Timeline Great Britain 1551-1710
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1551 May 2,
William Camden, English historian (Brittania, Annales), was born.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1551 Oct 16, Edward Seymour,
Duke of Somerset, was re-arrested.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1552 Jan 22, Edward Seymour, Duke
of Somerset, was beheaded for treason.
(MC, 1/22/02)(MT, Fall 02, p.23)
1552 Jan 23, The 2nd version of
Book of Common Prayer became mandatory in England. The Second Prayer
Book of Edward VI, more radical than the first, was authorized by a
second Uniformity Act.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.18)(MC, 1/23/02)
1552 Feb 1, Sir Edward Coke,
English jurist, was born in Mileham, Norfolk. He helped the development
of English law with his arguments for the supremacy of common law over
royal prerogative.
(HN, 2/1/99)(MC, 2/1/02)
1552 The English again attacked
the Irish town and monastery at Clonmacnoise and carried everything
away.
(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.T8)
1553 Apr 29, A Flemish woman
introduced to England the practice of starching linen.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1553 Jul 6, Mary Tudor was warned
that Edward VI was already dead and that she was walking into a trap
set by John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, Edward’s regent.
(ON, 5/00, p.3)
1553 Jun 12, King Edward VI
accepted archbishop Cranmer's "42 Articles."
(MC, 6/12/02)
1553 Jul 6, Edward VI Tudor (15),
King of England (1547-53), died. Mary Tudor was warned that Edward VI
was already dead and that she was walking into a trap set by John
Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, Edward’s regent.
(ON, 5/00, p.3)(MC, 7/6/02)
1553 Jul 9, The Duke of
Northumberland announced the death of Edward VI (15) and that
supporters of Mary Tudor would be considered traitors.
(ON, 5/00, p.4)
1553 Jul 10, After King Edward VI
of England died of tuberculosis, John Dudley, the Duke of
Northumberland, tried to get his daughter, Lady Jane Grey (the
great-granddaughter of Henry VII), declared the queen and got
archbishop Cranmer’s signature to that end. However the succession went
to Mary, the Catholic half-sister of Edward. Cranmer and others were
then found guilty of treason.
(WSJ, 9/12/96, p.A14)(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.24)
1553 Jul 18, The Council in London
met secretly and declared Mary Tudor as Queen of England and the Duke
of Northumberland in unlawful rebellion.
(ON, 5/00, p.5)
1553 Jul 19, 15-year-old Lady Jane
Grey, daughter of John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, was deposed
as Queen of England after claiming the crown for nine days. Mary, the
daughter of King Henry VIII, was proclaimed Queen.
(WSJ, 9/12/96, p.A14)(AP, 7/19/97)
1553 Aug 3, Mary Tudor, the new
Queen of England, entered London.
(HN, 8/3/98)(ON, 5/00, p.5)
1553 Aug 23, John Dudley, the Duke
of Northumberland, English Lord Admiral, premier (1551-53), was
beheaded on Tower Hill in front of 10,000 onlookers.
(ON, 5/00, p.5)(Internet)
1553 Nov 13, English Lady Jane
Grey and the bishop Cranmer were accused of high treason.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1553 The Forty-two Articles of the
Church of England were written by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer "for the
avoiding of controversy in opinions." The Forty-two Articles had been
partly derived from the Thirteen Articles of 1538. When Mary became
queen in 1553 and restored Catholicism, the Forty-two Articles were
eliminated.
(HNQ, 10/20/98)
1553 In London The Mysterie and
Compagnie of the Merchant Adventurers for the Discoverie of Regions,
Dominions, Islands and Places Unknown offered stock to finance a quest
for a passage to the riches of the East. The Muscovy Company venture
led to the death of explorer Sir Hugh Willoughby who died with the
crews of 2 ships in the Arctic ice. A 3rd ship reached the court of
Ivan the Terrible in Moscow and returned with a treaty giving England
freedom to trade there.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1553 Hugh Willoughby and Richard
Chancellor voyaged to Russia via Archangel seeking a north-east passage
to China. Willoughby discovered Novaya Zemlya and died on the Kola
Peninsula.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.18)
1554 Feb 12, Lady Jane Grey (17),
who had claimed the throne of England for nine days, the Queen of
England for thirteen days, was beheaded on Tower Hill along with her
husband, Guildford Dudley, after being condemned for high treason.
(HN, 2/12/99)(AP, 2/12/08)
1554 Feb 23, Henry Grey, Duke of
Suffolk and Lady Jane Grey's father, was executed.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1554 Mar 12, Richard Hooker,
English theologian, was born. He authored "Laws of Ecclesiastical
Polity."
(HN, 3/12/99)
1554 Jul 24, Queen Mary of England
married Philip II, king of Spain and the Catholic son of Emp. Charles V.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.18)(ON, 5/00, p.5)(MC, 7/24/02)
1554 Nov 30, Sir Philip Sidney
(d.1586), English poet, statesman and soldier was born.
(HN, 11/30/98)(MC, 11/30/01)
1554 Nov 30, England reconciled
with Pope Julius III.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.18)(MC, 11/30/01)
1554 At London’s Guildhall Sir
Nicholas Throckmorton was tried and found not guilty. The verdict was
deemed unsatisfactory and the whole jury was carted off to prison and
released after paying heavy fines. [see Nov, 1583]
(SFC, 8/11/96, p.T7)
1554 Flemish hop growers emigrated
to England.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.18)
1555 Feb 9, John Hooper, the
deprived Bishop of Gloucester, was burned for heresy.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1555 Sep 30, Oxford Bishop
Nicholas Ridley was sentenced to death as a heretic.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1555 Oct 16, Hugh Latimer (80),
Protestant royal chaplain of Anne Boleyn, was burned at stake at Oxford
for heresy under the Catholic rule of Mary, half-sister of Edward VI.
(WSJ, 9/12/96, p.A14)(HN, 10/16/98)(MC, 10/16/01)
1555 Oct 16, Nicholas Ridley,
Protestant English theologian and bishop of Rochester, was burned at
Oxford for heresy under the Catholic rule of Mary, half-sister of
Edward VI.
(WSJ, 9/12/96, p.A14)(HN, 10/16/98)(MC, 10/16/01)
1555 Oct 21, English parliament
refused to recognize Philip of Spain as king.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1555 England’s Parliament
established the Company of Watermen and Lightermen to regulate the
Thames boating industry.
(AP, 1/9/07)
1555 Queen Mary began a campaign
of burnings and hangings during which over 300 people were executed for
refusing to abandon their Protestant faith.
(ON, 5/00, p.5)
1555-1600 Richard Hooker, architect of Anglicanism.
The Anglican Communion emerged from the conflicts between Henry VIII
and Pope Clement VII over Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn.
(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A11)
1556 Feb 14, Archbishop Thomas
Cranmer was declared a heretic.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1556 Mar 21, Former Archbishop of
Canterbury Thomas Cranmer (66), scheduled to denounce his errors and be
burned at the stake, denounced his own confessions and was hustled off
to be burned. He then put forth his hand and declared: "Forasmuch as my
hand offended, writing contrary to my heart, my hand shall first be
punished."
(WSJ, 9/12/96, p.A14)(MC, 3/21/02)
1556 Mar 22, Cardinal Reginald
Pole became archbishop of Canterbury.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1556 Nov 10, The Englishman
Richard Chancellor was drowned off Aberdeenshire on his return from a
second voyage to Russia.
(HN, 11/10/98)
1557 Feb 27, 1st Russian Embassy
opened in London.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1557 Jul 16, Anne of Cleves (41),
queen of England and 4th wife of Henry VIII, died.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1557 Aug 10, Spanish and English
troops in alliance defeated the French at the Battle of St. Quentin.
French troops were defeated by Emmanuel Philibert's Spanish army at St.
Quentin, France.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.19)(HN, 8/10/98)
1557 Richard Tottel edited “Songes
and Sonnettes,” later referred to as “Tottle’s Miscellany.” This came
to be regarded as the first important anthology of English verse.
(WSJ, 11/15/08, p.W10)
1558 Jan 6, The French seized the
British held port of Calais.
(HN, 1/6/99)
1558 Jan 7, The French, under the
Duke of Guise, finally took the port of Calais from the English.
(HN, 1/7/99)
1558 Jun 22, The French took the
French town of Thioville from the English.
(HN, 6/22/98)
1558 Nov 6, Thomas Kyd, English
dramatist (Spanish Tragedy), was born.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1558 Nov 17, Queen Mary (1553-58),
Mary I Tudor (42), "Bloody Mary", died. Elizabeth I ascended the
English throne. With the reign of Elizabeth I a new statement of
doctrine of the Church of England was needed. The Church of England was
reestablished. In 1996 Carolly Erickson authored "Bloody Mary."
(AP, 11/17/97)(HNQ, 10/20/98)(HN, 11/17/98)(ON,
5/00, p.5)(MC, 11/17/01)
1558 Nov 17, Reginald Pole (58),
English cardinal, scholar, "heretic", died.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1558 Thomas Gresham (1519-1579,
English financier, put forward proposals for reforming the English
currency. He formulated Gresham’s Law, a hypothesis that bad money
drives good money out of circulation.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.19)(WUD, 1994, p.622)
1559 Jan 29, Thomas Pope (~52),
English politician, benefactor, died.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1559 May 8, An act of supremacy
defined Queen Elizabeth I as the supreme governor of the church of
England.
(HN, 5/8/99)
1560 The Presbyterian branch of
Protestant Christianity was started in Scotland and the British Isles
by John Knox.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.20)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A11)
1561 Jan 22, Sir Francis Bacon
(e.1626), English philosopher, was born in London. He was a statesman
and essayist. Educated at Cambridge, he served under Queen Elizabeth
and King James I. "He wrote the "Essays" throughout his life and these
are filled with pithy wisdom and homely charm. His "Advancement of
Learning" and "Novum Organon" constitute his most important
contribution to knowledge. He held for the inductive method of learning
as opposed to the deductive method. The deductive method, according to
Bacon, failed because the seeker after knowledge deduced from certain
intuitive assumptions conclusions about the real world that might have
been logically correct but were not true to nature. The inductive
method succeeded because the student of nature ascended by what Bacon
called a "ladder of intellect" from the most careful and indeed humble
observations to general conclusions that had to be true because their
foundation was experience. "If a man will begin in certainties he shall
end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin in doubts he shall
end in certainties." In 1998 Perez Zagorin published "Francis Bacon."
(V.D.-H.K.p.140)(AP, 5/1/98)(HN, 1/22/99)
1561 Sep 20, Queen Elizabeth of
England signed a treaty at Hamptan Court with French Huguenot leader
Louis de Bourbon, the Prince of Conde. The English would occupy Le
Harve in return for aiding Bourbon against the Catholics of France.
(HN, 9/20/98)
1563 Feb 27, William Byrd, English
composer, was appointed organist at Lincoln Cathedral.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.20)(MC, 2/27/02)
1563 Jun 1, Robert Cecil, Earl of
Salisbury, Chief Minister of England, was born.
(HN, 6/1/98)
1563 The 1563 Canterbury
Convocation drastically revised the Forty-two Articles of the Church of
England. The 39 Articles combined Protestant doctrine with Catholic
church organization to establish the Church of England. Dissenting
groups included the Puritans, Separatists, and Presbyterians. [see 1571]
(TL-MB, 1988, p.20)(HNQ, 10/20/98)
1564 Feb 26, Christopher Marlowe,
English, poet, dramatist, was baptized. His work included "Doctor
Faustus," "Tamburlaine," "The Jew of Malta," and other plays. He was
murdered at 29 in a Deptford tavern and was suspected of being a spy to
the Continent on behalf of the Crown. In 1993 Anthony Burgess had a
novel published posthumously about Marlowe titled "A Dead Man in
Deptford."
(WSJ, 4/28/95, p.A-8)(DTnet, 6/1/97)(SC, 2/26/02)
1564 Apr 23, William Shakespeare
(1564-1616), English poet and playwright of the Elizabethan and early
Jacobin periods, was born and died on the same date 52 years later. He
added more than 1,700 word to the English language. He was the son of
an illiterate glove maker who left school at 12: "Be not afraid of
greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have
greatness thrust upon them." -- from Act II, Scene 5 of "Twelfth
Night." From "Henry V," "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once
more."
(CFA, '96, p.44)(WSJ, 4/22/96, p.a-23)(AP,
4/23/97)(HN, 4/23/99)
1564 Apr 26, William Shakespeare
was baptized.
(HN, 4/26/98)
1565 Jul 29, Mary Queen of Scots
married her cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.21)(MC, 7/29/02)
1565 Sark, one of the Channel
Islands, was colonized. The hereditary ruler of Sark was granted the 5
square miles of land by Queen Elizabeth I.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.B8)(Econ, 7/14/07, p.60)
1566 Jun 19, King James I (d.1625
at 59), son of Mary Queen of Scots, was born. James, aka King James VI
of Scotland ruled Scotland from 1567-25 and England from 1603-25.
(WUD, 1994, p.763)(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A13)(HN, 6/19/99)
1566 Nov 10, Robert Devereux, 2nd
earl of Essex, cousin and lover of Elizabeth I, was born.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1567 Apr 11, Dutch Prince William
of Orange fled from Antwerp to Breda.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1568 May 13, Mary Queen of Scots
was defeated by English at battle of Langside.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1568 May 16, Mary Queen of
Scotland fled to England.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1568 May 19, Defeated by the
Protestants, Mary, Queen of Scots, fled to England where Queen
Elizabeth imprisoned her.
(HN, 5/19/99)
1568 Jul 13, Alexander Nowell, the
Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, perfected a way to bottle beer.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.21)(MC, 7/13/02)
1568 Oct 5, The Conference of York
began in the trial against Mary Stuart.
(MC, 10/5/01)
1569 Jan 11, The 1st recorded
lottery in England was drawn in St. Paul's Cathedral.
(MC, 1/11/02)
1570 Feb 25, Pope Pius V issued
the bull Regnans in Excelsis which excommunicated Queen Elizabeth the
First of England. This absolved her subjects from allegiance. Elizabeth
responded by hanging and burning Jesuits.
(TL-MB, p.22)(AP, 2/25/98)(HN, 2/25/99)(MC, 2/25/02)
1570 Nicholas Hilliard painted his
famous portrait of Elizabeth I.
(TL-MB, p.22)
1570 The Whitechapel Bell Foundry
was founded in London, England. Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell was later
cast there. Big Ben was cast there in 1858.
(SFC, 4/11/08, p.A16)
1571 Aug 8, John Ward, English
composer, was born in Canterbury.
(MC, 8/8/02)(Internet)
1571 John Lyon founded Harrow
School in England.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1571 Hugh Price founded Jesus
College at Oxford.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1571 Along with the Common Book of
Prayer, the Thirty-nine Articles constitute the doctrinal statements of
the Church of England. Developed from the Forty-two Articles written by
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1553 "for the avoiding of controversy in
opinions." When Mary became queen in 1553 and restored Catholicism, the
Forty-two Articles were eliminated. Upon the reign of Elizabeth I in
1558 a new statement of doctrine was needed. The 1563 Canterbury
Convocation drastically revised the Forty-two Articles and a final
revision resulted in the Thirty-nine articles in 1571, approved by the
Queen and imposed on the clergy. They deal briefly with the doctrines
accepted by Catholics and Protestants alike and more fully with the
points of controversy.
(HNQ, 10/20/98)
1571 A British law was so set that
a man could be fined for not wearing a wool cap.
(NG, 5.1988, pp. 574)
1571 A permanent gallows in London
drew gawkers and became a source of entertainment and profit.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)
1572 Jun 11, Ben Jonson (d.1637),
English playwright and poet, was born. "Very few men are wise by their
own counsel; or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only
taught by himself, had a fool to his master."
(AP, 1/4/98)(HN, 6/11/01)
1572 Parliament passed the Act for
Punishment as Vagabonds. It required entertainers to obtain a noble
patron for support. It led to the emergence of permanent theaters.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)
1572 The Privy Council of Queen
Elizabeth I, refused to grant patent protection to new knives
with bone handles because the improvement was marginal.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.78)
1573 Jul 15, Inigo Jones (d.1652),
father of English classical architecture, was born in London. He
restored St. Paul's Cathedral.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.14)(MC, 7/15/02)
1573 Aug 7, Francis Drake’s fleet
returned to Plymouth.
(MC, 8/7/02)
1573 Oct 7, William Laud, English
archbishop of Canterbury (1633-45), was born.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1573 Sir Francis Walsingham began
serving as principal secretary for Queen Elizabeth I. He founded a vast
espionage network to protect the queen and served her until 1590. In
2005 Stephen Budiansky authored “Her Majesty’s Spymaster,” and account
of Walsingham’s efforts.
(WSJ, 8/17/05, p.D14)
1575 Jan 22, English queen
Elizabeth I granted Thomas Tallis and William Byrd a music press
monopoly.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1576 The Theater in Shoreditch,
London, was built by James Burbage (d.1597). It was the 1st permanent
playhouse in England.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)(ON, 11/03, p.1)
1577 Feb 8, Robert Burton
(d.1640), writer, Anglican clergyman (Anatomy of Melancholy), was born.
"A mere madness, to live like a wretch and die rich."
(AP, 8/19/98)(MC, 2/8/02)
1577 Sep 23, William of Orange
made his triumphant entry into Brussels, Belgium.
(HN, 9/23/98)
1577 Dec 13, Sir Francis Drake of
England set out with five ships on a nearly three-year journey that
would take him around the world. He raided Spanish ships in the Pacific
and returned with a 4,500% profit on his investment.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)(AP, 12/13/97)(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R49)
1578 Apr 1, William Harvey England
(d.1657), discoverer of blood circulation, was born.
