The Great Chain of Being and the Natural OrderEliza?ethans?elieved that God set out an order for everything inthe universe. This was known as the Great Chain of?eing. On Earth,God created a social order for every?ody and chose where you?elonged. In other words, the king or queen was in charge because Godput them there and they were only answerable to God (the Divine Rightof Kings). This meant that diso?eying the monarch was a sin, whichwas handy for keeping people in their place! It also led to the idea that ifthe wrong person was monarch everything would go wrong for a country,including whether the crops would be good, or if animals behaved asthey should. The Eliza?ethans were very superstitious.The Great Chain of?eing includes everything from God and theangels at the top, to humans, to animals, to plants, to rocks andminerals at the bottom. It moves from beings of pure spirit at the top of the Chain to things madeentirely of matter at the bottom. Humans are pretty much in the middle, being mostly mortal, or made
