This gentleman was second son of Sir Hammon L’Estrange of Hunston in Norfolk, knt. and was born anno 1617.  In the year 1644 Sir Roger having obtained a commission from King Charles I. for reducing Lynne in Norfolk, then in possession of the Parliament, his design was discovered to colonel Walton the governour, and his person seized.  Upon the failing of this enterprize he was tried by a court-martial at Guildhall, London, and condemned to lose his life as a spy, coming from the King’s quarters without drum, trumpet, or pass; but was afterwards reprieved, and continued in Newgate several years.  Sir Roger in a work of his, called Truth and Loyalty Vindicated, has informed us, that, when he received sentence of death, which was pronounced against him by Dr. Mills, then judge advocate, and afterwards chancellor to the bishop of Norwich, he was cast into Newgate, where he was visited by Mr. Thorowgood and Mr. Arrowsmith, two members of the assembly of divines, who kindly offered him their utmost interest if he would make some petitionary acknowledgment, and submit to take the covenant, which he refused.  But that he might obtain a reprieve, he wrote several letters to the earl of Northumberland, the earl of Stamford, and others of the nobility, from whom he received favours.  In the House of Commons he was particularly obliged to Sir John Corbet, and Sir Henry Cholmondley.  He was reprieved in order to a further hearing; but after almost thirty months spent in vain endeavours, either to come to a hearing, or to put himself into an exchangeable condition, he printed a state of his case, as an Appeal from the Court-martial to the Parliament, dated at Newgate in 1647.

After almost four years imprisonment, with his keeper’s privity, he slipt into Kent, and then with much difficulty got beyond sea.  About the latter end of August 1653, upon the dissolution of the Long Parliament, by Cromwel, he returned into England, and presently acquainted the council, then sitting at Whitehall, that finding himself within the Act of Indemnity, he thought it his duty to give them notice of his return.  Soon after this he was served with the following order,

Wednesday September 7, 1655,

Ordered,

That Roger L’Estrange be sent unto, to attend the committee of this council for examination.

John Thurloe, Secretary.

This order laid him under a necessity of attending for his discharge, but perceiving his business to advance very slowly, and his father at that time lying upon his death-bed, he was sollicitous to have his discharge as much hastened as possible, that he might pay his duty to his father, whom he had not seen for many years before.  Mr. Strickland was one of the commissioners appointed to examine him, and the person from whom, in the judgment of his friends, he was to expect the least favour.  Mr. L’Estrange therefore to render him more propitious to his purpose, paid him the compliment of a visit, telling him frankly that he was returned upon the invitation of the Act of Indemnity; and laying before him how much it concerned him, both in comfort and interest, to see his dying father.  Mr. Strickland, in place of complying with Mr. L’Estrange’s proposition, answered, that he would find himself mistaken, and that his case was not included in that Act.  Mr. L’Estrange’s reply to him was, ’that he might have been safe among the Turks upon the same terms; and so he left him.  From that time matters beginning to look worse and worse, he considered it, as his last expedient, to address Cromwel himself.  After several disappointments, for want of opportunity, he spoke to him at last in the Cock-pit, and the sum of his desire was, either a speedy examination, or that it might be deferred ’till he had seen his father.  Cromwel remonstrated against the restlessness of his party, observed, ’that rigour was not his inclination, but that he was but one man, and could do little by himself; and that Mr. L’Estrange’s party would do well to give some better testimony of their quiet, and peaceable intentions.’  Mr. L’Estrange told him, ’that every man was to answer for his own actions, at his own peril;’ and so Cromwel took his leave.  Some time after this Mr. L’Estrange was called, and Mr. Strickland, with another gentleman, were his examiners; but the latter pressed nothing against him.  Mr. Strickland indeed insisted upon his condemnation, and would have deprived him of the benefit of the Act of Indemnity, telling him at last, ’that he had given no evidence of the change of his mind, and consequently was not to be trusted.’  Mr. L’Estrange’s final answer was to this effect, ’that it was his interest to change his opinion, if he could, and that whenever he found reason so to do, he would obey the sense of his own mind.’  Some few days after this he was discharged.  ’During the dependency of this affair (says Mr. L’Estrange) I might well be seen at Whitehall, but that I spake to Cromwel on any other business than this, that I either sought, or pretended to, any privacy with him, or that I ever spake to him after this time, I absolutely disown.  Concerning the story of the fiddle, this I suppose might be the rise of it:  being in St. James’s Park, I heard an organ touched in a little low room of one Mr. Henckson’s; I went in, and found a private company of some five or six persons.  They desired me to take up a Viol, and bear a part.  I did so, and that part too, not much advance to the reputation of my cunning.  By and by, without the least colour of design, or expectation, in comes Cromwel.  He found us playing, and, as I remember, so he left us. As to bribing of his attendants, I disclaim it.  I never spake to Thurloe, but once in my life, and that was about my discharge.  Nor did I ever give bribe, little or great, in the family.’

