Accountability
By Lee Edward Enochs
Executive Director
Theologian X
(This blog post is a modified version of my paper entitled: "King James I and Royalist Absolutism: Examining Why King James the 1st Gave the True Law of Monarchies Speech")
On March 21, 1610, James I King of England gave an
important speech entitled, True Law of
Free Monarchies,
before the British Parliament at Whitehall Palace, located in London England.
In this speech he delineates three principle lines of argumentation (Scripture,
policy and philosophy) in defense of his version of divinely sanctioned
royalist absolutism,
or the "hereditary monarchism,"a
theological and political hypothesis that essential states that the monarch of
a respective country or kingdom has been ordained by God to be the exclusive
ruler of a given kingdom and maintains the legitimate right to rule that, “no subject was the
right to resist a divinely appointed monarch even if violated the law or was
manifestly a bad king.” Royalist absolutism was abandoned in England as public policy in 1688-1689 during
the "Glorious Revolution.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the historical circumstances that
caused King James I of England to give his renown, The True Law of Free Monarchies before Parliament in 1610 and to
attempt to understand why it failed as a viable view of political science.
James’ The True
Law of Free Monarchies delineates James’ “philosophy of royalist absolutism
and its divine sanction setting fort the terms for new disputes about
sovereignty, divine right and role of parliaments and subjects.”
He wrote it due to some British and European intelligentsia’s misgivings with
James’s Royalist absolutism. James first published True Law of Free Monarchies in 1598 while he was the King of
Scotland and disseminated it again when he ascended to the throne of England in
1603.
James produced The True Law of Free Monarchies in response
to criticism of the Jesuit Catholic scholar Juan de Mariana who argued in his
book entitled, De Rege et Regis
Institutione (1598), and postulated the view that since society is
ultimately a pact between the citizenry and the king, the citizens of a given
society have the right to hold the monarch accountable.
Similarly, James wrote True Law of Free
Monarchies in order to refute the anti-absolutist scholars Christopher
Goodman and John Ponet who greatly resisted any conception of Royalist absolutism.
Decades later, John Locke would also wrote against eloquently against the
concept of the divine right of kings and argued for a form of constitutional democracy.
Ponet, Goodman and Locke’s criticism of James’ views on royalist absolutism
should be seen as a secondary source on the royalist absolutism concept James
attempted to defend and the primary source on this controversy should be seen
as True Law of Free Monarchies.
James gave the famous
True
Law of Free Monarchies speech to communicate to the English parliament that
he believed that the estate of the monarch is the most supreme thing on the
face of the earth and postulated the view that the monarch is called to be the
supreme ruler of his country. James believed that the king is God’s lieutenant
and when the king sits upon his throne, he sits upon God’s throne, since kings,
are called “gods” by none other than God himself.
He uses three primary lines of argumentation to defend his divine right to
absolutism, the authority of the Bible, public policy and philosophical
reasoning.
As mentioned above, the Scriptures call monarchs, “gods,” and derive their
authority from God alone. James makes an analogy between monarch’s and the
fathers of human families and the political father of the citizenry (parens patriae). Then James argues
philosophically that kings are similar to the head of a microcosm of the “body
of man.”James argues that monarchs resemble God’s authority and power on earth
and possess similar characteristics to God Himself.
Similarly, James says that like God who has the power to create, destroy, make
war, give life, cause death, judge everyone else but is unaccountable to no one
else.
Monarchs are like God in the respect that they destroy and make war or
not make war at a whim. Monarch, like God give life and can take it away and
does anything and everything by His sheer pleasure. Kings receive their power
from God alone, according to James and kings are like God in the respect that they
raise and cast down and control the affection and souls of his subjects. James
warns parliament to avoid three specific things in respect to their personal
and official grievances.
He tells parliament first not to interfere in the main
points of government, since this government alone is the dominion of God.
Secondly, he informs parliament not to interfere themselves with his ancient
monarchial rights. James implies any other form of government than is novel and
does not possess historical precedent. James warns parliament not to
communicate a grievance that has already been established by law.
