A defense of liberty against tyrants
The tract on the limits of power and the right of resistance, Vindiciae contra tyrannos (translated as A defense of liberty against tyrants, 1579), was published in Basel with a false imprint of Edinburgh, under the pseudonym Stephanus Brutus Junius—alluding to both Marcus Junius Brutus (of Julius Caesar) and Lucius Junius Brutus, who deposed Tarquin and established the Roman Republic (The Rape of Lucrece). Machiavelli advised that “whoever takes up a tyranny and does not kill Brutus, and whoever makes a free state and does not kill the sons of Brutus, maintains himself for little time.” The Vindiciae’s account of Tarquin reads:
Tarquinius Superbus was therefore esteemed a tyrant, because being chosen neither by the people nor the senate, he intruded himself into the kingdom only by force and usurpation . . . The true causes why Tarquinius was deposed, were because he altered the custom, whereby the king was obliged to advise with the senate on all weighty affairs; that he made war and peace according to his own fancy; that he treated confederacies without demanding counsel and consent from the people or senate; that he violated the laws whereof he was made guardian; briefly that he made no reckoning to observe the contracts agreed between the former kings, and the nobility and people of Rome.
Anti-Machiavel:
Tarquin, who enterprised to slay his father-in-law king Servius Tullius to obtain the kingdom of Rome, showed well by that act and many others that he was a very tyrant. . . when he changed his just and royal domination into a tyrannical government, he became a contemner and despiser of all his subjects, both plebian and patrician. He brought a confusion and a corruption into justice; he took a greater number of servants into his guard than his predecessors had; he took away the authority from the Senate; moreover, he dispatched criminal and civil cases after his fancy, and not according to right; he cruelly punished those who complained of that change of estate as conspirators against him; he caused many great and notable persons to die secretly without any form of justice; he imposed tributes upon the people against the ancient form, to the impoverishment and oppression of some more than others; he had spies to discover what was said of him, and punished rigorously those who blamed either him or his government.
The introduction to The Rape of Lucrece echoes these passages, and may reflect what T.S. Eliot called Shakespeare’s “shameless lifting” from Anti-Machiavel:
Tarquinius, for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus, after he had caused his own father-in-law Servius Tullius to be cruelly murdered, and, contrary to the Roman laws and customs, not requiring or staying for the people’s suffrages, had possessed himself of the kingdom . . . the people were so moved, that with one consent and a general acclamation the Tarquins were all exiled, and the state government changed from kings to consuls.
The Vindiciae’s preface, which has been ascribed to the author of Anti-Machiavel,[1] includes an edict of Theodosius II and Valentinian III, whereby emperors became subject to Roman law; the edict is also transcribed in full in Anti-Machiavel. The Vindiciae’s preface challenged “the Machiavellians are free to descend into the arena: let them come forth. As we have said, we shall use the true and legitimate weapons of Holy Scripture”[2] Anti-Machiavel, on the other hand, “must fight against their impiety . . . not by assailing them with the arms of the holy Scripture . . . but by their proper arms and weapons” (that is, pagan authors). Anti-Machiavel and the Vindiciae draw from many of the same sources, biblical and classical; this in itself is unsurprising, but the similarities are so extensive as to indicate at the least a strong influence.
The Vindiciae’s authorship is still unresolved.[3] It was first attributed to François Hotman, author of the Francogallia (1573), another Huguenot “Monarchomach” treatise. Hotman’s son Jean had been a tutor in the household of English ambassador Sir Amias Paulet, while Francis Bacon happened to be living there. Theodore Beza, author of De jure magistratuum (The Right of Magistrates, 1574), was then thought responsible; his connections with the Bacon family were noted previously. The next candidate was Philippe du Plessis Mornay, a Huguenot author and diplomat who fled to England after the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacres. During the peace negotiations at Poitiers in late 1577, Bacon met Mornay, who later invited Anthony Bacon to Montauban, and the two became good friends.[4] Finally Hubert Languet, or a collaboration between Languet and Mornay, was credited with the Vindiciae. Languet corresponded extensively with Sir Philip Sidney, a friend of Bacon’s. Bacon himself has not been proposed as a possible author of the Vindiciae, but it is interesting to note that he had connections to all candidates, a fact that has so far been overlooked.
