1 Apr 1538: d. Sir Amias Paulet #otd who placed a young Thomas Wolsey in the stocks at Limington #Somerset for being disorderly at a fair. Wolsey later took revenge with heresy charges. Paulet's,grandson, & namesake, was a gaoler of Mary Queen of #Scots (jmc4-Church Explorer)

Pendant, Toad in enameled gold with rubies 1585/1600 (Musée du Louvre)

François II and Mary Queen of #Scots, 1558 (Musée du Louvre)

An infant, Federico Barocci, c. 1564-1612 (British Museum)

Seated Pregnant Dog, Jacob Jordaens (I), 1638 This dog is probably a short-haired Vizsla - a hunting dog known for its excellent nose & tenacity in pointing and retrieving. (Rijksmuseum)

Memento Mori, 1500/02 By Master M.Z (Art Institute Chicago) Must be hard to balance on that skull.

Still Life with Game Fowl 1600/03 Juan Sánchez Cotán (Art Institute Chicago)

1622: same strait, different alliances: 22 Apr 1622: A joint Anglo-Persian force captures the #Portuguese Castle near #Hormuz after a ten week siege (AlborzFakllah) William Baffin, mostly known as a polar explorer, wounded by a cannon ball fired here on 23 Jan 1621.

1 Apr 1497: Patrick Lyon, 1st Lord Glamis is buried #otd at Glamis Kirk (The Bowes-Lyon burial place) In Shakespeare's play, Macbeth is Thane of Glamis

Wednesday 1 Apr, Dublin

More learning to walk from Rembrandt, c. 1656 (British Museum)

Margarita Francisca, Daughter of Philip III, Infanta of Spain by Santiago Morán (©Museo Nacional del Prado) Aged about 1 here in 1610, she'd die in 1617. Note her very cute topknot, and her waistline of amulets/relics. Her father Philip III died #otd 31 Mar 1621

31 Mar 1640: the #Irish Parliament in #Dublin prorogued #otd so that Thomas Wentworth Earl of Strafford & viceroy of #Ireland could return to #England to assist Charles I #otd (NPG). Parliament would later become very unhappy and start working with its #Westminster counterpart

John Donne, who died #otd 31 Mar 1631 painted aged 49, that is around 1622. British School (Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

A tender 17thC moment caught: two women teaching a child to walk c. 1635-1637, drawn by #Rembrandt (BM) I like to post this image regularly.

31 Mar 1630: Edward Pococke future professor of #Arabic at #Oxford is appointed chaplain to the Levant Company He arrived in #Aleppo on 17 Oct 1630, stayed for 5 years. (Bodleian Library)

Enameled silver case for a scissors and knife set Made in #Paris, 1640-1660. Both practical and beautiful. (Musée du Louvre)

On his death #otd, 31 Mar 1631, here's a portrait of John Donne at the age of 18 from the frontispiece to his 'Poems' of 1635 (British Museum)

Pietro Manna, Physician from #Cremona1557 by Lucia Anguissola Giovanni Battista Caselli, Poet from Cremona 1557 - 1558 by Sofonisba Anguissola #SisterArt (both from Museo Nacional del Prado)

Pietro Manna, Physician from #Cremona1557 by Lucia Anguissola Giovanni Battista Caselli, Poet from Cremona 1557 - 1558 by Sofonisba Anguissola #SisterArt (both from Museo Nacional del Prado)

31 Mar 1559: the abortive #Westminster debate between #Catholic and #Protestant divines begins #otd Staged, & designed to discredit the #Roman side, it all ended in farce (BM/Royal Collection HMCIII)

31 Mar 1391: After a season campaigning with the Teutonic knights in a civil conflict in #Lithuania, Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV) leaves #Danzig for #England #otd (NPG)

Mrs Magdalen Herbert (d. 1627), mother of the poet George. Previously attributed to Frans Pourbus Flemish School (Weston Park)

The young beggar, School of Bartolomé Esteban, c. 1647-1648 (Musée du Louvre)

31 Mar 1600: Dermot McGrath, bishop of #Cork & Cloyne writes to #Rome to say that he can no longer carry out his duties. He begs the Pope to fill the many vacant sees with #Catholic bishops

