| World Chronology: 1643 |
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Spain's Felipe IV removes his ailing court favorite Gaspar de Guzmán, conde-duque de Olivares, from office January 24 as a result of an intrigue led by Queen Marianna. Now 56, the prime minister is exiled with his wife to the city of Toro.
France's Louis XIII dies at Saint-Germain-en-Laye May 14 at age 43 after a 33-year reign dominated by his mother, Marie de' Medici, and the late Cardinal Richelieu. His 4-year-old son will reign until 1715 as Louis XIV, initially under the aegis of Jules (né Giulio) Mazarin, 41, a Sicilian who was naturalized as a Frenchman 4 years ago, was made cardinal 2 years ago, succeeded Cardinal Richelieu as prime minister, and has been retained by the queen regent, Anne of Austria. France's nobility will rise against Cardinal Mazarin in the next 5 years in a final attempt to oppose the court by armed resistance and substitute rule of law for royal whim. The struggle will cause difficulties in transportation that will raise the price of flour and of bread.
Former English naval officer Sir William Monson dies at Kennersley, Surrey, in February at age 74 (see Nonfiction, 1704).
The Battle of Rocroi northeast of Rheims May 19 gives a French army of 22,000 victory over a 26,000-man Spanish army that includes Dutch, Flemish, and Italian mercenaries. Led by the 21-year-old Louis II de Bourbon, duc d'Enghien (a great-grandson of Louis I who will come to be known after 1646 as the Great Condé), the French right cavalry charges the Spanish left while Enghien's counterpart leads the left cavalry against the Spanish right; when the Spanish infantry start their move against the French center, Enghien's horsemen turn to their left and cut their way through the middle of the Spanish line, isolating the 8,000 elite troops in front from their German and Italian allies to the rear. Fighting continues from early morning until late in the day, when the Spaniards find all the French guns (plus captured Spanish guns) turned on them; they signal that they wish to surrender, but as Enghien and his staff approach some Spaniards mistakenly open fire, whereupon the French charge the enemy infantry, killing more than half of them and capturing the others. The French gain their first great military success in decades, a triumph rivalling that of England over the Armada in 1588. The duke's beautiful 24-year-old sister Anne-Geneviève de Bourbon-Condé, duchesse de Longueville, last year married the widower Henri II d'Orléans, duc de Longueville and governor of Normandy, a man twice her age, and becomes involved in political affairs, having heretofore attracted followers with her wit and gaiety at the Hôtel Rambouillet in Paris. Her brother, the duke, follows up his victory at Rocroi with further successes in the area of the Rhine at Thionville and Sierck.
Yorkshire-born Parliamentary leader Sir Thomas Fairfax, 31, occupies Leeds in January as England's Civil War continues (see 1642). Knighted 3 years ago for his services in the Bishops' War, Sir Thomas and his father, Ferdinando, 2nd baron Fairfax of Cameron, joined the Parliamentary cause at the outbreak of the Civil War.
England's queen Henrietta Maria lands on the Yorkshire coast in February with a shipload of arms from Holland, where she has sold some of her jewels.
Royalist commander Spencer Compton, 2nd earl of Northampton, marches his men from Banbury in March to relieve Lichfield, which has come under attack from parliamentary forces. He fails in his mission but presses on to Stafford, occupies the town, and marches out March 19, accompanied by three of his young sons. His troops engage Sir John Gell and Sir William Brereton at Hopton Heath, and he is about to prevail when he finds himself surrounded; refusing to give quarter, he is killed at age 42 and succeeded as third earl by his 20-year-old son James.
Charles I makes James Hamilton, earl of Cambridge, 1st duke of Hamilton in April as a reward for his efforts to keep Scotland neutral in the hostilities. Now 36, Hamilton tried without success to disband the Scottish Assembly of Covenanters 4 years ago. He tried unsuccessfully 2 years ago to come to terms with the more extreme Covenanters headed by the earl of Argyll, but Royalist James Graham, earl of Montrose, has bitterly opposed him and his alliance with Argyll has collapsed (see 1648).
Parliamentary forces in County Down capture Randal MacDonnell, 33, in May and find that he is carrying papers related to a planned uprising in Scotland by the 5th earl of Montrose with Irish support. A grandson of Somhairle Buidhe (Sorley Boy) MacDonnell, who died in 1590, Randal was married 9 years ago to the widow of the 1st duke of Buckingham, a close friend of King Charles; he is taken prisoner, but escapes within a few months.
Parliamentary leader Colonel John Hampden, now 49, maneuvers on Chalgrove Field June 18 to check a force of Royalist marauders led by Prince Rupert but is wounded in the shoulder and dies at Thame.
Royalist forces defeat Sir Thomas Fairfax June 30 at Adwalton Moor and occupy most of Yorkshire, but Fairfax gains support from Oliver Cromwell for a counterattack.
Sir Thomas Fairfax captures Wakefield in May, but Royalist forces under the command of Prince Rupert occupy Bristol July 26 after a 3-day siege.
