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Edward Hyde and Thomas Hobbes's Elements of Law, Natural and Politic*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Martin Dzelzainis
Martin Dzelzainis
Affiliation:
Royal Holloway and Bedford New College
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Extract

Although the existence of materials relating to Hobbes's Elements of law and De cive in Bodleian Library MS Clarendon 126 has been known to scholars for some time, the first notice of these in print came as recently as 1987, in an article by Dr J. C. Hayward. The aim of this communication is to provide a full description and analysis of one of these items – the notes and extracts from the Elements – in the hope that this will shed some light on the earlier stages of the relationship between Clarendon and Hobbes.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , June 1989 , pp. 303 - 317
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

1 See Hayward, J. C., ‘New directions in studies of the Falkland circle’. The Seventeenth Century, II, 1 (1987), 36–8 and 43 (Appendix II)Google Scholar.

2 The first item in MS Clarendon 126 (fos. 4–19) is a small notebook of folded paper with the blanks uncut. The text (fos. 8–18) consists of sixty-one extracts from De cive followed by commentary in all but the nine cases where blank spaces have been left for the purpose. The hand is unidentified, but the form of the title, ‘Elementorum Philosophiae Sectio Tertia. T. H.’, together with the page references, shows that it is derived from the extremely limited 1642 edition. Copies of this were distributed for comment among a select readership, and it is possible that the critique which found its way into Hyde's hands had its origins in this exercise. Apart from scattered remarks in the correspondence of the Mersenne circle there are few other traces of the reaction to Hobbes's 1642 début. See Hobbes, , De cive: the Latin version, edited by Warrender, H. (Oxford, 1983), pp. 6–8, 300 (Appendix B)Google Scholar. (This is Volume II of The Clarendon edition of the philosophical works of Thomas Hobbes, hereafter cited as Hobbes, Works, II.) Alternatively (Hayward, , ‘New directions’, p. 43)Google Scholar, Hyde himself was ‘a very probable author’ of the commentary. I hope to consider the De cive commentary and the case for Hyde's authorship in a further article.

3 Hyde, Edward, earl of Clarendon, A brief view and survey of the dangerous and pernicious errors to church and state, in Mr Hobbes's book, entitled Leviathan (Oxford, 1676), pp. 3, 9Google Scholar.

4 Ibid. p. 6.

5 Hyde to Sir Edward Nicholas, 1 Jan. 1647, MS Clarendon 29, fo. 40r–v. This, like all other Clarendon MSS referred to below, is in the Bodleian Library.

6 Hyde to Earles, 1 Jan. 1647, MS Clarendon 29, fo. 45 V; Greenslade, B. D., ‘Clarendon's and Hobbes's Elements of Law’, Notes and Queries, CCII (1957), 150Google Scholar. It has recently been suggested that Hyde was specifically asking ‘for a copy of the much more widely distributed second edition’ of De cive published in Amsterdam, Tuck, R., ‘Warrender's De cive’, Political Studies, XXXIII, 2 (1985), 309Google Scholar. But this assumes that Hyde knew that there was to be another edition more generally available than the first. In fact, he may not have known much about the work beyond the fact that it had been printed in Paris and that its title was Elementorum philosophiae sectio tertia de cive – hence his uncertainty as to whether it was merely a translation of the Elements. Admittedly, the changed 1647 title, Elementa philosophica de cive, hardly obscured matters less, but Hobbes himself preferred simply ‘De cive’ and apparently did not learn that his wish was to be ignored until after publication. Moreover, the second edition was prepared in some secrecy and did not appear until after Hyde's letter to Earles, probably towards the end of January. For the relevant details, see Hobbes, , Works, II, 8–12Google Scholar. The timing of Hyde's request may therefore have been sheer coincidence, sparked off by casual gossip: anything else requires him to have been exceptionally well informed – on some points even better than Hobbes himself. It also seems likely that even if Hyde was after the second edition, then he was disappointed. Greenslade, (‘Elements’, p. 150)Google Scholar simply asserts that ‘it was De cive, printed in 1642, which arrived from Paris’, but gives no evidence. Clarendon's, later, hazy recollection (A brief view, p. 7)Google Scholar was that a copy ‘was sent to me immediately by Mr Hobbes’. There was, however, some delay. Hyde wrote to Earles on 12 February 1647 (MS Clarendon 29, fo. 101) asking him to convey his thanks to Hobbes ‘for his Book, Wcb I will read as soone as I receiue it’. But if something was, or was shortly to be, on its way, it cannot have been a copy of the second edition. On 28 February Hobbes anxiously inquired of Samuel Sorbière ‘if anything had happened to hinder the printing’. Sorbière wrote back on 4 March, saying that a bound copy had been despatched on 29 January and that a further twenty unbound copies would be included in an Elzevir consignment ‘when the ice melts’ by way of reassurance he enclosed a specimen of the ‘first leaf’. But Hobbes had still not received a complete copy of any kind by 22 March. See Hobbes to Sorbière, 28 Feb. 1647; Sorbière to Hobbes, 4 Mar. 1647; Hobbes to Sorbière, 22 Mar. 1647, quoted and translated by Warrender in Hobbes, , Works, II, 309, 311 (Appendix B)Google Scholar. Either Hobbes had been obliged to procure a copy independently to send to Hyde, or had decided to donate a copy of the scarce but now superseded first edition. But, unless Hobbes arranged a blind transaction through a third party (without even being sure the book existed yet), the first is unlikely: on 22 March (in the letter to Sorbière cited above) Hobbes expressed his dismay at having seen – apparently for the first time – the title page with his portrait and an offending inscription beneath describing him as tutor to the Prince of Wales. The most plausible conjecture therefore is that Hyde innocently inquired after and received a 1642 copy. The catalogue for the sale of Clarendon's, library in August 1756 makes no mention of the 1647 edition but does advertise ‘Hobbes de Cive, is 6d – Par. 1642’, Bibliotheca Clarendoniana (London, 1756), p. 33, item 958Google Scholar.

