English soldier, general, and statesman who led the parliamentary armies against Charles I in the English Civil War and served as the Lord Protector of England, Ireland, and Scotland in the period of the republican commonwealth. While many prominent figures have denounced Cromwell as a dictator, he was a champion of liberty in the eyes of poet John Milton, his private secretary for the Council of State.

Legendary Christian patron saint of shoemakers, glovemakers, lace workers, and leather workers, beheaded on the 25th of October by Roman Emperor Diocletian.

Noted for his dramas on classical subjects rather than the lascivious novels that constitute his son's claim to fame.

Son of Crébillon père, Crébillon fils authored several licentious and satirical novels which earned him both popularity and a few periods of exile in the provinces. The best known of them include L'écumoire (1735), Les Égarements du coeur et de l'esprit (1736), and Le Sopha, conte moral (1742).

Roman politician and a member of the First Triumvirate.

An English poet and lyricist with profoundly High Church beliefs, Crashaw was forced to flee to the continent after the rise of the seventeenth-century Puritan government, converting to Catholicism in 1645. He lived first in France, then Italy. He was best known for a collection of primarily mystical religious poems, Steps to the Temple. Sacred Poems, With other Delights of the Muses (1646) and the posthumously-published Carmen Deo Nostro (1652).

The first wife of Henry Fielding, with whom he had five children. In the preface of Miscellanies, published one year prior to her death, he wrote, "one from whom I draw all the solid Comfort of my Life."

An author known for his verse tales which bring sympathy and humor to an acute observation of human failings, Crabbe is best remembered for The Village: A Poem (1783); The Borough: A Poem (1810); and Tales (1812). Other works include Inebriety, A Poem (1775); The Candidate; A Poetical Epistle To The Authors Of Monthly Review (1780); The Library.

Poet who is sometimes viewed as a precursor to the Romantic poets partly for his sensitive and accurate descriptions of nature. His best known works include The Task (J. Johnson, 1785) and "The Castaway" (1803). He was subject to severe bouts of depression with a strong religious overtone for much of his life.

A prominent English politician during the reign of Queen Anne and the first Lord High Chancellor (the highest-ranking minister in England and Scotland).