As currently constituted, this page, taken together with the three companion pages covering the years 1625-1658, 1701-1746, and 1747-1800, represents a fairly extensive chronological account of key historical and literary events between the years 1625 and 1800. A few of the historical entries, and more of the literary ones, are "linked" to primary texts in electronic form.

Historical entries are listed, on a year-by-year basis, in a somewhat arbitrary order of "importance". Literary entries are roughly sorted in the following order:

• General literary history, including important births, deaths, and cultural and literary events, especially as these latter relate to censorship or government control of the press.

• The publication of poetry.

• The publication of "prose fiction," somewhat arbitrarily defined, but including novels and "romances."

• The publication of very diverse varieties of prose nonfiction, including history, criticism, philosophy, science, polemic, and periodical literature.

• Performance dates for key plays.

Find the year in which you are interested in the menu below.

Table of Contents

• The Protectorate collapses in May when the Army deposes Richard Cromwell and re-establishes the old Rump Parliament. A Royalist rebellion in August is easily crushed, but is a sign of an increasingly strong popular movement towards the restoration of the monarchy. In October, the Army becomes dissatisfied with the Rump and expels it (again) in a coup d'etat. General George Monck, commander of the English army of occupation in Scotland, opposes the coup, and begins to move his army south towards the English border. Anti-army riots break out in London, as Royalist sentiment grows. On 26 December, military control of London collapses, and the Rump Parliament reconvenes.

For a detailed chronology for 1659, including more links to electronic texts, see Rump: Or an Exact Collection

• On 2 January, Monck's forces cross the River Tweed at Coldstream into England, and begin a slow but deliberate march on London. An army under General Lambert, sent to oppose his advance, disintegrates without firing a shot. Monck enters London on 3 February; on 11 February, amid scenes of great rejoicing in the City, he demands that the Rump prepare for its own dissolution, and the election of a new Parliament. On 22 February, Monck backs up his demand by enforcing the readmission of the (mostly Royalist) "secluded" members of Parliament, ejected 12 years earlier in Pride's Purge. On 16 March, the Long Parliament is finally dissolved; a new election brings in the "Convention Parliament" in April. On 4 April, the Declaration of Breda, outlining Charles II's intentions, is published; on May 8, the King is proclaimed in London. He lands at Dover on 25 May, and arrives in London on the 29th.
• The Army is disbanded.
• The new "Cavalier Parliament" begins to seek revenge on supporters of the Interregnum regimes.
• The secret marriage of Anne Hyde to James, Duke of York, is revealed.

For a more detailed chronology for 1660, including more links to electronic texts, see Rump: Or an Exact Collection

• Venner's Rising: revolt of Fifth Monarchy Men led by Thomas Venner.
• Beginning of Cavalier Parliament. Enactment of the so-called Clarendon Code, really a series of measures repressing religious dissent, imposed by the Cavalier Parliament.

• Birth of Anne Finch, Countess Winchilsea
• Publication of Edmund Waller's A Poem on St. James's Park.
• Publication of Abraham Cowley's A Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy.

• The Act of Uniformity ends attempts to include Presbyterians in the Church: despite efforts by the King to moderate its severity, the act results in some 900 Presbyterian clergy being deprived of their livings. The king responds with a Declaration of Toleration, which fails in the face of Parliamentary intransigence.
• Charles II marries a Catholic Portugese princess, Catherine of Braganza.
• Birth of Mary (the future Queen Mary), daughter of James, Duke of York, and his first wife, Anne Hyde.

• Death of Katherine Philips.
• Birth of Sir John Vanbrugh and Matthew Prior.
• Publication of Charles Cotton's Scarronides.
• Publication of first edition of John Evelyn's Silva.

• Beginning of Second Dutch War, which begins well, but ends disastrously in 1667.
• Birth of Anne (the future Queen Anne), daughter of James, Duke of York, and his first wife, Anne Hyde.
• The plague makes one final and devastating visit to London.

