finishes
The Night Watch.
January–March •
January 4 – King
Charles I of England, accompanied by soldiers, arrives at a session of the
Long Parliament and attempts to arrest his chief opponents, the
Five Members,
John Hampden,
Arthur Haselrig,
Denzil Holles,
John Pym and
William Strode, for what he regards as treason but they escape and are protected by the Lord Mayor of London. This is the last time any monarch enters the House of Commons. •
February 5 – The
Bishops Exclusion Act is passed in England to prevent any member of the clergy from holding political office. •
February 15 – Royalist
Endymion Porter is voted to be a "dangerous counsellor" by the English parliament. •
February 17 – The
Treaty of Axim is signed between the Dutch West India Company and the chiefs of the
Nzema people in the modern-day African nation of
Ghana. •
February 18 – A group of Protestant English settlers in Ireland surrender to Irish authorities at
Castlebar in
County Mayo in hopes of having their lives spared, but are killed one week later at
Shrule on orders of Edmond Bourke. •
February 20 – The
Treaty of The Hague (1641), between the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Portugal, is ratified by the Republic's States-General. •
February 22 – The Italian opera
Il palazzo incantato (
The Enchanted Palace), by
Luigi Rossi with libretto by Giulion Rospigliosi (the future
Pope Clement IX), is given its first performance at the
Teatro delle Quattro Fontane (
Palazzo Barberini) in Rome. •
February 23–
March 11 –
Henrietta Maria, queen consort of England, and her eldest daughter
Mary, newly created Princess Royal, leave
Falmouth, Cornwall, to go into exile at the Dutch court in
The Hague. •
March 1 – Georgeana, Massachusetts (later known as
York, Maine) becomes the first incorporated city in the British colonies of North America. •
March 19 –
Irish Rebellion of 1641: The citizens of
Galway seize an English naval ship and close the town gates in support of the rebellion.
April–June •
April –
Hannibal Sehested is appointed
Governor-General of Norway. •
April 8 –
Execution of George Spencer: the first hanging of a settler in the
New Haven Colony takes place, on a wrongful conviction of bestiality. •
May 1 – Honours and titles granted by Charles I of England from this date onward will in 1646 be retrospectively
annulled by Parliament. •
May 10 – In a Catholic synod at
Kilkenny, bishops draft the
Confederate Oath of Association, calling on Catholics to swear allegiance to King Charles I and to obey orders and decrees made by a "Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholics", hence the Irish rebels of 1641 become known as
Confederate Ireland. •
May 17 – Ville-Marie (later
Montreal) is founded as a permanent settlement. •
May 18 – The month-long
Siege of Limerick in Ireland begins. •
June 1 – "
Nineteen Propositions" are sent by the English House of Lords and House of Commons to
Charles I, asking the King to consent to parliamentary approval for the members of his privy council, his chief officers, and new seats created for the House of Lords, as well as regulating the education and choice of marital partners of the King's children, and barring Roman Catholics from the Lords. The King's Answer, rejecting the Propositions, is read in Parliament on June 21. •
June 10 –
Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Archbishop of Mexico, dismisses the
Viceroy of New Spain,
Diego López Pacheco, allegedly on orders of
King Philip IV, and takes office as the new Viceroy. Palafox is in office for only five months before being recalled to Spain. •
June 16 –
Irish Confederate Wars: The
Battle of Glenmaquin takes place in
County Donegal, with the Protestant
Laggan Army decisively defeating
Confederate Ireland soldiers. •
June 23 –
Siege of Limerick: the English Protestant garrison of
King John's Castle (Limerick) is forced to surrender by the Confederate Ireland Munster army led by General
Garret Barry. •
June 29 – The
Battle of Barcelona begins at sea as a French Navy fleet of 75 ships, commanded by Admiral
Jean Armand de Maillé-Brézé clashes off the coast of Spain with a Spanish fleet of 52 ships under the
Duke of Ciudad Real.
