John Vanbrugh has already lived an eventful life by 1693 – he’d already travelled to India (as a factor or trading agent for the East India Company), joined English Army, having received a commission in the Earl of Huntingdon’s Regiment, travelled to Holland where he was among those advocating for William of Orange to invade England and been imprisoned for four years after being arrested in France as a spy (he even spent time in the Bastille before he was released as part of a prisoner exchange in late 1692). Whew!

But it’s his return to London in 1693 – at age 29 – that we’re interested in here. Because that was when, already moving within a prominent group of Whig politicians, that he became a member of the famous Kit-Cat Club.