• The Great Fire of London.
• The French join the Dutch in the war against the English.
• Suppression of the Covenanters in the Pentland Rising in Scotland.

• Death of James Shirley.
Thomas Hobbes's works censured by Parliament.
• Publication of Edmund Waller's Instructions to a Painter. Publication (in France) of Nicholas Boileau's influential Satires.
• Publication of John Bunyan's Grace Abounding.

• A Dutch naval force launches a surprise attack on the English shipyards at Chatham, at the mouth of the Thames: the Dutch destroy many ships, and then proceed to blockade the river.
• Charges of mismanagement and corruption against Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon and Charles' Lord Chancellor, lead to a move to impeach him; he flees the country, and dies in France in 1674, having written his autobiography, and his History of the Great Rebellion.

• Sir William Temple negotiates the Triple Alliance, between England, Holland, and Sweden, aimed against France. Charles II has little actual intention of abiding by this alliance, and pursues a pro-French policy, and French alliance, secretly.

• Death of Sir William D'Avenant. Dryden appointed Poet Laureate.
• Dryden publishes Of Dramatick Poesie: An Essay. Publication of Abraham Cowley's Works, edited by Thomas Sprat, and including "An Account of the Life and Writings of Mr. Abraham Cowley." Publication of Sir John Denham's Poems and Translations.
• Performances of Sir George Etherege's She Wou'd if she Cou'd and Sir Charles Sedley's The Mulberry Garden.

• Parliament prorogued by Charles II after it launches an inquiry into royal expenditures.
• Death of the Queen Mother, Henrietta Maria.

• Birth of Susannah Centlivre. Death of Sir John Denham.
• Performance of Dryden's Tyrannic Love.

• Formation of the "Cabal" ministry, led by the Earl of Arlington.
• Charles II signs the Treaty of Dover with the French; secret clauses to the treaty provide for clandestine financial aid from the French in exchange for a pro-French foreign policy, and a pro-Catholic domestic policy. Charles is supposed to announce his own conversion to the Roman Church, but puts it off indefinitely.
• Arrival of Louise de Kerouaille (soon to be mistress to the King, and Duchess of Portsmouth) in London.
• Incorporation of the Hudson's Bay Company.

• Death of Anne, Duchess of York, mother of both the future Queen Mary and Queen Anne.

• Opening of Dorset Garden Theatre (Duke's Company). Birth of Colley Cibber.
• Publication of Milton's Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes.
• Performances of Dryden's The Conquest of Granada, Part II, and The Duke of Buckingham's The Rehearsal.

• Charles issues a stop of Exchequer in January, representing a virtual admission of royal bankruptcy.
• Beginning of the Third Dutch War, with England this time allied with France against the Dutch; the war ends inconclusively in 1674.
• Charles attempts a second time to issue a Declaration of Indulgence offering widespread religious toleration, but is foiled again by Parliament, which passes the Test Act in 1673, requiring all office holders to take the Anglican sacrament.
• James, Duke of York, marries a Catholic, Mary of Modena; his own secret conversion to the Roman Church (in 1669) is widely suspected when he resigns from his offices rather than subscribe to the Test Act.

• Revocation of the Declaration of Indulgence, and imposition of the Test Act.
• Shaftesbury dismissed as Lord Chancellors, and enters into opposition.

• Publication of Sir William D'Avenant's Works. Milton's 1645 Poems reissued.

• Peace concluded with the Dutch.
• Collapse of the "Cabal" ministry. The Duke of Buckingham dismissed from office, and enters into opposition.
• Death of the Earl of Clarendon, in exile.

• Birth of Nicholas Rowe. Death of Milton, Robert Herrick, and Thomas Traherne.
Opening of New Drury Lane Theatre (King's Company).

• Royal Proclamation enforces punitive laws against Nonconformity.
• Work begins on Sir Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral.

