Of all the commentators on tyrannicide and regicide who wrote at the turn of the century, it would be the Spanish Jesuit Juan de Mariana (1535–1627) who gained notoriety on the subject, which would last over centuries.1 Born in Toledo and educated there, Mariana became a prominent teacher and writer as a member of the Society of Jesus for life. Mariana’s almost delicate refusal to condemn Jacques Clément for assassinating Henry III of France set him apart from other writers of the day. Both his writings and his person became the subject of extensive debate in the pamphlet literature of the time.
Did Mariana condone regicide? The supervision of virtually all writings by other Jesuits, both in Spain and in Rome, created an appearance that the entire Society condemned regicide. The intervention of Spain into French politics, particularly intervention through the Holy League in Paris, had already created strong anti-Spanish sentiment. The nefarious views published by Mariana in 1599, in his De Rege et Regis Institutione Libri III, which was translated into French in 1605, set the stage for what seemed a cause-and-effect relation when Ravaillac assassinated Henry IV in 1610.
His education finished, Mariana was posted to Rome, where he taught in a Jesuit school, and then to Sicily for a few years, and after that he taught in Paris and earned a doctorate in theology at the Sorbonne, the very institution which, in the early 1590s, had voted to depose Henry III as king and to appeal to the pope to support their action. Was Henry still a king after this deposition? Had a regicide in Mariana’s mind become a tyrannicide?
In 1592 Mariana had published a general history of Spain down into the 1490s. Highly patriotic and eloquent in Latin, Mariana celebrated the Spanish past, especially its triumph over Islam and the spiritual intensity of its church.2 Well-connected at court, Mariana was encouraged to write a mirror of princes for the education of the young king, Philip III. The De Rege would include a lengthy reflection not only on kingship but also on tyrannicide.
Beginning with descriptions of human nature, the founding of societies, and the early mythical history of the Spanish monarchy, Mariana came down in favor of kingship as the best form of government. This was certainly no surprise, but into his reflections on kingship in general, he mixed a conceit from Spanish political culture with an almost idealized form of government: a “mixed” constitution of powers shared with the monarch, powers shared with the church, and powers shared with magistrates from various institutions.3 Mariana advises that bishops be appointed to administer various aspects of the government.
Tyranny which is the most evil and disadvantageous type of government, as compared with the kingly, exercises an oppressive power over its subjects, and is built up generally by force. Or at least, starting from a sane beginning of a reign, the tyrant declines into vices, and especially avarice, license and cruelty. And although the duties of a real king are to protect innocence, punish wickedness, provide safety, to enlarge the commonwealth with every blessing and success, on the contrary the tyrant establishes his maximum power on himself—abandonment to boundless licentiousness and the advantages therefrom, thinks no crime to be a disgrace to him, no villainy so great that he may not attempt it; through force he brings blemish to the chaste, he ruins the resources of the powerful, violently snatches life away from the good, and there is no kind of infamous deed that he does not undertake during the course of his life.4
Of course the tyrant fears, and the King fears. But the King is concerned for his subjects; the tyrant fears for himself, and he is afraid of his subjects, … and he forbids the citizens to congregate.6
Though the title of his next chapter is whether or not there is a right to destroy a tyrant, it narrates several historical examples of the murder of tyrants, beginning with Jacques Clément’s murder of Henry III: “a deed of remarkable resolution and an exploit to be remembered.”7 Mariana notes that Clément had been studying theology in a Dominican college, and that he himself was a Dominican.
The tension and the militant competition between the Dominicans and the Jesuits are well-known, but at this time it was particularly intense regarding censuring. The pope had granted the Dominicans an exemption from having to submit their writings for review by the institution that was empowered to censure writings, an institution controlled by Dominicans.8 Had Clément believed that he had merely killed a tyrant, not a king? By framing Clément’s act within the Dominicans’ administration of censureship, he may have thought that the Jesuits would not and could not be held responsible for Henry III’s death.9
But Mariana continues, making the point that, in special circumstances, individuals have the right—indeed, almost the duty—to murder the tyrant who rules over him.10 Before making the case still more strongly for Clément, Mariana narrates the murderous act and, in so doing, shifts his entire work from routine and weak exemplarity, to an example that becomes so strong that it edifies.
Note the “royal blood.” A king may be deposed by a theology faculty, but that does not change the blood in his veins (as Bodin similarly noted).By the death of the king he made a great name for himself. A killing was expiated by a killing, and at his hands the betrayal and death of the Duke of Guise were avenged with the royal blood.
Thus Clément died, an eternal honor to France, as it has seemed to very many, twenty-four years of age, a young man of simple temperament and not strong in body; but a greater power strengthened his normal powers and spirit.12
The assessment of Henry III does not include the word “tyrant.” After returning from Poland, Henry “turned everything into a mockery.” But what was the “greater power” that culminated in disaster? Mariana supplies the answer: “Thus Fortune, or a mightier force, makes sport of human affairs.”13 There follows the analogy that although Saul had “slipped down into folly and crimes, David did not kill him.” After still more examples, Mariana observes that “Besides, we reflect, in all history, that who ever took the lead in killing tyrants was held in great honor.”14 And after still more examples, he adds: “A tyrant is like a beast, wild and monstrous [who] lays everything waste, seizes, burns, and spreads carnage and grief with tooth, nail, and horn.”15
The ordering of the attributes of the good king, followed by those of the tyrant, reminds us of Erasmus, as does reference to the tyrant as a monster. For his readers, in his own lifetime, it would have been his vivid account of Clément’s act that would be remembered, rather than the more specific attributes of the tyrant.
From the 1560s onward, the Paris Parlement had opposed teaching by the Jesuits. The reverend fathers eventually lost the right to reside in France. Early in the reign of Henry IV their appeal to return provoked opposition that was finally overcome in 1603, just about in time to settle in before Ravaillac’s murder of Henry IV unleashed a new and even more virulent outburst among the judges of the Parlement and a public outcry against the Jesuits. The De Rege was ordered publicly burned.16
Mariana’s views on kingship and tyranny do not belong to the genre of political theology. The obvious casuistry in the phrase “the greater power strengthened his [Clément’s] normal powers and spirit”—Fortune—led to inferences that were just the opposite of those who argued that Clément had had divine support in his action against a king who was no longer a king owing to the decrees of the Sorbonne and the Holy League.
Popes claimed, in general, the power to depose a king. There would be dithering in Rome about the League’s appeals to depose Henry. Only after the critical attacks against the Jesuits in Paris did the Spanish king Philip III’s principal minister, Lerma, persuade the king to have Mariana arrested and tried for treason. Philip appealed to Rome for a decision to have Mariana executed or not, but it never came. So Mariana went on writing, criticizing Jesuit governing instead of tyrants, until his death in 1624.