"I have neither eye to see, nor tongue to speak here, but as the House is pleased to direct me."

- MP William Lenthall, when Charles I asks the whereabouts of the MPs he wished to arrest.

Born in 1642:

• English dramatist Thomas Shadwell.
• German composer Johann Christoph Bach.
• André Charles Boulle, cabinetmaker to Louis XIV.
• French actress Marie Champmeslé.
• Spanish painter Claudio Coello.
• Future power behind Spanish king Philip V's throne, Marie-Anne de la Tremoille, Princesse des Ursins.
• Italian Jesuit priest and painter Andrea Pozzo.
• Isaac Newton was born on what was Christmas Day, 1642 in the old English calendar, but which would be January 4, 1643 today.
• Future Ottoman sultan Suleiman II.
• Japanese mathematician Takakazu Seki Kowa.
• Japanese poet and novelist Ihara Saikaku.
• Chinese artist Shitao, aka 'Dao Ji'.

The Thirty Years' War, the English Civil War, and the collpase of Ming Dynasty authority in China ensure that millions would die violently.

• Italian physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei.
• Saskia van Rijn, wife of Rembrandt.
• Italian painter Guido Reni.
• Dutch painter Pieter van Laer, aka 'Bamboccio'.
• Flemish painter Michiel Sweerts.
• English poet Sir John Suckling.
• Jesuit priest Thomas Holland, drawn and quartered for ministering to Catholics in London.
• Manchester linen weaver Richard Perceval, the first casualty of the English Civil War.
• Japan completes its suppression of Chrisitanity following the Shimabara Rebellion, crucifying the last Japanese priest.
• Future Italian Saint Francis Jerome.
• Marie de Médici, mother of French King Louis XIII and English Queen Henrietta Maria.
• Ming Prince Chu, drowned in a bamboo cage thrown into a lake.
• Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu, prime minister to Louis XIII.
• Zill-u'llah 'Abu'l Muzaffar Sultan Safi, Shah of Iran.  His son succeeds as Abbas II.
• King Outey I of Cambodia, deposed by Cham Chan Rama Thupdey (Chau Ponhea Chan).
• Henri Coëffier Ruzé d'Effiat, marquis de Cinq-Mars, executed for conspiring against Richelieu.

