Surprisingly little scholarship has been devoted to examining the initial reception of John Locke’s Two Treatises, published in 1689, despite the fact that the work’s fame has rested to a considerable degree on its supposed relationship to the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Clearly the Two Treatises eventually did become very successful and influential achievements. They came to be regarded as containing the “Principles of 1688"¹ and, as David Hume indicated, they provided the Whig party of the mid-eighteenth century with its “philosophical or speculative system of principles.”² Yet the immediate reaction to the works is rather startling to the twentieth century observer. They received no critical responses until 17O3,³ and it was not until 1705 that any extensive attempt was made to refute Locke’s arguments.⁴

          Locke’s work did not immediately become the principal authority of the Whigs. In fact, Locke did not introduce any strikingly new ideas into political debate. The central framework of the Treatises’ arguments was already to be found in James Tyrrell’s Patriarcha Non Monarcha (London, 1680), Algernon Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government (London, 1698, but written prior to 1683) and Samuel Pufendorf’s De lure Naturae et Gentium (Lund, 1672) and De Officio Hominis de Civis (Lund, 1673).⁵ It was more to these authorities, and not Locke, that appeals were made. Thompson relates that “Locke was so far from occupying the front place among Whig authorities that Benjamin Hoadly could write a work substantially similar to Locke’s — The Original and Institution of Civil Government, discuss’d (London, 1710) — and be commended by the House of Commons for it, with only one reference to the Two Treatises.”6

          This notable lack of immediate response to the Two Treatises seems to indicate that hindsight has elevated the modern view of Locke’s importance as a political writer during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. One historian, John Dunn, has noted this inflation of the modern sense of Locke’s significance and asserts that Locke’s historic role has been exaggerated.⁷ However an examination of Whig party literature reveals a somewhat more familiar picture of Locke’s influence. That Locke’s work did not pass unnoticed from the public is evidenced from a number of sources. It was apparently the object of respect and conjecture among some circles of genteel society in both Oxford and London in August 1690.⁸ A Whig pamphlet entitled Political Aphorisms⁹ summarized and quoted extensively, though without acknowledgement, from the Two Treatises; William Atwood, a prominent Whig pamphleteer, adopted some of Locke’s arguments in his Fundamental Constitution of the English Government and referred to the works as “the best Treatises of Civil Polity I have met with in the English Tongue.”¹⁰

ARGUMENT

          One possible explanation for Locke’s relative insignificance in the 1690s is that the Treatises were written in the same tradition and with similar themes as the works of two men then of outstanding contemporary reputation: Samuel Pufendorf and Algernon Sidney.¹¹ Pufendorf’s work was respected throughout Europe, while Sidney was thought to be a great martyr for English liberty. The latter’s reputation initially depended more on the circumstances of his death than on anything he wrote.¹² Furthermore, the author of the Two Treatises was not well known until his death in 1704. The Treatises’ anonymity may have adversely affected the attention and authority paid to them for the response to some of his earlier works, especially his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, indicates Locke was well respected as both a philosopher and a writer.

          A more substantial explanation lies within the argument of the Two Treatises themselves. The Two Treatises were not initially crafted to serve the purpose Locke intended when publishing them — the justification of the Glorious Revolution. An obvious reason for this lies in the fact that the Treatises were written before 1688. It is generally agreed by historians that the Two Treatises were not written to defend the Revolution of 1688 but were already in existence when Locke fled to Holland in 1683. Locke began the First Treatise shortly after purchasing a copy of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha on January 22, 1680. The exact date on which Locke began the Second Treatise is still disputed, but most Lockean scholars agree that the greater part of the work was completed between 1679-83.¹³

          Furthermore, because Locke had attempted to use his Treatises, written prior to the 1688 Revolution, to justify that revolution, many viewed Locke’s philosophical justification of the revolution as overreaching itself. What it gained in scope and grandeur it lost in precision and application to all of the relevant details pertaining to the actual situation. A preference for an historical and legal justification for the revolution, as opposed to one that is philosophical, is clearly found in William Atwood’s qualified praise of the Two Treatises in his own defense of the activities of 1688. Atwood maintained that the Two Treatises were unacceptable as a justification of the Revolution even though they contained the best example of “Civil Polity” written in English. He held that if the arguments of the Treatises were adopted, the Ancient Constitution would be at risk because the people would have the freedom to alter that body of law as they saw fit. Although the argument of the Second Treatise was “designedly adapted to what he [the author] takes our Government to be, rho not expressly named,” the Revolution required a more legalistic validation.¹⁴

