Item III/I/17 - A Collection of Pamphlets with a Table of Contents on the Preliminary fly leaves in an C18th hand

L’ESTRANGE, SIR ROGER, second son of Sir Hamon L’Estrange, Kt, Hunstanton, Norfolk, and Alice, dau. of Richard Stubbe, Sedgeford, Norfolk; b. 17 Dec 1616; at school under Osbaldeston one year, having previously been two years at Eton (Sidney Sussex Coll. Camb. admissions); Sidney Sussex Coll. Cambridge, adm. fellow commoner 6 Nov 1634; adm. Gray’s Inn 6 Feb 1636/7; an ardent royalist; formed a plan for the recapture of King’s Lynn from Parliament in 1644, but was caught and sentenced to death; escapred from Newgate 1648 and attempted to start a royalist rising in Kent, but had to flee to Netherlands; returned to England 1653; published a number of anonymous broadsides attacking Lambert and the leaders of the army in 1659; after the Restoration vehemently denounced the liberty of the press, and was appointed Surveyor of “The Imprimery” 15 Aug 1663; started two weekly news sheets, The Intelligencer and The News; became notorious for the severity of his literary censorship and for his vigilance in the suppression of unlicenced presses; endeavoured to disprove the existence of the Popish Plot, but had to flee the country Nov 1680 and was burnt in effigy by a London mob; returned to England Feb 1681; started The Observator in Question and Answer, dealing unsparingly with dissenters and Whigs, Apr 1681; MP Winchester 1685-7; knighted 30 Apr 1685; deprived of his office of licenser at the revolution of 1688; committed to prison for short periods 1688, 1691, 1696; author, The Fables of Aesop and Other Mythologists with Moral Reflections, 1692, The Works of Flavius Josephus compared with the Original Greek, 1702, and other works; m. Mary, dau. of Sir Thomas Doleman, Kt, Shaw, Berks.; d. 11 Dec 1704. DNB.