312 Power to depose kings, absolve from oaths, &c.,

that the nations may know and approve that thou art Peter, and on thy rock did the Son of the living God build the Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

I will add but the instances given by Bossuet, in which Gregory threatens only, but by threatening declares that he had the power of making subjects rebel against their sovereign. It is not the question as to the rightfulness of the cause, or whether he might not have denied him communion, as S. Ambrose did the Emperor Theodosius, but simply whether he had the power which none before him used. He says to his Legates,—

"Do ye, if need be, resist in our stead, and, interdicting the government of the whole realm, separate both him and all who agree with him from the partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ."

"Either shall the king himself [Philip] repudiating the foul merchandise of the simoniacal heresy, permit fit persons to be advanced to the sacred rule, or the French shall certainly, unless they choose to reject the Christian faith, being stricken with the sword of a general anathema, refuse to obey him further."

And to the French Bishops,

"But if neither by such severity [the interdiction of the public celebration of every public office throughout all France], he will to repent, we would not have it concealed or doubtful to any one, that in all ways, by the help of God, we will endeavour to wrest the kingdom of France from his occupation."

There is no use in going over the well-known

involved in Papal Infallibility.

313

tales. There can be no question that the Popes pronounced these depositions, or absolved subjects and gave away kingdoms to others, as Popes. Gregory VII., when asked what answer could be given to those who said that the Pope could not absolve any one from his oath of allegiance, made what answer he could ". Innocent III. declares that God "placed the Supreme Pontiff of the Apostolic See, whom He ordained in S. Peter as a Vicar to Himself, over kingdoms and nations, bestowing on him the power over all nations and kingdoms to root out and to destroy, to disperse and to dissipate, to build and to plant, saying to him in the Prophet Jer. i. 10." "8 Being set above kings and kingdoms by the pre-eminence of Divine power, we dispose of them as we think fit," said Boniface VIII. to James king of Arragon, when bestowing Sardinia and Corsica upon him, on the yearly payment of 2000 marks. I do not, of course, mean that the Popes were not most often in the right, and the Emperors in the wrong; and plenty of things have been done in order to maintain "the balance of power,' as unjust as the worst things done by bad Popes. But Divine authority was not claimed for civil

See Boss. Def. i. 1. 7, 8.

Bullar. Rom. Cherubini, i. 37, to the king of Bulgaria (repeated to King John, A.D. 1215. Matt. Paris, p. 224), quoting also the usual texts from the N.T. The Pope proceeds to appoint

one (with his successors) king of the Bulgarians, "who had long been alienated from their mother's breast."

• Bullarium Rom. Cocquelines, T. iii. p. 3, p. 82.

314 Power to depose kings, absolve from oaths, &c.,

wrongs. Further, the decree of Papal infallibility would involve, I suppose, that it is matter of faith, that Popes may not only depose kings judged to be sinful or heretical, but may give away the lands of the unoffending heathen 9. And if the Bull itself is infallible, all the details in it must be so, deposition of the king, absolution of his subjects from oaths of allegiance, the forbidding to observe them more, command to his subjects to rise in arms against him and drive him from his kingdom, requisition to princes to make war against him, to seize the property of his accomplices, and to make his subjects, residing abroad, slaves'. I do not mean, that the English have not done actually worse, who judicially murdered one king and expelled another; nor that the Pope's deposition of Henry VIII. (as far as his power went), and absolution of his subjects from their oaths, was worse than the forced abdication of James II. by his subjects, contrary to their oaths. This alone would be the question with the English, "Is this involved in the decree of the Pope's infallibility ?"

These depositions were attempted at intervals during some five centuries 2, from the deposition of

' Bull. 2 Alex. VI. ad Freder. Hisp. Reg. in Bull. Rom. T.i. p. 467. Lugd. 1655, quoted Boss. Def. i. 1. 15, p. 269.