Parallelisms
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
Notwithstanding, the Machiavellians are free to descend into the arena: let them come forth. As we have said, we shall use the true and legitimate weapons of Holy Scripture, of the philosophy of ethics and of the laws of the commonwealth, of customs of nations, and of historical examples; then we shall boldly join battle with them on foot.
Anti-Machiavel:
I see well it is to no purpose to cite reasons against this atheist and his disciples, who believe neither God nor religion; wherefore, before I pass any further, I must fight against their impiety, and make it appear to their eyes, if they have any, not by assailing them with the arms of the holy Scripture—for they do not merit to be so assailed, and I fear to pollute the holy Scriptures among people so profane and defiled with impiety—but by their proper arms and weapons, whereby their ignorance and beastliness defends their renewed atheism.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
As for the characteristics of the method of teaching (I address myself to philosophers and disputants): from the effects and consequences he inferred the causes and major propositions or rules, in order to demonstrate the matter more clearly and definitively. He rendered it visible and comprehensible, as if ascending through certain degrees to the peak: so that in the manner of geometricians—whom he seems to have wanted to imitate in this matter—from a point he draws a line, from the line a plane, and from the plane he constitutes a solid.
Anti-Machiavel:
Aristotle and other philosophers teach us, and experience confirms, that there are two ways to come unto the knowledge of things. The one, when from the causes and maxims, men come to knowledge of the effects and consequences. The other, when contrary, by the effects and consequences we come to know the causes and maxims… The first of these ways is proper and peculiar unto the mathematicians, who teach the truth of their theorems and problems by their demonstrations drawn from maxims, which are common sentences allowed of themselves for true by the common sense and judgment of all men.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
In treating these questions we will bear in mind this old and, to be sure, perfect image of the governance of kingdoms, as a legitimate, chaste, and blameless matron without any excessive adornment; in its place these Machiavellians do not hesitate to present us with an illegitimate, painted, lewd, and wanton harlot. This ancient method of administering provinces, kingdoms, and empires was that of your ancestors; and princes who were well endowed with every sort of royal virtue carefully kept to it for as long as they lived, as something passed on from hand to hand.
Anti-Machiavel:
And we need not be abashed if those of Machiavelli’s nation, who hold the principal estates in the government of France, have forsaken the ancient manner of our French ancestors’ government, to bring France into use with a new form of managing and ruling their country, taught by Machiavelli.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
And clearly, in order that this majesty of the king and the ancient rights of the peoples should be restored in their entirety amongst the Gauls, some of your own compatriots have, as generals, led armies against that nation which, despising both God and man and buoyed up by the strengths and artifices of cunning and perfidy, wholly concentrated its talent, power, and force on reducing the Gauls—who are free by nature and entirely autonomous in their way of life and the laws and practices of antiquity—to a servitude of barbarous cruelty.
Anti-Machiavel:
The French were reputed to be frank and liberal, far from all servitude; but now our stupidity, carelessness, and cowardice make us servants and slaves to the most dastardly and cowardly nation of Christendom… Let us then stir up in ourselves the generosity and virtue of our valiant great grandfathers, and show that we are come from the race of those good and noble Frenchmen, our ancestors, who in time past have brought under their subjection so many foreign nations, and who so many times have vanquished the Italian race, who would make us now serve.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
A tyrant subverts the state, pillages the people, lays stratagems to entrap their lives, breaks promise with all, scoffs at the sacred obligations of a solemn oath, and therefore is he so much more vile than the vilest of usual malefactors… Therefore as Bartolus says, “He may either be deposed by those who are lords in sovereignty over him, or else justly punished according to the law Julia, which condemns those who offer violence to the public.”
Anti-Machiavel:
All these ten kinds of tyrannical actions set down by Bartolus, are they not so many maxims of Machiavelli’s doctrine taught to a prince? Did he not say that a prince ought to take away all virtuous people, lovers of their commonwealth; to maintain partialities and divisions; to impoverish his subjects, to nourish wars, and to do all these things which Bartolus said to be the works of tyrants? We need then no more doubt that the purpose of Machiavelli was to form a true tyrant, and that he has stolen from Bartolus one part of his tyrannical doctrine, which yet he has much augmented and enriched. For he adds that a prince ought to govern himself by his own counsel, and ought not to suffer any to discover unto him the truth of things; and that he ought not to care for any religion, neither observe any faith or oath, but ought to be cruel, a deceiver, a fox in craftiness, greedy, inconstant, unmerciful, and perfectly wicked, if it be possible, as we shall see hereafter.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
Let us then reject these detestable, faithless, and impious vanities of the court-marmosets, which make kings gods, and receive their sayings as oracles.