          The Convention Parliament of 168 8-89, established after James II had fled to France, also considered Locke’s arguments in the Second Treatise to be unacceptable in explaining the Revolution of 1688. The belief that resistance to constitutional authorities might be justifiable or even a moral obligation if those authorities trespassed upon an individual’s natural rights was discounted in the debates about the place of “abdication” and “vacancy” in English constitutional law. Veteran lawyer John Maynard at one point interrupted the complicated legal disputes and suggested that perhaps the attempt to reconcile the removal of James II with the strict requirements of law was misguided.

          But his voice was ignored, and the debate continued.
          The argument of the Second Treatise was not felt to be sufficient by Locke’s contemporaries to justify the Glorious Revolution. The First Treatise, however was far less polemical even though it was incomplete.¹⁶ It was from this treatise that James Tyrrell had quoted most extensively when compiling his Bibliotheca Politica. According to William Atwood, it was the brilliant exposure of the “false Principles and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer and his Admirers” that accounted for the Treatises gaining reputation.¹⁷
 

          Sixty years after the Glorious Revolution, David Hume published an essay that bemoaned the fact that “no party, in the present age, can well support itself, without a philosophical or speculative system of principles."¹⁸ Hume explained that the Whigs founded the notion of “government altogether on the consent of the people,” and he attributed the birth of political parties based upon abstract principles and not religious beliefs to “philosophers, who have embraced a party (if that be not a contradiction in terms).” For Hume and many later scholars, “the most noted” of the Whig doctrine’s philosophical “partizans” was John Locke.¹⁹ Many saw the work of John Locke as providing the philosophical foundation to the Whig party; however, many members of his party did not agree with his justification of the Revolution of 1688.

          Many Whigs preferred a defense that rested not upon an appeal to natural law, natural rights, and the dissolution of government. Instead, Whigs desired a justification that appealed to the constitutional rights of Englishmen and restricted the limits of constitutional change to the “restoration” of the Ancient Constitution.²⁰ One must understand the initial reaction to the Two Treatises as a reaction to two separate documents. Locke provided a philosophical foundation for the Whig party with the First Treatise, and he extended his philosophical ideas in the Second Treatise, its purpose becoming a broad justification for the Glorious Revolution. During the years closest to the 1688, the issues surrounding the Revolution took precedence over philosophical notions of rights. However, as the legal arguments lost their urgency, disputes about the abdication of James II focused less on the specific circumstances of the Revolution and more on the principles which it supposedly embodied.

THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION OF 1688
 

          The story of the Glorious Revolution begins with the accession of James II to the British throne in 1685. James, an advocate of Roman Catholicism and political reform came to rule a public who would tolerate neither. His accession had been dreaded by all but the nation’s tiny Catholic minority. Rumors that James had poisoned his brother, Charles II, were widespread, and the prosecution of Titus Oates²¹ for libel gave more credence to tales of a Catholic conspiracy to seize control of the government. James became the head of the Anglican Church, which preached passive obedience and non-resistance; the Anglican establishment necessarily supported him. He was the head of a state that had vigorously persecuted dissenters and Whigs and had reduced their active support to a small hard core. Little favor was expected from the new regime, yet the Whigs did not give up hope. Deliverance lay in the fact that James’s daughter Mary was heir to the throne, and her Dutch husband, William, was a Calvinist.

