turns to the value of democracy and ulti-
mately that of Confucian democracy in East Asia from the perspective of
citizens who care about both an effective coordination of their complex
social, economic, and political interactions and their Confucian-​based cul-
tural way of life under the circumstances of modern politics. The chapter
begins by critiquing two dominant models of democracy in political
science—​namely, the Schumpeterian model and the Deweyan model—​as
each model only partially captures the meaning of democracy and there-
fore the value of democracy as well. Presenting pragmatic Confucian
democracy as encompassing both models, equally concerned with two in-
separable dimensions of democracy, I argue that democracy as a social ex-
perience has both instrumental and intrinsic values, and to the extent that
Confucian democracy is a kind of democracy, it too has and ought to have
both instrumental and intrinsic values. Central to my claim in this chapter
is that once introduced and justified as a political system on instrumental
and consequential grounds, democracy attains its non-​instrumental value
as it gets consolidated as a way of life, in the course of which democratic
institutions, rights, and practices are socially mediated by and negotiated
with existing Confucian values, habits, mores, and moral sentiments. It is
through such a complex process of social and cultural negotiations, I argue,
that democratic institutions, rights, and practices (i.e., a democratic way
of life) can be made intelligent to and further cherished by citizens who

[ 16 ] Introduction
share Confucianism as their civic culture, notwithstanding deep diversity
and pervasive moral conflict among themselves.
In Chapter 3, the last chapter of Part I, I investigate the perfectionist
nature of democratic procedures and the perfectionist connection be-
tween democratic procedures and substantive outcomes that they pro-
duce in pragmatic Confucian democracy. This chapter begins by pointing
out deep ambiguities in existing Confucian political theories that tend to
focus exclusively on the perfectionist ends of the Confucian (democratic or
meritocratic) polity without articulating their internal connection to dem-
ocratic procedures. I argue that the pragmatic understanding of Confucian
democracy not only establishes the inextricable intertwinement between
democracy’s institutional-​instrumental and moral-​intrinsic values but fur-
ther creates an equally intimate connection between Confucian substance
and democratic procedure in a Confucian democracy. At the heart of my ar-
gument is that in Confucian pragmatic democracy, democratic procedures
exist not so much as formal institutional mechanisms that are neutral
to or independent of Confucian values but as the value-​laden conduit
through which Confucian democratic substances are produced in the forms
of Confucian democratic rights, Confucian justice, and Confucian demo-
cratic citizenship, thereby reinforcing a congruence between Confucian
democracy’s instrumental and intrinsic values. I explain this double con-
gruence that pragmatic Confucian democracy enables between substance
and procedure and between intrinsic and instrumental values in terms of
Confucian democratic perfectionism.
After establishing pragmatic Confucian democracy as a robust norma-
tive democratic theory, in Part II I discuss the normative implications of
pragmatic Confucian democracy on the idea of justice in criminal punish-
ment, economic distribution, and international relations (humanitarian
intervention in particular).
Although criminal justice is directly concerned with the citizen’s moral
standing as a free and equal person and works through the coercive power
of the state, there is virtually no philosophical discussion about this impor-
tant moral and political question in Confucian political theory, especially
in relation to democracy. Chapter 4 attempts to address this critical deficit
in Confucian political theory by proposing a novel normative framework
for criminal punishment, called the value theory of criminal punishment, as
an alternative to desert-​based retributivism that is most dominant in lib-
eral legal and political theory and to which some Confucian meritocrats
implicitly subscribe. Contrary to retributivists who see criminal desert
as pre-​social and purely individualistic, the value theory of punishment
understands it as embedded in communal values and social norms and

Introduction [ 17 ]
81

thus sees crime not in virtue of its pre-​socially evaluated wrongness but
in terms of a “normative blow” to the political community undergirded by
such values and norms. In the Confucian society in particular, I argue, a
normative blow to the community complexly implicates both the wrong-
doer and the victim, as they are thought to exist (or have existed until the
crime) not as independent rights-​bearing individuals but as quasi-​family
members of the community with their selves heavily related with one an-
other. From the perspective of the Confucian value theory of criminal
punishment, I then turn to one particular normative question in criminal
justice—​whether enhanced punishment for crimes committed against
family members, or simply family crimes, can be morally justified. I argue
that in a constitutional democracy in which Confucian values such as filial
piety, ritual propriety, ancestor worship, and harmony within the family
inform both the substance and the procedure of democracy, family crimes
fundamentally threaten the polity’s moral foundation and constitutional
integrity, and this justifies enhanced punishment for such crimes. The
chapter concludes by drawing attention to an important role that public
equality plays as a side-​constraint in making sure that enhanced punish-
ment for family crimes, though paternalistic, nevertheless contributes to
democratic justice.
Extending the preceding discussion on desert and public equality in rela-
tion to justice to the domain of economic distribution, Chapter 5 explores a
distributive principle—​what I call Confucian democratic sufficientarianism—​
that is integral to pragmatic Confucian democracy (as well as to Confucian
democratic perfectionism). One of the notable features in Confucian polit-
ical theory of late is that, following Harry Frankfurt, an increasing number
of scholars (mostly Confucian meritocrats) present the Confucian concep-
tion of distributive justice in terms of “the doctrine of sufficiency,” with
special attention to the doctrine’s negative thesis, which stipulates that
inequalities of wealth and income beyond the threshold of sufficiency do not
matter if they reflect different degrees of desert. In formulating an alternative
Confucian distributive principle, I critically embrace the doctrine’s posi-
tive thesis stipulating the threshold of sufficiency but roundly reject the
negative thesis because it not only reflects the deepest liberal commitment
to distinctive individuality, which Confucianism does not share, but more
importantly violates the spirit of the Confucian benevolent government.
After deriving four propositions from classical Confucianism (namely, equal
sufficiency, objectively high threshold standard, deserved inequalities, and
constrained inequality) and presenting them as constituting the classical
Confucian doctrine of sufficiency, I then reconstruct it into Confucian dem-
ocratic sufficientarianism by installing public equality as a side-​constraint

[ 18 ] Introduction
that prevents deserved inequalities beyond the threshold of sufficiency
from eroding an equal social relationship among citizens. Confucian dem-
ocratic sufficientarianism is distinguished importantly from liberal demo-
cratic sufficientarianism as well, because its main currency of distribution
is not so much equal public standing or freedom (as non-​domination) as
such, but the well-​being of the people.
The Confucian concern with the well-​being of the people, however, is
not limited by territorial boundary. Classical Confucians thought that a
virtuous ruler is responsible for the well-​being of all people under Heaven,
and this responsibility was the ground on which they could justify a pu-
nitive expedition of a virtuous ruler against the immoral ones during the
Warring States period. Inspired by this classical Confucian (especially
Mencian) authorization of punitive expedition, many Confucian political
theorists, including Daniel Bell, claim that the Confucian theory of pu-
nitive expedition has strong relevance in modern international relations
as it, with all its emphasis on specific procedural steps and qualifications,
can easily lend itself as the Confucian equivalent of humanitarian inter-
vention. Contrary to this line of optimism, I argue in Chapter 6 that for
it to be relevant to the modern international world and to be the theory
of humanitarian intervention in its truest sense (focused on the suffering
of the people rather than the moral qualification of the intervening ruler)
Mencius’s political theory of punitive expedition, which is predicated on
the paradigm of Confucian virtue politics, must undergo a democratic re-
construction with full attention to the circumstances of modern politics
on both national and international levels. More specifically, I argue that
applying Mencian virtue politics, as it is, to the modern pluralist world as
a form of political meritocracy is difficult to justify due to both internal
and external obstacles posed by value pluralism, domestically as well as in-
ternationally. At the center of my pragmatic-​democratic reconstruction of
Mencius’s virtue-​based theory of punitive expedition lies the stipulation
that intervention be morally justified domestically—​that is, to the people
of the intervening state, who may disagree with one another with regard
to justifiability of the intervention—​and internationally, first to those who
are intervened, whose lives are directly and profoundly affected by the in-
tervention and second to the international community, which has a moral
duty to protect the well-​being of the people in the world. I conclude by
revisiting my disagreement with Bell in the larger philosophical context, in
which the disagreement is essentially between Confucian political meritoc-
racy and pragmatic Confucian democracy.
I conclude the book by emphasizing the critical importance of Confucian
political theory’s acceptability to ordinary men and women actually living

