Robert Filmer

About the Author

Robert Filmer (c. 1588–1653) was an English political theorist and staunch defender of absolute monarchy, whose writings profoundly influenced Restoration-era debates on governance and authority. Born into a Kentish gentry family, Filmer inherited conservative Anglican views that shaped his opposition to contractual theories of government, particularly those espoused by thinkers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. His seminal work, Patriarcha, unpublished during his lifetime but circulated in manuscript, argues that kings derive their power directly from God through patriarchal lineage, likening royal authority to a father's dominion over his household. Other writings, including critiques of popular sovereignty, reinforced his belief in divine right as the bulwark against anarchy. Filmer's ideas, though later eclipsed by Enlightenment liberalism, remain essential for understanding the ideological clashes of seventeenth-century England.