          As a political reformer, James did not shirk from centralizing power. He utilized his considerable patronage to reward or punish on the basis of very narrow tests of loyalty. At the beginning of his reign, when he believed that he could make an alliance with the Tories, he filled both local and central positions with their members. Refusing to support his attempts to Catholicize the army and the government, the Tories objected to the James’ policies. James purged them ruthlessly in favor of Whigs, dissenters, and Catholics. Within months of his accession, James crushed a rebellion of Protestants who rallied around his nephew James, Duke of Monmouth — and son of Charles II. The Protestants were easily defeated, and James exhibited little toleration: Monmouth was captured and beheaded. James appointed Judge Jeffries to preside over the “Bloody Assizes” which executed, tortured, or sent into slavery the Protestant rebels.

          James believed that if Catholicism were allowed to flourish the nation would gradually be reconverted. Ministers and bishops were horrified when the King allowed the establishment of seminaries in London, sent an envoy to the Pope, and patronized Catholic presses in London and Oxford. He also undertook the redemption of his leading ministers and his daughter Anne. He even went so far as to dispatch a priest to Holland to offer Catholic instruction to Mary. His lack of success convinced James that he would not be able to convert his government to Catholicism. However, James received some good news in 1686, when a court in Godden v. Hales, decided in favor of the monarch’s power to dispense with laws, with the Chief Justice citing Abraham’s refusal to kill his son despite God’s commandment as precedent.²² Thus James fell back upon his newfound power to make allies. James disregarded the Test Act, which prevented Catholics from holding many public offices, and ambitiously appointed Catholics to high positions although loyal Tory councilors advised against it. As a result, both Tories and Whigs turned against him. James’s policies and desire to reform England to Catholicism succeeded in alienating nearly every segment of the political nation.

          In 1687 he issued a Declaration of Indulgence, suspending the penal laws against dissenters and recusants, and in April 1688 ordered that a second Declaration of Indulgence be read from every pulpit on two successive Sundays. William Sancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and six other bishops petitioned him against this edict and were prosecuted for seditious libel. Their acquittal almost coincided with the birth of a son to James’s Roman Catholic queen, Mary. This event promised an indefinite continuance of his policy and brought discontent to a head. Seven eminent Englishmen, among them the Tory Earl of Danby and Henry Compton, bishop of London, wrote an invitation to William of Orange to come to England with an army in order to redress the nation’s grievances.

          William was greatly concerned with the spreading Catholic influence in Europe, and thus, wished to check the overgrowth of French power. Louis XIV was mobilizing his forces, and a French invasion of Holland was expected to occur in the spring of 1689. Against this eventuality, William reconstructed the League of Augsburg, an alliance that isolated France from all of the major states of Europe but England. Political circumstances made it difficult for James II to raise taxes through Parliament, and consequently, James was dependent upon the subsidies granted him by Louis the XIV. William feared that when war arrived Holland would be forced to fight a war on two fronts and that of the members of the League, he alone would be forced to combat the might of the English navy. William accepted the invitation from the seven politicians to come to England to investigate the circumstances of the birth of the Prince of Wales and the condition of English liberties. William hoped to shackle James II with a Parliament in order to bring England to his side, or at least, keep it out of the war.

          The invitation came as no surprise, for the Dutch had already been making preparations for a military invasion of England. William had been organizing his troops for over a year, and in June, requested the invitation from the prominent political figures in England. These men kept William informed of dissatisfaction in James’s military and gained specific pledges of support from both army and navy commanders. Thus, having been in close touch with the leading English malcontents for more than a year, he accepted their invitation. Landing at Torbay on November 5, William advanced slowly on London, as support fell away from James II. James’s daughter Anne and two of his leading military commanders, John Churchill and the Duke of Grafton, were among the deserters to William’s camp; thereupon James fled to France.