• Orders for the suppression of coffee-houses issued, and quickly revoked.
• Performance of William Wycherley's The Country Wife.

• Charles II concludes second secret treaty with Louis XIV, receiving £100,000 per annum.

• Birth of John Philips.
• Performances of Etherege's The Man of Mode, Wycherley's The Plain Dealer, and Shadwell's The Virtuoso.

• Shaftesbury, Buckingham, and other members of the opposition committed to the Tower.
• Marriage of William of Orange to Princess Mary (daughter of James, Duke of York).

• Publication of Dryden's dramatization of Paradise Lost, The State of Innocence.
• Publication of Andrew Marvell's An Account of the Growth of Popery.
• Performances of Dryden's All for Love and Behn's The Rover.

• A supposed Catholic plot to murder Charles, put James, Duke of York, on the throne, and restore Roman Catholicism, is revealed by Titus Oates, Israel Tonge, and others in August and September. News that the Government had been negotiating a secret treaty with the French, and the murder in October of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, the magistrate to whom Oates had presented his evidence, helps create widespread anti-Catholic hysteria. The first victim of the plot, Edward Coleman, is executed in December. In all, some 35 people are executed in the course of the next 2 years.

• A rebellion of Scottish "Covenanters" (i.e., Presbyterians) enjoys some initial success before being crushed by forces under the command of the Duke of Monmouth at Bothwell Bridge in June.
• The Cavalier Parliament is finally dissolved, and a new Parliament called: the Earl of Shaftesbury uses popular anti-Catholic sentiment to forge an opposition party (the "Whigs," as they are to become known) which takes effective control of Parliament. The first Exclusion Bill, aimed against James, fails when Charles dissolves Parliament in July. In response to proposals to make the Duke of Monmouth heir, Charles is forced to publicly proclaim his son's illegitimacy, and send him to Holland. A new Parliament meets in October, and proves to be equally Whiggish.

• Although Oates' credibility is beginning to suffer, proceedings against Catholic "conspirators" continue: Lord Stafford, a Catholic peer, is executed. Monmouth returns to England without permission, and makes a public-relations tour throughout the country: he is arrested, but reconciled with his father. The second Exclusion Bill is passed by the Commons, but defeated in the House of Lords in October.

• Death of the Earl of Rochester and Samuel Butler.
• Publication of the spurious Poems on Several Occasions By the Right Honourable the E. of R---, containing poems by a variety of court poets including Rochester, Behn, Dorset, and Etherege. Publication of Ovid's Epistles by Several Hands, edited by Dryden, and of the Earl of Roscommon's translation of Horace's Art of Poetry.
• Publication of Robert Filmer's Patriarcha and Bunyan's The Life and Death of Mr. Badman.
• Performance of Otway's The Orphan.

• Parliament is dissolved by Charles in January; a new Parliament is summoned to meet at Oxford, away from the fiercely pro-Whig crowds of London. This Parliament is also strongly Whig, but Charles, who has just received secret subsidies from France, has no more need of it, and so dissolves it within a week of its sitting, following an attempt to introduce a third Bill of Exclusion.
• The Tory counter-attack begins: on July 2, Shaftesbury is arrested on a charge of treason, but is released after a jury finds itself incapable of ruling in his case in November; a celebratory medal is struck in London in his honor. The discovery of his complicity in another Protestant plot the following year forces him to flee to Holland, where he dies in 1682.

• Arrest of the Duke of Monmouth, after a second progress through the West.
• Death of Shaftesbury in Holland.

• London's Charter revoked by the King.
• The Rye House Plot, a Protestant conspiracy to assassinate Charles and James, is discovered and foiled: the main conspirators are tried and executed. Monmouth is also implicated, and is again banished to Holland. Public sympathy for the Stuarts is now strong enough to allow Charles to crush the opposition thoroughly.

• Monmouth enters into exile in Holland.

