The Divine Right of Kings

“A modern essayist has said with truth, that “never has there been a doctrine better written against than the Divine Right of Kings.” But those, who have exhausted their powers of satire in pouring scorn upon the theory, have commonly been at little pains to understand it. That the doctrine is absurd, when judged from the standpoint of modern political thought, is a statement that requires neither proof nor exposition. But the modern standpoint is not the only one, and the absurdity of the doctrine in our eyes is the least interesting or important fact about it, except as driving us to seek further for its real meaning and value. Nor is “The Divine Right of Kings” differentiated by reason of its absurdity from other political theories of the seventeenth century. The rival doctrine of an original compact was no whit, less ridiculous in theory, and (if we consider its influence upon Rousseau) infinitely more explosive in practice than the notions of Indefeasible Right and Passive Obedience. It is noteworthy, that, while Macaulay has nothing but contempt for the supporters of Divine Right, he does not find it needful to mention that its opponents would make no better figure among political thinkers of to-day. Instead of stating a fact, which is common to all obsolete doctrines, it were surely better to enquire into the notions of those, to whom the doctrine seemed natural, and to set it in relation to the conditions which produced it. Large numbers of men may embrace a belief without good reason, but assuredly they will not do so without adequate cause. And it is commonly of far greater importance towards the right understanding of a doctrine to know the causes, which lead to its prevalence or decay, than it is to be able to criticize the reasoning, by which men think to support it, while it is popular or to demolish it, as it grows obsolete.” 

This classic includes the following chapters: 

I. Introductory 
II. Early Ideas of Kingship 
III. The Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy 
IV. Wycliffe and King Richard II 
V. Kingship in England From Henry IV to Elizabeth 
VI. Henry of Navarre and the Salic Law 
VII. From James I to the Jacobites 
VIII. Passive Obedience and the Church of England 
IX. Non-Resistance and the Theory of Sovereignty 
X. Conclusion