"In the time of our late Queen Elizabeth, which was truly a golden age, (for such a world of refined wits and excellent spirits it produced, whose like are hardly to be hoped for, in any succeeding age) above others who honored poetry with their pens...were Edward Earl of Oxford...with sundry others..."
- Henry Peacham the Elder, The Compleat Gentleman, 1622. This quote has become the basis of a theory that Edward de Vere was the true author of William Shakespeare's plays, since he is mentioned but Shakespeare is not.
In the year AD 1622...
- The Thirty Years War enters its fifth year, another bad year for the Protestant forces. After the catastrophic defeat suffered by the Protestants White Mountain two years before, the war has entered a lull, although mop-up operations continue in the Palatinate region of Germany:
- The remnants of Protestant forces under Count Ernst von Mansfeld and Georg Friedrich, Margrave of Baden-Durlach deal a minor defeat to the army of the Catholic League under Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly at the Battle of Mingolsheim, but are unable to prevent Tilly from linking up with the Spanish Army under Gonzalo de Córdoba, further increasing the Catholic advantage.
- Tilly then manages to cut off and isolate Georg Friedrich, annihilating his entire army at the Battle of Wimpfen.
- Duke Christian of Brunswick leads another Protestant remnant army forth in an attempt to link up with the beleaguered Mansfeld, and although Tilly mauls him badly at the Battle of Höchst, capturing his entire baggage train, he finally does unite with Mansfeld.
- After Tilly and Córdoba capture Heidelberg following a brief siege, Frederick the Winter King gives up on the war and stops paying the Protestant army. Mansfeld and Brunswick are then promptly hired by the Dutch, and march their armies northward to relieve the Spanish siege of the Dutch town of Bergen-op-Zoom.
- However, Córdoba makes a brilliant forced march through Luxembourg and the difficult terrain of the Ardennes, cutting off Mansfeld and Brunswick and devastating the last remains of the Protestant army at the Battle of Fleurus. Although Mansfeld and Brunswick escape with 3,000 cavalry and ultimately do help lift the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, the Protestant forces have been almost totally swept from the field.
The First Huguenot Rebellion lurches to an end, as the Huguenot city of Nègrepelisse falls to royal forces after a brief siege. The Catholics then burn the city to the ground and slaughter every last inhabitant. A few months later, the Battle of Saint-Martin-de-Ré is fought between the Royal French Navy and the much smaller La Rochelle navy, but is a draw. Meanwhile, the Treaty of Montpellier had already been signed a few days earlier, bringing the first rebellion to an end. The Huguenots are allowed to keep their fortresses at Montauban and La Rochelle, but the fortress of Montpellier must be dismantled.
After several years of increasingly strained relations, Native Americans of the Powhatan Confederacy launch a coordinated sneak attack on the English Virginia Colony, wiping out more than 300 people, or approximately 1/3 of the entire colony, in what would become known as the Indian Massacre of 1622.
In the Great Martyrdom of Nagasaki, the Tokugawa Shogunate executes 118 Christians, including European Catholic monks, priests, and sailors as well as Japanese Christians and Christian sympathizers, as part of enforcing its recently enacted ban on the practice of Christianity within Japan.
With Mughal emperor Jahangir's health failing, and his son and designated heir Shah Jahan in open rebellion, his wife Nur Jahan seizes power and rules in her husband's name until his death in 1627.
The Changeling, a play by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley now widely regarded as one of the finest tragedies of the English Renaissance outside of Shakespeare's, is performed for the first time.
The Roman Catholic Church establishes an official church body, the Congregation for Propagating the Faith for the purpose of promoting Catholic missionary activities in non-Catholic countries. The Latin name of the organization, Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, is often abbreviated to simply "The Propaganda," and the voluminous promotional literature produced by the organization eventually gives rise to the generic English word propaganda, meaning information used to propagate or promote a specific point of view.
Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu is made a Cardinal, becoming the Cardinal Richelieu made infamous in Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers.
The Spanish treasure galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha sinks off the Florida Keys during a hurricane. Its cargo of copper, silver, gold, and emeralds remain lost until the wreck is rediscovered by Mel Fisher in 1985.
These people were born in 1622...
These people died in 1622...
1621 - 1622 - 1623
17th century
How they were made