The above declaration Sir Roger was obliged to make, as some of his enemies wanted to turn those circumstances of favour he received from the Oliverian government to his disadvantage, and prevent his rising in court distinction.

Sir Roger having little paternal fortune, and being a man rather profuse than oeconomical, he had recourse to writing for bread.  After the restoration he set up a news-paper, which was continued ’till the Gazette was first set on foot by Sir Joseph Williamson, under secretary of state, for which, however, the government allowed Mr. L’Estrange a consideration.  Mr. Wood informs us, that our author published his paper twice every week in 4to. under the title of The Public Intelligence and News; the first of which came out August the 31st, 1663, and the other September the 3d, the same year.  ’These continued till the 9th of January 1665, at which time Mr. L’Estrange desisted, because in the November before, there were other News-Papers published twice every week, in half a sheet in folio.  These were called The Oxford Gazettes, and commenced the 7th of November, 1665, the king and queen, with their courts being then at Oxford.  These for a little while were written by one Henry Muddeman; but when the court removed to London, they were called the London Gazette.  Soon after Mr. Joseph Williamson, under secretary of State, procured the writing of them for himself; and thereupon employed Charles Perrot, M.A. and fellow of Oriel College in Oxford, who had a good command of his pen, to do that office under him, and so he did, though not constantly, till about 1671; after which time they were constantly written by under secretaries, belonging to those that are principal, and do continue so to this day.’

Soon after the popish plot, when the Tories began to gain the ascendant over the Whigs, Mr. L’Estrange became a zealous promoter of the Tory interest.  He set up a paper called the Observator, in which he defended the court, and endeavoured to invalidate those evidences which were given by Oates’s party against the Jesuits.  He likewise wrote a pamphlet, in which he attempts to prove, that Sir Edmundbury Godfrey’s murther, for which so many suffered, and so great a flame was raised in the nation, was really perpetrated by himself.  He attempts to shew that Sir Edmundbury was a melancholy enthusiastic man; that he was weak in his undemanding, and absurd in his conduct.  The activity he discovered in Oates’s plot, had raised him to such reputation, that he was unable to bear it, and therefore the natural enthusiasm of his temper prompted him to make himself a sacrifice, from a view of advancing the Protestant cause, as he knew his murther would be charged upon the Papists.

Mr. L’Estrange’s reasoning, being only conjectural, and very improbable, is therefore far from conclusive:  It is certain that there never was a more intricate affair than this.  We have read the trials of all those who suffered for this murther, chiefly upon the evidence of one Prance, and one Bedloe, who pretended to have been accomplices; but their relation is so inconsistent; their characters so very infamous, and their reward for being evidences supposed to be so considerable, that the most candid enquirer after truth, can determine nothing positively concerning it.  All who suffered for the popish plot, denied their knowledge of it; the four men who were executed, as being the perpetrators persisted to the last in protesting their innocence of it.  After all, the murther of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey is perhaps one of those secrets, which will ever remain so, till the hearts of all men are laid open.