1 Bull against Henry VIII. Cherubini, Bullar. Rom. T. ii. p. 704, also in Burnet's Records, T. i. B. 3, n. 9.

2 The following list of Prof. Hussey, as I am told, “contains all of importance except the cases which occurred in Naples and Aragon, to which the Popes had a sort of feudal claim, and

involved in Papal Infallibility.

315

the Emperor Henry IV. by Gregory VII. to that of Elizabeth by Pius V., and its renewal by Sixtus V.3, 1588. It must require a great change in the mind of Europe before they could become effective. Still, when the relief of Roman Catholics from civil disabilities was sought in the last century, although three centuries had passed since its exercise, and then it had fallen "telum imbelle sine ictu," it was the chief ground alleged, why those disabilities were continued, so ingrained was the mistrust in the English mind. At the time, Bossuet says,

"No Catholic prince paid any deference to the declaration

that of Philip the Fair, for whom Boniface VIII. had prepared his Bull of deposition, when he was seized," the day before it was to be published. The Emperor Henry IV. by Gregory VII. A.D. 1076 (Mansi, xxi. 467), continued by succeeding Popes (Mansi, xxi. 277); the Emperor Frederic I. by Alexander III. A.D. 1168 (Mansi, xxii. 34); the Emperor Otto IV. by Innocent III. A.D. 1210 (Mansi, ib. 813), and King John, A.D. 1212 (Matt. Paris, p. 195); the Emperor Frederic II. by Gregory IX. A.D. 1238 (Mansi, xxiii. 78), and Innocent IV. A.D. 1245 (Ib. 613); Louis of Bavaria, by John XXII. A.D. 1333 (Trithem. Chron. ii. 515); Henry VIII. by Paul III. A.D. 1535 (Cherubini Bullar. ii. 704); Elizabeth by Pius V. A.D. 1569 (Collier, Eccl. H. ii. 521). "Rise of the Papal Power," pp. 173-175. 3 C. Butler's Historical Memoirs, T. ii. p. 3, ed. 3.

3

Def. iv. 23, p. 98. "What good or harm did it do, that Henry VIII. was deposed by Paul III., Elizabeth by Pius V.? Waste paper as to temporals, they were held of no account either by heretics or Catholics. Treaties, alliances, commerce, business went on. The Roman Pontiffs knew it would be so, and yet the Curia by vain formulæ gave sanction to a vain title.

316 Pope's civil authority disowned in last century.

[of Pius V.] or abstained from acknowledging Elizabeth as Queen. Nor did the Pontiff obtain any other result, than to have seemed to have impelled to arms English Catholics who were certain to perish, with either none or a doubtful title to martyrdom, since they were put to dreadful deaths as traitors." At the time of the Spanish Armada, notwithstanding the revival of the deposition by Sixtus V., his absolution of her subjects from their allegiance, and his command to them to employ all their forces against her, many English Roman Catholics supported her3.

You are familiar with the fact of the rejection of the Pope's civil authority in England, and of his power to dispense subjects from their allegiance, by the Sorbonne, the Universities of Louvain, Douai, Alcala, Salamanca, obtained by the English Roman Catholics, and presented to Pitt. "The Pope's claim to temporal power by Divine right," says C. Butler, "has not perhaps at this time a single advocate." The celebrated tract, "Roman Catholic Principles in Reference to God and the Kings," of which thirty-five editions were published between 1748 and 1813, and "a copy was presented to Pitt by a Committee of English Roman Catholics","-expressly disclaimed the Pope's direct

This meanwhile was the gain of heretics, that the Catholics suffered, not as Catholics, but as public enemies, ready to rise against the king, whenever it so pleased the Roman Pontiff." Ib. pp. 103, 104.

6

Butler, ii. 10, 11.

Butler, iv. 13. The questions and answers are given at length. Ib. i. 439–482.

'Ib. ii. 222.

Reprinted in Butler's Memoirs, iii. 497–509.

8

9

Butler, iv. 494.