• Chinese physician Wu Youxing publishes a treatise on hte plague, Wenyilun ('On Pestilence').
• Blaise Pascal invents the 'Pascaline', a gear-driven adding machine.
• Thomas Fuller's religious tome The Holy State and the Profane State is published.
• Claidio Monteverdi's opera The Coronation of Poppea appears.
• Father Isaac Jogues is captured by Mohawks
• Rembrandt van Rijn is commisioned to paint the Civic Guard Company of Frans Banning Cocq, known better today as The Night Watch.  They never do pay him.  Rembrandt is forced to sue Andries de Graeff for nonpayment. Although he wins, the bad publicity costs him patronage
• Khoshut Mongol chief Gushri Khan defeats Karnma Tankyong, King of the Tibetan province of Tsang, completing the conquest of Tibet.  Gushri Khan establishes Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, the fifth Dalai Lama as spiritual and temporal ruler.  The capital of Tibet moves to Lhasa.
• Imomqulikhan, khan of Bukhara, gives up power to his brother Nodirmuhammad, and departs on the hajj.
• New French settlements:
• Réunion
• Montreal
• Dutch explorer Abel Tasman is given a commission to explore the South Sea by VOC governor of Ceylon Antonie Van Diemen, and sails south of Australia into the Pacific Ocean.  He sights Tasmania ('Van Diemen's Land') and New Zealand ('Staten Land').
• The VOC occupies Chilung in northern Taiwan.
• Two of Outey's sons escape Chau Ponhea Chan's purge of the Cambodian royal family.  They flee to Hue, capital of neighboring Annam.
• Ming authority in China crumbles in the face of peasant revolts, and attacks from Manchuria.
• Jinzhou falls to Qing (Manchu) ruler Huang Taiji (Abahai) after a ten-year siege.
• Ming forces destroy a dam on the Huang He and flood Henan in an attempt to halt the peasant leader Li Zicheng.
• Another peasant rebel, Zhang Qianzhong, captures Wuchang, and with it, the prince of Hunan and the treasure he had refused to use for the Ming army.  Zhang Qianzhong commences a general slaughter that will last until 1664.
• Polish King Wladyslaw IV captures Smolensk from Russia.
• The Thirty Years' War has ravaged Germany, and tired Germans really want peace, but the major powers want to play some more.
• (January) The various Brunswick dukedoms sign the Peace of Goslar with the Emperor.
• (January 13) The Marquis de Cinq-Mars, having convinced several high French nobles (including the duc de Bouillon and the King's own brother, the duc d'Orleans) to rebel against Cardinal Richelieu, signs a secret treaty with Philip IV of Spain, who agrees to supply him with troops and arms.
• (January 17) French and Hessian forces capture Kempen in the Rhineland.
• Swedish General Lennart Torstensson brushes aside Saxon forces at Schweidnitz and invades Moravia.
• The Emperor assembles an army to fight off the Swedes.
• (June) Richelieu discovers Cinq-Mars's conspiracy, and has him arrested and beheaded.  The duc d'Bouillon (whose brother Henri Turenne is busy fighting the Spanish in the south) is also arrested, but his wife threatens to open  Sedan to the Spanish.  The duke is released after ceding Sedan to France.
• (July) the Emperor ratifies the Preliminary Treaty of Hamburg, allowing the Congress of Westphalia to eventually commence.
• (September 19) Perpignan (capital of the Roussillon region in the Eastern Pyrenees) surrenders to the French.
• (November 2, Second Battle of Breitenfeld) Archduke Leopold and General Ottavio Piccolomini catch up with Tortensson at Breitenfeld outside Leipzig.  Eleven years previously, Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus had destroyed Bavarian forces under the Count of Tilly.  This time, Torstensson attacks the Imperial army while it is still trying to assemble and destroys it.
• (December 4) Richelieu dies.
• With an uprising already ongoing in Ireland, Civil war spreads to England as king Charles I tries to regain power from the Puritan-dominated Long Parliament:
• (January 4) Charles tries to arrest five leaders of Parliament (John Pym, John Hampden, Sir Arthur Hesilridge, Lord Denzil Holles, and William Strode).  When the House of Lords refuses to impeach them and Lord Mandeville, Charles takes matters into his own hands, bringing swordsmen into the House of Commons to arrest them, but finding that 'the birds are flown'.
• (February 13) Parliament excludes bishops from the House of Lords.
• Queen Henrietta Maria flees to Holland, taking the Crown Jewels with her. She gives Prince Rupert (just released by the Emperor) a cavalry command, and he leaves for England.
• (March) Charles leaves Hampton Court for York, where he works to gather support.  He appoints the duke of Newcastle as the commander at Hull, but the Hull garrison locks the duke out.
• (March 5) Parliament passes the Militia Ordinance, taking control of the Army.
• (March 19) Parliament pledges land in Ireland to people (known today as 'adventurers') willing to invest in suppressing the rebellion.
• (April 3) Scottish forces under General Robert Munro land at Carrickfergus in Ulster. Munro captures Newry.
• Daniel O'Neill is thrown into the Tower of London for his involvement in the previous year's army plots
• (May 10) The Irish rebellion has spread throughout the island. Irish Catholic clergymen meet in Kilkenny to restore some sort of order.
• (June 3) Parliament makes its list of demands to Charles, basically demanding all power for iteslf.  Charles rejects these, and calls in his Lords' feudal obilgations to supply troops.
• (July 6) Owen Roe O'Neill, having left Spanish service in Flanders, lands in Donegal with a company of Irish veterans to fight off the Royalist, Parliamentarian, and Covenanter forces trying to supress the Irish rebellion.
• (July 15) A riot breaks out between Royalist and Parliamentary supporters in Manchester, leading the the first deaths of the Civil War.
• (July) Prince Rupert arrives at Tynemouth.
• (August 22) Charles raises his standard in Nottingham.  He sends the Earl of Southampton to negotiate for peace with Parliament, but they refuse.
• (September 2) The House of Commons bans all public stage plays, and orders all theaters in England closed.
• (September 23) Prince Rupert's cavalry holds off the Earl of Essex at Powick Bridge near Worcester, long enough to cover Sir John Bryan's withdrawal.
• (October) The Confederation of Kilnenny meets and establishes a government for Ireland.
• (October 23) Charles, marching his army from Shrewsbury to London, meets the Earl of Essex's army, marching from London, near Edgehill.  The Royalist army leaves the high ground to fight the Parliamentarians below.  The Parliamentarians hold off the attack, Prince Rupert manages to get the cavalry back uphill.  Essex withdraws and Charles fails to pursue quickly enough.
• (November 12) Prince Rupert sacks the Parliamentarian garrison at Brentford.
• (November 13) Charles finally catches up with Essex at Turnham Green, but seeing that Essex's army has been reinforced, withdraws to Reading, and eventually to Oxford, which becomes Charles's capital.
• Charles appoints William Claiborne to be treasurer of Virginia for life.  Maryland governor Leonard Calvert establishes control over Claiborne's former settlement in Kent Island, appointing Claiborne's brother-in-law as commander of militia, and distributes land on Kent Island to Calvert supporters such as Lady Margaret Brent.

1641 - 1642 - 1643

How They Were Made - 17th Century