APRIL 14.
979. Ethelred II, crowned at Kingston by the famous Dunstan, then archbishop of Canterbury. This was the first king in England who took a coronation oath, and the first it is said to institute trial by jury. In this reign priests were forbidden to marry.
1040. Harold I (Harefoot), king of England, died. He was succeeded by his brother Hardicanute, whose first act was to order the body of Harold to be dug up and thrown into the Thames.
1293. Naval engagement in the British channel, between the French and English fleets, by mutual agreement, with the whole of their respective forces. The English, under Edward I, were victorious, carrying off more than 250 sail of their opponents.
1293. The mariners of Portsmouth and the Cinque Ports captured the Norman fleet, of 200 ships, off Brittany, and massacred the crews.
1322. Fitz-Simeon and Hugh the illuminator, two friars of Dublin, commenced their pilgrimage to the holy sepulchre.
1345. Richard Aungerville, an English scholar and statesman, died; better known as Richard de Bury. He may be classed as the first bibliomaniac upon record in England. He purchased thirty or forty volumes of the Abbot of St. Albans, for fifty pounds weight of silver; and so enamored was he of his collection, which became very large for that period, that he expressly composed a treatise on the love of books, entitled Philobiblon.
1471. Battle of Barnet, between Edward IV and the great earl of Warwick, in which the latter was defeated and slain, together with his brother and 10,000 men. Margaret (the queen of Henry VI, who was confined in the tower,) landed from France on the same day with troops, only to hear the tidings of the disaster which had befallen her cause.
1558. Marriage of the dauphin of France with Mary Stuart, queen of Scots, to whom he had been affianced ten years.
1619. John van Oldenbarneveldt, a statesman in the time of Elizabeth, beheaded for his praiseworthy attempts to limit the power of the stadtholder Maurice, which were construed into crimes. His noble lady, who witnessed his death without emotion, was afterwards solicitous for the pardon of a son, telling the astonished Maurice that she did not ask pardon for her husband for he was innocent, but she entreated for her son for he was guilty.
1662. William Fiennes, Lord Say and Sele, died. He was a troublesome subject under Charles I and Cromwell; but became tractable under Charles II (as he had been under James I), and was promoted, instead of others who had been more devoted to the royal cause.
1685. Thomas Otway, an English dramatist, died. His tragedy of Venice Preserved still keeps the stage; and though his pieces were generally successful, he died at a public house (where he had secreted himself from his creditors) in a state of great destitution, at the early age of 34.
1707. Battle of Almanza, in which the combined English and Portuguese armies were totally defeated by the French and Spaniards under the duke of Berwick, with the loss of 5,000 killed and wounded, and 10,000 prisoners.
1711. Louis, the dauphin of France, died of smallpox, aged 50.
1743. Thomas Rundle, a learned English prelate, died. He was the intimate friend of the learned and polite of his age. A volume of his letters has been published.
1760. Louis Silvester, an eminent French painter, died. He was ennobled by the king of Poland.
1769. John Gilbert Cooper, an English miscellaneous writer, died. He was a man of wealth, who made literature his amusement. His works, original and translated, are lively and elegant.
1780. Battle of Monk's Corner in South Carolina; the American cavalry surprised and defeated by Tarleton.
1783. Michael Francis Dandre-Bardon, a French painter, died. He was professor in the academy of painting, and admired for his historical writings.
1785. William Whitehead, an English poet, died. His principal works are the Roman Father and Creusa, dramas, which were received with great applause.
1793. Action between the British ship Phæton and French privateer Dumourier, with a Spanish prize in tow. The prize was taken; her cargo was valued at £1,300,000, and £935,000 was adjudged salvage for her recapture.
1793. John Baptist Gobel, a French bishop, guillotined. He took an active part in the revolution, abjured religion, and was condemned by Robespierre for atheism, and executed.
1795. A cargo of boards arrived at Newburyport, the first arrival through the locks and canals on Merrimack river—an expensive project of inland navigation, which was the best then in vogue.
1796. Battle of Millesimo, Italy; the French under Napoleon defeated the Austrians and Sardinians, who lost 2,500 killed, about 8,000 prisoners, and 22 cannon.
1801. Lemuel Hopkins, a Connecticut physician and poet, died. He was singular in his appearance and habits, but possessed great skill and assiduity in his profession; and as a man of learning and a poet entitled to more fame than is awarded him.
1803. John F. Hamtramck, an officer of the revolution, died at Detroit, where he was stationed as colonel of the first regiment of United States infantry, and commandant of Detroit and its dependencies. He served during the whole war of the revolution, with such distinguished merit as to receive the particular approbation of Washington.
1809. Beilby Porteus, bishop of London, died. His talents and acquirements procured him honors and wealth; and his writings will perpetuate his name.
1814. Congress repealed the embargo law of Dec, 1813.
1855. The office of the Industrial Luminary in Parkville, Missouri, was broken into, and ransacked, and the press thrown into the Missouri river, and the editors ordered to leave the state. The mob voted that no person belonging to the northern methodist church should preach in Platte county under "the penalty of tar and feathers for the first offence, and a hemp rope for the second."