(HN, 4/1/99)(WUD, 1994, p.648)
1578 Jul 11, England granted Sir
Humphrey Gilbert a patent to explore and colonize US.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1578 John Lely, English dramatist
and novelist, began "Eupheus, the Anatomy of Wit," an early novel of
manners.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1578 Sir Francis Drake renamed his
flagship, the Pelican, to the Golden Hind. He ravaged the coasts of
Chile and Peru on his way around the world.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1579 Jun 17, Sir Francis Drake
sailed into San Francisco Bay and proclaimed English sovereignty over
New Albion (California). Some claim that Sir Francis Drake sailed into
the SF Bay. Sir Francis Drake claimed San Francisco Bay for England.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)(HN, 6/17/98)
1579 Jun 17, There was an
anti-English uprising in Ireland.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1579 Nov 21, Thomas Gresham
(b.1519), English merchant and financier, died. He worked for King
Edward VI of England and for Edward's half-sister Queen Elizabeth I of
England. Gresham’s Law: "Bad money drives out good." Gresham's law is
commonly stated as: "When there is a legal tender currency, bad money
drives good money out of circulation." Or, more accurately, "Money
overvalued by the State will drive money undervalued by the State out
of circulation."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gresham)
1579 "Plutarch’s Lives,"
biographies of noble Greeks and Romans of the first and second
centuries CE, were translated into English from the French.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1579 Edmund Spenser, English poet,
wrote "The Shepheardes Calender," an eclogue (pastoral or idyllic poem)
for each month of the year.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1579 Christopher Saxton published
a map of England. His maps were the first to show England in any detail.
(Econ, 4/4/09, p.85)
1580 Sep 26, Francis Drake
returned to Plymouth, England, at the end of his voyage to circumvent
the globe. Drake was knighted and awarded a prize of 10 thousand
pounds. His crew of 63 split a purse of 8 thousand pounds.
(TL-MB, p.23)(HN, 9/26/99)(ON, 7/03, p.8)
1580 Apr 18, Thomas Middleton,
English playwright (Game of Chess), was born.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1580 Longleat Estate, Wiltshire,
England, originally an Augustinian priory, was completed as an
Italianate mansion. Longleat was built by Robert Smythson.
(N.G., Nov. 1985, M. Girouard, p.685)(TL-MB, p.23)
1580 John Dee, mathematician and
warden of Manchester College in England, invented the crystal ball.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, z1 p.8)
1580 Edmund Campion and Robert
Parsons began a Jesuit mission in England.
(TL-MB, p.23)
1581 Jan 4, James Ussher (d.1656),
Irish prelate and scholar, Archbishop of Armagh, was born. According to
Ussher and Dr. John Lightfoot of Cambridge, the world was created on
Oct 23, 4004BCE, a Sunday, at 9 a.m.
(WUD, 1994, p.1574)(NG, Nov. 1985, edit. p.559)(HN,
10/23/98)(MC, 1/4/02)
1581 Jan 16, English parliament
passed laws against Catholicism.
(MC, 1/16/02)
1581 Apr 4, Frances Drake
completed the circumnavigation of the world and was made a knight.
(HN, 4/4/98)(MC, 4/4/02)
1581 Jun 18, Sir Thomas Overbury,
English poet and courtier who became involved in numerous scandals in
London, was born.
(HN, 6/18/98)
1581 Jul 14, English Jesuit Edmund
Campion was arrested.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1581 Dec 1, Edmund Campion (41),
English Jesuit was hanged drawn and quartered at Tyburn, England, for
sedition, after being tortured. Other Jesuits were also executed.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.23)(HN, 12/1/99)(PCh, 1992, p.200)
1582 Nov 27, William Shakespeare
married Anne Hathaway.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1583 Nov, Francis Throckmorton
(b.1554) was arrested. He made a full confession of the Throckmorton
Plot for the overthrow of Queen Elizabeth I and the restoration of
papal authority in England after being tortured on the rack. [see Jul
20, 1584]
(HNQ, 10/8/98)
1584 Mar 25, Sir Walter Raleigh,
English explorer, courtier, and writer, renewed Humphrey Gilbert's
patent to explore North America. He went on to settle the Virginia
colony on Roanoke Island (North Carolina), naming it after the virgin
queen.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.23)(MC, 3/25/02)
1584 Jul 20, Francis Throckmorton
was executed. He was the central figure in the conspiracy involving
France and Spain, which called for a French invasion of England and the
release from prison of Mary, Queen of Scots. [see Nov, 1583]
(HNQ, 10/8/98)
1584 Nov 23, The English
parliament expelled the Jesuits.
(MC, 11/23/01)
c1584 Miles Standish, head of the
Mayflower colonists, was born in England. His precise place of birth
was still under dispute in 2004.
(WSJ, 11/24/04, p.A1)
1584 Sir Philip Sidney began a
radical revision of his pastoral romance "Arcadia."
(TL-MB, p.23)
1585 Jun 7, English sea captain
John Davis set sail from Dartmouth with 2 ships to search for a
Northwest passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
(ON, 11/05, p.8)
1585 Jul 17, English secret
service discovered Anthony Babington's murder plot against queen
Elizabeth I.
(MC, 7/17/02)
1585 Elizabeth extended her
protection to The Netherlands against Spain to avenge the murder of
William of Orange.
(TL-MB, p.24)
1585 Bartholomew Newsam built the
earliest surviving English spring-driven clocks.
(TL-MB, p.24)
1585 John Davis, English explorer,
discovered the strait named after him between Greenland and Canada.
(TL-MB, p.24)
1586 Apr 17, John Ford (d.1640),
English dramatist ('Tis Pity She's a Whore), was born.
(WUD, 1994 p.554)(MC, 4/17/02)
1586 May 7, English sea captain
John Davis set sail from Dartmouth with 3 ships in a 2nd attempt to
find a Northwest passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. When
Davis returned in October he learned that one ship, the North Star, had
been lost with all hands in a gale near the coast of Ireland.
(ON, 11/05, p.9)
1586 Jun 23, Sir Francis Drake
encountered the Roanoke Island Hurricane off the Atlantic coast. Harsh
weather caused Drake to evacuate the settlers back to England.
(SFC, 6/23/09, p.D8)
1586 Jul 27, Sir Walter Raleigh
returned to England from Virginia with the 1st samples of tobacco.
(HN, 7/27/01)(MC, 7/27/02)
1586 Jul 28, Sir Thomas Harriot
introduced potatoes to Europe.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1586 Sep 20, Anthony Babington,
page and conspirator to Mary Stuart, was executed at 24.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1586 Oct 14, Mary, Queen of Scots,
went on trial in England, accused of committing treason against Queen
Elizabeth the First. Mary was beheaded in February 1587.
(AP, 10/14/06)
1586 Oct 17, Philip Sidney
(b.1554), English poet and diplomat, died in battle at 32. His work
included "Astrophel and Stella" and "Defense of Poesy." In 2002 Alan
Stewart authored "Philip Sidney: A Double Life."
(MC, 10/17/01)(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.M4)
1586 Sir Francis Walsingham,
principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I, uncovered a conspiracy by
Mary, Queen of Scots, that called for a rebellion of Catholics, the
landing of a foreign army and the assassination of the queen.
(WSJ, 8/17/05, p.D14)
1586 In America relations with the
local Indians soured after the English soldiers attacked a
village, and soon the English returned home.
(NG, Geographica, Jan, 94)
1587 Feb 1, Elizabeth I, Queen of
England, signed the Warrant of Execution for Mary Queen of Scots.
(HN, 2/1/99)
1587 Feb 8, Mary Stuart, Queen of
Scots (1560-67), was beheaded at age 44 in Fotheringhay Castle for her
alleged part in the conspiracy to usurp Elizabeth I. In 2004 Jane Dunn
authored "Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens." In 2006 studies
identified an oil painting of Mary as the only one made of Mary as
queen.
(HN, 2/8/99)(PCh, 1992, p.203)(USAT, 2/5/04,
p.5D)(SFC, 8/18/06, p.E2)
1587 Mar 1, Peter Wentworth,
English parliament leader, was confined in London Tower. [see Mar 12]
(SC, 3/1/02)
1587 Mar 12, Peter Wentworth,
English parliament leader, was confined in London Tower. [see Mar 1]
(MC, 3/12/02)
1587 Apr 19, Sir Frances Drake
sailed into Cadiz, Spain, and sank the Spanish fleet.
(MC, 4/19/02)
1587 May 19, English sea captain
John Davis set sail from Dartmouth with 3 ships in a 3rd unsuccessful
attempt to find a Northwest passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans. 2 ships spent the journey fishing and managed to cover expenses.
(ON, 11/05, p.9)
1587 In London the open-air Rose
Theater was built. It was demolished after 1606 when the Globe Theater
surpassed it in popularity. An office building, later constructed over
the site, was suspended by girders to preserve the site. Its exact
location was lost until 1989.
(SFC, 4/15/99, p.E5)(Econ, 5/21/05, p.89)
1587 Queen Elizabeth appointed Sir
Walter Raleigh as captain of the guard.
(MC, 7/17/02)(WSJ, 1/6/04, p.D10)
1587 Sir Edward Stafford, English
ambassador in Paris, contacted the Spanish ambassador and offered to
provide news of Queen Elizabeth’s plans and to offer the English
disinformation concerning Spanish plans. Stafford’s brother-in-law was
Lord Howard Effingham, commander in chief of the English fleet.
(WSJ, 11/24/98, p.A20)
1588 Feb 12, John Winthrop,
English attorney, puritan, 1st gov of Massachusetts Bay Colony, was
born.
(HN, 1/12/99)(MC, 2/12/02)
1588 Feb, King Philip II (61)
appointed Don Alonzo Perez de Guzman el Bueno (37), the Duke of Medina
Sedonia, as Captain General of the High Seas and ordered him to take
charge of the Spanish Armada. Philip intended to restore England to
Catholicism
(ON, 3/02, p.1)
1588 Apr 5, Thomas Hobbes
(d.1679), English philosopher (Leviathan), was born. "The reputation of
power IS power."
(HN, 5/5/97)(AP, 5/31/99)
1588 May 19, The Spanish Armada
set sail for England; it was soundly defeated by the English fleet the
following August.
(AP, 5/19/97)
1588 May 30, Spanish Armada under
Medina-Sidonia departed Lisbon to invade England.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1588 Jul 23, English army
assembled at Tilbury to repel invasion of England by Spanish Armada.
(AP, 7/23/97)
1588 Jul 26, Captain John Hawkins
was knighted by Queen Elizabeth.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1588 Jul 27, The Spanish anchored
off Calais in a crescent-shaped, tightly-packed defensive formation,
not far from Parma's army of 16,000, which was waiting at Dunkirk.
(http://wapedia.mobi/en/Spanish_Armada#1.1.)
1588 Jul 29, At midnight of July
28th the English set eight fireships (filled with pitch, gunpowder, and
tar) alight and sent them downwind among the closely-anchored Spanish
vessels. The English attacked the Spanish Armada in the Battle of
Gravelines, resulting in an English victory.
(ON, 3/02,
p.3)(http://wapedia.mobi/en/Spanish_Armada#1.1.)(AP, 7/29/08)
1588 Jul 30, The English exchanged
fire with the Spanish Armada.
(ON, 3/02, p.3)
1588 Aug 1, Sir Francis Drake
captured the Nuestra Senora del Rosario, one of the largest Spanish
Armada galleons.
(ON, 3/02, p.4)
1588 Aug 2, The English and
Spanish fleets exchanged fire all day. The English used up all their
ammunition and sailed into nearby ports.
(ON, 3/02, p.4)
1588 Aug 4, The English and
Spanish fleets exchanged fire all day off the Isle of Wight.
(ON, 3/02, p.4)
1588 Aug 8, The English Navy
destroyed the Spanish Armada. 600 Spaniards were killed in the day’s
fighting and 800 badly injured. The Duke of Medina Sidonia led the
"invincible" Spanish Armada from Lisbon against England. It was
shattered around the coasts of the English Isles by an English fleet
under the command of Lord Howard of Effingham with the help of Sir
Francis Drake, Sir John Hawkins, and a violent storm (see Aug 18). The
victory opened the world for English trade and colonization. In 1959
Garrett Mattingly authored “The Armada.” In 1998 Geoffrey Parker
published "The Grand Strategy of Phillip II." In 2005 Neil Janson
authored “The Confident Hope of a Miracle: The True Story of the
Spanish Armada,” and James McDermott authored “England & the
Spanish Armada: The necessary Quarrel.”
(ON, 3/02, p.5)(SSFC, 2/20/05, p.B2)(Econ, 5/28/05,
p.85)
1588 Aug 10, The remnants of the
Spanish Armada sailed north to avoid the English fleet.
(ON, 3/02, p.6)
1588 Sep 10, Thomas Cavendish
returned to England, becoming the third man to circumnavigate the globe.
(HN, 9/10/98)
1588 Aug 18, A storm struck the
remaining 60 ships of the Spanish Armada under the Duke of Medina
Sidonia after which only 11 were left. Many of the ships went to
Ireland where most of the Spaniards were killed by the English. 600
Spaniards wrecked in Scotland were later returned to Spain.
(ON, 3/02, p.6)
1588 An eye-witness account of the
New World was provided by "A Briefe and True Account of the New Found
Land of Virginia," written by Thomas Harriot. It recounted English
attempts from 1584-1588 to colonize what later became known as eastern
North Carolina and encouraged further settlement and investment there.
In 1590 Flemish engraver Theodor de Bry published an illustrated
edition featuring paintings by English colonist John White.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.24)(Arch, 5/05, p.26)
1588 Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues
(b.~1533), French artist, died in England. He had painted watercolors
of the flora and fauna of Florida, which were lost during a Spanish
attack in 1565. Back in France he created new paintings, which were
also lost, but engravings made by a Flemish publisher survived. In 2008
Miles Harvey authored “Painter in a Savage Land.”
(WSJ, 7/18/08,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Le_Moyne_de_Morgues)
1589 Sep 21, The Duke of Mayenne
of France, head of the Catholic League, was defeated by Henry IV of
England at the Battle of Arques.
(HN, 9/21/98)(MC, 9/21/01)
1589 Thomas Nashe, English
satirical pamphleteer and dramatist, wrote "Anatomie of Absurdities," a
criticism of contemporary literature.
(TL-MB, p.24)
1589 Francis Drake with 150 ships
and 18,000 men failed in his attempt to capture Lisbon.
(TL-MB, p.24)
1589 William Lee, English
clergyman, invented the stocking frame, the first knitting machine.
(TL-MB, p.24)
1589 Sir John Harington,
Elizabethan poet, designed the first water closet and installed it at
his country house near Bath. In 1596 he installed one at the palace of
his godmother Queen Elizabeth I.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.24)(SFC, 7/14/99, p.3)
1590 Apr 6, Francis Walsingham
(b.~1532), English secretary of state, died. He had ensnared Mary,
Queen of the Scots and forced her execution. He is remembered as the
"spymaster" of Queen Elizabeth I of England. In 2007 Robert Hutchinson
authored “Elizabeth’s Spymaster: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War
That Saved England.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Walsingham)(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.W8)
1590 Jul 6, English admiral
Francis Drake took the Portuguese Forts at Taag, Angola.
(MC, 7/6/02)
1590 Sir Philip Sidney, brother to
the second Countess of Pembroke, composed his prose romance “Arcadia.”
In 2008 the idea of Arcadia was examined by Adam Nicolson in his book
“Earls of Paradise: England and the Dream of Perfection.”
(www.luminarium.org/renlit/sidbib.htm)
1591 Aug 24, Robert Herrick,
English poet (Gather ye rosebuds) was baptized.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1591 R. Durtnell & Sons began
building houses.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R46)
1592 Apr 28, George Villiers, 1st
duke of Buckingham, English admiral, was born.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1592 Aug 3, The Earl of
Cumberland, et al, took the Madre de Dios, A Spanish carrack carrying
the largest treasure ever captured for Queen Elizabeth. The earl’s
sailors got out of hand and looted items intended for the queen,
including a large diamond which eventually found its way to Goldsmith’s
Row, London.
(AOL, Eileen McKinnon, tlc@shore.net)
1592 Christopher Marlowe
(1564-1593), English dramatist and poet. He wrote "The Tragical History
of Dr. Faustus."
(WUD, 1994, p.878)
1592 Trinity College in Dublin,
Ireland, was founded after small group of Dublin citizens obtained a
charter from Queen Elizabeth incorporating Trinity College juxta Dublin.
(www.tcd.ie/info/trinity/history/)
1593 Mar 23, English
Congressionalist Henry Barrow was accused of slander.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1593 Apr 3, George Herbert
(d.1633), English metaphysical poet (5 Mystical Songs), was born. "The
best mirror is an old friend."
(AP, 4/16/98)(MC, 4/3/02)
1593 Apr 6, Henry Barrow, English
puritan, was hanged.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1593 Apr 6, John Greenwood,
English Congressionalist, was hanged.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1593 May 29, John Penry English
congressionalist, was executed.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1593 May 30, Christopher Marlowe
(b.Feb 26, 1564), British dramatist (Tamburlaine the Great), poet, was
murdered. Marlowe reportedly died in a barfight. It was later
speculated that his death was faked and that he fled to Italy and
continued writing plays that were produced by Shakespeare. In 2004
Rodney Bolt authored “History Play: The Lives and Afterlife of
Christopher Marlowe.”
(SFC, 1/2/03, p.E11)(www.canterbury.co.uk)(Econ,
9/4/04, p.78)
1593 Aug 9, Izaak Walton (d.1683),
biographer, fisherman, writer (Compleat Angler), was born in England.
"That which is everybody's business is nobody's business."
(AP, 8/29/98)(MC, 8/9/02)
1594 Jun 7, Roderigo Lopez was
executed at Tyburn, England, on charges of spying for the king of Spain.
(WSJ, 9/24/04, p.W7)
1594 Oct 16, William Allen (62),
English cardinal and founder of the seminary of Douai, died.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1594 James Burbage won the
patronage of Lord Chamberlain and established the 25 member Lord
Chamberlain's Men. The group included William Shakespeare.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)
c1594 Sir Walter Raleigh married
Elizabeth Throckmorton (1565-1647), a maid of honor to Queen Elizabeth.
Her secret marriage and pregnancy led to her being banished from the
court.
(WSJ, 1/6/04, p.D10)
1595 Feb 21, Robert Southwell,
English-Jesuit poet, was hanged for "treason" being a Catholic.
