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England's Charles I makes his nephew Prince Rupert duke of Cumberland and earl of Holderness in January. Rupert relieves Newark, Nottinghamshire, in February, and he occupies most of Lancashire in June (see 1643). Henry Wilmot, baron Wilmot of Adderbury, defeats parliamentary forces at Cropredy Bridge in June but has a falling out with Prince Rupert and other friends of the king. The Battle of Marston Moor in Yorkshire July 2 ends in victory for Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell, now 45, and his Roundheads over the Cavaliers of Charles I. Commanded by Prince Rupert, the Royalists have relieved York and foolishly challenged a parliamentary force that outnumbers them 27,000 to 17,500; the Cavaliers lose an estimated 3,000, the Roundheads 2,000, Prince Rupert's men disperse, he is left with only 6,000 men, and the victory leaves the north country in the hands of the parliamentary forces that oppose the Royalist elements of gentry, peasantry, and Anglican clergy, but Sir Thomas Fairfax sustains a serious wound in the siege of Helmsley Castle (see Naseby, 1645). A Royalist force lays siege in August to Lostwithiel, Cornwall, and forces the surrender of a 6,000-man army under the command of Robert Devereux, 3rd earl Essex, who escapes by sea and will resign his command next April.
Oliver Cromwell's Parliamentary army surrounds the king and a 12,000-man Royalist army at Newbury in Berkshire, his 18,000 men are armed with muskets and 16- to 18-foot pikes, the two sides clash October 27, but nightfall ends the fighting and the Royalists manage to escape under cover of darkness, reaching safety at Oxford. Charles returns November 9 with Prince Rupert and a force of 11,000 men, they retrieve the artillery left at Donnington Castle, the Parliamentarians are too exhausted to oppose them, and Cromwell determines to build a more disciplined army (see 1645).
James Graham, marquis of Montrose, leaves Oxford and proceeds north to Scotland in disguise (see 1641). Entering Perthshire, he makes his identity known, meets a force of 1,200 Scots and Irish troops led by Alastair MacDonald of Colonsay at Blair Atholl, rallies the clans behind him, and routs a Covenanter army under Lord Elcho at Tippermuir, near Perth. Montrose goes on to take Aberdeen and his men sack the town, but when he hears that the earl of Argyll is approaching with 4,000 men he retreats to Angus, where he lays waste the estates of noblemen who support the Covenanters, finally driving Argyll himself from his castle at Inverary before wheeling north toward Inverness (see 1645).
Swedish forces invade Denmark early in the year under the command of Count Gustav Horn, breaking the peace that has held since 1613 (see 1612). A Danish-Scanian army puts up a determined resistance with help from local peasant militia, but Horn takes the cities of Helsingborg and Engelsholm in February before encountering a large group of Scanian sharpshooters under the command of Bengt Monsön. He still manages to take the city of Lund in March, plunder the city of Landskrona in April, and accept the surrender of Laholm in May. Monsön is killed near Markaryd, but the Danes drive out the Swedes and will not be invaded again until 1657.
French forces occupy the Rhineland.
The Ming dynasty that has dominated China since 1368 ends April 25 with the suicide of the 16th and last Ming emperor Chongzhen (Zhu Youjian, or Ch'ung-chen) at Beijing (Peking). Some of his eunuch generals have betrayed him, rebel forces approach the city, and when Chongzhen strikes a bell to summon his ministers to a conference no one appears; the emperor climbs to the top of a hill (Jingshan Mountain) beside his palace and hangs himself at age 33. The bandit and rebel leader Li Zicheng (Li Tzu-ch'eng), 39, lays siege to Beijing, having overrun parts of Hebei (Hopeh) and Henan (Honan) provinces, conquered all of Shenxi Province, and proclaimed himself emperor. The 31-year-old Ming general Wu Sangui (Wu San-kuei) is summoned to help raise the siege, but Beijing surrenders before his arrival. General Wu Sangui (Shan-hi-kuan) at Fort Shan Hai-guan accepts Manchu help to expel Li from the capital in hopes of restoring the dynasty, the Manchu regent Dagoba helps Wu Sangui drive Li into Hebei province (where he will be killed), but the Manchu prince Dorgon, now 31, seizes the opportunity to occupy the imperial throne himself; he subdues Shenxi (Shensi), Henan (Honan), and Shandong (Shantung) provinces and enters Beijing in June, his 6-year-old nephew Fu-lin enters the city October 19 and is proclaimed emperor October 30. The youth will reign until his death in 1661 as Shunzhi (Shun-chih), and although they retain Ming officials and adopt the Ming form of government to keep the people pacified, the Manchus will impose the shaven head with queue (pigtail), make sure that half of all high officials are Manchus, keep elite Manchu Banner System troops at the capital as well as at some strategic points elsewhere, and garrison the country with their Army of the Green Standard to prevent local rebellions as they begin the Qing (Ching) dynasty (see Abahai, 1643) that will rule until 1912. Ming patriot Zhu Shunshui (Chu Shun-shui), 44, flees to Japan, but Ming resistance continues in China's southern provinces (see 1645).
