1634
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Albrecht von Wallenstein convenes a meeting of 50 generals and colonels at Pilsen January 12. They pledge themselves to support him as long as he remains in the emperor's service, but an imperial proclamation issued January 24 accuses the Catholic general of involvement in a conspiracy to "rob the emperor of his crown." His chief officers are commanded to cease their obedience to Wallenstein, who along with 32 colonels affirms his allegiance to the emperor, but Wallenstein is formally deposed as duke of Friedland February 18. He then leaves Prague for Eger and is assassinated there along with some of his top officers February 25 at age 50 by soldiers under the command of Irish general Walter Butler, Scots colonels Walter Leslie and John Gordon, and English captain Walter Devereux, who personally runs his halberd through Wallenstein. General Matthias Gallas, 49, succeeds Wallenstein as supreme commander of the imperial forces.
The (first) Battle of Nördlingen 45 miles east of Stuttgart September 5 to 6 ends in a crushing defeat for Protestant forces in the continuing Thirty Years' War. An Imperial army has laid siege to the town, and an army of 16,000 Swedish and allied infantry and 9,000 cavalry marches to relieve it; led by Field Marshal Count Gustav Karlsson Horn and Bernard, duke of Saxe-Weimar, they meet a well-disciplined force of about 40,000 Spaniards and other Catholic League troops under the command of General Gallas, with backing from Hungary's Ferdinand, Spain's Cardinal infante Ferdinand, and Lorraine's Duke Charles IV. Lacking large contingents, which have been sent off to fight the Poles, and hampered by the incompatibility of their two leaders, the Swedes are routed, losing 10,000 killed and wounded, Count Horn and 4,000 of his men are taken prisoner, and the Swedes lose all 55 of their guns. The Catholic allies also sustain heavy casualties, losing about 2,500 killed and wounded, but their victory alarms the French, who will now openly enter the war (see 1635; Wittstock, 1636).
The Treaty of Polianov ends a 2-year Russian-Polish war. Poland's Wladislaw IV renounces his claim to the Russian crown, but Russia's Michael Romanov gives up Smolensk and surrounding territories in return for recognition of his title (see 1613).
Tatar forces try once again to invade Poland (see 1633), but are soundly defeated by Stanislaw Koniecpolski at the Battle of Ochmatov.
English jurist Sir Edward Coke dies at Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, September 3 at age 82.
The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan drives the Uzbeks out of Kandahar (see 1629; 1650).
Leonard Calvert, 27, arrives in America late in March with between 200 and 300 people (see 1633). A brother of Cecilius (Cecil) Calvert, 2nd baron Baltimore, he lands at St. Clements (later Blakiston) Island, and establishes the Maryland colony on territory granted to his brother 2 years ago by England's Charles I, making St. Mary's (later St. Mary's City) his seat of government (see 1688).
Massachusetts Puritans establish settlements in Connecticut that later will be called Windsor and Wethersfield (see 1635). Dutch West India Company forces under the command of Johannes van Walbeeck occupy the Caribbean island of Curaçao and fortify it, driving out the Spaniards whose diseases have decimated the local Carib population since their arrival in 1527 (see 1499). Attracted initially by the island's salt deposits, the Dutch will use it to prosper in contraband, plantation products, and the slave trade; they will control Curaçao for the rest of this century and most of the centuries to follow (see St. Eustatius, 1635).
Former Spanish colonial governor Hernando Arias de Saavedra dies at Santa Fe in what later will be Argentina at age 73 (approximate), having worked to protect the Indian population and helped to develop the cities of Asunción, Buenos Aires, and Santa Fe.
England's Charles I resolves to deprive New Englanders of their chartered rights, send a royal governor to the region, and try to stop emigration (see population, 1638).
Trois-Rivières (Three Rivers) is founded in New France by explorer Samuel de Champlain, who has been governor of Quebec since last year and names the settlement for the three channels at the mouth of the Saint-Maurice River.