          William was now asked to carry on the government and summon a Parliament. This convention Parliament met on January 22, 1689, and found itself initially unable to resolve the problem of a vacant throne. The Whig members of the House of Commons held that James II was removed from the throne for breaching the terms of his contract with the English people. However, not all of the members of Parliament agreed that James II had violated any social contract, or that such a compact existed. Sir George Treby offered a solution to this problem by explaining “We have found the throne vacant, and are to supply the defect; we found it so, we have not made it so. “²³ After some debate both houses decided to treat James’s flight as an abdication and to offer the Crown, with an accompanying Declaration of Right, jointly to William and Mary. Both gift and conditions were accepted. The convention turned itself into a proper Parliament and the Declaration into a Bill of Rights. This bill gave the succession of the crown to Mary’s sister, Anne, in default of issue to William and Mary; prevented Roman Catholics from the throne; abolished the power to suspend laws; condemned the power of dispensing with laws “as hath been used of late”; declared a standing army illegal in time of peace; and required frequent parliaments and free elections.²⁴

          William and Mary were not required to accept the Declaration of Rights to receive the crown. Not only would William have rejected any such prerequisite, but such a condition would have been a powerful statement in support of an elective monarchy. Rather; the elaborate ceremony in which the monarchs were installed included a reading of the Declaration before the crowns were offered followed by a statement about it from William: “As I had no other intention in coming hither than to preserve your religion, laws and liberties, so you may be sure that I shall endeavor to support them.” Less than two months before, William had entered London “led by the hand of heaven and called by the voice of the people.”²⁵ Now he was king.

AN EXAMINATION OF CONTEMPORARY RESPONSES
 

          The settlement of the Revolution of 1688 marked a considerable triumph for Whig views. If no Roman Catholic could be king, then no kingship could be unconditional. The adoption of this exclusionist solution lent support to John Locke’s contention that monarchs and their governments do not rule by Divine Right, but through a social contract between the king and his people represented in Parliament. Thomas Gray, Earl of Stamford, mirrored Locke’s philosophical views in a speech delivered at the Leicester Quarter Sessions in 1690. Earl Gray borrowed from Locke’s state of nature to explain the original purpose of governments. “When Numbers of men were got together, they, for their own Preservation, and general Good, soon agreed among themselves, to chuse rsic] some one or more, to be their Judg,[sic] or Judges of Right and Wrong.”²⁶ Gray continued by explaining that all individuals are born with equal rights, and this equality precludes the supposed superiority that grants a Divine Right to kings. He related that “there is a sort of men amongst us, who by the cunning Insinuations of some disaffected person, are prevailed upon to believe, that the very Species of Government is of Divine Right; but.. .it seems contradictory to the very End and Being of Government. “²⁷ With its references to the Two Treatises, Gray’s speech, although brief, provides ample evidence that Locke’s criticism of the Divine Right of kings in support of the Laws of Nature was read and acknowledged by those who supported the reign of William
III.

          Later, in that same year, William Atwood published his Fundamental Constitution which hailed the coronation of William and Mary as being “like the Phenix [sic], from the Ashes of the other [government]; and was founded in such a consent as gives Establishment to our Laws.”²⁸ Atwood challenged the Anglican doctrine of passive obedience and explained that by not appealing to legal rights one would be willfully subjugated to an “arbitrary, tyrannical, exorbitant Persecution, [which] would, if not prevented, have been entail’d on our Posterity.”²⁹ In his treatise, Atwood supported the Glorious Revolution but held that neither passive obedience nor unconditional revolution was the proper resolution to political grievances in England. He explained that contentions that indicate individuals “must resist in no case, [while individuals] may resist in any case, when every Man pleases, or; at least, thinks it necessary, are not Contraries, but Extreams [sic].”³⁰ Instead, Atwood justified the 1688 Revolution on the authority of the English constitution. “[T]he Truth lies in the middle, that we may resist in some case, which cries aloud, and justly stirs up a Nation, as with the Voice of God.”³¹

          For Atwood, Locke’s social contract was made manifest in the Constitution of England, and “the Question is of one who ceases to be King, ... [whose removal is] warranted by that noble Transcript of the Original Contract, the Confessor’s Law, which shews [sic] that if a King does not answer the true end for which he was chosen, he loses the Name, or ceases to be King.”³² The removal of James II and the crowning of William and Mary resulted in the dislodging of a tyrant and the restoration of the Ancient Constitution. However; although he approved of the concept of an agreement between a ruler and his subjects, Atwood did not feel that the Two Treatises “attended to the duplicity, or other particular nature of the Contract, in relation to the English Government.”³³ Nonetheless, Atwood agreed with Locke’s treatment of the dissolution of governments and quoted from the Second Treatise:

