Student contributor.

English Archbishop and Catholic clergyman. Wolsey became almoner for King Henry VIII in 1509, and eventually was appointed cardinal by Pope Leo X in 1515. Wolsey attained the position of Lord Chancellor, the chief adviser to the king, becoming an incredibly influential political figure. Wolsey was stripped of his government titles after failing to attain an annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

Wife of radical author William Godwin and mother of novelist Mary Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft was a versatile professional writer who attained fame for her radical ideas through her two political treatises, A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), which responded to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), her most famous publication and one of the greatest landmarks in the history of writing about women.

Irish actress and socialite professionally known as "Peg Woffington." Woffington became famous for her masculine roles, such as that of Sir Harry Wildair in George Farquhar's The Constant Couple (1699).

An English poet, pamphleteer, satirist, and hymnist, also referred to as Withers or Wyther. His Abuses Stript and Whipt (1613) earned him a jail term (not to be his last). Other works include A Satyre: Dedicated to His Most Excellent Majestie (1614); The Shepheard's Hunting; Fidelia (1617); a song, "Shall I, wasting in despair" (1615), reprinted in Percy's Reliques (1765); Motto (1621); Faire-Virtue, the Mistresse of Phil'Arete (1622); and, over the next four and a half decades, a large body of religious, topical, and political verse as well as numerous political pamphlets.

Bishop of Sodor and Man before Mark Hildesley, Wilson began a translation of the bible into the local dialect that Hildesley later completed.

A London Regency courtesan and author of the scandalous Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, written by herself (1825), as well as two novels, Paris Lions and London Tigers (1825) and Clara Gazul (1830).

See Rochester, John Wilmot, Earl of.

Character in Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740-1).

English poet, novelist, translator, salonnière, radical social critic, and proponent of such causes as the French Revolution and abolitionism. A first-hand witness to much of the French Revolution, Williams published her account of events in a series of letters beginning with Letters Written in France in the Summer of 1790 (1790), followed by four more volumes of Letters from France (1792-1796).