Introduction [ 19 ]
02

in East Asia, many of whom are not ready to accept or even actively re-
ject the self-​validating moral authority of Confucianism while struggling
with their public standing as “citizens.” I argue that unless Confucian po-
litical theory aims to be the political theory for and of the people, it will
likely only remain the business of a few self-​claimed Confucians in aca-
demia having no meaningful contact with the real political world. The re-
sult may be a fantastic work of modern Confucianism, but it can hardly be
a Confucian political theory.

[ 20 ] Introduction
PART I

Democracy
2
CHAPTER 1

Political Participation

T he recent development of Confucian democratic theory has shifted our

attention from whether Confucianism is compatible with democracy
to what kind of Confucian democracy is best suited for East Asia. Previous
scholarship was largely preoccupied with reconstructing Confucianism
into a form of communitarian democracy, with special focus on ritualism,
role ethics, and social harmony, and thus did not challenge core democratic
principles such as popular sovereignty, political equality, and the right to
political participation.1 However, Confucian theorists of late seem to be far
more interested in philosophical and political implications of Confucianism,
the source of their cultural and philosophical inspiration, for their substan-
tive political theory of democracy. The result is an emergence of two dis-
tinct perspectives of Confucian democracy: one that either rejects or puts
significant constraints on the aforementioned democratic principles,2 and
one that embraces such principles as integral to its vision of Confucian de-
mocracy.3 It is through critical engagement between advocates of the first
position, called Confucian meritocrats, and those of the second position,
Confucian participatory democrats, that much innovation is taking place in
contemporary Confucian political theory.
What is interesting is that despite their important differences, all
Confucian democratic theorists generally subscribe to what Joseph Chan
calls Confucian perfectionism by upholding the following two premises: (1)
there are objectively good Confucian values or virtues such as benevolence
(ren 仁), filial piety (xiao 孝), righteousness (yi 義), and ritual propriety (li
禮); and (2) the state can promote these (and other related) values/​virtues
publicly as long as such promotion does not involve a serious violation of
individual rights or suppression of social pluralism.4 Based on these shared
42

premises, each position then builds its distinctive (i.e., meritocratic or par-
ticipatory) democratic theory by seeking the mode of democracy that can
best serve the higher moral goal of Confucian perfectionism. Generally
speaking, Confucian meritocrats assert that a minimal democracy, cen-
tral to which are limited political participation and a nondemocratically
selected upper house composed of the “best and brightest,” is most suit-
able for realizing the telos of Confucian perfectionism. On the other
hand, Confucian participatory democrats are strongly convinced that
with the collapse of the sage-​king paradigm in contemporary East Asia,
the Confucian perfectionist goal—​namely, moral growth in key Confucian
virtues—​can be attained only if people are individually able to participate
in political decision-​making processes.
Both positions, however, seem vulnerable to some challenges. For in-
stance, the following questions can be raised to Confucian meritocrats: if
the nondemocratic upper house is specifically required to serve the
Confucian perfectionist aims (i.e., wise public decisions and moral edu-
cation of the people), why is popular political participation necessary at
all, even if it is limited?5 And why struggle to justify political participation
philosophically, while simultaneously stressing that its moral value was
never recognized in the Confucian tradition?6 That said, since Confucian
meritocrats do not believe active political participation is essential to their
political theory, the force of the above challenges is surely limited. In fact,
insomuch as “democracy” in Confucian democracy is understood as an in-
stitutional apparatus instrumental to higher Confucian moral goals, it is
advocates of Confucian participatory democracy who face a more serious
challenge: what if the kind of moral growth they valorize as the ultimate
goal of Confucian democracy can be achieved equally or better without ro-
bust democratic political participation? In such a case, what is the distinc-
tive Confucian moral value of political participation?
This chapter aims to provide a robust philosophical justification for polit-
ical participation in Confucian democracy, first by critically examining the
philosophical conundrum surrounding political participation in Confucian
democratic theory from the perspective of democracy’s second-​order value
with special attention to “the circumstances of modern politics,” then
by presenting pragmatic Confucian democracy as an alternative mode
of Confucian democracy that can address the conundrum in a fresh way
without diluting the theory’s perfectionist commitment to Confucianism.
The chapter concludes by stressing that the conundrum was caused by a
combination of the strong influence of traditional Confucian virtue-​ethical
perfectionism on contemporary Confucian political theorists and their

[ 24 ] Democracy
incomplete understanding of democracy either as a political institution or
as a way of life.

VIRTUE, RITUAL, AND POLITICS: THE CLASSICAL ACCOUNT

OF CONFUCIAN PERFECTIONISM

Though perfectionism, especially in liberal political theory, is generally un-

derstood as the view that “the state should promote valuable conceptions
of the good life,”7 its long history tracking back to Aristotle and Aquinas
affirms that its more fundamental premise consists in the existence of an
objective conception of the human good and concern with the develop-
ment of human nature. Often committed to state neutrality, liberal theory
understandably rejects or simply brushes away this classical premise of
perfectionism focused on human nature, human excellence, and other
metaphysical beliefs, and instead shifts its attention to the moral permis-
sibility of the state’s nonneutral promotion or prohibition of particular
values and activities.8
Classical Confucianism, by which Confucian meritocrats and Confucian
participatory democrats are equally inspired, subscribes to both premises of
perfectionism, stipulating that the state nonneutrality premise is naturally
derived from the moral development premise. That is, from the Confucian
perspective, the ultimate purpose of the state lies in helping the people
become morally good, which justifies state-​centered moral education, and
the state’s other important (especially economic) policies are mainly to se-
cure socioeconomic conditions that enable a virtuous life.9 Traditionally,
Confucians called this mode of government, in which the telos of politics
is inextricably intertwined with moral development of the people, rule by
virtue (dezhi 德治). Mencius illustrates the kernel of Confucian virtue poli-
tics when he famously says: “It is only a gentleman who will be able to have
a constant mind despite being without a constant means of livelihood. The
people, lacking a constant means of livelihood, will lack constant minds,
and when they lack constant minds there is no dissoluteness, depravity, de-
viance, or excess to which they will not succumb. . . . Therefore, an enlight-
ened ruler will regulate the people’s livelihood so as to ensure that, above,
they have enough to serve their parents and, below, they have enough to
support their wives and children.”10 Confucius was also convinced that
when guided by virtue (de 德) and ordered by means of ritual (li 禮), rather
than by penal law and punishment, people will be able to develop a critical
moral sense, thereby correcting themselves in goodness.11

