Mandate of Heaven

See also: inherent right

The divine right of kings refers to the right to rule, as if blessed or granted this right by some divinity. However, this also implies that the the blessing would go away if the king ruled badly or selfishly, usually ending with natural disasters, famine, disease etc. rampaging in their kingdom. In some stories the mandate of heaven may be temporary, so a king may rule only for a period at the end of which he must cede kingship to the next person to receive the mandate of heaven. Of course, the mandate was likely divined by the priesthood, implying that the clergy has immense grip on the government if the mandate is not real (and the disasters just convenient or inconvenient natural occurrence).

A more extreme case would be that the ruler has divine blood coursing through his veins, but this overlaps with birthright.