This regalism was a vast departure from the norm of medieval monarchies. Rather than a plenary authority, subjugating all to the the royal will, medieval kings tended to have a limited authority as heads of a rich network of social institutions, each with their own domain, authority, and dignity. There was of course the Church, but also the guilds, the towns, barons great and small, universities, and associations of all sorts. The king’s writ might run as law, but there was very little he could actually write in his writ, given the plurality of powers that surrounded him. People were conscious of their rights and privileges, and willing to fight for them, as Richard II of England discovered when he tried to impose a poll tax (essentially, an income tax) on the people, and found that within a few weeks a vast peasant army swept through the kingdom to capture both London and the king. Treachery got Richard out of his difficulties, but he was made very aware of the limitations to his power. In fact, a modern bureaucrat, in the normal course of his day, exercises more power than a medieval king; the bureaucrat can, with a stroke of a pen, take away your business or your children, thereby making tyranny a sort of daily routine; the bureaucrat’s writ does indeed run as law, as long as the proper forms are filled out. I dwell on the problems of regalism because it is this version of “monarchy” which is most familiar to the general public. Whatever the faults of the American Founders, this was the kind of monarchy that justified the revolution. The same principle that was applied in the last article to democracy also applies to monarchy. That is, a thing without proper limits becomes its own opposite, and benevolence quickly becomes a tyranny which threatens both civil and religious order.
