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JAMES I (1603-1625): REMARKS ON THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS
From a speech before Parliament, 1609:
The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth. For kings are not only
God’s lieutenants upon earth and sit upon earth and sit upon God’s throne, but even by
God Himself they are called gods.
. . . they make and unmake their subjects. They have power of raising and casting
down, of life and death, judges over all, and yet accountable to none but God only. They
have power to exalt low things and abase high things and make of their subjects like men
at the chess, a pawn to take a bishop or a knight, for to emperors or kings their subjects’
bodies and goods are due for their defense and maintenance.
From his True Law of Free Monarchies:
First it is a sure Axiom of Theology, that evil should not be done, that good may
come of it: The wickedness therefore of a king, can never make them that are ordained to
be judged by him, to become his judges . . .
I grant indeed a wicked king is sent by God for a curse to his people, and a plague
for their sins . . .
From the Basiliken Deron (Royal Gift), written for his son:
Hold no Parliaments but for the necessity of new laws, which would be but
seldom. But when you are there, remember the throne is God’s and not yours that you sit
on, and let no favor, nor whatsoever respects move you from the right.
From a speech before Parliament, 1605:
And as to the end for which the Parliament is ordained, being only for the
advancement of God’s glory, and the establishment and wealth of the King and his
people: It is no place then for particular men to utter there their private conceits, not for
the satisfaction of their curiosities, and least of all to make show of their eloquence . . .
“James I.” The Political Works. C.H. McIlwain, ed. Cambridge: Harvard, 1918, pp.
307-8; 66-7; 20; 288.