Early Modernity Today: 2 January

On this date, 2 January:

1596: Roger Goad reports William Covell for offense against nobility.

On 2 January 1596 Roger Goad, provost of King's and vice-chancellor of the university, reported to Lord Burghley and Archbishop Whitgift that Covell's remarks had been directed ‘offensively and extraordinarily, to charge the noblemen of this realm especially; and in sort also the bishops’ (Strype, Whitgift, 2.319–20). The furious archbishop sought to bring Covell before the ecclesiastical commissioners, but Goad, fearing that the college fellows would interpret this as a threat to their privileges, won Whitgift's consent to deal with the matter himself. Covell, however, was unimpressed by the rebukes of Goad and the other college heads, and seems to have refused to apologize or retract.     (Wright)

1618: Walter Raleigh arrives at San Thomé.

Ralegh was released on 19 March 1616, and at once set about planning his expedition. The planning was, of course, extensive, and little he said or did comforted those at court who were determined on a lasting peace with Spain. He discussed with Sir Francis Bacon, attorney-general, the possibility of seizing the silver fleet, brushing aside the latter's remarks that this would amount to an act of piracy: had Bacon, he asked rhetorically, ever heard ‘of men being pirates for millions?’ The Guiana fleet sailed from Plymouth on 12 June 1617, but storms and adverse winds detained it off the southern coast of Ireland for nearly two months. Finally, on 19 August, a fair wind allowed the ships to make their way south from Cork. It was to be a laborious voyage, with illness taking its usual toll. Never comfortable at sea, Ralegh himself succumbed to fever, and was unable to face solid food for nearly a month. The fleet did not arrive in harbour, at the mouth of the Cayenne River, until 14 November. An expedition under Lawrence Keymis, with Ralegh's nephew George Ralegh in command of the land forces, sailed up the Orinoco in five ships on 10 December. Carrying provisions for one month, the three vessels that survived the shoals of the delta battled against strong currents and arrived at the Spanish settlement San Thomé on 2 January 1618.     (Nicholls and Williams)

1624: Henry Herbert licenses Palsgrave's men to play The History of the Dutchess of Suffolk.

Though he appears to have given up acting after receiving his freedom [Thomas] Drewe stayed involved in the theatre by writing plays. On 2 January 1624 Sir Henry Herbert licensed a play for the Palsgrave's Men, called The History of the Dutchess of Suffolk, ‘written by Mr. Drew’. This play was entered in the Stationers' register on 13 November 1629, with a fuller attribution to ‘Thomas Drue’, and it was printed anonymously in 1631. Herbert noted in his licence that the play ‘being full of dangerous matter was much reformed’ (Bentley, 3.284) and it is difficult to tell, from the reasonably innocuous extant text, what that dangerous matter might have been. It concerns the popular story (also told by Hall, Holinshed, and balladeer Thomas Deloney) of Katherine, the sixteenth-century duchess of Suffolk, her flight from religious persecution, and her return to England under Queen Elizabeth.     (Kathman)

1646: George Thomason buys Poems of Mr John Milton.

In 1645 Milton decided to collect his youthful poems. The edition was published as Poems of Mr John Milton, both English and Latin; the edition is dated 1645, but may have been published on 2 January 1646, which is the date that George Thomason inscribed on his copy, which is now in the British Library. The English section was a miscellany consisting of early poems and translations, Milton's first ten sonnets (including the Italian sonnets), and Comus, which Milton had revised since its last publication. The Latin section (which included a few Greek poems) had a separate title-page, Joannis Miltoni Londoniensis poemata. Quorum pleraque intra annum aetatis vigesimum conscripsit (‘Poems by John Milton of London, most of which were Written before he was Twenty’); this section was paginated separately, and was divided into a book of poems in elegiac couplets (Elegiarum liber) and a collection of poems in various metres (Sylvarum liber). The publisher, Humphrey Moseley, commissioned a portrait of Milton from the engraver William Marshall. The portrait is unflattering, and when Milton was shown it, he sought a cruel revenge by composing a few lines of Greek verse, which the hapless (and Greekless) Marshall engraved beneath the portrait; the verses invite the reader to laugh at the portrait, which Milton says is not a picture of him but of the incompetence of the engraver. It seems possible that the cruel humour of the God of Paradise Lost has its origins in the personality of his creator.    (Campbell)

1649: The House of Lords rejects Commons' resolution for Charles I's trial.

The king's trial was the turning point for North. On 28 December 1648 he joined a delegation of several other peers to Cromwell pleading against such a drastic step, and was one of the peers present on 2 January 1649 when the Lords rejected the Commons' resolution for Charles's trial. He returned to Kirtling after the regicide, where he remained throughout the interregnum, living as ‘a retired old fantastical courtier’ and avoiding politics, pursuing his private interests (North, Lives, 3.67).     (Stater)

1660: George Monck's army crosses the River Coldstream.

It is possible, though hotly contested, that by 21 August 1659 Gumble had drafted for Monck a manifesto that supported the Cheshire rising of Sir George Booth. Only the spectacular collapse of the rebellion, so Gumble later claimed, prevented the document from becoming public. Accompanying the army on its decisive march south in January 1660, Gumble was at the crossing of the River Coldstream, on 2 January, and recorded that ‘the poor redcoats wad[ed] through the Snow knee-deep, and through the Ice and Waters’ (Gumble, 187–96).     (Callow)

1664: Edward Howard stages The Usurper at the Theatre Royal.

Howard's works suffered at the hands of contemporary critics. His heroic poemThe British Princes (1669) was ridiculed by the earl of Rochester among others; Howard himself was caricatured as Poet Ninny in Shadwell's Sullen Lovers(1668); and his plays proved rather unsuccessful. The Usurper, a tragedy probably first staged at the Theatre Royal on 2 January 1664, was a scarcely veiled attack on the regicides. Pepys, who went to see it on 2 December 1668, judged it ‘a pretty good play, in all but what is designed to resemble Cromwell and Hugh Peters, which is mighty silly’ (Pepys, 9.381)    (Motten)

1711: The Tatler closes.

It was chiefly through Richard Steele that Addison was able to devote himself to periodical literature, the department of writing on which his fame has subsequently rested. Steele had founded The Tatler on 12 April 1709; it ran for 271 issues, appearing every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday until 2 January 1711... After the closure of The Tatler, a yawning gap in the market must have been as obvious to Addison and Steele as it was to the reading public at large. They responded by initiating The Spectator on 1 March 1711, thus embarking on one of the most triumphant literary projects of the age.     (Rogers)

Works Cited

Callow, John. “Gumble, Thomas (bap. 1626, d.1676).” John CallowOxford 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/11735>.


Campbell, Gordon. “Milton, John (1608–1674).” Gordon CampbellOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2009. 1 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/18800>.


Kathman, David. “Drewe , Thomas (c.1586–1627).” David KathmanOxford 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/8060>.


Motten, J. P. Vander. “Howard, Edward (bap. 1624,d. 1712).” J. P. Vander MottenOxford 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/13892>.


Nicholls, Mark and Penry Williams. “Ralegh, Sir Walter (1554–1618).” Mark NichollsOxford 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/23039>.


Rogers, Pat. “Addison, Joseph (1672–1719).” Pat RogersOxford 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/156>.


Stater, Victor. “North, Dudley, third Baron North (bap.1582, d. 1666).” Victor StaterOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, . 1 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/20295>.


Wright, Stephen. “Covell, William (d. 1613).” Stephen WrightOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, . 1 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/6472>.