1554. In the household expenses of Queen Mary 15 shillings are given to a yeoman for bringing her majesty a leek on this day.
1562. The catholics under the duke of Guise fell upon a body of Calvinists at Bassi in France, who were singing the psalms of Marot in a barn. The latter were insulted, and induced to come to blows: when nearly 60 of these unhappy people were killed and 200 wounded. This unexpected event lightened the flame of civil war throughout the kingdom.
1564. Printing introduced again into Moscow. Some 12 years previous it had been used there, but the burning of the city by the Poles suspended it.
1625. John Robinson died; minister of the first English church in Holland, to which the first settlers of New England belonged. He fled to Holland with his congregation to avoid persecution, and at the time of his death was preparing to follow with the remainder of the brethren to America. He was distinguished for his learning, liberality and piety.
1645. Battle of Pontefract, in which Sir Marmaduke Langdale defeated the lord Fairfax.
1663. Adam Adami, a French ecclesiastic, statesman and historian, died.
1682. Thomas Herbert, an English author of Travels in Asia and Africa, died. He was engaged in the civil wars between the parliament and the royalists, and on the restoration was created a baronet.
1689. The odious hearth stone tax ordered to be taken off by William, prince of Orange.
1711. The Spectator, a daily critical, satirical and literary paper made its appearance in London, under the conduct of Addison and Steele principally, with the assistance of some of the master spirits of the day, and had a reputation which has never been equaled by any other periodical of the kind.
1733. That mysterious person, the oldest inhabitant, witnessed a great flood in the north of England, wholly unprecedented in his life time.