In recent years, republican political thought has attracted much scholarly interest, in particular as an outcome of the publications of J. G. A. Pocock. Although the Anglo-American branch of republicanism has predominated in this line of scholarship, other varieties have not escaped attention, especially under the influence of the like-minded writings of Quentin Skinner on republican liberty. The concomitant publication of modern editions of pivotal texts, like those of Neville and Moyle, Harrington, and recently of the Discourses on government of Algernon Sidney, confirm this tendency. Sidney's Court maxims, written some twenty years before the Discourses, has never had an edition either contemporary or modern, and was only recently saved from perennial oblivion by the Oxford historian Blair Worden, who discovered it in Warwick Castle in the 1970s. Written in 1664–5, during his stay in Holland, this manuscript is of the greatest importance for the study of the international ramifications of seventeenth-century republican thought.

The editors express their gratitude to Blair Worden for his encouragement. Jonathan Scott deserves our recognition for his generous consent to hand over the assignment of the edition, and above all for the great support discussions with him as well as his unsurpassable biography of Sidney so abundantly provided. Thanks are also due to the staff of the Warwickshire County Record Office and to John Hogan of the University of Warwick for their generous assistance during the process of transcribing the manuscript.