Sir Roger, a well-known writer of the seventeenth century, was descended from an ancient family of Hunstanton Hall, in the county of Norfolk, where he was born in 1616, being the youngest son of Sir Hammond L'Estrange, a zealous royalist. Having in 1644 obtained a commission from Charles I for reducing Lynn in Norfolk, then in possession of the parliament, his design was discovered, and his person seized. He was tried by a court-martial at Guildhall in London, and condemned to death as a spy; but he was subsequently reprieved, and continued in Newgate for some time. He afterwards went beyond sea; but in August 1653 returned to England, where he applied himself to the protector, Cromwell, and having once played before him on the bass-viol, he was by some nicknamed "Oliver's fiddler." Being a man of parts, master of an easy, humorous style, and withal in narrow circumstances, he established a newspaper, under the title of The Public Intelligencer, in 1663; but upon the publication of the first London Gazette in 1665, he discontinued it, having been allowed a compensation by government. Some time after the Popish plot, when the Tories began to gain the ascendancy over the Whigs, he, in a paper called the Observer, became a zealous champion of the former. He was afterwards knighted, and served in the parliament called by James II. in 1685. But things taking a different turn in that prince's reign, in point of liberty of conscience, from what most people had expected, his Observers were discontinued, as not being at all suited to the times. However, he continued licenser of the press until the accession of King William III., in whose reign he met with some trouble, from being considered a disaffected person. However, he went down to his grave in peace, after he had in a manner survived his intellects. He published a great many political tracts, and translated from the Greek, Latin, and Spanish, the works of Josephus, Cicero's Offices, Seneca's Morals, Erasmus's Colloquies, Æsop's Fables, and Bonas's Guide to Eternity. The character of his style has been variously represented; his language being considered by some as easy and humorous, whilst others conceive that his productions are not fit to be read by any who have pretensions to taste or good breeding.