Orlando acts as our guide through many years of English history.
Here are brief notes about a few of the factual figures included in the book and movie.


Queen Elizabeth I . . . 1533-1603
A 25-year-old Bess took the throne in 1558 and reigned exclusively (without husband) until her death in 1603. She signed the death warrant of Mary Queen of Scots and commanded the defeat of the Spanish Armada. To inspire the golden age of English literature is a high achievement as well. The Virgin Queen is one of England's greatest and best-loved rulers.
Sir Walter Scott's 1821 novel Kenilworth describes her as "strangely compounded of the strongest masculine sense with those foibles which are chiefly supposed proper to the female sex."

King James I . . . 1566-1625
"The Wisest Fool in Christendom" was nearly as daft as he is portrayed in the film. He took sovereign of England upon the death of Elizabeth. As the king of both Scotland (c. 1567; his mother was the aforementioned Mary) and England (c. 1603), he promoted peace in Europe and colonial expansion in America.
In 1610 section of the film, he is surrounded by a small band of great Scot lords of four successive regents: the earls of Moray, Lennox, Mar, and Morton. James is said to have had little interest in the opposite sex, meaning he took no mistresses.

Robert Greene . . . 1560-1592
I suspect that this rogue was the basis for the fictional character Nicholas Greene. He was a poet and a university wit, born in Norwich. He wrote a play based on Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, and his Pandosto (1588) inspired Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. Greene is remembered for making fun of Shakespeare and writing "cony-catching" pamphlets.

King William III . . . 1650-1702
His wife Mary allowed him to be crowned joint sovereign of England in 1689. The supposedly gay William Henry was also the Prince of Orange; this title refers to his very powerful hold over the Netherlands (c. 1672). He defended Protestant interests against Louis XIV of France.

Jonathan Swift . . . 1667-1745
He left Ireland during the Revolution of 1688, but returned six years later to enter the Church of England.
In 1710, he changed from a Whig to a Tory because of the latter party's concern for the church. This led to his employment by the newly seated Tory ministry. But his conversion also alienated him from friends Addison and Steele. So Swift and his new comrades (including Pope) formed the Scriblerus Club, whose proposed comic novel eventually became Gulliver's Travels.
"Swift was the real Don Juan. Two women died for him!" --Oscar Wilde

Joseph Addison . . . 1672-1719
This popular and political favorite graduated from Oxford University in 1687. He was a Whig, who immortalized a victory by the duke of Marlborough in his 1704 poem 'The Campaign'. He even served as Ireland's secretary of state in 1717.
With Richard Steele, Addison wrote two hilarious editorial papers: Tatler and Spectator. But his fame lives on because of his dramatic tragedy Cato.

Alexander Pope . . . 1688-1744
This auto-didact was disabled and 4 1/2 feet tall from an illness in childhood. In personality, he balanced spite with generosity. At age 24, The Rape of the Lock established him as a reputable man of literature, as did his English translations of the Iliad and Odyssey. He was the master of the heroic couplet-- here, from An Essay on Man:
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.

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