Absolute Monarchy

2 Pages 500 Words

An absolute monarchy is a form of government where the ruler has the power to rule their country and citizens freely with out any laws or legally organized opposition telling the monarchy what to do, although some religious authority may be able to influence the monarch. Basically an absolute monarch has total power over its people and land which includes the aristocracy. The political theory which forms the basis of absolute monarchy was that the monarch held their position by the grace of God and was therefore not answerable to anyone but God. Absolute monarchy developed in the late Middle Ages from feudalism during which monarchs were still first among the nobility. The power of the monarch is limited by the need to have some measure of support by the aristocracy. The aristocracy would be subordinate to the monarchy, provide political and military support for the monarchy, yet may also, from time to time, challenge its authority. Much of the attraction of absolute monarchy in the Middle Ages was that it promised an end to civil wars, could put an end to corruption by the aristocracy, and restore attention to the Church's moral codes.
The political thought of the Enlightenment was influenced by philosophers such as Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, and Jacques-Benigne Bossuet. Jean Bodin was a French Renaissance philosopher and one of the first thinkers to defend absolutism. He wrote Six livres de la Rèpublique in 1576 (Six Books of the Republic). He argued how Kings should be given the right to rule over everyone of his subjects and the political institutions they had by unrestrained laws. However, he also limited the power by saying rulers should be held by social customs and natural law.
Thomas Hobbes believed in the theory of absulte monarchy. Thomas had lived through the English civil wars and the execution of Charles I in 1649 which had strengthened his resolve that absolutism was the most logical and desirable...