Today, we will examine the political theory of the Huguenots—a distinct group of French Protestants—and trace their evolution against the backdrop of turbulent historical events.
“The Lutheran theory of resistance, as it developed from 1530 to 1550, remains primarily religious in nature. Neither tries to make an appeal across religious boundaries for support in resistance to supreme political authority. Neither tries to develop a truly political theory of resistance. That final step was taken only later, by French Calvinists, following the St. Bartholomew’s massacres.” (1, p. 204)
In the early Reformation, Martin Luther and John Calvin strongly emphasized the Christian duty to obey political authority, even under tyranny. Calvin especially reinforced this in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, insisting private individuals should never resist rulers. However, near the end of the Institutes, Calvin cautiously allowed for institutional resistance. He cited historical examples like Sparta’s ephors and Rome’s tribunes to suggest some constitutional bodies could legitimately restrain a monarch’s power.
This largely theoretical concession would take on new urgency after the events of 1572. The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre started with Admiral Coligny’s assassination in Paris and caused thousands of Protestant deaths across France, deeply shaking the Huguenot community. Afterward, Protestant thinkers rejected passivity. This event sparked a dramatic shift in Huguenot political thought, justifying and demanding active resistance to tyranny to protect true faith and innocent lives.
Historical Context
Although the French religious wars followed the German conflicts, the latter ended in 1555 with the Peace of Augsburg. In contrast, the French wars lasted for roughly 40 years, profoundly weakening the nation. French Protestants who followed John Calvin’s teachings became known as Huguenots. Although the exact origin of the term “Huguenot” is uncertain, it essentially means “Calvinist.”
Merchants mainly composed the earliest Huguenot communities. Calvin’s ethics, promoting a modest, hardworking lifestyle, attracted these individuals. Over time, the movement also gained support from the aristocracy and royal family, becoming a broader socio-religious force.
A significant milestone in Huguenot history occurred in 1559 with the convocation of the first Congress of Calvinists in France. At this time, Calvinists constituted about 10% of the French population. This meeting was more than a religious assembly—it transformed the Huguenots into a separate church organized politically. In many ways, this self-organization was an early formation of a political party based on religious identity.
Prominent Leaders and Political Parties
One of the key leaders among the Huguenots was the Prince of Condé. On the opposing side, the Catholic League, prominently led by the Duke de Guise, emerged as a powerful counter-force.
In summary, the Huguenots represent a fascinating case of how religious ideals can evolve into a comprehensive political theory. Despite a turbulent history of war and division, their efforts to organize as a separate church and political party laid a foundation that influenced French political life.
The End of the Wars and the Edict of Nantes
During this period, Catholics and Huguenots tore France apart with brutal religious wars. The conflict turned when Henry IV, a Protestant noble, became King of France. His famous phrase, “Paris is worth a Mass,” reflected his decision to convert to Catholicism to bring peace to the kingdom.
In return for his conversion, Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598. This landmark decree guaranteed Protestants religious tolerance and security, allowing them to live, worship, and govern their communities peacefully. It was a pragmatic and revolutionary step—an early model of religious coexistence within one state.
After the wars, France entered its Glorious Age—the 17th and 18th centuries—marked by cultural, intellectual, and political flourishing.
Amid deep religious and civil conflict, important political ideas emerged that would fundamentally reshape European political thought.
On one side, Jean Bodin, a Catholic royalist thinker, argued that absolute monarchy was the only solution to civil disorder. He introduced sovereignty—the idea that the state needs one supreme authority to ensure peace and stability.
On the other side, the Huguenots—the French Protestants—developed a very different vision. In defending their right to resist royal oppression, they laid the foundations of constitutionalism and even the right of revolution. They argued the king did not have unlimited power and that law, religion, and the people could hold rulers accountable.
These opposing ideas transformed the political language of the time. For the first time, Europeans saw the state as separate from the ruler, with its own authority and legitimacy. People began debating who holds power—and why—in completely new ways, questioning legitimacy like never before.
So, let us take a closer look at how these theories emerged and what they meant for the future of political thought.
