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

The English Civil Wars were a formative influence on the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, shaping his conviction that government must be organized to prevent the chaos of civil conflict.1

Witnessing the breakdown of order in England, Hobbes concluded that human beings are naturally unsuited to political life and prone to competition, rhetoric, and aggression. He argued that without a supreme authority, individuals exist in a state of nature—a "war of every man against every man" where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short".12

To escape this anarchy, Hobbes proposed that individuals must enter a social contract to transfer their right of self-government to an absolute sovereign, or Leviathan. He believed this absolute power was necessary to maintain peace and security, as any division of authority—such as the separation of powers or the independence of the church—threatened to return society to the violence he observed during the civil wars. His later work, Behemoth; or, The Long Parliament, explicitly analyzed the causes of these conflicts, reinforcing his lifelong commitment to a strong, undivided civil authority.12