d. 1653, English royalist political writer, author of
Patriarcha; or, The Natural Power of Kings (pub. posthumously
in 1680), a defense of the divine right of monarchs by an exposition
of the patriarchal theory of the origin of government. He attacked
Hobbes’s contractual theory. Filmer’s work was highly influential
among Tory political leaders, and it was to refute Filmer that John
Locke wrote his two Treatises on Civil Government.
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