The clash between absolutism and constitutionalism, shown by Bodin and Huguenot thinkers, directly influenced 17th-century England’s political struggles.
Three major works emerged as foundational texts of this resistance literature:
- François Hotman’s Francogallia (1573) – This work uses historical arguments to show that France had ancient constitutional traditions limiting royal power. Hotman presents the French monarchy not as absolute, but as accountable to the people and their representatives.
- Théodore Beza’s Du droit des magistrats (1574) – Written by Calvin’s successor in Geneva, this text defends the right—and duty—of lesser magistrates to resist a tyrannical sovereign to protect the people and the faith.
- Vindiciae contra tyrannos (1579) – Published under the pseudonym Stephanus Junius Brutus, this influential treatise argues that subjects must resist rulers who violate divine or natural law. It became one of the most influential justifications for religiously motivated resistance in early modern Europe.
Hotman fled to Geneva in early October 1572, narrowly escaping death during the massacre in Bourges. He would never return to France again.
Once in Geneva, he began revising his Francogallia manuscript and received permission from city authorities to publish it by July 1573.Later, in 1574, three more very important treatises appeared, all written in French and by anonymous authors.
The author wrote the first as a dialogue titled The Politician, the second—also a dialogue—called The Awakener, and the third was Political Reflections.
This last treatise was the most revolutionary of the three: it presented, more explicitly than any other Huguenot work, a radical theory of resistance, one that bordered on anarchy.
Philippe du Plessis-Mornay made the greatest and undoubtedly most famous contribution to the Huguenot theory of revolution with his treatise Vindiciae contra tyrannos (A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants).
On the one hand, the Huguenots needed an ideology that could justify the legitimacy of resistance, grounded in religious beliefs. They had to convince their followers that participating in a direct revolutionary struggle against the existing government was lawful. On the other hand, it was also important for them to promote a more constitutionalist and less sectarian ideology. They needed to broaden their base of support in order to have a real chance of success in their confrontation with the monarchy.Skinner, Quentin. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought)
Francogallia
François Hotman’s Francogallia is not a speculative or abstract treatise. It is a careful compilation of historical facts, drawn from chronicles, legal documents, and traditions. Through this evidence, Hotman shows that the community originally created political power in France. He also shows that the Estates elected kings rather than installing them by hereditary or divine right. This method of argumentation—building theory on a foundation of historical examples—was typical of the time. Jean Bodin, the great theorist of absolutism, used a similar strategy. He compiled historical records to prove the opposite point—that kings received their authority directly from God, and this divine origin made royal power indivisible and absolute.
Thus, both thinkers relied on history to shape political theory—but they interpreted it in radically different ways. While Bodin defended monarchy and absolute sovereignty, Hotman laid the groundwork for a constitutionalist and revolutionary tradition, grounded in the idea of the people’s right to choose and resist rulers.
Hotman emphasizes that the people’s right to choose a king is not a one-time act of sovereignty. Instead, the representatives of the nation retain an ongoing right to oversee the monarch. According to ancient French constitutional tradition, the king always had limited power. He never held full or absolute authority like a Roman emperor. Rather, his rule was conditional. The authority of the council stood above that of the king.
As a result of his historical analysis, François Hotman develops a theory of popular sovereignty, according to which the supreme political authority always belongs to the Assembly of the Three Estates. François Hotman is one of the key figures in formulating the theory of popular sovereignty. In his influential work Francogallia, he argues that the people’s representatives—the Three Estates—originally bestowed the French crown by their will, not divine right, and that they retained the right to oversee and limit the king’s authority.
However, while Hotman’s ideas were revolutionary, his method of argumentation sometimes lacked philosophical depth.His reasoning relied mostly on history and chronology—a careful compilation of past examples showing how the French community created and exercised political power over time.
This historical approach, though important, seems weaker compared to the more systematic theories that emerged shortly afterward, which grounded themselves in natural law and more abstract, rational principles about human rights, contracts, and the moral basis of government.
In this sense, Hotman prepared the ground for later theorists—such as Althusius, Grotius, and Locke—who would build on the idea of popular sovereignty, but with a stronger philosophical and legal foundation.
