Chapter 1 - John Locke and Interregnum Hobbism

Summary

Chapter 1 examines the early university career of Locke, detailing his proximity to Oxford Independents during the Interregnum and to more conformist figures after the Restoration. The chapter charts Locke’s possible exposure to Hobbes’s Leviathan and to debates over sovereignty and conscience that were strongly coloured by Hobbesian themes. Central to the chapter are Locke’s connection to figures such as John Owen and Henry Stubbe and early evidence of his political reading. These researches contextualize Locke’s early correspondence and his unpublished ‘Two Tracts’ and suggest the influence of Hobbes on both. The young Locke emerges as a figure versed in the new contractual theories of sovereignty and their implications for religious governance. The chapter also makes a case for deploying the categories of ‘civil’ and ‘prophetic’ religion in historical analysis of the period.