1141. Battle of Lincoln, and defeat of Stephen, king of England, by the
earl of Gloucester. The king, whose valor deserved a better fortune, was
taken prisoner, loaded with irons, and Matilda proclaimed queen.
1421. HENRY V entered London from the complete conquest of France, which
had been accomplished in about five years, and was received by the
people amidst such pageants and popular rejoicings as that capital had
never witnessed.
1461. Battle of Mortimer's Cross near Ludlow, where the king's forces
were defeated, Owen Tudor taken and beheaded.
1529. BALTHAZAR CASTIGLIONE, an Italian nobleman and poet, died. He was
also so well skilled in painting, sculpture and architecture, that it is
said Raphael and Michael Angelo, though incomparable artists, never
thought their works perfect unless they had his approbation.
1626. CHARLES I of England crowned at Westminster. He wore the white
rather than the purple robe, and to prevent the increase of the plague
omitted the usual ceremony of riding in state.
1643. Prince RUPERT took Cirencester for Charles, by storm; 200 slain.
1653. New York city incorporated.
1682. JOHN PAUTRE died; an eminent French designer and engraver. His
works were published in 3 vols. folio, and contained more than 1000
engravings.
1688. ABRAHAM DU QUESNE died. He was a native of Normandie in France,
and distinguished himself in the navy by a series of valorous and
successful engagements.
1705. A new eruption of the peak of Teneriffe, forming the third
volcanic mouth.
1723. RICHARD SARE, an eminent printer, died. A sermon preached at his
death was well received and went through many editions.
1745. A conspiracy of 900 negroes to murder their masters in Jamaica was
discovered by a negress to her mistress, because the plotters would not
save a child she had nursed.
1752. The contributors to the Pennsylvania hospital, having rented a
house, admitted their first patients.
1768. ARTHUR ONSLOW died. He was 33 years speaker in the English house
of commons and the third of his family that had been nominated to that
office.
1771. JOHN LOCKMAN, an English dramatic writer, died.
1787. Gen. ARTHUR ST. CLAIR elected president of the American congress.
1788. JAMES STUART died; sometimes called Athenian Stuart, a very
celebrated traveler and delineator of Athenian architecture.
1794. The French convention decreed it treason for any officer to
surrender his ship to a force less than double his own!
1797. Mantua surrendered to the French, who now became entire masters of
the pope's dominions; whereupon Napoleon dictates to his holiness those
pious terms of pacification signed ten days after.
1798. The Federal street theatre, in Boston, entirely destroyed by fire.
1799. THOMAS PAINE, often called the _Literary Merchant_, died. Few
mercantile men become literary men.
1799. ELIZABETH WOODCOCK, an English woman, returning home from market
in one of the most stormy nights ever known in England, was overwhelmed
in a snow drift, where she remained eight days without sustenance. When
discovered her mental faculties were unimpaired, but she had lost the
use of her feet, and died some months after.
1801. The first imperial parliament of Great Britain assembled in
London.
1804. GEORGE WALTON died, one of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence. He was a native of Virginia, served an apprenticeship to a
carpenter, removed to Georgia and studied law. He was foremost among the
patriots of that state who assembled to devise measures of resistance to
the acts of parliament in relation to American taxations.
1806. MIRANDA sailed from New York on his expedition to revolutionize
South-America.
1806. THOMAS BANKS died. He was bred a wood carver, to which he served
an apprenticeship. But having taken several premiums for models of
sculpture he turned his attention to that art, and was sent to Rome to
study at the academy's expense. From Italy he repaired to Russia, where
he stayed two years; but not meeting with any adequate encouragement, he
returned to his own country. A colossal statue of Achilles mourning the
loss of Briseis is his masterpiece. He closed a life of arduous
exertion, at the age of 70; and there are monuments, both in Russia and
England that will long attest his skill.
1807. Battle of Bergfried near the lower Vistula. Bonaparte defeated the
Russians after a severe and sanguinary contest, in which Soult,
Augereau, &c., distinguished themselves very highly. The French took
four pieces of cannon and 1700 prisoners. Same day, the French general
Guyot captured the whole of the Russian magazines at Guttstadt.
1808. The French subverted the papal government at Rome.
1814. BONAPARTE defeated at Brienne with the loss of 173 cannons and
4000 men.
1817. The Scottish regalia, which had been deposited in a chest in 1707,
(see March 26) was examined by a deputation. The doors were removed, and
the floor was found covered with 6 inches of dust. No keys being found,
the oaken chest was forced open, and found to contain the ancient crown,
scepter and sword of state, as they had been deposited 111 years
previous.
1820. BENJAMIN TRUMBULL died, aged 92, author of a _History of
Connecticut_.
1831. A. BONPLAND, the celebrated traveler, permitted to leave Paraguay,
where he had been detained about nine years, by the dictator Francia.
1834. RICHARD LANDER, the enterprising traveler and discoverer of the
course of the Niger, died at Fernando Po, in Africa, of wounds received
from the natives. All his papers were lost. The British government
allowed his wife and daughter a pension of £150.
1834. LORENZO DOW died, aged 57; an eccentric traveling preacher. He was
born in Connecticut and had a good elementary education; but in his
youth acquired vicious habits which however he overcame at about the age
of 14. At an early age he believed himself called to preach, and in
obeying the impulse he commenced a career which has probably never been
equaled; and in spite of acute bodily disease performed an amount of
labor in traveling and preaching never before known. Before he had
completed his twenty-fifth year, he once rode 1500 miles and held 184
meetings in ten weeks and two days; and about a year afterwards,
traveled 4000 miles in the southern states, constantly preaching, in
seven months, and finished his tour without stockings, shoes, or outer
garment, and almost without a horse. For several years after he traveled
from seven to ten thousand miles and held six or seven hundred meetings
annually. It is thought that during the thirty-eight years of his public
life he must have traveled two hundred thousand miles, including three
voyages to England and Ireland. During these flying journeys he
constantly refused donations and contributions, except for immediate
want; and his traveling expenses exceeded his receipts more than one
half, the first eighteen years. Afterwards, however, his books became a
source of profit to him, and finally he became the maker and vender of a
_family medicine!_ which was a matter of speculation purely. He was
twice married; his second wife survived him. He was familiar to every
body throughout the United States, for there were few places however
obscure which he had not visited.
1839. DEBORAH LOGAN died at Stanton, Pa. She was a member of the
Pennsylvania historical society, and more intimately acquainted with the
early history of that state, than any other person living.
1840. OLINTHUS GREGORI, an English mathematician, died, aged 67. He was
more than thirty years professor of mathematics in the royal military
academy at Woolwich, and had the whole of the general superintendence of
the almanacs published by the stationers' company, which had been for a
long period conducted by Dr. Hutton. He published mathematics, biography
and religion.
1841. WILLIAM BARTLETT, an eminent and wealthy merchant of Newburyport,
and a munificent benefactor to the theological seminary at Andover,
died, aged 93.
1851. JOANNA BAILLIE, a Scottish dramatic authoress, died, aged 85.
1852. A priest, aged 63, attacked the queen of Spain with a dagger, as
she was returning from church; for which he was executed.
1855. G. FLETCHER, an English Wesleyan preacher, died, aged 108. Until
within six months of his decease he preserved an astonishing activity of
mind and body, often preaching without fatigue three times a day.
1856. The house of representatives at Washington elected a speaker after
a contest of nine weeks.