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This chronology is meant to help provide a sense of historical context for students of Restoration and 18th-century British literature. The chronology is intended for browsing, with the assumption that meandering through portions of it is the best way to get a sense of the historical context around the specific moment or era you are interested in. The chronology is focused on the period from 1642 to 1820, that is, from the period of the Civil Wars through the end of the reign of George III. During this time span, coverage is provided on a year-by-year basis. But a few indicative events and publications from before and after this timespan are sketched in as prelude and aftermath to the era of interest. Under each year, historical events are listed first, followed by publications (alphabetically by author). I have tried to provide some broad generic labels--"poetry," "drama," "fiction," "anthology," and "periodical"--but this aspect of the "Historical Outline" is, as yet, very uneven.

The navigation bar on the left allows one to move more quickly to particular periods within the long duration covered by this chronology. One can, of course, also search for specific authors, works, events, terms, or years using the "Find (on this page)" command on your browser window. The chronology can, thus, serve as a quick reference for a given year ("1782"); for events like the Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707 or the passage of the Copyright Act of 1709 or the sequence of Poets Laureate from Dryden to Tennyson; and for terms like "Non-jurors" or "Jacobites" or "Whig and Tory." I've included a list of sources used in this project, which can be accessed from the navigation bar to the left. Citations of standard reference sources, such as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004) or encyclopedias, are given directly in the chronology itself. Please direct any queries, corrections, or suggestions to me via the "contact" link in the navigation bar.

Alok Yadav, George Mason University.xxxxxx(Last revised: 18 March 2008)

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Rule of Stuart Dynasty (1603-49, 1660-94, 1702-14)

1603-25: Reign of James I

1616

Death of William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Ben Jonson granted an annual pension of 100 marks (£66 13s. 4d.), making him in effect, though not in name, poet laureate till his death in 1637

Ben Jonson (1572-1637), Workes

1623

First Folio of Shakespeare's plays published (with memorial poem by Ben Jonson prefixed)

1625-1649: Reign of Charles I

1625

English settlement of Barbados begins

1626

Death of Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

1628

English settlement of Nevis

Puritan colony established at Salem

1629

Massachusetts Bay Company chartered

1631

Death of John Donne (1572-1631)

Death of Michael Drayton (1563-1631)

1632

English settlement of Antigua and Montserrat

Death of Thomas Dekker (c. 1572-1632)

1633

Galileo is put on trial by the Catholic Church for his unorthodox ideas and forced to recant

1634

Death of George Chapman (1559/60-1634)

1635

Académie française established by Cardinal Richelieu

1637

Death of Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

Pequot War:--
in which the English Puritan colonists in what is now Mystic, Connecticut killed between 300 and 700 Pequots, including women and children, as they burned whole villages and then enslaved the few remaining survivors

1638

Scottish National Covenant drawn up (to resist imposition of rule of bishops in Scotland)

William Davenant (1606-68; knighted 1643) receives a patent from Charles I, granting him "in consideration of service heretofore done and to be done," a pension of £100 a year, thus succeeding Ben Jonson in the role of unofficial laureate

William Davenant, Britannia triumphans (court masque)

William Davenant, Madagascar, With Other Poems (poetry)

1639

March-June: First Bishops' War:--
between the Scottish Covenanter army and the forces of Charles I; it was halted by the temporary truce of the Pacification of Berwick in June

1640

Aug.-Oct.: Second Bishops' War:--
a continuation of the First war; it ended inconclusively, but with Scottish advances, with the Treaty of Ripon

1641

Irish rising, by Irish Catholics against English and Scottish colonists

Death of Thomas Heywood (c. 1573-1641)

1642-49: Civil Wars

1642: Civil Wars in the "three kingdoms" of England, Scotland, & Ireland, beginning in August

The conflict pitted Charles I and his Royalist supporters against the Parliamentarian/Puritan opposition

Theaters closed:--
The theaters were not officially re-opened until after the Restoration in 1660, but clandestine and illegal productions were occasionally staged at various times throughout the Interregnum

Increase in news publication:--
The breakdown of royal authority (and hence the relaxation of censorship and post-publication prosecution) and the public interest in the momentous events of the day created a huge expansion in the print public sphere and in the supply of newsbooks, pamphlets, and broadside ballads. This opening up of publication had already come under pressure by the time of Milton's Areopagitica (1644), which critiques the order of June 14, 1643 requiring (in imitation of a Star Chamber decree of 1637) that all works be licensed by a Parliamentary Committee prior to publication. After the Restoration in 1660, restrictions on publication were further consolidated with the Press Licensing Act of 1662.

Death of Cardinal Richelieu, the leading French politician of his age

[Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82)], Religio Medici

[Sir John Denham (1614/15-69)], Cooper's Hill (poetry)

[Sir John Denham], The Sophy (drama)

John Milton (1608-74), The Reason of Church-government Urg'd Against Prelaty

1643

Long Parliament abolishes prelacy (consequently, bishops eliminated from House of Lords)

Sept.: Parliament accepts a Solemn League and Covenant with the Scots undertaking to establish the Presbyterian system in England in exchange for Scottish support of the parliamentary armies

Sir William Davenant (1606-68), The Unfortunate Lovers A tragedie (drama)

Sir Kenelm Digby (1603-65), Observations on the 22 stanza in the 9th canto of the 2d book of Spencers Faery Queen (non-fiction)

John Milton (1608-74), The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce Restor'd to the good of both sexes (non-fiction) (2nd edn, heavily revised, 1644; 3rd and 4th edns, 1645)

1644

René Descartes (1596-1650), Principia Philosophiae (non-fiction)

John Milton (1608-74), Areopagitica (non-fiction)

[John Milton], Of Education (non-fiction)

1645

Charles's forces defeated at the battle of Naseby by the Parliamentary army under Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell

[John Milton (1608-74)], Tetrachordon (non-fiction)

Francis Quarles (1592-1644), Solomons Recantation, entituled Ecclesiastes, Paraphrased (poetry)

Edmund Waller (b. 1606), Poems (poetry)

1646

First Civil War comes to an end in the spring of 1646
Charles I surrenders himself to the Scots army at Newark (who turn him over to the English)

Sir Thomas Browne (b. 1605), Pseudodoxia Epidemica (extensively revised through six editions, to 1672)

Richard Crashaw (b. 1612/13), Steps to the Temple: Sacred Poems (poetry)

John Milton (b. 1608), Poems of Mr John Milton, both English and Latin (poetry) (dated '1645'; pub. 2 Jan. 1646; 2nd rev. edn, 1673)

James Shirley (b. 1596), Poems (poetry)

Sir John Suckling (1609-1642), Fragmenta Aurea: A collection of all the incomparable pieeces, written by Sir John Suckling (works, containing letters, poems, and four plays) (2nd edn, 1648; 3rd edn, 1658)

Henry Vaughan (b. 1622), Poems (poetry)

1647

Abraham Cowley (b. 1618), The Mistresse (poetry)

[Bathsua Makin (fl. 1616-73)], An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen (non-fiction)

Francis Quarles (1592-1644), Hosanna; or, Divine Poems on the Passion of Christ (poetry)

1648

April-August: Second Civil War breaks out:--
The Scots army enters England in support of the king (who had entered into an "Engagement" with the Scots in Dec. 1647 to accept Presbyterianism as the form of church government), but the New Model Army, under Cromwell, is victorious by August 1648 at Preston

Beginning with the period of the Civil Wars and during the Interregnum, many royalists were in exile in France and elsewhere on the Continent (incl. such authors as Richard Crashaw [left for the Continent in 1643 and died there in 1649], Thomas Hobbes [till 1652], Abraham Cowley [left for the Continent in 1645, he was back in England by 1654]); subsequently, significant impact of French cultural influences when the exiled ruling class returned to England after 1660

Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years War on the European continent

[Sir Robert Filmer (b. 1588?)], The Necessity of the Absolute Power of Kings (non-fiction)

Robert Herrick (b. 1591), Hesperides (poetry)

