ABSOLUTISM AND PARLIAMENT

Absolutism and Parliamentary Rule in England

Absolutism and Parliamentary Rule in England

Describe how Catholicism fostered the divine right of kings and how this philosophy perpetuated the monarchy.

“God is holiness itself, goodness itself, and the power itself. In these things lies the majesty of God. In the image, of these things lies the majesty of the prince (Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, Pp. 57).”

The thesis statement above by Jacques-Benigne Bossuet clearly illustrates the concept or theory of the Divine Right of Kings' which argues that certain kings ruled because they were chosen (by God) to do so and that these kings were accountable to no person except God respecting only the fundamental laws (Figgis, 1970). Because the monarch ruled with "absolute" or unshared power, the term absolutism' came to being. These kings are said to rule absolutely by the will of God. To oppose the king was equivalent to a rebellion against God. The king thus was not to be questioned or disobeyed. According to Bossuet, God's purpose in instituting autocratic monarchy was to protect and guide the society.

In the eighteenth century, absolutism triumphed almost everywhere in Europe. The absolutist system can be considered the culmination of the process of centralization of power in the hands of the king, began with the modern states of the Renaissance. The king was the head of the absolutist state and personally exercised power. He was ultimately responsible for the welfare of his realm and its inhabitants, their subjects. This should have allowed an army to militarily defeat the rebellious nobles, peasants revolted troops and enemy states. The absolutist state exercised control over the bureaucracy needed to administer the kingdom, diplomacy, finance and tax collection, as well as with the development of trade (Figgis, 1970).

Trace the development conflict between the English Monarchy and Parliament in the 1600s.

The monarchy of the United Kingdom (commonly referred to the British monarchy) is a system of government based on the Westminster system (a parliamentary monarchy), in which a monarch is hereditary sovereign of the United Kingdom and its Overseas Territories sea. It is the source of the executive, judicial and legislative. The British monarch is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and the Head of State of the Commonwealth Realms. It is also, since George VI, the head of the Commonwealth of fifteen countries. This form of personal union grew out of the former British colonial empire, but these countries are independent and the monarchy of each is legally distinct.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, England had many rulers who held varying religious beliefs. These competing religious ideologies tore England apart. Issues such as the divine right of kings, the conflict between the English Monarchy, and the Protestant Reformation would all lead England to rule with a parliamentary monarchy (Dickens, 1978). The Protestant Reformation was a great religious movement that began in Germany and spread through Northern Europe. At this time, the medieval Roman Catholic Church was under scrutiny for abusing their ...