So, let us see what Hotman writes in Francogallia:
- “The State of Gaul was such at that time, that neither was the whole under the Government of a single Person.”
- In fact, the idea seems to be that these free commonwealths, holding regular national councils, represent a more organic and just form of governance—one rooted in local consensus and noble deliberation, rather than imperial command or absolute monarchy.
- About kings: “They had no arbitrary or unlimited Authority, but were bound and circumscribed by Laws; so that they were no less accountable to, and subject to the Power of the People, than the People was to theirs; insomuch that those Kingdoms seem’d nothing else but Magistracies for Life.”
- According to Plato: “A kingly government, if left unchecked after it has gained supreme power, can easily slip into tyranny, as though standing on a slippery surface. Therefore, it must be restrained—like with a bridle—by the authority of the nobles and by certain chosen individuals whom the people have empowered for that very purpose.”
- It is clear from historical evidence that the kings of Francogallia were chosen by the people rather than by hereditary right. The custom of electing a king, as described by Cornelius Tacitus and practiced by the Franks, represents a significant limitation on royal authority.
- Furthermore, the old Germanic tribes were known for their democratic assemblies, which wielded significant power in electing leaders and enacting laws. Such traditions reveal a deep-rooted preference for shared governance and resistance to autocratic rule.
François Hotman’s views laid the historical foundation for the Huguenots’ evolving political theories of resistance and constitutionalism. His historical argument that sovereignty resides fundamentally with the people and their representatives became a powerful tool against absolutist claims.
Vindiciae contra Tyrannos
In Vindiciae contra Tyrannos (A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants), the preface was dated 1577. The identity of the Vindiciae’s author remains a mystery. There is also some evidence that the author was Philippe Duplessis-Mornay, a younger French nobleman who became an important leader of the French Reformed party. There are theories about other possible authors and even about collective authorship involving Philippe Duplessis-Mornay.
This work is structured around four fundamental political and theological questions:
- Must subjects obey a ruler who commands something against God’s law?
- Is it lawful to resist a ruler who tries to destroy true religion and the church?
- Is it lawful to resist a prince who oppresses the state?
- May foreign rulers intervene to help the subjects of a tyrant?
The author’s answers are clear: No, subjects must not obey impious commands; and Yes, resistance is justified in the other three cases.
To defend these answers, the Vindiciae develops a theory of two contracts: one between God and the people—including both ruler and ruled—and another between the ruler and his subjects. These are mutual agreements. If the king breaks either contract—by violating divine law or by betraying his promises—then he forfeits his legitimacy, and the people are no longer bound to obey him.
Vindiciae: “The second question: Whether it is lawful to resist a ruler who violates the law of God, or ruins His Church; by whom, how, and to what extent it is lawful. But who may punish the king (for here is question of corporal and temporal punishment) if it be not the whole body of the people? For it is the people to whom the king swears and obliges himself, no more nor less than the people do to the king.”
In summary, just as it is lawful for a whole people to resist and oppose tyranny, so likewise the principal persons of the kingdom may, for the good of the people, do the same.
Let us conclude, then, to end this discussion, that all the people, by the authority of those into whose hands they have committed their power, or a number of them, may and ought to reprove and repress a ruler who commands things against God. In like manner, all, or at the least, the principal men of provinces or towns, under the authority of the chief magistrates, established first by God, and secondly by the ruler, may, according to law and reason, hinder the entrance of idolatry within the enclosure of their walls, and maintain their true religion; even further, they may extend the confines of the church, which is but one, and if having the means to do it, yet they neglect to, they justly incur the penalty of high treason against the Divine Majesty.
The third question: “Whether it is lawful to resist a ruler who is oppressing or ruining the country, and how far such resistance may be extended; by whom, how, and by what right or law it is permitted.”
“Because none were ever born with crowns on their heads and sceptres in their hands, and because no man can be a king by himself, nor reign without people (whereas on the contrary, the people may subsist by themselves, and did so long before they had any kings), it must of necessity follow that kings were at first constituted by the people.
