1696

1691 1692 1693 1694 1695 1696 1697 1698 1699 1700

political events

Parliament suspends the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 following discovery of Sir George Barclay's plot to assassinate William III. Barclay is hanged along with Roman Catholic Jacobite priest Robert Charnock, 33, and the authorities also arrest Sir John Fenwick, 51, who will be hanged early next year, the last Englishman to be condemned by a bill of attainder. The Trials for Treason Act passed by Parliament requires two witnesses to prove an act of treason.

Poland's Jan III Sobieski dies at Wilanów June 17 at age 72 after a 20-year reign, the last 12 years of which were full of disaster and humiliation. He and his wife have amassed a substantial fortune by granting offices and favors in exchange for financial consideration. They have spent lavishly on the Baroque palace of Wilanów outside Warsaw as well as on residences at Zólkiew and Jaworów, but the king has been unable to end the internal dissension that will lead to further national humiliation in the century to come. His sons fail to gain the support either of the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I or of France's Louis XIV in their bid for the Polish throne; his daughter Teresa Kunigunda was married 2 years ago to the 33-year-old widower Maximilian II Emanuel, elector of Bavaria, but he served in 1691 as governor of the Spanish Lowlands and prefers his native Munich to Holland or the rigors of Warsaw (see 1697).

Russian forces sent by Peter I defeat Ottoman defenders July 28 to capture the fortress that commands the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. Other Russian troops conquer Kamchatka.

exploration, colonization

Spain establishes a Florida colony at Pensacola as a defense against the French.

commerce

English journeymen hatters strike for higher wages and better working conditions.

The Fourth Navigation Act adopted by Parliament April 10 forbids England's American colonists to export directly to Scotland or Ireland (see 1663; 1699).

Lloyd's List is issued for the first time by coffeehouse owner Edward Lloyd, who fills his sheet with information not only about ship arrivals and departures but also about conditions abroad and at sea, gathered from a network of correspondents, that may have a bearing on the marine insurance transactions conducted on his premises, which are open almost 24 hours each day and always crowded (see 1688). The list will later be expanded to include high-water times at London Bridge and news about stock prices and foreign markets (see 1771).

The first English property insurance company is founded. Demand for such insurance has increased since the Great Fire of 1666 (see 1720).

England's Board of Trade and Plantations is founded.

Parliament reforms English coinage at the instigation of John Locke and Isaac Newton.

literature

Letter writer Marie de Rabutin Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, dies in Provence April 17 at age 71; moralist-satirist Jean de La Bruyère at Versailles May 10 at age 50, having just completed a final version of his 1688 work with more than 700 sketches in addition to the original 390 (and the 30 by Theophrastus).

theater, film

Theater: Love's Last Shift; or, The Fool in Fashion by English actor-playwright Colley Cibber, 24, in January at London's Royal Theatre in Drury Lane, with Cibber: "One had as good be out of the world as out of the fashion" (Cibber pioneers the sentimental comedy form that will dominate the English stage for nearly a century); The Relapse, or Virtue in Danger by English playwright John Vanbrugh, 32, 11/21 at the Drury Lane Theatre (written as a sequel to Cibber's play); The Gambler (Le Joueur) by French playwright Jean-François Regnard, 41, 12/19 at the Comédie-Française, Paris; Woman's Wit; or, The Lady in Fashion by Colley Cibber in December at the Drury Lane Theatre.

music

Hymn: "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night" by England's poet laureate, Nahum Tate, and his collaborator Nicholas Brady, 37, is published in their New Version of the Psalms of David.

crime

Captain William Kidd sails from New York harbor September 6, bound for the Indian Ocean in the 34-gun galley Adventure with a crew of more than 100 (including desperadoes and oarsmen) to attack pirate ships that are preying on honest merchantmen (see 1695; 1697).

agriculture

Grapefruit cultivation in America has its origin in seeds from the Polynesian pomelo tree (Citrus grandis) introduced into Barbados by an English sea captain named Shaddock. A sweeter and thinner mutation of the fruit, or a botanist's development of the "shaddock," will be called grapefruit (see Lunan, 1814).

population

A pioneer English statistician calculates that England's population will reach a high of 22 million in 3500 A.D. "in case the world should last so long."

1691 1692 1693 1694 1695 1696 1697 1698 1699 1700