Filmer, Sir Robert

, son of sir Edward Filmer, of East Sutton, in Kent, by Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Richard Argall, esq. was born in the end of the sixteenth, century, and educated in Trinity-college, in Cambridge, of which he was matriculated July 5, 1604. His works are, 1 “The Anarchy of a limited and mixed Monarchy,” 1646, which was an answer to Hunton’s “Treatise on Monarchy,” printed in 1C43. Sir Robert’s work was reprinted in 1652 and 1679, 8vo. 2. “Patriarcha,” in which he endeavours to prove, that all government was monarchical at first, and that all legal titles to govern are originally derived from the heads of families, or from such upon whom their right was transferred, either by cession or failure of the line. He also wrote, “The Freeholders’ Grand Inquest, &c.” On the trial of the celebrated Sidney, it was made a charge that they found in his possession a manuscript answer to Filmer’s “Patriarcha,” but this was afterwards more completely answered by Locke, in his “Two Treatises on Government,” published in 1689 Filnrer died in 1647. ²