1600s Children of the Spanish court dressed just like their parents by Velazquez 1599–1660

1653 Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (Spanish painter, 1599-1660) Infanta Margarita.

Diego Velázquez Recorded a nuanced, Even anxious, royal view of childhood In His paintings in Spain of the princes 17C & amp; princesses, children dressed as adults.

1654 Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (Spanish painter, 1599-1660) Infanta Margarita.

1656 Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (Spanish painter, 1599-1660) Infanta Margarita.

1659 Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (Spanish painter, 1599-1660) Infanta Margarita in a Blue Dress.

1650 Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez (Spanish painter, from 1599 to 1660) The Infanta Margarita (Perhaps by Mazo finished) Detail

1656 Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (Spanish painter, 1599-1660) Las Meninas or The Maids of Honor. Detail In Las Meninas, the 5-year-old Infanta Margarita Teresa stands looking at us, Accompanied by her ladies in waiting (meninas) & amp; 2 dwarves, while works were Velázquez portrait of her parents, the King & amp; queen. The Infanta is beautiful & amp; confidant, Attended by her own micro-short; goal as she looks out of the painting at her relatives (who are standing Where the spectator of the painting stands) she is performing. And she is under pressure to look & amp; act like an adult princess. She Will never be a child.

1631 Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (Spanish painter, 1599-1660) Prince Balthasar Charles, Prince of Asturias with a Court Dwarf.

1632 Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (Spanish painter, 1599-1660) Retrato del Príncipe Baltasar Carlos

1659 Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (Spanish painter, 1599-1660) Infante Philip Prosper, Prince of Asturias (1657-1661).

1635 Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (Spanish painter, 1599-1660) Charles Prince Baltasar Carlos as a Hunter with, his dog.


Velazquez, a precocious artistic genius, Got His start painting tavern scenes in His native town of Seville. At age of 24, Philip IV Diego appointed as Spains's court painter, a position he Held for the rest de son life.

Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (Spanish painter, 1599-1660) Self Portrait

A Sleeping 17C Baby

Bernardo Strozzi (Italian painter, 1581-1644) Sleeping Child

Origin of the name "Quakers" 1650

Origin of the name "Quakers" 1650
From It Happened Today

George Fox 1624-1691

IN 1643, some English lads visited a fair. All claimed to be Christians. George Fox joined them in ordering a jug of ale. “I, being thirsty, went in with them, for I loved any who had a sense of good, or that sought after the Lord.” But, “When we had drunk a glass apiece, they began to drink healths, and called for more drink.” One called out, “Whoever won’t drink pays!” Fox was upset that “Christians” would challenge each other to a drinking bout. So he rose, took a coin from his pocket and laid it on the table, saying, “If that’s the way it’s going to be, I’m leaving.” 

Fox went home, but was so troubled by the incident he couldn’t sleep. Instead, he walked up and down, praying and crying to the Lord. Soon he left home and wandered alone, seeking answers. He became convinced that only those actually born of God are Christians, and they must worship God not with outward show, but with the spirit. 

Certain that no one had answers for his unhappiness, he reached a crisis: “When all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do, then, oh, then, I heard a voice which said, ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition’; and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy.”  Ever after, Fox relied on inner illumination from the Lord. He formed a group called the Society of Friends. These believers worked against many intolerant and wicked practices in society, often getting into trouble for refusing to take off their hats to important people, preaching publicly without licenses, and refusing to take oaths to anyone but Christ. 

For being different, Fox was jailed many times, once in a dungeon that was the latrine hole for other prisoners. On this day, 30 October 1650, he was brought before Justice Bennet of Derby on a charge of blasphemy. Quoting Isaiah 66:2, he urged the judge to “tremble at the word of God.” In mockery, Bennet called him a “quaker,” and this is thought to be the origin of the name “Quakers.” 

George Fox died in 1691, exclaiming on his deathbed, “I am clear! I am clear!” For many years he had kept a journal. Two hundred years after his death, Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon addressed a body of Quakers, saying of that journal “It is a rich mine. Every page of it is precious as solid gold.”

