4. _Sir_ ROGER L’ESTRANGE is another of the notable natives of this part of the county. He was the youngest son of Sir Hamon L’Estrange, Bart. of Hunstanton Hall, where he was born Dec. 17, 1616. He received a liberal education, which he is supposed to have completed at Cambridge. His father being a zealous royalist, took care to instil the same principles in his son, which the latter eagerly embraced; and in 1639, he attended the king, in his expedition into Scotland. His attachment to the royal cause became now very strong; and sometime after nearly cost him his life: for in 1644, soon after the Earl of Manchester had reduced Lynn to the authority of the Parliament, young L’Estrange, thinking he had some interest in the place, as his father had been governor of it, formed a scheme for surprising it; and received a commission from the king, constituting him is governor, in case of success: but his design being betrayed by two of his confederates, (named _Leman_ and _Haggar_,) though both bound under an oath of secresy, he was seized, tried, and, by a court-martial, condemned to die, as a traitor. While he lay in prison, he was visited by Mr. Arrowsmith, and Mr. Thorowgood, two of the assembly of divines, who very kindly offered him their utmost interest, if he would make some petitionary acknowledgement, and submit to take the covenant, but he refused. After thirty months spent in vain endeavours, either to have a hearing, or to be put into an exchangeable condition, he printed a state of his case, by way of appeal from the court martial (by which he had been tried) to the Parliament. About the time of the Kentish insurrection, in 1648, he escaped out of prison, with the keeper’s privity, as he himself says, and went into Kent, and retiring to the house of Mr Hales, a young gentleman, heir to a great estate in that county, he spirited him up to head the insurrection; but that design failed of success. After this miscarriage, he escaped beyond sea, where he continued till the autumn of 1653; when taking his opportunity, in the change of government, upon Cromwell’s dissolution of the long parliament, he returned into England, and having an opportunity to speak to Cromwell, and obtaining a favourable hearing, he escaped any further trouble, and shortly after received his discharge, by an order dated 31. Oct. 1653. How he spent his time for the next six or seven years does not appear; but it may be presumed that he remained pretty quiet, and avoided all interference with political, or state affairs. He is said to have sometimes played before the Protector on the bass viol, for which he was by some called _Oliver’s fidler_. After the Restoration he was little noticed, either by the king or his ministers, for sometime; which he very much resented. Afterward, however, he was appointed to a profitable, but odious office, that of _Licencer of the Press_; which he held till a little before the Revolution.