(HN, 2/21/99)(MC, 2/21/02)
1595 May 28, It was a shaken and
demoralized English column that returned to its northern Irish base at
Newry.
(HN, 8/1/98)
1595 Jul 23, Spanish soldiers
landed at Cornwall, England, and burned Mousehold and Penzance before
returning to their ships.
(AP, 7/23/97)
1595 Aug 24, Thomas Digges,
English astronomer (Universe Infinite), died.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1595 Nov 12, John Hawkins (63),
English navigator and treasurer of the Navy, died.
(MC, 11/12/01)
1595 Queen Elizabeth sent Sir
Francis Drake to capture treasure from a wrecked Spanish galleon stored
at La Forteleza. Drake failed and returned to Panama.
(HT, 4/97, p.30)
1595 Sir Walter Raleigh explored
the South American coast from the Orinoco River to the mouth of the
Amazon, an area that he called "Guiana."
(WSJ, 1/6/04, p.D10)
1595 John Smith on a whaling
expedition mapped the eastern seaboard and named the area new England.
The area had earlier been called Norumbega. On his return he gave the
map to heir apparent Charles Stuart (16) and instructed him to rename
the "barbarous" place names. Thus Cape Elizabeth, Cape Anne, the
Charles River and Plymouth.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.23)
1596 Jan 28, English navigator Sir
Francis Drake died off the coast of Panama of a fever; he was buried at
sea.
(HT, 4/97, p.30)(AP, 1/28/98)
1596 Jul 1, An English fleet under
the Earl of Essex, Lord Howard of Effingham and Francis Vere captured
and sacked Cadiz, Spain.
(HN, 7/1/98)
1596 Aug 19, Elisabeth Stuart,
English daughter of James I, was born.
(MC, 8/19/02)
c1596-1597 Shakespeare wrote his tragedy "King John."
(WUD, 1994, p.788)
1597 Aug 11, Germany threw out
English salesmen in "a noble experiment."
(MC, 8/11/02)
1597 Britain’s Tudor
establishment, deeply concerned by the possibility of social upheaval
brought on by an agricultural crisis and increasing urban migration,
introduced the Charitable Uses Act, first in 1597, then a revised act
in 1601 to promote philanthropy amongst the country's aristocracy and
burgeoning merchant classes.
(www.pnnonline.org/article.php?sid=2398&mode=thread&order=0)
1598 Aug 15, Hugh O'Neill, the
Earl of Tyrone, led an Irish force to victory over the British at
Battle of Yellow Ford.
(HN, 8/15/98)
1598 Dec 28, Richard and Cuthbert
Burbage led a crew to begin the demolition of the Theater in London.
They and partners that included William Shakespeare used the timbers to
build a new theater. The Globe opened in 1599.
(ON, 11/03, p.2)
1598 Sir George Clifford, the
third Earl of Cumberland, led an attack on Puerto Rico. He landed east
of San Juan at Boqueron Inlet and attacked. The English prevailed and
plundered San Juan but their food spoiled and 400 died of dysentery.
The survivors burned San Juan and sailed away.
(HT, 4/97, p.30)
1599 Apr 25, Oliver Cromwell
(d.1658) was born. He was an English military, political and religious
leader, and dictator as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth from
1653-1658.
(CFA, '96, p.44)(AHD, p.315)(HN, 4/25/98)
1599 Sep 7, Earl of Essex and
Irish rebel Tyrone signed a treaty.
(MC, 9/7/01)
1599 Sep 21, The Globe Theater had
its first recorded performance. The 20-sided timber building for
Shakespeare’s plays was constructed on the South Bank of the Thames,
England. The troupe Lord Chamberlain's Men built the Globe Theater.
Timbers came from a dismantled old theater and the new structure held
some 3,000 spectators in 3 galleries. In 2005 James Shapiro authored “A
Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599.”
(Hem, Mar. 95, p.138)(WSJ, 6/17/97, p.A16)(WSJ,
1/11/99, p.R34)(Econ, 11/5/05, p.92)
1600 Nov 19, Charles I of England
was born. Charles I, ruled Great Britain from 1625-1649. He was
executed by Parliament in 1649.
(WUD, 1994, p.249)(HN, 11/19/98)
1600 Dec 31, The British East
India Company (d.1874) was chartered by Queen Elizabeth I in London to
carry on trade in the East Indies in competition with the Dutch, who
controlled nutmeg from the Banda Islands.
(WUD, 1994, p.449)(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R49)(www.theeastindiacompany.com/history.html)
1600-1603 Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) governed
Jersey, a British Channel Island.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.59)
1600-1700 Britain waged wars against the Dutch. The
English fleet sailed in three segments, the 3rd of which was commanded
by a Rear Admiral.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, Z1 p.3)
1600-1700 In England the Roundheads were members or
adherents of the Parliamentarians or Puritan party during the civil
wars of the 17th century. They were called roundheads by the
Cavaliers in derision because they wore their hair cut short.
(WUD, 1994, p.1248)
1600-1700 The Windsor chair originated in Windsor,
England.
(WSJ, 8/15/97, p.A1)
1601 Jan 7, Robert, Earl of Essex
led a revolt in London against Queen Elizabeth.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1601 Feb 8, The armies of Earl
Robert Devereux of Essex drew into London.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1601 Feb 13, John Lancaster led
the 1st East India Company voyage from London.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1601 Feb 25, Robert Devereux
(b.1566), 2nd earl of Essex, was beheaded following a conviction of
treason. His plan to capture London and the Tower had failed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Devereux,_2nd_Earl_of_Essex)(HN,
2/25/99)
1601 A British measure, funded by
taxes, provided jobs for the able-bodied poor and apprentice programs
for children.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)
1602 Jan 2, Battle at Kinsale,
Ireland: English army beat the Spanish.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1602 Apr 30, William Lilly,
astrologer, author, almanac compiler, was born in England.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1603 Mar 24, Tudor Queen Elizabeth
I (69), the "Virgin Queen," died. She had reigned from 1558-1603.
Scottish King James VI, son of Mary, became King James I of England in
the union of the crowns. In 2006 Leanda de Lisle authored “After
Elizabeth.”
(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A13)(HN, 3/24/99)(WSJ, 2/4/06, p.P9)
1603 Mar 30, Battle at Mellifont:
English army under Lord Mountjoy beat the Irish.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1603 Apr 5, New English king James
I departed Edinburgh for London.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1603 Jul 17, Sir Walter Raleigh
(1552-1618) was arrested. He was prosecuted by Sir Edward Coke. James I
suspended his death sentence and had him incarcerated in the Tower of
London for 13 years during which time he wrote his "History of the
World."
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUDrayleigh.htm)(WSJ,
1/6/04, p.D10)
1603 Dec 27, Thomas Cartwright
(~68), English Presbyterian publicist, died.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1603 Roger Williams (d.1683) was
born in London. After a brief period as a Baptist, the founder of the
Rhode Island Colony and colonial religious leader, became a Seeker—one
who adhered to the basic tenets of Christianity but refused to
recognize any creed. Williams was the first champion of complete
religious toleration in America.
(HNQ, 5/1/99)(WSJ, 6/21/05, p.D10)
1603 King James I of England
allowed the public limited access to Hyde Park.
(SFEM, 3/21/99, p.8)
1603 Following the London plague
in this year weekly Bills of Mortality began to be published.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.97)
1604 Apr 4, Thomas Churchyard,
poet, pamphleteer, died.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1604 Nov 1, William Shakespeare's
tragedy "Othello" was first presented at Whitehall Palace in London.
(AP, 11/1/99)
1604 The “Moor of Venis” (Othello)
by Shaxberd (Shakespeare) was performed in London.
(WSJ, 10/22/05,
p.P13)(http://ise.uvic.ca/Library/SLTnoframes/plays/othsubj.html)
1605 Jun 15, Thomas Randolph,
English poet and playwright, was born.
(HT, 6/15/00)
1605 Oct 19, Thomas Browne,
British writer (Garden of Cyrus), was born.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1605 Nov 5, The Gunpowder Plot was
planned in response to strict enforcement of anti-Catholic laws by King
James I. Several prominent English Catholics plotted to blow up
Parliament when the King was to address the House of Lords. Robert
Catesby gathered a dozen young men to smuggle barrels of gunpowder into
the basement of the House of Parliament. 36 barrels of gunpowder were
placed in the cellar. The plot was discovered and one of the
conspirators, Guy Fawkes, was arrested as he entered the cellar before
the planned explosion. Fawkes was supposed to light the fuse but was
caught and horribly tortured. Fawkes, after persuasion on the rack in
the White Tower of London, confessed to trying to blow up Parliament.
Fawkes and other conspirators were tried, convicted and executed.
November 5 is known as Guy Fawkes Day in England and is celebrated by
shooting firecrackers and burning effigies of Fawkes. The story is told
in the 1996 book "Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot"
by Antonia Fraser. In 2005 Alice Hogge authored “God’s Secret Agents:
Queen Elizabeth’s Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpowder
Plot.”
(NG, V184, No. 4, 10/1993, p. 54)(AP, 11/5/97)(HNQ,
3/15/00)(Econ, 11/5/05, p.92)
1605 Dec 27, English sea captain
John Davis was killed by Japanese pirates whose ship he had captured
off the coast of Sumatra. In 1889 Clements Markham authored “A Life of
John Davis, the Navigator, 1550-1605, Discoverer of Davis Straits.”
(ON, 11/05, p.9)
1605 The American Indian
Tisquantum, aka Squanto, was picked up by seafarer George Weymouth and
taken to England. He spent 9 years there and returned to the New World
as the interpreter for John Smith.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.28)
1606 Jan 31, Guy Fawkes, convicted
for his part in the "Gunpowder Plot" against the English Parliament and
King James I, was hanged, drawn and quartered.
(AP, 1/31/98)(HN, 1/31/99)
1606 Apr 12, England's King James
I decreed the design of the original Union Flag (also referred to as
the Union Jack), which combined the flags of England and Scotland.
(HN, 4/12/98)(AP, 4/12/06)
1606 Dec 20, Virginia Company
settlers left London to establish Jamestown.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(MC, 12/20/01)
1606 Shakespeare wrote the
tragedy "King Lear."
(WUD, 1994, p.788)
1607 Jan 30, A sudden flood around
the Bristol Channel in southwest Britain killed at least 2,000 people.
It was the worst natural disaster ever recorded in Britain.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.101)
1607 May 13, English colonists
landed near the James River in Virginia. They went shore the next day
and founded a colony named Jamestown. In 1996 archeologist discovered
the original Jamestown Fort and the remains of one settler, a young
white male who died a violent death. In 2003 David A. Price authored
"Love and Hate in Jamestown."
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A2)(AP, 5/13/97)(HN, 5/24/98)(WSJ,
11/25/03, p.D8)(AP, 5/13/07)
1607 Jul 7, "God Save the King"
was 1st sung.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1607 Nov 26, This day is believed
to be the birth date of London-born clergyman John Harvard, the
principal benefactor of the original Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass.
(AP, 11/26/07)
1607 “The Knight of the Burning
Pestle,” a play by Francis Beaumont (1584-1616), was first performed.
It was first published in a quarto in 1613.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knight_of_the_Burning_Pestle)
1607 Henry Chettle (b.c1564),
English dramatist and miscellaneous writer of the Elizabethan era, died
about this time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Chettle)
1608 Aug 13, John Smith's story of
Jamestown's 1st days was submitted for publication.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1608 Dec 6, George Monck (Monk),
English general and gov. of Scotland, was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1608 Dec 9, English blind poet and
polemical pamphleteer John Milton (1608-1674) was born in London. His
work included "Paradise Lost," Paradise Regained," and "Samson
Agonistes."
(WUD, '94, p.911)(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A20)(AP, 12/9/97)
1608 Shakespeare wrote his play
"Pericles." It was about a prince who journeys through evil kingdoms
until he meets his bride and then loses her at sea.
(WSJ, 11/11/98, p.A21)
1608 In England Bess of Hardwick
died at age 80. Know as the Dowager Countess of Shrewsbury, she built
the Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. Bess had married and disposed of four
husbands, each leaving her richer than the last. She had been a
moneylender, property dealer, exploiter of iron works, coal mines, and
glass works, and ended up the richest woman in England after the Queen.
She only had children by her second husband, Sir William Cavendish. Her
fortune was divided between two sons, William and Charles.
(N.G., Nov. 1985, M. Girouard, p.662,671)(SFEM,
10/11/98, p.20)
1609 Feb 10, John Suckling,
English Cavalier poet, dramatist, courtier, was born.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1609 Jul 25, Admiral William
Somers, head of a 7-ship fleet enroute to Virginia, spied land after
being blown off course and soon drove his ship, the Sea Venture, onto
the reefs of Bermuda. William Strachey (1572-1621), was also aboard the
Sea Venture and later sent a letter to England that described the
event. The letter is thought by many to have been the inspiration for
Shakespeare’s "Tempest." Strachey became secretary of the colony at
Jamestown, Virginia, after his arrival there on May 23, 1610. In 2009
Hobson Woodward authored: A Brave Vessel: The True Tale of the
Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare’s “The
Tempest.”
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.29)(SFC, 8/18/09,
p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Venture)
1609 Sep 12, English
explorer Henry Hudson sailed his ship, the Half Moon, into the river
that later took his name. Hudson sailed for the Dutch East India
Company in search of the Northwest Passage, a water route linking the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
(AP, 9/12/97)(Econ, 7/4/09, p.28)
1609 Ben Johnson wrote his play
"The Silent Woman."
(WSJ, 2/7/03, p.W2)
1609 Shakespeare wrote his play
"Cymbeline." It was based on the story of Cymbeline, king of Britain
during the reign of Augustus Caesar in Rome.
(WSJ, 6/10/98, p.A16)(WSJ, 8/19/98, p.A16)
1609 The original text of
Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets was published. In 1997 a poem-by-poem
commentary was published by Helen Vendler: "The Art of Shakespeare’s
Sonnets." A new Arden edition: "Shakespeare’s Sonnets" to elucidate the
context of the poems was also published in 1997.
(WSJ, 11/12/97, p.A20)
1609 The song "Three Blind Mice"
was published in London.
(SFC,12/5/97, p.C3)
1609 The British attempted to
settle Grenada.
(http://worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/caribb/gd.htm)
1610 Mar 21, King James I
addressed the English House of Commons.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1610 Apr 18, Robert Parsons (63),
English Jesuit leader, plotter, died.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1610 Aug 3, Henry Hudson of
England discovered a great bay on the east coast of Canada and named it
for himself.
(HN, 8/3/98)(HNQ, 7/23/00)
1610 Shakespeare wrote his play
""A Winter’s Tale."
(SFEC, 4/30/00, p.T6)
1610 In Ireland the settlement at
Derry was colonized by the English, who built a fortress surrounded by
stone walls and renamed it Londonderry.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A14)
1611 Mar 4, George Abbot was
appointed archbishop of Canterbury.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1611 Jun 22, English explorer
Henry Hudson, his son and several other people were set adrift in
present-day Hudson Bay by mutineers.
(AP, 6/22/97)
1611 Nov 1, Shakespeare's romantic
comedy "The Tempest" was first presented at Whitehall.
(AP, 11/1/99)
1611 Nov 3, Henry Ireton, English
general and MP (Edgehill), was born.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1611 The authorized version of the
King James Bible was published and it incorporated the translation of
William Tyndale. In 2001 Alister McGrath authored "In the Beginning:
The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a
Language and a Culture." In 2003 Adam Nicolson authored "God's
Secretaries," which covered the tumult behind the creation of the King
James Bible.
(WSJ, 12/22/94, A-20)(SSFC, 6/3/01, DB p.71)(WSJ,
5/9/03, p.W10)
1612 Feb 7, Thomas Killigrew,
English humorist, playwright, leader (King's Men), was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1612 Feb 8, Samuel Butler
(d.1680), England, poet, satirist (Hudibras) was baptized.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1612 Shakespeare was commissioned
to write a serious play about Henry VIII. The commission was probably
made to celebrate the marriage of one of King James’ daughters.
(WSJ, 6/27/97, p.A13)
1612 Shakespeare handed over the
role of scriptwriter for the King’s Men to John Fletcher and retired to
his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon.
(WSJ, 5/1/97, p.A16)
1613 Jan 28, Thomas Bodley
(b.1545), English diplomatist and scholar, died in London. He founded
the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
(www.nndb.com/people/859/000094577/)
1613 Jun, Susanna Hall,
Shakespeare’s daughter, married Stratford doctor and herbalist John
Hall.
(WSJ, 12/5/00, p.A24)
1613 Jun 29, Shakespeare's Globe
Theater burned down in London. It was soon rebuilt on the same
foundations.
(USAT, 8/16/96, p.8D)(MC, 6/29/02)
1613 The American Indian
Tisquantum, aka Squanto, returned to the New World from England as the
interpreter for John Smith. He was freed by Smith but then kidnapped
with 19 fellow Indians by an Englishman and carried off to Milaga,
Spain. He managed to escape to England.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.28)
1613 A fleet of 3 English ships
arrived in Japan in response to letters from Will Adams to the English
East India Company.
(ON, 11/02, p.10)
1614 Apr 5, 2nd parliament of King
James I began session (no enactments).
(MC, 4/5/02)
1614 Jun 7, The 2nd parliament of
King James I dissolved passing no legislation.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1616 Mar 6, Francis Beaumont
(b.1584), Elizabethan playwright, died.
(WUD, 1994 p.131)(MC, 3/6/02)
1616 Mar 20, Walter Raleigh was
released from Tower of London to seek gold in Guiana. He took along his
son Wat (22), who was killed during an attack on a Spanish outpost.
(MC, 3/20/02)(WSJ, 1/6/04, p.D10)
1616 Apr 23, William Shakespeare
(b.1564), poet and playwright, died in Stratford-on-Avon, England. In
2004 Stephen Greenblatt authored “Will In the World.” In 2006 Colin
McGinn authored “Discovering the Meaning Behind the Plays.”