History of Tea in England & Her Colonies

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Dirk Stoop (England, c 1610-1685) Catherine of Braganza c 1610

The first recorded drinking of tea is in China, where the earliest records of tea consumption date back to the 10th century BC. It was a common drink during Qin Dynasty (around 200 BC) & became widely popular during Tang Dynasty, when it was spread to nearby Korea & Japan. 

Pieter Gerrits van Roestraten (1630-1700) Detail of an early Tea Service - A Yixing Teapot and a Chinese Porcelain Tete-a-Tete on a Partly Draped Ledge

Tea, then called cha, was imported to Europe during the Portuguese expansion of the 16th century. Portugese Catherine of Braganza, wife of England's Charles II, took the tea habit to the court of Great Britain around 1660.

Charles II by Adriaen Hanneman (England, 1603-1671)

London coffee houses also were responsible for introducing tea to everyday England. One of the 1st coffee house merchants to offer tea was Thomas Garway, who owned an establishment in Exchange Alley in London. He sold both prepared & dry tea to the public as early as 1657. Three years later he issued a broadsheet advertising tea at £6 and £10 per pound touting its virtues at "making the body active and lusty" & "preserving perfect health until extreme old age."

 1715 Two English Ladies & an Officer at Tea

Tea gained popularity quickly in England's coffee houses, & by 1700, over 500 coffee houses sold it. This distressed the British tavern owners, as tea cut their sales of ale & gin, & it was bad news for the government, who depended upon a steady stream of revenue from taxes on liquor sales. By 1750, tea had become the favored drink of Britain's lower classes.

 1720 English Family at Tea by Joseph Van Akien

Charles II tried to counter the loss of tax income from spirits arising from the growth of tea, with several acts forbidding its sale in private houses. This measure was designed to counter sedition; but it was so unpopular, that it was impossible to enforce. 

1720 Man and Child Drinking Tea possibly by Richard Collins, England, d. 1732

A 1676 act taxed tea & required coffee house operators to apply for a license.  Failing to curb the popularity of tea, the British government decided to profit from tea. By the mid 18th-century, the duty on tea had reached an absurd 119%. This heavy taxation had the effect of creating a whole new industry - tea smuggling.

 1725 English Family at Tea possibly by Richard Collins, England, d. 1732

Ships from Holland & Scandinavia brought tea to the British coast, then stood offshore, while smugglers met them unloading their precious cargo in small vessels. The smugglers, often local fishermen, brought the tea inland through underground passages & hidden paths to special hiding places. One of the favorite hiding places was in the local parish church.

 1727 English Family of Three at Tea by Richard Collins, England, d. 1732 

Even smuggled tea remained expensive for the common man; however, and therefore extremely profitable. Many smugglers began to adulterate the tea with other substances, such as willow, licorice, & sloe leaves. Used tea leaves were also re-dried & added to fresh leaves.

1730 Tea Party at Lord Harrington's House, St. James's by Charles Philips 

During the 18C, tea drinking was as popular in Britain’s American colonies as it was in Britain itself. Legally, all tea imported into America had to be shipped from Britain, & all tea imported into Britain had to be shipped in by the East India Company. 

 1740 Ladies Having Tea Unknown Artist 

However, for most of the 18C, the East India Company was not allowed to export directly to America. But during the 1770s, the East India Company ran into financial problems: illegal tea smuggling into Britain was vastly reducing the amount of tea being bought from the Company. 

A British Family Served with Tea 1745 Unknown artist

This led to a downturn in its profits, as well as an increase in its stockpile of unsold tea. In an attempt to revive its flagging fortunes & avoid bankruptcy, the Company asked the British government for permission to export tea directly to America, a move that would enable it to get rid of its surplus stock of tea.

Unknown 18C British Artist, A Tea Party

 The Company actually owed the government £1 million, so the government had no desire to let the Company go bankrupt. Thus in 1773, the Tea Act was passed, granting the Company’s wish, and allowing a duty of 3d per lb to be levied on the exports to America. The colonials were growing increasingly resentful of "taxation without representation."