French explorer Jean Nicolet, 36, makes an expedition to Lake Michigan and the Wisconsin region, the first white venture into that area. Brought to Canada by Champlain in 1618, Nicolet has lived among the Huron of the upper Ottawa River, and he now travels west in search of furs and of a Northwest Passage. Nicolet lands at what will later be Green Bay, where the Menominee have a settlement at a time when most indigenous tribes are being pushed westward by the Ottawa, Huron, and other eastern tribes. So vast is Lake Michigan that Nicolet believes he has reached Asia, is disappointed to learn otherwise, and returns to Trois-Rivières, Quebec.
Speculation in tulip bulbs reaches new heights in the Netherlands as steadily rising prices attract middle-class and even relatively poor families to invest (see 1610). One collector pays 1,000 pounds of cheese, four oxen, eight pigs, 12 sheep, a bed, and a suit of clothes for a single bulb of the rare Viceroy tulip. Most sought after are so-called "broken" bulbs whose blossom displays beautiful designs as the result of a virus. The tulip's attribute of variation has been discovered only recently by a professor of botany at the 59-year-old University of Leyden, whose botanical garden is the first in the north (see 1636).
Bubonic plague kills more than one third of Munich's population as the Black Death that began 2 years ago rages through the city.
French witch-hunters at Loudon crush the legs of local curate Urbain Grandier, 44, and burn him alive August 18. The vain and handsome priest of the Huguenot St. Pierre-du-March Church is a notorious seducer of virgins and widows in the prosperous walled city of 20,000; having insulted Cardinal Richelieu in a matter of Church protocol, he has been accused and found guilty of bewitching the convent of Ursuline nuns whose hysterical, blasphemous fits have for years attracted morbid sightseers from all over Europe. The nuns have accused him of being possessed by the devil, making them powerless to resist his advances; Grandier protests his innocence to the end, the nuns are exorcised, Richelieu razes the fortified castle of Loudon to prevent its use by the Huguenots, but descendants of the judges who sent Grandier to the stake will lead tormented lives and it will be said that Grandier put a curse on them.
Poetry: A Book of Sacred Epigrams (Epigrammatum Sacrorum Liber) by English poet Richard Crashaw, 21, is published anonymously. The son of a Puritan minister, Crashaw has just been graduated from Cambridge.
Painting: The Surrender of Breda by Diego Velázquez; The Judgment of Paris by Peter Paul Rubens; Lamentation for Christ by Anthony Van Dyck.
Theater: The Captives and A Pleasant Comedy, Called a Maidenhead Well Lost by Thomas Heywood at London.
Villagers at Oberammergau in the Bavarian Alps vow to enact a passion play at regular intervals if they are spared by the Black Death. The folk drama with its anti-Jewish slurs will be performed every 10 years for centuries, with half the villagers taking part in the production one way or another, attracting visitors by the thousands to witness an extravaganza of spiritualized hatred that transports audiences and performers alike on clouds of innocence and love (see 1950).
Masques: The Temple of Love by Oxford-born poet-playwright William Davenant, 28, whose work is performed by the queen and her ladies on Shrove Tuesday; Comus by John Milton 9/29 in the great hall of Ludlow Castle in Shropshire to celebrate the inauguration of John Egerton, 55, first earl of Bridgewater, as lord president of Wales (see Poetry, 1637).
Playwright-poet George Chapman dies at London May 12 at age 75 (approximate); playwright-poet John Marston at London June 25 at age 59 (approximate).
The Toshogu Shrine at Nikko is completed as a mausoleum for the late Tokugawa shōgun Ieyasu, who died in 1616.
Maryland founder Lord Calvert takes up residence in a former village of some friendly Indians, whose cleared lands are soon planted in crops. He has stopped in the Virginia colony to buy hogs, cows, bulls, and poultry. These animals will multiply quickly, and the Marylanders buy so much corn from the Indians that they ship 1,000 bushels of it to the Massachusetts Bay colony, whose growing season is shorter, in exchange for salt fish and other goods. Women colonists go to the beaches at low tide each day to collect mussels and clams, and they gather wild greens and fruits; they milk the goats, and they barter with the Indians for venison and raccoon meat, but many find the lack of wheat, barley, and rye a "sore affliction."
Dijon, France, imposes regulations on mustard makers, requiring, among other things, that mustard be made only by workers wearing "clean and modest clothes." Later rules will require that moutarde be made only from brown or black mustard seeds and seasoned with wine or vinegar plus spices and herbs.
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