1650 to 1656

Literature

"To His Coy Mistress." Andrew Marvell. British. 1650. Poetry. Make love now with me. Time is passing quickly.

Holy Living and Dying. Jeremy Taylor. British. 1650. Religion. Rule and exercise of holy living and dying.

Society

1651. Charles II is crowned at Scone, January 1, but Oliver Cromwell takes Perth in early August and defeats royalist forces September 3 at the Battle of Worcester. Charles escapes to France after traveling through a countryside alive with Roundheads.

Literature

Leviathan, or the Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil. Thomas Hobbes. British. 1651. Treatise. On the origin and ends of government. Defense of secular monarchy written while the Puritans ruled England Egoism is the root of social conflict. We need stable government with absolute authority over its subjects and institutions, a social contract to accept a common and absolute power to protect them from themselves and others, and thus allow moderate satisfaction of human desires.

El Gran Teatro del Mundo (The Great Theatre of the World). Calderon. Spanish. 1651? Play. Auto Sacramental. Theatrical allegory. The author, God, presents a performance with personifications. Only God endures.

Society

1653. Oliver Cromwell is proclaimed Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland December 15.

1653. Nieuw Amsterdam colonists build a wall across Manhattan from the North River to the East River for protection against English attacks. Wall Street will get its name from the defensive wall.

Literature

The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation. Izaac Walton. British. 1653. Nonfiction. Treatise on fishing. Dialogue. Angler tries to convince a hunter that fishing is the superior sport.

Society

1654. Oliver Cromwell quarrels with Parliament and later orders the exclusion of hostile members of Parliament.

1654. Jesuit missionary Simon LeMoyne visits the area in upper New Netherlands that will later be the site of Syracuse, New York.

1654. The Black Death strikes eastern Europe.

Literature

Historie Romaine Clelie. Madeleine de Scudery. French. 1654/60. Novel. Ten volumes. Digressions. The trials of a Roman hostage Clelie who swims the Tiber to reunite with her lover Aronce.

Society

1655. Oliver Cromwell suppresses an uprising against Puritan government of Salisbury. The Puritans order Catholic priests to leave the realm, forbid Anglican clergymen to teach or preach, censor the press, and impose rigid puritanical rules.

Literature

Areopagitica. Milton. British. 1655. Pamphlet. Argument against the restriction of the freedom of the press.

Society

The Amsterdam Synagogue excommunicates rabbinical student Baruch Spinoza, 24, in July for views the elders consider heretical. Spinoza turns to grinding lenses in order to support himself.