Jean-Etienne Liotard (Swiss artist, 1702-1789) Still Life Tea Set, 1781-83

The British government did not anticipate this being a problem for the colonials. By being exported directly to America, the cost of tea there would actually become cheaper, & 3d per lb was considerably less duty than was paid on tea destined for the British market. But it had underestimated the strength of the American resistance to being taxed at all by Britain. 

Drinking tea in the British American colonies, the John Potter Overmantle at the Newport Historical Society in Rhode Island

The issue of the taxation in America had been hotly debated for some years. Many Americans objected on principle to being taxed by a Parliament which did not represent them. Instead, they wanted to raise taxes themselves to fund their own administration. But successive British governments reserved the right to tax the colonies, & various bungled attempts to impose taxation had hardened American opposition. In the later 1760s, opposition took the form of boycotts of taxed goods. As a replacement for them, the Americans either bought smuggled goods or attempted to find substitutes for tea made from native products.

Drinking tea in the British American colonies, Gansevoort Limner, possibly Pieter Vanderlyn 1687-1778 Susanna Truax.

Finally at the end of the resulting war with America, in 1784, William Pitt the Younger introduced the Commutation Act, which dropped the tax on tea from 119% to 12.5%, effectively ending smuggling. Adulteration of tea both at home & that headed for foreign markets remained a problem, though, until Britain's Food & Drug Act of 1875 brought in stiff penalties for the practice.

A Book to Read Outdoors

Embroidered satin book with floral motif. The Whole Booke of Psalmes (London, 1639), The British Library Database of Bookbindings.
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17C Love on Horseback

Gonzales Coques (Flemish artist, 1614-1684) A Couple on Horseback ,1640-50

Aelbert Cuyp (Dutch artist, 1620-91) Lady & Gentleman on Horseback 1650s

Gonzales Coques (Flemish artist, 1614-1684) Couple on Horseback 1640-50

"Women Artist" Painting Flowers as Symbols - Clara Peeters 1594-1657

Clara Peeters (Flemish painter, 1594-c 1657)

Clara Peeters (1594-c 1657) was not painting portraits as were most women painters born in the 1400-1500s.  Peeters is the best-known female Flemish artist of this era and one of the few women artists working professionally in 17C Europe, despite restrictions on women's access to artistic training and membership in guilds. Peeters was among the earliest specialist painters of still lifes and flowers, working while this genre was still emerging. Fewer than ten paintings of flowers produced in the Netherlands can be dated before 1608, when she painted her first recorded work.

Clara Peeters (Flemish painter, 1594-c 1657)

She was baptized in Antwerp in 1594, & married there in 1639. Her earliest dated paintings, from 1607-1608, are small, detailed images representing food & drink. At the time that Clara Peeters was painting, religious imagery was forbidden in the Dutch Reformed Protestant Church.  Artistic symbols  were developed to make coded references to life, death, & religion, so her paintings conveyed a meaning to her patrons of much more than objects in a still life. Each painting would be a visual puzzle to be decoded by the viewer.  

Clara Peeters (Flemish painter, 1594-c 1657)

Some speculate that the skill with which this teenage artist executed her painting suggests that she may have been trained by a master painter. Although there is no documentary evidence of her education, some scholars theorize that Peeters may have been a student of Osias Beert, a still-life painter from Antwerp.  By 1612, the 18-year-old artist was producing large numbers of painstakingly rendered still lifes displaying symbols in groupings of metal goblets, gold coins, & exotic flowers.

Clara Peeters (Flemish painter, 1594-c 1657)

Clara Peeters (Flemish painter, 1594-c 1657)

1500s The Ladies get equal time with The Nine Male Worthies

The Nine Worthies are 9 historical, scriptural, & legendary males who personify the ideals of chivalry as were established in the Middle Ages. They usually included 3 good pagans: Hector, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar; 3 good Jews: Joshua, David and Judas Maccabeus; and 3 good Christians: King Arthur, Charlemagne and Godfrey of Bouillon.  They were 1st described in the early 14C, by Jacques de Longuyon in his Voeux du Paon (1312).  Here George Glover seems to concoct his own version of Lady Worthies.  By the late 14C, Lady Worthies began to accompany the Nine Worthies, although their identities often changed.

