1659

1651 1652 1653 1654 1655 1656 1657 1658 1659 1660

political events

France's house of Savoie ends January 14 with the death at Paris of Henri II de Savoie, duc de Nemours, of epilepsy at age 33. Named archbishop of Reims in 1651, he was relieved of his vows in order that he might succeed his childless brother, but although he was married in May of last year to Marie d'Orléans, daughter of Henri II, duc de Longueville, he too has died childless.

England's Protectorate Parliament collapses and a new Parliament meets January 27 with Sir Arthur Hesilrige as its most prominent member, but it soon bogs down in a dispute with the army (see 1658). The new lord protector Richard Cromwell dissolves Parliament April 22 at the behest of the army, a new Rump Parliament meets May 7 with William Lenthall as speaker. Charles Fleetwood leads a group of officers that induces the ineffectual Cromwell to resign in May. The New Royalists led by Sir George Booth, 37, join with the Cavaliers in August to restore the monarchy. Playwright-stage manager William Davenant is imprisoned briefly for alleged complicity in the revolt. Soldiers under the command of John Lambert suppress the insurrection in Cheshire and appoint a military committee of safety to replace the Rump Parliament in October, but General George Monck orders restoration of the Rump Parliament December 26 (see 1660).

The Treaty of the Pyrenees November 7 ends the ascendancy of Spain, which has been exhausted by war and by the domestic misgovernment that has produced the revolt in Catalonia, which ends this year. Under terms of the treaty signed on the Isle of Pheasants in the Bidassoa River, France's Louis XIV receives the Spanish frontier fortresses in Flanders and Artois, and Spain's Felipe IV cedes part of Roussillon, Contans, and Cerdagne along with some towns in Hainault and Luxembourg. Felipe IV makes other concessions, France annexes Roussillon and makes it a province, the walled city of Carcassonne ceases to be a frontier fortress, and the 21-year-old Spanish infanta Maria Theresa is betrothed to Louis XIV with a dowry of 500,000 crowns (she renounces her claims to the Spanish throne for herself or for any issue that she may have by Louis, provided that Spain pay her dowry, but since no such payment is likely Louis will entertain ideas of controlling the Spanish throne).

The Ottoman grand vizier Mehmed Köprülü gains ascendancy over rebel pashas, has them executed in February, and sends an inspector to Anatolia in the summer with authority to exclude from the state registers all non-Muslim taxpayers (reaya) who claim to belong to the military class. Intended to suppress the private mercenaries (sekbans), the measure reestablishes central authority in the region.

The Muslim sultan of Bijapur in southern India sends a 20,000-man army under the command of Afzal Khan against the 32-year-old Marathan rebel Shivaji, who has been raiding his territory in the Deccan area. Shivaji's own ancestral estates are in the region, and since age 16 Shivaji has been trying to rally opposition to Muslim oppression and perscution of Hindus. He feigns a retreat, calls for peace talks, lures Afzal Khan into the mountains, murders him, and then ambushes his leaderless army, seizing the Bijapur guns, horses, ammunition, and supplies (see 1665).

The Battle of Deorai in northeastern India April 12 to 14 brings victory to the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb and confirms his possession of the throne (see 1658). Relying on promised support from Jaswant Singh of Marwar, Aurangzeb's brother and rival prince Dara Shikoh has continued his opposition to Aurangzeb's claims to power, but Jaswant deserts him, and after 3 days' resistance he is captured and will be executed next year.

Chinese imperial troops under the command of Hong Chengchou (Hung Cheng-chou), 65, crush major Ming resistance in the South, leaving only the island of Taiwan (Formosa) under Ming control (see 1644; Taiwan, 1683). A Ming official earlier in his career, Hong was captured by Qing (Ch'ing, or Manchu) forces, has served the emperor as grand secretary (chief minister), and has persuaded much of the gentry to accept the new dynasty, raising funds and providing food for Qing armies. Many of the Qing suspect him of having secret ties with Ming officials, but he drives the Ming prince into Burma. Refusing to pursue him further, Hong permits the prince to retire from the campaign and will continue to serve as grand secretary for more than a year before being allowed to remove himself from public life.

The Ming pirate-patriot Zheng Chenggong (Cheng Ch'eng-kung) tries to capitalize on the absence of Qing forces fighting in the south to lead an army of more than 100,000 men up the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) River (see 1653); he reaches the gates of Nanjing before suffering a disastrous defeat and being forced back to his base at Amoy (see Taiwan, 1661).

exploration, colonization

Explorer-navigator Abel Tasman dies in Batavia at age 56 (approximate), having fought the Spaniards in the Philippines, become a large landowner in Java, and amassed a small fortune.