However; Atwood believed that the theoretical government described by the author of the Two Treatises was less perfect than that of the English. He explained that

          Atwood accused Locke of supposing that the “Supreme Executive Power in a monarchy is to be found in one person. Consequently, when that single person breaches his or her contract with the citizens of the kingdom, the people of that kingdom must overthrow their government in order to redress their grievances. Furthermore, Atwood understood Locke to argue that once this revolution occurs, the people of that nation are restored to the state of nature and are without a common standard to mediate disputes. Atwood disagreed with this rationale, and explained that “all Monarchies in any measure Elective, and not only Co-ordinate Powers, but all Officers who derive their Powers from the immediate Choice of the People, or the Constitution, are besides [Locke’s argument].”³⁶

          Atwood contended that individuals are not restored to the state of nature when a monarch violates the agreement codified in the Ancient Constitution because the English nation posesses “a farther Contract among themselves, to prevent Anarchy and Confusion, at any time when the Throne might be vacant; and by virtue of this Contract they have regularly made those Elections, which are frequent in our Histories, and are authentick [sic] Presidents for our late Proceedings.³⁷ While At wood misunderstood Locke’s explanation that a dissolution of a government does not necessarily yield anarchy,³⁸ and consequently, placed individuals back into a state of nature prematurely, he still respected and admired Locke’s political ideas. He stated, “Since this Judicious Author’s bringing the Government back to its first Principles sooner than our Constitution allows, does not proceed from want of reasoning rightly, in which I cannot say that he ever fails; I hope it will not be thought that I in the least derogate from the Honour due to him...³⁹

          In 1692, James Tyrrell, a leading Whig and good friend of Locke, kept the Two Treatises in the attention of the public by printing numerous references and quotations from them in his popular compendium of political argument, the Bibliotheca Politica. It is interesting to note that the references to the Two Treatises all occur in the first three of the fourteen dialogues (i.e., those concerned with the refutation of partriarchalism and the establishment of a right of resistance), and that by far the majority of them were references to the First Treatise. Tyrrell presented his arguments in the form of a dialog between Mr. Freeman, a gentleman, and Mr. Meanwell, who initially was portrayed as a “civil lawyer” but became merely a “civilian” in later dialogs. The First Dialogue was to have taken place hours after James II fled from England. Mr. Freeman, portrayed as a friendly and competent gentleman, walks by the home of Mr. Meanwell, a man who relies more on hearsay and the thoughts of others to form conclusions. Mr. Freeman informs Mr. Meanwell of recent events, and they begin to debate the significance of what has transpired.

          The two men soon enter into an argument over the origins and purposes of hereditary monarchy. Mr. Meanwell asserts that a Divine Right handed down from God to Adam to a specific line of posterity grants individuals in that family the authority to rule. Mr. Meanwell then appeals to the arguments and authority of Robert Filmer⁴⁰ to establish the will of God and the authority of James II. Mr. Freeman responds by explaining that Meanwell’s (and Filmer’s) argument is greatly flawed. “[S]o light and transitory an Action, as that of Generation, cannot give any Man an absolute Property and Dominion over the Person and life of those whom he Begets; since few Men do principally intend the giving of a Being to another, so much as they do their own pleasure, in that Action.”⁴¹ Ultimately, God grants individuals their lives and is shown to be the “true and original Cause of our Being.”

          Mr. Freeman continues by paraphrasing Locke’s arguments against Filmer from the First Treatise. “[E]ven the Power which God himself exerciseth over Mankind is by Right of Fatherhood; yet this Fatherhood is such, as utterly excludes all pretence of Title in Earthly Parents; for he is our King, because he is indeed maker of us all, which no Natural Parents can pretend to be of their Children.”⁴² Mr. Freeman then extends Meanwell’s argument to demonstrate that a father’s power over his children can only extend one generation, for his children, by Filmer’s reasoning, would have control over their own children. This cycle can continue indefinitely, and reveals how Filmer’s appeal to the authority of Adam destroys the legitimacy of the hypothesis that a Divine Right grants individuals the authority to rule.

