Early Modernity Today: 1 January

On this date, 1 January:

1579: Gabriel Harvey is due to give Edmund Spenser four volumes of Lucian.

Gabriel Harvey records that he and Spenser met in London on 20 December 1578. Spenser presented Harvey with four ‘foolish bookes’ that he had to read before 1 January 1579 or give Spenser his four volumes of Lucian. The four volumes were Till Eulenspiegel's A Merye Jest of a Man that was called Howleglas (c.1528), Andrew Borde's Jests of Scoggin (c.1566), Merie Tales … by Master Skelton(1567), and The Pleasaunt Historie of Lazarillo de Tormes (trans. D. Rowland,c.1569). The outcome of the contest is not recorded. Harvey also noted in hisLetter Book that Spenser looked like a ‘young Italianate signor and French monsieur’, a description that gives a sense of the humorous banter established between the two friends.     (Hadfield)

1582: Richard Madox begins his diary and his voyage to Wolverhampton.

While Tudor diaries are rare, Madox's, for 1 January to 31 December 1582 (now in the British Library), is unusually informative. It chronicles part of Fenton's voyage, as do three other contemporary diaries; but Madox's superior status enabled him, while at sea, to go to other ships. Moreover, his diary shows his earlier movements, noting places he saw and persons he met. On 1 January 1582 he went to Wolverhampton to visit his brother Thomas, who was headmaster of the grammar school, when Thomas's wife, Anne, gave birth to a daughter, Katherine.     (Bennell)

1611: Ben Jonson's Oberon appears at court.

[In Jonson's masques] a rabble of threatening or grotesque antimasquers would miraculously vanish at the entry of the principal masquers; as vice, in an ideal world, might be conquered by the very sight of virtue. This glitteringly optimistic view of the power and majesty of the court was further elaborated in The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers (6 January 1610), Oberon (1 January 1611), and Love Restored(6 January 1612). It was a court superbly endowed—so the latter masque asserts—with the ten ornaments of Honour, Courtesy, Valour, Urbanity, Confidence, Alacrity, Promptness, Industry, Ability, and Reality.     (Donaldson)

1618: Francis Kynaston knighted by James.

Kynaston, Sir Francis (1586/7–1642), writer and founder of an academy of learning, was born in Oteley, Shropshire, the eldest son of Sir Edward Kynaston (d. after 1638), gentleman, and his wife, Isabel, daughter of Sir Nicholas Bagenall. He matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford, on 11 December 1601, aged fourteen, and graduated BA from St Mary Hall on 14 June 1604. Admitted to Lincoln's Inn on 9 October 1604, he was called to the bar in 1611. He was awarded an MA degree from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1609. His marriage in 1613 to Margaret, daughter of Sir Humphrey Lee, bt, produced one son. Knighted by James I on 1 January 1618, he represented Shropshire in the parliament of 1621. Named taxor of Cambridge University in 1623, he was proctor in 1634. In 1625 he became esquire of the body to Charles I.     (Smuts) 

1620: John Donne returns to London after a frustrated embassy to end the Thirty Years' War.

Having sought some form of diplomatic employment during the years before his ordination, Donne was finally sent in 1619 on an embassy in the capacity of chaplain to Viscount Doncaster... The embassy travelled from Calais to Antwerp, Brussels, and then Mariemont, where they met the archduke. After this they went on to Heidelberg to meet Frederick, the elector palatine, and Princess Elizabeth (James I's son-in-law and daughter), before whom Donne preached a sermon. Doncaster then proceeded to meetings with allies of the emperor, travelling to Ulm, Augsburg, and Munich, where he met the duke of Bavaria. In Salzburg he met Ferdinand himself, and attempted to put the case for treating with the Bohemians, but to little avail... . Finally, the party reached London on 1 January 1620: James's ambitions as peacebroker had been disappointed, and Donne and his companions had experienced the frustration of seeing their embassy exploited as a delaying tactic by the emperor while the protestant forces suffered and remained unassisted by the English.     (Colclough) 

1625: Shakespeare's 1 Henry IV performed at court.

The plays continued to be performed through the years before the theatres were closed in 1642... Sir Edward Dering's library contained an adaptation of the two parts of Henry IV into a single play, probably for a private performance. Some characters were already dominating their plays: a court performance of 1 Henry IV on 1 January 1625 was referred to as Sir John Falstaff.     (Holland)

1651: Charles II crowned at Scone in Perthshire.

