As each of the two parties at the Court of James had the support
of foreign princes, so each had also the support of an
ecclesiastical authority to which the King paid great deference.
The Supreme Pontiff was for legal and moderate courses; and his
sentiments were expressed by the Nuncio and by the Vicar
Apostolic.55 On the other side was a body of which the weight
balanced even the weight of the Papacy, the mighty Order of
Jesus.

That at this conjuncture these two great spiritual powers, once,
as it seemed, inseparably allied, should have been opposed to
each other, is a most important and remarkable circumstance.
During a period of little less than a thousand years the regular
clergy had been the chief support of the Holy See. By that See
they had been protected from episcopal interference; and the
protection which they had received had been amply repaid. But for
their exertions it is probable that the Bishop of Rome would have
been merely the honorary president of a vast aristocracy of
prelates. It was by the aid of the Benedictines that Gregory the
Seventh was enabled to contend at once against the Franconian
Caesars and against the secular priesthood. It was by the aid of
the Dominicans and Franciscans that Innocent the Third crushed
the Albigensian sectaries. In the sixteenth century the
Pontificate exposed to new dangers more formidable than had ever
before threatened it, was saved by a new religious order, which
was animated by intense enthusiasm and organized with exquisite
skill. When the Jesuits came to the rescue of the Papacy, they
found it in extreme peril: but from that moment the tide of
battle turned. Protestantism, which had, during a whole