Moral Critique and Political Realism: Greville and Osborne on Ottoman Sovereignty

Year 2025, Volume: 34 Issue: 2, 267 - 277, 09.10.2025

Seda Erkoç Yeni

https://doi.org/10.26650/siyasal.2025.34.1702734

Abstract

This article examines Fulke Greville’s treatises “A Treatise of Monarchy” and “A Treatie of Warres” alongside Francis Osborne’s The Turkish Policy, as seventeenth-century English texts that explore the political structure of the Ottoman Empire from distinct perspectives. Written nearly fifty years apart, both authors portray the sultan’s rule as a form of absolute power. They diverge, however, in tone, purpose, and ideological framework. Greville, writing from a moral and philosophical standpoint rooted in Aristotelian and Christian thought, depicts the Ottoman regime as tyrannical and inherently corrupt and sets it as a warning against the decay of natural law and legitimate monarchy. Osborne, on the other hand, adopts a pragmatic and politically realist view shaped by the turmoil of mid-seventeenth-century England and deeply influenced by Hobbesian thought. While acknowledging the system’s cruelty, Osborne emphasizes its functionality, particularly the subordination of religious authority and the use of meritocracy to sustain state power. Through a portrayal of differing representations of Ottoman absolutism, this article demonstrates how the Ottoman Empire served not simply as a distant example, but as a reflective surface for England’s own political anxieties. Ultimately, it argues that early modern English writers invoked the Ottomans as both a cautionary tale and a model of stability within a shared tradition of statecraft.

Keywords

Fulke Greville , Francis Osborne , Absolutism , Tyranny and sovereignty , Early modern statecraft

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