shaftesbury, as a member of the whig movement, was a big influence on locke's political ideas. however, after shaftesbury began to fall from favor in 1675, locke decided to travel across france. he came back to england in 1679. at this time, due to shaftesbury's insists, locke wrote the "two treatises of government". 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.