News from France

The volume is in very good condition. Bound in modern light grey paper boards with a paper label to the spine. With generally clean, well margined leaves, some mild general toning to the title page.

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In 1682, King Louis XIV called together the Assembly of the French Clergy and put forth the “Four Articles,” which asserted the King’s authority over that of the Pope. In doing so, King Louis XIV solidified his absolutist power. Here, in this pamphlet, Burnet provides a ‘Protestants’ account and opinion of the Catholic drama that unfolded between King Louis XIV and Pope Innocent XI. The Letter was likely a revision of a letter from James Fall, a Scottish clergyman residing in France at the time.

When Burnet arrived in France in September 1683 he was honoured by the French King. Louis XIV had an ulterior motive for honoring Burnet. Burnet had already acquired a European reputation as a defender of Protestantism. However, the Sun King was little concerned with his historical labors. Louis XIV, in order to serve his own ends, was more interested in the impact that Burnet’s favorable reception at Versailles would have on the papal nuncio.

At this time, the Most Christian King of France was at loggerheads with, the papacy over the affair of the regale. While he was in England, Burnet had been following this dispute, which was essentially a question about the use of vacant ecclesiastical properties and the revenues generated by those church  lands. The king asserted that the crown’s regale applied to all the bishoprics in his realm. In other words, the affair of the regale was part of the larger and the more complex issue of defining “the Gallican Liberties” of the French Church. Considering the strained relations that existed between the Vatican and Versailles, the French king believed that this paladin for English Protestantism could be of service to him in his dispute with the papacy. Shortly after the publication of the second volume of his History of the Reformation, Burnet had written three tracts about the confrontation between Pope Innocent XI and Louis. He added a fourth in 1683 that concerned the Clergy of France and the Protestants.

The following four works were Burnet’s contribution to this political and religious problem in the French Church and the Protestants in France.:

The History of the Rights of Princes in the disposing of ecclesiastical benefices and church-lands. 1682

News from France: in a letter giving a relation of the present state of the difference between the French king and the court of Rome. 1682

An Answer to the Animadversions on The history of the rights of princes, &c. 1682.

The letter writ by the last Assembly General of the Clergy of France to the Protestants, inviting them to return to their communion. 1683

Given his Protestant predilection, it was a foregone conclusion that Burnet would support the French king, rather than the pope.  Consequently, the Sun King used Burnet to put pressure indirectly on the papacy. By honoring the celebrated Protestant, the king wanted it to appear as if he were flirting with schism. Although he sometimes acted as if he were going to take a leaf from Henry VIII’s book, neither Louis nor the pope had any intentions to carry matters to that extremity; they were both simply pursuing a strategy of ecclesiastical brinkmanship. Nevertheless, Burnet was a useful pawn, much like Charles and James were, in Louis’ diplomatic chess game.