1648

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political events

Parliament renounces its allegiance to Charles I January 15 following revelations of a secret treaty signed by Charles with the Scots 20 days earlier promising to abolish episcopacy and restore Presbyterianism (see 1647). Independents in Parliament expel Puritan William Prynne, who has written pamphlets calling for a national Puritan Church controlled by the king. Leveller John Wildman is imprisoned from January to August for attacking Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton in his pamphlet "Putney Projects" and for joining with John Lilburne in agitating for the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords. Parliamentary commissioners negotiate with Charles at Newport on the Isle of Wight from April to November, but a second English Civil War begins meanwhile along with an Anglo-Scottish war as Royalists battle Roundheads and Presbyterians battle Independents. Prince Rupert, now 28, assumes command of the small Royalist fleet and preys on English shipping, but the parliamentary admiral Robert Blake, 49, chases him from Kinsale, County Cork, to Lisbon and thence into the Mediterranean (see 1652).

A Scottish army invades England under the command of James, 1st duke of Hamilton, now 43, and meets with defeat at the hands of Oliver Cromwell and John Lambert in the Battle of Preston that rages in Lancashire from August 17 to 19. Although the Scottish-Royalist army has 16,000 infantry and 3,600 cavalry (some sources say the total is 24,000) against Cromwell's 6,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry, Hamilton's forces are strung out over miles of road. Cromwell's casualties are light, whereas the ineffectual Hamilton loses about 1,000 killed. Some 4,000 of his men are taken prisoner in the fighting, and more are killed and captured after they take to their heels. Hamilton escapes but surrenders at Uttoxeter and is taken prisoner (see 1649). Parliamentary soldier Thomas Rainborow is mortally wounded at Doncaster, Yorkshire, October 29. The army seizes Charles I December 1, parliamentary soldier Thomas Pride stands at the entrance of Parliament December 6 and 7, forcibly arresting or expelling 96 Presbyterian members (140 by some accounts; the incident will be remembered as "Pride's Purge"), and the remaining "Rump" Parliament of some 60 members votes December 13 that Charles be brought to trial. Sir Arthur Hesilrige has helped to lead Cromwell's army and last year was appointed governor of Newcastle, but he refuses to serve on the court that tries the king. The 18-year-old Prince of Wales flees to France and is soon accompanied by followers who include, notably, the parliamentarian Edward Hyde, 39, earl of Clarendon. Sir Thomas Fairfax has, like many others, hoped for a limited monarchy; he is dismayed when his soldiers purge Parliament and refuses to sit on a commission set up by Henry Ireton and others to judge the king. Ireton has written a "Remonstrance of the Army" establishing the ideological foundation for an attack on the monarchy (see 1649).

A French civil war begins in the spring as a parliamentary uprising to defend the independence of magistrates against the "foreign" rule of the regent Anne of Austria and her Italian-born chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin. The revolt is called the Fronde (French for sling) because stones are shot into the windows of Cardinal Mazarin in protest against the arrest of the aged magistrate Pierre Broussel (children play a game called the fronde in the streets of Paris, slinging stones in defiance of the law). Seeking to put a constitutional limit on the monarchy, a judicial assembly meets from June 30 to July 12 and draws up a list of 27 proposals for reform (e.g., approval of all new taxes by the Parlement, tax reductions, an end to arbitrary imprisonment, and abolition of the intendants who serve in the provinces as officials of the central government). The bishop coadjutor Jean François Paul de Gondi, 35, sides with the insurgents in hopes of becoming prime minister, and Mazarin's government grudgingly agrees July 31 to many of the demands. Broussel is released; he suggests a proclamation urging Parisians to lay down their arms, but the mob wants to get rid of Mazarin. The court takes refuge at Rueil and the Great Condé, now 27, is recalled to put down the Fronde, having just gained a great victory over the Spanish at Lens. Two outspoken parlemantaires are arrested August 26, but the Paris mob forces their release August 28 (see 1649).

