Divine right of kings

The divine right of kings is a political and religious doctrine of political legitimacy of a monarchy in post-Reformation Western Christianity culminating in the Age of Absolutism. It is also known as the divine-right theory of kingship.
The doctrine asserts that a monarch is not accountable to any earthly authority because their right to rule is derived from divine authority. Thus, the monarch is not subject to the will of the people, of the aristocracy, or of any other estate of the realm. It follows that only divine authority can judge a monarch, and that any attempt to depose, dethrone, resist or restrict their powers runs contrary to God's will and may constitute a sacrilegious act. It does not imply that their power is absolute.
In its full-fledged form, the Divine Right of Kings is associated with Henry VIII of England, James VI and I of Scotland and England, Louis XIV of France, and their successors.

Prior medieval political concepts

The medieval political system, often summarised by the concept of the Res publica Christiana, was decentralised and had no concept of absolute monarchical power, as later held by rulers of the 17th and 18th centuries.
In that older system, the legitimacy of a regime was ultimately derivative of Eternal Law, i.e. the divine blueprint for the order of the world, in which humans, by virtue of being rational creatures, participate, giving them knowledge of Natural Law. The Natural Law is universal, but is determined locally by custom, which generates Human Law. This hierarchical order from eternal to natural to human law is most famously articulated by Thomas Aquinas, and meant that a medieval regime, such as a monarchy, was legitimate so long as it ruled in accordance with that order, obligating the ruler to govern in accordance with Natural Law and to protect local customs.
The Church leadership held ultimate authority in interpreting whether a king complied with Natural Law and thus maintained his Divine Mandation, which was the signature feature of the pan-European political order of the Res publica Christiana. This is why Excommunication was dreaded by medieval kings, as it formally invalidated the legitimacy of their rule and gave the Church leadership Papal deposing power.
The power of a king was, consequently, far from absolute, and was furthermore shared with other political institutions of medieval society, such as parliaments and a powerful nobility. This division was encouraged by the Church leadership and political theory of the time, with Thomas Aquinas promoting constitutional monarchy checked by a strong parliament as the preferred form of government.
All this was dramatically changed first by the Reformation, then by the Thirty Years' War, which demoted the Church leadership from ultimate political authority and developed the idea of kings as rulers under the authority of God alone, whence the Divine Right of Kings and the onset of Absolutism.

Concept

Divine right has been a key element of the self-legitimization of many absolute monarchies, connected with their authority and right to rule. Related but distinct notions include Caesaropapism, Supremacy, Absolutism or Tyranny.
Historically, many notions of rights have been authoritarian and hierarchical, with different people granted different rights and some having more rights than others. For instance, the right of a father to receive respect from his son did not indicate a right for the son to receive a return from that respect. Analogously, the divine right of kings, which permitted absolute power over subjects, provided few rights for the subjects themselves.
It is sometimes signified by the phrase "by the Grace of God" or its Latin equivalent, Dei Gratia, which has historically been attached to the titles of certain reigning monarchs. Note, however, that such accountability only to God does not per se make the monarch a sacred king.

Religious traditions

Hinduism

The Hindu text Mahabharata contains several concepts of kingship, especially underscoring its divine origins. The king is considered an embodiment of Indra, and fealty to him is considered as submitting to divine authority. In the Rajadharmanusasana Parva, Bhishma talks of the period before men had kings, and there was chaos all around –
The Mahabharata also mentions that in a land without king or royal authority, Vedic rituals are ineffectual and Agni does not convey sacrificial libations to the gods.

Zoroastrianism (Iranian world)

Khvarenah is an Iranian and Zoroastrian concept, which literally means glory, about divine right of the kings. This may stem from early Mesopotamian culture, where kings were often regarded as deities after their death. Shulgi of Ur was among the first Mesopotamian rulers to declare himself to be divine. In the Iranian view, kings would never rule, unless Khvarenah is with them, and they will never fall unless Khvarenah leaves them. For example, according to the Kar-namag of Ardashir, when Ardashir I of Persia and Artabanus V of Parthia fought for the throne of Iran, on the road Artabanus and his contingent are overtaken by an enormous ram, which is also following Ardashir. Artabanus's religious advisors explain to him that the ram is the manifestation of the khwarrah of the ancient Iranian kings, which is leaving Artabanus to join Ardashir.

Judaism

While the earliest references to kingship among Israel in the Hebrew Bible proclaim that

14.When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, 'I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me'.
15. You may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother..

Significant debate on the legitimacy of kingship has persisted in Rabbinical Judaism until Maimonides, though many mainstream currents continue to reject the notion.
The controversy is highlighted by the instructions to the Israelites in the above-quoted passage, as well as the passages in 1 Samuel 8 and 12, concerning the dispute over kingship; and Perashat Shoftim. It is from 1 Samuel 8 that the people of Israel receive mishpat ha-melech, the ius regium, or the law of kingship, and from this passage that Maimonides finally concludes that Judaism supports the institution of monarchy, stating that the Israelites had been given three commandments upon entering the Promised Land – to designate a king for themselves, to wipe out the memory of Amalek, and to build the Temple.
The debate has primarily centered around the problem of being told to "designate" a king, which some rabbinical sources have argued is an invocation against a divine right of kings, and a call to elect a leader, in opposition to a notion of a divine right. Other rabbinical arguments have put forward an idea that it is through the collective decision of the people that God's will is made manifest, and that the king does therefore have a divine right – once appointed by the nation, he is God's emissary.
Jewish law requires one to recite a special blessing upon seeing a monarch: "Blessed are You, L‑rd our G‑d, King of the universe, Who has given from His glory to flesh and blood".

Christianity

The Christian notion of a divine right of kings is traced to a story found in 1 Samuel, where the prophet Samuel anoints Saul and then David as Messiah – king over Israel. In Jewish traditions, the lack of a divine leadership represented by an anointed king, beginning shortly after the death of Joshua, left the people of Israel vulnerable, and the promise of the "promised land" was not fully fulfilled until a king was anointed by a prophet on behalf of God.
The effect of anointing was seen to be that the monarch became inviolable, so that even when Saul sought to kill David, David would not raise his hand against him because "he was the Lord's anointed". Raising a hand to a king was therefore considered to be as sacrilegious as raising a hand against God and stood on equal footing as blasphemy. In essence, the king stood in place of God and was never to be challenged "without the challenger being accused of blasphemy" - except by a prophet, which under Christianity was replaced by the church.

Pre-Modern history

With the rise of firearms, the consolidation of centralized nation-states, and the upheavals of the Protestant Reformation in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the theory of divine right emerged as a powerful justification for monarchical authority. It asserted that the king’s power was granted directly by God, giving him absolute control over political governance and, in many cases, spiritual affairs, and placing him above accountability to parliaments, nobles, or other earthly institutions. This doctrine helped monarchs legitimize centralized rule during a period of religious conflict, technological change, and challenges to traditional feudal structures.
Henry VIII of England declared himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England and exerted the power of the throne more than any of his predecessors.
As a political theory, it was further developed by James VI of Scotland and came to the fore in England under his reign as James I of England. Louis XIV of France strongly promoted the theory as well.
Historian J. P. Sommerville stresses the theory was polemic: "Absolutists magnified royal power. They did this to protect the state against anarchy and to refute the ideas of resistance theorists", those being in Britain Catholic and Presbyterian theorists.
The concept of divine right incorporates, but exaggerates, the ancient Christian concept of "royal God-given rights", which teaches that "the right to rule is anointed by God", although this idea is found in many other cultures, including Aryan and Egyptian traditions.