1648-1653: Rump Parliament and (from 1645) New Model Army

1648-52: The Fronde (in France)

A series of civil wars, from August 1648 to July 1653, after which the political power of the aristocracy was broken and the supremacy of the monarchy was consolidated. The initial revolt broke out in protest of "the policies of the Queen Regent, Anne of Austria, and her minister Mazarin. Named for the slingshot with which boys hurled rocks at stray cats, the Fronde hurled missiles against the tax policies of Mazarin, a man who impoverished France and enriched himself beyond measure. Active opposition to Mazarin arose on August 27 [1648], the famous 'day of the barricades,' when Mathieu Molé, first president of the Paris Parlement, was arrested. . . . Other frondes broke out in other cities, notably in Normandy, in Provence, and in Guyenne where the duc d'Épernon remained loyal to Mazarin" (Scott 2000: 69). In 1650, the Fronde of the Princes began, "an anti-Mazarin crusade led by some of the highest nobles of France, and especially by the prince de Condé, his brother the prince de Conti, their sister Mme de Longueville, her husband, and the prince de Marcillac, all of whom saw in the Fronde an opportunity to battle the growing power of the centralized monarchy. In January of 1650 they were arrested and imprisoned" (Scott 2000: 71). The Fronde was not finally settled until the signing of the peace of Bordeaux in July 1653.

Interregnum (1649-60)

1649: Jan. 19-30: trial and execution of Charles I

Charles I tried for "treason"--among the principal charges was his "Engagement" with the Scots. The trial opened on January 19th and concluded with his execution on January 30th. Immediately after the king's death, a work appeared purportedly written by him (actually ghost written by John Gauden) and titled Eikon Basilike ("The King's Image"); the work quickly went into 40 editions and supported the royalist portrayal of Charles as a "martyr." John Milton responded to the propaganda being done by this work with his own Eikonoklastes ("The Image-Smasher"), which also appeared in 1649.

1649

Feb. 5: upon learning the news of Charles I's execution, the Scottish Parliament declares his son "Charles II, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland"

Sir William Davenant (1606-68), Love and Honour (drama)

Richard Lovelace (b. 1618), Lucasta (poetry)

[John Milton (1608-74)], The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (non-fiction)

John Ogilby (b. 1600), trans, The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (poetry)

1649-52: Puritan reconquest of Ireland (against Catholic and royalist forces)

Begun by Cromwell in August 1649; completed by his lieutenants, Ireton and Ludlow, by May 1652

1650-52: Puritan conquest of Scotland (the Scots having endorsed Charles II)

Cromwell, newly made commander-in-chief of the Parliamentary forces, defeated the Scots decisively at Dunbar (1650) and General Monck completed the subjugation of Scotland in May 1652.

1650

Death of René Descartes (1596-1650)

Richard Baxter (b. 1615), The Saints Everlasting Rest (non-fiction)

[Anne Bradstreet (b. 1612)], The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America(poetry)

Abiezer Coppe (b. 1619), A Fiery Flying Roll: A Word from the Lord to all the Great Ones of the Earth (non-fiction) (pub. Jan. 1650, dated '1649' the work was ordered to be seized and burned by the hangman)

Jeremy Taylor (b. 1613), The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living (non-fiction)

Henry Vaughan (b. 1622), Silex Scintillans (poetry) (2nd edn, in two books, 1655)

1651

Population estimates:--
England and Wales 5.2 million in 1651; about 10 per cent urban (in towns of over 10,000 population) (Hay & Rogers 1997: 7), including about 400,000 in London. The population then declines to about 4.9 million in the 1680s before climbing back up to about 5.06 in 1701 and reaching 5.2 million by 1711. On this estimate, the population thus remains "flat" overall for the 60 years between 1651 and 1711, before increasing slowly till mid-century (5.8 million) and then more rapidly for the next long while, reaching 6.45 million by 1771, 9 million by 1801 (now 24 per cent urban, in towns of over 10,000 population, including 948,000 in London), and 11.5-12 million by 1821. (Other estimates put the population of England and Wales somewhat higher--by about 700,000--through much of the period from 1701.)

Navigation Act passed

Roger Boyle, earl of Orrery (b. 1621), Parthenissa That Most Fam'd Romance (parts I and II, 1651; parts III and IV, 1655; part V, 1656; part VI, 1669; complete work repr. 1676) (fiction)

William Cartwright (1611-43), Comedies, Tragi-Comedies, with Other Poems (works)

Sir William Davenant (1606-68), Gondibert An heroick poem:--
This included only the first two books of Davenant's planned five-part heroic poem, with a long preface by the author and a reply to it by Thomas Hobbes (both dating from 1650); the third book (the last completed) was published posthumously in 1685.

Thomas Hobbes (b. 1588), Leviathan (non-fiction)

John Milton (b. 1608), Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio (non-fiction)

Jeremy Taylor (b. 1613), The Rules and Exercises of Holy Dying (non-fiction)

Henry Vaughan (b. 1622), Olor Iscanus (poetry and prose translations)

1652-54: First Anglo-Dutch War

1652

Richard Brome (b. 1590?), The Jovial Crew; or, The Merry Beggars (drama)

Nathanael Culverwell (1618/19-1651?), An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature (non-fiction)

'Eliza' (fl. 1644-52), Eliza's Babes; or, The Virgins-Offering Being divine poems and meditations (poetry and non-fiction)

[Madeleine de Scudéry (b. 1607)], Ibrahim; or, The Illustrious Bassa An excellent new romance. Trans. Henry Cogan (fl. 1652). [orig. pub. in French as Ibrahim, ou l'Illustre Bassa (1641-44)] (fiction)

John Selden (b. 1584), Of the Dominion, or Ownership of the Sea (non-fiction) [English trans. of Selden's Mare clausum (1635), a reply to Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), Mare Liberum (1609)]

Gerrard Winstanley (b. 1609), The Law of Freedom (non-fiction)

1653-1658: Commonwealth or Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell

Period of republican statehood in the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland; a new political order, with the abolition of the House of Lords and the establishment of a Protectorate under the rule of Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) as Lord Protector

Iconoclasm; proliferation of various religious sects (including the Quakers); abolition of traditional holidays--including Christmas--as smacking too much of "pagan" festivities

1653

Cromwell dissolves the Rump Parliament and installs the Nominated (Barebone's) Parliament; later this year, the Protectorate is established and Cromwell is named Lord Protector

Richard Baxter (b. 1615), The Right Method for a Settled Peace of Conscience (non-fiction)

Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (b. 1624?), Philosophicall Fancies (misc.)

Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (b. 1624?), Poems and Fancies (poetry and non-fiction)

Anne Collins (fl. 1653), Divine Songs and Meditacions Composed by An [sic] Collins (poetry)

François Rabelais (ca. 1494-ca. 1553), [Gargantua and Pantagruel]. Trans. [Sir Thomas Urquhart (b. 1611)] (poetry)

Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler (non-fiction)

1654

Dec.: Cromwell's "Western Design" against Spanish colonial possessions, launched

Pagani Piscatoris [Payne Fisher (1615/16-93)], Panegyrici Cromwello and Inauguratio Olivariana:--
Fisher served as a de facto poet laureate for Cromwell's Protectorate, writing not only these poems commemorating the establishment of the Protectorate, but also anniversary poems to celebrate it in subsequent years (Oratio anniversaria, 1655, Oratio secunda anniversaria, 1657, and Paean triumphalis in secundam inaugurationem, 1657), as well as commemorative poems on Cromwell's death in 1658. He received payments from the council of state in 1652 (£50 and £100) and 1654 (£100) to support his literary activities.

