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John Locke on the Glorious Revolution: A Rediscovered Document*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

James Farr  and
Clayton Roberts
James Farr
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Clayton Roberts
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
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Type
Communications
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , June 1985 , pp. 385 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

1 Locke, John, Two treatises of government, ed. Laslett, Peter (revised edition, Cambridge, England, 1963), pp. 58–79Google Scholar.

2 Two treatises, p. 59, n. 5. Laslett also calls the sketch Locke's Manifesto of 1689, p. xiii.

3 Throughout this introduction, the numbers appearing within parentheses refer to the folio pages of Locke's sketch.

4 Rand, Benjamin (ed.), The correspondence of John Locke and Edward Clarke (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1927), pp. 301–2Google Scholar. There are some striking similarities of phrasing, as well, between the sketch and this letter of 17 October 1690. In the sketch Locke speaks of ‘points unfit for private hands to meddle with. Submission to those whose business it is to take care of the publique will secure that, as it ought’ (fo. IV). In his letter Locke praises ‘the happiest state a country can be in, when those whose business it is, take such care of affairs, that all others quietly acquiesce, and I think it superfluous and impertinent to meddle’ (p. 301).

5 de Beer, E. S. (ed.), The correspondence of John Locke (Oxford, 1978), III, 689Google Scholar.

6 See Goldie, Mark, ‘The Revolution of 1689 and the structure of political argument: an essay and an annotated bibliography of pamphlets on the allegiance controversy’. Bulletin of Research in the Humanities, LXXXIII (1980), 473–564Google Scholar.

7 For this period of Locke's life, see Cranston, Maurice, John Locke (London, 1959), ch. 22Google Scholar.

8 Ogg, David, England in the reigns of James II and William III (Oxford, 1955), p. 352Google Scholar; Jones, J. R., The Revolution of 1688 in England (New York, 1972), p. 326Google Scholar.

9 Japikse, N. (ed.), Correspondence van Willem III en van Hans Bentinck Eersten Graaf Van Portland ('S-Gravenhage, 1927), I, 110Google Scholar.

10 Horwitz, Henry, Revolution politics: the career of Daniel Finch, second earl of Nottingham, 1647–1730 (Cambridge, England, 1968), pp. 68–82Google Scholar.

11 Browning, Andrew, Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby and duke of Leeds (Glasgow, 1951), I, 420–7Google Scholar.

12 Coxe, William, Private and original correspondence of Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury (London, 1821), pp. 14–15Google Scholar; SirDalrymple, John, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1790), II, 182–86Google Scholar.

13 Horwitz, Henry, Parliament, policy and politics in the reign of William III (Manchester, 1977), pp. 21, 54–5, 56–7Google Scholar; Horwitz, , Revolution politicks, pp. 82, 114–16Google Scholar.

14 Ogg, David, James II and William III, pp. 240–1Google Scholar.

15 Dalrymple, , Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, II, 189Google Scholar.

16 de Beer, E. S. (ed.), Locke correspondence, III, 607Google Scholar. Also see Locke's very important letter to Clarke of 29 January/8 February 1689 in which he wants to ‘see the nation setled in a regular way’ in part by its supporting ‘the common interest of Europe’. Ibid. p. 546.

17 For William's attitude see Baxter, Stephen, William III (London, 1966), pp. 244–5, 255–6, 270–1Google Scholar; Horwitz, , Parliament, policy and politics, pp. 54–5, 56–7Google Scholar. Compare Locke's stance to the sentiments of the author of Plain English (London, 1691), p. 21Google Scholar: ‘What a hotch-potch have they [the press and clergy] made with their kings de facto, their jure divino, their passivity and non-resistance? But these are beaten topicks.’ Locke agrees, but wants them pronounced beaten, and recanted.

18 In ‘The Revolution of 1689 and the structure of political argument’, Mark Goldie includes some 192 pamphlets in the allegiance controversy from 1689–94, 139 of which were loyal to the Revolution if only on grounds of conquest or de facto possession. The remaining 53 pamphlets were by non-jurors or Jacobites. During the peak of publication between April 1689 and December 1690 – roughly the time period of Locke's sketch – allegiance pamphlets appeared at the rate of three per week. Among the more important pamphlets defending passive obedience to James were Abednego Seller's History of passive obedience (Amsterdam, 1689)Google Scholarand his Continuation of the history of passive obedience (Amsterdam, 1690)Google Scholar; and Collier's, JeremyVindieiae Juris Regii (London, 1689)Google Scholar. Among earlier writers who defended divine right Locke includes SirFilmer, Robert, Sibthorpe, Robert, and Manwaring, Roger. Two treatises, I, 5Google Scholar.

