BOLINGBROKE, Henry St. John, VIS COUNT, English statesman: b. Battersea in Sur rey 1678 (baptized 10 October) ; d. Battersea, 12 Dec. 1751. He was the son of Sir Henry St. John, afterward Viscount St. John, of Battersea, and Mary, daughter of Robert Rich Earl of Warwick, thus be ing (in Goldsmith's words) of a family the first rank, equally conspicuous for its antiquity, dignity, and large possessions.' As a child he was brought up in the house of his grandmother, a rigid Presbyterian, where his early and enforced studies of Dr. Manton's famous commentaries are supposed to have °prepared him to become a High Churchman.' However, he went early to Eton, where he com pleted his education, although it was long as serted that he went to Oxford (Christ Church). About 1698-99 he traveled abroad, and lived generally for a time, with all the avidity of youth and of high spirits, what is called a life of pleasure. He dabbled a little in literature; but his chief ambition seems to have been distinction in dissipation. In 1700 he married Frances Winchescombe, daughter and co heiress of Sir Henry Winchescombe; and en tered Parliament for the family borough of Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire. His brilliant ora torical abilities speedily attracted attention; and he eventually cast in his lot with the then dominant Tories, of whom Harley (the speaker) was the leader. In 1702 he received an honorary doctor's degree at Oxford. Two years later, when Harley became Secretary of State, he was made Secretary at War, a post which he retained until February 1708, when upon the accession of the rival Whig party under Marlborough and Godolphin, he and Harley went out together.
For the next two years he led a retired life. But in August 1710 the political whirligig re stored the Tories to power with Harley again at their head; and Bolingbroke, sitting in the new Parliament as member for Berkshire, be came Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In 1712 he was created Viscount Bolingbroke and Baron St. John of Lydiard Tregoze, and he bore a chief part in the °vile Utrecht Treaty,' as Prior calls it, of March 1713. By this time
his friendship for his temporizing, sluggish co adjutor had greatly declined; and the last years of their political alliance were years of wrang ling hostility, which Swift (the friend of both) strove vainly to mitigate. Then when at last, Bolingbroke had compassed the downfall of Harley, and was intriguing for a Jacobite suc cession, Queen Anne died suddenly in August 1714, and changed the aspect of affairs.
With the accession of George I, Boling broke's power passed away. The new King dismissed him, and after a short time he found it expedient to fly to France. His impeachment and attainder speedily followed. In France, where he remained seven years, he became Sec retary of State to the Pretender, by whom also he was eventually dismissed for alleged neglect of duty. In October 1718 his first wife, with whom he had never got on very well, died; and in 1722 he married Marie-Claire Deschamps de Marcilly, widow of the Marquis de Villette, by whose exertions, and interest with King George's mistress, the Duchess of Kendal, he was ultimately allowed to return to England. In 1725 his property was restored, but, he could not recover his rights as a peer, and was thus excluded from the House of Lords. At this date he resided at Dawley, near Uxbridge, where he occupied himself in the preparation of philosophical treatises, and of political articles in the Craftsman, 1727-34, in opposition to Walpole. In 1735, finding it hopeless to re enter political life, he retired again to France, Where he lived at Chantclou in Touraine until his father's death in the spring of 1742. This brought him again to his paternal home at Battersea. Here for nine years longer he for the most part resided until 12 Dec. 1751, when he died of a cancer in the face,— the long torture of which he bore with exemplary forti tude. His second wife, to whom he was tenderly attached, had died in the previous year. Both were buried at Battersea, where there is a mon ument to them in the parish church, with medallions by Roubillac.