³¹⁵ ‘Pastoralis Romani pontificis vigilantia,’ such are the words of the bull ‘In cænâ Domini,’ renewed by Paul; it has thirty articles, that is, six more than the bull ‘Consuevernnt’ of Paul III.
³¹⁶ Bossuet. Def. Cler. Gall. 1. 4, c. 16.
In 1614 the same parliament consigned to the flames a book, equally seditious, of the Jesuit Suarez. The court of Rome took a tender interest in these three works; that of Suarez is more frequently referred to in the correspondence kept up with the nuncio resident in France, in 1614: By what right does a parliament judge of points of doctrine? What does Suarez teach but the catholic faith? What dogma is more sacred than that of the sovereignty of popes over kings; direct sovereignty in religious matters, and not less efficacious though indirect in political ones? Even if some inaccuracies had glided into the book of father Suarez, did it not belong to the Holy See, alone, to perceive and ratify them? Such is the substance, during one entire year, of the letters written in the popes name to his nuncio Ubaldini³¹⁷ However, the civil authority found defenders in two Scotch men, William Barclay and John his son; then in Anthony de Dominis, who did not spare the visible head of the church; but, especially in Edmund Richer, who combated with more calmness the ultramontane opinions, and yet was not the less the victim of his zeal for the Gallican liberties.³¹⁸
Disputes with the dukes of Parma and of Savoy, the republic of Lucca, the Ligurians, and with the Swiss; attempts on the Valtaline; intrigues to support the inquisition at Naples, and to favour the Jesuits in Spain: these trifling details we shall dispense with, as generally tending but to prove the impotence of pontifical ambition from 1505 to 1621.
Urban VIII. who gave to the cardinals the title of ‘Eminence,’ refused to Louis XIV. that of king of Navarre. This refusal, of which there are other examples, had for its source the excommunication and deposition of John d’Albret by Julius II³¹⁹ To support the sentence of Julius, the popes have been as silent as possible on this title of king of Navarre, in speaking of the kings of France, heirs to John d’Albret.
³¹⁷ Register of Letters from the Secretary of State of Paul V. to the bishop of Montepulciano, nuncio in France, 1613, 1614.—In the Archivet of the Empire.