James Tyrrell

James Tyrrell (5 May 1642 – 17 June 1718) was an English author, Whig political philosopher, and historian. He was the grandson of James Ussher and a friend of John Locke.

Life James Tyrrell was born in London, the eldest son of Sir Timothy Tyrrell and Elizabeth Tyrrell (née Ussher), the only daughter of Archbishop James Ussher. His younger sister Eleanor married the deist Charles Blount. He lived in Oakley, Buckinghamshire. He was married to Mary Hutchinson (1645-1687), daughter of Sir Michael Hutchinson of Fladbury, Worcestershire. They had at least three children, including James Tyrrell and Mary and another son.

Educated at The Queen's College, Oxford (MA, 1663), he became a barrister in 1666 and a justice of the peace in Buckinghamshire. He was deprived of this office by James II for failing to support the Declaration of Indulgence.

He spent his later years in Shotover, near Oxford and began building Shotover Park there, where he died on 17 June 1718, A Brief Disquisition of the Law of Nature was an English abridgment of Richard Cumberland's De legibus naturae. Bibliothetica politica was a huge compendium of Whig constitutional theory.

Patriarcha non monarcha. The patriarch unmonarch'd: being observations on a late treatise and divers other miscellanies, published under the name of Sir Robert Filmer baronet. In which the falseness of those opinions that would make monarchy jure divino are laid open: and the true principles of government and property (especially in our kingdom) asserted. By a lover of truth and of his country, 1681 A brief disquisition of the law of nature, according to the principles laid down in the reverend Dr. Cumberland's (now Lord Bishop of Peterborough's) Latin treatise on that subject. As also his considerations of Mr. Hobbs's principles put into another method, 1692 Bibliotheca politica: or An enquiry into the ancient constitution of the English government; both in respect to the just extent of regal power, and the rights and liberties of the subject. Wherein all the chief arguments, as well against, as for the late revolution, are impartially represented, and considered, in thirteen dialogues. Collected out of the best authors, as well antient as modern ..., 1694 The General History of England, both Ecclesiastical and Civil (5 volumes, published between 1700 and 1704). In which Tyrrell demonstrates that the liberties of the people are not concessions of kings.