The coronation sermon was given by Robert Douglas—the leading resolutioner minister and moderator of the commission of the kirk—who harangued the king over his personal sins and those of his father, grandfather, and other members of the royal family. It was [Archibald Campbell, first marquis of] Argyll, as leader of the kirk party regime, who placed the crown on Charles's head.     (Young)

1660: Samuel Pepys begins his diary.

It was certainly with some sense that his own life, as well as the nation's history, was at a pivotal point, that on 1 January 1660 Pepys began the diary which has made him famous. He opens with a self-conscious summary of his domestic circumstances and the political background; thereafter his writing takes on the structures and rhythms which are sustained for the nine and a half years which the diary fills. He had kept no previous journal, though his dispatches to Mountagu may have been his apprenticeship in reporting. A ‘Romance’ written at Cambridge (and destroyed along with other juvenilia in 1664) was the only previous literary effort he recalled (Pepys, Diary, 5.31). The extant manuscript of the diary is a fair copy, written up (in shorthand) every few days from a scribbled draft, collated with other private papers or printed sources to hand. Pepys undoubtedly improved on his text in this process, though without compromising the authenticity of the daily record. The result is properly acclaimed as an astonishingly vivid and disciplined exercise in self-analysis, a historical document of the first rank, and a literary classic. The diary is naturally the single most important source of knowledge about Pepys himself and his relationships, and his public reputation derives largely from the image he projects of himself during the diary years, 1660–69. As it happened these were all the years that remained of his married life, and the period in which his professional apprenticeship was completed.     (Knighton) 

1684: Daniel Defoe marries Mary Tuffley.

After leaving Morton's academy, Defoe established a home and business in Freeman's Yard, Cornhill, and became a wholesale hosier. On 1 January 1684 he married Mary Tuffley (1665–1732), who brought him a dowry of £3700; they had six daughters (Mary, Maria, Hannah, Henrietta, Sophia, and Martha) and two sons (Benjamin and Daniel), all but two of whom, Mary and Martha, lived into adulthood. Defoe shared the persecution of the nonconformists and was a lifelong supporter of freedom of religion and the press. He had joined Monmouth's revolt in June 1685, fought at Sedgemoor under the banner ‘Fear nothing but God’, and managed to escape capture after the defeat. In January 1686 he made bail for two widows arrested at a conventicle meeting and soon began to write political essays. He was pardoned for taking part in the uprising in May 1687     (Backscheider)

1695: Anthony Alsop graduates BA at Christ Church, Oxford.

Alsop must have begun to write Latin verse at school: the art was highly prized at both Westminster and Christ Church. At Oxford he established a reputation as one of the most accomplished of a group of poets. His long alcaic ode ‘Britannia’ was sung at the encaenia in 1693, and printed in the programme. He contributed to the university collection on the death of Queen Mary (1695; ode 1.2). These early poems focus on the horror of war, as does a hexameter dialogue for public recitation, ‘Givetta ardens’ (1696; poem 3.8), which also injects some black humour and exploding Frenchmen.     (Money)

Works Cited:

Backscheider, Paula R.. “Defoe, Daniel (1660?–1731).” Paula R. BackscheiderOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2008. 1 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/7421>.

Bennell, John. “Madox, Richard (1546–1583).” John BennellOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2008. 1 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/64595>.

Colclough, David. “Donne, John (1572–1631).” David ColcloughOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. May 2011. 1 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/7819>.


Donaldson, Ian. “Jonson, Benjamin (1572–1637).” Ian DonaldsonOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Sept. 2013. 1 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/15116>.


Hadfield, Andrew. “Spenser, Edmund (1552?–1599).” Andrew HadfieldOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2008. 1 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/26145>.


Holland, Peter. “Shakespeare, William (1564–1616).” Peter HollandOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2013. 1 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/25200>.


Knighton, C. S.. “Pepys, Samuel (1633–1703).” C. S. KnightonOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2008. 1 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/21906>


Money, D. K.. “Alsop, Anthony (bap. 1670, d. 1726).” D. K. MoneyOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2008. 1 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/423>


Smuts, R. Malcolm. “Kynaston, Sir Francis (1586/7–1642).” R. Malcolm SmutsOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2008. 1 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/15822>.


Young, John R.. “Kirk party (act. 1648–1651).” John R. Young Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, May 2014. 1 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/theme/98248>.