One day King Charles said jestingly to her, ‘Madam, you have all my judges at your disposal.’
In 1628, Hobbes published his translation of Thucydides, which attracted great attention, and brought down on the author many severe attacks. In an opening dissertation on the life and works of the Greek historian, Hobbes endeavoured, by the example of the Athenian, to warn his countrymen against the evils of democracy, at a moment when political strife was raging and the Monarchy in danger. For Hobbes was a zealous Royalist, and believed that the cause of the King was in essentials the cause of law and order. Thrown for a while on his own resources, he accepted the post of travelling tutor to the son of a country gentleman, with whom he went on the Continent, residing chiefly at Paris, where he took up mathematics as a new study. It was not long, however, before the widowed Countess of Devonshire recalled the friend of her father-in-law, the tutor of her husband, to occupy the same position in the family, and superintend the education of her sons, the young Earl and her beloved Charles, the gallant soldier who closed his short and noble career by dying for his King on the field of Gainsborough.
In 1634 old memories were recalled and old habits resumed by Hobbes taking his youthful charge over very much the same ground as he had travelled with his first pupil some years before, ‘making the longest stay in Paris for all the politer parts of breeding,’ having during his sojourn in Italy inspired the admiration and gained the friendship of Cosimo de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and paid a visit at Pisa to the illustrious Galileo,—‘for I also,’ says Hobbes of himself, ‘am now numbered among the philosophers.’
In Paris, where Richelieu was in the zenith of his power, and had just founded the Academy, Hobbes fraternised, as was his wont, with all the learned men, and was on the most intimate terms with every one in any way remarkable for culture, whether in literature, science, or philosophy. In 1637 Lord Devonshire with his governor went back to England, where he found that his mother had taken advantage of his absence to restore order into his estates, which she now gave up to him, free and unencumbered of debt, and his beautiful homes well furnished to receive him.
England was in a most perturbed state on the travellers’ return. Hampden’s trial, the insurrection of the Scots, the violence of Parliament, all presaged the impending downfall of the Monarchy. Hobbes’s natural bias, as we have already said in a former page, was in favour of the Royal cause, a sentiment which was naturally fostered by the Cavendishes, who were one and all zealous Royalists; their hearts, lives, and fortunes, were ever at the service of the Throne. And so it came to pass that our philosopher raised his voice and wielded his pen in support of the King, until, as the saying goes, the country was too hot to hold him, and he fled. He thus speaks of his own reasons for taking this step:—
‘On the meeting of the second Parliament, when they proceeded fiercely against those who had written or preached in defence of regal power, Mr. Hobbes, doubting how they would use him, went over into France, the first of all that fled, and there continued eleven years.’ Here he made a short friendship and quicker quarrel with the celebrated Des Cartes; here, when once brought to the brink of the grave, whatever his religious opinions were, he resisted the endeavours of an Italian friend to gain him over to the Roman Catholic faith; here, his health re-established, he published manifold works,—philosophical, theological, and polemical,—which attracted great attention, and his fame spread so far and wide that it was said people came from great distances even to gaze on the portrait of Mr. Thomas Hobbes.
Public favour was very much divided, and some of those who could not deny his eloquence and brilliancy of style inveighed against the heterodoxy of his tenets. While in Paris, he gave instructions in different branches of learning, especially mathematics, to the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles II., who was then in exile; and his intercourse with the Prince, and the intimacy which he formed with many of the English Royalists then residing in Paris, helped to foster Hobbes’s hatred of the popular party in England.
John Evelyn, in his Diary, says, ‘I went to see Mr. Hobbes, the great philosopher of Malmesbury, at Paris, with whom I had been much acquainted. From his window we saw the whole procession and glorious cavalcade of the young French monarch, Lewis XIV., passing to Parliament, when first he took the kingly government upon him, he being fourteen years of age, and out of the Queen’s pupilage. The King’s aydes, the Queen-Mother, and the King’s light horse all in rich habits, with trumpets, in blue velvet and gold; the Swiss in black velvet toques, headed by two gallant cavaliers in habits of scarlet satin, after their country fashion, which is very fantastick.
The Kinge himself looked like a young Apollo. He was mounted on an Isabella barb, with a houssing of crosses of the Order of the Holy Ghost, and semée fleurs-de-lys, stiffly covered with rich embroidery. He went almost the whole way with his hat in his hand, saluting the ladys and acclamators, who had filled the windows with their beauty, and the aire with “Vive le Roy!”’
In 1651 Hobbes wrote the book so indissolubly connected with his name, Leviathan. When this work was first circulated in Paris, he found himself the object of aversion to every class. To readers of every way of thinking, there were passages at which to cavil and take objection. Indeed, Hobbes was warned that from the priesthood his life was in danger; and he once more sought safety in flight. He returned to England, where he published the obnoxious volume, and took up his abode in London for some time, in Fetter Lane, made his submission to the Council of State, and busied himself with literary labours, English and Latin. The winter of 1659 he spent with his friends at Chatsworth, and in 1660 came up to London with them to Little Salisbury House. One day, soon after the Restoration, the King was passing through the Strand, when he perceived his old master standing at the gate of Lord Devonshire’s house. The Royal coach was stopped, Charles doffed his hat most graciously, and inquired after Mr. Hobbes’s health, who was summoned to the Palace before a week was over, and found himself sitting for his portrait by Royal command. We are told that the king of limners, Mr. Cooper, was much delighted with Mr. Hobbes’s pleasant conversation, and that his Majesty delighted in his wit and repartees. The Merry Monarch’s courtiers would ‘bayte’ Mr. Hobbes, so much so that when he appeared the King would often cry, ‘Here comes the bear to be bayted.’ But the philosopher knew how to take his own part, and his answers were always full of wit and drollery, but usually evasive, from fear of giving offence. The King granted him an annual pension of £100 a year, but refused his petition of a grant of land to found a free school at Malmesbury.