Anti-Machiavel:
And it seems unto me that this name of marmoset is very proper and fit for such people, and that it merits well to be called again back into use. And I believe it is drawn from hence that such people go marmoting, murmuring and whispering secretly in princes’ ears flattering speeches.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
It may be the flatterers of the court will reply, that God has resigned his power unto kings, reserving heaven for himself, and allowing the earth to them to reign, and govern there according to their own fancies; briefly that the great ones of the world hold a divided empire with God himself… This discourse, I say, is worthy of the execrable Domitian who (as Suetonius recites) would be called God and Lord. But altogether unworthy of the ears of a Christian prince, and of the mouth of good subjects, that sentence of God Almighty must always remain irrevocably true, “I will not give My glory to any other,” that is, no man shall have such absolute authority, but I will always remain Sovereign.
Anti-Machiavel:
The first point then, which is that the absolute power of a prince does not stretch above God, is a matter confessed by all. And there were never found any princes, or very few, who would soar and mount so high as to enterprise upon that which belonged unto God. Even the emperors Caligula and Domitian are blamed and detested by the pagan histories, which had no true knowledge of God, for that they dared enterprise upon God and that which pertained to him.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
Seeing then that kings are only the lieutenants of God, established in the Throne of God by the Lord God himself, and the people are the people of God, and that the honour which is done to these lieutenants proceeds from the reverence which is borne to those that sent them to this service, it follows of necessity that kings must be obeyed for God’s cause, and not against God, and then, when they serve and obey God, and not other ways.
Anti-Machiavel:
We also see by the law of God the same absolute power is given unto kings and sovereign princes, for it is written that they shall have full power over the goods and persons of their subjects. And although God has given them their absolute power, as to his ministers and lieutenants on earth, yet he would not have the use of it but with a temperance and moderation of the second power, which is ruled by reason and equity, which we call civil.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
The Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian to Volusianus, Great Provost of the Empire.
It is a thing well becoming the majesty of an emperor, to acknowledge himself bound to obey the laws. Our authority depending on the authority of the laws, and in very deed to submit the principality to law, is a greater thing than to bear rule. We therefore make it known unto all men, by the declaration of this our Edict, that we do not allow ourselves, or repute it lawful, to do anything contrary to this. Dated 11 June at Ravenna, under the consuls Florentius and Dionysius.
Anti-Machiavel:
This is that power which all good princes have so practiced—letting their absolute power cease without using any, unless in a demonstration of majesty, to make their estate more venerable and better obeyed—that in all their actions and in all their commands they desire to subject and submit themselves to laws and to reason… And truly all the good Roman emperors have always held this language and have so practiced their power, as we read in their histories. The emperor Theodosius made an express law for it, which is so good to be marked that I thought it good to translate it word for word.
It is the majesty of him that governs to confess himself bound to laws, so much does our authority depend upon law. And assuredly it is a far greater thing to the empire itself to submit his empire and power unto laws. And that which we will not be lawful unto us, we show it unto others by the oracle of this our present edict. Given at Ravenna the eleventh day of June, in the year of the consulship of Florentius and Dionysius.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
Now, if they were true friends indeed, they would desire and endeavor that the king might become more powerful, and more assured in his estate according to that notable saying of Theopompus, king of Sparta, after the ephores or controllers of the kingdom were instituted. “The more” (said he) “are appointed by the people to watch over, and look to the affairs of the kingdom, the more those who govern shall have credit, and the more safe and happy the state.”
