Hythloday is touching on a vital point in political philosophy when he draws the contrast between the doctrine of the infallibility of kings and the royal rights to the kingdom, as opposed by the claim that rulers obtain their right to reign with the consent of the governed. The concept of the “divine right of kings” and the claim that “royalty is answerable only to God” were promulgated by monarchists for centuries without much debate. It is impressive to find More, through his character Hythloday, voicing the contrary doctrine, a doctrine which was not to gain wider acceptance until the eighteenth century. Rousseau was then its most eloquent advocate. Its disciples planted the seeds for the major revolutions and overthrow of monarchies of the late eighteenth century, the American and French, and a good many others in the nineteenth.
