Also in November 1717
c.1st: Following the fall of Cagliari, Alghero and Castellaragonese, Spanish forces complete the capture of Sardinia from the Holy Roman Empire. The attack on the island leads Spain into the War of the Quadruple Alliance against Britain, France, the Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic.
9th: French composer André Campra’s opera Camille, reine des Volsques is performed for the first time at the Académie Royale de Musique in Paris. The libretto by Antoine Dachet is based on the story of Camilla, the heroic Volscian warrior and leader who fights Aeneas’s Trojan forces in Book XI of Virgil’s The Aeneid.
13th: Prince George William, the second son of the future George II of Britain and Caroline of Ansbach, is born at St James’s Palace, London. Events surrounding the prince’s baptism lead to a major row between his parents and King George I, who banishes them from court and takes the baby into his care. When George William dies aged just three months, relations sour further.
26th: The composer Daniel Purcell, younger brother of Henry, dies in London at the age of 53. In a career divided between Oxford and London, he wrote music for more than 40 plays, plus sacred works including a popular setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis and a number of sonatas for one and two instruments.
28th: Edward Teach, the Bristolian pirate better known as Blackbeard, attacks the French ship La Concorde near the coast of Saint Vincent. After capturing the vessel, Blackbeard and his crew rename it Queen Anne’s Revenge, equip it with 40 guns and use it for further attacks around the West Indies. They eventually run it aground off the coast of the US.