Anti-Machiavel:
We read that the emperor Alexander Severus was very modest, soft, clement, and affable towards his subjects, wherewith Mammaea his mother was not content; so that one day she said unto him that he had made his authority disregarded and contemptible by his clemency. He answered, “Yea, but I have made my estate so much the longer and more assured.” …The same notable speech of Alexander is attributed to Theopompus, king of Sparta, who knew that the puissance of a king is good and excellent when kings use it well; but because there were far more kings who abused their powers, he provided for himself and his successors certain censors and correctors, which were called Ephori. Some said to Theopompus that by this establishment of Ephori he had lessened and enfeebled his power; “Nay then,” he said, “I have fortified it and made it perdurable.” Meaning to say, as true it is, that there is nothing which better fortifies nor which makes more firm and stable a prince’s estate, than when he governs himself with such a sweet moderation that he even submits himself to the observation of laws and censures.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
But we see in many places, that when the people has despised the law, or made covenants with Baal, God has delivered them into the hands of Eglon, Jabin, and other kings of the Canaanites. And as it is one and the same covenant, so those who do break it, receive like punishment… Thou hast neglected the Lord thy God, He also has rejected thee, that thou reign no more over Israel. This has been so certainly observed by the Lord, that the very children of Saul were deprived of their paternal inheritance, for that he, having committed high treason, did thereby incur the punishment of tyrants, which affect a kingdom that in no way pertains to them. And not only the kings, but also their children and successors, have been deprived of the kingdom by reason of such felony. Solomon revolted from God to worship idols. Incontinently the prophet Ahijah foretells that the kingdom shall be divided under his son Rehoboam.
Anti-Machiavel:
David was marvelously happy in war, and always victorious over his enemies, because he was a good prince, fearing God and honoring his holy religion. Solomon his son, as long as he served God sincerely without feigning and hypocrisy, prospered very well and marvelously in a great and happy peace, and none dared stir him. But as soon as he began to practice the doctrine which Machiavelli teaches, namely to have a feigned and dissembled religion and devotion, straight had he enemies on his head, who rose up against him; as Hadad the Edomite, and Razin, who made war upon him. So generally may be said of all the kings of Judah and Israel, one after another; that God has always prospered those who were pure and sincere in religion, and who have had his service in recommendation; and contrary, upon those impure and hypocrites in religion he has heaped ruins, calamities, and other vengeances.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
Ahab, king of Israel, could not compel Naboth to sell him his vineyard; but rather if he had been willing, the law of God would not permit it.
Anti-Machiavel:
For God would not that princes use their absolute power so far as to constrain their subjects to sell their goods, as is declared to us in the example of Naboth… And hereunto agrees the divine right, whereby it is showed to us that king Ahab ought not to take away the vineyard from Naboth his subject.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
The queen Athalia, after the death of her son Ahaziah king of Judah, put to death all those of the royal blood, except little Joas, who, being yet in the cradle, was preserved by the piety and wisdom of his aunt Jehoshabeah. Athalia possesses herself of the government, and reigned six years over Judah… Finally, Jehoiada, the high priest, the husband of Jehoshabeah, having secretly made a league and combination with the chief men of the kingdom, did anoint and crown king his nephew Joas, being but seven years old. And he did not content himself to drive the Queen Mother from the royal throne, but he also put her to death, and presently overthrew the idolatry of Baal. This deed of Jehoiada is approved, and by good reason, for he took on him the defence of a good cause, for he assailed the tyranny, and not the kingdom.
Anti-Machiavel:
King Ahaziah of Judah was the son of a foreign woman named Athalia, daughter of the king of Samaria. This king governed himself by Samaritans, who were much hated by the people of Judah. At the persuasion of his mother, he gave them the principal charges and offices of his kingdom, despising and casting aside the wisest and most virtuous of his kingdom, by whom he should have governed, after the example of his predecessors. This was the cause of that king’s destruction; for as Jehu was destroying the house of Ahab, he also slew Ahaziah, and exterminated almost all his race, as a partner and friend who maintained Ahab. If Ahaziah had governed himself by people of his own kingdom rather than by strangers, that evil hap would not have come to him.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
For the wisdom of a senate, the integrity of a judge, the valour of a captain, may peradventure enable a weak prince to govern well.
Anti-Machiavel:
Contrarily, if the prince be not wise at all—for it is not incompatible nor inconvenient to be a prince and to be unwise withal—yet having this resolution to govern himself by counsel, his affairs will carry themselves better than being governed by the head.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
There is, therefore, both truly mildness in putting to death some, and as certainly cruelty in pardoning of others.
Anti-Machiavel:
For a prince ought well to consider when, how, to whom, and why he pardons a fault, because it is not clemency but cruelty when a prince may do justice and does it not, as Saint Louis said.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
If the prince has committed some crime, as adultery, parricide, or some other wickedness, behold amongst the heathen, the learned lawyer Papinian who will reprove Caracalla to his face, and had rather die than obey, when his cruel prince commands him to lie and palliate his offence; nay, although he threaten him with a terrible death, yet would he not bear false witness.
