interested men. The king in possession was but
his brother-in-law, and at the time publicly his enemy; for the king
of Navarre was then in arms against him; and yet the sense of common
justice, and the good of his people so prevailed, that he withstood
the project of the states, which he also knew was levelled at himself;
for had the exclusion proceeded, he had been immediately laid by, and
the lieutenancy of France conferred on Guise; after which the rebel
would certainly have put up his title for the crown. In the case of
his Royal Highness, only one of the three estates have offered at the
exclusion, and have been constantly opposed by the other two, and by
his majesty. Neither is it any way probable, that the like will ever
be again attempted; for the fatal consequences, as well as the
illegality of that design, are seen through already by the people; so
that, instead of offering a justification of an act of exclusion, I
have exposed a rebellious, impious, and fruitless contrivance tending
to it. If we look on the parliament of Paris, when they were in their
right wits, before they were intoxicated by the League, (at least
wholly) we shall find them addressing to king Henry III. in another
key, concerning the king of Navarre's succession, though he was at
that time, as they called it, a relapsed heretic. And to this purpose
I will quote a passage out of the journals of Henry III. so much
magnified by my adversaries.

Towards the end of September, 1585, there was published at Paris a
bull of excommunication against the king of Navarre, and the prince of
Conde. The parliament of Paris made their remonstrance to the king
upon it, which was both grave, and worthy of the place they held, and
of the authority they have in this kingdom; saying for conclusion,
that "their court had found the stile of this bull so full of
innovation, and so distant from the modesty of ancient Popes, that
they could not understand in it the voice of an Apostle's successor;
forasmuch, as they found not in their records, nor in the search of
all antiquity, that the princes of France had ever been subject to the
justice or jurisdiction of the Pope, and they could not take it into
consideration, until first he made appear the right which he pretended
in the translation of kingdoms, established and ordained by Almighty
God, before the name of Pope was heard of in the world." It is plain
by this, that the parliament of Paris acknowledged an inhere