Could a son of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church bind himself to protect and defend heresy, and to enforce a law which excluded true believers from office?
Some of the ecclesiastics who swarmed in his household told him that he could not without sin give any such pledge as his undutiful subjects demanded.

On this point the opinion of Middleton, who was a Protestant, could be of no weight.

But Middleton found an ally in one whom he regarded as a rival and an enemy.

Melfort, scared by the universal hatred of which he knew himself to be the object, and afraid that he should be held accountable, both in England and in France, for his master's wrongheadedness, submitted the case to several eminent Doctors of the Sorbonne.

These learned casuists pronounced the Declaration unobjectionable in a religious point of view.