This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1649.
Events
January 1 – Local authorities raid the four remaining London theatres – the
Salisbury Court, the
Red Bull, the
Cockpit and the
Fortune – to suppress clandestine play-acting. The actors found are arrested – except for the members of the Red Bull company, who manage to escape.
February 9 – Eikon Basilike: the Pourtrature of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings, purporting to be the spiritual autobiography of King
Charles I of England, is published ten days after his execution and becomes a popular success.
John Gauden later claims to have written it.
March 24 – The authorities damage the
Cockpit Theatre to inhibit continued attempts to use it for plays. (The building is not destroyed, however, and in
1660 it is fixed and used again, when drama resumes after the
Restoration.)
With the London theatres closed since
1642, the trend toward
closet drama (often highly politicized) continues – and is accentuated by the January 30 execution of Charles I. In the play Newmarket Fair,
Oliver Cromwell and other Parliamentary leaders commit suicide when they learn of the accession of
Charles II, an event that actually still lies eleven years in the future.
Antoine Girard's poem Rome Ridicule starts a fashion for burlesque poetry.
Sir
William Davenant is appointed treasurer of the colony of Virginia.
New books
Prose
George Bate – Elenchus Motuum Nuperorum in Anglia, or, A short historical account of the rise and progress of the late troubles in England. First part published and read by
Pepys (13 February 1662/63)
Nicholas Culpeper – A Physicall Directory, or, A Translation of the London Dispensatory[1]