Assume the role of a resident in one of the following royal states during the 17th century: England, France, Russia or Prussia.
What contributed to rise of your royal state and how did your monarch justify his/her power? How did you and your fellow countrymen participate or react to these changes and why? Make sure to identify your specific role (peasant, clergy, noble, merchant, etc.) in your response.
The divine right of kings is something which secular rulers now used to justify their control over the state instead of that of the Church, but as we've seen this had been an ongoing argument at least since the time of Charlemagne. Why was divine right now the purview of secular justification?