(AP, 4/23/97)(WSJ, 9/24/04, p.W7)(SSFC, 12/24/06,
p.M1)
1616 Dec 25, Nathaniel Courthope,
a British merchant-adventurer under direct orders from James I, landed
his ship Swan at the Banda Island of Run. He persuaded the islanders to
enter an alliance with the British for nutmeg. He fortified the 1 by 2
mile island and with 30 men proceeded to hold off a Dutch siege for
1,540 days.
(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W7)
1616 London’s Phoenix Theater in
Drury Lane was converted from a cockpit.
(Econ, 5/21/05, p.88)
1616 In a letter to Queen Anne,
Capt. John Smith recalled that Pocahontas had saved the colony at
Jamestown from "death, famine, and utter confusion."
(WSJ, 6/13/95, p.A-18)
1616 American Indian princess
Pocahontas and her husband, Jamestown colonist John Rolfe, sailed to
England with their infant son.
(ON, 2/07, p.9)
1617 Jan 6, Pocahontas, American
Indian princess, attended a court masque with King James I and Queen
Anne.
(ON, 2/07, p.9)
1617 Mar 21, Pocahontas (Rebecca
Rolfe) was buried at the parish church of St. George in Gravesend,
England. As Pocahontas and John Rolfe prepared to sail back to
Virginia, she died reportedly of either small pox or pneumonia. In 2003
Paula Gunn Allen authored "Pocahontas "Medicine Woman, Spy,
entrepreneur, Diplomat."
(AP, 4/5/97)(HN, 5/5/97)(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.T12)(HN,
3/21/01)(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.M5)
1617 Aug 23, The 1st one-way
streets opened in London.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1617 James VI of Scotland, aka
James I of England, made a homecoming to Edinburgh Castle.
(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T3)
1618 Jan 7, Francis Bacon became
English lord chancellor.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1618 Oct 29, Sir Walter Raleigh,
English scholar, poet and historian, was executed for treason. After
the death of Queen Elizabeth, Raleigh's enemies had spread rumors that
he opposed the accession of King James. In 2003 Raleigh Trevelyan
authored "Sir Walter Raleigh," and Anna Beer authored "My Just Desire,"
a biography of Raleigh's wife, Elizabeth Throckmorton.
(HN, 10/29/98)(MC, 10/29/01)(WSJ, 1/6/04, p.D10)
1618 In London the play "Swetnam
the Woman-Hater" introduced the term "misogynist" into the English
language.
(SFEC, 7/25/99, p.A2)
1618-1680 Sir Peter Lely, English court painter.
(Ind, 12/26/98, p.5A)
1619 Mar 1, Thomas Campion (53),
English physician, composer, poet (Poemata), died.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1619 In England Tisquantum joined
a new exploratory mission to the New England coast and returned to find
that his tribe had been wiped out by the plague. It was he who later
communicated with the first Pilgrims at Plymouth.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.29)
1619 Richard Burbage, actor and
co-owner of London's Globe theater, died.
(ON, 11/03, p.2)
1620 Jul 22, The Pilgrims set out
from Holland destined for the New World. The Speedwell sailed to
England from the Netherlands with members of the English Separatist
congregation that had been living in Leiden, Holland. Joining the
larger Mayflower at Southampton, the two ships set sail together in
August, but the Speedwell soon proved unseaworthy and was abandoned at
Plymouth, England. The entire company then crowded aboard the
Mayflower, setting sail for North America on September 16, 1620.
(HNQ, 3/4/00)(MC, 7/22/02)
1620 Sep 16, The Pilgrims sailed
from England on the Mayflower, finally settling at Plymouth, Mass. The
Pilgrims were actually Separatists because they had left the Church of
England. The 4 children of William Brewster, who arrived on the
Mayflower, were named: Love, Wrestling, Patience, and Fear.
(HN, 9/16/98)(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.23)(SFC, 3/20/99,
p.B4)
1620 Oct 31, John Evelyn (d.1706),
British diarist (Life of Mrs. Godolphin), was born. He was a meditative
and sententious English diarist.
(WSJ, 6/2/99, p.A24)(MC, 10/31/01)
1620 Dec 2, An English newspaper
headline read: “The new tidings out of Italie are not yet come.” In
2006 this was reported to be the world’s oldest headline.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.103)
1620 In England Dutch-born
Cornelius Drebbel tested a submarine which cruised 15 feet under the
Thames. Cornelius Drebbel also attempted to air-condition Westminster
Abbey.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(WSJ, 12/10/99, p.W12)
1621 Mar 31, Andrew Marvell,
English poet and politician, was born.
(HN, 3/31/01)
1621 May 3, Francis Bacon was
accused of bribery.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1621 May 31, Sir Francis Bacon was
thrown into Tower of London for overnight.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1621 Sep 21, King James of England
gave Canada to Sir Alexander Sterling.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1621 Dec 18, English parliament
unanimously accepted Protestation.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1622 Jan 23, William Baffin (~38),
British explorer, died.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1622 Feb 8, King James I disbanded
the English parliament.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1622 Apr 17, Henry Vaughan
(d.1695), English poet and mystic, was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.1582)(HN, 4/17/98)
1623 Jul 4, William Byrd (80),
English composer (Ave verum corpus), died.
(MC, 7/4/02)
1623 Aug 6, Anne Hathaway, wife of
William Shakespeare, died.
(MC, 8/6/02)
1623 Nov 9, William Camden (72),
English historian: Brittania Annales, died.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1623 Ben Jonson, playwright, wrote
his poem Shakespeare "Sweet Swan of Avon."
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.E3)
1623 In London the Coopers Arm
pub, now known as The Lamb and Flag at 33 Rose St., went into business.
(SFC, 8/11/96, p.T7)
1624 Sep 12, The 1st submarine was
tested in London.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1624 George Fox (d.1691), founder
of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), was born in England.
(SSFC, 8/5/01, p.C10)
1625 Mar 27, James I (VI), Stuart
king of Scotland (1567), England (1603-25), died. He was described as
the “wisest fool in Christendom.”
(www.jesus-is-lord.com/kingbio.htm)(Econ, 12/18/04,
p.130)
1625 Mar 27, Charles I (d.1649)
became the English king. He was King of England, Ireland and Scotland
until he was beheaded.
(AP, 3/27/97)(WSJ, 6/13/96, p.A12)
1625 Jun 5, Orlando Gibbons (41),
English organist, composer (Silver Swan), died.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1626 Feb 2, Charles I was crowned
King of England. His wife was Queen Henrietta Maria.
(HN, 2/2/99)(WSJ, 10/31/02, p.D6)
1626 Feb 28, Cyril Tourneur (c51),
English poet, dramatist, died.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1626 Oct 4, Richard Cromwell
(d.1659), lord protector of England (1658-59), was born.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1626 Nov 15, The Pilgrim Fathers,
who settled in New Plymouth, bought out their London investors.
(HN, 11/15/98)
1626 In London Queen Henrietta
Maria, wife of Charles I, was presented Jeffrey Hudson (7), whom she
made her royal dwarf. In 2002 Nick Page authored "Lord Minimus," a
biography of Hudson.
(HN, 2/2/99)(WSJ, 10/31/02, p.D6)
1627 Jul 10, English fleet under
George Villiers reached La Rochelle, France, a Huguenot stronghold.
(MC, 7/10/02)(WUD, 1994, p.808)
1627 Jul 20, English fleet under
George Villiers reached La Rochelle. [see Jul 10]
(MC, 7/20/02)
1628 Mar 19, Massachusetts colony
was founded by Englishmen.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1628 Oct 28, After a fifteen-month
siege, the Huguenot town of La Rochelle surrendered to Cardinal
Richelieu's Catholic forces. John Tradescant, an English gardener who
accompanied Duke George Villiers to rescue the Huguenots, had designed
siege trenches prior to the surrender.
(HN, 10/28/98)(MC, 10/28/01)(WSJ, 4/3/08, p.B19)
1628 Nov 24, John Ford's "Lover's
Melancholy," premiered in London.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1628 Nov 28, John Bunyan, English
preacher and writer who wrote "Pilgrim’s Progress," was born.
(HN, 11/28/98)
1628 Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish
painter, was called upon to broker a peace between Catholic Spain and
Protestant England.
(Econ, 5/15/04, p.81)
1629 Mar 2, English King Charles I
fleeced the house of commons.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1629 Mar 10, England's King
Charles I dissolved Parliament and did not call it back for 11 years.
(AP, 3/10/98)
1629 Oct 30, King Charles I gave
the Bahamas to Sir Robert Heath.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1629 The weekly Bills of Mortality
in London, begun in 1603, began to include causes of death.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.97)
1630 May 29, Charles Stuart
(d.1685), later Charles II, king of England (1660 to 1685), was born.
He was the son of Charles I. Charles II was restored to the English
throne after the Puritan Commonwealth. Charles made a deal with George
Monck, a general of the New Model Army, and with the old parliamentary
foes of his father. The British experiment with republicanism came to
an end with the restoration of Charles II.
(V.D.-H.K.p.218)(WUD, 1994, p.249)(SFC, 5/25/96,
p.A12)(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A20)(HN, 5/29/98)(WSJ, 2/28/00, p.A36)
1630s Inigo Jones built the
portico of London’s Old St. Paul’s Cathedral.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.14)
1631 Mar 31, John Donne (b.1572),
British metaphysical poet, died in London. In 2006 John Stubbs authored
“Donne: The Reformed Soul.”
(www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/donnebio.htm)(Econ, 9/9/06, p.79)
1631 May 4, Mary I Henriette
Stuart, daughter of Charles I (later queen of England), was born.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1631 Jun 21, John Smith (b.1580),
English sailor, soldier and author, died in England. He had helped
found the English colony at Jamestown, Va.
(ON, 2/07, p.9)(www.virtualjamestown.org/jsmith.html)
1631 Aug 9, John Dryden, the 1st
official poet laureate of Great Britain (1668-1700), was born.
(HN, 8/9/02)
1632 Feb 20, Thomas Osborne, Duke
of Leeds, English PM (1690-94), founder (Tories), was born.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1632 Jun 20, Britain granted 2nd
Lord Baltimore rights to Chesapeake Bay area.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1632 Aug 29, English philosopher
John Locke (d.1704) was born in Somerset, England. The philosopher of
liberalism influenced the American founding fathers and was famous for
his treatise "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding." It was he who
stated that the child is born with a tabula rasa, a blank state. On it,
he said, experience wrote words, and thus knowledge and understanding
came about, through the interplay of the senses and all that they
perceived. "New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed,
without any other reason but because they are not already common."
(V.D.-H.K.p.64,219)(AP, 8/4/97)(AP, 8/29/97)(HN,
8/29/98)
1632 Oct 20, Sir Christopher Wren
(d.1723), astronomer and architect, was born. He designed the current
St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.14)(HN, 10/20/98)
1632 The British colonized
Montserrat.
(NH, Jul, p.20)
1633 Feb 23, Samuel Pepys
(d.1703), English diarist, was born. Pepys was an informal and
spontaneous English diarist. In 1999 Ferdinand Mount wrote the novel
"Jem (and Sam)," about Pepys and his drinking partner Jeremiah Mount.
In 1999 Sara George authored "The Journal of Mrs. Pepys," a novel based
on Pepys' young wife Elizabeth.
(WSJ, 6/2/99, p.A24)(HN, 2/23/01)
1633 Oct 14, James II Stuart, king
of England and Scotland (James VII) (1685-88), was born.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1634 Feb 17, William Prynne
(1600-1669), English Puritan leader and pamphleteer, was tried in Star
Chamber for publishing "Histrio-masti."
(WUD, 1994 p.1159)(MC, 2/17/02)
1634 Mar 25, English colonists
sent by Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, arrived in
present-day Maryland.
(HN, 3/24/98)(AP, 3/25/08)
1637 Jul 23, King Charles of
England handed over the American colony of Massachusetts to Sir
Fernando Gorges, one of the founders of the Council of New England.
(HN, 7/23/98)
1637 Aug 6, Ben Johnson (65),
English dramatist and poet, died. In 1960 Jonas Barish wrote "Ben
Jonson and the Language of Prose Comedy."
(AP, 1/4/98)(WUD, 1994, p.771)(SFC, 4/4/98,
p.A24)(MC, 8/6/02)
1637 John Tradescant the younger,
a widower with a son and daughter, undertook the first of three voyages
from England to Virginia “to gather up all raritye of flowers, plants,
shells.” The King’s request to search for useful trees and herbs, no
doubt played a role in Tradescant’s decision to take this trip during
what must have been a very difficult time.
(www.bayjournal.com/article.cfm?article=2942)
1638 John Tradescant (b.1570),
English gardener and father of John Tradescant (1608-1662), died. In
2008 Jennifer Potter authored “Strange Blooms: The Curious Lives and
Adventures of the John Tradescants.
(WSJ, 4/3/08, p.B19)
1640 May 5, English Short
Parliament united.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1640 Nov 3, English Long
Parliament assembled.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1640 Nov 11, John Pym, earl of
Strafford, was locked in Tower of London.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1640 Chemical lighters came out in
London that used phosphorus and sulfur.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.E3)
1640 John Ford (b.c1586) English
playwright, died. In 1944 Prof. Sensabaugh (d.2002 at 95) authored "The
Tragic Muse of John Ford."
(WUD, 1994 p.554)(SFC, 2/28/02, p.A20)
1640s The parliamentary battles
that led up to the English Civil War were recorded in 7 tomes known as
Rushworth's Collections.
(WSJ, 3/10/99, p.A22)
1640s In England an agrarian
commune was created by Gerard Winstanley, a merchant turned pamphleteer
whose elegant prose derided the class system. The 1975 film
"Winstanley" was co-directed by Andrew Mollow and Kevin Brownlow was
based on Winstanley.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, DB p.42)
1641 Jan 3, Jeremiah Horrocks
(22), English astronomical prodigy, died.
(MC, 1/3/02)
1641 Feb 16, English king Charles
I accepted the Triennial Act.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1641 May 12, Thomas Wentworth
(48), chief advisor to Charles I and English viceroy of Ireland, was
beheaded in the Tower of London.
(HN, 5/12/01)(MC, 5/12/02)
1641 Oct 21, A Catholic uprising
took place in Ulster. Thousands of English and Scots were killed. [see
Oct 23]
(MC, 10/21/01)
1641 Oct 23, Catholics in Ireland,
under Phelim O'Neil, rose against the Protestants and cruelly massacred
men, women and children to the number of 40,000 (some say 100,000).
[see Oct 21]
(HN, 10/23/98)
1641 The English Court of Star
Chamber was abolished. It had been used by unpopular kings to enforce
unpopular policies.
(ON, 11/04, p.10)
1641 A Catholic uprising in Ulster
was suppressed. English Gen’l. Oliver Cromwell took away the land
rights of 44,000 Catholics in Ulster and adjacent counties.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, Z1 p.6)
1642 Jan 4, King Charles I
attacked the English parliament with 400 soldiers.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1642 Jan 10, King Charles I and
his family fled London for Oxford.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1642 Aug 22, Civil war in England
began as Charles I declared war on the Puritan Parliament at
Nottingham. Charles I went to the House of Commons to arrest some of
its members and was refused entry. From this point on no monarch was
allowed entry.
(HN, 8/22/98)(SFC, 10/16/98, p.D3)(ON, 12/00, p.1)
1642 Oct 23, The Battle of
Edgehill was the first major clash between Royalist and Parliamentary
forces in the English Civil Wars. King Charles I and 11-15,000
Cavaliers held the high ground against 13-15,000 Roundheads led by the
Earl of Essex and Oliver Cromwell. The conflict began with a smattering
of cannon exchanges. The Royalist artillery was hampered by its uphill
position, rendering its cannons largely ineffective against the enemy
below. As a result, Royalist cavalry, led by the King’s nephew, Prince
Rupert, swept down the hill toward the Parliamentarians, decimating a
large section of their ranks. The Royalists did not capitalize on this
initial success, however, as the troops became more interested in
plundering the town than in finishing the fight. This allowed
Parliamentarian troops to regroup and break up enemy formations. After
several hours of hard fighting, both sides withdrew to their original
positions, leaving a field scattered with debris and casualties.
(HNQ, 6/16/01)
1642 Oct 23, Sir Edmund Verneys
rode into the battle of Edgehill as the standard bearer of Charles I
and died there. In 2007 Adrian Tinniswood authored “The Verneys: A True
Story of Love, War and Madness in Seventeenth-Century England.”
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.87)
1642 Nov 13, Battle at Turnham
Green, London: King Charles I vs. English parliament.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1642 Dec 25, Isaac Newton
(d.1727), English physicist, mathematician and scientist, was born in
Woolsthorpe (Grantham), Lincolnshire, England. He enunciated the laws
of motion and the law of gravity. [see Jan 4, 1643]
(HFA, '96, p.44)(V.D.-H.K.p.205)(HN, 12/25/98)(MC,
12/25/01)
1642 London's Globe theater closed
as the Puritan-controlled British Parliament suppressed theaters and
other forms of popular entertainment.
(ON, 11/03, p.2)
1642 In England Speaker William
Lenthall refused Charles I’s request that he identify 5 uppity MPs,
whom the king had come to the House of Commons to arrest.
(Econ, 12/6/08, p.75)
1642-1648 The English civil war severely damaged St.
Paul’s Cathedral in London.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.14)
1643 Jan 4, Sir Isaac Newton,
scientist, was born. He developed the laws of gravity and planetary
relations. [See Dec 25, 1642]
(HN, 1/4/01)
1643 May 13, Battle at Grantham:
English parliamentary armies beat royalists.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1643 May 14, Louis XIV became King
of France at age 4 upon the death of his father, Louis XIII.
(AP, 5/14/97)
1643 Jun 30, Battle at Atherton
Moor: Royalists beat parliamentary armies.
(MC, 6/30/02)
1643 Jul 13, In England, the
Roundheads, led by Sir William Waller, were defeated by royalist troops
under Lord Wilmot in the Battle of Roundway Down.