Queen Henrietta Maria rejoins her husband in mid-July at Oxford, where Charles has established himself in comfort at Christ Church College. She has been writing him letters in an effort to rouse him to action, and tells him, in effect, "delays have always ruined you." Charles gives his assent to a three-pronged attack on London from Oxford, the west country, and Yorkshire, but westerners and Yorkshiremen are loath to leave their own districts, and the queen will return next year to France (see 1644).
London-born cavalier general Henry Wilmot, 39, defeats parliamentary forces under the command of Sir William Waller at Roundway Down in July and is created Baron Wilmot of Adderbury. Parliamentary leader Sir Arthur Hesilrige has distinguished himself at the Battle of Lansdown in Somerset and does so again at the Battle of Roundway Down in Wiltshire.
Royalist forces lay siege to Gloucester August 10 and take the town September 5. Drury Lane Theatre manager William Davenant acquits himself with such distinction in the siege that he is knighted. Sir Thomas Fairfax gains a victory at Winceby, Lincolnshire, in October.
Parliamentary leader John Pym dies at London December 8 at age 59, having organized Parliament's supremacy over the crown and established a tax system that will survive until the 19th century.
The Manchurian tribal leader Abahai dies September 21 at age 50 after a 17-year reign in which he has changed his dynastic name to Qing and begun the conquest of China; his ninth son, Fu-Lin, 5, will become Chinese emperor next year (see 1644).
Nzinga, queen of Ndongo and Matambma, routs Portuguese forces outside Mbaka (see 1641; 1647).
The New England Confederation (United Colonies of New England) is the first union of English colonies in America; its members include Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven.
Nieuw Amsterdam's Dutch governor orders a massacre of the Wappinger Indians, who have sought Dutch protection from attacks by raiding Mohawks. Some 1,500 of the 15,000 Wappinger are treacherously wiped out.
Navigator Abel Tasman leaves New Zealand's North Cape January 4, believing that he has probably discovered the west coast of a southern continent that may be connected with the land discovered on their 1616 voyage by Jacques Le Maire and W. C. Schouten south of South America (see 1642). Turning northeast, he discovers Tonga January 21, remains for a week to trade with the friendly Polynesians, sails west February 1, discovers the Fiji Islands February 6, reaches the waters of New Guinea April 1, and arrives back at Batavia (later Jakarta) June 14, having lost only 10 men to illness (mostly scurvy) in his 10-month voyage. He has circumnavigated Australia without having sighted it, but the directors of the East India Company had hoped either to open a trade route to China or to find territory that produced products of commercial value, and Tasman has done neither (see 1644; Cook, 1770).
Swedish colonists build some log cabins on Tinicum Island in the Schuylkill River as an extension of New Sweden (see 1638). It is the first permanent settlement in what later will be Pennsylvania (see 1681).
Pearl merchant Kiliaen van Rensselaer dies at Amsterdam October 3 at age 58 (approximate).
The world's first barometer is devised by Florentine mathematician Evangelista Torricelli, 35, who served as amanuensis to the late Galileo Galilei when the latter lost his eyesight.
French medical student Jean Pecquet, 21, performs a dissection and discovers the ductus thoracicus that is the common trunk of the human lacteal and lymphatic systems (see 1623; 1653).
Typhus ravages an English cavalier army of 20,000 and a parliamentary army of the same size at Oxford. Charles I has to abandon his plans to take London.
A massacre of Jews in the Ukraine takes hundreds of lives.
Yom Tov Lippmann Heller, now 64, accepts an appointment as chief rabbi of Kraków (see 1627). His opposition to simony (the sale of rabbinical offices) led richer Jews to have him expelled from Poland some time ago, but the official order has been rescinded. Heller is well known for his commentaries on the Mishna.
Anne Hutchinson is killed at age 53 by Indians in August or September along with all but one of the 15 members of her family (see 1638). Her husband died last year and she had moved from the Providence area to a new settlement at what will become Pelham Bay in New York.
Painting: Village Fête by David Teniers the Younger; Three Trees (etching) by Rembrandt van Rijn; The Slaughtered Pig by Adriaen van Ostade; Tulip by Judith Leyster.
Theater: The Death of Pompey (La mort de Pompide) by Pierre Corneille in January at the Théâtre du Marais, Paris; The Liar (Le menteur) by Corneille, in February at Paris; Sly Gomez (Bellaco sois, Gomez) by Tirso de Molina 4/27 at Madrid.
Opera: L'Incoronozione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppy) in the autumn at Venice's Teatro S. S. Giovanni e Paolo, with music by Claudio Monteverdi, is probably the first historical opera. Venetian lawyer and historian Francesco Busenello has written the libretto for the work, basing it on the lives of the Roman emperor Nero and his wife, Poppea.
Organist-composer Girolamo Frescobaldi dies at Rome March 1 at age 59; Claudio Monteverdi at Venice November 29 at age 76.
Louis XIII's widow, Anne of Austria, moves into the late Cardinal Richelieu's Palais Royal with her 4-year-old son, Louis XIV, and finds it far more luxurious than the Louvre Palace (see restaurants, 1786).
Würzberger beer has its beginnings in a brewery started at Bavaria's Würzberg Castle.
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