Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki was a Polishnobleman, Bishop of Poznań, political thinker and philosopher best known for his book De optimo senatore.
Biography
Born near Płock, after studying at Kraków's Jagiellonian University and at Padua and Bologna, he entered the Roman Catholic Church. In 1569 he also joined the Polish royal chancery and as a secretary served two kings, Sigismund II Augustus and Stefan Batory, and was successively appointed bishop of Kamieniec Podolski, Chełm, Przemyśl, and Poznań. Goślicki was a man of affairs, highly esteemed by contemporaries, and frequently engaged in active politics. He was also a staunch advocate of religious tolerance in Poland. It was due to his influence and to a letter that he wrote to the Pope against the Jesuits that they were prevented from establishing schools at Kraków during his reign. He was the only prelate who, in 1587, acceded to the Warsaw Confederation. Goślicki's Latin book De optimo senatore and dedicated to King Zygmunt August, subsequently appeared in four English translations: as The Counsellor in 1598, A commonwealth of good counsaile in 1607, The Accomplished Senator... Done into English... By Mr. Oldisworth in 1733, and most recently as The Accomplished Senator in K. Thompson's translation in 1992. The book proved immensely important in Britain among forces opposed to the Tudormonarchy; it was widely quoted and cited in opposition pamphlets and leaflets during the period leading up to the British Civil Wars of the 1640s. In this book Goślicki shows the ideal statesman who is well versed in the humanities as well as in economy, politics, and law. He argued that law is above the ruler, who must respect it, and that it is illegitimate to rule over a people against its will. He equated godliness with reason, and reason with law. Many of the book's ideas comprised the foundations of Polish Nobles' Democracy and were based on 14th-century writings by Stanisław of Skarbimierz. The book was not translated into Polish for 400 years. The book was influential abroad, exporting the ideas of Poland's Golden Freedom and democratic system. It was a political and social classic, widely read and long popular in England after its 1598 translation; read by Elizabeth I of England, it was also known by Shakespeare, who used his depiction of an incompetent senator as a model for Polonius in Hamlet. Its ideas might be seen in the turmoil that gripped England around the times of Glorious Revolution. Goślicki's ideas were perhaps suggestive for future national constitutions. Goślicki never wrote that "all men are created equal," but did say, "Sometimes a people, justly provoked and irritated, by the Tyranny and Usurpations of their Kings, take upon themselves the undoubted Right of vindicating their own liberties." The book was allegedly read by Robert Bellarmine, Algernon Sydney and Thomas Jefferson, but there is no evidence of a direct link with Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. Goślicki argued that distinguished senators were more useful to a state than the king or the common people: He was an influence in the framing the Polish Constitution of 3 May 1791, which historian Norman Daviescalls "the first constitution of its kind in Europe".
