ar 1625 both firmly believed in
the principle of their "divine right" to administer their realm as they
thought fit without consulting the wishes of their subjects. The idea
was not new. The Popes, who in more than one way had been the successors
of the Roman Emperors (or rather of the Roman Imperial ideal of a
single and undivided state covering the entire known world), had
always regarded themselves and had been publicly recognised as the
"Vice-Regents of Christ upon Earth." No one questioned the right of God
to rule the world as He saw fit. As a natural result, few ventured to
doubt the right of the divine "Vice-Regent" to do the same thing and
to demand the obedience of the masses because he was the direct
representative of the Absolute Ruler of the Universe and responsible
only to Almighty God.

When the Lutheran Reformation proved successful, those rights which
formerly had been invested in the Papacy were taken over by the many
European sovereigns who became Protestants. As head of their own
national or dynastic churches they insisted upon being "Christ's
Vice-Regents" within the limit of their own territory. The people
did not question the right of their rulers to take such a step.
They accepted it, just as we in our own day accept the idea of a
representative system which to us seems the only reasonable and
just form of government. It is unfair therefore to state that either
Lutheranism or Calvinism caused the particular feeling of irritation
which greeted King-James's oft and loudly repeated assertion of his
"Divine Right." There must have been other grounds for the genuine
English disbelief in the Divine Right of Kings.

The first positive denial of the "Divine Right" of sovereigns had been
heard in the Netherlands when the Estates General abjured their lawful
sovereign King Philip II of Spain, in the year 1581. "The King," so they
said, "has broken his contract and the King therefore is dismissed like
any other unfaithful servant." Since then, this particular idea of a
king's responsibilities towards his subjects had spread among many of
the nations who inhabited the shores of the North Sea. They were in a
very favourable position. They were rich. The poor people in the heart
of central Europe, at the mercy of their Ruler's body-guard, could not
afford to discuss a problem which would at once land them in the deepest
dungeon of the nearest castle. But the merchants of Holland and England
who possessed the