P ol i t i c a l Pa r t i c ipat i o n [ 25 ]
62

These classic accounts of Confucian virtue politics inform us that there

are two dimensions of it, namely the ruler’s transformative moral virtue
on the one hand12 and moral self-​cultivation of the ruled on the other.
They also help us understand that Confucian virtue politics is undergirded
by the following interrelated assumptions: (1) the ruler can acquire trans-
formative moral virtue by conducting himself properly (zheng 正),13 which
practically means to follow rituals;14 (2) there is no qualitative difference
between the ruler’s transformative moral virtue and the virtue that the
people, transformed by the virtuous ruler, are to acquire;15 and there-
fore (3) there is no distinction, conceptual or practical, between moral
virtue and political virtue (as understood in the Western republican tra-
dition).16 Because of this monistic structure, traditional Confucians de-
voted themselves not only to the people’s moral development, which is
perfectionism’s main concern, but, just as enthusiastically, to the moral
self-​cultivation of the ruler who ascends the throne by hereditary right,
not by means of virtue.
Strictly speaking, therefore, the slogan “rule by virtue” does not per-
fectly capture Confucian virtue politics because it only speaks to its
statecraft dimension, in which people are understood as passive subjects
of moral development while in principle the ruler is also subject to se-
vere moral constraints and equally requires moral development, perhaps
more than ordinary people.17 The simultaneous emphasis on the ruler’s
transformative moral virtue (or moral rulership) and his own moral de-
velopment importantly distinguishes Confucian perfectionism from its
Western counterparts, which are concerned mainly with the people’s
moral perfection.
Though Confucius offered the skeleton of Confucian virtue politics piv-
oted around virtue and ritual, it was Mencius and Xunzi who fully developed
the theory of Confucian virtue politics with a sophisticated philosophical
account of human nature. Casually regarded in the Confucian tradition as
arch-​rivals, Mencius and Xunzi held radically different, almost opposing,
accounts of human nature and moral self-​cultivation. Briefly put, Mencius
believed that human nature is good in the sense of everyone possessing
incipient moral inclinations toward goodness (such as feelings of com-
passion, righteousness, propriety, and the sense of right and wrong), and
thus upheld a developmental model of moral self-​cultivation. Xunzi, on
the other hand, convinced that human nature is bad in the sense of being
disorderly and recalcitrant to moral correction, advocated a reformation
model of moral self-​cultivation.18
Such critical differences notwithstanding, Mencius and Xunzi both
adhered to Confucius’s original insight that “if there are people who do have

[ 26 ] Democracy
robust character traits and are resistant to situational variation, they can
design and reliably maintain the broad range of institutions and situations
that facilitate good behavior for everyone else.”19 The following statement
by Xunzi most powerfully represents the core proposition of Confucian
virtue politics:

Thus, rules cannot stand alone, and categories cannot implement themselves.
If one has the right person, then they will be preserved. If one loses the right
person, then they will be lost. The rules are the beginning of order, and the
gentleman is the origin of the rules. And so, with the gentleman present, even
if the rules are sketchy, they are enough to be comprehensive. Without the
gentle­man, even if the rules are complete, one will fail to apply them in the
right order and will be unable to respond to changes in affairs, and thus they
can serve to create chaos.20

Thus far we have examined, albeit briefly, the central purpose of Confucian
virtue politics as well as its philosophical assumptions and moral
propositions. This brief recapitulation offers a necessary intellectual back-
ground against which to evaluate the “Confucian” aspect of the particular
versions of Confucian democratic theory, meritocratic or participatory,
in spite of the theory’s engagements with non-​Confucian philosophical
ideas and political theories, especially those of the Western-​liberal tradi-
tion. In other words, in pursuing democratic theory it can help us to judge
under what sorts of philosophical parameters or constraints we should
pursue democratic theory if it can be reasonably called “Confucian.” This
examination also informs us that any attempt to reconstruct traditional
Confucian perfectionism radically, that is, in ways plausible in the pluralist
societies of contemporary East Asia, has to wrestle with such parameters
or constraints.
Confucian meritocrats derive their argument for minimal democracy
and rule by the best and the brightest directly from the classical ideal of
Confucian virtue politics. It is debatable whether or not Confucian meri-
tocracy, premised on classical Confucian virtue monism, indeed offers the
most attractive mode of government in contemporary East Asia.21 But if
this practical (and politically significant) question can somehow be put
aside, the Confucian character of recent proposal(s) of Confucian meri-
tocracy can hardly be questioned. And insomuch as classical Confucian
virtue politics does not (explicitly) acknowledge the moral value of polit-
ical participation, Confucian meritocrats seem to be justified in denying
or only partially embracing this critical democratic value and practice, if
they can convincingly show that their proposed Confucian meritocracy

P ol i t i c a l Pa r t i c ipat i o n [ 27 ]
82

can effectively protect individual rights and reasonably well accommodate

social pluralism without active political participation by citizens. Joseph
Chan’s moderate Confucian perfectionism is one important attempt to
achieve the balance between Confucian meritocracy and human rights via
limited democracy, to which I will turn shortly.
The heavier burden of justification rather falls on Confucian participa-
tory democrats. Unless they radically revamp and go beyond the classical
paradigm of Confucian virtue-​ethical perfectionism, an attempt which begs
justification in itself, they should be able to offer a reason for their valoriza-
tion of political participation in Confucian terms. For Confucian meritocrats,
Confucian democracy is a partial democracy, the democratic dimension
of which is significantly curtailed by classical Confucian perfectionism.
Precisely in this sense, for Confucian meritocrats, Confucian democracy,
which they understand as a kind of hybrid regime, is clearly distinguished
from a Western-​style liberal democracy predicated on the principles of pop-
ular sovereignty and political equality.22 How then can Confucian partici-
patory democrats uphold political participation without altering classical
Confucian perfectionism? Even if they have a practical reason to do so, can
it be justified in light of classical Confucian perfectionism?

THE CONFUCIAN VIRTUE OF POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Confucian participatory democrats such as Sor-​hoon Tan and Stephen Angle

are strongly convinced that political participation should be integral to the
political theory and practice of Confucian democracy, although there are
notable differences in the ways they advance this argument. Both Tan and
Angle believe that moral growth is the telos of Confucian ethics and poli-
tics. Finding striking similarity between John Dewey’s democratic pragma-
tism and Confucius’s ethical and political thought, Tan presents political
participation as an essential element of Confucian moral self-​cultivation.
Tan says, “Political participation is part of personal growth. . . . A person
functions better (i.e., grows) when she attains better control over, interacts
better with, her environment—​political participation is an important part
of this endeavor.”23 Echoing Tan but not associating his judgment with
Dewey, Angle, equally convinced that the telos of Confucianism consists
in personal and relational moral growth,24 asserts that “[a]‌fter all, if a state
were to make all the major decisions for its citizens, leaving them space for
decisions only about personal matters, it would be infantilizing its citizens.
That is, it would be denying them access to situations crucial for developing
moral maturity.”25

[ 28 ] Democracy
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 “THE INSTITUTION OF A GENTLEMAN.”
“Your countenance, though it be glossed with knighthood, looks so
borrowingly, that the best words you give me are as dreadful as ‘stand
and deliver.’”—The Asparagus Garden.

