Francisco Suárez’s "Defensio fidei" and his conflict with Jacob I

Abstract

The “gunpowder conjuration” allowed Jacob I to justify the English Catholics Oath of Fidelity. His reflection about it is introduced through the narrow paths of the theological and political thought. In fact, the sentence given to Suárez by the French parliament in 1614 is considered, in the British and the French contexts, as a meddling of the institution in the interests of the State. Suárez aims to create a dialogue between the King’s Defence and the situation British Catholics would have to face, as well as the Pope’s negative response to it. In this way, two opposite views are intertwined: one, of a political nature, and the other with a broader character and sustained in the thought of the Pope. Far from defending the Pope’s position, Suárez tries to settle the bases of what later would be known as freedom of conscience.