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Viscount Henry St. John Bolingbroke Biography

Viscount Henry St. John Bolingbroke Image

BOLINGBROKE, Viscount Henry St. John (1678-1751). An English statesman, orator, and author. He was born at Battersea, Oct. 1, 1678. He was educated at Eton, and, it is said, at Oxford; but the only ground for this assertion is that of the honorary degree conferred upon him by the university in 1702. During 1698-99 he resided on the Continent, and acquired a knowledge of the French language, which was afterwards of service to him. His early manhood was notorious for extreme licentiousness, but having entered Parliament in 1701, he devoted himself to politics and, joining the Tory party, soon made himself prominent as an orator. In 1704 he was made Secretary of State for War. This office he retained till 1708, when the Whigs came into power, after which he retired from politics, and gave himself up to study, but still retained great influence as the Queen's favorite counselor. On the fall of the Whig party in 1710, he was made Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In 1712 he was called to the House of Lords with the title of Viscount Bolingbroke, and in 1713, against the wish of nearly the entire nation, concluded the Peace of Utrecht. Having previously quarreled with his old friend Harley now Earl of Oxford, and his most powerful rival-he contrived his dismissal in July, 1714, and immediately. proceeded to form a strong Jacobite ministry, in accordance with the well-known predilections of his royal mistress. Her death, however, three days later, disconcerted his schemes, and the accession of George I proved a deathblow to his prospects. On the 28th of August he was deposed from office; in March, 1715, he fled to France, and in August of the same year was attainted. For some time he held the office of Secretary of State to the Pretender; but his restless and ambitious spirit yearned for the "large excitement" of English politics. His efforts to obtain a pardon not proving in the meantime successful, he retired to a small estate which he had purchased near Orleans. In 1718 his first wife died, and in 1720 he married the rich widow of the Marquis de Vilette. A judicious use of this lady's wealth enabled him to return to England in May, 1725. His property was restored to him, but he was never permitted to take his seat in Parliament. He therefore betook himself to his villa at Dawley, near Uxbridge, where he occasionally enjoyed the society of Swift, Pope, and others of his old friends, with whom he had corresponded in his exile, and where he diversified his moral and metaphysical studies by his attacks on the ministry in his periodical, The Craftsman, in which the letters forming his Dissertation on Parties first appeared. In 1735, finding his political hopes clouded forever, he went back to France in chagrin, and continued there till 1742. During his second residence abroad he wrote his Letters on the Study of History, in which, as a Deist, he violently attacked the Christian religion. He is believed to have influenced the thought of Voltaire. It was also during this period that he wrote his famous Patriot King, an attempt to create in England the idea of "benevolent despotism" then so prevalent on the Continent. He died, after a long illness, in 1751. Bolingbroke has been styled the Alcibiades of his time, and was admired by his contemporaries for his graceful person and charming manners. His talents were brilliant and versatile; his style of writing was polished and eloquent, and repays study to the present day; but the lack of sincerity and honest purpose which characterized him, and the unscrupulous ambition which made him aim for power, hindered him from looking wisely and deeply into any question. His philosophical theories are not profound, nor are his conclusions solid, while his criticism of passing history is worthless. His collected writings were published by Mallet (London, 1753-54).