The unknown author of the “Institution of a Gentleman,” dedicates

his able treatise to “Lorde Fitzwater, sonne and heire to the Duke of
Sussex.” In his dedicatory epistle he does not so much mourn over a
general decay of manners, as over the lamentable fact, that the
lowly-born are rising to gentility, while nobility and knighthood are
going to decay. These he beseeches “to build gentry up again, which
is, for truth sore decayed, and fallen to great ruin, whereby such
great corruption of manners hath taken place, that almost the name
of gentleman is quenched, and handicraftsmen have obtained the
title of honor, though (indeed) of themselves they can challenge no
greater worthiness than the spade brought unto their late fathers.”
The writer is troubled with the same matter in his introductory
chapter. This chapter shows how, at this time, trade was taking
equality with gentry. “Yea, the merchantman thinketh not himself
well-bred unless he be called one of the worshipful sort of
merchants, of whom the handicraftsman hath taken example; and
taketh to be called ‘Master,’ whose father and grandfather were wont
to be called ‘Good Man.’”
On the question of “What is a gentleman?” the author goes back to a
very remote period, that of Adam, quoting the old saying:—

“When Adam delved and Eve span,

Who was then the gentleman?”

and he makes the following comment upon this well-known text:

“There be many of so gross understanding that they think to
confound a gentleman, when they ask of him this question. To whom
it may be said that so much grace as Adam our first father, received
of God at his creation, so much nobility and gentry he received. And
to understand perfectly how and after what demeanor Adam
behaved himself, or how he directed the order of his life, the
witnesses, I think, in that behalf are far to seek, whose behavior, if it
were good and honest, then was he the first gentleman, even so
much as the first earthly follower of virtues. But if there were in him
no such virtue, then was he the first gentleman in whom virtues and
gentle deeds did first appear.”
As a training toward excellence, our anonymous author recommends
severity of discipline from the cradle upward. “Neither,” he says, “do I
mean to allow any liberty to youth, for as liberty is to all eyes hurtful,
so is it to youth a present poison;” but he forgets that even poisons
are administered in small doses in order to cure certain diseases,
and that life would be a disease, even to the young, without some
measure of liberty. He is terribly afraid that freedom in childhood will
spoil the man, who himself will be no man, with too much liberty, but
a “Royster;” “and a ‘Royster,’” he adds, “can not do the office of a
gentleman, so long I mean as a Roysterian he doth continue.”
He then informs us that there had long been in England a division of
classes, under the heads of “Gentle Gentle, Gentle Ungentle, and
Ungentle Gentle.” These were not classes of society generally, but
classes of the orders of Gentlemen exclusively. The Gentle Gentle
are those of noble birth, from dukes’ sons down to esquires,
provided they join to their “gentle house, gentle manners, and noble
conditions, which is the cause of the addition of the other word called
gentle.” This is much such a definition of gentleman as might be now
given, with the exception that the question of birth has little to do with
the matter, and that gentle manners and noble conditions, as our
author calls gentleman-like bearing, scholarly education, and
Christian principles, now make of a man a gentleman, let him be of
“gentle” house or not. Indeed, the author himself is not indisposed to
accept this method of definition, for on proceeding to tell us what
“Gentle Ungentle” is, he says that “Gentle Ungentle is that man
which is descended of noble parentage, by the which he is
commonly called gentle, and hath in him such corrupt and ungentle
manners as to the judgment of all men he justly deserveth the name
of ungentle.” His remedy again for preventing the gentle becoming
ungentle is coercion in youth-time. He thinks that virtue is to be got
from the human being like oils or other juices from certain vegetable
substances, by ex-pression. Squeeze the human being tightly, press
him heavily, he is sure to yield something. No doubt; but after the
pressure he is often of little more use than a well-sucked orange.
We next come to the “Ungentle Gentle.” In the definition of this term,
the author, with all his reverence for nobility, is compelled to allow
that there is a nobility of condition as well as a nobility of birth; but
others who contested this fact, gave a new word to the English
tongue, or made a new application of an old word in order to support
their theory and assail those whom they sought to lower.
“Ungentle Gentle,” says our author, “is he which is born of a low
degree—which man, taking his beginning of a poor kindred, by his
virtue, wit, policy, industry, knowledge in laws, valiancy in arms, or
such like honest means, becometh a well-behaved and high-
esteemed man, preferred then to great office, put in great charge
and credit, even so much as he becometh a post or stay of the
commonwealth, and so growing rich, doth thereby advance and set
up the rest of his poor line or kindred. They are the children of such
one commonly called gentleman; of which sort of gentleman we
have now in England very many, whereby it should appear that virtue
flourisheth among us. These gentlemen are now called ‘Up-starts,’ a
term lately invented by such as pondered not the grounds of honest
means of rising or coming to promotion.” Nevertheless, says our
censor, there be upstarts enough and to spare. The worshipful
unworthies, he tells us, abound; and the son of good-man Thomas,
or good-man John, have obtained the name of gentlemen, the
degree of esquires or knights, and possessing “a little dunghill
forecast to get lands, by certain dark augmentative practices,” they
are called “worshipful” at every assize. He dates the origin of this
sort of nobility, knighthood and esquirearchy, from the time of the
suppression and confiscation of abbeys and abbey-estates. He has
a curious passage on this subject:—
“They have wrongfully intruded into gentry, and thrust themselves
therein, as Bayard, the cart-jade, might leap into the stable of
Bucephalus, and thrust his head into the manger with that worthy
courser. The particular names of whom, if I should go about to
rehearse, it would require long labor, and bring no fruit to the readers
thereof. And it is well known that such intruders, such unworthy
worshipful men, have chiefly flourished since the putting down of
abbeys, which time is within my remembrance.”
While allowing that gentlemanly manners help to make the
gentleman, and that birth is only an accidental matter, having little to
do with the subject, he still can not forbear to reverence rather good
men of high birth than good men of low degree. He evidently thinks
that he was enjoined by religion to do so, for he remarks: “As in
times past, no man was suffered to be ‘Knyght of the Roodes,’ but
such one as was descended of the lyne of gentleman, whereby it
appeareth that no men were thought so meet to defend the right, that
is to say the faith of Christ, as gentlemen, and so to have their
offices agreeable with their profession, it is most meet that all
gentlemen be called to such room and office as may be profitable to
the commonwealth.” This idea that the holy sepulchre was to be
rescued from the infidels only by gentlemen, and the fact that it has
not been so rescued, reminds me of that king of Spain, who, finding