Anti-Machiavel:
For briefly, a prince may well give laws unto his subjects, but it must not be contrary to nature and natural reason. This was the cause why the great lawyer Papinian, who understood both natural and civil law, loved better to die than to obey Caracalla, who had commanded him to excuse before the Senate his parricide, committed in the person of Geta his brother. For Papinian, knowing that such a crime was against natural right, would not have obeyed the emperor if he had commanded him to perpetrate it, nor would obey him so far therein as to excuse it.
Bassianus [Caracalla], not ignorant that the Senate would find this murder very strange, desired that great lawyer Papinian, his kinsman and Chancellor under Severus, to go to the Senate and make his excuses by an oration well set out: That he had done well to slay his brother, and that he had reason and occasion to do it. Papinian, who was a good man, answered that it was not so easy to excuse a parricide as it was to commit it. Bassianus, grieved at this refusal, had one of his attendants straight cut off his head.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
And instead of approving that which that villainous woman said to Caracalla, that whatsoever he desired was allowed him, we will maintain that nothing is lawful but what the law permits. And absolutely rejecting that detestable opinion of the same Caracalla, that princes give laws to others, but received none from any; we will say, that in all kingdoms well established, the king receives the laws from the people; the which he ought carefully to consider and maintain; and whatsoever, either by force or fraud he does, in prejudice of them, must always be reputed unjust.
Anti-Machiavel:
We read likewise that Caracalla, beholding one day his mother-in-law Julia with an eye of incestuous concupiscence, she said unto him, “If thou wilt, thou mayst; knowest thou not that it belongs unto thee to give the law, not to receive it?” Which talk so enflamed him yet more with lust that he took her to wife in marriage. Hereupon historiographers note that if Caracalla had known well what it was to give a law, he would have detested and prohibited such incestuous and abominable copulations, and not to have authorized them.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
Julian the apostate, did cast off Christ Jesus to cleave unto the impiety and idolatry of the pagans: but within a small time after he fell to his confusion through the force of the arm of Christ, whom in mockery he called the Galilean.
Anti-Machiavel:
The emperor Julian, who was called the Apostate, all the time of his youth, in the time of his uncle Constantine the Great, was instructed in the Christian religion; but upon a foolish curiosity he gave himself to diviners and sorcerers, to know things to come, which made him forsake Christianity… Finally after he had reigned for the space of a year and seven months, he was slain at the age of thirty-two years, making war against the Persians. Some write that as he died he blasphemed spitefully against Christ, crying “Thou hast vanquished, thou Galilean.”
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
Tarquinius Superbus was therefore esteemed a tyrant, because being chosen neither by the people nor the senate, he intruded himself into the kingdom only by force and usurpation.
The true causes why Tarquinius was deposed, were because he altered the custom, whereby the king was obliged to advise with the senate on all weighty affairs; that he made war and peace according to his own fancy; that he treated confederacies without demanding counsel and consent from the people or senate; that he violated the laws whereof he was made guardian; briefly that he made no reckoning to observe the contracts agreed between the former kings, and the nobility and people of Rome.
Anti-Machiavel:
Tarquin, who enterprised to slay his father-in-law king Servius Tullius to obtain the kingdom of Rome, showed well by that act and many others that he was a very tyrant… For they say that when he changed his just and royal domination into a tyrannical government, he became a contemner and despiser of all his subjects, both plebian and patrician. He brought a confusion and a corruption into justice; he took a greater number of servants into his guard than his predecessors had; he took away the authority from the Senate; moreover, he dispatched criminal and civil cases after his fancy, and not according to right; he cruelly punished those who complained of that change of estate as conspirators against him; he caused many great and notable persons to die secretly without any form of justice; he imposed tributes upon the people against the ancient form, to the impoverishment and oppression of some more than others; he had spies to discover what was said of him, and punished rigorously those who blamed either him or his government. These are the colors wherewith the histories paint Tarquin, and these are ordinarily the colors and livery of all tyrants’ banners, whereby they may be known.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
Besides all this, anciently every year, and since less often, to wit, when some urgent necessity required it, the general or three estates were assembled, where all the provinces and towns of any worth, to wit, the burgesses, nobles, and ecclesiastical persons, did all of them send their deputies, and there they did publicly deliberate and conclude of that which concerned the public estate. Always the authority of this assembly was such that what was there determined, whether it were to treat peace, or make war, or create a regent in the kingdom, or impose some new tribute, it was ever held firm and inviolable; nay, which is more by the authority of this assembly, the kings convinced of loose intemperance, or of insufficiency, for so great a charge or tyranny, were disthronized.
