BookRix

Henry St. John, Who Became Viscount Bolingbroke In 1712, Was Born On
The 1st Of October, 1678, At The Family Manor Of Battersea, Then A
Country Village. His Grandfather, Sir Walter St. John, Lived There
With His Wife Johanna,--Daughter To Cromwell's Chief Justice, Oliver
St. John,--In One Home With The Child's Father, Henry St. John, Who
Was Married To The Second Daughter Of Robert Rich, Earl Of Warwick.
The Child's Grandfather, A Man Of High Character, Lived To The Age
Of Eighty-Seven; And His Father, More A Man Of What Is Miscalled
Pleasure, To The Age Of Ninety. It Was Chiefly By His Grandfather
And Grandmother That The Education Of Young Henry St. John Was Cared
For. Simon Patrick, Afterwards Bishop Of Ely, Was For Some Years A
Chaplain In Their Home. By His Grandfather And Grandmother The
Child's Religious Education May Have Been Too Formally Cared For. A
Passage In Bolingbroke's Letter To Pope Shows That He Was Required
As A Child To Read Works Of A Divine Who "Made A Hundred And
Nineteen Sermons On The Hundred And Nineteenth Psalm."



After Education At Eton And Christchurch, Henry St. John Travelled
Abroad, And In The Year 1700 He Married, At The Age Of Twenty-Two,
Frances, Daughter And Co-Heiress Of Sir Henry Winchescomb, A
Berkshire Baronet. She Had Much Property, And More In Prospect.