"Tis not seasonable to call a man traitor, that has an army at his heels"
About this Quote
Power doesn’t just shape truth; it polices what can be safely said out loud. Selden’s line is a cool-headed warning dressed as a proverb: don’t fling the word “traitor” at someone who can immediately make your accusation physically expensive. The bite is in “seasonable,” a word that turns moral judgment into weather. In theory, treason is an absolute category. In practice, Selden suggests, the calendar is set by whoever has soldiers “at his heels.”
Selden was a lawyerly mind operating in an England where allegiances were dangerous, shifting, and litigated as much in courts as on battlefields. In the early Stuart period and the run-up to civil conflict, “traitor” wasn’t just an insult; it was a legal predicate that could end in confiscation, prison, or death. So the sentence reads as both political realism and self-protection: a reminder that naming treason is itself a political act, not a neutral description.
The subtext is almost cynical: legitimacy is retroactive. The side with force often gets to decide which rebellion becomes “treason” and which becomes “restoration.” Selden isn’t excusing betrayal so much as exposing how the state’s vocabulary is enforced. There’s also a wink at the audience: brave talk tends to flourish only once the danger has passed, once the army is no longer close enough to hear you. In eight words, Selden captures the oldest rule of politics: courage has a context, and so does principle.
Selden was a lawyerly mind operating in an England where allegiances were dangerous, shifting, and litigated as much in courts as on battlefields. In the early Stuart period and the run-up to civil conflict, “traitor” wasn’t just an insult; it was a legal predicate that could end in confiscation, prison, or death. So the sentence reads as both political realism and self-protection: a reminder that naming treason is itself a political act, not a neutral description.
The subtext is almost cynical: legitimacy is retroactive. The side with force often gets to decide which rebellion becomes “treason” and which becomes “restoration.” Selden isn’t excusing betrayal so much as exposing how the state’s vocabulary is enforced. There’s also a wink at the audience: brave talk tends to flourish only once the danger has passed, once the army is no longer close enough to hear you. In eight words, Selden captures the oldest rule of politics: courage has a context, and so does principle.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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