Hobbes, Thomas

Giving his cautious approval to a petition against episcopacy since "the Covetousnesse and supercilious behaviour of the persons, have made people weary of that forme," but warning of the implications of changes in church government ("...the dispute betweene the spirituall and civill power, has of late more then any other thing in the world, bene the cause of civill warres..."), in black ink with underlining and a brief marginal note in brown ink in a later hand, one page, 4to (210 x 160 mm), integral autograph address leaf, Paris, 23 July/2 August 1641; seal tear neatly repaired, spotting. [with:] manuscript note seemingly removed from a book from Hobbes's library ("liber Thome Hobbes ... [1676]", etc.). Red morocco-backed folding-box and slipcase.

Thomas Lloyd (Sotheby's, 9 May 1840, lot 95, to the bookseller Thorpe) — Mary Ford, nee Molesworth (1816–1910), thence by descent within the Molesworth family of Pencarrow (Sotheby's, 8 December 1999, lot 32). acquisition: Purchased at the foregoing sale through Bernard Quaritch

Thomas Hobbes: The Correspondence, ed. Noel Malcolm (1994), Vol. 1, pp.120-21; CELM, Thomas Hobbes (introduction)

"… I am of the opinion that ministers ought to minister, rather than governe. …"

A prophetic letter by England's greatest political philosopher written on the eve of Civil War. Hobbes is responding to the publication of A Petition presented to the Parliament from the Countie of Nottingham. Complaining of Grievances under the Ecclesiastical Government of Archbishops, Bishops, &c (1641 [STC P1849]). This petition would have been of particular interest to the Earl of Devonshire, Hobbes's former pupil, as Nottinghamshire was close to his family's Midland stronghold centered at Chatsworth. Hobbes's cool analysis foreshadows Leviathan: he says nothing of the theological rightness of episcopacy, suggests that if the Bishops have lost their moral authority then "I see nothing to be misliked in the new way propounded" although he doubts that the Lay Commissioners proposed in the Root and Branch Bill then in Parliament will prove any more popular in the long term. His crucial warning, however, is that questioning ecclesiastical authority signals a dangerous crumbling of the authority of the state. The English Civil War broke out the year after Hobbes wrote this letter.

Hobbes autograph material is exceptionally scarce on the market. The most substantial group of autograph manuscripts remains with the Dukes of Devonshire at Chatsworth and there are only twenty-six entirely autograph letters known, in part because Hobbes suffered from palsy and was largely unable to write from about 1650 onwards. Only two letters — including this one — have appeared at auction in recent decades.