John Milton (b. 1608), Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio Secunda (non-fiction)

Anna Trapnel, The Cry of a Stone: or a Relation of Something spoken in Whitehall (poetry and prose)

Richard Whitlock (b. ca. 1616), [Zootomia (in Greek characters)]; or, Observations of the Present Manners of the English (non-fiction)

1655

English seize Jamaica

Luis de Camoëns (1524?-1580), The Lusiad; or, Portugals Historicall Poem. Trans. Sir Richard Fanshawe (b. 1608) (poetry)

Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (b. 1624?), The Worlds Olio (non-fiction)

John Cotgrave (fl. 1655), ed., The English Treasury of Wit and Language Collected out of the most, and best of our English dramatick poems; methodically digested into common places for general use (anthology)

[John Cotgrave (fl. 1655)], Wits Interpreter The English Parnassus (non-fiction)

[Andrew Marvell (b. 1621)], The First Anniversary of the Government Under His Highness the Lord Protector (poetry)

Charles Sorel (b. ca. 1599), The Comical History of Francion (fiction) [English trans. of Sorel's La Vraie histoire comique de Francion (1623)]

Edmund Waller (b. 1606), A Panegyrick to my Lord Protector (poetry)

George Wither (b. 1588), The Protector (poetry)

1656-59: Anglo-Spanish war

1656

James Naylor, a Quaker from Bristol, tried and convicted of blasphemy:--
the High Court of Parliament ruled that Naylor "be repeatedly set in the pillory and scourged; that he be branded on the forehead with the letter 'B'; that he have his tongue bored with a red hot iron and be confined afterwards in prison and set to hard labor" (Webster 1990: 22)

Abraham Cowley (b. 1618), Poems (poetry)

[Sir William Davenant (b. 1606)], The Siege of Rhodes (drama)

William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649), Poems (poetry)

Richard Flecknoe (b. ca. 1620), A Relation of Ten Years Travells in Europe, Asia, Affrique, and America (non-fiction) (publication date conjectural)

[James Harrington (b. 1611)], The Common-wealth of Oceana (non-fiction)

1657

Cromwell declines offer of a crown

Dutch mathematician and scientist Christiaan Huygens invents the pendulum clock, allowing for more accurate measurement of time

Joshua Poole (b. ca. 1615), The English Parnassus; or, A Helpe to English Poesie Containing a collection of all rhyming monosyllables, the choicest epithets, and phrases (dictionary)

1658

Death of Oliver Cromwell (on 3 Sept. 1658); succeeded by his son, Richard Cromwell

[Richard Allestree (b. 1619)], The Practice of Christian Graces; or, The Whole Duty of Man (non-fiction) (repr. 1659, 1660, 1661, 1663, 1664, 1668, 1669, 1670, 1673, 1674, 1675, etc.)

Richard Baxter (b. 1615), A Call to the Unconverted (non-fiction)

Sir Thomas Browne (b. 1605), Hydriotaphia, Urne-Buriall (non-fiction)

[Sir William Davenant (b. 1606)], The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (drama)

Richard Flecknoe (b. ca. 1620), Enigmaticall Characters All taken to the life (non-fiction)

[Edward Phillips (b. 1630)], The New World of English Words (dictionary)

1658-1659: rule of Richard Cromwell

Richard Cromwell (1626-1712) is unable to contain the power struggle between the army and the Parliament, which leads to the collapse of the Protectorate and the reestablishment of the Commonwealth in 1659

1659-60: period of political instability

1659

Richard Baxter (b. 1615), A Holy Commonwealth, or Political Aphorisims (non-fiction)

John Dryden (b. 1631), Edmund Waller (b. 1606), and Thomas Sprat (b. 1635), Three Poems Upon the Death of His Late Highnesse Oliver Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland (poetry)

[John Evelyn (b. 1620)], A Character of England (non-fiction)

Richard Flecknoe (b. ca. 1620), The Idea of His Highness Oliver, Late Lord Protector (non-fiction)

James Harrington (b. 1621), Aphorisms Political (non-fiction)

1660: Long Parliament recalled

March 16, 1659/60: final dissolution of the Long Parliament

Convention Parliament votes to restore monarchy; Richard Cromwell goes into exile abroad for twenty years (1660-80), but eventually returns to England and lives there under an assumed name. On 25 April 1660, Parliament invited Charles II to return to England; he entered London on 29 May.

1660: Restoration of Stuart Dynasty

Restoration of the Monarchy (29 May) (and the House of Lords, and the re-establishment of the Anglican Church as the official state church)

Charles II promised "liberty to tender consciences" at the Restoration, but the Act of Uniformity (1662) and the "Clarendon Code" sought to punish Dissenters and to shore up the authority of the Anglican church

Libertine reaction against the puritanical ethos of the Interregnum ushered in by the royal court and the aristocracy

Revival of traditional holidays and festivities, such as Christmas celebrations with plum pudding and mince pies

1660-1685: Reign of Charles II

passage of restrictive "Acts of Uniformity" (1662) & other legislation (known collectively as the "Clarendon Code," after Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, Lord Chancellor of England and Charles's chief minister [till his dismissal in 1667]) designed to punish the Puritans by excluding them from civil office and other institutions of church and state; over the course of Charles II's reign perhaps 8,000 Dissenters were imprisoned under provisions of the code (e.g., John Bunyan, Margaret Fox)

Navigation Act passed (based on Act passed by Parliament in 1651)

English colonial possessions in 1660:-- (cf. in 1763 and in 1815)
* In North America: Newfoundland [English control not formally recognized internationally till 1713], Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
* In the Caribbean and northern coast of South America: Leeward Islands (Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat, St Christopher [St Kitts] and Nevis), Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Jamaica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Surinam.

1660-69

Samuel Pepys, Diary (written; first pub., abridged and bowdlerized, in 1825)

1660

Re-opening of the theaters (which has been closed in 1642):--
There were two companies, under Thomas Killigrew and Sir William Davenant respectively, until 1683, when the companies were united.

[Richard Allestree (b. 1619)], The Gentlemans Calling (non-fiction)

Alexander Brome (b. 1620), A Congratulatory Poem, on the Miraculous, and Glorious Return of that Unparallel’d King Charls [sic] the II (poetry)

William Chamberlayne (b. 1619), Englands Jubile [sic]; or, A Poem of the Happy Return of His Sacred Majesty, Charles the II (poetry)

Charles Cotton (b. 1630), A Panegyrick to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty (poetry)

Abraham Cowley (b. 1618), Ode, Upon the Blessed Restoration and Returne of His Sacred Majestie, Charls [sic] the Second (poetry)

Sir William Davenant (b. 1606), Poem, Upon His Sacred Majesties Most Happy Return to His Dominions (poetry)

John Dryden (b. 1631), Astraea Redux A poem on the happy restoration & return of His Sacred Majesty Charles the Second (poetry)

Thomas Flatman (b. 1637), A Panegyrick to His Renowed [sic] Majestie, Charles the Second (poetry)

Richard Flecknoe (b. ca. 1620), Heroick Portraits . . . Made, and dedicate to His Majesty (misc.)

Nathaniel Ingelo (b. 1621?), Bentivolio and Urania (religious allegorical romance)

[John Milton (b. 1608)], The Readie & Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (non-fiction) (published at the end of February 1660; 2nd edn, April 1660)

[Edmund Waller (b. 1606)], To the King, upon His Majesties Happy Return (poetry)

[Robert Wild (b. 1609)], Iter Boreale Attempting something upon the successful and matchless march of the Lord General George Monck from Scotland to London, the last winter (poetry)

William Winstanley (b. 1628?), England's Worthies Select lives of the most eminent persons from Constantine the Great to the death of Oliver Cromwell late Protector (non-fiction)

1661

Venner's Rising

"Cavalier" Parliament meets

Corporation Act passed (repealed in 1828)

Robert Boyle (b. 1627), The Sceptical Chymist; or, Chymico-Physical Doubts & Paradoxes (non-fiction)

John Dryden (b. 1631), To His Sacred Majesty, a Panegyrick on his Coronation (poetry)

John Evelyn (b. 1620), Fumifugium; or, The Inconvenience of the Aer and Smoak of London Dissipated (non-fiction)

[Joseph Glanvill (b. 1636)], The Vanity of Dogmatizing (non-fiction)

Edmund Waller (b. 1606), A Poem on St James's Park, As lately improved by His Majesty (poetry)

1662

Charles II's marriage in 1662 to the Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza:--
The new queen brought Bombay and Tangiers to the English crown as part of her huge dowry & helped popularize tea-drinking in England

Royal Society of London established (through a reorganization of the Philosophical Society, est. 1645); the French Académie Royale des Sciences was subsequently founded in 1666

Robert Boyle, Irish-born chemist and physicist, establishes that the volume of a gas varies inversely to pressure (Boyle's Law)

Act of Uniformity passed:--
This Act led to the ejection of Anglican clergymen who failed to comply with its terms--thus Puritan-leaning men such as Samuel Annesley were forced out of the Church of England and joined the ranks of the Dissenters. The Act solidified the lines of difference between the Anglican Church and the ranks of Dissenting groups (Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Quakers, Unitarians). A measure of détente was achieved after the Revolution of 1688 and in the eighteenth century, though sectarian battles between "church and chapel" lasted through the age of Anne.

