remain in obedience to Rome.  It follows from these positions that every nation must refuse fealty to an irreligious or contumacious ruler.  In the last resort they may lawfully remove him by murder; and they are ipso facto in a state of mortal sin if they elect or recognize a heretic as sovereign.  This theory sprang from the writings of the English Jesuits, Allen and Parsons.  It was elaborated in Rome by Cardinal Bellarmino, applied in Spain by Suarez and Mariana, and openly preached in France by Jean Boucher.  The best energies of Paolo Sarpi were devoted to combating the main position of ecclesiastical supremacy.  His works had a salutary effect by delimiting the relations of the Church to the State, and by demonstrating even to Catholics the pernicious results of acknowledging a Papal overlordship in temporal affairs.  At the same time the boldly democratic principle of the sovereignty of the people, which the Jesuits advanced in order to establish their doctrine of ecclesiastical superiority, provoked opposition.  It led to the contrary hypothesis of the Divine Right of sovereigns, which found favor in Protestant kingdoms, and especially in England under the Stuart dynasty.  When the French Catholics resolved to terminate the discords of their country by the recognition of Henri IV., they had recourse to this argument for justifying their obedience to a heretic.  It was felt by all sound thinkers and by every patriot in Europe, that the Papal prerogatives claimed by the Jesuits were too inconsistent with national liberties to be tolerated.  The zeal of the Society had clearly outrun its discretion; and the free discussion of the theory of government which their insolent assumptions stimulated, weakened the cause they sought to strengthen.  Their ingenuity overreached itself.

This, however, was as nothing compared with the hostility evoked by their unscrupulous application of these principles in practice.  There was hardly a plot against established rule in Protestant countries with which they were not known or believed to be connected.  The invasion of Ireland in 1579, the murder of the Regent Morton in Scotland, and Babington’s conspiracy against Elizabeth, emanated from their councils.  They were held responsible for the attempted murder of the Prince of Orange in 1580, and for his actual murder in 1584.  They loudly applauded Jacques Clement, the assassin of Henri III. in 1589, as ’the eternal glory of France.’[175] Numerous unsuccessful attacks upon the life of Henri IV., culminating in that of Jean Chastel in 1594, caused their expulsion from France.  When they returned in 1603, they set to work again;[176] and the assassin Ravaillac, who succeeded in removing the obnoxious champion of European independence in 1610, was probably inspired by their doctrine.[177] They had a hand in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, and were thought by some to have instigated the Massaere of S. Bartholomew.  They fomented the League of the Guises, which had for its object