1629
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Contents: political eventsexploration, colonization commerce transportation medicine religion art theater, film architecture, real estate marine resources agriculture population |
England's Charles I encounters opposition in the House of Commons, where resolutions by Sir John Eliot are read while the speaker is held in his chair. The resolutions declare that anyone who advises the levy of tonnage and poundage taxes without grant of Parliament is an enemy of the kingdom and so is anyone who introduces innovations in religion or expresses opinions that disagree with those of the true Church. Authorities arrest Sir John and eight other members of Parliament March 5 (Eliot will be fined £2,000 next year and die of tuberculosis in the Tower of London 2 years later). Charles I dissolves Parliament in March; it will not meet again until 1640, and the king will rule by royal prerogative for the next 11 years.
Parliamentary leader Sir Edwin Sandys dies in Kent in October at age 67.
The Treaty of Lübeck May 22 ends hostilities between the emperor Ferdinand II and Denmark's Kristian IV, who regains his lands on condition that he abandon his allies and cease his interference in German affairs. The dukes of Mecklenburg are placed under the ban and the Austrian Albrecht von Wallenstein is confirmed as duke of Mecklenburg.
Vice admiral Piet Heyn is recalled to active duty with the rank of lieutenant admiral, given command of the Dutch Republic's entire fleet, and ordered to clear the North Sea of pirates who are in the pay of Spain's Felipe IV. His fleet destroys the pirates, but Heyn is killed in battle off Dunkirk June 18 at age 51, having planned to retire with his share of the Spanish treasure that he took last year.
Polish field commander Stanislaw Koniecpolski leads a cavalry force of 4,500 men to triumph over Sweden's Gustav II Adolf June 27 at Trzcianka (see 1628), but he faces a Cossack revolt to the south and Gustav Adolf forces him to acknowledge Sweden's dominance over the southern Baltic Sea coast in the Truce of Altmark; signed September 25, it ends hostilities between Sweden and Poland.
The Brabant fortress of Hertzogenbusch (Bois-le-Duc) falls after a long siege September 14 to Protestant forces headed by Prince Friedrich Heinrich and Bernhard, duke of Saxe-Weimar.
Transylvania's Bethlen Gábor dies November 15 at age 49 after marrying a sister-in-law of Sweden's Gustav II Adolf in hopes that the Swedes would help him obtain the Polish crown (see 1630).
Persia's Shah Abbas dies January 19 at age 72 after a 42-year reign. Two of his five sons have died, he has had two others executed and another blinded, so he is succeeded by a 13-year-old grandson, who will reign until 1642 as Safi I. The new shah has his grandfather's counselors beheaded along with most of Persia's best generals, all the blood princes, and even some of the princesses. Kandahar's Persian governor defects to the Uzbeks, who take the city and province.
The Treaty of Susa ends the Anglo-French war over Nova Scotia that began 2 years ago. The son of William Alexander has arrived with reinforcements, and the first real settlement is established, but England and France agree in the treaty to a mutual restoration of territory and shipping. Alexander is obliged to surrender Nova Scotia, and although he will be created viscount of Stirling and Lord Alexander of Tullibody next year, his Scottish settlers will be ordered to withdraw in 1631 and Alexander will be left deeply in debt.
England's Charles I grants territories in America to the nation's attorney general, Robert Heath. The territories include "Bahama and all other Isles and Islands lying southerly there or neare upon the foresayd continent," but Heath makes no efforts to establish settlements in the islands (see 1647).
The Massachusetts Bay Company's Puritan stockholders agree to emigrate to New England if the plantation's patent and entire government can be transferred to them (see 1628). The 12 stockholders who sign the August 26 Cambridge Agreement include Thomas Dudley, Isaac Johnson, Sir Richard Saltonstall, 43 (whose uncle and namesake was lord mayor of London in 1597), and lawyer John Winthrop, 41, who is appointed governor; the company's charter is transferred to them and the other actual colonists (see 1630).
John Mason and Sir Ferdinando Gorges obtain a new grant of land between Maine's Kennebec and Piscataqua Rivers and join with others to form the Laconia Company and establish a farming community on the Piscataqua in what will become New Hampshire (see 1622; 1630).