Act of Settlement passed

Press Licensing Act passed. (It lapsed temporarily in 1679-85 and then was allowed to lapse for good in 1695.)

Sir Richard Baker (1568?-1645), Theatrum Redivivum; or, The Theatre Vindicated (non-fiction)

Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (b. 1624?), Orations of Divers Sorts (misc.)

Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (b. 1624?), Playes (drama)

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), The History of the Worthies of England (non-fiction)

[Joseph Glanvill (b. 1636)], Lux Orientalis Or an enquiry into the opinion of the Eastern sages, concerning the praeexistence of souls (non-fiction)

[Simon Patrick (b. 1626)], A Brief Account of the New Sect of Latitude Men (non-fiction)

1663

Yorkshire rising

Royal Africa Company founded

The Theatre Royal at Drury Lane built

Third Folio of Shakespeare's plays published

Samuel Bochart (1599-1667), Hierozoicon, sive bipertitum opus de animalius sacrae scripturae (a natural history of all the animals referred to in the Bible, drawing on Greek, Roman, Arabic and Hebrew sources)

[Samuel Butler (b. 1612)], Hudibras. The First Part (poetry) (Second Part, 1664; Third Part, 1678)

Mary Carleton (fl. 1663-73), The Case of Mary Carleton, Lately Stiled The German Princess, Truely Stated (non-fiction)

Abraham Cowley (b. 1618), Verses, Lately Written Upon Several Occasions (poetry)

Thomas Jordan (b. 1612?), A Royal Arbor of Loyal Poesie (poetry)

1664-67: Second Anglo-Dutch War

The English seize New York from the Dutch; in 1665, England paid the bishop of MÜnster to invade Holland, which he did only to make peace unilaterally shortly thereafter.

1664

Triennial Act passed

Conventicle Act passed

Death of Katherine Philips (1632-64), the "matchless Orinda"

[Samuel Butler (b. 1612)], Hudibras. The Second Part (poetry)

Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (b. 1624?), Philosophicall Letters (non-fiction)

Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (b. 1624?), CCXI Sociable Letters (fiction)

John Dryden (b. 1631), The Rival Ladies A tragi-comedy (drama)

[John Dryden (b. 1631)] and Sir Robert Howard (b. 1626), The Indian Queen (acted) (drama) (first published in Sir Robert Howard, Four New Plays [1665])

Lucy Hutchinson (b. 1620), Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson (written; not published till 1806) (non-fiction)

Thomas Mun (1571-1641), England's Treasure by Forraign Trade (non-fiction)

1665

The Great Plague in London and environs

Philosophical Transactions (by Henry Oldenburg, with various contributors) (periodical)

John Dryden (b. 1631), The Indian Emperor (acted) (drama) (first published 1667)

[Richard Head (b. 1637?)], The English Rogue Described In the life of Meriton Latroon (fiction)

Sir Robert Howard (b. 1626), Four New Plays (drama)

Sir William Killigrew (b. 1606), Three Playes [Selindra, Ormasdes, Pandora] (drama)

[Andrew Marvell (b. 1621)], The Character of Holland (poetry)

Thomas Sprat (b. 1635), Observations on Monsieur de Sorbier's Voyage into England (non-fiction)

1666

The Great Fire of London:--
The fire began on 2 Sept. 1666 and consumed 90 percent of the housing in the old City (some 13,200 houses). The fire was denounced by some, at the time, as a Catholic plot and by others as divine punishment for the decadence of the Restoration court and society. The anti-Catholic interpretation was perpetuated in plaque and pillar: a plaque at no.25 Pudding Lane, site of the house where the Great Fire was believed to have started in the kitchen of Thomas Farynor the king's baker, declares: "Here, by the Permission of Heaven, Hell broke loose upon this Protestant City, from the malicious Hearts of barbarous Papists, by the Hand of their Agent Hubert, who confessed, and on the Ruins of this Place declared the Fact, for which he was hanged, viz. That here began that dreadful Fire, which is described and perpetuated on and by the Neighbouring Pillar" (quoted in Mack 1988: 41). This plaque was placed during the Popish Plot scare in 1681, removed during the reign of James II, replaced when William came in, and taken down about the middle of the 18th century--because "the stoppage of passengers to read it" interfered with traffic (Mack 1988: 41). Similarly, Christopher Wren's London Monument, erected in memory of the Great Fire of 1666, bore the following anti-Catholic inscription: "This Pillar was set up in Perpetual Remembrance of that most dreadful burning of this Protestant City, begun and carried on by the Treachery and Malice of the Popish Faction, in the beginning of September, in the Year of our Lord 1666, in order to the carrying on of their horrid Plot for extirpating the Protestant Religion and Old English Liberties, and the introducing Popery and Slavery" (quoted in Mack 1988: 41). This inscription was "incised in 1681, razed under James, re-incised more deeply under William, and not removed till 21 January 1831, following the Catholic Emancipation Act" (Mack 1988: 41).

L'Académie des Sciences established in France by Colbert

Death of James Shirley

John Bunyan (b. 1628), Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (non-fiction)

Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (b. 1624?), The Description of a New World, called the Blazing World (fiction)

Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (b. 1624?), Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (non-fiction)

Margaret Fell (later Fox) (b. 1614), Women's Speaking Justified (non-fiction)

[Elkanah Settle (b. 1648)], Mare Clausum; or, A Ransack for the Dutch, May 23. 1666 (poetry)

John Tillotson (b. 1630), The Rule of Faith (non-fiction)

Edmund Waller (b. 1606), Instructions to a Painter For the drawing of the posture & progress of His Majesties forces at sea . . . Together with the battel & victory obtained over the Dutch, June 3, 1665 (poetry)

1667

Dutch burn English fleet in the Medway

Clarendon dismissed; replaced by rule of "The Cabal" (till 1673)

Death of Abraham Cowley (1618-67)

Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (b. 1624?), [Life of William Cavendish] (non-fiction)

Sir John Denham (b. 1615), On Mr Abraham Cowley His Death and Burial Amongst the Ancient Poets (poetry)

John Dryden (b. 1631), Annus Mirabilis: The Year of Wonders, 1666 (poetry)

John Dryden (b. 1631), The Indian Emperour; or, The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards Being the sequel to The Indian Queen (drama)

John Dryden (b. 1631) and Sir William Davenant (b. 1606), The Tempest; or, The Enchanted Island (drama) (acted; pub. 1670)

Andrew Marvell (b. 1621), "Last Instructions to a Painter" (ms. poetry)

John Milton (b. 1608), Paradise Lost (in ten books; rev. in twelve books, 1674) (poetry)
This work, one of the indisputable classics of English literature, had an immense influence--in various ways--on the idioms and outlooks of subsequent generations of English poets. Milton's verse in Paradise Lost became both "the most important model of grandeur and sublimity in English writing" and, "because it provided an example of truly heroic English poetry on a grand scale, Paradise Lost made mock-heroic poetry in English much more possible" (DeMaria, ed. 1996: 29). Milton's freeing of English verse from the "bondage" of rhyme--through his use of blank verse--became a model for subsequent poets, and his creation of a truly Christian epic served to illustrate the merging of Zion and Parnassus sought by many English-language writers in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Katherine Philips (1631-64), Poems by the most deservedly Admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, the matchless Orinda (poetry)