(HN, 7/13/98)
1643 Jul 27, Cromwell defeated the
Royalists at the Battle of Gainsborough.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1643 Dec 8, John Pym (59), English
House of Commons member, died.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1643 In England the bloody battle
of Chalgrove Field occurred. Royalist strategy meetings were held at
the Horsenden Manor at Buckinghamshsire.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.B6)
1644 Mar 14, England granted a
patent for Providence Plantations (Rhode Island). [see Mar 24]
(MC, 3/14/02)
1644 Mar 24, Roger Williams was
granted a charter to colonize Rhode Island. [see Mar 14]
(MC, 3/24/02)
1644 Jul 2, Lord Cromwell crushed
the Royalists at the Battle of Marston Moor near York, England.
Cromwell came from minor gentry in Huntingdon and had served in
Parliament before the wars, during which he commanded the Ironsides, a
cavalry regiment famous for its discipline and tenacity. Although he
had had no previous military experience, he showed amazing courage and
tactical brilliance, particularly at the Battle of Marston Moor.
(HN, 7/2/98)(HNQ, 8/8/00)
1644 Oct 27, The 2nd Battle at
Newbury: King Charles I beat parliamentary armies.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1644 Poet John Milton published
"Areopagitica," an essay in defense of a free press.
(SFC, 1/21/04, p.D2)
1644 The Globe Theater in London
was dismembered.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.E4)
1645 Jan 10, William Laud (71),
the Archbishop of Canterbury, was beheaded on Tower Hill, accused of
acting as an enemy of the Parliament.
(HN, 1/10/99)
1645 Apr 2, Robert Devereux
resigned as parliament supreme commander.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1645 Jun 14, Oliver Cromwell’s
army routed the King’s army at Naseby.
(HN, 6/14/98)
1646 Apr 27, King Charles I fled
Oxford.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1646 May 5, King Charles I
surrendered at Scotland.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1646 Jul 30, English parliament
set the Newcastle Propositions of King Charles I.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1646 Sep 14, Robert Devereux
(b.1591), 3rd earl of Essex, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Devereux,_3rd_Earl_of_Essex)
1646 George Fox (b.1624) abandoned
the church and began following the "inner light." He told listeners
that the truth could be found by listening to an inner voice of God
speaking directly to the soul. His teachings formed the basis to the
Religious Society of Friends, aka Quakers. Believers reportedly sat and
quivered waiting for the Holy Spirit to move them to speak.
(SSFC, 8/5/01, p.C10)
1646 Charles I licensed the Silver
Cross to serve as both a brothel and drinking establishment.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.T7)
1647 Jan 23, Scottish
Presbyterians sold captured Charles I to English Parliament.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1647 Jan 30, King Charles I was
handed over to the English parliament.
(MC, 1/30/02)
1647 Jun 4, The English army
seized King Charles I as a hostage.
(AP, 6/4/97)(HN, 6/4/98)
1647 Nov 10, The all Dutch-held
area of New York was returned to English control by the treaty of
Westminster.
(HN, 11/10/98)
1647 Apr 1, John Wilmot (d.1680)
Second Earl of Rochester, poet (A Satyr Upon Mankinde), scandalous
pornographer and bawdy playwright, was born. He married Elizabeth
Malet, and carried on an affair with the actress Elizabeth Barry. His
friend, playwright George Etherege modeled the character Dorimont after
him in "Man of Mode." A 1994 play by Stephen Jeffrey titled "The
Libertine," is based on Wilmot’s life.
(WSJ, 3/28/96,p.A-12)(WSJ, 1/14/98, p.A17)
1647 Elizabeth Throckmorton
(b.1565), wife of Sir Walter Raleigh, died. In 2003 Anna Beer authored
her biography "My Just Desire."
(WSJ, 1/6/04, p.D10)
1648 Apr 22, English army claimed
king Charles I was responsible for bloodshed.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1648 Nov 30, English army captured
King Charles I.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1648 Dec 6, Pride's Purge: Thomas
Pride prevented 96 Presbyterians from sitting in English Parliament.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1649 Jan 30, King Charles I of
England, who ruled from 1625-1649, was beheaded for treason at
Banqueting House, Whitehall, by the hangman Richard Brandon. He lost
his capital trial by one vote, 68-67. "For the people, and I truly
desire their liberty and freedom as much as anybody whomsoever, but I
must tell you that their liberty and their freedom consists in having
of government those laws by which their life and their goods may be
most their own. It is not for having a share in government, sirs; that
is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clean
different things." Charles I was canonized by the church of England 13
years later. Parliament became the supreme power under the rule of
Oliver Cromwell, who ruled over Parliament as Lord Protector of the New
Commonwealth from 1649-1658. He argued against his soldiers having a
voice in government because they owned no property. He stated in so
many word that government "has always been, and should always continue
to be, of property, by property, and for property."
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.T7)(V.D.-H.K.p.218)(WSJ, 5/6/97,
p.A20)(HN, 1/30/99)(SFEC, 7/2/00, Z1 p.2)(MC, 1/30/02)(WSJ, 2/7/03,
p.W13)
1649 Jan 30, Jester Muckle John
lost his job when King Charles 1 was beheaded.
(Reuters, 8/7/04)
1649 Jan, The prosecution of
England’s King Charles I was led by John Cooke (1608-1660), who
suffered a horrible death with the Restoration in 1660.
(SSFC, 9/24/06, p.M3)
1649 Feb 5, The Prince of Wales
became king Charles II. Charles II (18), while living in exile at the
Hague, was recently informed that his father was beheaded at Whitehall
on Jan 30.
(WSJ, 2/28/00, p.A36)(MC, 2/5/02)
1649 Feb 23, John Blow, composer
of 1st English opera (Venus and Adonis), was baptized.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1649 Apr 9, James Scott Duke of
Monmouth (d.1685), was born. He was the illegitimate son of Charles II
of England and pretender to the throne of James II
(HN, 4/9/98)(WUD, 1994, p.925)
1649 May 12, Isaac Doreslaer,
English lawyer, diplomat, was murdered.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1649 Sep 6, Robert Dudley, English
navigator and writer (Arcano del Mare), died.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1649-1815 In 2004 N.A.M. Rodger authored “The Command
of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815.”
(Econ, 11/20/04, p.88)
1650 Feb 2, Nell [Eleanor] Gwyn,
English actress, mistress to King Charles II, was born.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1650 May 24, John Churchill, 1st
duke of Marlborough, English general strategist, was born.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1650 Jun 28, Lord Cromwell set off
for Scotland at the head of an army of 16,354 men.
(HNQ, 8/8/00)
1650 Sep 3, The English under
Cromwell defeated a superior Scottish army under David Leslie at the
Battle of Dunbar.
(HN, 9/3/98)
1650 Oct 3, The English parliament
declared its rule over the fledgling American colonies.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1650 Nov 4, William III, Prince of
Orange and King of England, was born. [see Nov 14]
(HN, 11/4/98)
1650 Nov 14, William III, King of
England (1689-1702), was born. [see Nov 4]
(HN, 11/14/98)
1650 Charles II (20) arrived in
Scotland.
(ON, 12/00, p.1)
1651 Sep 3, Battle at Worcester-
Oliver Cromwell destroyed English royalists. Charles II led the Scots
Covenanters to a disastrous defeat at the battle of Worcester.
(WSJ, 2/28/00, p.A36)(ON, 12/00, p.1)(MC, 9/3/01)
1651 Oct 15, Charles II boarded
the ship Surprise to cross the Channel to France.
(ON, 12/00, p.5)
1651 Oct 17, Future King Charles
II fled from England. [see Oct 15]
(MC, 10/17/01)
1651 Oct 27, English troops
occupied Limerick, Ireland.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1651 Nov 26, Henry Ireton (40),
English gen. and parliament leader (Marston Moor), died.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1651 Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679),
English philosopher, authored “Leviathan.” In it he tried to deduce
from 1st principles the shape that society should take.
(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.M3)
1652 May 29, English Admiral
Robert Blake drove out the Dutch fleet under Lieutenant-Admiral Tromp.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1652 War broke out between the
Netherlands and England.
(ON, 4/00, p.2)
1652 Inigo Jones (b.1573), father
of English classical architecture, died. His work included a book
titled "Stonehenge Restored," which considered Stonehenge to have been
Roman temple.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.14)(ON, 4/02, p.11)
1653 Apr 20, Cromwell routed the
English parliament.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1653 Jul 4, British Barebones
Parliament went into session.
(Maggio)
1653 Dec 1, An athlete from
Croydon was reported to have run 20 miles from St. Albans to London in
less than 90 minutes.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1653 Dec 16, Oliver Cromwell took
on dictatorial powers with the title of lord protector" of England,
Scotland and Ireland. He served as dictator of England to 1658.
(CFA, '96, p.44)(AHD, p.315)(AP, 12/16/97)(HN,
12/16/98)
1653 Izaak Walton (b.1593-1683)
wrote "The Compleat Angler."
(SFEC, 11/3/96, Par p.19)
1653 The English palace of
Oatlands was pulled down by the Commonwealth. John Tradescant and his
son John had worked there under Charles 1 as gardeners. In 1790 Duke of
York purchased Oatlands House, built in the grounds of Henry VIII's
1537 Oatlands Palace.
(WSJ, 4/3/08,
p.B19)(www.weybridgesociety.org.uk/History.aspx)
1654 Apr 12, England, Ireland and
Scotland united.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1654 Dec 25, Dorothy Osborne
(1627-1695) married William Temple (1628-1699). Their story was later
the focus of the historical romance “Forever Amber” (1944), which was
also made into a film (1947). In 2008 Jane Dunn authored “Read My
Heart: Dorothy Osborne and Sir William Temple, a Love Story in the Age
of Revolution.”
(WSJ, 10/17/08, p.W10)
1655 Apr 4, Battle at Postage
Farina, Tunis: English fleet licked Barbarian pirates.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1655 Apr 28, English admiral Blake
beat a Tunisian pirate fleet.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1655 May 10, Jamaica was captured
by English.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1655 Nov 24, English Lord
Protector Cromwell banned Anglicans.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1655 The three Cayman
Islands came under British control when Oliver Cromwell's army captured
nearby Jamaica from the Spanish.
(AP, 5/10/03)
1656 Oct 29, Edmund Halley
(d.1742), astronomer, was born about this time in Hagerston, Middlesex,
England. The birth date is somewhat uncertain because it is not known
if at that time in his village the Gregorian or the Julian calendar was
in use. There's also some dispute over the year. [see Nov 8]
(www.seds.org/messier/xtra/Bios/halley.html)
1656 Nov 8, Edmond Halley,
mathematician and astronomer who predicted the return of the comet
which is named for him, was born. [see Oct 29]
(HN, 11/6/98)
1656 Oliver Cromwell allowed Jews
to return to England. They soon established their first synagogue on
Creechurch Lane.
(WSJ, 10/28/06, p.P16)
1657 Mar 23, France and England
formed an alliance against Spain.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1657 Mar 31, English Humble
Petition offered Lord Protector Cromwell the crown.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1657 Apr 3, English Lord Protector
Cromwell refused the crown.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1657 Apr 20, English Admiral
Robert Blake fought his last battle when he destroyed the Spanish fleet
in Santa Cruz Bay.
(HN, 4/20/99)
1657 Jul 13, Oliver Cromwell
constrained English army leader John Lambert.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1657 By this time the White Tower
of London was no longer inhabited by royalty and was almost completely
given over to the storage of gunpowder.
(Hem, 9/04, p.28)
1658 Sep 3, Oliver Cromwell, Lord
Protector of the New Commonwealth, i.e. ruler over England’s Puritan
parliament (1653-58), died at age 59. Richard Cromwell succeeded his
father as English Lord Protector.
(V.D.-H.K.p.218)(AP, 9/3/97)(ON, 12/00, p.5)(MC,
9/3/01)(MC, 9/3/01)
1659 Mar 7, Henry Purcell, English
organist, composer (Dido & Aeneas), was born.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1659 Mar 26, William Wollaston,
English philosopher, was born.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1659 Apr 22, Lord protector
Cromwell disbanded the English parliament.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1659 May 25, Richard Cromwell
resigned as English Lord Protector.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1659 Oct 12, English Rump
government fired John Lambert and other generals. [see Oct 13]
(MC, 10/12/01)
1659 Oct 13, Gen. John Lambert
drove out the English Rump government. The "Rump Parliament" was
restored in Dec. [see Oct 12]
(PCh, 1992, p.247)(MC, 10/13/01)
c1659 Parliament invoked law that
made it a crime, punishable by burning at the stake, to forecast the
weather.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, Z1 p.2)
1659 A London discussion group
called the Amateur Parliament met at Miles' coffee house.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.90)
1660 Apr 16, Hans Sloane, founder
of British Museum, was born.
(HN, 4/16/98)
1660 May 3, Prince Charles, Son of
King Charles I, returned to England from France.
(ON, 7/06, p.8)
1660 May 8, The son of the late
Charles I is proclaimed King ending 11 years of civil war.
(PCh, 1992, p.248)
1660 May 26, Charles II (29),
returning from exile, landed at Dover.
(PCh, 1992, p.248)
1660 May 28, George I, king of
England, was born.
(HN, 5/28/98)
1660 May 29, Charles II, who had
fled to France, was restored to the English throne after the
Puritan Commonwealth. Charles made a deal with George Monck, a general
of the New Model Army, and with the old parliamentary foes of his
father. The British experiment with republicanism came to an end with
the restoration of Charles II.
(V.D.-H.K.p.218)(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A20)(HN,
5/29/98)(WSJ, 2/28/00, p.A36)
1660 Oct 16, John Cooke (b.1608),
England’s solicitor-general during the 1649 trial of Charles 1, was
hanged as Charles II looked on in approval. Cooke was hanged slowly
until he passed out and then was revived to watch as his genitals were
sliced off. A length of his bowel was yanked from his body, pulled
before his face and set alight as he bled to death. In 2006 Geoffrey
Robertson authored “The Tyrannicide Brief,” an account of Cooke during
this period.
(WSJ, 9/6/06,
p.D10)(www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/10/13/)
1660 Oct, England’s King Charles
II enacted his first Declaration of Indulgence.
(www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1327117)
1660 Nov 28, The London Royal
Society formed. Founding members included astronomer Christopher Wren,
William Petty, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins and Lawrence Rooke.
(www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=2176)(Econ, 6/7/08,
p.98)
1660 Dec 8, The first
Shakespearian actress to appear on an English stage (she is
believed to be a Ms. Norris) made her debut as 'Desdemona.'
(HN, 12/8/99)
1660 Dec 24, Mary I Henriette
Stuart (29), queen of England, died.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1660-1685 King Charles II was ruler of Great Britain.
He was the son of Charles I. Under his reign the Italian artist Antonio
Verrio painted 2 huge frescoes that covered the entire walls and
ceiling of what is now St. George’s Hall. One painting depicted Christ
healing the sick in the Temple of Jerusalem and the other was of King
Charles II. The frescoes were destroyed in the 1820s under King George
IV to reflect a new national style. One fresco was rediscovered in 1996
during reconstruction after a fire in 1992. Charles is known as "the
Merry Monarch" because of his many mistresses, enthusiasm for parties
and mockery of Puritan values.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A12)(WUD, 1994, p.249)(ON, 12/00,
p.4)
1660-1731 Daniel Defoe, English novelist and
political journalist. He was born as Daniel Foe and became a successful
merchant in woolen goods. For a time he was jailed due to his debts. He
became a supporter of William of Orange and wrote over 500 publications
on his behalf. Some regard him as the father of modern journalism.
Among other works he wrote "Robinson Crusoe," "Moll Flanders," "General
Histories of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates,"
"A Tour of the Whole Island of Great Britain," and "Journal of
the Plague Year." In 1999 Richard West published "Daniel Defoe: The
Life and Strange Surprising Adventures."
(WUD, 1994, p.379)(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A12)
1661 Mar 19, English occupied St.
Andrew Island and other Courlander possessions in Gambia. They renamed
the island James Island with administration by the Royal Adventurers in
Africa Company.
(http://www.vdiest.nl/gambia.htm)
1661 Mar 24, William Leddra became
the last Quaker to be hanged in Boston. Quakers were last hanged on
Boston Common. Charles II ordered the executions stopped.
(WSJ, 4/4/01, p.A18)(MC, 3/24/02)
1661 Apr 23, English king Charles
II was crowned in London.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1661 May 25, King Charles II
married Portuguese princess Catherina the Bragança.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1661 Jun 5, Isaac Newton was
admitted as a student to Trinity College, Cambridge.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1661 Sep 1, In the 1st yacht race
England's King Charles II raced his brother James. [see Oct 1]
(MC, 9/1/02)
1661 Oct 1, Yachting began in
England; King Charles II outsailed his brother James. [see Sep 1]
(MC, 10/1/01)
1661 Charles II appointed
Christopher Wren (29) assistant to the surveyor general of the king’s
works (assistant to the royal architect).
(NYTBR, 2/2/03, p.12)
1661 Henry Slingsby, master of the
London Mint, proposed the "standard solution" a mix of fiat rules and
free markets, to resolve the ongoing problem of money supply and coin
value. Britain adopted the idea in 1816 and the US followed in 1853.
(WSJ, 4/2/02, p.A20)
1661 Cecil Calvert sent his son
Charles Calvert (1637-1715), the 3rd Lord Baltimore, to Maryland.
Charles replaced Philip Calvert as governor and remained the colonial
governor until his father’s death in 1675.
(http://mdroots.thinkport.org/library/charlescalvert.asp)
1662 Aug 24, An Act of Uniformity,
a part of the Clarendon Code (1661-1665), was passed by the English
Parliament and required that England's college fellows and clergymen
accept the newly published Book of Common Prayer. Charles II attempted
to suspend the operation of the Clarendon Code by issuing a 2nd
Declaration of Indulgence, but opposition from Parliament forced him to
retract it in 1663.
(PC, 1992,
p.249)(www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=the%20Clarendon%20Code)
1662 Oct 26, Charles II of England
sold Dunkirk to France.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1662 Englishman Christopher Merret
presented a paper to the Royal Society on making sparkling wine. This
was noted in the 1998 "World Encyclopedia of Champagne and Sparkling
Wine" by Tom Stevenson.
