This chapter looks at Andrewes’ political theology, that is to say his vision of divine right monarchy and the absolute powers of the prince over both church and state; notions that are placed in the overarching structures of his theological position. In the process, the populist principles of the Jesuits and the presbyterians are revealed, in Andrewes’ view, equally and equivalently anti-monarchical in their effects. Andrewes held the injunctions to fear God and to fear the king to be equally compelling and mutually reinforcing injunctions: loyalty to the prince being just another facet of faith in and obedience to God.

Pacts or “social contracts” form the basis of sovereignty in many early modern theories of political authority, and in Pufendorf’s too. Most such theories treat the pact as the means by which a pre-existing right—for example, divine right, or the natural right of individuals grounded in their strength, reason, or property—is transferred to a sovereign on the condition that the right be protected, to be rescinded if it is not. For Pufendorf, however, there is no pre-existing right since the sovereignty pact creates a new right—the right to issue unchallengeable commands for the purposes of achieving social peace—by instituting two new moral personae: the citizen who obeys the sovereign in exchange for protection, and the sovereign invested with the right of absolute command to provide social peace. Since Pufendorf’s sovereignty is constituted not by a prior moral right, but rather by the capacity to exercise unchallengeable authority for the end of social peace, there is no naturally rightful form of government. Pufendorf thus takes a neutral and pluralistic view of the three traditional forms of government—monarchical, aristocratic and democratic—insofar as each is capable of exercising the capacity for sovereign rule.

Turning to a series of essays written by Hume in the late 1740s, this chapter moves from the scene of London and Westminster politics to a broader British and indeed Scottish perspective. This chapter shows that the Glorious Revolution and the Hanoverian Succession remained at the heart of British political debate even a half century later. Writing in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745, Hume concentrated on politics in his native Scotland, and in particular the Scottish version of Toryism, which, as he had stated in his earlier essays, was synonymous with Jacobitism.