Sir George Wharton, 1st Baronet (4 April 1617 – 12 August 1681) was an English military officer, astrologer and poet who served as Treasurer of the Ordnance from 1670 to 1681.
Sir George Wharton, 1st Baronet (4 April 1617 – 12 August 1681) was an English military officer, astrologer and poet who served as Treasurer of the Ordnance from 1670 to 1681.
He was the son of a blacksmith in Westmorland. He went to Oxford to study, though not admitted to the university. He then returned to Westmorland, and in 1642 sold his family property, and raised his own troop of horse for the Royalist cause. He shared defeat at Stow-on-the-Wold, in 1643. [1] He is said to have served under Jacob Astley, 1st Baron Astley of Reading. [2]
He then went to Charles I at Oxford, and was given a paymaster position in the Ordnance, under Sir John Heydon. [3] At this period he became a friend of Elias Ashmole, helping him to a military commission. [4]
Wharton attended, with Ashmole, the first meeting in 1647 of the Society of Astrologers at Gresham College. It included both William Lilly and John Booker, Parliamentarians who had been on the other side of the astrological pamphlet exchanges in the Civil War that had ended in 1646. [5]
He was imprisoned in 1649, and might have been executed but his former opponent William Lilly spoke up for him with Bulstrode Whitelocke. [6] He was released by the intervention of Ashmole, who made him steward on his Berkshire estates. [7]
At the English Restoration of 1660, he was reinstated as a paymaster. He became Treasurer of the Ordnance in 1670, an office he held until his death. He was made a baronet in 1677.
He took the pen name George Naworth, for his first almanac in 1641. He then issued an almost unbroken annual sequence, using his own name from 1645, not publishing in 1646, but expanding the work with history and continuing from 1647 to 1666. [8]
As a royalist pamphleteer and newsbook editor, he wrote Mercurius Elencticus from 1647. Mocking Parliament, it carried biographical material on its leaders. When Wharton was imprisoned, it continued with help from Samuel Sheppard. [9]
He attacked John Hall, who wrote Mercurius Britanicus, employed by William Lilly whom Mercurius Elencticus lampooned. [10] [11] He also attacked John Booker, another astrologer in the Parliamentarian camp. [12]
His collected works were issued by John Gadbury, in 1683.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
William Lilly was a seventeenth century English astrologer. He is described as having been a genius at something "that modern mainstream opinion has since decided cannot be done at all" having developed his stature as the most important astrologer in England through his social and political connections as well as going on to have an indelible impact on the future course of Western astrological tradition.
Owen Roe O'Neill was a Gaelic Irish soldier and one of the most famous of the O'Neill dynasty of Ulster. O'Neill left Ireland at a young age and spent most of his life as a mercenary in the Spanish Army serving against the Dutch in Flanders during the Eighty Years' War. After the Irish Rebellion of 1641, O'Neill returned and took command of the Irish Confederate Ulster Army. He is known for his victory at the Battle of Benburb in 1646.
Elias Ashmole 23 May 1617 – 18 May 1692) was an English antiquary, politician, officer of arms, astrologer, freemason and student of alchemy. Ashmole supported the royalist side during the English Civil War, and at the restoration of Charles II he was rewarded with several lucrative offices.
The Irish Confederate Wars, also called the Eleven Years' War, took place in Ireland between 1641 and 1653. It was the Irish theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of civil wars in the kingdoms of Ireland, England and Scotland – all ruled by Charles I. The conflict had political, religious and ethnic aspects and was fought over governance, land ownership, religious freedom and religious discrimination. The main issues were whether Irish Catholics or British Protestants held most political power and owned most of the land, and whether Ireland would be a self-governing kingdom under Charles I or subordinate to the parliament in England. It was the most destructive conflict in Irish history and caused 200,000–600,000 deaths from fighting as well as war-related famine and disease.
The Battle of Rathmines was fought on 2 August 1649, near the modern Dublin suburb of Rathmines, during the Irish Confederate Wars, an associated conflict of 1638 to 1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It has been described as the 'decisive battle of the Engagement in Ireland.'
Michael Jones was an Irish-born Protestant soldier of Welsh descent who fought in the War of the Three Kingdoms, primarily in Ireland. Third son of Lewis Jones, Bishop of Killaloe, his brothers Henry and Ambrose were also bishops in the Church of Ireland.
Marchamont Nedham, also Marchmont and Needham, was a journalist, publisher and pamphleteer during the English Civil War who wrote official news and propaganda for both sides of the conflict.
The Committee of Both Kingdoms,, was a committee set up during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms by the Parliamentarian faction in association with representatives from the Scottish Covenanters, after they made an alliance in late 1643.
Major General Rowland Laugharne was a member of the Welsh gentry, and a prominent soldier during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, in which he fought on both sides.
Henry Parker (1604–1652) was an English barrister and political writer in the Parliamentarian cause.
Thomas Wharton (1614–1673) was an English physician and anatomist best known for his descriptions of the submandibular duct and Wharton's jelly of the umbilical cord.
John Booker (1603–1667) was an English astrologer, respected in that career for over 30 years. In the 1640s he was appointed licenser of mathematical publications, and so in effect a censor of astrological works, for the Stationers' Company.
William Walwyn was an English pamphleteer, a Leveller and a medical practitioner.
Bruno Ryves (1596–1677) was an English royalist churchman, editor in 1643 of the Oxford newsbook Mercurius Rusticus, and later dean of Chichester and dean of Windsor. His first name was variously spelt Brune, Bruen, Brian, Bruno, and his surname Reeves, Rives, Ryve, Reeve, and Ryves.
Mercurius Aulicus was one of the "most important early newspapers" in England, famous during the English Civil War for its role in Royalist propaganda.
Anthony Nicholl was an English politician, friend and associate of Parliamentary leaders John Pym and John Hampden.
Sir Thomas Lucas, was a professional soldier from Lexden, just outside Colchester in Essex, England, who served with the Dutch States Army in the Eighty Years War and later fought in the Irish Confederate Wars.
John Hall (1627–1656), also known as John Hall of Durham, was an English poet, essayist and pamphleteer of the Commonwealth period. After a short period of adulation at university, he became a writer in the Parliamentary cause and Hartlib Circle member.
Elizabeth Alkin was a publisher, nurse and spy for the Parliamentarian forces during the English Civil War. Among the many derogatory names she was called by royalist sympathisers, that of Parliament Joan is one by which she is also commonly known.
Samuel Sheppard was an English author and poet of the Civil War who sometimes published under the anagrammatic pseudonym Raphael Desmus.