himself in danger of being roasted alive, from sitting in a chair which
one of his great officers had placed too near the fire, chose to roast
on, for the singular reason that there was no grandee at hand to
draw his chair away again!
In 1555, this writer still accounted the profession of arms as the
noblest, the most profitable to the professor, and the most useful to
the commonwealth. Courage, liberality, and faithful observance of all
promises; thus endowed, he thinks a man is a true gentleman. He
draws, however, a happy parallel when admitting that if it become a
gentleman to be a good knight and valiant soldier, it even more
becometh him to be a great statesman. For, “although to do valiantly
in the wars it deserveth great praise and recompense, yet to minister
justice in the state of peace is an office worthy of higher
commendation. The reason is, wars are nothing necessary, but of
necessity must be defended when they fall. And contrariwise, peace
is a thing not only most necessary, but it is called the best thing
which even nature hath given unto man.” This parallel, if indeed it
may be so called, is only employed, however, for the purpose of
showing that certain posts in the state should only be given to
gentlemen born. There is a good deal of the red-tapist in our moralist
after all; and he has a horror, still entertained in certain localities, of
admitting the democratic element into the public offices. Thus we
find him maintaining that, “Unto a gentleman appertaineth more fully
than unto any other sort of man, embassage or message to be done
between kings or princes of this earth; more fitly I say, because
gentlemen do know how to bear countenance and comely gesture
before the majesty of a king, better than other sorts of men.” One
would think that the majesty of a king was something too dazzling for
a common man of common sense to look upon and live, and yet the
writer is evidently aware that there is nothing in it, for he concludes
his chapter on this matter by observing that “a gentleman sent of
embassage unto a prince ought to think a king to be but a man, and,
in reverence and humility, boldly to say his message unto him.”
Surely a man of good sense might do this, irrespective of his birth,
particularly at a time when the unskilfulness and ignorance of
gentlemen were so great as to pass into a proverb, and “He shooteth
like a gentleman fair and far off,” implied not only ill-shooting with
bows and arrows, “but it extended farther and reached to greater
matters, all to the dispraise of ignorant gentlemen.”
It is so common a matter with us to refer to the days in which this
author wrote, as days in which old knights and country gentlemen
maintained such hospitality as has seldom been since witnessed,
that we are surprised to find complaint made, in this treatise, of
something just the contrary. The author enjoins these knights and
gentlemen to repair less to London, and be more seen dispensing
hospitality in their own houses. “In the ancient times,” he says, “when
curious buildings fed not the eye of the wayfaring man, then might he
be fed and have good repast at a gentleman’s place, so called. Then
stood the buttery door without a hatch; yeoman then had no cause to
carve small dishes; Flanders cooks had then no wages for their
devices, nor square tables were not used. This variety and change
from the old English manner hath smally enriched gentlemen, but
much it hath impoverished their names, not without just punishment
of their inconsistency in that behalf.” Let me add, that the writer
thinks the country knight or gentleman would do well were he to
exercise the office of justice of the peace. He is sorely afraid,
however, that there is a disqualification, on the ground of ignorance.
A moralist might have the same fear just now, without coming to the
same conclusion. Our author, for instance, argues that reverence is
to be paid to the noble, quand même. Let him be ignorant and
tyrannical, yet to reverence him is to give example of obedience to
others. This is very poor logic, and what follows is still worse; for this
writer very gravely remarks, that “We ought to bear the offences of
noble men patiently, and that if these forget themselves, yet ought
not smaller men to be oblivious of their duty in consequence, and fail
in their respect.”
We come upon another social trait, when we find the author
lamenting that, however much it becometh a gentleman to be
acquainted with hawking and hunting, yet that these pastimes are so
abused by being followed to excess, that “gentlemen will almost do
nothing else, or at the least can do that better than any other thing.”
To the excess alluded to does the author trace the fact that “there
are so many raw soldiers when time of war requireth their help. This
is the cause of so many unlearned gentlemen, which, as some say,
they understand not the inkhorn terms that are lately crept into our
language. And no marvel it is, though they do not understand them,
whereas in their own hawking and hunting terms they be ignorants
as ‘Auvent’ and ‘Retrouvre,’ which they call ‘Houent’ and ‘Retrires.’”
What better could be expected from men who had given up the
practice of the long bow to take to the throwing of dice? But there
was now as wild extravagance of dress as ignorance of uncommon
things, in the class of foolish knights and gentlemen. This is alluded
to in the chapter on dress, wherein it is said that “the sum of one
hundred pounds is not to be accounted in these days to be bestowed
of apparel for one gentleman, but in times past, a chamber gown
was a garment which dwelt with an esquire of England twenty
years”—and I believe that the knights were as frugal as the esquires.
“Then flourished the laudable simplicity of England,” exclaims the
author; “there were no conjurors and hot scholars, applying our
minds to learne our new trifle in wearing our apparel.” Upon the point
of fashions, the author writes with a feeling as if he despaired of his
country. “The Englishman,” he observes, “changeth daily the fashion
of his garment; sometimes he delighteth in many guards, welts and
pinks, and pounces. Sometimes again, to the contrary, he weareth
his garments as plain as a sack; yet faileth he not to change also
that plainness if any other new fangle be invented. This is the vanity
of his delight.” And this vanity was common to all men of high degree
in his time—to those to whom “honor” was due, from men of less
degree—and these were “dukes, earls, lords, and such like, of high
estate,” as well as to those who were entitled to the “worship” of
smaller men, and these were “knights, esquires, and gentlemen.”
There is here, I think, some confusion in the way such terms are
applied; but I have not made the extract for the purpose of grounding
a comment upon it, but because it illustrates one portion of my
subject, and shows that while “your honor” was once the due phrase
of respect to the peerage, “your worship” was the reverential one
paid to knights, esquires, and gentlemen. We still apply the terms, if
not to the different degrees named above, yet quite as confusedly, or
as thoughtlessly with respect to the point whether there be anything
honorable or worshipful in the individual addressed. This, however, is
only a form lingering among the lower classes. As matters of right,
however, “his honor” still sits in Chancery, and “your worship” is to be
seen behind any justice’s table.
We will now return to a race of kings who, whatever their defects,
certainly did not lack some of the attributes of chivalry.
 THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS.
THE STUARTS.