          Tyrrell later used Locke in his Third Dialogue in discussing whether the powers of monarchs are absolute. A slightly wiser Mr. Meanwell, who has accepted Freeman’s arguments from the first two dialogs, makes the argument that in a state of nature, individuals place their complete trust into another individual to rule over them. Once given, this trust cannot be removed, and very little obligations are imposed upon the trustees. To refute Meanwell, Mr. Freeman refers to Locke’s Second Treatise to show that the basis of trust requires a right to appeal grievances in order for a society to be just. “[I]t is one of the main Businesses of Supreme Courts of Justice, upon Complaints, or Appeals, of Breaches of Trust, to call the Trustees to an Account, and force them to make Restitution for the wrongs they have done.”43 Freeman continues, “For it cannot be supposed that the People would ever confer such an Arbitrary unlimited Power on one Man, or many, over their Lives, and Estates, that they might take them away without any just cause. For this were to put themselves into a worse Condition, than the State of Nature.”⁴⁴ Mr.Freeman concludes his argument explaining that granting the existence of a Supreme Power does not intimate that individuals sacrifice their rights to an arbitrary ruler.

          Bibliotheca Politica was not the only work of James Tyrrell that responded to the writings of John Locke. In his Brief Disquisiton of the Law of Nature (London, 1692), Tyrrell discussed the implications of how the edicts of the laws of nature “imprint” themselves in human minds. Tyrrell meticulously crafts his argument on the relationship between God and humanity, and he is very careful to incorporate the ideas found in Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding to provide a framework for his discussion. However; while Tyrrell pays homage to Hugo Grotius, Samuel Pufendorf, Thomas Hobbes, and Mr. Selden for their contributions in articulating a concept of the state of nature, no mention of John Locke’s Two Treatises is to be found.⁴⁶ While Tyrrell repeatedly looked to the Two Treatises to combat arguments of Patriarchalism and Divine Right, he did not even acknowledge the explanation of the state of nature found in the Second Treatise. This fact suggests that while Locke was acknowledged as an authority on matters of education and his First Treatise was admired for its significant ravaging of Filmer’s arguments, few acknowledged Locke’s political philosophy as authoritative.

          This view changed substantially when Locke’s friend, William Molyneux, applied the ideas of the Two Treatises to the current problems in Ireland. In his Case of Ireland’s being Bound by Acts of Parliament in England (London, 1698), Molyneux made a case for an independent Irish parliament. Molyneux took Locke’s doctrine and utilized it as an indictment of British dominion in Ireland. He cites Locke’s discussion on conquest in the Second Treatise, and states that “‘Tis plain he gets by his Conquest no Power over those who Conquered with him.”⁴⁷ Molyneux explains that, with this logic, only the “Ancient Race of the Irish” should suffer under any sort of British subjugation. However; “the English and Britains [who conquered with Henry II]” were being denied “the Freedoms and Immunities [due] Free-born Subjects.”⁴⁸

          Later in his argument, Molyneux presented a list of unfair taxes and treatment of Ireland in order to demonstrate the long chain of abuses, required by Locke’s Second Treatise to justify insurrection, showing that England has wrongfully imposed itself upon Ireland. Molyneux contended that these acts have little or no legal justification and challenged “any English Heart that stands so Justly in Vindication of his own Rights and Liberties” to justify depriving a nation that had enjoyed those same rights and liberties for five hundred years.⁴⁹ John Locke was dismayed when he discovered that the arguments of his Treatises were applied to the Irish situation, for he saw that, in the short term, such an application would serve only to weaken English support for what he took to be the only set of principles capable of justifying the 1688 Revolution. Despite Locke’s disapproval of the use of his arguments, William Molyneux sparked a controversy that not only focused more attention on the Two Treatises, but also revealed a shift in emphasis being placed upon Locke’s contract theory and natural rights instead of his refutation of Patriarchalism.