Anti-Machiavel:
Our kings of old in France used the same course that these good emperors did; for they often convocated the three Estates of the kingdom to have their advice and counsel in affairs of great consequence which touched the interest of the commonwealth. And it is seen by our histories that the general assembly of the Estates was commonly done for three causes. One, when there was a question to provide for the kingdom a governor or regent; as when kings were young, or lost the use of their understanding by some accident, or were captives or prisoners; in these cases the three Estates assembled to obtain a governor for the realm. Again, when there was cause to reform the kingdom, to correct the abuses of officers and magistrates, and to bring things unto their ancient and first institution and integrity. For kings caused the Estates to assemble, because being assembled from all parts of the kingdom, they might better be informed of all abuses and evil behaviors committed therein, and might also better work the means to remedy them; because commonly there is no better physician than he that knows well the disease and the causes thereof. The third cause why there was made an assembly of Estates was when there was a necessary cause to lay a tribute or tax upon the people; for then in a full assembly the representatives were showed the necessity of the king’s and the kingdom’s affairs, who graciously and courteously entreated the people to aid and help the king but with so much money as they themselves thought to be sufficient and necessary.
Vindiciae contra tyrannos:
About the year 1300 Pope Boniface VIII, seeking to appropriate to his See the royalties that belonged to the crown of France, Philip the Fair, the then king, did taunt him somewhat sharply: the tenor of whose tart letters are these:
“Philip by the Grace of God, King of the French, to Boniface, calling himself Sovereign Bishop, little or no health at all. Be it known to the great foolishness and unbounded rashness, that in temporal matters we have only God for our superior, and that the vacancy of certain churches belongs to us by royal prerogative, and that appertains to us only to gather the fruits, and we will defend the possession thereof against all opposers with the edge of our swords, accounting them fools, and without brains who hold a contrary opinion.”
In those times all men acknowledged the pope for God’s vicar on earth, and head of the universal church. Insomuch, that (as it is said) common error went instead of a law, notwithstanding the Sorbonists being assembled, and demanded, made answer, that the king and the kingdom might safely, without blame or danger of schism, exempt themselves from his obedience, and flatly refuse that which the pope demanded; for so much as it is not the separation but the cause which makes the schism, and if there were schism, it should be only in separating from Boniface, and not from the church, nor the pope, and that there was no danger nor offence in so remaining until some honest man were chosen pope.
Anti-Machiavel:
Yet we read in our histories that our kings of France have many times hindered popes from drawing silver out of the realm, by annates, tenths, bulls, and other means; as in the time of Boniface VIII, Benedict XI, Julius II and III. But concerning this matter it is good to mark the determination made in 1410 by our masters of the faculty of the Sorbonne, and by all the University of Paris; who resolved in a general congregation that the French church was not bound to pay any silver to the pope in any manner whatsoever, unless by the way of a charitable subsidy.
As in the time of king Philip IV, Pope Boniface VIII made a decretal whereby he generally forbade all emperors, kings, and princes of Christendom to levy any tribute upon the clergy, upon pain of a present excommunication, without any other commissance or declaration. The king, because this was against his privileges (by the advice of his council, the prelates of his country, and the faculty of theology of Paris), appealed from the pope, as inferior, to the first future council, as superior.
Likewise, the pope Boniface, of whom we have spoken before, was declared a heretic by the said University and faculty of theology; not that he erred in the faith (for it was a thing whereof he had little care), but because he would needs enterprise upon the king’s privileges. But as soon as he was declared a heretic, all the kingdom of France retired from his obedience.
[1] By Mastellone (1969); see Victoria Kahn, “Reading Machiavelli: Innocent Gentillet’s Discourse on Method.” Political Theory 22, no. 4 (1994): 539-60.
[2] Vindiciae, contra tyrannos, tr. George Garnett, p. 11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Other citations are from the 1648 English translation dubiously attributed to William Walker, supposed executioner of Charles I.
[3] Barker, Ernest. “The Authorship of the Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos.” Cambridge Historical Journal 3, no. 2 (1930): 164-81. Also Garnett, ibid. pp. lv—lxxvi.
[4] See Daphne du Maurier, Golden Lads (1975).