Bolingbroke, Henry St John, Viscount

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Bolingbroke, Henry St John, Viscount (1678–1751) English politician. A prominent Tory minister under Queen Anne, in 1714 Bolingbroke fled to France and joined the Jacobites. In 1723 he was allowed to return to England, and continued to oppose the Whig regime, attacking political corruption under Robert Walpole. The best known of his many philosophical and political writings is The Idea of a Patriot King (1749), upholding the role of monarchy in government.

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