Sir Paul Rycaut (b. 1628), The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (non-fiction) (3rd edn, 1670; 6th edn, 1686)

Thomas Sprat (b. 1635), The History of the Royal-Society of London (non-fiction)

1668

Triple Alliance formed (against France)

Bombay transferred by the Crown to the East India Company

Death of Sir William Davenant (1606-68)

Roger Boyle, earl of Orrery (b. 1621), The Tragedy of Mustapha, Son of Solyman the Magnificent (drama)

Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (b. 1624?), Plays, Never Before Printed (drama)

Abraham Cowley (1618-1667), The Works of Mr Abraham Cowley (works) (edited by Thomas Sprat and including Sprat's "Life of Cowley")

Sir John Denham (b. 1615), Poems and Translations With The Sophy (poetry)

John Dryden (b. 1631), Of Dramatick Poesie (criticism) (written in 1666, while plague closed the theaters)

John Dryden (b. 1631), Secret-Love; or, The Maiden-Queen (drama)

John Dryden (b. 1631) and [William Cavendish, duke of Newcastle], Sir Martin Mar-all; or, The Feign'd Innocence (drama)

Sir George Etherege, She Wou'd If She Cou'd (drama)

[Richard Flecknoe (b. ca. 1620)], Sir William D'Avenant's Voyage to the Other World: with his Adventures in the Poets Elizium (poetry)

Joseph Glanvill (b. 1636), Plus Ultra; or, The Progress and Advancement of Knowledge Since the Days of Aristotle (non-fiction)

Thomas Shadwell (b. 1642), The Sullen Lovers (drama)

John Wilkins (b. 1614), An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language (non-fiction)

1669

The conversion of James, Duke of York, to Catholicism now public

Death of Sir John Denham (1614/15-69)

Edward Chamberlayne (b. 1616), Angliae Notitiae; or, The Present State of England (non-fiction)

John Dryden (b. 1631), Tyrannick Love; or, The Royal Martyr (drama) (acted; pub. 1670)

John Dryden (b. 1631), The Wild Gallant (drama)

Richard Flecknoe (b. ca. 1620), Epigrams of All Sorts (poetry)

Edward Howard (b. 1624), The Brittish Princess An heroick poem (poetry)

1670

Charles II signs Treaty of Dover with France, with secret provisions

Hudson's Bay Company established

John Dryden (d. 1700) made Poet Laureate (till 1689)

John Dryden, Conquest of Granada, part 1 (acted) (drama)

Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554-1628), The Remains of Sir Fulk Grevill Lord Brooke (poetry)

John Milton (b. 1608), The History of Britain (non-fiction)

[John Ray (b. 1627)], A Collection of English Proverbs (non-fiction)

Henry Stubbe (b. 1632), The Plus Ultra reduced to a Non Plus (non-fiction)

Izaak Walton (b. 1593), The Lives of Dr John Donne, Sir Henry Wooton, Mr Richard Hooker, Mr George Herbert (non-fiction)

1671

Westminster-Drollery (poetry anthology; part 2 pub. 1672)

Aphra Behn (b. 1640?), The Forc'd Marriage; or, The Jealous Bridegroom (drama)

Aphra Behn (b. 1640?), The Amorous Prince; or, The Curious Husband (drama)

John Dryden (b. 1631), An Evening's Love; or, The Mock-Astrologer (drama)

John Milton (b. 1608), Paradise Regained (poetry) and Samson Agonistes (drama)

Elkanah Settle (b. 1648), Cambyses King of Persia (drama)

Thomas Shadwell, The Humourists (drama)

[George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham (b. 1628), et al.], The Rehearsal (acted; pub. 1672) (drama)

1672-74: Third Anglo-Dutch War

Fought in alliance with (Catholic) France against the (Protestant) Dutch, this war saw a rapid shift in popular prejudices, from anti-Dutch to anti-French, despite the previous Anglo-Dutch wars; fueled by intensifying concerns about the religious policy of Charles I (who is increasingly suspected of being a crypto-Catholic; his brother, James, the heir to the throne, having openly converted to Catholicism in 1669).

1672

Stop of the Exchequer

Second Declaration of Indulgence

Royal African Company established to supply slaves to the New World colonies

John Dryden (b. 1631), The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards In two parts (drama) (also contains Dryden's essays "Of Heroique Plays" and "Defence of the Epilogue; or, An Essay on the Dramatique Poetry of the Last Age")

Thomas Shadwell, The Miser (drama; based on Molière's L'Avare)

1673

The Test Act passed:--
This legislation sought to exclude both Catholics and Dissenters from civil offices (and monopolize power by Anglicans), by requiring "any holder of civil office to repudiate the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and once a year to receive the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England; it was repealed only in 1828. Protestant Dissenters, if they wished to hold office under the crown, were forced to conform occasionally, that is, to take communion once a year at a parish church" (Sosin 1982: 82). One prominent result of this Act was that James, Duke of York, resigned as Lord Admiral since he could not serve in that office as a Catholic.

James, duke of York, marries Mary of Modena:--
Around this time, there was a re-introduction of Pope-burning processions on Guy Fawkes Day (5 November, marking the Gunpowder Plot of 1605), and often on 17 November (accession day of Elizabeth I) by various Protestant groups "to express an anti-papal solidarity against the 'Romanizing' drift of Charles II's court" (Mack 1988: 5, 7).

Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (Lord Treasurer) as first minister (till 1679)

Christopher Wren begins rebuilding St Paul's Cathedral (ruined in the Great Fire of 1666)

Death of Molière

John Milton, Poems (poetry)

Elkanah Settle, The Empress of Morocco (drama)

1674

Death of John Milton (1608-74)

Death of Robert Herrick

Death of Thomas Traherne (1637-74)

The first microscopes created

John Dryden, The State of Innocence (written) (opera, based on Paradise Lost)

William Wycherley, The Plain Dealer (acted) (drama)

1675

Case of Shirley v. Fagg upholds House of Lords' jurisdiction

Parliament prorogued by Charles II until 1677

Death of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1624-75)

Nathaniel Lee, Sophonisba, or Hannibal's Overthrow (drama)

Edward Phillips, Theatrum Poetarum, Or a Compleat Collection of the Poets (criticism)

Thomas Shadwell, Psyche (opera)

William Wycherley, The Country Wife (drama)

1676

Bishop Compton conducts religious census

Further treaty between Charles II and Louis XIV of France

Lord Chief Justice Sir Matthew Hale declares Christianity to be part of the law of England: ruling on the case of a man who declared that Jesus was a bastard and a whore-master and that religion was a cheat, the justice held "That such kind of wicked and blasphemous words were not only an offence against God and religion but a crime against the laws, States and Government . . . and Christianity being parcel of the laws of England, therefore to reproach Christian religion is to speak in subversion of the law" (quoted in Webster 1990: 23)

Death of John Ogilby

John Dryden, Aureng-Zebe (drama)

Sir George Etherege, The Man of Mode (drama)

Thomas Shadwell (b. 1642), The Virtuoso (drama)

1677

William of Orange marries Mary, daughter of James, duke of York

Earl of Shaftesbury imprisoned

Aphra Behn (b. ca.1640), The Rover (drama)

[Andrew Marvell], Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government in England

1678-83: Plots and Counterplots (with rising religious strife)

1678

The "Popish Plot":--
Anti-Catholic sentiments raised to a fever pitch by allegations by Titus Oates about a "Popish Plot" (August 1678) to assassinate Charles II (and install his Catholic brother on the throne). The furor led to the beheading of one Catholic peer, and the conviction, carting, hanging, castration, disembowling, and exposure in public quarters of the bodies of 23 other Catholics (mostly secular priests and Jesuits); "Many others were thrown into prison and left to rot there without trial": "It is difficult to exaggerate either the degree of the panic or the fury of the rhetoric which fanned it" (Mack 1988: 4-5). Historians consider this alleged plot to have been a fabrication used to stir up anti-Catholic sentiment among the populace. Aside from the sheer intimidation and brutalization of the Catholic minority, the hysteria aroused by the alleged "Plot" did succeed, politically, in forcing the king to push his brother, James, Duke of York, and some of his supporters onto the sidelines for a while (till ca. 1684) and it led to passage of the Papists' Disabling Act and galvanized support for the "exclusion" of James from succession to the throne.

