1615
A severe frost from the 17th January to 7th March. In 1814 a tract was republished entitled “The Cold Yeare: a Deep Snow in which Men and Cattle perished; written in Dialogue between a London Shopkeeper and a North-countryman.” 1615. 4to.
1620
“This year a frost enabled the Londoners to carry on all manner of sports and trades upon the river.” “Old and New London,” by E. Walford, M.A., v 3, p. 312.
1634
Says a contributor to “Notes and Queries” in the Nottingham Guardian, the following is an extract from Prynne’s “Divine Tragedie lately acted,” 1636:—“On January the 25th, 1634, being the Lord’s Day, in the time of the last great frost, fourteen young men, presuming to play at football on the river Trent, near Gainsborough, coming altogether in a scuffle, the ice suddenly broke, and there were eight of them drowned.” The “Divine Tragedie,” like several other works of that period, was written to show how judgments were overtaking the people because of the recent order that the Book of Liberty should be read in churches, which legalised sports on Sunday after service.
1648-49
John Evelyn wrote in his “Diary;” “Now was the Thames frozen over, and horrid tempests of wind.”
1663