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 rebuttals, 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.
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Life
The eldest child of Sir Edward Filmer and Elizabeth Filmer (née Argall) of East Sutton in Kent, he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, 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 Filmer, as the oldest child, 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 for 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.