List of events
Events from the year 1631 in England
5 February – Puritan minister and theologian Roger Williams emigrates to Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony . 20 February – A fire breaks out in Westminster Hall , but is put out before it can cause serious destruction.[ 1] 14 May – Mervyn Tuchet, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven , is beheaded on Tower Hill, London , and attainted for sodomy and for assisting in the rape of his wife following a leading case which admits the right of a spouse claiming to be injured to testify against her husband.[ 2] 28 May – William Claiborne sails from England to establish a trading post on Kent Island , the first English settlement in Maryland . December – The Holland's Leguer , a notorious brothel in Southwark (London), is ordered closed and besieged for a month before this can be carried out. Poor harvest for second year in a row causes widespread social unrest.[ 3] Worshipful Company of Clockmakers established in London.Publication of the "Wicked Bible " by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the royal printers in London, an edition of the King James Version of the Bible in which a typesetting erratum leaves the seventh of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:14 ) with the word not omitted from the sentence "Thou shalt not commit adultery ". Copies are withdrawn and about a year later the publishers are called to the Star Chamber , fined £300 and have their licence to print revoked. William Oughtred publishes Clavis Mathematicae , introducing the multiplication sign (×) and proportion sign (::).[ 4] [ 5] Thomas Hobbes is employed as a tutor by the Cavendish family, to teach the future Earl of Devonshire .[ 6] Arts and literature [ edit ] 1 January – Katherine Philips , poet (died 1664 ) 6 February – Edward Abney , politician (died 1727 ) 20 February – Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds , statesman (died 1712 ) 15 April – Walter Vincent , English politician (died 1680 ) 29 April – Joseph Bridger , Colonial Governor of Virginia (died 1686 ) 4 May – William Brereton, 3rd Baron Brereton , politician (died 1680 ) 29 May – Robert Paston, 1st Earl of Yarmouth , politician (died 1683 ) 4 July – John Roettiers , engraver (died 1703 ) 15 July – Richard Cumberland , philosopher (died 1718 ) 7 August – Nicholas Tufton, 3rd Earl of Thanet , (died 1679 ) 19 August – John Dryden , writer (died 1700 ) 24 August – Philip Henry , nonconformist minister (died 1696 ) 6 September – Charles Porter , Lord Chancellor of Ireland (died 1696 ) 29 September – Richard Edlin , astrologer (died 1677 ) 12 October – George Saunderson, 5th Viscount Castleton , politician (died 1714 ) 13 October – Richard Hampden , politician (died 1695 ) 18 October – Michael Wigglesworth , Puritan minister, doctor and poet in New England (died 1705 ) 4 November – Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange (died 1660 ) 10 November – Daniel Harvey , merchant, diplomat and politician (died 1672 ) 14 December – Lady Anne Finch Conway , philosopher (died 1679 ) John Barret , Presbyterian minister and religious controversialist (died 1713 )Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex , statesman, implicated in Rye House Plot (suicide 1683 )Joan Dant , Quaker merchant and philanthropist (died 1715 )Richard Lower , physician who performs the first direct blood transfusion (died 1691 )John Phillips , satirist (died 1706 )approx. date – William Ball , astronomer (died 1690 )1 January – Thomas Hobson , carrier and origin of the phrase "Hobson's choice " (born 1544 ) 7 February – Gabriel Harvey , writer (born c. 1552 ) 31 March – John Donne , poet and Dean of St Paul's (born 1572 ) 6 May – Sir Robert Cotton, 1st Baronet, of Connington , politician and antiquarian (born 1571 ) 25 May – Samuel Harsnett , Archbishop of York and religious writer (born 1561 ) 18 June – Sir Robert Payne , politician (born 1573 ) 21 June – John Smith , soldier and colonist (born 1580 ) 28 October – Sir Richard Beaumont, 1st Baronet , politician (born 1574 ) 23 December – Michael Drayton , poet (born 1563 )
^ Walford, Cornelius, ed. (1876). "Fires, Great". The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance . C. and E. Layton. p. 29. ^ Herrup, Cynthia B. (2004). "Touchet, Mervin, second earl of Castlehaven (1593–1631)" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography doi :10.1093/ref:odnb/66794 . Retrieved 2014-01-17 .(subscription or UK public library membership required) ^ Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History . London: Century Ltd. pp. 177–178. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2 ^ Cajori, Florian (1919). A History of Mathematics 157 . cajori william-oughtred multiplication. ^ Pycior, Helena Mary (1997). Symbols, Impossible Numbers, and Geometric Entanglements: British Algebra through the Commentaries on Newton's Universal Arithmetick 48 . ISBN 0-521-48124-4 ^ O'Connor, J. J. ; Robertson, E. F. (November 2002). "Thomas Hobbes" . University of St Andrews . Retrieved 2019-05-07 . 
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