July–September •
July 2 – Hundreds of sailors are killed when the French warship
Galion de Guise and the Spanish galley
Magdalena become entangled during the
Battle of Barcelona. A French
fireship attempts to burn the
Magdalena and accidentally sets fire to the
Galion de Guise, killing 500 of the 540 crew. •
July 3 – The French Navy wins the
Battle of Barcelona. •
July 4 – The
Committee of Safety is created by the English Parliament as a challenge to the authority of
King Charles I. Five members of the House of Lords (
Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex,
Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland,
Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland,
Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, and
William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele) and ten members of the House of Commons (
Nathaniel Fiennes,
John Glynn,
John Hampden,
Denzil Holles,
Henry Marten,
John Merrick,
William Pierrepoint,
John Pym,
Philip Stapleton and
William Waller) are appointed to the Committee. •
July 10 – In a prelude to the
First English Civil War, King
Charles I of England besieges Hull in an attempt to gain control of its arsenal. The siege lasts until July 27, with Charles's Royalist Army failing to take the city from the Parliamentarians commanded by Governor John Hotham and General John Meldrum. •
July 12 – The English Parliament votes to raise its own Army, under the command of the Earl of Essex. •
August 3 – A Dutch Navy fleet of 14 warships, led by Hendric Harouse, begins a campaign to drive Spaniards from the island of Formosa (modern-day
Taiwan) off of the coast of mainland China. After disembarking at Tamsui, the Dutch begin a siege of Fort Domingo, which falls on Saint Bartolomeo Day (August 24). •
August 4 –
Irish Confederate Wars: Lord Forbes relieves Forthill, and besieges
Galway. •
August 22 –
First English Civil War begins when King Charles I raises the royal battle standard over
Nottingham Castle, so declaring war on his own
Parliament. •
September 2 –
London theatre closure 1642: England's Long Parliament orders the theatres of London closed, effectively ending the era of
English Renaissance theatre. •
September 7 •
First English Civil War: The
Siege of Portsmouth (begun on 10 August) ends with the Royalist garrison surrendering the port to Parliament. •
Irish Confederate Wars: Lord Forbes raises his unsuccessful siege of
Galway. •
September 8 –
Thomas Granger is executed by hanging in the
Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts) following confessions to numerous acts of bestiality. •
September 23 – First English Civil War: Royalist victory at the
Battle of Powick Bridge, a skirmish near Worcester which is the first engagement between elements of the principal field armies of the War.
October–December •
October 8 –
1642 Yellow River flood: Some 300,000 people die in the intentional breaking of the dams and dykes of the
Yellow River, done by the Ming dynasty defenders of
Kaifeng to break the siege by the large rebel force of
Li Zicheng. •
October 23 –
First English Civil War:
Battle of Edgehill (Warwickshire) –
Royalists and
Parliamentarians battle to a draw in the first
pitched battle of the War. •
October 24 –
The first Confederate Assembly of Ireland is held in
Kilkenny where it sets up a
provisional government, largely Catholic
Royalist; start of the
Irish Confederate Wars. •
November 24 –
Abel Tasman and his crew become the first Europeans to discover "
Van Diemen's Land", later the Australian island and state of
Tasmania, and the island is claimed for the Netherlands on December 3 at what becomes Prince of Wales Bay. •
November 27 –
Hong Taiji (known in the West as Abatai) begins a 60-day march of
Manchu warriors southwards from the Great Wall through
Ming Chinese provinces of
Zhili and
Shandong, before returning northward on January 27. (Two years later Beijing falls to rebels, the
Chongzhen Emperor commits suicide, and the
Shunzhi Emperor becomes the first
Qing Emperor to rule over
China proper.) •
December 13 –
Abel Tasman and his crew become the first recorded Europeans to sight
New Zealand, arriving at its South Island. In a battle between the Europeans and the Island's
Maori inhabitants, four crew members are killed. •
December 21 –
First English Civil War: After routing Edward Ford's royalist troops at the
Battle of Muster Green, William Waller follows Ford's retreating force to Chichester as the Parliamentarians besiege the city, which falls on December 29 after eight days. The inhabitants of Chichester agree to pay the Parliamentarians an additional month's pay to prevent the town from being plundered.
Date unknown • The village of Bro (Broo),
Sweden is granted city rights for the second time and takes the name
Kristinehamn (literally "Christina's port") after the Swedish monarch at this time,
Queen Christina. •
Rembrandt finishes his painting
The Night Watch (Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq) in
Amsterdam. •
Isaac Aboab da Fonseca is appointed rabbi in
Pernambuco, Brazil, thus becoming the first rabbi of the Americas. == Births ==