<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> The divine right of kings, divine right, or God's mandate is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy . It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving the right to rule directly from the will of God . The king is thus not subject to the will of his people, the aristocracy, or any other estate of the realm . It implies that only God can judge an unjust king and that any attempt to depose, dethrone or restrict his powers runs contrary to the will of God and may constitute a sacrilegious act . It is often expressed in the phrase "by the Grace of God", attached to the titles of a reigning monarch . </P> <P> In the pagan world, kings were often seen as either ruling with the backing of heavenly powers or perhaps even being divine beings themselves . However, the Christian notion of a divine right of kings is traced to a story found in 1 Samuel, where the prophet Samuel anoints Saul and then David as mashiach or king over Israel . The anointing is to such an effect that the monarch became inviolable, so that even when Saul sought to kill David, David would not raise his hand against him because "he was the Lord's anointed". </P>

Later kings insisted they answered only to god an idea called