Background:
At the time of publication, 1643, England was in the middle of the Civil War. The following major events happened that year;
- 19 January – English Civil War: Royalist victory at the Battle of Braddock Down secures dominance in Cornwall.
- 23 January – English Civil War: Leeds falls to Parliamentary forces.
- 13 March – English Civil War: Royalist victory at the First Battle of Middlewich.
- 18 March – Battle of New Ross fought in Ireland between English and Irish forces.
- 19 March – English Civil War: a Royalist victory at the Battle of Hopton Heath.
- 25 April – English Civil War: Reading falls to Parliament after the Siege of Reading.
- 13 May – English Civil War: parliamentary forces led by Oliver Cromwell defeat Royalist forces at Grantham.
- 16 May – English Civil War: Royalist victory at the Battle of Stratton confirms dominance in Cornwall and Devon.
- 14 June – Licensing Order of 1643 passed by Parliament to censor newspapers.
- 18 June – English Civil War: Royalist victory at the Battle of Chalgrove Field.
- 30 June – English Civil War: Royalist victory at the Battle of Adwalton Moor.
- 1 July – the Westminster Assembly of theologians (divines) and parliamentarians is convened at Westminster Abbey with the aim of restructuring the Church of England.
- 5 July – English Civil War: Narrow Royalist victory at the Battle of Lansdowne.
- 13 July – English Civil War: Royalist victory at the Battle of Roundway Down.
- 26 July – English Civil War: Royalists capture Bristol.[3]
- 28 July – English Civil War: Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Gainsborough.
- 18 August – Parliament passes An Ordinance for Explanation of a former Ordinance for Sequestration of Delinquents Estates with some Enlargements, including an Oath of Abjuration of the Pope.
- 20 September – English Civil War: Royalists defeated at the First Battle of Newbury.
- 25 September – the Solemn League and Covenant is signed between the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland.[1]
- 11 October – English Civil War: Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Winceby.
- 13 December – English Civil War: Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Alton.
- 25 December – Christmas Island is first sighted, by Captain William Mynors of the English East India Company.
- 27 December – English Civil War: Royalist victory at the Second Battle of Middlewich

1643 also saw the birth of Isaac Newton (d. 1727)

Jenner, Thomas d. 1673
Jenner was an English author, engraver, and publisher in London. From 1624 he owned a print-shop by the south entrance of the Royal Exchange; it was recommended by John Evelyn to Samuel Pepys.
With Michael Sparke, Jenner is regarded as a Puritan publisher, of works motivated by their moral, religious and Protestant patriotic content. An upmarket print-seller with a broad base of stock, he was in competition with Peter Stent and Robert Walton. As well as portraits, some being of royalist interest, he sold broadsides and political material. Besides prints and books, he carried picture frames and stationery items.
Engravers who worked for Jenner included Francis Delaram, William Marshall and Willem de Passe, whose wife Elizabeth is thought likely to have been a relation of Jenner. Jan Barra made a set of engravings for the five senses.
Jenners authors included Joseph Moxon and Matthew Stevenson.
The first work attributed to Jenner himself is The Soules Solace; or Thirty and one Spirituall Emblems (edition 1626; 1631; 1639; 1651 under a new title, Divine Mysteries that cannot be seene, made plain by that which can be seene). It contains thirty copper-plate engravings (one repeated), each with descriptive letterpress. Some of those were influenced by Gabriel Rollenhagen. Other emblematists thought to have influenced Jenner were Dutch, Jacob Cats and Florentius Schoonhoven.
The final engraving, of a person in gay attire, with hat and plume, sitting and smoking at a table, is accompanied by a poem, once strangely attributed to George Wither, whose portrait the engraving was taken to be. The poem was in fact an allegorical work on earthly existence, and its burden was Thus thinke, then drinke Tobacco. Wither, an opponent of smoking, wrote a reply with the counter-refrain, Thus thinke, drinke no Tobacco.
The themes of other engravings were based on sermons preached in London, and exhibit anti-Catholic feeling. There is possibly allusion to the Fatal Vespers. The preachers of the sermons are indicated by two initials only. It has been argued that in particular the 27th engraving, The new creation, with imagery based on an untuned musical instrument, could have been taken from preaching of John Donne.
Jenner produced two more works in the same general vein. The Ages of Sin, or Sinnes Birth and Growth. With the Stepps and Degrees of Sin from thought to finall Impenitencie consists of a series of engraved plates in which, as in Francis Quarles Emblems, each is accompanied by six metrical lines. There is also The Path of Life and the Way that leadeth down to the Chambers of Death or the Steps to Hell and the Steps to Heaven, in which all men may see their ways set forth in copper prints. London, 1656. It is debated whether this last work should be classified as an emblem book. Freeman disqualifies this book by Jenner as an emblem book, by a general four-point criterion. Manning elucidates Jenner\\\'s intention by means of a biblical motto, Romans 1:20, associated with the emblematist Filippo Picinelli by his translator Augustin Erath, and paraphrased on the title page of Jenner\\\'s book as by the outward and visible we may the easier see that which is inward and invisible.
Attributed to Jenner is the Direction for the English Traveller, with maps by Jacob van Langeren, 1643. It was based on a 1635 book of similar title by Matthew Simmons, with enlarged maps. The Quartermasters Map used by both sides in the English Civil War was by Wenceslas Hollar and published by Jenner. It was closely based on the maps of Christopher Saxton.
In 1648 Jenner published a series of tracts entitled A further Narrative of the Passages of these Times, containing an engraving of the populace pulling down Cheapside Cross, together with portraits of Oliver Cromwell, Francis Manners, 6th Earl of Rutland, and Sir William Wadd, Constable of the Tower, signed Thomas Jenner fecit. In 1650 he issued A Work for none but Angels and Men, that is to be able to look into and know ourselves. Or a Booke showing what the Soule is. According to Thomas Corser it is a prose translation of Sir John Davies\\\'s poem on the immortality of the soul, Nosce Teipsum of 1599. Either that year, or in 1651, Jenner issued London\\\'s Blame if not its Shame. Other works are:
1. Wonderful and Strange Punishments inflicted on the Breakers of the Ten Commandments, London, 1650.
2. Reportedly, a plate of a large ship, called The Soverayne of the Seas, 1653.