While it was once thought that Locke wrote the Treatises to defend the Glorious Revolution of 1688 , recent scholarship has shown that the work was composed before this even started . While it was once thought that Locke wrote the Treatises to defend the Glorious Revolution of 1688 , recent scholarship has shown that the work was composed well before this date , however , and it is now viewed as a more general argument against Absolute monarchy ( particularly as espoused by Robert Filmer and Thomas Hobbes ) and for individual consent as the basis of political legitimacy .