And although the sons and dependents of such kings, inheriting their fathers’ virtues, may seem to have rendered their kingdoms hereditary to their offspring, and that in some kingdoms and countries, the right of free election seems of a sort buried, nevertheless, in all well-ordered kingdoms, this custom still exists. The sons do not succeed the fathers before the people have first, as it were, re-established them by their new confirmation.
Therefore, as the whole people is above the king, and likewise taken in one entire body, are in authority before him, yet individually, every one of them is under the king.
It was then the custom to refer the most important affairs to be dispensed and resolved in the general assemblies of the people. This might easily be practiced in those kingdoms which were then almost confined within the circuit of one town.
But when the kings began to extend their limits, and since it became impossible for the people to assemble together all into one place because of their great numbers, which would have been nothing but confusion, the officers of the kingdom were established, who should ordinarily preserve the rights of the people.”
Finally, the Vindiciae contra Tyrannos expands the Calvinist resistance theory beyond national borders by addressing the international dimension of the struggle. In its fourth and final question, the treatise argues that foreign rulers who uphold the true religion have not only the right but the duty to intervene on behalf of oppressed subjects in neighboring states.
Significantly, the treatise moves beyond earlier Calvinist thinking by developing a secular theory of government and resistance, especially in its discussion of the third question. Here, resistance is not just about religion, but also about political justice and the defense of civil society itself.
This shift in focus—from the good of the state to the rights of the person—is what makes the Huguenot political theory so historically important. In fact, it anticipates by nearly a century many of the ideas we usually associate with John Locke and later Enlightenment thinkers.
Huguenots on individual rights
The Huguenots, facing persecution and civil war, were forced to ask hard questions about authority, legitimacy, and freedom. And in doing so, they laid the groundwork for modern constitutional thought, for the idea that rulers must be accountable, and that laws must protect individual liberty—not just enforce obedience.
Among the things we are free to dispose of, and therefore possess a right to, according to natural law, is our property—including our lives and liberties. These are the fundamental, natural rights that every human being possesses in a pre-political state, and they form the basis of what we later understand as individual rights.
In the context of the religious wars, when the government consciously chooses to take the lives of many of its citizens, this action must be seen as a direct violation of the inalienable rights of individuals. Such acts of violence, sanctioned by the ruling power, are not only a breach of moral law but contradict the natural law that holds all people have a right to live freely and safely.
This idea reflects a growing critique of absolutism and an emerging understanding that government’s legitimacy lies in its protection of individual rights.
We find here an early and remarkably clear articulation of a principle that would later become central to modern liberalism: the protection of individual rights, rather than merely the pursuit of collective well-being or national unity.
Bibliography
- Skinner, Quentin. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume 1, The Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
- Brutus, Junius. Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos: Sive, de Principis in Populum, Populique in Principem, legitima potestate.
- Como, David R. Radical Parliamentarians and the English Civil War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
- De Krey, Gary S. Following the Levellers: Political and Religious Radicals in the English Civil War and Revolution, 1645–1649. Northfield, 2017.
- Dzelzainis, Martin. “History and Ideology: Milton, the Levellers, and the Council of State in 1649.” Huntington Library Quarterly 68, no. 1/2 (2005): 1–20.
- Foxley, Rachel. The Levellers: Radical Political Thought in the English Revolution. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013.
- Hill, Christopher. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. London: Penguin, 1972.
- Hotman, François. Francogallia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
- Kingdon, Robert M. “Calvinism and Resistance Theory, 1550–1580.” In The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450–1700, edited by J. H. Burns with the assistance of Mark Goldie, 193–218. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
- Lilburne, John. The Free-man’s Freedom Vindicated. London, 1646.
- Overton, Richard. The Araignement of Mr. Persecution. London, 1645.
- Overton, Richard.. A Defiance against all Arbitrary Usurpations. London, 1646.
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- Rees, John. The Leveller Revolution. London: Verso, 2016.
- Scruton, Roger. A Short History of Modern Philosophy. London: Routledge, 1995.
Image:
The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
Artist: François Dubois
Year: circa 1572 (painted early 1600s)
License: Public domain, free for use
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