• Publication of Behn's Poems upon Several Occasions, and of the first volume of the Tonson-Dryden Miscellany Poems. Posthumous publication of John Oldham's Poems and Translations.
• Publication of Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Part II, and of Thomas Burnet's translated The Theory of the Earth.

• Charles II dies in February, and is succeeded by his brother, James II.
• James, Duke of Monmouth, returns from banishment in Holland with a small invasion force and raises an abortive revolt (Monmouth's Rebellion), which is easily, and bloodily, crushed at Sedgemoor. Monmouth is executed, and hundreds of his followers are hanged or transported in a brutal judicial response that comes to be known as "the Bloody Assizes." A parallel rebellion in Scotland is also defeated.
• James very quickly begins appointing Catholics to positions of prominence, including command in the army.

• James II establishes an Ecclesiastical Commission to examine the state of the religion in the nation, and implement reforms, as part of his continuing pro-Catholic policy.

• Publication of Anne Killigrew's Poems, which includes Dryden's "To the Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady Mrs. Anne Killigrew Excellent in the Two Sister-Arts of Pöesy and Painting: An Ode."
Publication of John Bunyan's A Book for Boys and Girls: or, Country Rhimes for Children.
• Performance of Behn's The Lucky Chance.

• Magdalen College resists the attempt of James II to impose on it a Catholic president.
• James issues a Declaration of Indulgence, granting religous toleration, in an attempt to win support from Protestant Dissenters for his policies of toleration for Catholics.

• Deaths of the Duke of Buckingham, Sir William Petty, and Edmund Waller.
• Publication of Dryden's The Hind and the Panther and Song for St. Cecilia's Day.
• Publication of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia.
• Uncle Toby's perennially favourite tune, Lilliburlero, is written as a propaganda piece against the Catholic Irish and James II (Tristram Shandy).

• In April, James issues a second Declaration of Indulgence. After some hesitation, seven Anglican bishops refuse to sanction the Declaration, and are ordered to be tried; public opposition to James mounts. The Bishops are found not guilty in June.
• A son ("James III," often called the "Old Pretender") is born to James II and Queen Mary of Modena; scepticism surrounds the child's legitimacy, and it is claimed by some that he had been smuggled into the Queen's chambers in a warming pan.
• On November 5, William, Prince of Orange, lands 15,000 troops at Torbay, at the invitation of some of England's most prominent statesmen. James vacillates, and then attempts conciliation by the revocation of many of his most unpopular measures. This notwithstanding, defections of prominent political, religious, and military leaders to William continue throughout November. Realizing his cause is hopeless, James flees the country on 11 December, is captured, but escapes and arrives in France on Christmas Day; technically, there is no monarch until February of 1689.

• The "Convention Parliament" offers the crown to William of Orange and Mary (eldest daughter of James II) on 13 February. Reign of William and Mary, as joint monarchs, begins, completing the bloodless "Glorious Revolution."
• A Scottish Jacobite uprising is defeated at Killiecrankie, while James, with French support, lands with troops in Ireland.
• William and Mary accept a Bill of Rights in December.
• William entangles England in continental affairs by entering into a Grand Alliance against France.

• Death of Aphra Behn.
Birth of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
Dryden stripped of public offices; Shadwell become Poet Laureate. Samuel Richardson born.
• Publication of the Whiggish miscellanies A Collection of Poems on Affairs of State and The Muses Farewell to Popery and Slavery heralds the beginning of a long-lasting vogue for collections of satirical "State Poems."
• Publication of Behn's The History of the Nun.

• James' forces in Ireland defeated decisively by an English army under William at the Battle of the Boyne; James flees again to France, where he dies in 1701.

• Probable date of birth of Mary Barber.
• Posthumous publication of the second part of Waller's Poems, with an influential preface by Francis Atterbury.
• Publication of John Locke's Two Treatises of Government and An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and of Sir William Petty's Political Arithmatic.
• Battle of Limerick: Corporal Trim is wounded (Tristram Shandy).

• The Treaty of Limerick ends the war in Ireland.

