1645

These three crimes aroused anger throughout the realm and were too grave to be pardoned by Heaven. Therefore, I have respectfully received Heaven's mandate and have set in order the army to punish your crimes.

- Manchu general Dorgon, to the southern Ming holdouts

Recently when our great army arrived in Yangzhou and its population tried tenaciously to defend it, I felt deep compassion for the lives of the people and could not bear to launch an offensive. I feelingly made known to them the consequences of resistance but, after several days delay, the officials continued to resist. Orders were given to attack the city and slay its inhabitants; only women and children were taken prisoner. was not my original intention but happened because there was no other course. In the future, Yangzhou will serve as an example for officials who do not surrender when our great army arrives.

- Prince Yu (or is it Dorgon?), in a broadsheet after the Yangzhou massacre.

Born in 1645:

• French alchemst Nicholas Lemery, probably the first true chemist.
• (approx). English bookseller and philanthropist Thomas Guy.
• French painter Francois de Troy.
• English jurist Sir John Powell.
• (approx). English judge George Jeffreys of Wem, infamous for his heavy-handedness during the Popish Plot fiasco.
• English composer John Reading.
• Scottish pirate William Kidd.
• Dutch painter Aert de Gelder.
• French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier.
• French satirical writer Jean de la Bruyere.
• British politician Sidney Godolphin, later Earl of Godolphin.

Died in 1645:

• Sikh Guru Har Gobind.  Har Rai succeeds him.
• Japanese swordsman and author Miyamoto Musashi.
• English soldier and composer Tobias Hume, born 1575.
• French writer Marie le Jars de Gournay.
• English poet Emilia Lanier.
• Englsh poet William Browne.
• Chinese aesthete Wen Zhenheng.
• Semyon Deshnev explores northeastern Siberia, the first European to reach the Pacific coast of Siberia.
• Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimental, Duque de Olivares, Former Prime Minister of Spain.
• Spanish poet and novelist Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Villegas.
• Mexican mathematician Carlos de Siguenza y Gongora.
• Dutch statesman and philosopher Hugo de Groot, who invented the concept of international law.
• More then 100 people accused of being witches in England; see below.
• Nur Jahan, widow of Mughal Emperor Jahangir Shah and mother of Shah Jahan.
• Michael Romanov, Tsar of all the Russias. His son Alexei I succeeds him].
• William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, beheaded on Tower Hill. He had been acquitted of treason the previous year but Parliament passed a bill of attainder to execute him anyway.
• Antonie van Diemen, Dutch governor of Batavia.
• Tens of thousands in battles all over Europe; even more in South China. Among them:
• English composer William Lawes, at the Battle of Rowon Heath.
• Bavarian General Franz von Mercy, during the Second battle of Nördlingen.
• Ming loyalist Shi Kefa, commander of the Yangzhou garrison, along with the rest of the city.

Events of 1645:

• Poems by John Milton include Il Penseroso, At a Solemn Music, and L'Allegro.
• Poems by Edmund Waller include On a Girdle, Go, lovely rose!, and The Self-Banished.
• Bhutan's Drugyal Dzong fortress is completed.
• A witch-hunting frenzy spreads throughout East Anglia.
• Persian Shah Abbas I grants the Dutch a monopoly of the silk trade.
• The Ottoman Empire invades Crete, taking Chania, but suffers heavy naval losses.  The Sultan sends to Islam Giray III, Khan of the Crimea, for more galley slaves.  Giray raids into Russia and Poland, taking about 6300.
• Dorgon's troops meet tenacious resistance while trying to take Yangzhou, so they kill most of the inhabitants afterward.  Southern Ming Prince Yu sets himself up as Emperor in Nanjing, but his reign is short as Dorgon's forces take the city within the year.
• English Civil War. Although there is some early success in Scotland, 1645 turns into a very bad year for the Cavaliers.
  • (February 9) James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, takes Inverlochy from the (Covenanter) Campbells.
  • (February 15) Parliament passes the New Model Army Ordinance, reorganizing the Roundhead army into a professional force, with Lord Thomas Fairfax at its head.
  • (February) (Ingle's Rebellion) Virginia Captain Richard Ingle interprets the letters of marque granted him by Parliament as a license to 'plunder the Papists' across the Potomac River in Maryland. Assisted by William Claiborne, his raid scatters the settlers around St. Mary's City, forcing Governor Leonard Calvert to flee.
  • (April 15) The House of Lords finally passes the Self Denying Ordinance which prohibited MPs and peers from holding Army commissions. Oliver Cromwell is given an exception.
  • (April 29) Cromwell tries to take Farringdon but is thrown back.
  • (May 9) Montrose's army is surprised at Auldearn but his
  • (May 30) Royalist forces, hoping to draw Sir Thomas Fairfax away from his seige of Oxford, overrun Leicester.  Parliament orders
  • (June 14) The decisive moment of the war comes when Prince Rupert commits everything in an assault on Parliamentary forces at Naseby in Northamptonshire. Fairfax's forces withstand his assault, and Rupert and his cavalry get separated from the fighting. They then waste time attacking the baggage train while Henry Ireton and  Cromwell send cavalry to turn the tide of battle.  King Charles I tries to lead his own cavalry to rescue the surrounded infantry, but the Earl of Carnwath, deciding that a cavalry charge was too dangerous for the King, grabs Charles's bridle and the rescue attempt stops. Charles then attempts to lead the remaining cavalry back to Leicester but Fairfax hounds him all the way back. Charles's army is more or less obliterated.
  • Charles flees to the Welsh border; Leicester surrenders (June 18).
  • Lord George Goring breaks off his seige of Taunton when he hears that Fairfax is near.  Fairfax catches up with Goring's retreating forces at Langport on (July 10).  Goring is forced to flee, and fires the town. Cromwell hunts down most of Goring's cavalry.
  • (August 15) Montrose defeats the last Covenanter army at Kilsyth.
  • Fairfax lays seige to Bristol, and allows the Cavaliers to march out of the city when they surrender it on (September 11).
  • (September 13) The Marquis of Montrose's army is wiped out by Covenanters under David Leslie at Philiphaugh in Scotland.  Unaware of this, Charles marches north to meet up with him, but is driven out of Chester after the September 24 battle of Rowton Heath.
• Thirty Years' War:
  • The posturing that has been going on between the diplomats in Westphailia continues.
  • Denmark makes the separate Peace of Nystad with Sweden, ceding the Swedes Gotland.
  • (February 24) Swedish General Torstensson defeats the Austrians at Jankow near Prague, and the road to Vienna is wide open; Emperor Ferdinand III flees Vienna for the relative safety of Grätz.   Torstensson decided to consolidate his position in Moravia, layings siege to Brno (again).
  • (May 15) French Marshal Henri Turenne is surprised by the Austrians under Franz von Mercy near Mergentheim. Mercy inflicts 85% casualties on Turenne's army.  Turenne flees to Hesse-Cassel, to be reinforced by Swedes and Hessians.
  • Königsmarck takes the Swedes elsewhere, but Turenne meets up with another French army led by the duc d'Enghien and march south.
  • (August 3) Great armies had met eleven years previously in the Bavarian town of Nördlingen.  Before, the allied Bavarians and Austrians had trounced the Swedes.  This time, the French army is met by the Bavarians. Louis, duc diEnghien and Henri Turenne attack the Bavarians and Austrians under Mercy.  Although the Imperialist commander is killed, and his army is forced to withdraw, both sides take too many casualties for anyone to be considered the 'winner'.   But the Second Battle of Nördlingen is the impetus for all of the diplomats to stop their posturing and begin serious negotiations.  Bavarian Duke Maximillian approaches the French about a separate peace.
  • (August) Torstensson abandons the seige of Brno and moves south again. But he has to retire because of gout, and the Austrians then manage to get an army into Moravia, removing the threat to Vienna.
  • France overruns most of Flanders.

1644 - 1645 - 1646

How They Were Made - 17th Century