Pius V. had been grand inquisitor under Paul IV.; he continued to act the part when pope: no pontiff has burned more heretics, or persons suspected of heresy, at Rome than he. Among the victims of his zeal we observe many learned men, and especially Palearius, who had compared the Inquisition to a poignard directed against men of letters; “sicam districtam in jugula litteratorum.” A bull of Pius V. against certain propositions of Michael Baius, was the first signal of a long and melancholy quarrel. This pope in renewing and amplifying the bull of Paul III. “In cænâ Domini,” commanded it to be published on holy thursday throughout all the churches; previously it had been fulminated only at Rome:³⁰⁸ it may be said, that Pius V. wished to arm against the Holy See the remnant of the Catholic princes, and to condemn them to the alternative of renouncing the independence of their crowns or the faith of their ancestors. ³⁰⁸ In 1580, many French bishops attempted to publish, in their dioceses, the bull “In coena Domini,” but on the complaint of the procureur general, the parliament of Paris ordered the seizure of the temporal revenues of the prelates who should publish this bull, and declared, that any attempt to enforce it would be reputed rebellion and the crime of high treason. The remonstrances were universal; Philip II. the most superstitious of the kings of this period, forbade under severe penalties the publication of this bull in his states. By another bull Pius excommunicated Elizabeth: an anathema at least superfluous, and which produced no other consequence than the execution of John Felton, who had ventured to placard this sentence in London. A league entered into between the Pope, Spain, and Venice, against the Turks, was successful: Don John of Austria, rendered himself illustrious by the victory of Lepanto; and the pope was not afraid to apply to this warrior, the bastard of Charles V. these words of the Gospel: “There was a man sent from God, and this man’s name was John.” Finally, by the power which he said he held from God, and in character of pastor charged with examining into the claim of those who had merited extraordinary honours by their superior zeal for the Holy See, Pius V. decreed the title of grand duke of Tuscany to Cosmo de Medicis. The emperor remonstrated in vain: Cosmo with his new title had himself crowned at Rome, and took the oath at the hands of the pope. But that which is most remarkable here is, the reasons assigned to Maximilian by the cardinal Commendon to justify this pontifical act: Commendon said, that the pope had deposed Childerick, invested Pepin, transferred the empire of the East into the West, appointed the electors, confirmed and crowned the emperors; from whence he concludes that the pope is the distributor of thrones, of titles, and in some sort, the nomenclator of princes, as Adam had been that of animals.