The Evolution of Absolutism

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The Evolution of Absolutism

Since the beginning of the sixteenth century, Western Europe experienced multiple types of rulers which then led to the belief that rulers should be a combination of leadership types. Some rulers were strong, some weak, and some were considered to rule as tyrants. All of these were versions of absolutism which gave kings absolute power over their provinces and countries. Over time kings began to believe that their supreme power was given to them by God in a belief known as Divine Right. The people looked at Divine Right kings as those who would incorporate God’s will into their politics; however, many kings took this power and turned it into tyrannical opportunities. By the time the seventeenth century came around, kings continued to believe in Divine Right and absolute power which continued to create many tyrannical kings and caused many of the people to begin to fight the king’s power by granting some rights to the people. These uprisings led to more people believing that they have certain rights that the king cannot ignore. By the eighteenth century, many rulers started to combine their absolute power with including the newly granted rights of the people. The belief also shifted from Divine Right to one that the people gave the king his power which led to kings like Frederick II of Prussia to rule with his people’s interests in mind.

To begin with, Machiavelli’s “The Prince” laid out the foundation of what absolute rulers should be. Machiavelli thought that princes should be well educated in war since he would then have the power to stop uprisings. “The quickest way to lose a state is to neglect this art [war]; the quickest way to get one is to study it. Thus a prince who knows noth...

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...be like, a tyrant. From the Machiavellian ruler, it then moved into the prevention of tyrant rulers with the “Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants.” Eventually with the preliminary fights for rights and a civil war that produced “The Petition of Right” where men were granted written rights that limited the power of the absolute monarchs, man was able to secure some unalienable rights and limit the absolute power of monarchs. Hobbes continued this stress of including the rights of the people into the politics of the absolute monarch otherwise the people will take control and limit the powers of the monarch even more. Thus by the time Frederick II became King of Prussia, he had all the right qualities that allowed him to become Frederick the Great and lead Prussia to many great things by blending the people’s rights with his personal political system.

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