 George Glover c 1630 The Nine Woeman Worthys  Margaret wife to Henry the sixt

 George Glover c 1630 The Nine Woeman Worthys Artimetia

 George Glover c 1630 The Nine Woeman Worthys Bonditia

 George Glover c 1630 The Nine Woeman Worthys Debora

 George Glover c 1630 The Nine Woeman Worthys Hester

 George Glover c 1630 The Nine Woeman Worthys Judeth

 George Glover c 1630 The Nine Woeman Worthys Penthisilaea

 George Glover c 1630 The Nine Woeman Worthys Queen Elizabeth

George Glover c 1630 The Nine Woeman Worthys Zenobia

17C Woman - The Good Works of a Wealthy Widow

We have few depictions of women in the 17C British American colonies, but contemporary European prints allow us to see the hairstyles & fashions being worn on the other side of the Atlantic during the early years of the English colonization of America. 

Lady Lettice, Viscountess Falkland, née Moryson (1610-46) Engraving, frontispiece to John Duncon, The Returnes of Spiritual Comfort and Grief (London, 1648)  This is a shrouded, posthumous portrait of Lady Lettice, who was wife of Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland (c.1610-43). Cary was famous as an author & cultivator of the arts; he drew a circle of writers around him at Great Tew, including Ben Jonson & Abraham Cowley. He died for the royalist cause at the First Battle of Newbury during the English Civil War.

This excellent lady was daughter of Sir Richard Morison, of Tooley Park, in Leicestershire, knt. & relict of the celebrated Lucius Cary, viscount Falkland, who was killed in the first battle of Newbury. When that great & amiable man was no more, she fixed her eyes on heaven; & though sunk in the deepest affliction, she soon found that relief from acts of piety & devotion, which nothing else could have administered. After the tumults of her grief had subsided, & her mind was restored to its former tranquillity, she began to experience that happiness which all are strangers to but the truly religious. She was constant in the public & private exercises of devotion, spent much of her time in family prayer, in singing psalms, & catechising her children & domestics. She frequently visited her poor neighbours, especially in their sickness, & would sometimes condescend to read religious books to them, while they were employed in spinning. She distributed a great number of pious tracts. Lord Falkland left her all that he was possessed of by will, & committed his 3 sons, the only children he had, to her care. Ob. Feb. 1646, 2Et. circ. 35.
James Granger. A Biographical History of England: From Egbert the Great to the Revolution. 1769

17C Woman - Jean Leblond 1605-1666 - Marie de Médicis

We have few depictions of women in the 17C British American colonies, but contemporary European prints allow us to see the hairstyles & fashions being worn on the other side of the Atlantic during the early years of the English colonization of America. 

Jean Leblond 1605-1666 Marie de Médicis Royne de France et de Navarre; print; Anthony van Dyck (After)

17C Woman + 1675 Advice on the Duty of a Wife to her husband

We have few depictions of women in the 17C British American colonies, but contemporary European prints allow us to see the hairstyles & fashions being worn on the other side of the Atlantic during the early years of the English colonization of America. 

Jean Leblond 1605-1666 L'Ysabelle;  François Ragot (Print made by); Young woman, half-length, turned to right; lace headdress, large collar trimmed with lace, and dark dress with light-coloured, striped sleeves



Hannah Woolley. The Gentlewoman's Companion: or, A Guide to the Female Sex. London, A Maxwell for Edward Thomas, Bookseller. 1675.

Of Marriage, and the duty of a Wife to her Husband.

Marriage is an holy and inviolable bond; if the choice on both sides be good and well- ordered, there is nothing in the World that is more beautiful, more comfortable. It is a sweet Society, full of trust and loyalty. It is a fellowship, not of hot distempered love, but endeared affection; for these two are as different as the inflamed fit of an high Feaver, from the natural heat of a sound and healthy body. Love in the first acceptation is a distemper, and no wonder then that Marriage succeed so ill, which have their original from such disordered amorous desires. This boiling affection is seldom worth any thing.