María Luisa de Toledo & companion #Mexico c. 1670 by Rodríguez Beltrán A visual of European hegemony in America. The painting ended up in Nuestra Señora de la Salutación convent Madrid, which a widowed María Luisa joined in the early 1700s. (Museo Nacional del Prado)

31 Mar 1685: b. Johann Sebastian Bach, composer & musician at Eisenach, Thuringia #otd #baroque

Portrait of a Woman attributed to Pieter Claesz. Soutman, c. 1625–30 (St Louis Art Museum)

In the Armada year of 1588, Sir John Shurley of Isfield then aged 23, had his portrait painted by a now unknown artist. (Met Museum)

31 Mar 1618: Thomas Fleming #Franciscan & future Archbishop of #Dublin, lecturer at #Leuven, member of #Irish community there, ordained priest #otd (JMcC) Fleming's network helped finance many of the publication projects of the #Irish Franciscans in exile.

31 Mar 1554: Nicholas Harpsfield early biographer of Thomas More & controversialist whose 'version' of the #English reformation became a leading one in Catholic Europe becomes Archdeacon of #Canterbury #otd (U Toronto, Hollar collection)

31 Mar 1667: d. Thomas Fuller [Fulwar] Church of #Ireland Archbishop of #Cashel aged 74 #otd

31 Mar 1680: William Maurice, antiquary, collector and transcriber of #Welsh #Cymraeg manuscripts and books buried at Llansilin (then Denbighshire) #otd (PLucas58)

31 Mar 1680: William Maurice, antiquary, collector and transcriber of #Welsh #Cymraeg manuscripts and books buried at Llansilin (then Denbighshire) #otd (PLucas58)

Vessel in the form of a goose Milan, c. 1575–1600, mount: Johann Seutter (1614–1681), Augsburg, c. 1640–1660, rock crystal, silver gilt (Rijksmuseum)

St Nicholas of Tolentino Reviving the Birds c. 1530 - having refused to eat cooked partridges he brought them back to life. Garofalo aka Benvenuto Tisi da Garofalo (Met Museum)

31 Mar 1406: Owain Glyn Dŵr issues the document of a #Welsh assembly 'oppressed ... by barbarous Saxons', committing them to the Avignon Pope Benedict XIII #otd

31 Mar 1631: d. John Donne, #poet & cleric in the deanery of St Paul’s London #otd having earlier posed in his own shroud (BM/NPG) A striking man in his day. Among other things.

31 Mar 1509: Henry VII makes his last will #otd, and then died on 21 April (BL/NPG) The first of the five #Tudor monarchs.

31 Mar 1640: the #Irish Parliament in #Dublin prorogued #otd so that Thomas Wentworth Earl of Strafford & viceroy of #Ireland could return to #England to assist Charles I #otd (NPG). Parliament would later become very unhappy and start working with its #Westminster counterpart

31 Mar 1498: John Skelton, #poet, & favourite of Henry VII ordained subdeacon #otd (eebo)

On his death day #otd 31 Mar 1631, John Donne on the Holy Trinity

Toothpick, 1630-1660, European manufacture. Usually these took the form of a bird's claw or the like but this has a death's head and a sickle of the grim reaper type. So it's a memento mori toothpick then. (Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

31 Mar 1204: d. Eleanor of Aquitaine: powerful, beautiful, rich (Gamgee) #otd and she was 82 when she died

Barn Goose or House Goose (Anser anser domesticus) Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt, 1596 - 1610 Rijksmuseum

Here's a great engine of early modern society, in culture, in trade, in religion and in politics. A goose quill pen c. 1590 - c. 1596 (Rijksmuseum)

Gold ring, c. 1540-1560. In the form of a flat spiral. On it in roman letters the inscription 'Sie must live for my unde laeten mi beniedet unde not on gefen': let those who envy me tolerate and let me live, if they (but) take nothing from me. (Rijksmuseum)

Rare depiction of a European, Portuguese Jesuit, Álvaro Semedo, d. 1658 writing in Chinese script Copy by Thomas Crosse from Historica Relatione del Gran Regno Della Cina, 1642 - the 1655 English translation, History of that great & renowned monarchy of China (British Museum)

Album Sheet with an Ostrich c. 1550-1570 In the 16th century, artists – who had never before seen a live ostrich – sometimes mistakenly depicted them flying. This artist drew the flightless bird correctly, its feet firmly planted on the ground. (Rijksmuseum)