People in History: 1600s

Founded Britain's first museum, 1683		Elias Ashmole
English philosopher and statesman (1561–1626): served as Attorney General (1613–17) and Lord Chancellor (1617–21); argued that scientific knowledge should be based only upon inductive reasoning and careful observation of events in nature, and that scientists should use a sceptical and methodical approach, aiming to avoid misleading themselves; has been called the father of empiricism; knighted in 1603, created Baron Verulam in 1618 and Viscount St. Alban in 1621; the first scientist to be knighted (before Newton!)		Francis Bacon
Irish adventurer who tried to steal Crown Jewels in 1671		Colonel Thomas Blood
President of the High Court of Justice in the trial of Charles I, and the first of 59 signatories to his death warrant (Cromwell was third); born in High Lane, Stockport, in 1602		John Bradshaw
Said to have beheaded Charles I, after initially refusing to do so		Richard Brandon
English statesman, only 5' 4" tall, referred to by Elizabeth I as "my pygmy" and by James I as "my little beagle": chief discoverer of the Gunpowder Plot, he was created 1st Earl of Salisbury in 1605		Robert Cecil
Replaced Cardinal Mazarin, on the latter's death in 1661, as Chief Minister to Louis XIV of France; largely repaid the National Debt, reformed the tax system, and brought industry under state control; encouraged Louis to establish the Académie des Sciences (1666)		Jean–Baptiste Colbert
Bristol merchant and philanthropist, 1636–1721: as a senior executive of the Royal African Company he made a fortune in the slave trade, and a statue of him (erected in 1895) was toppled and dumped in the city's docks in 2020		Edward Colston
Reputedly asked Sir Peter Lely to paint him "warts and everything"		Oliver Cromwell
Refused the English crown in 1657
Banned Christmas, St. Valentine's Day, Hogmanay and/or Hallowe'en (depending on source) as 'altogether too frivolous'
Exhumed from Westminster Abbey on 30 January 1661 (the 12th anniversary of the execution of Charles I) and subjected to a 'posthumous execution'
Son of the above: succeeded him as Lord Protector in 1658; resigned in 1659		Richard Cromwell
The first official Poet Laureate (1668)		John Dryden
Killed at the moment of victory in the Battle of Killiecrankie (1689)		John Graham of Claverhouse
Mistress of Charles II, mother of his illegitimate son Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St. Albans		Eleanor (Nell) Gwyn(ne)
Scottish goldsmith and philanthropist, 1563–1624: best remembered today through the name of a university (which the charitable trust that he established in his will helped to establish)		George Heriot
Claimed to hold the title Witchfinder General; author of The Discovery of Witches (1647); mainly active in East Anglia (Norfolk, Sussex and Essex); his first victim, Elizabeth Clark, was hanged in 1645		Matthew Hopkins
Lord Chancellor under Charles II after whom a printing house of the Oxford University Press was named		Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon
Civil War Parliamentarian general, son–in–law of Oliver Cromwell; signed Charles I's death warrant		Henry Ireton
Presided (as Lord Chief Justice) over the Bloody Assizes (1685), after the Monmouth Rebellion		George Jeffreys
Italian–born Chief Minister of France, from 1642 until his death in 1661: succeeded Cardinal Richelieu, shortly before the death of Louis XIII in 1643		Cardinal Mazarin
Director–General of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, 1628–33: according to tradition, bought the island of Manhattan from the Native Americans in 1624, for trade goods valued at 60 guilders or $24 (2009 value approximately $1,000)		Peter Minuit
Welsh buccaneer, served three separate terms as acting Lieutenant–Governor of Jamaica – 1674–5, 1678 and 1680–2; not to be confused with Edward Morgan, his uncle and father–in–law, who was briefly Deputy Governor in 1664		Harri (Sir Henry) Morgan
Anglican clergyman who fabricated the so–called Popish Plot – an alleged conspiracy to murder Charles II and re–establish Catholicism (1678–81)		Titus Oates
London–born Quaker, granted some land in America by Charles II to repay a debt owed to his father; founder of Philadelphia, and the colony (then a Province – now a state) that was named after him; he and his wife Hannah became, in 1984, the third and fourth people (and she was the first woman) to be granted honorary US citizenship		William Penn
Buried a parmesan cheese and some wine, to protect them from the Great Fire of London		Samuel Pepys
Wrote about his affair with his wife's companion, Deb Willet		Samuel Pepys
Briefly imprisoned in 1591 because of a secret marriage to Elizabeth I's maid Bess Throckmorton; imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1603, accused of involvement in a plot against James I; wrote the first volume of A History of the World while there; released in 1616 to lead an expedition to Venezuela		Sir Walter Raleigh
Executed in 1618 as demanded by the Spanish ambassador (for attacking a Spanish outpost on the Orinoco River)
Reputed to have laid his cloak across a puddle so that Elizabeth I wouldn't get her feet wet (a story that probably originated with historian Thomas Fuller, who was known for embellishing facts)
Chief minister of France, under Louis XIII, 1624–42: has been called "the world's first Prime Minister"; founded the Académie Francaise in 1635		Cardinal Richelieu
Nephew of Charles I, commanded Royalist troops in the English Civil War; later became the first Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company		Prince Rupert of the Rhine
Dutch philosopher, excommunicated by the Jewish community 1656 for questioning Old Testament teaching		Spinoza (Baruch d'Espinoza)
Prominent member of Charles II's court: famous at the time for refusing to become his mistress, although there is evidence that she had his child; married the Duke of Richmond and Lennox in 1667		Frances Stewart (known as 'La Belle Stuart')
Said by Samuel Pepys to have been depicted as Britannia (originally on a medal struck by Charles to commemorate the war with the Dutch, but subsequently used on British coinage until 2008)		Frances Stewart (known as 'La Belle Stuart')
The last Director–General of the Dutch colony of New Netherland (including the city of New Amsterdam), from 1647 until 1664 when it was ceded provisionally to the English and renamed New York (the Dutch gave up their claim in 1667, in exchange for control of the Spice Islands)		Peter Stuyvesant
Great–nephew of the Elizabethan courtier and poet Sir Philip Sydney, executed in 1683 after being implicated in the Rye House Plot		Algernon Sydney
First Duke of Buckingham, assassinated by John Felton in 1628		George Villiers

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People in History: 1600s