There are these two Essentials in Marriage, Superiority and Inferiority. Undoubtedly the Husband hath power over the Wife, and the Wife ought to be subject to the Husband in all things. Although the Wife be more noble in her extraction, and more wealthy in portion, yet being once Married is inferior to her Husband in condition. Man, of human-kind, wa Gods first workmanship; Woman was made after Man, and of the same substance, to be subservient and assisting to him...

The more particular duties of a Wife to an Husband, are first, to have a greater esteem for him than for any other person...That Woman that will entertain mean and low thoughts of her Husband, will be easily induced to love another, whom she ought not to affect. On this good esteem depends a great part of the Wives obedience, who will be apt to run into extravagancies when she is once possessed of the weakness of her Husbands understanding: She is to give honour, respect, and reverence to her Husband; so have the wisest ever done, and those which do it not, betray their indiscretion; with reverence she is to express her obedience in all lawful things; and apply and accommodate her self (as much as in her lies) to his humour and disposition.

You must be mindful of what you promised your Husband in Marriage; and the best demonstration thereof will be in your carriage; honour and obey, and love no mans company better than his.

Be quiet, pleasant, and peaceable with him, and be not angry, when he is so; but endeavour to pacifie him with sweet and winning expressions & if casually you should provoke him to a passion, be not long ere you shew some regret, which may argue how much you are displeased with your self for so doing; nay bear his anger patiently, though without a cause.

Be careful to keep your house in good order, and let all things with decency be in readiness when he comes to his repast; let him not wait for his meals, lest by so staying his affairs be disorder'd or impeded. And let what-ever you provide be so neatly and cleanly drest, that his fare, though ordinary, may engage his appetite, and disingage his fancy from Taverns, which many are compell'd to make use of by reason of the continual and daily dissatisfactions they find at home.

Shew respect and kindness to what Friends he brings home with him, but more especially to his Relations for by this means he will find your love to him by your respect to them; and they will be obliged to love you for your own as well s his sake.

Suffer not any to buz in your ears detracting stories of him, and abhor it in your Servants, for it is your duty to hide his faults and infirmities, and not detect them your self, or suffer them to be discovered. Take them for your greatest enemies who perswade you against your Husband; for without question they have some dangerous design in it. Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder; Cursed then is that instrument which occasions their separation.

Breed up your Children in as much or more obedience to him than your self; and keep them in so much awe that they shew no rudeness before him, or make any noise to his disturbance. Make them shew him all awful regard, and kee them sweet, clean, and decent, that he may delight himself in them.

Let him see your love to him in your care for them; educating and bringing them up in the knowledg of Religion, with their Learning.

Be careful to manage what money he doth trust youwith, to his and your own credit: abuse not the freedom you have of his purse, by being too lavish; and pinch not the Guts of your Family at home, that you may pamper your abroad; or throw away that money in buying trifles, which shall evidence your vanity as well as luxury.

To govern an House is an excellent and profitable employment; there Is nothing more beautiful than an Houshold well and peaceably governed; it is a prosession that is not difficult; for she that is not capable of any thing else, may be capable of this.

The principal precepts that belong to the frugal ordering and disposing Houshold-affairs may be compremis'd under these heads.

First to buy and sell all things at the best times and seasons.

Secondly, to take an especial care that the goods in the house be not spoiled by negligence of servants or otherwise.

Let me counsel you not only to avoid unnecessary or immoderate charges, but also with a little cost make a great shew; but above all suffer not your expence to exceed the receipt of your Husbands income. There is a Proverbial saying, That the Masters eye maketh the Horse fat; I am sure the active vigilance of a good and careful Wife is the ready way to enrich a bad Husband.

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17C Woman

We have few depictions of women in the 17C British American colonies, but contemporary European prints allow us to see the hairstyles & fashions being worn on the other side of the Atlantic during the early years of the English colonization of America. 

Jean Leblond 1605-1666 iberalitas; Woman, turned to the left, her breasts uncovered, giving drink to a young boy; copy after Bloemaert Engraving