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.W13)
1662 The British Parliament
approved the Licensing of the Press Act, which censored “seditious,
treasonable and unlicensed Bookes and Pamphlets.” It failed renewal in
1695 and was repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1863.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensing_of_the_Press_Act_1662)
1662 British law established that
mourning clothes had to be made of English wool. [see 1667]
(NG, 5.1988, pp. 574)
1662 John Tradescant the younger
(b.1608), English traveler, horticulturalist, collector and gardener to
Queen Henrietta Maria, died. His home in South Lambeth, called The Ark,
was filled with his Museum Tradescantianum, a collection of rarities
which included birds, fish, shells, insects, minerals, coins, medals
and unusual plants. After his death the collection went to Elias
Ashmole, who subsequently presented it to Oxford University, where it
formed the basis of the Ashmolean Museum. In 2008 Jennifer Potter
authored “Strange Blooms: The Curious Lives and Adventures of the John
Tradescants.
(www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?LinkID=mp04533)(WSJ, 4/3/08,
p.B19)
1663 Jan 10, King Charles II
affirmed the charter of Royal African Company.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1663 Jan 29, Robert Sanderson,
Bishop of Lincoln (1660-63), died.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1663 Feb 28, Thomas Newcomen,
English co-inventor of the steam engine, was born.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1663 Mar 24, Charles II of England
awarded lands known as Carolina in America to eight members of the
nobility who assisted in his restoration. [see Apr 6]
(HN, 3/24/99)
1663 Apr 6, King Charles II signed
the Carolina Charter. [see Mar 24]
(MC, 4/6/02)
1663 May 7, Theatre Royal in Drury
Lane, London, opened.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1663 Jul 8, King Charles II of
England granted a charter to Rhode Island guaranteeing freedom of
worship..
(AP, 7/8/97)(HN, 7/8/98)
1663 Jul 27, British Parliament
passed a second Navigation Act, requiring all goods bound for the
colonies be sent in British ships from British ports.
(HN, 7/27/98)
1663 London featured 82 coffee
houses.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.89)
1664 Mar 12, England’s King
Charles II granted land in the New World, known as New Netherland
(later New Jersey), to his brother James, the Duke of York.
(HN, 3/12/98)(AP, 3/12/08)
1664 Mar 22, Charles II gave large
tracks of land from west of the Connecticut River to the east of
Delaware Bay in North America to his brother James, the Duke of York.
(AP, 3/22/99)
1664 Jul 21, Matthew Prior,
English poet, was born.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1664 Jul 23, 4 British ships
arrived in Boston to drive the Dutch out of NY.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1664 Sep 5, After days of
negotiation, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam surrendered to the
British, who would rename it New York. The citizens of New Amsterdam
petitioned Peter Stuyvesant to surrender to the English. The "Articles
of Capitulation" guaranteed free trade, religious liberty and a form of
local representation. In 2004 Russell Shorto authored "The Island At
the Center of the World," a history of New York's Dutch period.
(HN, 9/5/98)(ON, 4/00, p.3)(WSJ, 3/16/04, p.D6)
1664 Sep 8, The Dutch formally
surrendered New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York.
(AP, 9/8/97)(ON, 4/00, p.3)
1664 There was no litigation in
London, England due to the Black plague.
(SFC, 7/14/96, zone 1 p.2)
1664-1667 The Second Anglo-Dutch War.
(HN, 6/21/98)
1665 Feb 6, Anne Stuart, queen of
England (1702-14), was born.
(MC, 2/6/02)
1665 Mar 4, English King Charles
II declared war on Netherlands.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1665 Mar 6, Philosophical
Transactions of Royal Society started publishing.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1665 Aug 15-22, The London weekly
"Bill of Mortality" recorded 5,568 fatalities with teeth holding the
no. 5 spot. 4,237 were killed by the plague.
(SFEC, 8/2/98, BR p.7)
1665 Nov 7, The London Gazette,
the oldest surviving journal, was first published.
(HN, 11/7/98)
1665 The British briefly
recaptured the Banda Island of Run from the Dutch.
(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W7)
1665 The villagers of Eyam in
Derbyshire voluntarily isolated themselves so as not to spread the
plague. 250 of 350 people died and the town became known as the Plague
Village.
(SFEM, 10/11/98, p.22)
1665 In London at least 68,000
people died of the plague this year. In 1722 Daniel Defoe published his
novel “A Journal of the Plague Year.” The novel posed as a historical
document covering the London plague. The Lord Mayor of London
exterminated all the city’s cats and dogs, which allowed the rats, the
real transmitters of the disease, to increase exponentially.
(NG, 5/88, p.684)(WSJ, 9/9/06, p.P8)(WSJ, 10/21/06,
p.P8)
1665-1666 Over a span of 18 months Isaac Newton
invented calculus, explained how gravity works, and discovered his laws
of motion. This period came to be called his annus mirabilis.
(Econ, 1/1/05, p.59)
1666 Sep 2, The Great Fire of
London, having started at Pudding Lane, began to demolish about
four-fifths of London. It started at the house of King Charles II's
baker, Thomas Farrinor, after he forgot to extinguish his oven. The
flames raged uncontrollably for the next few days, helped along by the
wind, as well as by warehouses full of oil and other flammable
substances. Approximately 13,200 houses, 90 churches and 50 livery
company halls burned down or exploded. But the fire claimed only 16
lives, and it actually helped impede the spread of the deadly Black
Plague, as most of the disease-carrying rats were killed in the fire.
(CFA, '96, p.54)(AP, 9/2/97)(HNPD, 9/2/98)(HNQ,
12/2/00)
1666 Sep 5, The great fire of
London, begun on Sep 2, was extinguished. Old St. Paul’s was among the
87 churches burned down.
(HN, 9/5/98)(www.stpauls.co.uk)
1666 Nov 14, Samuel Pepys reported
the on 1st blood transfusion, which was between dogs.
(HFA, '96, p.42)(MC, 11/14/01)
c1666 Sir Peter Lely painted
Barbara Villiers 1640-1709, mistress to King Charles II, as a
Shepherdess. Charles had raised her stature to Countess of Castlemaine
and later Duchess of Cleveland.
(WSJ, 3/7/02, p.A22)
1667 Jun 18, The Dutch fleet
sailed up the Thames and threatened London. They burned 3 ships and
captured the English flagship in what came to be called the Glorious
Revolution, in which William of Orange replaced James Stuart.
(HN, 6/18/98)(WSJ, 3/14/00, p.A28)
1667 Jul 21, The Peace of Breda
ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War and ceded Dutch New Amsterdam to the
English. The South American country of Surinam, formerly Dutch
Guiana, including the nutmeg island of Run was ceded by England
to the Dutch in exchange for New York in 1667 after the second
Anglo-Dutch War.
(WUD, 1994, p.961)(HN, 7/21/98)(HNQ, 8/21/98)(WSJ,
5/21/99, p.W7)
1667 Aug 20, John Milton published
Paradise Lost, an epic poem about the fall of Adam and Eve.
(HN, 8/20/98)
1667 Nov 30, Jonathan Swift
(d.1745), English satirist who wrote "Gulliver's Travels," was born in
Ireland.
(WUD, 1994, p.1437)(HN, 11/30/98)
1668 Feb 7, English King William
III danced in the premiere of "Ballet of Peace."
(MC, 2/7/02)
1668 Feb 7, The Netherlands,
England and Sweden concluded an alliance directed against Louis XIV of
France.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1668 Mar 26, England took control
of Bombay, India.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1668 Mar 27, English king Charles
II gave Bombay to the East India Company.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1668 Apr 13, John Dryden (36)
became 1st English poet laureate.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1668 Dec 22, Stephen Day, 1st
British colonial printer, died.
(MC, 12/22/01)
1668 The British trading ship
Nonsuch 1st sailed into Hudson Bay.
(SSFC, 12/22/02, p.C6)
1669 Jul 21, John Locke's
Constitution of English colony Carolina was approved.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1669 The semicircular Sheldonian
Theater at Oxford, designed by Christopher Wren, was completed.
(SSFC, 2/4/01, p.T8)
1669-1717 Christopher Wren served as surveyor general
under Charles II.
(SFC, 8/17/01, p.D5)
1670 Jan 3, George Monck (61),
English general (to the-sea), died.
(MC, 1/3/02)
1670 Feb 10, William Congreve,
English writer (Old Bachelor, Way of the World), was born.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1670 May 2, The Company of
Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson Bay (the Hudson Bay Co.) was
chartered by England's King Charles II to exploit the resources of the
Hudson Bay area. By 2006 it had mutated into Canada’s largest non-food
retailer.
(AP, 5/2/97)(HN, 5/2/98)(AH, 4/01, p.36)(Econ,
2/4/06, p.36)
1670 May 26, A treaty was signed
in secret in Dover, England, between Charles II and Louis XIV ending
hostilities between them.
(HN, 5/26/99)
1671 Apr 22, King Charles II sat
in on English parliament after which he gave his Royal Assent to the
several Bills that were presented to him, fourteen private Acts, and
eighteen public, including an act for exporting “Beer, Ale, and Mum.”
(http://british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=37626)
1671 May 9, Colonel Thomas Blood
(1618-1680), Irish adventurer, attempted to steal the Crown Jewels from
the Tower of London.
(MC, 5/9/02)(Reuters, 8/24/01)
1671 Nov 6, Colley Cibber,
England, dramatist, poet laureate (Love's Last Shift), was born.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1671 English Protestants became
alarmed when they learned that James, Duke of York, had converted to
Catholicism.
(ON, 7/06, p.8)
1672 Feb 8, Isaac Newton read his
1st optics paper before Royal Society in London.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1672 Mar 15, England’s King
Charles II enacted a 3rd Declaration of Indulgence.
(http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1327117)
1672 May 1, Joseph Addison
(d.1719), English essayist (Spectator) and poet, was born. "We are
always doing, says he, something for posterity, but I would fain see
posterity do something for us." "A man must be both stupid and
uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own
side."
(AHD, 1971, p.14)(AP, 11/21/97)(AP, 7/14/98)(MC,
5/1/02)
1672 The Royal African Co. was
granted a charter to expand the slave trade and its stockholders
included philosopher John Locke.
(SFC, 10/19/98, p.D3)
1673 Feb 20, The 1st recorded wine
auction was held in London.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1673 Mar 29, The English
Parliament passed the Test Act. It in effect excluded Roman Catholics
from public functions. King Charles II was unable to stop the action.
(www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/guide17/timeline40.html)
1673 Jul 24, Edmund Halley entered
Queen's College, Oxford, as an undergraduate.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1673 Aug 9, Dutch recapture NY
from English. It was regained by English in 1674.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1673 In London the Worshipful
Society of Apothecaries started the Chelsea Physic Garden as an
educational tool for apprentices learning to grow medicinal plants.
(SFC, 3/26/08, p.G1)
1674 Feb 9, English reconquered NY
from Netherlands.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1674 Feb 19, Netherlands and
England signed the Peace of Westminster. NYC became English.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1674 Jun 20, Nicholas Rowe, poet
laureate of England, was born.
(HN, 6/20/98)
1674 Jul 17, Isaac Watts, English
minister and hymn writer, was born.
(HN, 7/17/01)
1674 Nov 8, John Milton (65),
English poet (Paradise Lost), died. His work included "Paradise
Lost," Paradise Regained," and "Samson Agonistes." Milton lost one eye
at 36 and the other when he was 44. In 1952 Prof. Sensabaugh (d.2002 at
95) authored "In That Grand Whig, Milton," an examination of Milton’s
political tracts. In 1996 Paul West wrote a novel: "Sporting with
Amaryllis," that begins in 1626 and gives a fictional account of his
life. In 1997 Peter Levy wrote a biography of Milton titled: "Eden
Renewed."
(WUD, '94, p.911)(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A20)(AP,
12/9/97)(MC, 11/8/01)(SFC, 2/28/02, p.A20)
1675 Mar 4, John Flamsteed was
appointed 1st Astronomer Royal of England.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1675 Jun 21, Sir Christopher Wren
began to rebuild St Paul’s Cathedral in London, replacing the old
building which had been destroyed by the Great fire.
(HN, 6/21/01)
1675 Jun 22, Royal Greenwich
Observatory was established in England by Charles II.
(YarraNet, 6/22/00)
1675 Jun 24, King Philip’s War
began when Indians--retaliating for the execution of three of their
people who had been charged with murder by the English--massacred
colonists at Swansee, Plymouth colony.
(HN, 6/24/98)
1675 Aug 10, King Charles II laid
the foundation stone of Royal Observatory, Greenwich. [see Jun 22]
(MC, 8/10/02)
1675 Nov 22, English king Charles
II adjourned parliament.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1675 Lely painted a portrait of
Nell Gwynn, the favorite mistress of Charles II. It is now in the
London National Gallery. Charles II acknowledged 14 illegitimate
children and historians identified 13 mistresses.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.T8)(SFC, 7/22/00, p.E4)
1675 English king Charles II
issued a proclamation deploring the "evil and dangerous effects" of
coffee houses.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.90)
1675-1710 Old St. Paul’s Cathedral was replaced with
a new design by Sir Christopher Wren. Spires first appeared atop
Anglican churches in London at the end of the 1600s.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.14)(WSJ, 12/23/97, p.A1)
1676 Jul 21, Anthony Collins,
English philosopher (A discourse on free-thinking), was born.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1676 Aug 28, Indian chief King
Philip, also known as Metacom, was killed by English soldiers, ending
the war between Indians and colonists.
(HN, 8/28/98)
1676 Sir Robert Walpole (d.1745),
the first and longest serving prime minister of England (1721-1742),
was born. He was not then called the prime minister as the king held
all honors. He collected a large number of paintings by old masters at
his Houghton Hall home in Norfolk.
(WSJ, 3/3/97, p.A16)
1676 Isaac Newton wrote: If I have
seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
(Econ, 8/7/04, p.64)
1677 Feb 15, King Charles II
reported an anti-French covenant with Netherlands.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1677 Feb 16, Earl of Shaftesbury
was arrested and confined to the London Tower. [see Oct 24, 1681]
(MC, 2/16/02)
1677 May 29, King Charles II and
12 Virginia Indian chiefs signed a treaty that established a 3-mile
non-encroachment zone around Indian land. The Mattaponi Indians in 1997
invoked this treaty to protect against encroachment.
(SFC, 6/2/97, p.A3)
1677 Nov 4, William and Mary were
married in England on William's birthday. William of Orange married his
cousin Mary (daughter to James, Duke of York and the same James II who
fled in 1688).
(HNQ, 12/28/00)(HN, 11/4/02)
1677 Christopher Wren redesigned
the burned Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Aldermanbury, England.
(SFEC, 3/30/97, p.T5)
1678 Feb 18, John Bunyan's
"Pilgrim's Progress" was published. [see Sep 28]
(MC, 2/18/02)
1678 May 31, The Godiva
procession, commemorating Lady Godiva's legendary ride while naked,
became part of the Coventry Fair.
(HN, 5/31/01)
1678 Aug 16, Andrew Marvell
(b.1621), English poet (Definition of Love), died.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1678 Sep 28, "Pilgrim's Progress"
by John Bunyan (b.1628) was published. [see Feb 18]
(MC, 9/28/01)
1678 Nov 28, England's King
Charles II accused his wife, Catherine of Braganza, of treason. Her
crime? She had yet to bear him children.
(DTnet 11/28/97)
1678 Nov 30, Roman Catholics
were banned from English parliament.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1678 Dec 3, Edmund Halley received
an MA from Queen's College, Oxford.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1678 Titus Oates (b.1649), failed
Catholic seminarian, and Israel Tonge concocted the Popish Plot. They
alleged that plotters planned to raise a Catholic army, massacre
Protestants, and poison Charles II in order to get James on the throne.
9 Jesuit priests were executed. In 1681 it was revealed to be a
fabrication.
(www.newadvent.org/cathen/11173c.htm)(ON, 7/06, p.9)
1678 Anthony Ashley Cooper, the
Earl of Shaftesbury and Protestant Parliamentary leader formed the
County Party, later known as the Whigs, to prevent James from becoming
king of England.
(ON, 7/06, p.9)
1679 Jan 24, King Charles II
disbanded the English parliament.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1679 Mar, King Charles II sent his
brother James to the Netherlands for safety.
(ON, 7/06, p.9)
1679 May 15, The Earl of
Shaftesbury introduced his Exclusion Bill into Parliament proposing
that James, the Catholic brother of King Charles II, be permanently
barred from the line of succession to the English throne.
(ON, 7/06, p.9)
1679 May 27, England’s House of
Lords passed the Habeas Corpus Act (have the body) to prevent false
arrest and imprisonment. King Charles adjourned Parliament before the
final reading of Shaftesbury’s Exclusion Bill.
(WUD, 1994
p.634)(www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=11707)(ON, 7/06, p.9)
1679 Jun 1, Battle at Bothwell
Bridge on Clyde: Duke of Monmouth beat the Scottish. (MC, 6/1/02)
1679 Jul 10, The British crown
claimed New Hampshire as a royal colony.
(HN, 7/10/98)
1679 Jul 12, Britain's King
Charles II ratified Habeas Corpus Act.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1679 Oct 23, The Meal Tub Plot
took place against James II of England.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1679 Dec 4, Thomas Hobbes
(b.1588), English philosopher and author of Leviathan, died. "The
reputation of power IS power." Hobbes sought to separate politics from
religion.
(WSJ, 7/30/03, p.A12)(WSJ, 9/15/07,
p.W10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes)
1679 Elections in England produced
a new House of Commons, but King Charles II declined to let it assemble.
(ON, 7/06, p.9)
1680 Jul 26, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl
of Rochester, poet, courtier, died.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1680 Aug 24, Colonel Thomas Blood,
Irish adventurer who stole the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London in
1671, died. Captured after the theft, he insisted on seeing King
Charles II, who pardoned him.
(Reuters, 8/24/01)
1680 Sep 25, Samuel Butler
(b.1612), poet and satirist, died.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1680 Oct, King Charles II of
England was forced to recall Parliament in order to ask for money to
fortify the port of Tangier, Morocco, which was under assault by
Moorish forces.