19 For the pulpits, see Robert Harley to Elizabeth Harley, 1 February 1689.90. B.L. Loan 29/164/2. Also see John Somer's complaint to Locke in a letter of 25 September 1689 that ‘some few Clergymen who have not taken the Oaths, and some that have, and a very little party of such as pay them a blind obedience, use incredible diligence, by misconstructions of every thing, false stories, and spreading libells to infect the people. I wish heartily the friends of the Government were encouraged to use the same diligence in suppressing such doings.’ de Beer, (ed.), Locke correspondence, III, 698–9Google Scholar.

20 Edward Clarke's speeches in parliament may be followed in Grey, Anchitell, Debates of the house of commons from the year 1667 to the year 1694 (London, 1763), xGoogle Scholar; and in Horwitz, Henry,(ed.), The parliamentary diary of Narcissus Luttrell (Oxford, 1972)Google Scholar. Twice, however, Clarke did raise the issue of taking the traditional oath and of subscribing to the Declaration. See Luttrell, PP. 178. 353.

21 See Dunn, John, The political thought of John Locke (Cambridge, England, 1969), esp. ch. 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Macpherson, C. B., The political theory of possessive individualism (Oxford, 1962)Google Scholar, ch. 5.

23 For discussion of radical ideas in the Two treatises, see Kenyon, J. P., Revolution principles: the politics of party, 1689–1720 (Cambridge, England, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chs. 2–4; Franklin, Julian, John Locke and the theory of sovereignty (Cambridge, England, 1978)Google Scholar; Goldie, Mark, ‘The roots of true whiggism, 1688–1694’, History of Political Thought, I (1980), 195–236Google Scholar; and Ashcraft, Richard, ‘Revolutionary politics and Locke's Two treatises of government: radicalism and Lockean political theory’, Political Theory, VIII (1980), 429–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Two treatises, II, 122.

25 John Dunn rightly considers this to be ‘a damaging lacuna in Locke's theory’. See his ‘Consent in the political theory of John Locke’, Historical Journal, X, (1967), 166Google Scholar.

26 The source of the differentials in rationality is not made clear in the sketch. Nor is it made decisively clear elsewhere. For a debate, compare Macpherson, C. B., Possessive individualism, pp. 221 ff.Google Scholar, with Dunn, John, Political thought of John Locke, pp. 233 ff., 254Google Scholar.

27 Two treatises, p. 172. Locke's preoccupation with doctrine also led him to draft a ‘particular Test for priests’, listing doctrines to be renounced. Bodleian Library, MS Locke, c. 27 fo. 30.

28 See, for example, Two treatises, I, 81.

29 Bodleian Library, MS Locke c. 28 fo. 85. Quoted in Dunn, , Political thought of John Locke, p. 148 nGoogle Scholar.

30 Two treatises, I, 126.

31 Bodleian Library, MS Locke c. 28, fo. 21.

32 The works of John Locke (London, 1823), X, 201Google Scholar.

33 Two treatises, I, 81, 126–7. Among its other political virtues, consent remedies the epistemological deficiency as well. See Two treatises, II, 198.

34 Two treatises, II, 198. Cp. II, 76.

35 For a discussion of the meaning of ‘abdicate’ in 1689, see Slaughter, T. P., ‘“Abdicate” and “Contract” in the Glorious Revolution’, Historical Journal, XXIV (1981), 323–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Miller, J., ‘The Glorious Revolution: “Contract” and “Abdication” Reconsidered’, Historical Journal, XXV (1982), 541–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Two treatises, II, 243. Also see II, 219–20. In the Fundamental constitutions of the government (London, 1690)Google Scholar, the whig William Atwood took exception to these passages in the Two treatises because of their populist and anarchic implications. Atwood likened them to the arguments about dissolution and ‘the people’ made by Wildman, John in A letter to a friend (London, 1690)Google Scholar. For some discussion, see Franklin, , Locke and the theory of sovereignty, pp. 105–9Google Scholar. Locke's sketch does not rehearse, nor even raise this issue.

37 See William's, Letter to the lords (London, 1689)Google Scholar. Locke read and approved of William's, letter as having ‘weight and wisdom’. De Beer, (ed.), Locke correspondence III, 545Google Scholar.

38 Two treatises, p. 171; and letter to de Beer, Mordaunt (ed.), Locke correspondence, III, 574Google Scholar.

39 Two treatises, II, 151.

40 Two treatises, II, 211.

41 Two treatises, II, 172.