7 Clarendon, , A brief view, p. 7Google Scholar. Hyde arrived in Paris on 2 August and left for Spain on 30 September; dates from the ‘Journal of the Embassy into Spain’ kept by Hyde's, secretary, Edgeman, William, MS Clarendon 137, fos. 12, 13Google Scholar.

8 Clarendon, , A brief view, p. 7Google Scholar. This account is consistent with the available evidence. He left Madrid on 6 March and, after two delays for illness in Bayonne and Bordeaux, arrived in Paris on 22 April 1651, MS Clarendon 137, fos. 31, 34. (‘I came to this Towne very well this day seavennight’, Hyde, to Nicholas, , 29 04 1651, MS Clarendon 42, fo. 52Google Scholar). He left Paris on 23 May, reached Brussels a week later and was in Antwerp by 4 June, MS Clarendon 137, fo. 34. See also The diary of John Evelyn, ed. de Beer, E. S. (Oxford, 1955), III, 33Google Scholar. Hobbes's dedicatory epistle was dated 15/25 April 1651, and the work was certainly published by 6 May, i.e. 16 May NS, Hobbes, , Leviathan, ed. Macpherson, C. B. (Harmondsworth, 1968), p. 76Google Scholar; Greenslade, B. D., ‘The publication date of Hobbes';s Leviathan’, Notes and Queries, CCXX (1975), 310CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Hyde received a copy only a few weeks later: ‘Within a very short time after I came into Flanders, which was not much more than a Moneth from the time that Mr Hobbes had conferred with me, Leviathan was sent to me from London; which I read with much appetite and impatience’, Clarendon, , A brief view, p. 8Google Scholar. This would place the relevant visit from Hobbes soon after Hyde's arrival. Hobbes would have been anxious to show Hyde the dedication since it was he who had informed him of a legacy from Francis Godolphin's brother, Sidney.

9 Tuck, , ‘Warrender's De cive’, pp. 313–14Google Scholar.

10 ‘I hear Ld Percy is much concerned in the forbidding Hobbes to come to court and says it was you and other episcopal men that were the cause of it. But I hear that Wat. Montagu and other Papists (to the shame of the true Protestants) were the chief cause that that grand atheist was sent away. And I may tell you, some say the Marq. of Ormonde was very slow in signifying the K.'s command to Hobbes to forbear coming to court, which I am confident is not true, though several persons confirm it’, Nicholas, to Hyde, , 18 Jan. 1652, in The Nicholas papers, ed. Warner, G. F. (Camden Society, London, 1886), I, 285Google Scholar. Hyde replied that ‘your Noble Reporter sayd true, I had indeede some hand in the discountenancing my old friend Mr Hobbs, nor was my Ld Lieutent at all slow in signifying the Kings pleasure: what the Catholiques wisht I know not, but sure they contributed nothing to yt Justice’, Hyde to Nicholas, 27 Jan. 1652, MS Clarendon 42, fo. 316V. For Hyde and the policy of making the bishops' lands the last redoubt in the defence of Anglicanism, see my paper, ‘“Undouted realities”: Clarendon on sacrilege’ (Historical Journal, forthcoming), and, for the very different response of English Catholics, to Leviathan, my ‘Marvell transpos'd’, English Historical Review, XXXIII (1984), 144Google Scholar.

11 Clarendon, , A brief view, pp. 8, 304Google Scholar; Hyde, to Barwick, John, 25 July 1659, in Barwick, Peter, The life of the reverend Dr John Barwick (London, 1724), pp. 430–1Google Scholar.

