Johan van Oldenbarnevelt was a Dutch statesman, who played an important role in the Dutch struggle for independence from Spain. In 1586, Van Oldenbarnevelt was made Land's Advocate of the province of Holland, an office he held for 32 ye...

Sir Thomas Cavendish was an English explorer and a privateer known as "The Navigator" because he was the first who deliberately tried to emulate Sir Francis Drake and raid the Spanish towns and ships in the Pacific and return by circumnavig...

Quevedo was a Spanish satirist, novelist and poet and one of the great writers of the Spanish Golden Age. His Los sueños is a brilliant and bitterly satiric account of the inhabitants of hell. Other major works include the philosophical tre...

Girolamo Frescobaldi was a major composer from the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods whose keyboard works rank among the most important of his time. His sacred and secular vocal music is generally assessed to be less important but...

Cardinal Richelieu was extremely intelligent and at the age of nine was sent to College de Navarre in Paris. In 1602, at age seventeen he began studying theology seriously. In 1606 he was appointed Bishop of Luçon, and in 1622 Pope Gregory...

George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham , was the favourite, claimed by some to be the lover of King James I of England and one of the most rewarded royal courtiers in all history. He was born in Brooksby, Leicestershire in August 1592, the...

Frederick V was the Elector Palatine of the Rhine in the Holy Roman Empire from 1610 to 1623, and served as King of Bohemia from 1619 to 1620. He was forced to abdicate both roles, and the brevity of his reign in Bohemia earned him the deri...

Constantijn Huygens was a Dutch poet and composer, Secretary to two Princes, and the father of the scientist Christiaan Huygens. He is often considered a member of what is known as the Muiderkring, a group of leading intellectuals gathered...

Anne of Austria was queen consort of France and Navarre, regent for her son, Louis XIV of France, and a Spanish and Portuguese Infanta by birth. During her regency (1643–1651) Cardinal Mazarin served as France's chief minister. Accounts of...

Cornelis Tromp was a Commander in chief of the Dutch navy. Tromp was born in Rotterdam, the son of Admiral Maarten Tromp and Dignom Cornelis de Haes. He served in the First Anglo-Dutch War, being promoted to Admiral after the death of Johan...

John Locke was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and known as the "Father of Classical Liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the t...

Maria Theresa of Spain was the daughter of Philip IV, King of Spain and Elizabeth of France. Maria Theresa was Queen of France as wife of King Louis XIV and mother of the Grand Dauphin, an ancestor of the last four Bourbon kings of France....

Louis XIV, known as Louis the Great (Louis le Grand) or the Sun King (le Roi-Soleil), was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1643 until his death. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest...

Henry Purcell was an English composer. Although incorporating Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, Purcell's legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest E...

Daniel Defoe was an English trader, writer, journalist, pamphleteer, and spy. He is most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe, which is second only to the Bible in its number of translations. Defoe is noted for being one of the earliest pro...