Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos: A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants by Stephen Junius Brutus

The Protestant Reformation of the 1500s began as an internal attempt to correct theological errors within the Roman Catholic Church. Still, the Pope refused to listen, sparking an external movement that emphasized personal responsibility, religious freedom, and church decentralization. These principles also raised some questions about political decentralization. If church leaders could be questioned and limited, couldn't civil leaders be questioned and limited as well? 

Some of Europe’s kings disliked this idea as much as the Pope, and they cracked down on their citizens and nobles alike when they adopted some of these Protestant ideas. Europe was divided, but no group was as brutally oppressed and slaughtered as the French Huguenots.  

In 1579, they published this book, which presented strong arguments for individual rights, limits on the crown's jurisdiction, and how free people could and should resist tyrants. They backed this argument with actual organized resistance from free men and lesser magistrates alike, and were able to win significant freedoms to govern their own provinces.  

• Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos: A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants by Stephen Junius Brutus – Paperback

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Introduction by Glenn Sunshine
• Dedication and Epistle
• The First Question: Whether subjects are bound and ought to obey princes, if they command that which is against the law of God
• The Second Question: Whether it be lawful to resist a prince who does infringe the law of God, or ruin His Church: By whom, how, and how far it is lawful
• The Third Question: Whether it be lawful to resist a prince who does oppress or ruin a public state, and how far such resistance may be extended: By whom, how, and by what right or law it is permitted
• The Fourth Question: Whether neighbor princes may or are bound by law to aid the subjects of other princes, persecuted for true religion, as oppressed by manifest tyranny

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