12 See, for example, the discussion of the origins of political authority, and in particular the power to punish, in [Hyde, Edward], Transcendent and multiplied rebellion and treason, discovered by the lawes of the land (n.p., 1645), p., 1Google Scholar. This pamphlet was first identified as Hyde's by Macray: see Clarendon, , History of the rebellion, ed. Macray, W. D. (Oxford, 1888), II, 292Google Scholar.

13 Hyde, to Barwick, , 27 06 1659, in Barwick, , Life, p. 430Google Scholar.

14 Hobbes, , Leviathan, p. 415Google Scholar.

15 Clarendon, , A brief view, pp. 197–8Google Scholar.

16 Placed here although its actual position is indeterminate but to the right above the quotation from II.2.12. Injury is first defined by Hobbes at I.16.2, and again, in the precise form of words noted by Hyde, at II.2.3.

17 Hobbes, , The elements of law natural and politic, ed. Toennies, F., second edn Goldsmith, M. M. (London, 1969), p. 113Google Scholar.

18 This was the committee to consider the prerogative jurisdiction of the Council of the North and the Council of the Marches; minutes for meetings of 13, 18 March and 28 May, MS Clarendon 20, fos. 104–7V.

19 For the works by Wotton and Hyde see MS Clarendon 127, fos. 5–10, 17–26V. The king's approval of Hyde's, defence of Buckingham, is noted in The autobiography of Sir John Bramston (Camden Society, London, 1845), p. 255Google Scholar.

20 See (for Transcendent and multiplied rebellion), MS Clarendon 26, fos. 173–8V, and (for Religion and policy), MS Clarendon 125.

21 Perhaps the most convenient way of grasping Hyde's system is by working backwards from an entry in an undated (1648 or, possibly, post-Restoration) notebook: ‘Against Mr Hobbs his absolute power of kings, and confoundinge of the right of Property, [see.] lib. J. Gr. pa.3. par.4. Originall of property [see] lib. k. Ph. Com. pa.12. par.19’, MS Clarendon 126, fo. 150. ‘lib J’ is a notebook entitled ‘Extravagancies’ begun on 29 March 1647 which resulted from Hyde's, ‘lookinge ouer my notes of Grotius de iure belli’, MS Clarendon 126, fos. 140–9v, at 140Google Scholar. Following Hyde's pagination, page 3 (fo. 148, but misbound: should constitute fo. 141), paragraph 4 begins: 'Those kings & Princes who delight in that excesse of power, as to belieue they are not limited by any rules of gouermt. but ther owne dictates & appetite, and that they haue nothinge of ther owne, except they haue the full disposall of what belonges to all men alsoe, are as farr from the naturall knowledge of what Empyre & subiection is, as from the politique vse of it; Those who are most exacte in makinge definicons, haue not giuen a better of a Citty, then that it is, coetus perfectus, liberorum hominum, iuris fruendi et communis utilitatis causa sociatus [‘a compleat Body of free Persons, associated together to enjoy peacably their Rights, and for their common Benefit’: Grotius, Hugo, The rights of war and peace, ed. Barbeyrac, J., trans, anon., (London, 1738), p. 8Google Scholar (I.I.XIV)]: and therefore they who inioy not the full extent of this iust right and liberty, are not to be accounted a Citty of Subiects, but a Crowde of Slaues. Quae humano iure quisque possidet, non minus eius, sunt quam si deus donasset [‘what every Man possesses, by Vertue of human Laws, is not less his own, than if GOD had (immediately) given it to him’: Grotius, , Rights, p. 37 (I.II.VIII)], sayes Grotius'Google Scholar. In the margin is a subsidiary number, 33, referring to an entry in Hyde's earlier extracts from Grotius', De iure belli, MS Clarendon 126, fos. 99–116v, at 101Google Scholar, the source of the second of the above Latin quotations (the first is from entry 25 at fo. 100). Hyde's references conform to the 1631 Amsterdam edition of De iure belli, ‘lib k’ is Hyde's, undated ‘Cursory & occasionall considerations’ compiled at Elizabeth, Castle, Jersey, , MS Clarendon 126, fos. 53–62vGoogle Scholar. Again following Hyde, on page 12 (fo. 58V) we find paragraph 39 beginning: ‘Whateuer the Originall power of kings was, wee may reasonably thinke, that when ciuillity and Artes had reformed the barbarity of Mankind, and that men grew to buildinge and lawes, and to desyre to florish in wealth and regulation, that ther grew pacts and stipulations betweene Princes & ther subiects, that each should inioy the fruite of his owne industry, & that nothinge should be taken from them without ther consent…’ The two further marginal numbers, 42 and 43, refer to Hyde's extracts from Philippe de Commynes, MS Clarendon 127, fos. 66–71, at 68V. Hyde's, references conform to The historie of Philip de Commines (London, 1614)Google Scholar.