          Molyneux’s argument quickly received replies from Simon Clement, John Cary, and Charles Leslie. Clement and Cary acknowledged that they were supporters of Locke, but they refused to accept that his arguments could be used to defend a claim for Irish independence. Simon Clement, for example, insisted that Molyneux’s

          Clement’s belief that Locke had accurately described the laws of nature indicates that he had not read the Treatises very closely, for Locke expressly states
in the Treatises that “it would be besides my present purpose to enter here into the particulars of the Law of Nature, or its measures of punishment.”⁵¹ Locke was simply being used as an authority in a polemical debate and what mattered most was not precisely what Locke had written but rather that his authority should endorse what was viewed to be the correct side of the debate. Charles Leslie soon entered the dispute against Molyneux. He was not a supporter of Locke, but his argument against Molyneux played on Locke’s authority. Locke had founded political authority on consent, Leslie noted, and two successive Irish parliaments in 1692 and 1695 had pledged allegiance to William and Mary. Since the Irish parliaments had thus consented to English rule, Locke’s arguments testified against Molyneux’s argument, and therefore, Leslie concluded, Molyneux should reverse his judgment.⁵²

          The reputation of Two Treatises was certainly growing throughout the 1690s. Practically all references to the work were favorable, and more often than not, the author was regarded as “Learned and Ingenious,"⁵³ or insimilar regard. However; this evidence only serves to modify the initial impression that the Treatises occasioned no great immediate response. In all the arguments where appeal was made to Locke, he appeared simply as one among a number of authorities, and never as the authority. His work never attracted the attention of journal reviewers while the similar works of Pufendorf, Tyrrell and Sidney did. And it was not until 1703 that any Tory or Jacobite considered it worth their pains to engage in a critical examination of the Treatises.

CONCLUSION
 

          The evidence of the early reception of the Two Treatises indicates that the work was not an immediate success in either providing a philosophy for the Whigs or in justifying the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Although many of his contemporaries came to admire the First Treatise for its refutation of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha, many felt that Locke’s philosophical justification of the 1688 Revolution lacked the necessary emphasis on the Ancient Constitution of England to defend the removal of James II from power. Partially due to his work’s anonymity, Locke’s foray into the political realm initially made him little more than one philosopher among many political philosophers. Furthermore, an examination of early references to the Two Treatises suggests that beyond his refutation of Robert Filmer; Locke’s ideas were assembled, disassembled, utilized to support political agendas, and often gotten wrong. However; as the frenzied issues surrounding the Glorious Revolution began to settle, scholars more closely analyzed Locke’s work and his political ideas secured widespread attention. Soon, scholars placed greater emphasis on his broad analysis of natural rights and a social contract. Proponents of Patriarchalism and Divine Right eventually ceased to voice their opinions, and arguments began sprouting around the ideas of Locke’s Second Treatise. As a consequence of these more philosophical and timeless debates, emphasis on the First Treatise has taken a place beneath the pedestal bearing John Locke’s Second Treatise.

1.   J.L. Duncan, “Juristic Theories of the British Revolution of 1688,” The Juridical Review
44, no. 1 (1932): 36.

2.  David Home, “Of the Original Contract”, in C. W Hendel, ed., David Hume's Political
Essays (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953), 43.

3.  Charles Leslie, The New Association, Part II (London, 1703).

4.  Anon., An Essay upon Government: Wherein the Republican Schemes Reviv’d by Mr Lock are fairly Consider’d and Refuted (London, 1705).

5.  Martyn P. Thompson, “The Reception of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government 1690-1705,” Political Studies 24, no. 2 (1976): 184.

6.  Ibid., 185.

7.  John Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969).
 
 8.  See the letters of Molyneux to Locke (July 1692), in John Locke, The Works of John Locke. A New Edition (London, 1823), 9: 291-2; and James Tyrrell to Locke (30 August 1690), Lovelace MS. Locke c. 22. Fol. 119 as cited in Martyn P. Thompson, “The Reception of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government 1690-1705,” Political Studies 24, no. 2, (1976): 185.

9.  Anon., Political Aphorisms: Or, The True Maxims of Government (London, 1690).

10. William Atwood, Fundamental Constitution of the English Government (London, 1690),100.

11. Thompson, 187.

12. Algernon Sidney was tried and executed in 1683 for plotting against the English monarchy
but was exonerared in 1688 after the Glorious Revolution. Before his arrest, he wrote the
Discourses Concerning Government in response to Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha.

