Thomas Hobbes

1588-1679. English philosopher and cult figure.

Born at Malmesbury (supposedly frightened before his birth by the approach of the Spanish Armada) and educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford. Like John Milton, he travelled to the European continent and met Galileo Galilei, Descartes and Mersenne. Briefly worked as mathematical tutor to the exiled King Charles II, but returned to England and submitted to the Commonwealth regime in 1652. Got a pension after the Restoration in 1660.

Known as influential political philosopher, most famously for The Leviathan (1651). Traditionalists did not like Hobbes's very cynical (others would say realistic) view on political power and denounced him as the "monster of Malmesbury".

Sources:

Longer Biography available on Luminarium.org [1]

Kersting, Wolfgang: Thomas Hobbes, Hamburg: Junius 2004.

Röd, Wolfgang: Der Weg der Philosophie, Hamburg: C.H. Beck, 1996.