Sir Roger L'Estrange was an English pamphleteer and author, and staunch defender of royalist claims. L'Estrange was involved in political controversy throughout his life. Perhaps his best known polemical pamphlet was An Account of the Growth of Knavery, which ruthlessly attacked the parliamentary opposition, placing them as "dissenting fanatics" and truly beyond the pale.

Early Life

Roger L'Estrange was born in Hunstanton

Hunstanton

Hunstanton, often pronounced by locals as and known colloquially as 'Sunny Hunny', is a seaside town in Norfolk, England, facing The Wash....

 as the youngest son of a Norfolk baronet

L'Estrange Baronets

The L'Estrange Baronetcy, of Hunstanton in the County of Norfolk, was a title in the Baronetage of England. It was created on 1 June 1629 for Nicholas L'Estrange. The fourth Baronet sat as Member of Parliament for Castle Rising...

 and fought on the Royalist side in the English Civil War

English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

. In 1644 he led a conspiracy to deliver the town of Lynn to the king and was sentenced to death as a spy, although after four years' imprisonment in Newgate Prison

Newgate Prison

Newgate Prison was a prison in London, at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey just inside the City of London. It was originally located at the site of a gate in the Roman London Wall. The gate/prison was rebuilt in the 12th century, and demolished in 1777...

 he was able to escape to the Continent, finding refuge in Holland.

In 1653 he returned to England, with a special pardon by Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

 and lived quietly, maintaining a low profile. By 1659, however, he was making his presence as a Royalist

Royalist

A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of government, but not necessarily a particular monarch...

 known. He printed several pamphlets supporting a return of Charles II and attacked various Commonwealth writers, including John Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

 in a pamphlet titled No Blinde Guides.

Career during the Restoration

Restoration (1660)

The term Restoration in reference to the year 1660 refers to the restoration of Charles II to his realms across the British Empire at that time.-England:...

As a reward for his propaganda, L'Estrange was granted a warrant to seize seditious books or pamphlets in 1662 and in recognition of his Considerations and Proposals in Order to the Regulation of the Press he was appointed Surveyor of the Imprimery (Printing Press) the following year. Thereafter, also appointed Licenser of the Press, he retained both positions until the lapse of the Licensing of the Press Act

Licensing of the Press Act 1662

The Licensing of the Press Act 1662 is an Act of the Parliament of England , long title "An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Bookes and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses." It was repealed by the Statute Law Revision...

 in 1679. The latter was not, however, a continuous appointment. At one time, L’Estrange was deprived of his post as Licenser by Joseph Williamson

Joseph Williamson (politician)

Sir Joseph Williamson, FRS was an English civil servant, diplomat and politician who sat in the House of Commons of England variously between 1665 and 1701 and in the Irish House of Commons between 1692 and 1699....

; but when anti-Royalist pamphleteering began to turn the city against the king, L’Estrange was recalled to this position.

As Licenser and Surveyor, L’Estrange was charged with the prevention of the publication of dissenting writings, and authorised to search the premises of printers and booksellers on the merest suspicion of dissension. L’Estrange excelled at this, hunting out hidden presses, and enlisting peace officers and soldiers to suppress their activities. He soon came to be known as the “Bloodhound of the Press.” His careful monitoring and control of nonconformist ideas and opinions succeeded not only in checking seditious publications, but also in limiting political controversy and reducing debate.

There were, however, notable excesses. Under L’Estrange, the antennae of state censorship prickled at the very mention of the monarch and he famously objected to the following lines from Milton’s Paradise Lost, Book I:

As when the Sun new ris'n

Looks through the Horizontal misty Air

Shorn of his Beams, or from behind the Moon

In dim Eclips disastrous twilight sheds

On half the Nations, and with fear of change

Perplexes Monarchs.

In 1668, William Lilly

William Lilly

William Lilly , was an English astrologer famed during his time. Lilly was particularly adept at interpreting the astrological charts drawn up for horary questions, as this was his speciality....

, the astrologer and occultist, had commented on the connection between comets and the death of princes in a draft to his 1670 almanac: comets indicated, wrote Lilly, “some dreadful matter at hand,” and were “a prediction of the fall of kings and tyrants.” The latter comment was removed from the draft by L’Estrange.