Death of Andrew Marvell (1621-78)

John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, part I (fiction)

John Dryden, All for Love (drama)

1679-80: the "Meal-Tub Plot"

Midwife and Catholic convert Elizabeth Cellier (and others) tried for alleged involvement in a supposed Catholic plot to assassinate Charles II

1679-81: the Exclusion Crisis

Sectarian and partisan infighting over an attempt, led by the Earl of Shaftesbury, to bar ("exclude") the king's brother, James, Duke of York, from succeeding to the throne of England, though he was next in the legal succession. Charles, however, defended the royal line against Parliament's attempt to determine the succession (and, hence, to make and unmake kings). The return of tensions between King and Parliament led to the emergence of political factions or "parties" in Parliament ("Whigs" and "Tories"), with "Tories" supporting the royal prerogative and "Whigs" challenging the king's priorities and agenda. In order to stave off the initial push for exclusion, coming as it did in the heated climate aroused by the "Popish Plot," Charles II prorogued parliament on 26 or 27 May 1679, "only eleven days after the first bill had been introduced to prevent James . . . from succeeding to the throne upon Charles's death" (Greene 2005: 75).

1679

Danby falls

Habeas Corpus Act passed

Press Licensing Act lapses (until it was reinstated in 1685) with the proroguing of parliament in late May 1679

Death of Thomas Hobbes

John Dryden, Troilus and Cressida

Thomas Shadwell, A True Widow

1680

House of Lords rejects Exclusion Bill

Death of Samuel Butler

Death of John Wilmot, 2nd earl of Rochester (1647-80)

Robert Filmer, Patriarcha, or the Natural Power of Kings Asserted (wr. ante-1653; now first published)

Lord Rochester, Poems on Several Occasions (1680) (contains not a few poems misattributed to Rochester)

1680-89

Thomas Burnet, Telluris Sacra Theoria (English trans., 1684-89)

1681

March: Oxford Parliament dissolved

Shaftesbury acquitted of treason

Whig JPs (justices of the peace) purged

August: English silkweavers attack French weavers (Huguenot refugees) in London, breaking their equipment and vandalizing their houses

John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel (poetry)

Andrew Marvell, Miscellaneous Poems (poetry)

John Oldham, Satires upon the Jesuits (poetry) and Some New Pieces

1682

Borough charters called in

Shaftesbury flees to Holland

Peter I (the Great) assumes the throne in Russia (reigned 1682-1725)

Death of Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82)

John Dryden, The Medal and Religio Laici (poetry)

John Dryden and Nahum Tate, Absalom and Achitophel, Part II (poetry)

Thomas Otway, Venice Preserved (drama)

John Dryden, Mac Flecknoe (now first published; wr. ca. 1676) (poetry)

1683

The "Rye House Plot":--
An alleged Whig conspiracy to eliminate Charles II (for his pro-Catholic leanings): one plan was to assassinate the king as he passed along a narrow road near the Rye House at Hoddeston, Hertfordshire; the plot unravelled and an informer's evidence led to the arrest of Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex (who subsequently died in the Tower of London, probably by suicide); Lord William Russell, Algernon Sidney, and Sir Thomas Armstrong were all tried, convicted of treason, and beheaded. James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, (the king's illegitimate son) was suspected of involvement in the plotting, but escaped punishment. John Locke, who favored designating Monmouth as the successor to Charles II, may also have had some involvement with these conspirators, though he and his patron, Anthony Ashley Cooper (1st earl of Shaftesbury), were in exile on the Continent after the Exclusion Crisis came to a head in 1682.

Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland (Secretary of State) emerges as first minister (till end of James II's reign in 1688)

Turks besiege Vienna, but are halted there in their sweep into Europe

Ashmolean Museum established at the University of Oxford:--
The Museum was among the first public institutions of its kind: the collection Elias Ashmole (1617-1692) presented to the university built on the older collection of John Tradescant (d. 1638) which was known as "Tradescant's Ark" and had been displayed to the public for a fee. The first curator of the Museum was Dr. Robert Plot. [museum website]

The two theater companies in London united into a single establishment

Death of John Oldham (1653-83)

Thomas De Laune, A Plea for the Nonconformists:--
This work was considered by Daniel Defoe to be "the best statement of the Dissenters' case ever given. De Laune was tried for libel and fined for his pamphlet and, being unable to pay his fine, died in Newgate" (Furbank & Owens, ed. 1997: viii) De Laune's fate is a good example of how, given the laws for debt at the time, crimes that carried the relatively "light" penalty of a fine could nonetheless translate into life sentences for those who were not sufficiently affluent.

John Oldham, Poems, and Translations (poetry)

1684

Aphra Behn, Poems upon Several Occasions (poetry)

John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress, part II (fiction)

John Oldham, Remains

1685-1688: Reign of James II

1685

Death of Charles I; accession of his brother as James II (of England) and James VII (of Scotland) on Feb. 6

May: Parliament summoned, and then prorogued

June 11: outbreak of "Monmouth Rebellion":--
A failed Protestant uprising against the new king, led by the Duke of Monmouth (illegitimate son of Charles II, who had been involved in the Rye House plotting in 1683): the rebellion was defeated at Sedgemoor on July 6, and Monmouth himself was executed on July 15, followed by about 320 of his supporters who were executed in the trials that followed (known as the "Bloody Assizes," conducted by Chief Justice, George Jeffreys, and four other judges in Sept.); "more than 800 [of the rebels were] transported to Barbados; hundreds more were fined, flogged, or imprisoned" (Encyclopaedia Britannica). Daniel Defoe was one of the participants in this failed rebellion.

October 18: Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France:--
Louis XIV revokes the Edict of Nantes, which had provided a measure of protection to France's Protestant minority since 1598; leading up to the Revocation and especially after it, some 400,000 Huguenots fled France for England, Germany, Holland, and America.

November: second parliamentary session prorogued

Death of Thomas Otway (1652-85)

John Dryden, ed. Sylvae (poetry)

1686

James II dispenses with the Test Act:--
His action in dispensing with the Test Act is upheld by the Court of King's Bench in Godden v. Hales; James appoints Catholics to civil and military offices, leading to confrontations with Parliament, the Oxford colleges, and Anglican leaders

Ecclesiastical Commission established

June 14: Scottish Parliament prorogued after refusing to grant indulgence to Catholics

1687

James issues two Declarations of Indulgence for Catholics and Quakers in Scotland:--
These Declarations, issued on Feb. 12 and June 28, respectively, paralleled James's granting of extensive indulgences in England to Protestant Dissenters and Roman Catholic recusants, and his decision to make Father Petre (a Catholic priest) a privy councillor

Expulsion of fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford

Nov. 14: official confirmation of the Queen's pregnancy (raising the prospect of a Catholic heir)

John Dryden, The Hind and the Panther (poetry)

Lord Halifax, Letter to a Dissenter

Sir Isaac Newton, Principia Mathematica (2d edn., with "General Scholium," 1713)

1688

May 3-4: James's Declaration of Indulgence is republished and, the next day, he orders the Anglican clergy to read it from the pulpit on two successive Sundays

May 18: William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, and seven other bishops petition the king to be excused from reading the Declaration, rousing the king's anger

June 8: the "Seven Bishops" are arrested on charge of seditious libel and committed to the Tower of London

June 10: James's queen, Mary of Modena, gives birth to a son (James Edward), consolidating the prospect of a Catholic heir to the throne. Protestants allege that the infant was smuggled into the palace in a warming pan; "By October the fanatically held belief became so powerful that James felt obliged to hold a special council at which some forty-odd witnesses testified to the genuineness of the birth. Many people, however, continued to prefer the lie" (Mack 1988: 10n.)