The Dutch West India Company offers huge estates and feudal privileges to "patroons" who enlist 50 potential colonists for New Netherlands and pay their passage. The company employs 15,000 seamen and soldiers; it has more than 100 full-rigged ships, most of them fitted out to fight pirates or other merchantmen (see 1628).
A Javanese army lays siege to Batavia (later Jakarta) in August (see 1627); Dutch East Indies Company director Jan Pieterszoon Coen dies there suddenly September 21 at age 42, probably of dysentery, having founded a Dutch commercial empire, built a chain of fortified posts in the archipelago, and established Dutch rule that will continue until 1947. He has designated his capable aide Anthony (Meuza) Van Diemen, 36, to succeed him as governor general, but two other men will hold that position until Van Diemen takes office at the start of 1636.
The Dutch East Indiaman Batavia 7 months out of Amsterdam en route to Java runs into a severe storm in the Indian Ocean June 3 on her maiden voyage. Commanded by former apothecary Jeronimus Cornelisz, 30, the 1,200-ton vessel is 160 feet long and carries 332, including crew and passengers, among them some women and children, but she smashes into a coral reef 1,800 miles short of her destination and although most are washed ashore on a barren island fewer than 116 survive.
Danish physician-theologian Caspar Bartholin dies at Soro, Zealand, July 13 at age 43, having identified not only the nerve associated with the sense of smell but also the small lubricating gland (Bartholin's gland) near the vaginal opening in female mammals.
The Edict of Restitution promulgated March 29 by the emperor Ferdinand II restores ecclesiastic estates in Europe taken since the 1552 convention of Passau and permits free exercise of religion only to adherents of the 1530 Confession of Augsburg. All other "sects" are to be broken up, troops of the Catholic League and of the Austrian duke Albrecht von Wallenstein begin enforcing the edict, and they show no mercy to "heretics." Brandenburg-born Lutheran officer Hans Georg von Arnim, 47, resigns his commission in protest against the edict and works to create a "third party" under the Elector of Saxony, urging a plan of general pacification with the third party maintaining a balance between the imperial court and the encroaching Swedes (see politics [Peace of Prague], 1635).
A French edict of grace signed June 28 maintains freedom of worship for Huguenots but denies them the right of assembly and places of safety. Since the fall of La Rochelle last year, Huguenot towns in Languedoc have been suppressed.
Painting: Allegory of War and Peace by Peter Paul Rubens; Rinaldo and Armida by Anthony Van Dyck; The Triumph of Bacchus by Diego Velázquez, who obtains leave from Felipe IV to visit Italy.
Japan's Kabuki Theater becomes an all-male affair in October by order of the shōgun Iemitsu Tokugawa, who has decided that it is immoral for women to dance in public (see 1603). Women's roles are performed by men as in Elizabethan England, but the Japanese will take extraordinary measures to make the men playing female roles appear as women even to other Kabuki players; The Grateful Servant by James Shirley, in November at London's Phoenix Theatre, with the Queen's Men.
Architect Carlo Maderno dies at Rome January 30 at age 72, having designed the nave and a new façade for St. Peter's; Pope Urban VIII appoints Gian Lorenzo Bernini to finish St. Peter's. Bernini will design the Scala Regia in the Vatican, complete the Barberini Palace, redecorate the Lateran and the Bridge of Sant' Angelo, and construct fountains for Rome's Piazza Navona, Piazza Trevi, and Piazza Barberini.
"The aboundance of sea fish are almost beyond believing," writes Salem Puritan minister Francis Higginson, 42, of the Massachusetts Bay colony. "And sure I would scarse have believed it, except I had seen it with my owne eys. I saw great store of whales and grampusse [grampus, or dolphins] and such aboundance of mackerils that it would astonish one to behold, likewise cod-fish in aboundance on the coast, and in their season are plentifully taken. There is a fish called a basse, a most sweet and wholesome fish as ever I did eat, it is altogether as good as our fresh sammon."
English apple seedlings planted in the Massachusetts Bay colony by Governor John Endecott mark the beginning of large-scale apple-tree cultivation in North America (see Sullivan, 1779; "Johnny Appleseed," 1801).
The joint-stock company of Massachusetts Bay, organized by Anglican Puritans, will bring more than 17,000 settlers to America in the next 13 years.
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