Timeline April 1649

Events in April 1649 3

• 1649 Diggers Occupy St George's Hill Gerrard Winstanley's radicals begin a communal farming experiment On 1 April 1649, a group of English radicals led by Gerrard Winstanley began cultivating common land at St George's Hill in Surrey, aiming to establish a self-sufficient agrarian community free of landlords. Known as the Diggers, the group argued that the land belonged to all and rejected private property. Local landowners and authorities harassed the settlement until it was abandoned within the year.
• 1649 Peace of Rueil Ends the First Fronde Truce between the French crown and rebellious Parlement of Paris Signed on 1 April 1649, the Peace of Rueil ended the Fronde parlementaire, the first phase of France's civil unrest against royal authority during Louis XIV's minority. The agreement brought a temporary end to the siege of Paris by royal forces under the regency of Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin. Further unrest, the Fronde of the Princes, would erupt the following year.
• 1649 Maryland Toleration Act Passed Colonial Maryland legislates religious toleration for Christians On 21 April 1649, the colonial assembly of Maryland passed the Act Concerning Religion, guaranteeing freedom of worship to Trinitarian Christians, including both Catholics and Protestants. It was among the first laws in English North America to protect religious toleration, though it imposed the death penalty for denying the Trinity. The act was repealed a few years later amid political upheaval in the colony.