The pragmatic Protestant
Henry's immediate successors Edward VI and Mary I were both monarchs of strong, albeit completely opposing, religious convictions. Both tried to dictate how their subjects should worship, and if either had succeeded, the government of England might have taken a decisive turn towards absolutism. That this didn't happen is largely an accident of Tudor biology: Edward died very young and childless and his sister Mary proved infertile.
They were succeeded by Elizabeth I, whose pragmatic Protestantism halted the shift towards absolutism. In fact, her predecessors had felt that they could take the idea of a dominium regale only so far. The proprieties of parliamentary government and the rule of law had been maintained, even when Parliament was being coerced and the law bent. Even Henry VIII had implemented all of his massive changes to the relationship between the Church and the state by means of Acts of Parliament, and he had relied on Parliament, too, to give authority to the changes he made at different times to the succession.
The question of succession was an especially sensitive one for Elizabeth, who was childless. And she also acknowledged the role of Parliament in determining who would follow her. The candidate who was closest by blood was the young James VI of Scotland, whose mother, Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth had first imprisoned and then had executed. Elizabeth held James's ambitions in check by threatening to change the succession by Act of Parliament, just as Henry had done before her – an implicit acknowledgement of Parliament's role in deciding who should rule.
Kings as gods
For his part, James was a firm believer in the notion of the dominium regale – the absolute monarchy – and the importance of royal descent and the divine right of kings. He set out his beliefs very clearly in a speech before Parliament on 21 March 1609:
The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth; for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself are called gods ...
Kings are justly called gods, for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power upon earth: for if you will consider the attributes to God, you shall see how they agree in the person of a king. God hath power to create or destroy, make or unmake at his pleasure, to give life or send death, to judge all and to be judged nor accountable to none; to raise low things and to make high things low at his pleasure, and to God are both souls and body due. And the like power have kings: they make and unmake their subjects, they have power of raising and casting down, of life and of death, judges over all their subjects and in all causes and yet accountable to none but God only ...
James continued by arguing that just as to dispute what God may do is blasphemy 'so is it sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power'. He said that his subjects should 'be careful to avoid three things in the matter of grievances'. These were:
First, that you do not meddle with the main points of government; that is my craft ... I must not be taught my office.
Secondly, I would not have you meddle with such ancient rights of mine as I have received from my predecessors ... All novelties are dangerous as well in a politic as in a natural body and therefore I would be loath to be quarrelled in my ancient rights and possessions, for that were to judge me unworthy of that which my predecessors had and left me.
And lastly, I pray you beware to exhibit for grievance anything that is established by a settled law, and whereunto ... you know I will never give a plausible answer; for it is an undutiful part in subjects to press their king, wherein they know beforehand he will refuse them.
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