“May’t be pleasure to a reader’s ear,

That never drew save his own country’s air,
To hear such things related.”
Heywood, the English Traveller

It is an incontrovertible fact, that the king of England, who least of

all resembled a knight in his warlike character, was the one who
surpassed all his brother sovereigns in his knightly spirit as a lover. I
allude to James I. The godson of Charles IX. of France was in his
childhood, what his godfather had never been, a dirty, droll boy. He
is the only king who ever added an original remark to a royal speech
set down for him to deliver. The remark in question was, probably,
nearly as long as the speech, for James was but four years old when
he gave utterance to it. He had been rolling about on the throne
impishly watching, the while, the grim lords to whom he, ultimately,
recited a prepared speech with great gravity and correctness. At the
end of his speech, he pointed to a split in the tiled roof of the hall, or
to a rent in the canopy of the throne, and announced to the lords and
others present the indisputable fact, that “there was a hole in the
parliament.”
The precocious lad passed no very melancholy boyhood in Stirling
Castle, till the Raid of Ruthven took him from his natural protectors,
and placed him in the hands of Gowrie. His escape thence exhibited
both boldness and judgment in a youth of sixteen; and when
Frederick II., of Denmark, gave him the choice of the two Danish
princesses for a wife, no one thought that so gallant a king was
undeserving of the compliment. When it was, however, discovered
that the royal Dane required James either to accept a daughter or
surrender the Orkney and Shetland islands, as property illegally
wrested from Denmark, men began to look upon the Danish king as
guilty of uncommonly sharp practice toward the sovereign of the
Scots. A world of trouble ensued, which it is not my business to
relate, although were I inclined to be discursive—which, of course, I
am not—I might find great temptation to indulge therein, upon this
very subject. Suffice it then to say, that a world of trouble ensued
before James made his selection, and agreed to take, rather than
prayed to have granted to him, the hand of Elizabeth, the elder
daughter of Frederick II.
How the intrigues of Queen Elizabeth prevented this marriage I must
not pause to relate. The Danish Princess espoused a reigning duke,
and James was on the point of engaging himself to Katherine of
Navarre, when the offer of the hand of Anne the younger daughter of
Frederick being made to him, coupled with the alternative of his
either taking Anne, or losing the islands, he “prayed and advised with
God, for a fortnight,” and wisely resolved to wed with “pretty Anne.”
The matter progressed anything but smoothly for a time. At length,
after endless vexations, the young princess was married by proxy, in
August, 1589, and set sail, soon after, for Scotland under convoy of
a dozen gallant ships, and with prospects of a very unpleasant
voyage.
A terrible storm blew bride and convoy on to the inhospitable coast
of Norway, and although two or three witches were executed for
raising this storm out of very spite, the matter was not mended.
Disaster pursued the fleet, and death overtook several who sailed in
it, till the coast of Scotland was fairly in sight. The Scotch witches, or
perhaps other causes not less powerful than witches, in those seas,
in the fall of the year, then blew the fleet back to the mouth of the
Baltic. “I was commissioned,” said Peter Munch, the admiral, “to land
the young queen in Scotland; it is clear, therefore, that I can not
return with her to Denmark. I will put her majesty ashore, therefore,
in Norway.” The conclusion was not logically attained, but the fact
was as we have described it. Letters reached James announcing to
him the deplorable condition in which his queen was lying at Upslo,
on the Norwegian coast—storm-bound and half-famished. After
many projects considered for her relief, James resolved to set forth
and seek the princess himself. It is in this passage of his life that we
have an illustration of the degree in which he surpassed all other
kings who have sat on the English throne—as a gallant knight es
amours.
Toward the end of October, of this year, in the very stormiest portion
of the season, James went, privately, on board a diminutive vessel,
with a very reluctant party of followers and confederates, leaving
behind him, for the information of the astonished lieges, a promise to
be back in twenty days; and for their especial profit, a solemn
exhortation to live peaceably till he arrived again among them, with
his wife.
The knightly lover landed in Norway, early in November, and made
his way along the coast, now on foot, now on horseback anon in
sledges, and occasionally in boats or on shipboard, until with infinite
pains, and in a sorry plight, he reached Upslo, to no one’s
astonishment more than the queen’s, about the 19th of November.
Accoutred and travel-soiled as he was, he proceeded at once to her
presence. He was so well-pleased with the fair vision before him,
that he made as if he would at once kiss the queen, who stood
gazing at him. “It is not the form of my country,” said pretty Anne, not
very violently holding her head aside. “It’s good old Scottish fashion,”
said the young king: and it was observed that in less than an hour,
Anne had fallen very completely into the pleasant mode from beyond
seas, and quite forgotten the forms of Denmark.
The young couple were duly married in person, on the Sunday
following the arrival of James. The latter, like any Paladin of
romance, had perilled life, and contended with almost
insurmountable obstacles, in order to win the royal lady after a less
easy fashion than marks the wooing and wedding of kings generally.
Such a couple deserved to have the merriest of marriage banquets,
but while such a storm was raging without as Norway itself had
never seen since the sea-wind first blew over her, such a tempest
was raised within, by the Scottish nobles, on a question of
precedence, that the king himself was chiefly occupied in soothing
the quarrellers, and only half succeeded in accomplishing the
desired end. Added to this was the prospect of a long winter among
the melancholy huts of Upslo. James, however, again exhibited the
spirit of a knight of more than ordinary gallantry. He not only resolved
that the young queen should not be thus imprisoned amid the
Norway snows till May, but he resolved to conduct her himself across
the Norwegian Alps, through Sweden, to her Danish home. The idea
of such a journey seemed to partake of insanity, but James
proceeded to realize it, by means of method and judgment. He first
performed the perilous journey alone, as far as Sweden, and finding
it practicable, returned for his wife, and departed a second time, in
her company. Much peril but small accident accompanied them on
their way, and when the wedding party arrived safely at Cronenburg,
toward the end of January, the marriage ceremony was not only
repeated for the third time—to despite the witches who can do
nothing against the luck that is said to lie in odd numbers, but there
was a succession of marriage feasts, at which every gentleman
drank deeper and deeper every day, until such uproar and
dissension ensued that few kept their daggers in sheath except
those who were too drunk to draw them. That all were not in the
more disgraceful state, or were not continually in that condition, may
be conjectured from the fact that James paid a visit to Tycho Brahe,
and conversed with the astronomer in his observatory, in very
vigorous Latin. The king, however, was not sorry to leave old
Denmark, and when a Scottish fleet appeared off Cronenburg, to
convey his bride and himself homeward, he could no more be
persuaded to stay a day longer, than Tycho Brahe could be
persuaded that Copernicus was correct in dislodging the earth from
its Ptolemaic stand-point as centre of the solar system. The bridal
party set sail on the 21st of April, 1590, and was safely moored in
Leith harbor on May-day. A pretty bride could not have arrived at a
more appropriate season. The royal knight and his lady deserved all
the happiness that could be awarded to the gallantry of the one and
the beauty of the other. But they did not escape the trials common to
much less dignified couples; and here the knightly character of
James may be said to terminate. Exemplary as he had been as a
lover, and faithful as he continued to be as a husband, he was in all
other respects, simply a shrewd man; and not indeed always that.
There is little of this quality in a husband who begins and continues
his married life with an indifference upon the matter of borrowing.
With James it was silver spoons to-day, silk stockings to-morrow,
and marks and moidores from any one who would give him credit.
The old French knight who drank broth out of his own helmet rather
than sip it from a borrowed bowl, was moved at least by a good
principle. James rather agreed with Carlo Buffone, in Jonson’s
“Every Man out of his Humor,” that “it is an excellent policy to owe
much in these days.” A policy which, unfortunately, is still deemed
excellent, in spite of the ruin which attends its practice.
The grave chivalry impressed on the face and features of Charles I.,
is strikingly alluded to by Ben Jonson in his Masque of “The
Metamorphosed Gypsies;” for example:—

“His brow, his eye, and ev’ry mark of state,

As if he were the issue of each grace,
And bore about him both his fame and fate.”

