Editing Divine right of kings (section)

== Pre-Modern history ==

With the rise of [[firearms]], nation-states and the [[Protestant Reformation]] in the late 16th century, the theory of divine right justified the king's absolute authority in both political and spiritual matters.{{Explain|date=September 2024}}  [[Henry VIII of England]] declared himself the [[Supreme Head of the Church of England]] and exerted the power of the throne more than any of his predecessors.

As a political theory, it was further developed by [[James I of England|James VI of Scotland]] (1567–1625) and came to the fore in England under his reign as James I of England (1603–1625). [[Louis XIV of France]] (1643–1715) strongly promoted the theory as well.

Historian J. P. Sommerville stresses the theory was polemic: "Absolutists magnified royal power. They did this to protect the state against anarchy and to refute the ideas of resistance theorists", those being in Britain Catholic and Presbyterian theorists.<ref name="burgess">{{cite journal |last1=Burgess |first1=Glenn |title=The Divine Right of Kings Reconsidered |journal=The English Historical Review |date=1992 |volume=107 |issue=425 |pages=837–861 |doi=10.1093/ehr/CVII.CCCCXXV.837 |jstor=574219 |issn=0013-8266|doi-access=free }}</ref>

The concept of divine right incorporates, but exaggerates, the ancient Christian concept of "royal God-given rights", which teach that "the right to rule is anointed by God",{{citation needed|date=August 2023}} although this idea is found in many other cultures, including [[Aryan]] and [[Ancient Egypt|Egyptian]] traditions.

=== Medieval Era ===
[[File:La Martorana-msu-0246.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|[[Roger II of Sicily]] invested with [[kingship]] by [[Christ]] (mosaic of the [[Church of Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio]], Palermo)]]
Outside of Christianity, kings were often seen as ruling with the backing of heavenly powers.

====Early Middle Ages====

Although the later Roman Empire had developed the European concept of a divine regent in Late Antiquity, [[Adomnan of Iona]] provides one of the earliest written examples of a Western medieval concept of kings ruling with divine right. He wrote of the Irish King [[Diarmait mac Cerbaill]]'s assassination and claimed that divine punishment fell on his assassin for the act of violating the monarch.

Adomnan also recorded a story about Saint [[Columba]] supposedly being visited by an angel carrying a glass book, who told him to ordain [[Aedan mac Gabrain]] as King of [[Dal Riata]]. Columba initially refused, and the angel answered by whipping him and demanding that he perform the ordination because God had commanded it. The same angel visited Columba on three successive nights. Columba finally agreed, and Aedan came to receive ordination. At the ordination, Columba told Aedan that so long as he obeyed God's laws, then none of his enemies would prevail against him, but the moment he broke them, this protection would end, and the same whip with which Columba had been struck would be turned against the king.

Adomnan's writings most likely influenced other Irish writers, who in turn influenced continental ideas as well. [[Pepin the Short]]'s coronation may have also come from the same influence.<ref>Adomnan of Iona. ''Life of St Columba''. Penguin Books, 1995</ref> The [[Byzantine Empire]] can be seen as the progenitor of this concept (which began with [[Constantine I]]). This in turn inspired the [[Carolingian dynasty]] and the [[Holy Roman Emperors]], whose lasting impact on Western and Central Europe further inspired all subsequent Western ideas of kingship.

====High Middle Ages====
In the [[Middle Ages]], the idea that God had granted certain earthly powers to the monarch, just as he had given spiritual authority and power to the church, especially to the Pope, was already a well-known concept long before later writers coined the term "divine right of kings" and employed it as a theory in political science.

However, the dividing line for the authority and power was a subject of frequent contention: notably in England with the murder of Archbishop [[Thomas Becket]]t (1170). For example, [[Richard I of England]] declared at his trial during the diet at Speyer in 1193: "[[s:I am born in a rank which recognizes no superior but God|I am born in a rank which recognizes no superior but God, to whom alone I am responsible for my actions]]", and it was Richard who first used the motto "{{lang|fr|[[Dieu et mon droit]]}}" ("God and my right") which is still the motto of the [[Monarch of the United Kingdom]].<ref>{{Cite book |author=Duncan, Jonathan |title=The dukes of Normandy, from the time of Rollo to the expulsion of King John |date=1994 |publisher=Chadwyck-Healey |oclc=1313683172}}</ref>

[[Thomas Aquinas]] condoned extra-legal [[tyrannicide]] in the worst of circumstances:
{{blockquote|When there is no recourse to a superior by whom judgment can be made about an invader, then he who slays a tyrant to liberate his fatherland is [to be] praised and receives a reward.|Thomas Aquinas, ''Commentary on the Magister Sententiarum'' (Sentences II, Distinction 44, question 2, article 2)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.vaxxine.com/hyoomik/aquinas/regicide.html |title=Some Brief Remarks on what Thomas has to say on Rebellion and Regicide |last=McDonald |first=Hugh |access-date=2011-07-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927064708/http://www.vaxxine.com/hyoomik/aquinas/regicide.html |archive-date=2011-09-27 }}</ref>{{Better source needed|Who is this?|date=May 2019}}}}

On the other hand, Aquinas forbade the overthrow of any morally, Christianly and spiritually legitimate king by his subjects. The only human power capable of deposing the king was the pope. The reasoning was that if a subject may overthrow his superior for some bad law, who was to be the judge of whether the law was bad? If the subject could so judge his own superior, then all lawful superior authority could lawfully be overthrown by the arbitrary judgement of an inferior, and thus all law was under constant threat.

