Robert Filmer

Sir Robert Filmer (c. 1588 – 26 May 1653) was an English political theorist who defended the divine right of kings. His best known work, Patriarcha, published posthumously in 1680, was the target of numerous Whig attempts at rebuttal, including Algernon Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government, James Tyrrell's Patriarcha Non Monarcha and John Locke's Two Treatises of Government. Filmer also wrote critiques of Thomas Hobbes, John Milton, Hugo Grotius and Aristotle.

The eldest child of Sir Edward Filmer and Elizabeth Filmer (née Argall) of East Sutton in Kent, he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1604. He did not take a degree and was admitted to Lincoln's Inn on 24 January 1605. He was called to the bar in 1613 but there is no evidence he practised law. He bought the porter's lodge at Westminster Abbey for use as his town house. On 8 August 1618 he married Anne Heton in St Leonard's Church in London, with their first child baptised in February 1620. On 24 January 1619 King James I knighted Filmer at Newmarket.

Filmer's father died in November 1629 and therefore Filmer took over his father's manor house and estate. He became a Justice of the Peace and an Officer of the county militia in the 1630s. Filmer's eldest son Sir Edward was active in opposing the Long Parliament and Filmer stood surety for £5000 to ensure the release of his friend Sir Roger Twysden who had been imprisoned for his part in the Kentish petition. The Parliamentary army looted his manor house in September 1642 and by the next year his properties in Westminster and Kent were being heavily taxed to fund the Parliamentary cause. Filmer was investigated by the county committee on suspicion of supporting the King though no firm evidence was uncovered. Filmer asked the investigators to note "how far he hath binn from medling on either side in deeds or so much as words". However one of his tenants claimed that Filmer had hidden arms for the Royalists (though apparently this was a false charge). Perhaps because of this, Filmer was imprisoned for some years in Leeds Castle and his estates were sequestered.

...
Wikipedia