22 For these textual variants see the note by Toennies, Hobbes, , Elements, p. 116Google Scholar; MS Clarendon 126, fo. I28V; British Library, MS Harleian 4236, fo. IOIV.

23 See Zagorin, P., ‘Thomas Hobbes's departure from England: an unpublished letter’, Historical Journal, XXI, 1 (1978), 151–60Google Scholar.

24 For Maskelyne and ‘Ricketts’ or ‘Rickards’ see the Purton accounts dated 6 October 1641, MS Clarendon 20, fos. 123–8V, at 127v.

25 MS Clarendon 19, fo. 53v.

26 See Calendar of the Clarendon state papers, ed. Ogle, O. and Bliss, W. H. et al. , 5 vols. (Oxford, 1869–1970), I, 209, 211–12, 216–20Google Scholar.

27 Hobbes, Thomas, Considerations upon the reputation & c.of Thomas Hobbes, in The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, ed. Molesworth, W., 11 vols. (London, 1839–1848), IV, 414Google Scholar.

28 Proceedings of the Short Parliament of 1640, ed. by Cope, E. S. and Coates, W. H., Camden Society, fourth series, 19 (London, 1978), p. 194Google Scholar, and see p. 208; Clarendon, , History, I, 104Google Scholar, and see p. 103 for Hyde's résumé of Holborne's speech. These passages belong to the original draft of Book I of the History, completed before 15 June 1646, MS Clarendon 112, pp. 17–18. See Firth, C. H., ‘Clarendon's History of the rebellion. Part I. The original “History”’, English Historical Review, XIX (1904), 29 n. 10, 31 n. 11, 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Hobbes, , Elements, p. 114Google Scholar.

30 Hobbes, , Elements, pp. 139–40Google Scholar.

31 Clarendon, , History, I, 87Google Scholar; MS Clarendon 112, pp. 7–8.

32 Clarendon, , History, I, 87Google Scholar. For the quotation from Thucydides see MS Clarendon 127, fo. 50V. A version of the same quotation appears in a similar context (a discussion of the sovereign's, powers to distribute property and impose arbitrary taxation, as alleged in chapter 24 of Leviathan) in Clarendon, , A brief view, p. 109Google Scholar.

33 Hobbes, , Elements, p. 125, and see p. 135Google Scholar.

34 See Grotius, , De iure belli (Amsterdam, 1631), p. 85 (I.IV.X)Google Scholar; Rights, p. 120.

35 [Hyde, Edward], A full answer to an infamous and trayterous pamphlet (n.p., 1648), p. 134Google Scholar; A brief view, p. 96.

36 Hobbes, , Elements, p. 126Google Scholar; Clarendon, , A brief view, sig. *2 a–b, and p. 92Google Scholar.

37 Hobbes, ibid.; Clarendon, , A brief view, pp. 90–1, 317–18Google Scholar.

38 Hobbes, , Leviathan, p. 227Google Scholar. For the corresponding sections in the earlier works, see Hobbes, , Elements, p. 103 (I.19.7)Google Scholar, and Works, II, 133 (De cive, V.7). I owe this point to Professor Skinner. See also Gierke, Otto von, Natural law and the theory of society, 1500–1800, trans. Barker, Ernest (Cambridge, 1958), pp. 60–1, 266–7Google Scholar. For a dissenting view see Zagorin, P., ‘Clarendon and Hobbes’, Journal of Modern History, LVII, 4 (1985), 601Google Scholar.

39 Hobbes, , Elements, pp. 118–9 (II.2.I–2)Google Scholar.

40 Clarendon, , A brief view, p. 93Google Scholar. See also p. 39 where Clarendon in effect turns the earlier Hobbesian account of the origins of the sovereign's power of coercion against the later one, professing to find it ‘strange’ that ‘notwithstanding that he hath made [men] divest themselves of the liberty they have by Nature…yet after all this transferring and devesting, every man reserves a right (as unalienable) to defend his own life’.

41 Clarendon, , A brief view, p. 50Google Scholar.

42 For a later-eighteenth-century schedule of Clarendon's papers giving the contents of MS Clarendon 127 as it now is but including the extracts from Grotius and from the Elements (identified only as being ‘a copy from some book on Government’), see MS Clarendon 124, fo. 99. A similar list was drawn up by Samuel Smith in 1805, MS Clarendon 149, fos. 8v–dash;9.

43 MS Clarendon 126, fos. 55–9v. 75. The lettering of the notebooks, added later, is no indication of date; for example, notebook O (MS Clarendon 29, fos. 16–26v: legal extracts from Hakewill, Egerton and Coke, as used in A full answer) was compiled in October–December 1646.

44 ‘I finde in my Notes (for I haue noe bookes) these words of Grotius…’, Hyde, to Steward, , 8 06 1647, MS Clarendon 29, fo. 57vGoogle Scholar.