Category: Timeline Stories

Portrait by Godfrey Kneller, 1697 (Public Domain)   John Locke pens his Epistola de tolerantia or Letter on Toleration in 1685, during his exile in Gouda. The text is published in Latin…

William III and his co-ruler Mary II. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill (Public Domain).   The Dutch William of Orange invades Britain and takes the British throne in the Glorious…

King James II. Portrait by Peter Lely, c. 1650-1675 (Public Domain)   The Declaration of Indulgence is issued by the Catholic James II in early 1987. It is issued in…

Algernon Sidney, c. 1665   Algernon Sidney writes his radically anti-monarchical Discourses Concerning Government during the Exclusion Crisis of 1679-81. It is published posthumously in 1698 and has a tremendous influence…

Grands Documents de l’Histoire de France, Archives Nationales (Public Domain)   The Protestant Henry of Navarre converts to Catholicism in 1572, after the St. Bartholomew Massacre when he is almost…

Edict of Fontainebleau © Archives Nationales   The Edict of Fontainebleau is issued by Louis XIV in October 1685. The edict revokes the Edict of Nantes from 1598 and suspends…

18th century America was impacted and influenced by the so-called Glorious Revolution in the Motherland. And no-one had a bigger impact on American attitudes towards freedom of speech than Cato’s…

In 1685, the Sun King Louis XIV revokes the Edict of Nantes and initiates a policy of religious persecution of French Protestants. In England, the Catholic James II assumes the…

Title page of Dale’s Code, 1612   In 1612, Virginia’s first governor Thomas Dale issues a long list of offenses known as Dale’s Code or Dale’s Laws. The code punishes…