The London Gazette, 1673

It is difficult for a contemporary person to imagine the life of the person who received a copy of the London Gazette in the year 1673. The world was a much different place then. English king Charles II accepted the Test Act, excluding Roman Catholics from public functions. Edmund Halley, after whom the famous comet is named, entered Queen’s College Oxford as an undergraduate student. And Christopher Wren was picked by Charles II to rebuild St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

It was around the time that Galileo was advancing the human race into the modern age. It was twenty years before the founding of the College of William and Mary in America. It was the time of Thomas Manley and the Rate-of-Interest Debate, where England had to deal with debts it accumulated during the Civil War. On June 17, French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet reached the headwaters of the Mississippi River and descended into Arkansas. And on July 11, the Netherlands and Denmark would enter into a treaty of peace.

In 1673, England was only thirteen years removed from the Navigation Acts which were intended to encourage and increase shipping and navigation. Much of the world ran on water, and a powerful navy was coveted. The British had one, and they used it to conquer enough of the world so that the Sun would never set on her empire. This Act was passed by the Cavalier parliament in 1661, by members of that hallowed body who remained loyal to the throne. What we have here is a newspaper from the age of Game of Thrones. It is a piece of social history in and of itself.