Van Dyke on Aquinas, Kings & Revolt
Jonathan Rowe on Mar 31st 2008
Responding to my post on Romans 13, Tom Van Dyke emails the following:
Some relevant and hopefully helpful stuff:
This, particularly “In Defense of Regicide: John Cotton on the Execution of Charles I.”
I mean, if the English could kill their king in 1649, revolution in 1776 wasn’t that radical a step.
And of course, the always helpful Aquinas, who mentions Romans 13 specifically here, and who was studied at Harvard at least through the 1600s.
I’m not sure there was much theological handwringing over revolution among those who were already disposed toward it.
Filed in The Belfry, The Bureau
The English didn’t kill their king in 1690; Charles I was executed in 1649.
Thanks! We fixed it.
Any despotic rump parliament can commit to regicide; the Greeks and others achieved that. 1688 represents the flowering of Britain as a real constitutional monarchy, however. The triumphant party that brought William to power included Locke, after all. This movement, along with the example English Civil War, definitely influenced the Founders, as Jon has pointed out. First a decidely illiberal parliament and regime killed a king, then an increasingly powerful and liberal parliament simply evicted another. That James II was so easily dismissed spoke to the increasing irrelevance of Romans 13 to the increasingly free English subjects who would colonize and found America.
Are you sure the Parliament of 1688 was more liberal than that of the 1640’s?
I’m no historian but as I remember one of the motives for inviting William to England was to prevent the extension of religious liberty to catholics, which doesn’t sound very liberal to me.