Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Perspectives on union
- Part II George Buchanan
- 4 George Buchanan, James VI and neo-classicism
- 5 George Buchanan, James VI and the presbyterians
- 6 George Buchanan and the anti-monarchomachs
- Part III Empire and identity
- Part IV The covenanters
- Postscript
- Index
5 - George Buchanan, James VI and the presbyterians
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Perspectives on union
- Part II George Buchanan
- 4 George Buchanan, James VI and neo-classicism
- 5 George Buchanan, James VI and the presbyterians
- 6 George Buchanan and the anti-monarchomachs
- Part III Empire and identity
- Part IV The covenanters
- Postscript
- Index
Summary
It is now almost a century since J.N. Figgis first offered a coherent explanation of why James VI and I championed so enthusiastically the theory of royal absolutism commonly known as the divine right of kings. There were, he argued, two reasons for the king's insistence that, as his authority was divinely ordained, he was accountable for its exercise, not to his subjects, but to God and God alone. Firstly, according to Figgis, James was seeking to counter Catholic controversialists who as well as upholding the idea of papal supremacy over temporal rulers were also intent on undermining his claim to the English throne by advocating elective over hereditary monarchy and investing the people rather than the prince with sovereign power. Secondly, Figgis believed that, irrespective of his prospects in England, James faced in the Scottish presbyterians a still more dangerous challenge to his authority which was also best met by assertions of his divine right to rule. ‘Presbyterianism in Scotland’, he wrote, ‘as expounded by Knox or Buchanan, and inwoven with politics by Murray [sic] and Morton, was a system of clericalism as much more irritating and meddlesome as it was stronger and more popular in its basis than that of the papal supremacy.’ It was, therefore, ‘no matter for surprise that at a time when the sons of Zeruiah were too strong for him and he felt his authority a mockery before the insolent representatives of ecclesiastical bigotry, James should promulgate with logical completeness and grasp with the tenacity of a narrow but clear-sighted intellect the theory of the Divine Right of kings’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Scots and BritonsScottish Political Thought and the Union of 1603, pp. 112 - 137Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994
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