June 29-30: trial of the "Seven Bishops" and their acquittal by a London jury

June 30: growing resistance to James's religious policy, coupled now with anxiety about a Catholic heir, leads seven church and political leaders of the Protestant party, both Whigs and Tories (i.e., Danby, Shrewsbury, Devonshire, Compton, Sidney, Lumley, and Russell), to "invite" William of Orange (husband of James's Protestant daughter, Mary) to lead a force to England in defence of "Liberties" (i.e., to force the king into making concessions)

Sept. 30: William of Orange accepts the invitation to invade England

Oct. 19: William's forces begin to cross the Channel from Holland

Nov. 5, 1688: William lands at Torbay with 15,000 Dutch troops, initiating the revolutionary crisis of 1688-89

Revolution of 1688-89

The Revolution of 1688, traditionally referred to as the "Glorious Revolution," is generally seen is marking the emergence of Parliament as the supreme power in the land, displacing the monarch from that role, and putting an end to "divine right" kingship in England. The king, no longer the agent or deputy of God on earth, now derives his power from "the people," or from the "representatives" of the people embodied in the Parliament. By keeping control of the purse strings, Parliament ensured to itself the ultimate say in any future power struggles with the king--having learned the hard way from Charles II's attempt to skirt this control through a secret subsidy from the French king and James II's neutralization of this control by managing to get Parliament to grant him certain incomes for life from near the very start of his reign. In any case, a new ideology of the absolute sovereignty of Parliament came to displace that of the absolute rule of kings.

The Revolutionary Settlement itself allowed the changes taking place--and those to come--to remain hidden since, formally, it left the place of the monarch atop the political structure untouched; but underneath this superficial continuity with the past, over time more and more of the actual substance of power and the government of the country shifted hands from the monarch to the parliamentary leaders--who nonetheless throughout the eighteenth century served at the pleasure of the monarch and could be dismissed by him if he saw fit. MPs may have been "the people's" representatives (or, in any case, those of the "political nation") but the government still consisted of "the king's" ministers. This equivocal situation--superficial continuity and subterranean transformation--allowed Edmund Burke at the time of the French Revolution to insist that the Revolution of 1688 had been a return to the immemorial "ancient constitution" rather than a starting point for any novel departure in English political history. Ultimately, however, the monarch became more of a figurehead and the new players--ruling party and prime minister--came to be the true arbiters of power.

The British Parliament has never entirely given up its claim to absolute sovereignty--but modern liberal democratic traditions are marked by their insistence on the limited (i.e., circumscribed) power of government (whether that of kings or of parliaments). Furthermore, the notion of the sovereignty of Parliament is, as hinted above, a far cry from a notion of the sovereignty of the people: the two notions are only brought into relation if and when Parliament is made both representative of and responsible to the people as a whole. The democratization of parliamentary institutions was a long, agonizing process that was resisted at every step by the political establishment and that remains even today an incomplete transformation of an older elitist political culture.

As with the exile of royalists during the period of the civil wars and interregnum, the "Glorious Revolution" forced not only the court of James II but also many of his supporters into exile on the Continent (some 40,000 persons, including some writers such as Jane Barker) or into "retirement" in the countryside (such as Heneage Finch and Anne Finch). Many other authors of the period have been associated with, or suspected of harboring, a "Jacobite" outlook, from Dryden and Behn to Pope to Samuel Johnson. ("Jacobite" derives from Jacobus [the Latin form of 'James'] = supporter of James II and his heirs; cf. the term "Jacobean" for the era of James I's reign [1603-25].) Since critics are often claiming a "crypto-Jacobite" stance on the part of these authors, there is often a good deal of dispute and controversy about such claims--except in cases, such as those of Dryden and Behn, where the author made explicit his or her support of the Stuart line. There is sometimes a tendency on the part of modern scholars to equate opposition to William (or, later, to the Hanoverians) with sympathy with and support for the Stuarts, but this is a false inference (in the absence of additional evidence). See also the discussion of "Non-jurors," below.

1688 (cont'd.)

Nov. 19, 1688: James joins his army at Salisbury. A few days later (Nov. 22), James decides to retreat with his forces to London, but now begins the decay of his strength as "Churchill and Grafton leave James, followed by increasing elements of the royal army" (Gregory & Stevenson 2000: 5)

Dec. 11, 1688: James loses his nerve and attempts to flee the country, is caught and temporarily held but manages to escape for France on Dec. 23--opening the way for overthrowing his rule altogether

Death of John Bunyan (1628-88)

Jane Barker, Poetical Recreations (poetry)

Aphra Behn, Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave (fiction)

1689

Jan. 22, 1689: meeting of Convention Parliament:--
The Commons declares (Jan. 28) that James II has abdicated his throne and, with its offer (Feb. 13) of the crown to William and Mary, issues a Declaration of Rights which asserts the independence of Parliament from the monarch and the binding authority of its legislation on king as well as on country. It also enshrines the "right" to bear arms and requires that Parliament should be held frequently.

"William and Mary were declared King and Queen for life, the chief administration resting with William; the crown was next settled on William's children by Mary; in default of such issue, on the Princess Anne of Denmark and her children; and in default of these, on the children of William by any other wife" (Gregory & Stevenson 2000: 6). Mary and Anne were both (Protestant) daughters of James II, so the revolutionary settlement of the succession kept it in the Stuart line, thus seeking to mollify Jacobite sentiment and to address the issue of the "legitimacy" of the new monarchy. But this strategy would be complicated if the first two options failed and the succession went through the children of William and a wife other than Mary. As it turned out, the first and third of these options drew blanks, and Anne's last surviving child died in 1700. This led to the passage of the Act of Settlement in 1701 (see below) to devise a new line of succession after Anne--one which carried the throne away from the Stuarts and thus set the stage for tensions between Jacobites and supporters of the Hanoverians through at least the first half of the 18th century.

March 1, 1689: "Non-juror" schism appears when various officials--eight bishops (including Archbishop William Sancroft), over 400 clergymen, and some laymen in England, as well as virtually all the Scottish Episcopalian clergy and one Irish bishop--refuse to take oaths of allegiance and supremacy to William and Mary, unable or unwilling to square it with their earlier oaths of loyalty to James II as their rightful king. Clergymen who refused to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to William and Mary by August 1 were suspended from their benefices and then deprived outright if they still failed to take the oaths by February 1 of the following year [Catholic Encyclopedia].

The term "Non-juror" is used especially of members (clergymen) of the Anglican Church who refused to endorse the legality of the new monarchs. As such, the Non-jurors were a complex, intermediate group, between the outright Jacobite partisans (who were often Catholics), on the one hand, and the Williamite loyalists, on the other hand. Figures like Archbishop Sancroft (and four other Non-juring bishops) had been prosecuted by James II for their failure to read his Declaration of Indulgence from the pulpit of their churches, but they nonetheless were unwilling to break their oath of loyalty to the legitimate king. (They were willing, however, to accept William and Mary as Regents, though not as King and Queen. But this prudential compromise was not available in the political circumstances of the times.) Non-jurors were not necessarily supporters of James and his policies--so not "Jacobites" in any meaningful sense--though some Non-jurors, such as George Hickes and Heneage Finch (husband of the poet Anne Finch), have indeed been described as Jacobites. When James II died in 1701, many Non-jurors ended their opposition to William, (as Daniel Defoe urged them to do), but others held out on the grounds that their allegiance had been sworn to "James and his rightful heirs."

April 11, 1689: coronation of William and Mary

May 11, 1689: William and Mary accept Claim of Right of Scottish Convention Parliament, asserting the constitutional liberties of the Kingdom

In Scotland, the Revolution of 1688-89 corresponded with a religious revolution, namely, the ouster (disestablishment) of the Episcopalian Church and establishment of the Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland. As noted above, the whole body of Scottish bishops became "Non-jurors" and were deprived of their benefices, but rather than being replaced by conformist Episcopalian churchmen, their whole denomination was dethroned from its position as the established church in Scotland. This was only the latest phase in the religious strife that marked early modern Scottish history, where earlier the Covenanters (Presbyterians) held sway (see discussion under Civil Wars), only to be replaced by the Episcopalian Church of Scotland at the Restoration in 1660. Now, with another political revolution in 1688-89, the Episcopalians were thrown out and the Presbyterians re-established.

