1541. Margaret, countess of Salisbury, beheaded in the tower, at the age of 70. She was the mother of the celebrated cardinal Pole, and the last of the royal line of Plantagenet.
1564. John Calvin, the great reformer, died. He was a man of eminent talents, solid judgment and extensive learning. His great rigor, however, procured him many enemies; indeed it ill became a reformer to defend, as he did, the burning of heretics.
1600. Matins of Moscow, so called from the time of the day when prince Demetrius and all his Polish adherents were massacred at 6 in the morning.
1602. The colony accompanying Gosnold fixed upon a place of settlement, on the western part of Elizabeth island in Narraganset bay. On a rocky islet in the centre of a fresh water pond two miles in circuit they commenced erecting a fort and store house. (See [June 18].)
1610. Francis Ravaillac, the fanatic who assassinated Henri Quatre, (see [May 14],) was executed by being drawn and quartered by four horses.
1647. Peter Stuyvesant, a man of learning and a soldier, the last Dutch governor of New York, arrived at New Amsterdam, and superseded Kieft.
1648. Vincent Voiture, an elegant French writer, died. He wrote verses with elegance in French, Spanish and Italian, and was a polisher of his native language in a barbarous age.
1679. English act of habeas corpus passed; the act suspending it was repealed, probably forever, 1818.
1681. "The sweet singers" of the city of Edinburgh renounced the printed Bible at the Canon gate tolbooth, and all unchaste thoughts, words and actions, and burned all story books, ballads, romances, &c.
1694. The French under marshal de Noailles defeated the Spaniards near the river Ter, and took Gerona.