Why John Locke’s most famous political work was actually a revolutionary act of defiance.

Art · Published 3 October 2026 · Updated 25 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Published in 1689, John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government dismantled the divine right of kings and redefined political authority. While often viewed as a justification for the Glorious Revolution, the text was born from the intense political turmoil of the Exclusion Crisis, challenging the very foundations of absolute, hereditary power.

John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government stands as a cornerstone of political philosophy, yet its origins are more complex than its final publication suggests. Although released in 1689, the bulk of the work was composed years earlier during the Exclusion Crisis (1679–81). This period was marked by a fierce debate over whether to prevent James, the Roman Catholic brother of King Charles II, from succeeding to the English throne. Locke, a staunch supporter of exclusion, saw his political mentor, Lord Shaftesbury, removed from power and eventually forced into exile in the Netherlands, a fate Locke himself shared.

The first treatise serves as a direct, systematic refutation of Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha, which argued that monarchs held divinely sanctioned authority through their descent from Adam. Locke dismissed this as contrary to common sense, noting that no historical record could support such a lineage and that any ancient contract with Adam would not bind descendants thousands of years later. By 1688, the theory of the divine right of kings had effectively lost its credibility in England, largely due to the intellectual weight of Locke’s arguments.

In the second treatise, Locke shifts to the origins of civil government, defining political power as a morally sanctioned capacity to create laws for the public good. He posits a 'state of nature' where humans are naturally free and equal, bound only by the law of nature—which he identified with the law of God. Because individuals have a duty to enforce this law, the state of nature risks descending into violence. Consequently, people enter into a social contract to establish a civil government, creating a framework where property and rights are protected by common consent rather than arbitrary rule.

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