INTRODUCTION

Summary

In the states of Western Europe constitutional rights from a very early date had contended for the mastery against the supreme executive authority: but this strife assumed a new character, as to the principles involved and the system on which it was waged, from the date when the spiritual questions raised by religious controversy came to be mixed up with those purely political. In this respect creed made no difference. Starting from the demand for ecclesiastical uniformity, the French earliest of all sought, under the impulse of Catholic fanaticism, to confine their government within the narrowest limits in the sphere of politics also. In the year 1576 the Estates at Blois asked the assent of the crown to the resolutions passed by them: they wanted to exclude from the Privy Council all members hostile to them. In 1585 the Guises at the head of the Catholic League proposed assemblies of the Estates, recurring regularly every three years, which should keep a reckoning between prince and people. The chief among several grievances which roused the population of Paris to insurrection against Henry III was the tolerance accorded to the Huguenots in contravention of the old laws of the land. In the assembly of 1588 the Estates formulated the demand that the King not only should administer the finances with their co-operation, but also should in future neither declare war nor conclude peace without them.