new world germanic foundations

In 1603, following the death of Elizabeth I, her nephew, James VI of Scotland, became James I of England and an uneasy union took place between the two nations; and in 1613 the Houses of Stuart and Lorraine were united with the marriage of Fredrick of the German Palatinate and Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I, but this union sparked the Thirty Years' War 1613-1645 (otherwise known as the Catholic Reformation) which ravaged Germany, causing the death of hundreds of thousands of young men in battle, widespread starvation of peasants and massive migrations of Germans to the new American colonies.

The founding by the English of the first American colony of Jamestown in 1607 along non-sectarian lines provided a safety valve for the insanity of the old world, and over time more German than English new settlers arrived because following the Thirty Years' War Germany went through further turmoil leaving the plight of the impoverished and war-weary Germans so terrible that Catherine the Great of Russia and many of the Austro-Hungarian kings sent envoys into the German countryside offering the starving farmers who were unable to emigrate to the new world a new home in their lands.

Finally, William Penn came to the rescue with a vision of harmony in the new world. He was granted the Charter of Pennsylvania in 1681 and founded Philadelphia in 1682 with migrants he had previously attracted during his travels through Europe actively promoting religious freedom in the new land. Germans -- both Catholics and Protestants -- constituted the largest group of emigrants to Pennsylvania and they founded Germantown in the same year, 1683, that the Moslem Ottoman Turks had advanced through southern Austria and were besieging its capital, Vienna.

Read the full story The Stuart Lorraine Marriage

1730-1749 Bonnie Prince Charlie & George II

This twenty year period covers the reign of George II. The longest period of relative world peace and safety was at the end of the 1743–1747 Turco–Persian War - 2 years.

This period saw the start of the first 1730–1736 Turco-Persian War, and then there was the 1733–1738 War of the Polish Succession, the 1736–1739 Russo-Turkish War, the 1737–1739 Austro-Turkish War, the 1740–1748 War of the Austrian Succession, the 1739–1748 War of Jenkins' Ear, the 1740–1742 1st Silesian War, the 1741–1743 Hats' Russian War, the 1744–1748 King George's War in North America, the 1744–1745 2nd Silesian War. the 1744–1748 First Carnatic War, the 1745–1746 Jacobite Rising and the 1743–1747 Turco–Persian War.

During this period there was only one invention and one discovery. In 1735 John Harrison invented the chronometer and in 1748 platinum was discovered by Ulloa.

It might have been a grim and boring time were it not for the exploits of Charles Edward Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, son of the deposed James II, who was born in Rome in 1720.

In 1744 Bonnie Prince Charlie -- without the French backing of a Stuart restoration from Louis XV that had been promised to him -- pawned his jewels and borrowed money to buy arms. He landed in Scotland -- where he roused the Scottish chieftains to entered Edinburgh in triumph -- then crossed into England where he found no Catholic rising to join him.

At Derby, Charles was advised to turn back, which he did with the English forces, led by the king's son, the Duke of Cumberland, in pursuit. The final confrontation took place at Culloden Moor, Charles fled, disguising himself as a serving wench to a Highland girl, Flora MacDonald -- one of many who helped the fugitive prince -- and finally arrived back in France where he lived off his legendary youth till his death in 1788.