LESTRANGE, le-strany, Sir ROGER (1616 1704). An English journalist and translator, born at Hunstanton, Norfolk, December 17, 1616. He was probably educated at Cambridge. Being a zealous Royalist, he accompanied Charles I. in his expedition against the Scotch in 1639. In 1644 he was appointed by the King Governor of Lynn, and he attempted to take it from the Par liamentary forces, but, betrayed by two of his ac complices, he was tried, doomed to death as a traitor, and sent to Newgate. After four years he escaped and tried to incite an insurrection in Kent, but, failing, he fled to the Continent. After the passage of the Act of Indemnity (1652) he returned to England (1653) and made personal application to Cromwell, and was allowed to re main undisturbed. After the Restoration he was appointed by Charles 11. censor or licenser of the press. In the Public Intelligeneer, a newspaper which he started in 1663, he slavishly supported the Crown. The Observator, begun in 1631, two
years after the Popish plot, as the organ of the Tory Party, aimed to defend the King from the charge of favoring Popery. In 16S5 Lestrange was knighted by -James II. for 'his unshaken loyalty to the Crown,' and elected to Parliament. ln 1688 he was deprived of his office of censor and committed to prison for a short time. He died December 11, 1704. In the history of jour nalism Lestrange occupied a considerable place. His political pamphlets, coarse and brutal in style. hit hard. Among his translations. which have often been praised, are the following: Jo sephus; Cicero's Offices: Seneca's Morals; Eras mus's Colloquies: T:sop's Fables: Quevedo's Visions: Bona's Guide to Eternity: Five Love Letters from a Nun to a Cavalier.