The most common defense of monarchical absolutism, known as “the divine right of kings” theory, asserted that kings derived their authority from God. This view could justify even tyrannical rule as divinely ordained punishment, administered by rulers, for human sinfulness.

A Constitutional Monarchy, or a Limited Monarchy , is a form of constitutional government, where in either an elected or hereditary monarch is the head of state, unlike in an absolute monarchy, wherein the kin t and its law are the government and the law of a limited monarchy.

Priests led the movement for constitutional monarchy because absolute monarchs limited the Church’s power. Absolute monarchs believed in the divine right to rule, while constitutional monarchies gave more religious freedom.

The monarch claimed the divine right to rule because it immediately elevated his status in comparison with his ruled subjects, thus proving that only he could be chosen by the Divine powers to rule his subjects on their behalf. The divine mandate to rule was deemed to be absolute.

The divine right of kings, or divine-right theory of kingship, is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God.

In an absolute monarchy, the transmission of power is hereditary. Divine right – a monarch is not subject to any rule on earth and his right to rule comes directly from God. The king is not a subject to the will of his people, the aristocracy, and in some cases the church.

Hereditary rule meant that the monarch received their position due to their birth and as one in a long family line of monarchs. As well, medieval European absolute monarchs included the practise of divine right of kings, meaning that the monarch derived his or her power from god.