Echard says of him, that he was perfect in all knightly exercises,

“vaulting, riding the great horse, running at the ring, shooting with
cross-bows, muskets, and sometimes great guns; that if sovereignty
had been the reward of excellences in those arts, he would have
acquired a new title to the crown, being accounted the most
celebrated marksman, and the most perfect manager of the great
horse, of any in the three kingdoms.”
It was with reference to the expression of the face, alluded to by
Jonson, that Bernini the sculptor said, on executing the bust of
Charles, that he had never seen any face which showed so much
greatness, and withal such marks of sadness and misfortune. The
knight, Sir Richard Bulstrode, tells us, that when the bust was being
carried across Greenwich Park, it suffered, what Moore calls on
another occasion, some “Tobit-like marks of patronage” from the
sparrows. “It was wiped off immediately,” says Charles’s good knight
—“but, notwithstanding all endeavors, it would not be gotten off, but
turned into blood.” No chevalier in poetic romance meets with more
threatening portent than the above.
The Scotch soldiers of fortune, at this period, were as good
representatives as could be found of the old knight-errant. To them,
Vittorio Siri imputes many of the misfortunes of the period. Some one
tells of an old Scottish knight exclaiming, in a year of universal
peace, “Lord, turn the world upside-down, that gentlemen may make
bread of it.” So, for the sake of furthering their trade of arms, the
Scottish, and, indeed, other mercenary men-at-arms, fanned the
flame. The words of Siri are precise on this point, for he says, “Le
Leslie, le Gordoni, le Duglas ed altri milordi della Scotia, del’
Inghilterra, e dell’ Irlanda.”
Never had knights of romance worse fare in the dungeons of morose
magicians than they who entered the bloody lists, where was fought
out the quarrel between royalty and republicanism. “I heard a great
officer say,” remarks Blount, “that during the siege of Colchester, he
dined at an entertainment, where the greatest delicacies were roast
horseflesh.”
The warlike spirit was, probably, never stronger than in this reign. It
is well illustrated by Hobbes, who remarks that, the Londoners and
citizens of other county capitals, who fought against Charles, “had
that in them which, in time of battle, is more conducing to victory,
than valor and experience both together; and that was spite.”
But it is as a lover that Charles I. is chiefly distinguished when we
consider him solely to discover his knightly qualities. In his early
days he was strongly impressed by romance, and possessed of
romantic feelings. This fact is best illustrated by his conduct in
connection with the Spanish Match; and to this matter we will devote
a brief space, and go back to the time when James was king, and
Charles was Prince of Wales.
 THE SPANISH MATCH.
This unhappy and ill-advised affair, will ever remain one of the
darkest blemishes on the uniformly pacific but inglorious reign of the
royal pupil of Buchanan;—the whole detail is an ungrateful one of
intrigue and ill-faith, and however justly Buckingham may be
accused of exerting his baleful influence to dissolve the treaty, and
that he did so in the wantonness of his power is now past doubt; the
disgrace which should have attached to him, still hangs round the
memory of the timid king and his weak yet gallantly-disposed son. I
am more inclined to allow a high-mindedness of feeling to Charles
than to his father. The king, who supposed the entire art of reigning
lay in dissimulation, may not be charged with an over-scrupulous
nicety in his observations of the rules of fair dealing; but the young
prince, at this period, had the sentiments without the vanity of a
knight-errant, his only error was in the constitutional weakness which
bent to the arrogance of Buckingham’s somewhat stronger mind.
With such a disposition, the favorite found it as easy to persuade
Charles to break off the match, as he had with facility advised him to
the romantic journey—as rash as it was impolitic. It would be almost
an unprofitable occupation to search for Buckingham’s motives, they
are quite unattainable, and, like hunting the hare in a wagon,
conjecture might lead us on, but we should, at every step, be farther
from our object. It is the received opinion, that the prince’s visit was
begun in caprice; and with caprice it ended. Buckingham viewed it,
perhaps, at first as a mere adventure, and he terminated it, because
his wounded pride suggested to him that he was not the favorite
actor in the piece. His terms were, “Ego et rex meus,” and a less-
distinguished station would not satisfy the haughty insolence of
Somerset’s succession in the precarious favor of the king.
Our British Solomon who willed, but could not restore, the Palatinate
to his son-in-law, had long been accustomed to consider the union of
Charles with the Infanta, as the only available means left by which
he could secure the object he had so much at heart. He was not
made of the stern stuff, which in other kings would have set a whole
army in motion. That “sagacious simpleton” was never in so turbulent
a vein. His most powerful weapon was an ambassador, and the best
of these were but sad specimens of diplomacy, and thus, weak as he
was, both in the cabinet and field, we may guess at his rapture when
the marriage was agreed to by the Court of Spain—the restoration of
the Palatinate talked of as a wedding present, and the bride’s dowry
two millions of eight.
It was at the expiration of five years of negotiation, that James at
length saw the end of what had hitherto been an ever-continuing
vista. The dispensation of the Pope, an indispensable preliminary to
the union of a Most Catholic princess, with a Protestant heir-
apparent, had been held up as a difficulty; James immediately
loosened the reins with which he had held in the Catholic recusants
—he set them at liberty, for the good of the reformed religion, he
said; then apologized to his subjects for having so set them at liberty
—for the benefit of Protestantism; and finally, he exulted in having
accomplished so honorable an end for England, as making her the
first to enter the path of moderation. He, moreover, sent to Spain,
Digby, the good and great Lord Bristol, and while he was negotiating
with Philip IV., the Infanta’s brother, George Gage, “a polite and
prudent gentleman,” was employed at Rome to smooth down the
obstacles which the zeal of the Fourteenth Gregory raised in behalf
of his mother-church. The parties were a long time at issue as to
what period the presumed offspring of this marriage should remain
under the guardianship of their mother; that is to say, under the
Catholic tuition of her confessors. The period of “fourteen years,”
was suggested by the Pope, and agreed to by the Court of Spain.
Now, George Gage, we are told, was both polite and prudent;
George made some slight objection. The father of the faithful and the
descendant of Roderic now named twelve years as the stipulated
period of maternal or ecclesiastical rule. Mr. Gage, without losing
sight of his prudence, retained all his civility; he treated the Pope
courteously. Gregory, in return, granted the dispensation,
condescended even to agree to the term of nine years, and merely
asked a few privileges for the Catholic suite of the Infanta, which
were not hard to grant, and would have been impolitic to refuse.
James’s advisers counselled him to demand the restitution of the
Palatinate by a preliminary treaty. This he wisely refrained from
doing; he saw that his desired object was considered inseparable
from the marriage, and he was content to trust to the existing treaty
which, probably, would not have been changed, had he so
expressed his wish. There is a curious item in all these diplomatic
relations; beside the public treaty there were various private articles,
passed between and signed by the parties concerned, agreeing that
more toleration should be granted to the papists, and that more of
the penal laws against them should be repealed than was expressed
in the public document. There appears also to have existed a yet
more private treaty, of even more restricted circulation, whereby
James was not to be required to act up to the very letter of that
article, by which his royal word pledged what was then considered—
emancipation to the Catholics.
Thus far had proceeded this tedious affair of state; the nation was
beginning to consider its accomplishment with diminished aversion,
and a few months would have brought a Spanish Princess of Wales
to England, when all this goodly and fair-wrought edifice was
destroyed by the temerity of the man who was the evil spirit of the
age. Charles’s youth and inexperience readily lent a willing ear to the
glowing description which Buckingham recounted of the celebrated
journey. His young melancholy was excited into cheerfulness, when
he dwelt on the hoped-for and surprised rapture with which his
destined bride would receive a prince whose unusual gallantry
spurned at the laws of political interest, and whose chivalric feeling
had broken through state negotiation, and, despising to woo by
treaty, had brought him to her feet to win her by his merits. His blood
warmed at the popularity he would acquire by such a step, from a
nation famed for its knightly devotion to the fair, and whose watch-
word, according to one of its poets, has ever been, “love and the
ladyes.” Charles would have been a dull lover, indeed, had he only,
like other princes, thought his bride not worth the fetching. He would
