Thomas Hobbes was born on April 5th, 1588, at the tail end of the Renaissance era, to a traditional middle-class family. His father was the younger son of his family and therefore entered into the rank of clergy, as the tradition of the time dictated that the older sons inherited the family business or estate while younger sons went into the professions. Like his father, Hobbes was a younger son and began studying at Oxford at age of 13 or 14, presumably on a path to a professional career.
Hobbes studied at the Magdalen Hall of Oxford University. Magdalen Hall had strong puritan and Calvinist influences that likely influenced Hobbes’s view of religion and God. After finishing his BA, Hobbes became a tutor to William Cavendish of the Cavendish family.
William Cavendish, the future second earl of Devonshire, was only a few years younger than Hobbes, and Hobbes acted less like a traditional tutor and more like an intellectual companion and personal manager. Being in service of the Cavendish family not only gave Hobbes access to the most interesting intellectual circles of the time, which he might have had had he pursued a career in law or clergy, but also high politics.
Cavendish was greatly influenced by Francis Bacon, and Hobbes helped Cavendish translate part of Bacon’s works into Latin. Cavendish was a member of Parliament and in correspondence with Italian friar Fulgenzio Micanzio, who introduced the idea of Paolo Sarpi’s theory to Cavendish and Hobbes. Sarpi was a Venetian historian and statesman who developed an anti-papal theory of the state that rejected the authority of the church and argued that all power and jurisdiction flowed from the temporal ruler, a theory that likely influenced Hobbes deeply. Being a tutor also allowed Hobbes to travel the continent extensively and meet the philosophers and scientists of continental Europe, as it was the duty of the tutor to take the pupil on a grand tour of the continent as part of his education.
The second earl of Devonshire passed away in 1628, however, and Hobbes became the tutor of Gervase Clifton, taking him on a grand tour that lasted until 1630. After Hobbes returned to England, he returned to the service of the Cavendish family and started tutoring the third earl of Devonshire, which lasted until 1637. After 1637, his pupil came of age and Hobbes began systemizing his philosophy. At first, he devoted his attention to science and metaphysics, but political issues intervened and drew Hobbes into the political debate over the absoluteness of royal power. The first book Hobbes published on the subject was Elements of Law, which contained all the major thesis of his later works in political philosophy, which polished the thesis and arguments laid out in the Elements of Law. Elements of Law was openly royalist, but it was no cheap propaganda. It was a strong philosophical tract in support of strong, undivided sovereign power. Naturally, it attracted the ire of the opponents of King Charles I, and their clamoring prompted Hobbes to flee to France for his life.
From 1641 to 1651, Hobbes lived a vigorous intellectual life in Paris. Hobbes was well integrated into the French intellectual world due to his previous travels and friendship cultivated and to his friendship with Marin Mersenne, who introduced him to many French philosophers and scientists. In the 1640s, Hobbes was mostly preoccupied with physics, metaphysics, and theology, rather than political philosophy, showing his Renaissance man credentials. Toward the end of the 1640s, the return of royal rule redrew Hobbes’s attention to politics and prompted him to write the Leviathan. A decade after writing Leviathan, Hobbes would argue that he wrote it to allow the former royalists to return to English and submit to the new authority because if the consent of the governed is what creates sovereign power, which did not have to be a monarchy, submission to a new civil sovereign authority was no treachery. This showed that Hobbes saw theory not only as a way to explain the world but as a tool for change.
Toward the end of his life, Hobbes was often vilified in public, because his political philosophy challenged the legitimacy of many interest groups, like the churches or the universities (Hobbes argued that the sovereign power can control dissenting and potentially subversive thought). But Hobbes had many close and loyal friends and was widely admired on the continent. He passed away on December 4th, 1679, still in service of the Cavendish family, who remained his patron and protector until the end of his life.