13. J· R. Milton, “Locke’s Life and Times,” in Cambridge Companion to Locke (London:
Cambridge University Press, 1994), 14.
 
14. Atwood, 101-2.

15. A Collection of Parliamentary Debates in England, from the Year M, DC, LXVIII. To the
Present Time (n.p., 1741), 249, as cited in Marryn P. Thompson, “The Reception of Locke’s
Two Treatises of Government 1690-1705,” Political Studies 24, no. 2, (1976): 188.

16. Locke had left the manuscripts containing the Two Treatises in England when he fled to
Holland. Apparently, a large part of the First Treatise had been either lost or deliberately
destroyed. Locke made no attempt to reconstruct it.

17. Atwood, 4.
 
18. Hume, 44.

19. Ibid.

20. Atwood, 101-2.

21. Oares falsely claimed that there was a Catholic conspiracy to kill King Charles II, massacre Protestants, and reinstitute Catholicism with the help of a French army. Oates’ claims were believed throughout England, the Protestant populous panicked, and many prominent Catholics were executed. It wasn’t until 1680 that the English courts began to disregard accusations made against Catholics by false informants.
 
22. Mark Kishlansky, A Monarchy Transformed (London: Penguin, 1996), 272.

23. J.P. Kenyon, Revolution Principles (Cambridge: Camhridge University Press, 1977), 10.

24. Bill of Rights of 1689, available at http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/rights.html on 16 December, 1998.
 
25. Kishlansky, 286.

26. Thomas, Earl of Stamford, Speech at the Leicester Quarter Sessions (London, 1690), 2.

27. Ibid., 3.

28. Atwood, i.

29. Ibid., ii.
 
30. Ibid., iii-iv.

31. Ibid., iv.

32. Ibid.

33. John Locke, Second Treatise as quoted in William Atwood, Fundamental Constitution of
the English Government (London, 1690), 101.
 
34. Ibid.
 
35. Atwood, 101.
 
36. Ibid.

37. Ibid., 102.

38. Two Treatises 8.
 
39. Atwood,102.
 
40.  Filmer’s Patriarcha, written between 1638 and 1640, is an essay on political obligation and the historical origin of political power. Filmer assumed that the Bible was a true and complete revelation of God’s will. Consequently, all significant lessons in history were to be found in the Bible. With this in mind, Filmer concluded that God granted Adam complete authority over the earth and its inhabitants. Filmer then explains that it is the expressed will of God that human societies be organized in similar fashion—with one man having complete authority over his nation.

41. JamesTyrrell, Bibliotheca Politica (London, 1692), First Dialogue, 13-14.

42. Ibid., 14.
 
43. JamesTyrrell, Bibliotheca Politica (London, 1692), Third Dialogue, 154.  Ibid., 155.
 
44. Ibid.,155.

45. Ibid.

46.  James Tyrrell, A Brief Disquistion of the Law of Nature (London, 1692), Preface.

47. William Molyneux, Case of Ireland’s being Bound by Acts of Parliament in England (London, 1698), 19.

48.  Ibid.

49. Ibid.,105.
 
50. An Answer to Mr. Molyneux His Case of Ireland’s being bound by Acts of Parliament in England, Stated (London, 1698), 30-3 1. Cf. Very similar criticism of Molyneux’s argument found in J. Cary, A Vindication of the Parliament of England, In Answer to a Book written by William Molyneux of Dublin (London, 1698), 103.

51. Two Treatises, II 12.
 
52. Charles Leslie, Considerations of Importance to Ireland, in a letter to a member of Parliament there; upon occasion of Mr Molyneaux’s [sic] late book: intituled, [sic] The case of Ireland’s being bound by Acts of Parliament in England, stated (London, 1698), 3-4.

53. Lord John Somers, Jura Pupuli Anglicani (London, 1701), 30, as cited in Martyn P. Thompson, “The Reception of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government 1690-1705,” Political Studies 24, no. 2,1976:187.