have been doubly dull and undeserving had he paused to consider
the bearings, the risks, or the probable absurdity of the act. There
was a certain political danger; but Charles, young, and a lover,
refused to see it; he was tearing the bonds which might bind more
ignoble princes, but were too weak to confine him; he rent the
shackles which proxies force on their principals, and stood in his own
princely strength to win a prize which has often lost the world.
The only step subsequent to the prince’s acquiescence, was to
obtain the king’s permission, a matter of little difficulty. They attacked
the good-natured and simple James at a moment when his jovial
humor would not have denied a greater boon. He had sense,
however, to see something of the impropriety of the absence of
Charles and Buckingham from England; but his obtusity of intellect
was overpowered by the craft of his favorite, and the petitioners at
length obtained his unadvised sanction to the wild enterprise, less by
the strength of their arguments, than the persisting urgency of its
expression. The prince and his companion further obtained a
promise of secrecy; and they saw nothing more wanting than the
ordinary preparations for their departure. Left to his own reflections,
however, the poor king reproached his own weakness; he saw with
terror that his subjects would not readily forgive him for committing
so invaluable a pledge into the hands of a Catholic sovereign, who
might detain Charles in order to enforce new exactions or demands;
and with equal terror he saw that even success could not possibly
justify the means; for there was no advantage to be obtained, and no
unprejudiced censurer would consider the freak otherwise than as
one played for the gratification of the will of the duke, and of an
enthusiastic prince, whose abstract idea of chivalrous love had
overcome his character for prudence.
There ensued, on the return of Charles and Buckingham to the royal
presence for despatches, a melancholy scene. There were the
objurgations and schoolboy blubbering of the monarch, the insolent
imperiousness of the favorite, and the silent tears and submission of
the prince. The audacious threats of the duke wrung from James the
assent which Buckingham required—a second permission for their
journey. A knight, Sir Francis Cottington, the prince’s secretary, and
Endymion Porter, a gentleman of the bedchamber, were selected as
the attendants of the Prince. The duke was, however, also to be
accompanied by his master of the horse, a man of knight’s degree,
Sir Richard Graham. There was a recapitulation of the crying scene
when the two former gentlemen were appointed, for Sir Francis
boldly pointed out the danger of the proceeding. Charles’s
countenance showed his displeasure; but Buckingham was
completely carried away by his overwhelming passion. James cried,
the duke swore, and the king had nothing left to do, but to wish them
God speed on their amorous and knight-errant mission.
There is a work, known to many and read by few, the “Epistolæ
Howelianæ,” consisting of a collection of familiar letters on many
subjects, by a certain James Howell. The author was a cadet of a
noble family, several members of which had been on the roll of
knighthood. He pushed his fortunes with all the vigor of an aspiring
younger brother. His letters exhibit him as agent to a glass factory at
Vienna—a tutor—a companion—a clerk—secretary to an embassy—
agent again, and finally an attaché to the privy council. Master
Howell, in these epistles, continually rings the changes on the
importance of attending to the main chance; bewails the stagnation
which non-employment throws round his fortunes; or congratulates
himself on the progress they are making, through his industry. At the
period of Charles’s visit to Madrid, he was agent there for the
recovery of a vessel taken by unlawful seizure, and he contemplates
the prince’s arrival with delight, viewing him as a powerful adjunct to
his cause. He complains bitterly of the prince as showing more
condescension to the needy Spanish poor, than politeness to the
accredited agent of an English company. The agent’s honor or ruin
depended on the success of his mission, hence good Master Howell
is occasionally and ill at ease. The success of his mission, too, hung
upon the happy termination of the match; a marriage he considers as
the avant-courier of his appointments, but should some unlucky
reverse prevent the end he hopes for, why then, to use one of the
worshipful agent’s most favorite figures of speech—then “my cake is
dough.” His letters are the chief authority for what follows.
It is quite consistent with the whole character of this drama, that the
journey should be prosecuted through France. Charles and his suite
travelled incognito it is true, but Buckingham was rash enough to
introduce the prince at a court-ball in Paris, where he perhaps saw
and admired the lovely Henrietta Maria. From the gay court of
France the errant company speedily decamped, hurried rapidly
toward the south, and crossed the frontier just in time to escape the
strong arm of the governor of Bayonne, stretched out to arrest their
progress.
On Friday the 7th of March, 1623, Charles and his attendants arrived
at Madrid, under the guise of very homely personages. Buckingham
took a name which has since served to cover a fugitive king of the
French—that of (Thomas) Smith, and therewith he entered Bristol’s
mansion, “’twixt the gloaming and the murk,” with a portmanteau
under his arm, while Charles waited on the other side of the street,
not as the Prince of Wales, but as Thomas Smith’s brother, John.
Lord Bristol did not allow the son of his monarch to remain long in
such a situation. Charles was conducted to the house, and on being
ushered into a bedchamber, he immediately asked for writing
materials, and despatched a messenger to his father, announcing his
safe arrival in the Spanish capital. Cottington and Porter arrived the
next day; and even so soon as this, a report was spreading through
the city that James himself was in Madrid. On the evening of
Saturday, Buckingham went privately to court, in his own person,
and told the tale of the adventures of the knight to whom he had
acted as squire. The delight of all parties was intense. Olivarez
accompanied Buckingham on his return to the prince, to express
how immeasurably glad his Catholic majesty was at his coming. This
proud minister, who was the contemporary, and perhaps the equal,
of Richelieu, knelt and kissed the prince’s hand, and “hugged his
thighs,” says Mr. Howell, like a slave as he was. Gondomar, too,
hastened to offer his respects and congratulations to the young
prince. At ten that night, too, came the most distinguished as he was
the most desired visiter: Philip himself appeared in generous haste
to welcome the person and thank the noble confidence of his almost
brother-in-law. The meeting of the parties appears to have been
unaffected and cordial. After the salutations and divers embraces
which passed in the first interview, they parted late. The stern
severity of Spanish etiquette would not permit of Charles’s
introduction to the Infanta, and it was accordingly arranged that the
princess should appear in public on Sunday, and the prince meet her
on the Prado, just as the knight Guzman sees Inez, in the ancient
ballad. In the afternoon of the eventful day, the whole court,
neglecting for the occasion all sumptuary laws, appeared in all its
bravery. Philip, his queen, two brothers, and the Infanta, were
together in one carriage, and the princess, the cynosure of attraction,
scarcely needed the blue riband which encircled her arm, as a sign
by which Charles might distinguish her. The knightly lover, who had
experienced some difficulty in making his way through the exulting
multitude, who threw up their caps and cried “God bless him,” was in
waiting, with his diminutive court and Count Gondomar, to view the
defiling of the procession. The royal carriage approached, and as the
eyes of the princess first rested on her destined lord, she blushed
deeply, “which,” adds the calculating Mr. Howell, “we hold to be an
impression of love and affection, for the face is oftentimes a true
index of the heart.” The Infanta, at this period, was only sixteen and
tall for her age—“a very comely lady,” says the agent, “rather of a
Flemish complexion than Spanish, fair-haired, and carried a most
pure mixture of red and white in her face: she is full and big-lipped,
which is held as beauty rather than a blemish.”
Charles was now honored with a complete court establishment and
apartments in the palace; there was revelry in camp and city; and the
gallantry of the journey so touched this high-minded people, that
they declared the beautiful bride ought to have been made Charles’s
immediate reward. Gayety was at every heart and poesy, in the
person of Lope de Vega, celebrated “the Stuart,” and “Marie, his
star.” In all the festivals and carousals at court, Charles was not once
permitted to approach “his star.” The royal family sat together under
a canopy, but there was ever some unwelcome intervener between
the lovers, and the prince was compelled to satisfy his ardent soul
with gazing. The worthy English agent records that he has seen him
“have his eyes immovably fixed upon the Infanta half-an-hour
together, in a thoughtful, speculative posture, which,” he sagaciously
adds, “would needs be tedious unless affection did sweeten it.” It
was on one of these occasions that Olivarez, with less poetic truth
than energy of expression, said that Charles watched her as a cat
does a mouse.