(ON, 7/06, p.9)
c1680-1685 Simon Pietesz, Verelst, painted a portrait
of "Nell Gwyn," Protestant mistress to Charles II.
(WSJ, 3/7/02, p.A22)
1681 Jan 18, England's King
Charles II suspended Parliament and set its next meeting for March in
Oxford.
(ON, 7/06, p.10)
1681 Mar 4, England's King Charles
II granted a charter to William Penn (37) for 48,000 square miles that
later became Pennsylvania. Penn’s father had bequeathed him a claim of
£15,000 against the king.
(PCh, 1992, p.259)(AP, 3/4/98)
1681 Mar 10, English Quaker
William Penn received a charter from Charles II, making him sole
proprietor of colonial American territory of Pennsylvania. [see Mar 4]
(MC, 3/10/02)
1681 Apr 8, England's King Charles
II received the 1st installment of a 5-million livre subsidy from King
Louis of France. This provided him independence from Parliament and he
ruled without it until his death in 1685.
(ON, 7/06, p.10)
1681 May 17, Louis XIV sent an
expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declared
war on France.
(HN, 5/17/99)
1681 Oct 24, Earl of Shaftesbury
(d.1683) was accused of high treason in London. The Earl of Shaftesbury
had challenged the king on the question of succession. The king
dissolved Parliament and threw Shaftesbury into the Tower of London and
charged him with treason. Shaftesbury was acquitted and went to Holland
with John Locke.
(V.D.-H.K.p.220)(MC, 10/24/01)(PCh, 1992, p.260)
1681-1730 French Protestants, known as Huguenots,
migrated in large numbers to England due to persecutions known as
dragonnades wherein rowdy soldiers were billeted in their homes. They
also lost a semblance of security in the 1685 revocation of the Edict
of Nantes.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.85)
1682 Jul 14, Henry Purcell was
appointed organist of Chapel Royal, London.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1682 Aug 24, Duke James of York
gave Delaware to William Penn.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1682 Sep 4, English astronomer
Edmund Halley saw his namesake comet.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1682 St. Clement Dane Church in
London was built.
(SFEC, 9/12/99, p.T2)
1682 Wren’s Royal Hospital Chelsea
was founded by Charles II as a hostel for old soldiers.
(WSJ, 3/11/02, p.A16)
1683 Jul 3, Edward Young, English
poet, dramatist and literary critic, was born. He wrote "Night
Thoughts."
(HN, 7/3/99)
1683 Jul 21, Lord William Russell,
English plotter against Charles II, was beheaded.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1683 Sep 9, Algernon Sidney,
English Whig politician and plotter, was beheaded.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1683 Oct 30, George II, King of
Great Britain (1727-60), was born. [see Oct 30]
(MC, 10/30/01)
1683 Nov 10, George II, king of
England (1727-60), was born. [see Nov 10]
(MC, 11/10/01)
1683 Nov 22, Purcell's "Welcome to
All the Pleasures," premiered in London.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1683 The Ashmolean Museum was
built in Oxford to house natural-history artifacts. It was the first
such public museum. It gained its name and its first collections from
Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), whose own collections were derived in part
from those of John Tradescant (1608-1662).
(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R34)(http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/speel//otherart/ashmole.htm)
1684 Jun 21, King Charles II
revoked the 1629 Massachusetts Bay Colony charter. [see 1691]
(HNQ, 11/23/00)(MC, 6/21/02)
1684 The British settled Sumatra.
(SFC, 8/27/03, p.E4)
1685 Feb 6, Charles II (54), King
of England, Scotland, Ireland (1660-85), died and was succeeded by his
Catholic brother James II. He made a deathbed conversion to the Roman
Catholic faith. He had earlier ordered Christopher Wren to build an
observatory and maritime college at Greenwich. In 2000 Stephen Coote
authored the biography: "Royal Survivor."
(WSJ, 2/28/00, p.A36)(http://tinyurl.com/hkkln)
1685 Jun 11, James Scott, Duke of
Monmouth, rebelled against Catholic king James II.
(AP, 6/11/03)
1685 Jul 6, James II defeated
James, the Duke of Monmouth, at the Battle of Sedgemoor, the last major
battle to be fought on English soil.
(HN, 7/6/98)
1685 Jul 15, James Scott, the Duke
of Monmouth and illegitimate son of Charles II, was executed on Tower
Hill in England, after his army was defeated at Sedgemoor.
(HN, 7/15/98)(MC, 7/15/02)
1685-1712 Celia Fiennes’ journal about her travels
throughout England have provided historians with valuable insight into
the social conditions of the country in the late 1600s. Celia Fiennes,
an enterprising young, single woman, rode side-saddle through every
county in England. She traveled alone except for two servants, and the
journal she kept, later published as "The Journeys of Celia Fiennes
1685-c.1712," is the only evidence we have of her travels.
(HNQ, 4/22/01)
1685-1720 This period was covered by Tim Harris in
his 2006 book “Revolution: The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy,
11685-1720.”
(Econ, 2/4/06, p.77)
1686 Apr 4, English king James II
published a Declaration of Indulgence.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1686 Apr 28, The first volume of
Isaac Newton's "Principia Mathamatic" ("Mathematical Principles of
Natural Philosophy") was published in Latin. His invention of
differential and integral calculus is here presented. Here also are
stated Newton’s laws of motion, that obliterated the Aristotelian
concept of inertia.
1) Every physical body continues in its state of
rest, unless it is compelled to change that state by a force or forces
impressed upon it.
2) A change of motion is proportional to the force
impressed upon the body and is made in the direction of the straight
line in which the force is impressed.
3) To every action there is always opposed an equal
reaction.
Book Three of the Principia opens with two pages
headed "Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy." There are four rules as
follows:
1) We are to admit no more causes of natural things
than such as are both true and sufficient to explain the appearances.
(A restatement of Ockham’s Razor: "What can be done with fewer is done
in vain with more.")
2) Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as
far as possible, assign the same causes.
3) The qualities of bodies which are found to belong
to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed
the universal qualities of bodies whatsoever.
4) In experimental philosophy we are to look upon
propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately
or very nearly true notwithstanding any contrary hypothesis that may be
imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may
either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions.
(V.D.-H.K.p.207-10)(HN, 4/28/98)
1687 Apr 4, King James II ordered
his Declaration of Indulgence read in church.
(http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1327117)
1687 Nov 13, Nell [Eleanor] Gwyn
(37), mistress of Charles II of England, died.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1687 James II, a Roman Catholic,
supported unpopular policies that, by 1687, led to many English
subjects urging William to intervene. With the birth of a son to James
in 1688, fears of a Roman Catholic succession led to opponents sending
an invitation to William in July.
(HNQ, 12/28 /00)
1688 Apr 27, King James II issued
another Declaration of Indulgence: “conscience ought not to be
constrained nor people forced in matters of mere religion."
(http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1327117)
1688 May 21, Alexander Pope
(d.1744), England, poet (Rape of the Lock), was born. His "Essay on
Criticism" contains the line: "A little learning is a dangerous
thing..."
(NH, 9/97, p.24)(MC, 5/21/02)
1688 Jun 10, Mary of Modena, the
wife of Britain’s King James II, gave birth to a male heir. This placed
England, much to the dismay of Parliament, in line for a succession of
Catholic monarchs.
(Econ, 2/4/06, p.77)(ON, 7/06, p.10)
1688 Jun 30, A jury proclaimed 7
English bishops not guilty of seditious libel against James II. They
had refused to comply with his April 27 Declaration of Indulgence
because it had not been approved by Parliament.
(www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Seven%20Bishops)
1688 Oct 1, Seven British noblemen
sent a letter to Prince William of Orange inviting him to invade
England and rescue the country from James’ “popery.” William accepted.
(Econ, 2/4/06, p.77)(ON, 7/06, p.10)
1688 Oct 27, King James II fired
premier Robert Spencer.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1688 Nov 1, William of Orange set
sail for England at the head of a fleet of 500 ships and 30,000 men. He
intended too oust his father-in-law King James II. The Dutch
parliament, the States General, funded William with 4 million guilders.
Amsterdam financiers provided another 2 million. Some of this was used
to print 60,000 copies of his “Declaration” (of the reasons inducing
him to appear in arms in the Kingdom of England), which were
distributed in England. In 2008 Lisa Jardine authored “Going Dutch: How
England Plundered Holland’s Glory.”
(WSJ, 8/28/08, p.A13)
1688 Nov 5, William of Orange
landed in southern England and marched with his army nearly unopposed
to London.
(WSJ, 8/28/08, p.A13)
1688 Nov 24, General strategist
John Churchill met William III.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1688 Nov 25, Princess Anne fled
from London to Nottingham.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1688 Nov 26, King James II escaped
back to London.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1688 Dec 4, General strategist
John Churchill (later Duke of Marlborough) joined with William III.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1688 Dec 9, King James II's wife
and son fled England for France.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1688 Dec 11, King James II
attempted to flee London as the "Glorious Revolution" replaced him with
King William (of Orange) and Queen Mary. James attempted to flee to
France, first throwing the Great Seal of the Realm into the River
Thames. He was, however, caught in Kent. Having no desire to make James
a martyr, the Prince of Orange let him escape on December 23, 1688.
James was received by Louis XIV, who offered him a palace and a
generous pension. In 2007 Michael Barone authored “Our First
Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval That Inspired America’s
Founding Fathers.”
(HN,
12/11/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_II_of_England)
1688 Dec 20, Prince William III's
troops pulled into London.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1688 Dec 23, English King James II
fled to France.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1688 Dec 25, English king James II
landed in Ambleteuse, France.
(MC, 12/25/01)
1688 Dec 28, William of Orange
made a triumphant march into London as James II fled in the "Glorious
Revolution." William of Orange, son of William II (Prince of Orange)
and Mary (daughter of Charles I of England), was fourth in line to the
English throne. In 2006 Edward Valance authored “The Glorious
Revolution: 1688 – Britain’s Fight for Liberty.”
(HN, 12/28/98)(HNQ, 12/28/00)(WSJ, 2/6/02,
p.A16)(Econ, 2/4/06, p.77)
1688 In England Edward Lloyd
opened a London coffee shop where shipping insurance was bought and
sold.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1688-1744 Alexander Pope, English poet. His "Essay on
Criticism" contains the line: "A little learning is a dangerous
thing..."
(NH, 9/97, p.24)
1689 Jan 22, England's "Bloodless
Revolution" reached its climax when parliament invited William and Mary
to become joint sovereigns. A specially-called parliament declared that
James had abdicated and offered the throne to William and Mary.
(HN, 1/22/99)(HNQ, 12/28/00)
1689 Feb 13, British Parliament
adopted the Bill of Rights.
(MT, Dec. '95, p.16)(HN, 2/13/98)
1689 Feb 14, English parliament
placed Mary Stuart and Prince William III on the throne.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1689 Feb 23, Dutch prince William
III was proclaimed King of England.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1689 Mar 12, Former English King
James II landed in Ireland.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1689 Apr 11, (OS) William III and
Mary II were crowned as joint sovereigns of Britain. As part of their
oaths, the new King William III and Queen Mary were required to swear
that they would obey the laws of Parliament. At this time, the Bill of
Rights was read to both William and Mary. "We thankfully accept what
you have offered us," William replied, agreeing to be subject to law
and to be guided in his actions by the decisions of Parliament.
(AP, 4/11/97)(www.bessel.org/billrts.htm)
1689 Apr 18, George Jeffreys, 1st
Baron Jeffreys of Wem, infamous judge, died.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1689 Apr 21, (NS) William III and
Mary II were crowned joint king and queen of England, Scotland and
Ireland.
(HN, 4/21/98)(HNQ, 12/28/00)
1689 May 11, The French and
English naval battle took place at Bantry Bay.
(HN, 5/11/98)
1689 May 12, England’s King
William III joined the League of Augsburg and the Netherlands. The
"Grand Alliance" was formed to counter the war of aggression launched
by Louis XIV against the Palatinate states in Germany. This is known as
The War of the League of Augsburg (1689-97) also The Nine Years' War,
and the War of the Grand Alliance.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/king_william.htm)
1689 May 24, English Parliament
passed the Act of Toleration, protecting Protestants. Roman Catholics
were specifically excluded from exemption.
(HN, 5/24/99)
1689 May 26, Mary Wortley Montagu,
English essayist, feminist, eccentric, was born.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1689 Jul 27, Government forces
defeated the Scottish Jacobites at the Battle of Killiecrankie.
(HN, 7/27/98)
1689 Aug 1, A siege of
Londonderry, Ireland, by the Catholic Army of King James II ended in
failure. The Protestants were victorious and the event led to the
annual Apprentice Boy’s March. The group is named in honor of 13
teenage apprentices, all Protestants, who bolted the city gates in
front of the advancing Catholic forces at the start of the 105-day
siege.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A13)(HN, 8/1/98)(AP, 8/13/06)
1689 Aug 4-5, War between England
and France led them to use their native American allies as proxies. In
retaliation for the French attack on the Seneca in 1687, one thousand,
five hundred Iroquois, with English support, attacked Lachine down
river from the mission of the Mountain of Ville-Marie (Montreal),
killing some 400. They put everything to fire and axe. Some
suggest that this is a gross exaggeration and that only 24-25 were
killed and likely 90 were captured by the Iroquois, but never returned.
(www.telusplanet.net/public/dgarneau/french23.htm)
1689 Aug 19, Samuel Richardson
(d.1761), English novelist (Pamela, Clarissa), was born in Derbyshire.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1689 Aug 25, Battle at Charleroi:
Spanish and English armies chased the French.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1689 Dec 16, English Parliament
adopted a Bill of Rights after Glorious Revolution. The Bill of Rights
included a right to bear arms. William and Mary gave it Royal Assent
which represented the end of the concept of divine right of kings.
(WSJ, 8/6/02,
p.D6)(www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon49.html)
1689 Dec 30, Henry Purcell's opera
"Dido and Aeneas," premiered in Chelsea.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1689 The Catholic Army of King
James II besieged Londonderry where 13 Protestant apprentices stood in
defense. The Protestants were victorious and the event led to the
annual Apprentice Boy’s March.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A13)
1689 The White Hart Inn at Ware
put up 26 butchers and their wives in one bed, the "Great Bed of Ware,"
in a marketing ploy to attract customers.
(WSJ, 12/6/01, p.A19)
1690 May 11, In the first major
engagement of King William’s War, British troops from Massachusetts
seized Port Royal in Acadia (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) from the
French, their objective was to take Quebec.
(HN, 5/11/99)
1690 May 20, England passed the
Act of Grace, forgiving followers of James II.
(HN, 5/20/98)
1690 Jun 11, English king William
III departed to Ireland.
(PC, 1992, p.265)
1690 Jun 24, King William III's
army landed at Carrickfergus, Ireland.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1690 Jul 1, England's Protestant
King William III of Orange was victorious over his father-in-law, the
Catholic King James II (from Scot) in Battle of Boyne (in Ireland).
This touched off three centuries of religious bloodshed. Protestants
took over the Irish Parliament. This marked the beginning of the annual
Drumcree parade, held by the Loyal Orange Lodge on the first Sunday of
July. Due to calendar changes in 1752 this later became commemorated on
Jul 12.
(PC, 1992, p.265)(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A1)(SFEC,
12/22/96, Z1 p.6)(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.A18)
1690 Jul 12, Due to British
calendar changes in 1752, the July 1, 1690, Battle of Boyne (in
Ireland) was adjusted for celebration on Jul 12.
(SFEC, 9/27/98, BR p.5)(AP, 7/11/05)
1690 Sep 6, King William III
escaped back to England.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1690 Oct 7, The English attacked
Quebec under Louis de Buade.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1690 The 2nd Treatise on
Government by John Locke (1632-1704) was published in order to justify
the British Whig Revolution of 1688. In it he wrote that men had the
natural rights of life, liberty and estate.
(www.radicalacademy.com/lockebio.htm)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke)
1690-1699 In the 1690s Kit Cat Club met in London at
the invitation of Jacob Tonson (1655/56-1736), a publisher and
bookseller, at the inn of Christopher Cat (Christopher Catling). In
2008 Ophelia Field authored “The Kit-Cat Club: Friends Who Imagined a
Nation.”
(Econ, 8/16/08,
p.82)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Tonson)
1691 Feb 17, Thomas Neale was
granted a British patent for American postal service.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1691 May 26, Jacob Leiser, leader
of the popular uprising in support of William and Mary’s accession to
the throne, was executed for treason.
(HN, 5/26/99)
1691 Jul 12, William III defeated
the allied Irish and French armies at the Battle of Aughrim, Ireland.
(HN, 7/12/98)
1691 Oct 3, English and Dutch
armies occupied Limerick, Ireland.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1691 King William III sent a royal
governor to Maryland.
(Arch, 1/05, p.50)
1692 May 29, Royal Hospital
Founders Day was 1st celebrated.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1692 May 29, Battle at La Hogue:
An English & Dutch fleet beat France.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1692 Aug 3, French forces under
Marshal Luxembourg defeated the English at the Battle of Steenkerke in
the Netherlands.
(HN, 8/3/98)
1692 The salary for the Poet
Laureate of Britain was fixed at $162 a year plus a case of wine. In
1999 it was raised to $8,100.
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.E3)
1693 Mar 31, John Harrison,
Englishman who invented the chronometer, was born.
(HN, 3/31/99)
1693 Jun 27, The 1st woman's
magazine "The Ladies' Mercury" was published in London.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1693 Jul 4, Battle at
Boussu-lez-Walcourt: French-English vs. Dutch army.
(Maggio)
1694 Dec 28, Queen Mary II (32) of
England died after five years of joint rule with her husband, King
William III. [see Jan 7, 1695]
(AP, 12/28/97)
1694 Jul 27, The Bank of England
received a royal charter as a commercial institution. The mission of
the bank was to provided war finance.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.C2)(AP, 7/27/97)(Econ, 1/10/09, p.49)
1694 Sep 22, Philip Dormer
Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield, statesman of letters whose writings
provide a classic portrayal of an ideal 18th-century gentleman, was
born. He introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1752.
