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Leviathan's Heir. Enlightenment Philosophy and Hereditary

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Leviathan's Heir. Enlightenment Philosophy and Hereditary 30 J E H L Leviathan’s Heir. Enlightenment Philosophy and Hereditary Monarchy * Christoph Bezemek ** Abstract Hereditary monarchy and enlightenment political theory hardly seem to be reconciled at first glance. And yet, the advantages and disadvantages of monarchical succession according to lineage were a continuous subject of debate between some of the most prominent enlightenment thinkers. Out- lining this debate, the paper at hand gives an – even if eclectic – account of a controversy that spans over more than two and a half centuries. Keywords: Monarchy; Succession; Lineage; Enlightenment. I. The Divine Right of Kings and lawfull successor […] for the dutifull administration of that 8 A. Gods and Kings great office, that God hath laid upon [his] shoulders”. James emphasizes that “Monarchy”, Vernon Bogdanor, writes in his comprehensive “Kings are justly called Gods, for that they exercise account of the topic, “is, of its essence a hereditary institution”. 1 a manner or resemblance of Divine power upon earth: Taken as a statement of fact, this may be regarded to be a tru- […] they make and unmake their subjects: they have po- ism. As a normative statement, however, it has a more intere- wer of raising, and casting downe: of life, and of death: sting ring to it: adhering to lineage in hereditary monarchies, is Iudges over all their subjects and in all causes, and yet enclosed by an air of what the German sociologist Max Weber accomptable to none but God onely.“ 9 described as “charisma of the blood”; 2 by an “ideal to govern by divine authority, [as] master by one’s own right, not depending And yet: While particularly illustrative, based on historical on the consent of the governed.” 3 analysis, James’ reign and the theories he based it on, represent, Surveying the history of political thought, this idea is tied of course, just one – if exceptionally important – milestone of most prominently to the claims underlying the reign of Ja- a development towards hereditary legitimacy as the decisive mes I, as laid out by the monarch himself in the “Basilikon criterion of authority; 10 of a perception of royal blood as the Doron”, 4 his essay on “The True Lawe of free Monarchies” 5 “somewhat mysterious fluid” 11 running through the veins of and his “Speech to Parliament” of 1609; 6 works which contain those chosen to govern by God’s will; of divine right of birth emphatic arguments in favor of “Monarchie [a]s the trew pa- affirming the ruler’s specific ideoneity and the consistency of terne of Divinitie” 7 and give advice to the monarch’s “naturall his descendants in succeeding him. 12 ฀฀ * The following essay was drafted as a contribution to a conference on ‘Genealogy and Social Status in the Enlightenment’ held at Oxford (Maison Française d’Oxford), on Jan 12 and 13 2017. I would like to thank Stéphane Jettot and Jean -Paul Zuniga for their kind invitation to participate and for their hospitality, Jürgen Pirker for his research assistance and Myriam Becker for her help in finishing the manuscript. ** Christoph Bezemek, Mag. iur, Dr. iur., BA (University of Vienna), LL.M. (Yale Law School), PD (WU), Professor of Public Law, Institute of Public Law and Political Science, University of Graz, Austria. 1 Vernon Bogdanor, The Monarchy and the Constitution (Oxford University Press 1997) 42. 2 Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (5 th edn, Mohr Siebeck 1976) 144. 3 ibid. 4 Basilikon Doron – Divided in Three Books (Waldegrave 1599). 5 The True Law of Free Monarchies: The Reciprocal and Mutual Duty Betwixt a Free King and His Natural Subjects (Waldegrave 1598). 6 ‘The King Majesty’s Speech to the Lords and Commons on Wednesday the 21 st of March Anno. Dom. 1609’. 7 Charles Howard McIlwain (ed), The Political Works of James I (Harvard University Press 1918) 54. 8 ibid 3. 9 ibid 307-308. 10 For a detailed analysis see Stephan Skalweit, ‘Das Herrscherbild des 17. Jahrhunderts’ (1957) 184 Historische Zeitschrift 65-80, 78. 11 Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (first published 1957, Princeton University Press 2016) 332. 12 See i.a. Gert Melville, ‘Zur Technik genealogischer Konstruktionen’, in Cristina Andenna and Gert Melville (eds), Idoneität – Genealogie – Legitimation (Böhlau 2015) 293, 301-304. 2/2017 31 Bracton’s dictum that “only God can make an heir”, 13 while The core idea of such an “original compact” concluded in originally to be applied to private inheritance, thus became a presupposed state of nature by those eventually subjected to a most fitting allegorical depiction of legitimate succession to government underlying Locke’s approach had, of course, been the throne. 14 According to John Neville Figgis, the great English introduced to English political thought much earlier. Most pro- historian of the divine right of kings minently by Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan published in 1651. 