Thomas Hobbes spent most of his long life (1588-1679) connected with the Cavendish family. He lived through the turbulence of the English Civil War and the European Thirty Years War. This little monograph reclaims the author of the most important work of political philosophy in the English language for Derbyshire, and examines how his radically mechanistic approach to reality led to clashes with the both clergy and the emerging scientific establishment.