Alexander, Alexander (b. 1781/2), soldier and writer, was born in Dundonald, Ayrshire, the illegitimate son of a wealthy Scottish merchant. Almost everything known about him comes from his remarkable autobiography, published in Edinburgh in 1830. After what he recalled as an unhappy childhood marred by physical violence, at the age of eighteen he was sent to work as an overseer on slave plantations in ...
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Alexander Alexander (b. 1781/22) by Thomas Hodgetts, pubd 1830 (after Sir John Watson-Gordon) © National Portrait Gallery, London
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See Patch, Henry John [Harry]
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Peter Damian-Grint
Ambroise (fl. 1188–1195), crusader and historian, was a Norman, possibly from the region of Évreux. His Estoire de la guerre sainte is a unique vernacular eyewitness account of the third crusade, and perhaps 'the best source for the crusade of Richard' (...
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John M. MacKenzie
Anderson, Alfred (1896–2005), joiner and soldier, was born on 25 June 1896 at 20 Kinloch Street, Dundee, the third son of Andrew Anderson (1864–1945) and his wife, Christina, née Emmerson (1868–1945). His parents had emigrated to Chicago, Illinois, and were married there in 1888. However, nostalgia for ...
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Julia Gasper
Andrewe, Thomas (fl. 1600–1604), soldier and poet, is known only by his poem in rhyming couplets The Unmasking of a Feminine Machiavell, published in 1604. Its autobiographical nature is revealed in its preface 'To the Reader' and in a commendatory poem by Samuel Rowlands...
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Jonathan Sumption
Angle, Guichard d', earl of Huntingdon (c. 1308x15–1380), soldier, was born in Poitou, a subject of the king of France, between c.1308 and c.1315. He was the son of Guichard (III) d'Angle and Marguerite Maubert. His family were lords of Angle-sur-l'Anglin...
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Richard Barber
Arundel [Fitzalan], Sir John (c. 1348–1379), soldier, was the second son of Richard (II) Fitzalan, third earl of Arundel and eighth earl of Surrey (c. 1313–1376), and his wife, Eleanor (d. 1372), daughter of Henry, earl of Lancaster, and widow of John, ...
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Henry Summerson
Ashton [Assheton], Sir John (d. 1427), soldier and administrator, came of a gentry family which took its name from Ashton under Lyne in Lancashire, and which had estates there, as well as at Manchester, Wardle, and Alt in that county, and at Morley...
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Carole Rawcliffe and Andrew Ayton
Ashton, Sir John (c. 1354–c. 1398), soldier and landowner, was the son and heir of Sir John Ashton (d. c.1360) of Ashton under Lyne, Lancashire, and of Margaret, a daughter of Robert del Leigh of Adlington, Cheshire. His mother's second marriage, to ...
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Rosemary Horrox
Ashton, Sir Ralph (c. 1425–1487), soldier, was the son of Sir John Ashton (d. 1427) of Ashton under Lyne and his second wife, Margaret Gray, and hence half-brother of Sir Thomas Ashton (c. 1403–c. 1460), the alchemist, who in 1439 arranged Ralph's marriage with ...
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Michael Jones
Ashton, Sir Robert (d. 1384), soldier and administrator, came from Long Ashton in Somerset, and was the son of another Robert Ashton. The younger Robert's date of birth is uncertain, but he was already a knight in 1361. He accompanied Lionel, duke of Clarence...
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Andrew Ayton
Ashton, Thomas (supp. fl. 1346), soldier, whom the Dictionary of National Biography identified as a member of the Lancashire Ashtons of Ashton under Lyne, is probably a figment. The Dictionary of National Biography claimed that he captured the Scottish royal standard at the battle of ...
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Nicholas Vincent
Athée, Girard d' (fl. 1198–c. 1210), mercenary and administrator, was a native of Athée near Tours in north-west France. With hostile intent, the French chronicler Guillaume le Breton claims that he was of servile birth, but in all probability he was a minor knight or subtenant of the neighbouring lord of ...
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Atkins, Thomas [Tommy] (d. 1794), soldier and epitomist of the British infantryman, remains an obscure figure but is thought, according to the most reliable accounts, to have been a private serving in the 33rd regiment of foot during the Netherlands campaign of the French Revolutionary Wars. On 15 September 1794 ...
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Michael Jones
Audley, Sir James (c. 1318–1369), soldier, was an outstanding exemplar of chivalry, and one of the heroes of the chronicler Froissart. He was the illegitimate son of Sir James Audley (d. 1334) of Stratton Audley, Oxfordshire , and Eva, daughter of Sir John Clavering...
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James William Kelly
Ayscough, George Edward (d. 1779), soldier and author, was the son of Francis Ayscough (1701–1763), dean of Bristol and sometime preceptor to Prince George, and his wife, Anne (1714–1776), daughter of Sir Thomas Lyttelton and sister of George, first Baron Lyttelton. Ayscough was commissioned in the 1st regiment of ...
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R. E. Anderson
revised by Anita McConnell
Babington, John (bap. 1604, d. after 1635), soldier and mathematician, was baptized on 21 August 1604 at St Nicholas Acon in the City of London, the son of John Babington and his wife, Dorothie Rosse. No details of his life are known beyond those disclosed in his book ...
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Babthorpe, Sir Robert (d. 1436), soldier and administrator, rose to prominence in the service of the Lancastrian dynasty. The family came from Babthorpe, in the parish of Hemingbrough, Yorkshire. Details of his parentage are not easy to establish, but he seems to have been the son of ...
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Badlesmere, Sir Bartholomew (c. 1275–1322), soldier and administrator, was the son and heir of Guncelin of Badlesmere (d. 1301), of Badlesmere, Kent, and an unknown mother. Like his father, who was a royal banneret and justice of Chester from 1274 to 1281, ...
