ABSTRACT
JOHN LOCKE’S Two Treatises of Government was published in England in 1690 with the avowed motive of justifying the Whig rebellion and revolution of 1688, which had put William of Orange on the English throne. Locke wished to defend the new regime by showing that rebellion by Williamites against King James had been legitimate, but that rebellion by Jacobites against King William in 1689 and after would be illegitimate. Thus Locke poses once more the Hobbesian questions, In what does the legitimate authority of a sovereign consist? and, When, if ever, is rebellion justified?
