The second chapter, “Of Hereditary Princedoms” is two paragraphs but lacks the breadth of the first chapter’s paragraph. The first paragraph announces that republics will not be covered and instead this book will focus on princedoms and how they may be governed and maintained.
While this chapter is on hereditary princedoms, it covers it with the brevity seen in the first chapter because this is the ideal circumstance. The assumption here is that a hereditary princedom is one that the people are content with, if not happy with. To begin, we cover how a hereditary princedom can be maintained.
Machiavelli is quick to qualify the difficulties of maintaining a hereditary state as far less than that of a new state. Stating that all that is required to maintain the state is that the prince not “depart from the usages of his ancestors. ” Meaning that the prince must perform actions similar to how their ancestors behaved. An example of disregarding this is a prince changing the religion of the state. And if we assume the prince is merely average, then the princedom will be maintained.
Even if the prince is deprived of their princedom by some “extraordinary and irresistible force,” the prince will likely take it back. For even if the smallest mishap befalls the usurper, the prince will recover the princedom. Machiavelli gives an example of this in action Duke Ferrara, Alfonso I d’Este, who withstood the attacks of Pope Julius II. Specifically, the pope excommunicated Alfonso and declared all his lands forfeit. This is crazy to me because my understanding of history, up until this point, has been that what the pope said was law (especially in Italy). To rebel or disagree with the pope was tantamount to instant death. I assumed the only reason King Henry VIII got away with his actions was that he was a king far away. But here is an example of a Duke surviving the excommunication and even winning battles against the pope.
Cool example aside, the next point brought up is that a prince by birth will have “fewer occasions and less need to give offense.” In fact, by growing up with their subjects, the prince will become naturally more popular among their subjects, unless “outrageous vices make [them] odious.” An example of these outrages vices could be the way Joffrey, in Game of Thrones, treats two prostitutes that Tyrion left in his room. It’s a little horrible to describe, so feel free to read the books or watch the show. Regardless, the key here is that the lineage and continued rule of the prince will erase the memory past misdeeds.