(HN, 9/22/98)(MC, 9/22/01)
1694 Dec 28, George I of England
got divorced. [He was crowned in 1714]
(HN, 12/28/98)
1694 Dec 28, Queen Mary II (32) of
England died after five years of joint rule with her husband, King
William III. The new style calendar puts her death on Jan 7, 1695.
(AP, 12/28/97)
1694 The history of English death
duties began with the Stamp Act of this year which placed 5s on
probates over 20 pounds.
(Econ, 10/27/07,
p.90)(www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Bastable/bastbPF29.html)
1694 John Law, Scotsman, fled
England after killing rival Edward Wilson in a duel. He traveled in
Europe, played the casinos and studied finance. He set up a bank
in France and issued paper money and established the Mississippi
Company to exploit the French-controlled territories in America. [see
1720] In 2000 Janet Gleeson authored "Millionaire," a pseudo-biography
of Law.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)(WSJ, 6/30/00, p.W9)
1694-1773 Lord Chesterfield, English author and
statesman: "In scandal, as in robbery, the receiver is always as bad as
the thief."
(AP, 2/21/98)
1695 Jan 7, Mary II Stuart 32),
queen of England, died [OS=Dec 28 1694].
(MC, 1/7/02)
1695 Mar 7, In Britain John Trevor
(1637-1717), the speaker of the House of Commons office, was found
guilty of accepting a bribe of 1000 guineas (equivalent to around
£1.6 million in 2009) from the City of London to aid the passage
of a bill through the house. He was expelled from the House of Commons,
a move which he initially resisted on the ground of ill-health, but
retained his judicial position until his death.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Trevor_(speaker))
1695 Apr 30, William Congreve's
"Love for Love," premiered in London.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1695 Nov 21, Henry Purcell (36),
English composer (Indian Queen), died.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1695 The British Parliament voted
not to renew the 1662 Licensing of the Press Act, which had censored
“seditious, treasonable and unlicensed Bookes and Pamphlets.” It was
repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1863.
(Econ, 5/23/09,
p.57)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensing_of_the_Press_Act_1662)
1696 Mar 7, English King William
III departed Netherlands.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1696 Dec 22, James Oglethorpe,
General, author, colonizer of Georgia, was born in England.
(MC, 12/22/01)
1696 William Hogarth, British
artist, was born. He believed that visual art could have a morally
improving effect on viewers, and that individual betterment led to
social improvement.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, DB p.7)(SFC, 1/28/98, p.E1)
1696 In England Isaac Newton
(1642-1727) became Warden of the Mint and started combing his hair.
(Econ, 8/23/03, p.68)
1696 New York sea captain William
Kidd reluctantly became a privateer for England and was expected to
fight pirates on the open sea, seize their cargoes, and provide a hefty
share of the spoils to the Crown. According to his British accusers,
Kidd turned to piracy himself as the deadline for reporting to his
employers in New York approached and he had not taken enough booty to
fulfill his commission. Kidd himself did not know he was a wanted man
until he dropped anchor in the West Indies in April 1699. He chose to
surrender to the authorities and submit to a London trial, believing to
the end that he could clear his name.
(HNPD, 8/27/00)
1697 Sep 20, The Treaty of Ryswick
was signed in Holland. It ended the War of the Grand Alliance (aka War
of the League of Augsburg,1688-1697) between France and the Grand
Alliance. Under the Treaty France’s King Louis XIV (1638-1715)
recognized William III (1650-1702) as King of England. The Dutch
received trade concessions, and France and the Grand Alliance members
(Holland and the Austrian Hapsburgs) gave up most of the land they had
conquered since 1679. The signees included France, England, Spain and
Holland. By the Treaty of Ryswick, a portion of Hispaniola was formally
ceded to France and became known as Saint-Domingue. The remaining
Spanish section was called Santo Domingo.
(www.caribbeanguides.net/hispaniola.htm)(www.jacobite.ca/documents/1697ryswick.htm)
1697 Dec 2, St. Paul's Cathedral
opened in London.
(MC, 12/2/01)
1697 William Dampier (1651-1715),
English explorer, naturalist and privateer, authored “A New Voyage
Around the World.” A sequel appeared 2 years later. In 2004 Diana and
Michael Preston authored "A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: Explorer,
Naturalist and Buccaneer," a biography of Dampier.
(WSJ, 4/16/04, p.W8)(NH, 6/4/04, p.59)
1697 John Aubrey (71), author of
"Monumenta Britanica," died. In 1948 Anthony Powell authored the
biography "John Aubrey."
(ON, 4/02, p.12)
1698 Nov, English astronomer
Edmond Halley (d.1742) set off in the Paramore to map the Atlantic’s
magnetic declinations and hopefully solve the problem of calculating
longitude. He made a 2nd journey in 1699. In 2005 Julie Wakefield
authored “Halley’s Quest.”
(AP, 1/14/98)(WSJ, 12/20/05, p.D8)
1698 Peter the Great spent several
months at the Shipwright’s Palace learning how to build the Russian
navy.
(WSJ, 5/24/00, p.A24)
1699 The Jews in London
commissioned Joseph Avis, a Quaker, to build a synagogue on a street
called Bevis Marks.
(WSJ, 10/28/06, p.P16)
1700 May 1, John Dryden (b.1631),
English poet, playwright (Rival Ladies), died. He had written that
repentance was virtue of weak minds and the want of power to sin.
(MC, 5/1/02)(Econ, 7/24/04, p.70)
1700 William Congreve, an
Anglo-Irishman playwright, published his last play, "The Way of the
World."
(WSJ, 11/20/98, p.W6)
c1700 Richard Gough, an aged
lawyer, authored "History of Myddle."
(SFC, 4/3/01, p.C3)
1700 The English slave ship
Henrietta Marie sank 35 miles off Key West, Florida, on its way back to
Europe. It had delivered 188 captured Africans to a slave broker in
Jamaica in exchange for sugar and other goods bound for England. The
wreck was found in 1972.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.C5)(WSJ, 6/2/98, p.A20)
1700 British settlers began
arriving to the Cayman Islands.
(AP, 5/10/03)
1700s Thomas Sheraton invented
twin beds in the late 1700s.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, Z1 p.8)
1701 May 23, New York sea captain
William Kidd was hanged on the banks of the Thames after being found
guilty of piracy and murder. Kidd had reluctantly became a privateer
for England in 1696 and was expected to fight pirates on the open sea,
seize their cargoes, and provide a hefty share of the spoils to the
Crown. According to his British accusers, Kidd turned to piracy himself
as the deadline for reporting to his employers in New York approached
and he had not taken enough booty to fulfill his commission. Kidd
himself did not know he was a wanted man until he dropped anchor in the
West Indies in April 1699. He chose to surrender to the authorities and
submit to a London trial, believing to the end that he could clear his
name. Important evidence in his favor was suppressed and he was hanged.
(AP, 5/23/97)(HNPD, 8/27/98)(HN, 5/23/99)
1701 Sep 6, James II [Stuart],
king of England (1685-88), died at 68.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1701 Sep 7, England, Austria, and
the Netherlands formed an Alliance against France.
(HN, 9/7/98)
1701 The Act of Settlement
established the order of succession to the English throne.
(www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon53.html)
1701 In England presiding Chief
Justice Lord Hold (1642-1710) ruled that “As soon as a Negro comes into
England, he becomes Free.”
(ON, 12/08, 8)(http://tinyurl.com/9jhg29)
1701 Jethro Tull (1674-1741), a
farmer in Berkshire, England, created a horse-drawn mechanical drill to
plant seeds in a row.
(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R14)(www.berkshirehistory.com/bios/jtull.html)
1702 Jan 17, Thomas Franklin,
English smith and uncle of B. Franklin, died.
(MC, 1/17/02)
1702 Mar 8, William III of Orange
(51), Dutch King of England (1689-1702), died after falling from his
horse and catching a chill. Anne Stuart (37), his sister-in-law,
succeeded to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland and reigned
until 1714.
(PCh, 1992, p.272)(MC, 3/8/02)(AP, 3/8/98)
1702 Mar 11, The Daily Courant,
the first regular English newspaper was published.
(HN, 3/11/99)
1702 Mar 21, Queen Anne Stuart
addressed the English parliament.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1702 Oct 12, [British] Admiral Sir
George Rooke defeated the French fleet off Vigo.
(HN, 10/12/98)
1702 Oct 27, English troops
plundered St. Augustine, Florida.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1702 Nov 4, John Benbow, English
vice-admiral (Santa Marta), died.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1702 After Prince George’s visit
to the ancient spa town, a trip to Bath--previously frequented by the
poor and infirm--became the fashionable thing to do. The healing powers
of Bath’s hot mineral water owes much of its fame to the part it played
in a notably unsuccessful treatment of a severe case of asthma.
Following his six-week visit to the spa town, Prince George, Queen
Anne’s husband, grew so ill she feared he would die. Doctors, turning
to other methods, bled him repeatedly, which cannot have been any more
effective than `taking the waters` of Bath, but at least the
unfortunate Prince survived. Despite George’s unresponsiveness to the
curative water of England’s ancient spa town, the precedent of a royal
visitor to Bath caught the attention of seemingly everyone, and soon a
trip to Bath became the astute thing to do, not only for those seeking
a remedy for any of a wide variety of ailments, but also for anyone
attuned to the customs of genteel society.
(HNQ, 4/14/01)
1703 May 18, Dutch and English
troops occupied Cologne.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1703 May 26, Samuel Pepys
(b.1633), English diarist, died. In the 1930s Sir Arthur Bryant
authored a 3-volume biography. In the 1970s Richard Ollard authored a
single volume biography. In 2001 Stephen Coote authored "Samuel Pepys:
A Life" and another was expected by Claire Tomalin. In 2002 Claire
Tomalin authored "Samuel Pepys: The Unequaled Self."
(WSJ, 6/2/99, p.A24)(HN, 2/23/01)(SSFC, 12/22/02,
p.M3)(MC, 5/26/02)
1703 Jun 17, John Wesley (d.1791),
English evangelist and theologian, was born. He founded the Methodist
movement. He spent a brief period in Georgia (1738) as a missionary.
(HN, 6/17/99)(WSJ, 6/13/03, p.W19)
1703 Jul 31, English novelist
Daniel Defoe was made to stand in the pillory as punishment for
offending the government and church with his satire "The Shortest Way
With Dissenters."
(HN, 7/31/01)
1703 Oct 23, In Malmesbury,
England Hannah, Twynnoy (33) teased a tiger at a circus. The tiger
broke loose and killed her.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, Z1 p.2)
1703 Nov 24-1703 Dec 2, Heavy
storms hit England and 1000s were killed. Bristol, England, was damaged
by the hurricane. The Royal Navy lost 15 warships.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Storm_of_1703)
1703 Nov 27, Henry Winstanley
(1644) and his men were killed by a freak storm at his lighthouse at
Eddystone Rock. It had been constructed from 1696-1698, 14 miles from
the English port of Plymouth.
(Econ, 12/20/08,
p.99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Winstanley)
1704 Aug 4, In the War of Spanish
Succession, an Anglo-Dutch fleet captured Gibraltar.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Gibraltar)(AP, 9/19/06)
1704 Aug 13, the Battle of
Blenheim was fought during the War of the Spanish Succession, resulting
in a victory for English and Austrian forces. The Duke of Marlborough
and Prince Eugene of Austria defeated the French Army at the Battle of
Blenheim. In 1705 Joseph Addison wrote the poem "The Campaign" for the
Duke of Marlborough to commemorate the military victory over France and
Spain at the Battle of Blenheim: "Do you not think an angel rides in
the whirlwind and directs this storm."
(AP, 8/13/97)(HN, 8/13/98)(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.A6)
1704 Oct 28, John Locke
(b.1632), English philosopher, Oxford academic and medical researcher,
died. He authored 2 treatises on government.
(www.utm.edu/research/iep/l/locke.htm#Life)
1704 In England Daniel Defoe
(1660-1731) began publishing "The Review." Defoe in this year also
authored “The Storm” in which he organized the winds into categories of
scale.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A12)(NH, 11/1/04, p.51)
1705 Jan 17, John Ray (b.1627),
British naturalist and theologian, died. He had spent three years
traveling in Europe collecting material for his book “Historia
Plantarum.” The classification in his 1682 book “Methodus Plantarum
Nova” is based on overall morphology. Ray's plant classification system
was the first to divide flowering plants into monocots and dicots.
(www.1911encyclopedia.org/John_Ray)(WSJ, 5/10/08,
p.W8)
1705 Apr 16, Queen Anne of England
knighted Isaac Newton at Trinity College.
(HN, 4/16/98)(MC, 4/16/02)
1705 Apr 23, Richard Steele's
"Tender Husband," premiered in London.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1705 Oct 14, The English Navy
captured Barcelona in Spain.
(HN, 10/14/98)
1705 Nov 23, Thomas Birch, English
historian (d.1766), was born.
(AP, 11/23/02)
1705 Nov 23, Nicholas Rowe's
"Ulysses," premiered in London.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1706 Jan 28, John Baskerville,
typographer and inventor of the "hot-pressing" method of printing. He
also manufactured lacquered ware.
(HN, 1/28/00)(WUD, 1994 p.124)
1706 May 23, Battle of Ramillies:
Marlborough defeated the French and 17,000 were killed.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1706 Bishop White Kennet printed
his "Complete History of England with the Lives of All the Kings and
Queens Thereof, Vol. 3" in London.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A8)
1706 The Treaty of Union between
Scotland and England was set up. Daniel Defoe worked as a British agent
in Scotland and sent back reports on agitation against the yielding of
autonomy.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A12)
1706 Thomas Twinings opened his
tea shop in London.
(SFEC, 9/12/99, p.T2)
1707 Jan 16, Scotland ratified the
Treaty of Union by a majority of 110 votes to 69. The Acts created a
new state, the Kingdom of Great Britain, by merging the Kingdom of
England and the Kingdom of Scotland together.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707)
1707 Apr 22, Henry Fielding
(d.1754), English novelist and essayist, was born in Sharpham Park,
Somerset, England. His work included "Tom Jones."
(WUD, 1994 p.528)(AP, 4/22/07)
1707 Apr 25, At the Battle of
Almansa, Franco-Spanish forces defeated Anglo-Portuguese.
(HN, 4/25/98)
1707 Apr 29, English-Scottish
parliament accepted Act of Union and formed Great Britain. [see May 1]
(MC, 4/29/02)
1707 May 1, Effective on this day
Scotland and England, which already included Wales, were united by an
act of Parliament to form Great Britain.
(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A13)(AP, 5/1/07)
1707 Oct 23, The first Parliament
of Great Britain, created by the Acts of Union between England and
Scotland, held its first meeting.
(AP, 10/23/07)
1707 Dec 5, The Society of
Antiquaries of London was founded at the Bear Tavern in the Strand by
John Talman, the son of an architect, Humfrey Wanley, a student of
ancient inscriptions and Anglo-Saxon, and John Bagford, an eccentric
shoemaker and dealer in books. They met for the purposes of forming a
Society for the study of British antiquities, whose agreed aim was to
further the study of British history prior to the reign of James I.
(www.sal.org.uk/newsandevents/makinghistoryantiquaries/)(http://tinyurl.com/32uzwc)
1708 Mar 23, English pretender to
the throne James III landed at Firth of Forth.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1708 Nov 15, William Pitt the
Elder, Secretary of State of England whose strategies helped win the
Seven Years War, was born. He served as Whig PM from 1756-61 and 66-68.
(HN, 11/15/98)(MC, 11/15/01)
1708 London’s St. Paul’s
Cathedral, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, was completed. In 2008 Leo
Hollis authored “The Phoenix: St Paul’s Cathedral and the Men Who Made
Modern London.”
(Econ, 6/7/08, p.97)
1709 Feb 2, British sailor
Alexander Selkirk was rescued after being marooned on a desert island
for 5 years. His story inspired "Robinson Crusoe." [see Feb 12]
(MC, 2/2/02)
1709 Feb 12, Alexander Selkirk,
the Scottish seaman whose adventures inspired the creation of Daniel
Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, was taken off Juan Fernandez Island after more
than four years of living there alone. [see Feb 2]
(HN, 2/12/99)
1709 Mar 8, William Cowper/Cooper
(~62), English anatomist, died.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1709 Apr 12, The Tatler magazine
in England published its 1st edition. It used the names of coffee
houses as subject headings for articles.
(MC, 4/12/02)(Econ, 12/20/03, p.89)
1709 Sep 11, John Churchill, Duke
of Marlborough, won the bloodiest battle of the 18th century at great
cost, against the French at Malplaquet.
(HN, 9/11/98)
1709 Sep 17, Samuel Johnson,
lexicographer and writer (Boswell's Tour Guide), was born. [see Sep 18]
(MC, 9/17/01)
1709 Sep 18, Samuel Johnson
(d.1784), English lexicographer, essayist, poet and moralist best known
for "The Dictionary of the English Language," was born. "Patriotism is
the last refuge of a scoundrel." -- (To which Ambrose Bierce replied,
"I beg to submit that it is the first.") Boswell wrote the celebrated
"Life of Johnson." In 1955 Walter Jackson Bate (d.1999 at 81) published
"The Achievement of Samuel Johnson" and in 1977 the biography "Samuel
Johnson." "The lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of
a cause. The justice or injustice is to be decided by the judge." [see
Sep 17]
(AP, 10/8/97)(BS, 5/3/98, p.13E)(HN, 9/18/98)(SFEC,
1/10/99, Par p.10)(SFC, 7/27/99, p.A17)
1709 Oct 20, Marlborough and
Eugene of Savoy took Mons in the Netherlands.
(HN, 10/20/98)
1709 Britain passed its first
copyright act.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1710 Feb 7, William Boyce, English
organist, composer of Cathedral music, was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1710 Oct 13, English troops
occupied Acadia, Nova Scotia.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1710 Oct 16, British troops
occupied Port Royal, Nova Scotia.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1710 Umbrellas became popular in
London.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
Go to GB
1711