The 1692 Port Royal Earthquake

“…the great Calamity that hath befallen this Island by a terrible Earthquake, on the 7th instant, which hath thrown down almost all the Houses, Churches, Sugar-Works, Mills and Bridges, through the whole Country. It tore the Rocks and Mountains, destroyed some whole Plantations, and threw them into the Sea, Port-Royal had much the greatest share in this terrible Judgement of God.” – Dr. Emmanuel Heath, Anglican rector of St. Paul’s Church, Port Royal

Sunken Pirate City of Port Royal (1692).In 1692, Port Royal was the main British base in Caribbean, which had been captured from the Spanish in 1655. The town became a thriving centre of trade and privateering, but by 1692 the focus had shifted to the cultivation of tobacco and sugar cane with an increased growth in the slave trade. Port Royal was built on a peninsula off the coast of Jamaica across from present-day Kingston and was religiously and culturally very diverse. At its height in 1692, the population of the town is estimated to have exceeded 6500 inhabitants, of which about 2500 were slaves.…

The Great Storm of 1703

“No pen could describe it, nor tongue express it, nor thought conceive it unless by one in the extremity of it.” – Daniel Defoe, The Storm

The Great Storm Novber 26 1703 Wherein Rear Admiral Beaumont was lost on the Goodwin Sands (18th century).The Great Storm, a force two hurricane with wind speeds of up to 95 miles per hour, hit the south of England and Wales on 26th November 1703, the strong winds finally abating on 28th November. The Church of England declared that the storm was God’s retribution for the sins of the nation and it couldn’t have hit at a worse time. That year saw the greatest concentration of both naval and merchant shipping on the British coast to that date. Due to The War of Spanish Succession merchant ships were forced to travel in escorted convoys for safety against the attacks of French privateers. Three such convoys were anchored in Milford Haven, the Kentish Downs, and the estuary of the Humber when the storm hit.…

The 1715 Jacobite Uprising

James Francis Edward Stuart, Prince of Wales by Alexis Simon Belle, circa 1712.

The Jacobite cause came into being after The Glorious Revolution of 1688. The reigning monarch, James II of England and VII of Scotland, was extremely unpopular due to a combination of being Catholic and harbouring absolutist ambitions. Fear of Catholicism, which was the religion of the traditional enemies France and Spain, and James II’s tendency towards absolutism pushed several Protestant nobles to invite Mary, the eldest daughter of James II, and her husband, James’s nephew William of Orange, to take the crown. When William invaded England mass defections and little resistance to William’s cause forced James II and his wife to flee to France, where they became guests of his cousin Louis XIV. In March 1689, James attempted to reclaim his throne by landing in Ireland with 6000 troops, but was soundly defeated at the Battle of the Boyne in July of that year, forcing him to flee back to France where he died in 1701.…

The Great Northern War (1700-21)

Prelude to war

Charles XII of Sweden painted by Hyacinthe Rigaud in 1715 - Nationalmuseum Sweden.At the time the war broke out, Sweden was one of the most powerful countries in Europe. The French writer Voltaire (1694-1778) called it the ‘Famous War of the North.’ From 1560 and 1700, the Swedes had built up a Baltic Empire under great leaders such as Gustavus Adolphus with their small but professional army, including occupying the provinces of Karelia, Ingria, Estonia, and Livonia in the east and Western Pomerania, Wismar, the Duchy of Bremen, and Verden, as well as parts of Denmark and Norway in the west. By the end of 17th century Sweden had an empire which nearly circled the entire Baltic Sea. Charles XII took over throne of Sweden as absolute monarch at the age of fifteen and his neighbours saw weakness and their chance to reclaim some of the lost land. The west-looking Peter I of Russia wanted a port in the Baltic, previously taken over by the Swedes in Treaty of Stolbovo (1617).

The War of Spanish Succession

Sea Battle of Vigo Bay by anonymous (1702)The War of Spanish Succession was fought in Europe and the colonies between 1701 and 1714. The theatre of war in the Americas was known as Queen Anne’s War and involved a series of smaller wars fought by British colonists against the French and their native American allies.

In 1700 King Charles II, the last Spanish King of the House of Habsburg, died with no direct heir to take over the throne of Spain. Before he died, he had named his half sister’s grandson, the Duke of Anjou, Phillip of Bourbon, as his successor to the Spanish crown under the name Felipe V. Felipe was also in the line of succession to the French throne. A Bourbon monarch on the throne of France and Spain would greatly shift the balance of power in Europe and quash the ambitions of Britain and the Dutch Republic.

Although Felipe V’s sovereignty was grudgingly accepted at first, it was when the Bourbon’s cut off England and the Dutch Republic from Spanish trade that war broke out between the two main factions in Europe – the conflict being known as the War of the Spanish Succession.…