The services, which Mr. L’Estrange rendered the court, procured him the honour of knighthood; and he served as a member for Winchester, in the parliament called by king James the II.  But things taking quite a different turn in that prince’s reign, in point of liberty of conscience, to what most people expected, our author’s Observators were dropt, as not being suitable to the times.  However he continued licenser of the press ’till the accession of the prince of Orange to the throne; in whose reign, on account of his Tory principles, and his attachment to his late master, he met with some troubles.  He was suffered however to descend to the grave in peace, though he had in a manner survived his understanding.  He died December 12, 1705, in the 88th year of his age.

Besides his Observators, which make three volumes in folio, he published a great number of poetical and other works.  Winstanley, in his Lives of the Poets, says, ’That those who shall consider the number and greatness of his books, will admire he should ever write so many; and those who have read them, considering the skill and method they are written in, will admire he should write so well.  Nor is he less happy in verse than prose, which for elegance of language, and quickness of invention, deservedly entitles him to the honour of a poet.’

The following are the titles of some of his works, viz.  Collections in Defence of the King.  Toleration Discussed.  Relapsed Apostate.  Apology for Protestants.  Richard against Baxter.  Tyranny and Popery.  Growth and Knavery.  Reformed Catholic.  Free-born Subjects.  The Case Put.  Seasonable Memorials.  Answer to the Appeal.  L’Estrange no Papist; in answer to a Libel, intitled L’Estrange a Papist, &c. with Notes and Animadversions upon Miles Prance, Silver-Smith, cum multis aliis.  The Shammer Shamm’d.  Account Cleared.  Reformation Reformed.  Dissenters Sayings, in two Parts.  Notes on Colledge, the Protestant Joiner.  Citizen and Bumpkin, in two Parts.  Further Discovery in the Plot.  Discovery on Discovery.  Narrative of the Plot.  Zekiel and Ephraim.  Appeal to the King and Parliament.  Papist in Masquerade.  Answer to the second Character of a Popish Successor.  Confederations upon a Printed Sheet intitled, The Speech of Lord Russel to the Sheriffs:  Together with the Paper delivered by him to them at the place of execution, on July 1683.  These pieces with many more, were printed in quarto; besides which he wrote the following, viz.  The History of the Plot in Folio.  Caveat to the Cavaliers.  He translated into English Cicero’s Offices; Seneca’s Mora’s, Erasmus’s Colloquies; Quevedo’s Visions; Bona’s Guide to Eternity; Five Love Letters from a Nun to a Cavalier; Josephus’s Works; Aesop’s Fables.

Mr. Gordon, author of the Independent Whig, and translator of Tacitus, has very freely censured L’Estrange.  He bestows very freely upon him the epithet of a buffoon, an ignorant droll, &c. He charges him with having no knowledge of the Latin tongue; and says, he is unfit to be read by any person of taste.  That his stile is full of technical terms, and of phrases picked up in the streets, from apprentices and porters.

Sir Roger L’Estrange translated the third Book of Tacitus, an author of whom Mr. Gordon made an entire translation.  To raise the reputation of his own performance, he has abused that of L’Estrange, in terms very unfit for a gentleman to use, supposing the censure had been true.  Sir Roger’s works indeed are often calculated for the meanest capacities, and the phrase is consequently low; but a man must be greatly under the influence of prejudice, who can discover no genius in his writings; not an intimate acquaintance with the state of parties, human life, and manners.

Sir Roger was but ill-rewarded by the Tories, for having been their champion; the latter part of his life was clouded with poverty, and though he descended in peace to the grave, free from political turmoils, yet as he was bowed down with age and distress, he cannot be said to have died in comfort.  He had seen much of the world, examined many characters, experienced the vicissitudes of fortune, and was as well instructed as any man that ever lived, in the important lesson of human life, viz.  That all things are vanity.