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Behemoth blames the British civil wars of the mid-seventeenth century on the seditious teachings of ambitious clerics, and especially of Presbyterians. Hobbes says much against Catholic and Presbyterian theories of church-state relations. Behemoth sides strongly with the royalist cause in the wars, condemning those who fought against the king as traitors. But it has been argued that in Leviathan Hobbes himself betrayed the royalist cause, and that he wrote the book to curry favor with the Rump Parliament and the Independents. It has also been contended that traces of Hobbes' earlier support for the Independents are still visible in Behemoth, as he there treats Independency and Oliver Cromwell with notable mildness. However, these positions cannot be sustained, for Hobbes displays little sympathy with the Independents or the Rump parliament either in Leviathan or in Behemoth, and in both books he maintains many distinctively royalist views on politics and church-state relations, though he breaks with most royalists by attacking divine right episcopacy. ; Behemoth naprtuje krivdo za britansko državljansko vojno sredi sedemnajstega stoletja na puntarske nauke stremuških klerikov, še posebej prezbiterijancev. Hobbes ima veliko povedati zoper katoliške in prezbiterijanske teorije o razmerju med cerkvijo in državo. Behemoth se odločno postavlja na kraljevo stran in obsoja tiste, ki so se vojskovali proti kralju, kot izdajalce. Vendar smo lahko slišali, daje Hobbes v Leviathanu sam izdal kraljevo stvar in daje napisal tisto delo, da bi si pridobil zasluge pri takratnem parlamentu in independentih. Prav tako smo lahko slišali, daje sledi Hobbeso-ve nekdanje podpore independentom mogoče najti tudi še v Behemothu, češ da so independenti in Oliver Cromwell obravnavani tu nenavadno blago. Vendar so ti pogledi nevzdržni, kajti Hobbes kaže bore malo naklonjenosti do independentov ali revolucionarnega parlamenta tako v Leviathanu kot v Behemothu ter v obeh teh delih zagovarja številna razločno rojalistična stališča o politiki in razmeiju med cerkvijo in državo, četudi se razide z rojalisti, ko napade škofovstvo po božjem pravu.

Orthodoxy maintains that English political thinking before Hobbes was based upon an unphilosophical, precedent-bound reading of history. According to J. G. A. Pocock, Sir Edward Coke typically held that English customary law was pre-historical and that the continuity of English traditions had never been broken by conquest. Conquerors possessed sovereign power; in England there had been no conqueror; so there was no supra-legal sovereign. English liberty was deducible from history. Pocock's thesis is inadequate since Coke and many others admitted that there had been a conquest. Their claims rested not upon English history but upon theoretical premises characteristic of Continental thought. Coke's concept of custom was itself theory-laden. Rival theories were largely indifferent to the question of the Norman Conquest, a non-issue in political debate.