A rebellion against Polish rule in the Ukraine begins under the leadership of Cossack chief Bogdan Chmielnicki, 53, a petty nobleman who was formerly chief of the Cossacks at Czyhryn but was forced to flee in December of last year after a dispute with the region's Polish governor. He has found refuge in the fortress of the Zaporzhian Cossacks on the Dnieper River, recruits Crimean Tatars to his cause, and marches against the Poles in April, gaining popular support from peasants, townspeople, and clergymen as he achieves victories that embolden the people to rise against their oppressors.

Muscovites rebel in May against corruption and taxes. The young czar Aleksei Mikhailovich responds by having some corrupt officials arrested and executed, but the revolt spreads to other cities (see human rights [serfdom], 1649).

Poland's Wladislaw IV dies suddenly at Merecz May 20 at age 55 after a 16-year reign in which he has tried to repair the damage wrought by his bigoted late father, Sigismund. The rebel forces of Bogdan Chmielnicki defeat two armies sent to suppress his uprising, his followers invade Poland, and they seize Lwów in October. Wladislaw IV's 39-year-old Jesuit brother is elected to succeed him in November (he will reign until 1668 as Jan II Casimir) and Chmielnicki returns to the central Ukraine, but resentment of Polish rule continues in the Ukraine (see 1649).

Transylvania's György Rákóczi I dies at Sárospatak, Hungary, October 11 at age 55 after a reign of nearly 18 years and is succeeded by his 27-year-old son, who will reign until his death in 1660 as György Rákóczi II, continuing his father's policy of seeking alliances with the powerful governors (hospodars) of Moldavia to the east and Walachia to the south (see 1656).

Europe's Thirty Years' War ends October 24 in the Peace of Westphalia, whose treaties are guaranteed by France and Sweden. The long war leaves the German states destitute. Mercenary troops from Bohemia, Denmark, France, Spain, Sweden, and the German states themselves have destroyed roughly 18,000 villages, 1,500 towns, and 2,000 castles.

The Treaty of Münster recognizes the independence of the Dutch Republic of the United Provinces.

The Janissaries at Constantinople dethrone the sultan Ibrahim August 8 following the lifting of the Ottoman siege of Candia. Ibrahim is strangled by his executioner August 18 and replaced by his eldest son, a 9-year-old boy who will reign until 1687 as Mehmed IV. His paternal grandmother, the sultana Kösem, continues to control the government (see 1651).

China's Manchu prince Dorgon is given the title imperial father regent and leads a campaign against a rebellious general in Shanxi (Shansi) Province (see 1646).

A Dutch war fleet under the command of Abel Tasman engages a Spanish fleet in the Philippines. Tasman led a trading fleet to Siam last year but will soon leave the service of the Dutch East India Company.

Dutch forces in the West Indies take St. Martin and rename it St. Maarten (see Stuyvesant, 1647).

Portuguese forces commanded by the Brazilian landowner Salvador de Sá regain Luanda August 10, defeating a Dutch garrison of 200 despite support from Nzinga, queen of Ndongo and Matambma.

human rights, social justice

Landowner Margaret Brent appears before the Maryland Assembly January 21 and demands the right to cast two votes, one for herself and one as attorney for the late Lord Calvert, whose will last year named her sole executrix of his estate. When her petition is denied, she demands that all proceedings of the assembly be held invalid (see 1661).

exploration, colonization

Former Bermuda governor William Sayle sets out for the Bahamas with about 70 prospective settlers, some of whom have come from England (see 1647). Internal discord, unproductive soil, and Spanish resistance will combine to thwart their efforts to establish a plantation colony, and some (including Sayle) will return to Bermuda (see 1656).

The Dutch ship Haarlem breaks up at Table Bay, South Africa. Ship officers Leendert Jansz and Nicholas Proot survive the wreck and are picked up 5 months later and returned to Holland, where they urge authorities to establish a settlement at Table Bay for provisioning East India fleets with fresh fruit, vegetables, and other stores (see Cape Town, 1652).