Exploring the historical circumstances that caused King James I of England to give his renown, The True Law of Free Monarchies before Parliament in 1610 and to attempt to understand why it failed as a viable view of political science. The criticisms against royalist absolutism leveled by the esteemed scholars Juan de Mariana, Christopher Goodman and John Ponet gave James substantial reason to produce True Law of Free Monarchies. James views on absolutism ultimately were vanquished at the glorious revolution of 1689, where his son, King James II (1633-1701) was defeated and the concept of royalist absolutism ceased to be the predominate view of political science and public theology.
The debate on the concept of royalist absolutism in
defense of the flawed notion of the divine right of kings was later debated
between John Locke and Robert Filmer. In 1680, Filmer published his famous book
entitled, The Natural Power of Kings
(Patriarcha) where he used many
of King James I’s absolute royalist arguments in defense of the supreme power
of the state.
John Locke subsequently devoted himself to refuting Filmer’s views in some of
his political writings.
King James I’s views in defense of absolute
royalism in True Law of Free
Monarchies appear to be as specious and untenable as Robert Filmer’s due to
the inherent circularity of James’ arguments which are guilty of the logical
fallacy of “begging the question” or petitio principii,
where the conclusion to his argument that kings should maintain absolute power,
are included in the initial premises of his argumentation. King
James and True Law of Free
Monarchies appear to have very flawed reasons to support the absolute power
of the king. The king does not and should not have power just because he says
so.
The "divine right of kings" concept of leadership is also seen in many Evangelical circles wherein a pastor leads his or her church without the consent or accountability of other leaders and most importantly the will of the church body. This is unfortunate because the Bible is replete with injunctions against this.
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Bibliography
Bucholz,
R. O. and Newton Key. Early Modern
England 1485-1714 : A Narrative History. 2nd ed. Chichester, U.K. ; Malden,
MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
James,
James Montagu, Robert Barker, John Bill, English Printing Collection (Library
of Congress), George Fabyan Collection (Library of Congress) and John Davis
Batchelder Collection (Library of Congress). The Workes of the Most High and Mightie Prince, Iames, by the Grace of
God King of Great Britaine, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &C.
London: Printed by Robert Barker & Iohn Bill ... 1616.
Kishlansky,
Mark A. A Monarchy Transformed : Britain
1603-1714 The Penguin History of Britain. London New York: Penguin Books,
1997.
Miller,
John. The Glorious Revolution Seminar
Studies in History. London ; New York: Longman, 1983.
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/17century/topic_3/truelaw.htm. “True Law of Free Monarchies”
Footnotes
[1]
James et al., The Workes of the Most High and Mightie
Prince, Iames, by the Grace of God King of Great Britaine, France and Ireland,
Defender of the Faith, &C (London: Printed by Robert Barker & Iohn
Bill ... 1616), 528-31.
[2] Mark A. Kishlansky, A Monarchy Transformed : Britain 1603-1714,
The Penguin History of Britain (London New York: Penguin Books, 1997), 269.
[3] John Miller, The Glorious Revolution, Seminar Studies
in History (London ; New York: Longman, 1983), 22-23.
[4] R. O. Bucholz and
Newton Key, Early Modern England
1485-1714 : A Narrative History, 2nd ed. (Chichester, U.K. ; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell,
2009), 220.
[6] http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/17century/topic_3/truelaw.htm. “True Law of
Free Monarchies”
[7] Ibid.
[8] Juan de Mariana and
George Albert Moore, An English
Translation of Book I of Juan De Mariana's De Rege Et Regis Institutione
(Washington,: 1947), 20-33.
[9] George Mace, Locke, Hobbes, and the Federalist Papers :
An Essay on the Genesis of the American Political Heritage (Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1979), 11-44.
[15]
Robert Filmer, Patriarcha; or, the
Natural Power of Kings (London,: Printed for R. Chiswell etc., 1680), 1-8.
[16]
John Locke and C. B. Macpherson, Second
Treatise of Government, 1st ed. (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Pub. Co.,
1980), 2-8.
[17]
Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks, Come, Let Us Reason : An Introduction to Logical Thinking (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1990), 100.
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