In 1663 L'Estrange had ventured into newspaper publishing with The Public Intelligencer and The News, but the unpopularity brought him by his position, coupled with dissatisfaction with his product and intrigues to wrest away his monopoly, eventually led to the loss of his favoured position. In the later years of the reign, he was once again involved in writing for the Court. The Whigs were actively engaged in the publishing of tracts critical of Charles and his ministers; L'Estrange countered by comparing the divisiveness of the Whigs with the Parliamentarians on the eve of the Civil War. He also sought to calm the popular hysteria arising from the Popish Plot

Popish Plot

The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy concocted by Titus Oates that gripped England, Wales and Scotland in Anti-Catholic hysteria between 1678 and 1681. Oates alleged that there existed an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Charles II, accusations that led to the execution of at...

 in pamphlets questioning the truthfulness of Titus Oates

Titus Oates

Titus Oates was an English perjurer who fabricated the "Popish Plot", a supposed Catholic conspiracy to kill King Charles II.-Early life:...

' allegations. At this period too he helped Thomas Britton

Thomas Britton

Thomas Britton was an English charcoal merchant best known as a concert promoter.-Biography:Born in Rushden, Northamptonshire, Britton moved to London at a young age and apprenticed himself to a small coal-man in Clerkenwell...

 found his concert series, playing the viol

Viol

The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...

 at the first event in 1678.

Towards the end of 1680 he was forced to flee the country by the political opposition but on his return the next year he started another paper called The Observator

The Observator

The Observator was a newspaper written by Roger L'Estrange, and published from April 13, 1681 to March 9, 1686 or 1687.L'Estrange was a defender of the Monarchy, and promoted his anti-whig agenda through The Observator....

, a single sheet printed in double columns on both sides. It was written in the form of a dialogue between a Whig and a Tory (later Trimmer and Observator), with the bias on the side of the latter. During the six years of its existence, L'Estrange wrote with a consistent fierceness, meeting his enemies with personal attacks characterized by sharp wit. One of his main targets was Titus Oates, whose increasingly extreme allegations eventually brought about his conviction for perjury in 1685.

Later Life

In 1685, L'Estrange was knighted by King James II

James II of England

James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...

 and became a Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Winchester from 1685 to 1689. However, though a fierce Tory and High Anglican, he opposed the religious toleration

Religious toleration

Toleration is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. One can meaningfully speak of tolerating, ie of allowing or permitting, only if one is in a position to disallow”. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or "to nourish, sustain or preserve"...

 of Catholics, which put him at odds with the policy of the new king. After the revolution in favour of William III, he lost all his offices and was arrested several times on suspicion of involvement in plots against him.

L'Estrange now turned to writing again and published translations of Seneca the Younger

Seneca the Younger

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...

's Morals and Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

's Offices, besides his master-work of this period, Fables of Aesop and other eminent mythologists (1692). This notably included nearly all of the Hecatomythium of Laurentius Abstemius

Laurentius Abstemius

Laurentius Abstemius was an Italian writer, professor of Belles Lettres at Urbino, and librarian to Duke Guido Ubaldo under Pope Alexander VI. Born at Macerata in Ancona, he distinguished himself, at the time of the revival of letters, as a writer of considerable talents...

, among several other fabulists. The style is racily idiomatic and each fable is accompanied by a short moral and a longer reflection, which set the format for fable collections for the next century.

In 1702 he completed his acclaimed English translation of "The works of Flavius Josephus". Additionally he wrote a 'Key' to Hudibras

Hudibras

Hudibras is an English mock heroic narrative poem from the 17th century written by Samuel Butler.-Purpose:The work is a satirical polemic upon Roundheads, Puritans, Presbyterians and many of the other factions involved in the English Civil War...

, a 17th century satire by Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler may refer to:*Samuel Butler , author of Hudibras*Samuel Butler , classical scholar, schoolmaster at Shrewsbury, Bishop of Lichfield...

on the English Civil War, which was included in several 18th century editions of the work.