French fur trader Pierre Radisson travels through the upper Mississippi Valley, meeting with the Huron and exchanging knives, glass beads, and such for beaver pelts and wolf skins (see 1658). Iroquois to the south have lost half their population to smallpox and other diseases introduced by Europeans, and their raids across the Great Lakes to replenish themselves have decimated the Huron. Radisson returns from Lake Superior, but the governor of New France confiscates his beaver pelts, which are used for making felt hats and fetch high prices (see Radisson, 1665).

Thomas Macy dispatches Edward Starbuck to the mainland to recruit new settlers for Nantucket Island (see 1658). Starbuck returns with nine colonists, the settlers and Macy each take partners, and together they buy 90 percent of the island—including its Wampanoag inhabitants—from owner Thomas Mayew in the Massachusetts Bay colony (see whaling, 1690).

medicine

English physician Thomas Willis, 38, gives the first description of typhoid fever.

religion

The new Mughal emperor Aurangzeb departs from the policy of religious tolerance shown by the late Akbar, who followed the pluralistic Koranic principle that all morally-guided religions come from God. Akbar went so far as to build temples for his Hindu subjects, but Aurangzeb and his followers will try to suppress all "deviant" cults and faiths.

Bishop François de Montmorency Laval arrives at Quebec, where he wastes no time in opposing liquor sales to the natives, which wins him no friends among New France's civil administrators (see 1658; 1662).

Two Quakers are hanged on Boston Common October 27 for defying the Puritan theocracy. Will Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson have been exiled from Massachusetts on frequent occasions but have returned to preach their doctrine of nonviolence. English-born Quaker Mary Dyer is blindfolded and has a noose around her neck but is released at the pleading of her son and banished (see 1660). She came to America with her husband, William, about 25 years ago, but she was banished from the Massachusetts Bay colony for her antinomian views in 1638 along with her husband and Anne Hutchinson (see 1643). She went back to England in 1650, joined the Society of Friends, returned to New England in 1657 and engaged in missionary work, and was imprisoned at Boston that year after the passage of anti-Quaker laws. She was expelled from New Haven last year, imprisoned briefly once again at Boston, and then banished again on pain of death. Dyer has defied the ban in order to minister to other Quakers who have been imprisoned at Boston and has been arrested once more.

literature

Nonfiction: The Plain Doctrine of the Justification of a Sinner in the Sight of God by English-born Massachusetts clergyman Charles Chauncy, 66, who emigrated to America in 1637 after making a formal recantation of his nonconformist views and has been president of Harvard College since 1654; The Coquette Avenged (La Coquette vengée) by Paris courtesan Ninon (née Anne) de Lenclos, 39, whose father, Henri, siere de La Douardière, fled France after killing a man in 1632. She established a salon that attracted prominent political and literary figures, many of whom became her lovers, and although her irreligious attitudes resulted in her being confined to a convent 3 years ago her admirers quickly obtained her release; her book defends her conduct and philosophy.

art

Painting: Mercury and Argus, Infante Maria Theresa, and Infante Philip Próspero by Diego Velázquez; The Concert and Young Girl with Flute by Johannes Vermeer; The Letter by Geraert Terborch; A Woman and Child in a Bleaching Ground and A Merry Company with Two Men and Two Women by Pieter de Hooch.

theater, film

Theater: Oedipus (Oedipe) by Pierre Corneille 1/24 at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, Paris; The Amorous Quarrel (Le dépit concoureux) by the French actor-playwright Molière (Jean Baptiste Poquelin), 37, 4/16 at the Théâtre du Petit-Bourbon, Paris; The Affected Young Ladies (or The Pretentious Young Ladies) (Les précieuses ridicules) by Molière 11/18 at the Théâtre du Petit-Bourbon. Manager of a troupe known as the King's Comedians and an admirer of the courtesan Ninon de Lenclos, Molière formed his own acting company at age 21 and last year gained the patronage of the court at Paris for his comedies.

food availability

England's harvest comes up short, producing a dearth of food and higher prices that cause great suffering among the poor.

food and drink

Paris authorities raid a monastery and send 12 monks to jail for eating meat and drinking wine during Lent.

The Spanish infanta Marie Therese introduces the French court to cocoa, which will be endorsed by the Paris faculty of medicine and received with enthusiasm until it becomes surrounded with suspicion as an aphrodisiac in some circles and as a mysterious potion in others (see Mme. de Sévigné, 1671). Cocoa is generally drunk with cloves, sometimes with the addition of hazelnuts or almonds.

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