Russian navigator Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev, 43, leads a naval expedition along the northern coast of Siberia through the Arctic Ocean, rounds the Chukotsk Peninsula, and passes through what later will be called the Bering Strait to enter the Pacific (see Bering, 1728).

commerce

Swedish army officers back from the war receive land grants from Queen Kristina. The grants will double the land held by the nobility as of 1611 and freehold peasants will face eviction as the expanding nobility applies German customs and attitudes toward the peasantry (see food availability, 1650).

The Treaty of Münster closes the River Scheldt to navigation; Amsterdam begins to replace Antwerp as Europe's major commercial city (see 1567; 1815).

The Massachusetts Bay Colony gives authorization October 18 to the first labor organization in America, the "shoemakers of Boston."

technology

Johann Glauber invents nitric acid; it will be used chiefly in explosives (see science [Cavendish], 1766).

medicine

Ortus Mediciniae, vel Opera et Opuscula Omnia by the late Flemish physician-chemist Jan Baptista van Helmont makes the first distinction between gases and air (see science [Boyle], 1662). Digestion is the work of fermentation that converts food into living flesh, J.-B. van Helmont has written: a different ferment causes each physiologic process, and central control is vested in the solar plexus. At a time when most physicians prescribe enormous (and often lethal) doses, van Helmont advocates only small doses of chemicals with mild therapy consisting of diet and simples (medicinal herbs and plants) (see 1661).

A yellow fever epidemic sweeps the Yucatán Peninsula. It is by some accounts the first definitely identifiable outbreak (see Duterte, 1635).

religion

A Ukrainian pogrom by Greek Orthodox peasants destroys hundreds of Jewish communities, killing all who will not accept the cross. Cossack chief Bogdan Chmielnicki leads the pogrom in quest of Ukrainian independence from the Polish nobility, whose members own lands along the Dnieper and employ Jews to collect its taxes (see politics, 1649).

literature

Nonfiction: A Survey of the Summe of Church-discipline by the late Connecticut pastor Thomas Hooker; The Way of the Congregational Churches Cleared by John Cotton.

Historian-philosopher-metaphysical poet-courtier Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert (of Cherbury) dies at London August 5 at age 65; author-diplomat Diego de Saavedra Fajardo at Madrid August 24 at age 64.

Poetry: Hesperides, or The Works Both Human and Divine of Robert Herrick, Esq., by English poet Robert Herrick, 57, whose Royalist sympathies cause him to be evicted from his post as vicar of Dean Prior in Devonshire: "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,/ Old Times is still a-flying:/ And this same flower that smiles today,/ Tomorrow will be dying" (from "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time").

art

Painting: The Peace of Münster by Geraert Torborch (see 1646); Seven Sacraments (second series) and Diogenes Throwing Away His Scoop by Nicolas Poussin; Mars by Diego Velázquez; The Holy Family with St. Catherine by Jusepe de Ribera. Louis Le Nain dies at Paris May 25 at age 60.

theater, film

Theater: The Inhabitants of Leeuwendaal (Leeuwendalers) by Joost van den Vondel 5/7 at Amsterdam's Schouwburg Theater.

Playwright Tirso de Molina dies at Soria, Spain, March 12 at age 54 (approximate), having written some 400 plays.

tobacco

Russia's Czar Aleksei Mikhailovich, now 19, abolishes the state monopoly in tobacco established by Mikhail I Romanov in 1641 and reimposes the ban on smoking (see 1613; 1697).

architecture, real estate

The Taj Mahal completed outside Agra in India, has been built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, now 56, for his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal (Jewel of the Palace), who died in childbirth some 17 years ago at age 34 after bearing him 14 children. The Taj is a red and white sandstone and marble mosque, meeting hall, and mausoleum.

environment

Pilgrim colonists in the Massachusetts Bay colony have poor crops and avoid starvation only by eating passenger pigeons, still abundant in the colony despite efforts to eradicate them (see Josselyn, 1672).

agriculture

Much of the farmland in the northern German states remains untilled in the wake of the Thirty Years' War, and food remains scarce.

population

The end of the Thirty Years' War leaves the German states with a population of less than 13.5 million and possibly a good deal less. Berlin's population has fallen to 7,500, down from 12,000 before hostilities began.

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