They accepted
it, just as we in our own day accept the idea of a representative
system which to us seems the only reasonable and just
form of government. It is unfair therefore to state that either
Lutheranism or Calvinism caused the particular feeling of
irritation which greeted King-James's oft and loudly repeated
assertion of his ``Divine Right.'' There must have been other
grounds for the genuine English disbelief in the Divine Right
of Kings.
The first positive denial of the ``Divine Right'' of sovereigns
had been heard in the Netherlands when the Estates General
abjured their lawful sovereign King Philip II of Spain, in the
year 1581. ``The King,'' so they said, ``has broken his contract
and the King therefore is dismissed like any other unfaithful
servant.'' Since then, this particular idea of a king's
responsibilities towards his subjects had spread among many of the
nations who inhabited the shores of the North Sea. They were
in a very favourable position. They were rich. The poor people
in the heart of central Europe, at the mercy of their
Ruler's body-guard, could not afford to discuss a problem
which would at once land them in the deepest dungeon of the
nearest castle. But the merchants of Holland and England
who possessed the capital necessary for the maintenance of
great armies and navies, who knew how to handle the almighty
weapon called ``credit,'' had no such fear.
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