Divine Right

Divine Right, a term applied to describe the source of the power claimed for the monarch, by the royalist party, in the great controversies between the monarchical and parliamentary or commonwealth parties in England in the 17th century. The monarch was held to be the immediate representative of the Deity, to whom alone he was responsible for all his actions—a principle which relieved him from all human responsibility, and gave him an absolute claim to the obedience of his subjects. Two of the confessions of Henry VIII.'s reign—the Institution and Necessary Doctrine—both insist on the duty of passive obedience as a corollary of the fifth commandment; and Cranmer so altered the coronation oath at the accession of Edward VI., as to make the king's hereditary right wholly independent of election or the will of the people. But the doctrine became full fledged only after the quiet transfer of the crown from the Tudor to the Stewart dynasty showed that the hereditary principle was firmly established; and James I. constantly harped on the necessity of this great principle. The chief writers on the side of divine right were Salmasius and Sir Robert Filmer; on the other, Milton, Algernon Sidney, and Harrington. The controversy died a natural death after the accession of the Hanoverian dynasty. The miraculous power claimed by English sovereigns of curing the 'king's evil' (see SCROFULA) by the royal touch, was a consequence of their divine right.