Absolute power was contested

In France, the first monarchomaques were Protestant :

• The lawyer Francis Hotman, who published Francogallia in Geneva in 1573 ;
• The theologian Théodore de Bèze, who wrote Du droit des magistrates sur leurs sujets (The rights of magistrates over their subjects) (1574) ;
• The author of Vindiciae contra Tyrannos (1579), who was probably Philippe Duplessis-Mornay.

There are some other anonymous works, notably Réveille-Matin des Français et de leurs voisins (A morning awakening for the French and their neighbours) which was published in 1574 in Edinburgh – (more probably in Bâle), and Discours politiques des diverses puissances establies de Dieu au monde (The political speeches of several powers established by God in the world, 1574).

They all insisted on the sovereignty of the people, who were represented by the States General. The assembly of States were to chose the kings and magistrates and could remove them from power if they were to be unworthy of the trust placed in them ; they decided whether the country was to go to war or not, and made the laws. This form of monarchy by contractual agreement was the precursor of the future constitutional monarchy.

The people’s obedience was to be conditioned by the king’s respect of his promises. Should the sovereign be a tyrant, resistance becomes legitimate.

In 1584, when Henri of Navarre became heir to the throne, the monarchomaques, so as not to offend the future Henri IV, adopted a more moderate view of the situation,

Their arguments were taken up by some members of the League. This was the case, for example, in De Justa Henrici tertii abdicatione (1589) by the priest Jean Boucher, or De justa republicae in regis impios authoritate (1590), attributed to Bishop Guillaume Rose.

Catholic and Protestant tracts differed from each other in several ways : for instance, the Catholics made little distinction between religious and political tyranny. According to them, things spiritual and things temporal were closely linked. Thus the killing of a tyrant was more easily justified by Catholics than by Protestants.