[Preliminary entry]. Sir Robert Filmer was born around 1588 and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and at Lincoln's Inn. He was well placed in the court of Charles I and thus came to be knighted. Whilst he was too old to fight for the king during the Civil Wars he was briefly imprisoned as a Royalist and his house in East Sutton was sacked. Filmer died in 1653 and his importance was chiefly posthumous.

Filmer's political tracts, which were published between 1648 and 1653, were re-published by Tories who believed in the divine right of kings during the Exclusion Crisis of 1679-80. These included The Freeholder's Grand Inquest (1679), which argued that Parliament only sat at the king's will, and The anarchy of a limited or mixed monarchy, which argued that any limitations on

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Citation: Clark, Robert. "Sir Robert Filmer". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 August 2005; last revised 29 January 2009. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1529, accessed 19 March 2024.]

1529 Sir Robert Filmer 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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