• Death of Sir George Etherege.
• Publication of an expurgated edition of Rochester's poems, as Poems on Several Occasions, edited by Thomas Rymer.
• Publication of William Congreve's Incognita.

	William Congreve. Reproduced from William Makepeace Thackeray, The Four Georges. The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century (London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1869).
(More . . .)

• Deaths of Thomas Shadwell and Nat Lee; Nahum Tate appointed Poet Laureate.
• Publication of first volume of Bunyan's Works.

• Publication of the translation of Juvenal and Persius by Dryden and others; the volume is prefaced by the influential "Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of Satyr." Birth of George Lillo.
• Publication of Thomas Rymer's A Short View of Tragedy.
• Performances of William Congreve's The Old Bachelor and The Double Dealer.

• The Bank of England founded.
• Death of Queen Mary; William III continues to rule alone.

• The Whig Junto takes power in Parliament.
• Seige and capture of Namur.
• The Company of Scotland is formed to colonize the Darién Coast of Scotland.

• The Licensing Act is not renewed. Newspapers begin to proliferate. Deaths of Henry Vaughan, the Earl of Halifax, and Dorothy Osborne. Breakup of the United Company: Thomas Betterton establishes new company at Lincoln's Inn Fields.
• Publication of Richard Blackmore's Prince Arthur.
• Performances of Congreve's Love for Love and Thomas Southerne's Oroonoko.
• Captain Tobias Shandy is wounded at Namur (Tristram Shandy, Vol. II, Ch. 1 and Vol. IX, Ch. 26).

• A Jacobite plot to assassinate William III at Turnham Green is foiled.

• Publication of John Aubrey's Miscellanies, and posthumous publication of Richard Baxter's Reliquiae Baxterianae.
• Performances of Colley Cibber's Love's Last Shift and Sir John Vanbrugh's The Relapse.

• The Treaty of Ryswick ends the War of the Grand Alliance.
• A major controversy, simmering for some time, develops over the existence of a standing army, which is viewed by the King as necessary for his continental policy, but seen by many as evidence of royal tyranny.

• Birth of William Hogarth.
• Publication of Dryden's Alexander's Feast, and his translation of Virgil. Publication of Sir Richard Blackmore's King Arthur.
• Publication of Richard Bentley's "Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris," in the second edition of Wotton's Reflections. Publication of William Dampier's A New Voyage Round the World, and of Daniel Defoe's An Essay upon Projects.
• Performance of Vanbrugh's The Provoked Wife.
• Captain Toby Shandy and Corporal Trim return to England. Walter Shandy commences in London as a turkey merchant (Tristram Shandy, Vol. I, Ch. 25).

• The Darién Scheme collapses, creating an economic crisis in Scotland.
• The First Partition Treaty.

• Commencement of Ned Ward's satirical The London Spy (to April, 1700). Publication of Milton's Prose Works, and of Behn's The Histories and Novels. Publication of Jeremy Collier's A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage. Boyle, Atterbury, and others respond to Bentley's Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris.
• Uncle Toby buys books of military architecture (Tristran Shandy, Vol. II, Ch. 3).

• Collapse of the Whig Junto.

• Death of Sir William Temple.
• Publication of Samuel Garth's The Dispensary and of Tom Brown's A Collection of Miscellany Poems.
• Performance of Farguhar's The Constant Couple.
• Great Aunt Dinah married and got with child by the coachman. Toby takes up, and drops the study of projectiles. Walter Shandy is in London (Tristram Shandy, Vol. I, Ch. 21, and Vol II, Ch. 4)

• Death of John Dryden. Birth of James Thomson.
• Publication of Dryden's Fables Ancient and Modern. Publication of Sir Richard Blackmore's Satire against Wit, John Tutchin's The Foreigners, and Tom Brown's Amusements Serious and Comical.
• Performances of Congreve's The Way of the World and of Dryden's Secular Masque.