[Sir Francis Dashwood]

Hobbes had a motive of his own: he was eager to disparage any authority that could be held over the head of the King.

Wrong...

If you had actually read the book, you would know that it says that the Israelites were only supposed to have God as their King and not an earthly monarch... (this is also in the Bible) BUT, as the story goes, Moses was the first to say that our rights do not come from an earthly monarch... and the Israelites rejected God as their King...

So, God let them have their earthly rulers... and how did that work out?

And, incidentally, Hobbes had no other choice but to be a monarchist, in those days losing your head was very easy...

[danielmryan]

Wrong...

If you had actually read the book...

Leviathan? I have read it, and I don't recall any recommended restraints on the sovereign. There are none noted in Wikipedia's summary of the book.

If I'm wrong, then you're either referring to another book by Hobbes or else you're pointing to a rather obscure part of it.

It's true that Hobbes had little choice to be a monarchist - but a supporter of absolute monarchy? Does he even mention Magna Carta?

[danielmryan]

You could make way for restraints on a monarch's power by saying that a particular monarch chooses to accept those restraints, while noting that the choice to accept the constraints lies only with the monarch. That's consistent with Hobbes' psychological egoism and the schema in Leviathan. But, in combination with Hobbes' "war of all against all" if there be no sovereign in place, it still insinuates that there should be no outside limits to a sovereign's power.