Absolutism & Enlightenment

Absolute Monarchy is a king or queen who rules over an entire nation.

Absolutism was the principle of complete and unrestricted government power that was usually in the hands of one person, a dictator or despot.

Baron de Montesquieu was a French aristocrat and lawyer who was interested in discovering the basic ideas or principles of good government.

Constitutional Monarchy a form of government in which a Parliament makes all of the laws and the King and Queen serve a primarily symbolic role and have no power to govern.

Divine Right of Kings meant that Kings derived their authority from God and could not be held accountable for their actions by an earthly authority such as government or parliament.

English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists over the government in England.

Enlightenment a term that was used to describe the philosophical, intellectual and cultural movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Glorious Revolution occurred when King James II of England was removed from power and replaced by daughter Mary and her husband William as monarchs.

Isaac Newton was a physicist and mathematician, and is credited as one of the great minds of the 17th century Scientific Revolution and developed modern physics

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was described as the most enigmatic of all the philosophes of the 18th century Enlightenment, the political philosopher, educationist and essayist

John Locke was an English philosopher and political theorist John Locke ( ) laid much of the groundwork for the Enlightenment and made central contributions to the development of liberalism

Oliver Cromwell became the first Lord and Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland

Parliament is a national representative body having supreme legislative powers within the nation.

Thomas Hobbes was a writer who believed that all power should be given to a King and that people were too selfish to govern themselves.

Voltaire was a prolific writer, philosopher, poet and pamphletist, and the preeminent figure of the eighteenth-century French Enlightenment.