Behemoth is Hobbes’s account of the outbreak of the Civil Wars, and it’s a perfect illustration of why people listened to Thomas Hobbes in the first place. Hobbes is a penetrating observer of human nature. He has a rare ability to boil things down to their essence, and to express that essence memorably:
[T]he power of the mighty hath no foundation, but in the opinion and belief of the people.
A king whose knights won’t ride out to battle on his behalf is just a weirdo in funny clothes. Charles I lost for a lot of reasons, but far from the least of them was that his “foundation” was badly cracked. However attached one might be to the notion of monarchy in the abstract, it – monarchy – is always intimately connected to the personality of the monarch … and Charles I was a real piece of work, even by the world-class standards of Renaissance princes. Parliament was outgunned, often outmanned, and suffered from what should’ve been a critical shortage of experienced leadership. But all those massive advantages were offset by the fact that the Royalist forces were fighting for Charles I, personally.
(This is not the place for a long discussion of the course of the English Civil Wars – and I’m not qualified to give you one in any case – but a quick look at the top commanders of the opposing sides will illustrate the point. Prince Rupert was arguably the equal, mano-a-mano, of any Parliamentary general, up to and including Cromwell. But he was still a Prince, and carried on like one (like a young one, to boot) … and even if he weren’t, he was still running the show on behalf of his uncle. Cromwell, on the other hand, inspired fanatic loyalty, not least because he embodied a cause that was much higher than himself).
Severian, “Hobbes (III)”, Founding Questions, 2020-12-12.
July 3, 2023
QotD: The key weakness of the royal cause in the English Civil War
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