21 “[i]t led men to regard this mode of the devolution Still: Hobbes’ premise as well as his conclusions differed vastly of the Crown, as in some mysterious way superior to from those Locke should draw nearly 40 years later. the merely human method of election. The birth of an Written in the dawn of the English Civil War, Hobbes’ depic- heir is the judgment of God, and has the same sanctity tion of the state of nature preceding organized government was attached, as the ordeal or the law. Men, if they elect, famously pessimist; “a warre […] of every man against every may well take a bad choice; God, though we may not man”; “the life of man solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short” fathom His reasons, will not make an heir without good and consistently the need for a “common Power to keep them all grounds.” 15 in awe”, 22 the state: a “mortal god”, commonly erected, the “Le- viathan”, in favor of which man’s natural right to self -government B. Adam and the State of Nature is to be mutually relinquished to ensure peace and security of On a theoretical level, apart from James’ writings referred to the members of a common -wealth thus established. 23 before, this, in a Weberian sense “enchanted”, 16 view of monar- Not based on divine providence that “form of common- chical government, arguably found its most prominent procla- -wealth” was up for determination: and while presupposing mation in Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha. The tract, subtitled “the popular consent – it would not necessarily have to be a demo- natural power of kings defended against the unnatural liberty cratic one. Quite on the contrary, Hobbes, when assessing the of the people” was published in 1680, 17 nearly 30 years after various alternatives, rooted for a form of government that to- the death of the author – himself an ardent supporter of James day is commonly referred to as “absolute monarchy”. He did I – to lend ideological support to the royalist cause in the period so, not because he believed in inherent privileges of a certain preceding the Glorious Revolution. class or select members of the community; Hobbes was, a fact Today his work is best remembered because of the force- somewhat lamented by his aristocratic benefactors, 24 rather an ful rebuttals it provoked, such as James Tyrell’s Patriarcha egalitarian: Chapter 13 of the Leviathan famously bases Hob- non monarcha, 18 and, in particular, John Locke’s Two Treati- bes’ political conclusions on the assumption that “[n]ature hath ses of Government, published in 1690; 19 the first “Treatise” made men […] equall, in the faculties of body, and mind.” 25 In being dedicated to refute Filmer’s arguments, such as that the De Cive, an earlier work published prior to the English Civil father’s authority over his family and the authority of the King War, he explicitly deplored the thought of “one man’s blood over his people are both ordained by divine will, and that all [being] better than another’s by nature” rebuking Aristotle for legitimate Kings owe their status to their alleged descent from “set[ting] down, as the ground of all his politics, that Adam who’s absolute power as the first king appointed by God some men are by nature worthy to govern, and others by himself, was passed on from one eldest son to the next. nature ought to serve.” 26 Far from being subjected to a monarch instated by divine will, Locke argued in the second treatise, Hobbes opted for monarchy as a form of government, be- “[m]en being […] by nature, all free, equal and inde- cause he was convinced that it would most effectively ensure pendent, no one […] can be subjected to the political that the goals of the common -wealth – peace and security – power of another, without his own consent […] to make would be achieved. However, when compared to democracy and one community or government.” 20 aristocracy, he had to admit that 13 Bracton, De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae II (George E. Woodbine ed, Yale University Press 1922) f. 62 b, 184: Solus deus heredem facit . 14 Fritz Kern, Gottesgnadentum und Widerstandsrecht im frühen Mittelalter, Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Monarchie (Koehler 1914) 47-48. 15 John Neville Figgis, The Divine Right of Kings , (2 nd edn, CUP 1914) 36 (my emphasis). 16 Max Weber, ‘Wissenschaft als Beruf (1919)’, in Dirk Kaesler (ed), Max Weber Schriften 1894 – 1922 (Kröner 2002) 474, 488. For a thorough analysis of Weber’s concept of intellectual dis -enchantment see Richard Jenkins, ‘Disenchantment, Enchantment and Re -Enchantment: Max Weber at the Millennium’ (2000) 1 Max Weber Studies, 11-32. 17 Robert Filmer, Patriarcha: Or the Natural Power of Kings (Chiswell 1680). 18 James Tyrell, Patriarcha non Monarcha: The Patriarch Unmonarch’d (Richard Jetteway 1681).
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