The Chinese rebel leader Zhang Xianzhong (Chang Hsien-chung) moves south into Sichuan (Szechwan) province with about 100,000 men and sets himself up as the "king of the western kingdom" (ta hsi ku o wang) (see 1628). He will coin his own money and try to establish a civilian government, using an examination system to recruit able bureaucrats (but see 1647).
Navigator Abel Tasman embarks from Batavia February 29 with the ships Limmen, Zeemeuw, and Bracq on a new expedition to the "South Land," this time with instructions to establish the relative positions of New Guinea, western Australia ("the great known South Land"), Van Diemen's Land (later Tasmania), and the "unknown South Land" (see 1643). After sailing along the south coast of New Guinea, Tasman and Frans Visscher proceed into Torres Strait (mistaking it for a shallow bay), coast Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria, and proceed along the north and west coasts of Australia to 22° South. The Dutch East India Company raises Tasman to the rank of commander and makes him a member of Batavia's Council of Justice, but his failure to find territories possessed of potential wealth leaves the company's directors disappointed.
The Rhode Island colony has its beginnings in the Providence Plantations incorporated by an English colonial government commission that has been headed since last year by Puritan Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, who will try to secure guarantees of religious freedom in the colonies (see Providence, 1636; charter, 1663).
Plymouth colony founder William Brewster dies at Plymouth April 10 (probably) at age 76 (approximate). He has served as adviser to Governor William Bradford.
Flemish chemist-physiologist-physician Jan Baptista van Helmont dies at Vilvoorde in the Spanish Netherlands December 30 at age 64, having identified carbon dioxide (he has called it the "wild spirit" [spiritus sylvestre]) and been the first to recognize the existence of discrete gases distinct from atmospheric air. Although he has believed in the philosopher's stone and other mystical ideas, his careful observations have pioneered biochemistry.
Pope Urban VIII dies at Rome July 29 at age 76 after a 21-year reign in which he has encouraged missionary work and supported the great architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini. He is succeeded September 15 by the Rome-born Giovanni Battista Cardinal Pamphili, 72, who will reign until 1655 as Innocent X.
The sixth Sikh guru Hargobind dies at Kiratpur near the Himalayas in the Punjab at age 49 (approximate) after a 38-year reign in which he spent 12 years as a prisoner of the late Mughal emperor Jahangir but thereafter defeated Shah Jahan's armies on four occasions; Hargobind is succeeded by his grandson Har Rai, who will head the sect until 1661.
Oliver Cromwell in England bans any celebration of Christmas as being contrary to Puritan thinking (see New England, 1740).
Nonfiction: "Aereopagitica" by John Milton is an essay in defense of the freedom of the press: "Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her forth"; "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties"; "As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye." (Milton has antagonized England's Presbyterians with pamphlets relating to divorce.)
Novelist-poet-playwright Luis Vélez de Guevara dies at Madrid November 10 at age 65.
Painting: Woman Taken in Adultery by Rembrandt van Rijn; The Kitchen of the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm by David Teniers the Younger; The Rest on the Flight into Egypt and The Three Marys at the Tomb of Christ by Dutch painter Ferdinand Bol, 28; Helena Van der Schalke as a Child by Dutch painter Geraert Terborch, 27; St. Paul the Hermit by Jusepe de Ribera; Felipe IV at Fraga by Diego Velázquez; Horatius Cocles Defending Rome by Paris painter Charles Le Brun, 25.
Rome's Church of S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane is completed to designs by architect Francesco Borromini (Francesco Castelli), 44, who assisted his kinsman Carlo Maderno until Maderno's death in 1629 and worked under Gian Bernini until 1633 in executing commissions from the late Pope Urban VIII.
Swiss magistrates petition a bishop at Geneva to seek divine intervention against the Des Bois glacier that has been advancing at a pace of more than a musket shot's distance per day, even in August (see 1610). The bishop leads a 300-person procession through the mountains in June, blessing four glaciers in 3 days by sprinkling them with holy water, but it will be some years before the glaciers recede.
Agrarian taxes in the Qing dynasty will be the lowest in China's history, with tax collectors taking only 3 to 6 percent of the crop (although local officials will devise special imposts that will raise the levy in some places to as much as 60 percent). Tax dodging will be widespread; people will be able to survive, if only barely, and catastrophes such as wars of rebellion will drive them to the edge of starvation.
Food crops from the New World now grow even in remote parts of China, some communities being heavily dependent on potatoes and sweet potatoes. Food production has increased, despite the adverse climatic conditions of what later will be called the "Little Ice Age." The severe cold will soon begin to ameliorate, with warmer, wetter winters that will exacerbate problems of flooding, especially in areas that have suffered deforestation.
Overuse of environmental resources under China's Qing dynasty will produce occasional disasters, but famine relief will be rapid and well organized.
Scotland's Parliament imposes an excise tax; however, Highlander distillers are outraged, the tax proves almost impossible to collect, and it will be allowed to lapse (see 1693).
China's population has by some accounts grown in the Ming period to an estimated 150 million, up from about 50 million in 1368, but while the real numbers may well be lower, the population will triple to 450 million by the end of the new Qing (Ch'ing) dynasty in 1912.
1641 1642 1643 1644 1645 1646 1647 1648 1649 1650
People's Chronology. Copyright © 2005 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