According to [[John of Paris]], kings had their jurisdictions and bishops (and the pope) had theirs, but kings derived their supreme, non-absolute temporal jurisdiction from popular consent.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Werbos |first1=Chris |last2=Latham |first2=Andrew |title=The Medieval Foundations of the Theory of Sovereignty |url=https://www.e-ir.info/2020/04/06/the-medieval-foundations-of-the-theory-of-sovereignty/ |website=E-International Relations |access-date=20 August 2023 |date=6 April 2020}}</ref>

====Late Middle Ages and Renaissance====

The Church was the final guarantor that Christian kings would follow the laws and constitutional traditions of their ancestors and the laws of God and of justice.<ref>Similarly, the Chinese concept of [[Mandate of Heaven]] required that the emperor properly carry out the proper [[ritual]]s and consult his ministers; however, this concept made it extremely difficult to undo any acts carried out by an ancestor.</ref>

Radical English theologian [[John Wycliffe]]'s theory of Dominium meant that injuries inflicted on someone personally by a king should be born by them submissively, a conventional idea, but that injuries by a king against God should be patiently resisted even to death; gravely sinful kings and popes forfeited their (divine) right to obedience and ownership, though the political order should be maintained.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rao |first1=H. Krishna |title=John Wycliffe |journal=The Indian Journal of Political Science |date=1942 |volume=3 |issue=4 |pages=372–379 |jstor=42754272 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/42754272 |issn=0019-5510}}</ref>  More aggressive versions of this were taken up by [[Lollards]] and [[Hussites]].

For [[Erasmus of Rotterdam]] it was the consent of the people which gives and takes away "the purple",<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kloss |first1=Waldemar |title=Erasmus's Place in the History of Philosophy |journal=The Monist |date=1907 |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=84–101 |doi=10.5840/monist190717138 |jstor=27900019 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27900019 |issn=0026-9662}}</ref>{{rp|95}} not an unchangeable divine mandate.

===Catholic limits===
Catholic jurisprudence holds that the monarch is always subject to [[Natural law|natural]] and [[divine law]], which are regarded as superior to the monarch.<ref>Until the [[Papal states|unification of Italy]], the [[Bishop of Rome|Holy See]] did, from the time Christianity became the Roman [[Holy Roman Empire|state religion]], assert on that ground its primacy over secular princes; however this exercise of power never, even at its zenith, amounted to [[theocracy]], even in jurisdictions where the Bishop of Rome was the temporal authority.</ref>

The possibility of monarchy declining morally, overturning natural law, and degenerating into a tyranny oppressive of the general welfare was answered theologically with the Catholic concept of the spiritual superiority of the Pope (there is no "Catholic concept of extra-legal [[tyrannicide]]", as some falsely suppose, the same being expressly condemned by St Thomas Aquinas in chapter 7 of his ''De Regno'').

Catholic thought justified limited submission to the monarchy by reference to the following:
# The Old Testament, in which God chose kings to rule over Israel, beginning with [[Saul]] who was then rejected by God in favour of [[David]], whose dynasty continued (at least in the [[Kingdom of Judah|southern kingdom]]) until the [[Babylonian captivity]].
# The New Testament, in which the first pope, [[Saint Peter|Peter]], commands that all Christians shall honour the Roman Emperor,<ref>{{bibleverse|1|Peter|2:13–20|NKJV}}</ref> even though, at that time, he was still a pagan emperor. [[Paul the Apostle|Paul]] agreed with Peter that subjects should be obedient to the powers that be because they are appointed by God, as he wrote in his Epistle to the Romans.<ref name="bibleverse||Romans|13:1–7|NKJV">{{bibleverse||Romans|13:1–7|NKJV}}</ref> Likewise, Jesus Christ proclaims in the Gospel of Matthew that one should "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's"; that is at first, literally, the payment of taxes as binding those who use the imperial [[currency]].<ref>See {{bibleverse||Matthew|22:15–22|NKJV}}</ref> Jesus told [[Pontius Pilate]] that his authority as Roman governor of [[Judaea]] came from heaven according to John 19:10–11.{{citation needed|reason=Must show Catholic reading of verse is as asserted|date=March 2022}}
# The endorsement by the popes and the church of the line of emperors beginning with the Emperors [[Constantine I|Constantine]] and [[Theodosius I|Theodosius]], later the Eastern Roman emperors, and finally the Western Roman emperor, [[Charlemagne]] and his successors, the Catholic [[Holy Roman Empire|Holy Roman Emperors]].