After centuries of order based on the acceptance of the divine right of rule imposed on the people beginning with the declining aristocracy of Rome, western civilization veered toward democracy as the base principle from which the legitimacy of governing authority would flow. In England kings were finding that their crowns sat with increasing uneasiness upon their heads without the cooperation of men who would fight for them, and unending wars coupled with shifting alliances among the ruling class assured each ruler that they would need a steady supply of fighting men. It was this idea, the divine right of rule that had turned upon itself at last, and undermined the legitimacy of royal authority by presenting the people with would be rulers who each laid claim to competing rights to the ultimate divine authority that had done so. As scions from the Tudors, and the Yorks, the…
