The Right of Magistrates (French: Du droit des magistrats, Latin: De jure magistratuum) is a 1574 work written by Theodore Beza, and anonymously "published by those from Magdeburg of 1550",[1] as a polemical contribution to the pamphlet literature of the French Wars of Religion.[2] It emphatically protested against French state tyranny in religious matters, and affirmed the resistance theory that it is legitimate for a people to oppose an unworthy magistracy in a practical manner and if necessary to use weapons and depose them.