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...

King James II of England and VII of Scotland was the last Catholic monarch to rule over England, Scotland, and Ireland. His reign, from 1685 to 1688, culminated with the Glorious Revolution, in which Protestants deposed him in favor of Mary...

Mary, Princess Royal was Princess of Orange and Countess of Nassau as the wife of Prince William II. She was the eldest daughter of King Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland and his wife, Henrietta Maria of France. Her only child lat...

Charles II was the King of England, King of Scots, and King of Ireland from 1649 until his death. His father Charles I had been executed in 1649, following the English Civil War; the monarchy was then abolished and the Kingdom of England an...

Father of Peter the Great. Alexey Mikhailovich Romanov was a Tsar of Russia during some of the most eventful decades of the mid-17th century. The son of Tsar Mikhail I and Eudoxia Streshneva, he was sixteen years old at the time of his fath...

John of Austria (the Younger) (Don Juan José de Austria) was a Spanish general and political figure. He was the only natural son of Philip IV of Spain to be acknowledged by the King and trained for military command and political administrat...

Jan III Sobieski was one of the most notable monarchs of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1674 until his death. Sobieski's 22-year-reign was marked by a period of the Commonwealth's sta...

Shivaji Bhonsle was an Indian warrior king and a member of the Bhonsle Maratha clan, Shivaji, in 1674, carved out an enclave from the declining Adilshahi sultanate of Bijapur that formed the genesis of an independent Maratha kingdom with Ra...

William II was sovereign Prince of Orange and stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands from 14 March 1647 until his death three years later. His only child, also named William, would go on to reign as William III of England an...

Charles X Gustav was King of Sweden from 1654 until his death. He was the son of John Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg and Catherine of Sweden. After his father's death he also succeeded him as Pfalzgraf. He was married to He...

Frederick William was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia – and thus ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia – from 1640 until his death. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he is popularly known as "the Great Elector" (der Große Kurfürst) b...

Prince Rupert of the Rhine was a noted soldier, admiral, scientist, sportsman, colonial governor and amateur artist during the 17th century. Rupert was a younger son of Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and Elizabeth Stuart, the older brother...

Aurangzeb Alamgir and by his imperial title Alamgir ("world-seizer or universe-seizer") was the sixth Mughal Emperor and ruled over most of the Indian subcontinent. His reign lasted for 49 years from 1658 until his death in 1707. Aurangzeb...

Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux was the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661 under King Louis XIV. He fell out of favor with the young king, probably because of his extravagant displays o...

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, le Prince de Marcillac, was a noted French author of maxims and memoirs, as well as an example of the accomplished 17th-century nobleman. He was born in Paris in the Rue des Petits Champs, at a time whe...