Chap. II
Of Hereditary Principalities.
I will not here discourse of Republiques, because I have other where treated of them at large: I will apply my self only to a Principality, and proceed, while I weave this web, by arguing thereupon, how these Principallities can be governed and maintained. I say then that in States of inheritance, and accustomed to the blood of their Princes, there are far fewer difficulties to keep them, than in the new: for it suffices only not to transgress the course his Ancestors took, and so afterward to temporise with those accidents that can happen; that if such a Prince be but of ordinary industry, he shall allwaies be able to maintain himself in his State, unless by some extraordinary or excessive power he be deprived thereof; and when he had lost it, upon the least sinister chance that befalls the usurper, he recovers it again. We have in Italy the Duke of Ferrara for example hereof, who was of ability to resist the Venetians, in the year 84, and to withstand Pope Julius in the tenth for no other reason, than because he had of old continued in that rule; for the natural Prince hath fewer occasions, and less heed to give offence, whereupon of necessity he must be more beloved; and unless it be that some extravagant vices of his bring him into hatred, it is agreeable to reason, that naturally he should be well beloved by his own subjects: and in the antiquity and continuation of the Dominion, the remembrances and occasions of innovations are quite extinguished: for evermore one change leaves a kind of breach or dent, to fasten the building of another.