Wickham the Prince
“If a prince wants to maintain his rule
he must be prepared not to be virtuous, and to make use of this or not
according to need.”[1]
This is a line from Niccolo Machiavelli’s
The Prince, a sort of “How to Get and
Maintain Your Principality” guide. As seen by the line above, Machiavelli’s
tactics require a departure from morality based on Judeo-Christian values.
Machiavelli says that while it is nice to have virtues like generosity,
honesty, piety, compassion, and kindness, they are not necessary, and even
detrimental. “I would even go so far as to say that if he has these qualities
and always behaves accordingly he will find them harmful; if he only appears to
have them they will render him service.”[2]
To Machiavelli, the appearance of virtue was the essential thing.
In section 18 of his book, Machiavelli
said, “[The prince] should have a flexible disposition, varying as fortune and
circumstances dictate. As I said above, he should not deviate from what is
good, if that is possible, but he should know how to do evil, if that is
necessary.”[3]
A prince should be virtuous and good if it is profitable for him to do so, but,
if it is more profitable to be immoral, the prince should be the latter. Say,
for example, that a prince makes a treaty with his neighbor. But then, another
kingdom approaches the prince and offered him more gold or resources if he
would help them start a war against the first, then the prince should assist
the kingdom that would give him the most benefits. Or if a prince is relatively
lenient with his subjects, but a group of malcontents stirs up a revolt in a
town, Machiavelli would advise the prince to completely raze that town in order
to secure his position. “There is no surer way of keeping possession than by
devastation.”[4]
Additionally, “as a prince is forced to
know how to act like a beast, he must learn from the fox and the lion; because
the lion is defenseless against traps and a fox defenseless against wolves.”[5]
Because a fox is clever and wary, it is a difficult animal to catch in a trap.
As he is walking through the woods, he is cautious, constantly on his guard. A
lion, on the other hand, can be trapped easily, because he thinks that he is
the biggest kid on the playground. He struts around without caution, not able
to fathom that anything could ever overpower him. He thinks he’s the best.
“Those who simply act like lions are stupid.”[6]
But a fox, however clever, is still small
and weak. This is why Machiavelli says the prince must be like a lion. A fox,
when set upon by wolves, will not last very long. In the same way, a prince
without a strong army will quickly be crushed by his enemies. But when a lion
is set upon by wolves, he can fight them off and, instead of himself being
crushed, crushes his enemies. Thus, a prince must have a strong army.
Machiavelli’s little book has become, in
the words of the Penguin Classics version’s synopsis, “a bible of realpolitik,”
or the use of force to secure political power. Machiavellian qualities are
qualities like making one’s own laws; being shrewd and cunning; acquiring
success through the conquering of fortune; believing it is better to be feared
than to be loved; and acting for the good of the country. But the
characteristics of Machiavelli’s prince have not only appeared in the real
world, but also the world of fiction. One example in particular of this is the
character of George Wickham from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
Wickham is a soldier who meets the
protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet, through Lizzy’s soldier-crazy sisters Lydia and
Kitty. He is well liked by the family, and almost everyone else, but his true
character is that of a gambling womanizer. While George Wickham is not a prince
in the general sense of the word, he is the prince of himself and, as such,
exemplifies many Machiavellian qualities.
Even so, the first and fifth qualities
mentioned above—making one’s own laws and acting for the good of the
country—seem to pose a problem. How can Wickham make his own laws if he has no
power to enforce them? How did he act for the good of England?
The answer to the first question is yes,
he cannot make laws for those around him, but he can make laws for himself. Like the basic laws are essentially
guidelines for morality and punishments for immorality, so, too are Wickham’s
laws. They are a set of moral guidelines that he created for himself. For
example, when he eloped with Georgiana Darcy in order to get money out of and
to get back at Fitzwilliam Darcy, her brother, he was following the laws of the
country of Wickham. The question of whether it would be moral in the eyes of
others was of no consequence; it was what was for the good of Wickham. Whatever
Wickham did, it was to help himself along in life, and therefore fulfills
Machiavelli’s fifth quality as well.
Secondly, Machiavelli’s prince is shrewd
and cunning. Wickham’s shrewdness is clearly shown throughout Pride and Prejudice. During his first
“serious” discussion with Elizabeth at her aunt’s house, he starts by asking
her if she knows Darcy very well. He was “probing the waters” to determine if
she knew of his past actions and relationship with Darcy. But when Lizzy
informs him of her utter dislike of the man, Wickham presses his advantage and
presents himself as a poor victim of Darcy’s cruelty, ingratiating himself with
Lizzy. “[Mr. Darcy’s] behavior to myself has been scandalous,” Wickham said,
“but I verily believe I could forgive him anything and everything, rather than
disappointing the hopes and disgracing the memory of [Darcy’s] father.”[7]
Wickham had no intention of forgiving Darcy, but he played on Lizzy’s emotions
to help establish himself as a respectable man.
In addition, Wickham beat out fortune to
become successful. Though he was rather low-born, the son of Mr. Darcy Sr.’s
steward, he rose to favor with who supported him financially until his death,
and Fitzwilliam Darcy paid Wickham’s debts after his father’s death. Even when
Darcy stopped Wickham’s affair with Georgiana, preventing Wickham from coming
into Georgiana’s money, Wickham came back from it and eventually got what he
wanted through Lydia Bennet. He used Darcy’s love for Lizzy to get back at him
by eloping with Lydia, and, as a result, Darcy repaid all of Wickham’s debts
and paid Wickham a presumably large sum on top of that.
Machiavelli’s fourth quality, that the
prince believes it is better to be feared than to be loved, is a bit tricky.
After all, Wickham is loved by everyone he meets. “Mr. Wickham was the happy
man towards whom almost every female eye was turned.”[8]
But Machiavelli says that it is best to be both loved and feared, but, since that is generally impossible, being feared
is better.[9]
Wickham’s character is such that, if he possessed the ability to be feared than
loved, he would choose to be feared. But, due to his low station, he cannot
make people fear him, and therefore turned his charm and wit towards making
himself loved (particularly by women) and using that to get what he wanted.
In the closing paragraph of section 18 of
The Prince, Machiavelli says of his
prince, “To those seeing and hearing him, he should appear a man of compassion,
a man of good faith, a man of integrity, a kind and religious man. And there is
nothing so important as to seem to have the last quality.”[10]
A prince must have the appearance of virtue, though his true character does not
have to be one of virtue. Wickham certainly has this down. Everyone, even
Elizabeth Bennet, who prided herself on being able to read people, was deceived
by his charm.
But not only did Wickham appear to be
kind and trustworthy, he also presented himself as a very religious man. He
said to Lizzy, “The church ought to
have been my profession—I was brought up for the church; and I should at this
time have been in possession of a most valuable living, had it pleased the
gentleman (Mr. Darcy) we were speaking of just now.”[11]
Machiavelli, as quoted above, believed the appearance of piety to be the most
important, and Wickham is the perfect example of this.
George Wickham is a prince. Not the
heroic prince who saves the princess, but a different kind of Prince Charming,
one lacking conventional morals and whose goal in all he did was to better
himself. He is Machiavelli’s Prince.
Works Cited
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Barnes and Noble Classics, New York, NY, 2003
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. Translated by George Bull.
Penguin Books, London, England, 2003
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