How did the English Civil Wars influence Hobbes’s political philosophy?

The English Civil Wars (1642–1651) were a formative influence on Thomas Hobbes’s political philosophy, directly shaping his preoccupation with the dangers of disputed sovereignty and the necessity of absolute authority to prevent anarchy.12

Having witnessed the turbulence and near-collapse of order during the conflict, Hobbes became convinced that civil war was the ultimate catastrophe for human society. He argued that such chaos arises when sovereign power is divided or contested. Consequently, his work—most notably Leviathan—posits that to avoid a "war of all against all," individuals must enter into a social contract by transferring their right of self-government to an absolute sovereign.123

Hobbes maintained that this sovereign must hold undivided authority over the law, the military, and the church to ensure peace and security. His analysis of the conflict, further detailed in his history Behemoth; or, The Long Parliament, reinforced his belief that any dilution of this power, such as through democratic excesses or competing authorities, invites the return of the state of nature—a condition he famously described as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short".123