In the latest installment of a regular feature, our resident chronologer pilots through 1685, from the rise and fall of the ill-selected sixth Dalai Lama in Tibet to the sunset of legally sanctioned witchcraft executions in Iceland and England, from the depths of malaria-ridden estuaries to astronomical observations of the Southern Cross.
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Angus Trumble’s 1685 In Retrospect
By Angus Trumble
“Bishop Sparrow of Norwich died, and Bishop Lloyd of Peterborough was sent to take his place. Thomas White replaced Lloyd, while Bishop Lake of Bristol was translated to Chichester, seven years vacant. Meanwhile, Bishop Ken went to Bath and Wells to fill the shoes of Bishop Mews, who had gone to Winchester the year before. In other words, all was as might be expected in the Church of England....”
Angus Trumble (1964–2022) was the director of the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, Australia. He was also a senior research fellow at the National Museum of Australia, as well as a curator at the Yale Center for British Art and the Art Gallery of South Australia. Trumble wrote several books, including A Brief History of the Smile (Basic Books, 2004) and The Finger: A Handbook (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2010). In 2015, he was named a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In 2022, he was made an honorary fellow of his alma mater, Trinity College, Melbourne.