1689-1694: Reign of William III and Mary II

1689-97: Nine Years War in Ireland and on the Continent

James II lands at Kinsale in Ireland on March 12, opening this front of war. The so-called "Bloodless Revolution" (another common epithet for the Revolution of 1688-89) would be anything but that, in Ireland, and both the bloody march up to William's victory at the Battle of the Boyne (1690), the subsequent defeat of the Irish Jacobites at Aughrim (1691), and the punitive confiscations that followed in the wake of the Treaty of Limerick (1691), which ended the war, have remained a central part of the conflict between Irish Catholics and Protestant "Orangists" in the north of Ireland.

On the Continent, England joined the war being waged against France by the League of Augsburg--Spain, Savoy, Brandenburg, Saxony, Hanover, and Bavaria. With the addition of England, this was now known as "the Grand Alliance". From William of Orange's point of view, the Revolution of 1688-89 was attractive as a way of marshalling the resources of the British crown against the ambitions of France (which would not have been likely under the Catholic James II). This long war was followed quickly by English involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13)--and this quarter century of almost continuous warfare was only the start of a long series of wars throughout the rest of the eighteenth century (until 1815). Consequently, the era has sometimes been labelled that of a "Second Hundred Years' War" (in allusion to the medieval "Hundred Years War" between France and England in 1337-1453). The financial strains of this long era of war led to numerous important developments--including the permanent land tax, the establishment of the Bank of England, and the national debt--that helped shape the political economy of the English state and society across the eighteenth century.

1689 (cont'd.)

May 24, 1689: Toleration Act passed:--
This act exempts Dissenters, who have taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, from penalties for non-attendance at Anglican church service (eliminating the restrictions of the Test Act vis-à-vis them).

After the Revolution, the focus of religious distrust was directed primarily at Catholics (seen as natural allies of James II) as the new regime sought to effect a rapprochement between Anglicans and Dissenters. Indeed, the civil disabilities of Catholics were marked: they could not openly practice their religion; they could not hold public office; and they could not take degrees at public schools or universities. There were "repeated proclamations during the early years of the new reign requiring Romanists to keep at a distance of ten miles from Hyde Park Corner" (Mack 1988: 37); Catholics also could not own firearms or a horse above the value of £5, and their homes were subject to daytime forcible searches on the warrant of a justice of the peace on suspicion of concealing firearms (Mack 1988: 40): "Later on during William's reign [1694-1702, after the death of Mary], the economic straitjacket tightened. Legislation excluded Roman Catholic barristers from access to the courts. Lords lieutenant in the shires were empowered to draft horse and foot soldiers from papist estates and charge the cost upon the estate owner. Toward the close of the reign, a particularly notorious act disqualified Roman Catholics from inheriting landed property or buildings, a provision that made it advisable for [Alexander] Pope's father in acquiring the Binfield property to convey it to two of his wife's Protestant nephews to be held in trust for his son. Worse, any Catholic child was allowed, and therefore in substance invited, to repudiate his family's faith and by this means constitute himself its sole heir, requiring from his father such annual maintenance as the lord chancellor might think fit until his coming of age. Another stipulation of the act allotted a reward of £100 for any substantiated report of a Catholic child being sent abroad to be educated. . . . To make doubly sure that a Catholic education would be difficult to obtain, a further provision prohibited Catholic priests from saying mass, and Catholic schoolmasters from teaching school, on pain of perpetual imprisonment, with again £100 to any person informing on them" (Mack 1988: 40).

Death of Aphra Behn (ca. 1640-89)

Thomas Shadwell (d. 1692) replaces John Dryden as Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal:--
Dryden is removed from these posts, being a Catholic (he converted during James II's reign) and having been appointed by the ousted king James II.

Godfrey Kneller, Principal Painter to the Crown

Aphra Behn, The History of the Nun (fiction) [text]

John Dryden, Don Sebastian (drama)

John Locke, Two Treatises on Government (dated 1690)

1689-92

John Locke, Letters concerning Toleration (three letters were published in 1689, 1690, and 1692; a fourth letter was published posthumously in 1706)

1689-96

Kensington Palace remodeled by Christopher Wren

1690

General elections

Act of Grace

Regency Act

Archbishop Sancroft deprived of his office, due to his being a Non-juror

Battle of the Boyne, in which William III defeats the Jacobite army in Ireland, forcing James II to flee Ireland

John Dryden, Amphitryon (drama)

John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding

William Petty (d. 1687), Political Arithmetic

Sir William Temple, Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning

1690-97

John Dunton, Athenian Gazette, continued as Athenian Mercury (periodical)

1691

House of Commons establishes Commission of Public Accounts

John Tillotson succeeds Sancroft (deprived as a Non-juror) as Archbishop of Canterbury

Treaty of Limerick ends war in Ireland

First Society for the Reformation of Manners:--
Many more such societies were established in various locales around England from 1695 on.

Death of Richard Baxter (1615-91)

Death of Robert Boyle (1627-91); Boyle lectures founded (see 1692, below)

Death of Sir George Etherege (1635-91)

Death of George Fox, the Quaker leader

Richard Baxter (1615-91), The Certainty of the World of Spirits

Dudley North, Discourses upon Trade

Henry Purcell, King Arthur

John Ray, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation (originally written as college exercises some fifty years earlier)

1692

Failed bill requiring office holders to abjure James II

Marlborough dismissed by William III

Glencoe massacre

French successfully besiege Namur

Anglo-Dutch naval victory off La Hogue

battle of Steenkirk, allied defeat

Chelsea Hospital opened

Death of Thomas Shadwell (1642-92)

Nahum Tate (d. 1715) appointed Poet Laureate; Thomas Rymer appointed Historiograher Royal

First Boyle Lecture delivered:--
These lectures, endowed by the will of Roger Boyle (d. 1691), were intended to prove the truth of the Christian religion against infidels and unbelievers. They were dominated by disciples of Newton such as Bentley, Clarke, and Whiston: the first Boyle Lecture (1692) was delivered by Richard Bentley; the lectures of 1704 and 1705 by Samuel Clarke; the lectures of 1707 by William Whiston (published as The Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies in 1708); the lectures of 1711 and 1712 by William Derham (published as Physico-Theology in 1713). These writers, and others like them, helped sharpen changing conceptions of God and his actions, from the theatrical display of miracles (the dramaturgy of "shock and awe") to the rational elegance of his ordering of the universe according to universal laws. The natural philosophers' defense of Christianity thus issued, ironically, in a kind of distaste for and alienation from "primitive Christianity"--and a split into different modes of Protestant "religiosity" that still marks the varieties of Christian religious experience and identity found in the Anglo-American world.

John Dryden, Cleomenes (drama)

Roger L'Estrange, Fables of Aesop and other Mythologists

Henry Purcell, The Fairy Queen

Thomas Shadwell, The Volunteers

Thomas Southerne, The Wives' Excuse (drama)

Sir William Temple, Essays

1692-93

Witch trials at Salem, Massachusetts

1693

William III vetoes Triennial Parliament Bill

Land tax made permanent

Long-term national debt begun

William Congreve, The Double Dealer (drama)

John Dennis, The Impartial Critic

John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education

1694-1702: Reign of William III (after Mary's death)

1694

Death of Mary II

William vetoes Place Bill

Triennial Act passed

Thomas Tenison made Archbishop of Canterbury

Bank of England established:--
A group of merchants, including Sir Gilbert Heathcote, "subscribed a £1,200,000 loan to the government and received in return a perpetual fund of interest and a charter of incorporation as the Bank of England" (Meroney 1968: 233)

Mary Astell, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, for the Advancement of their True and Greatest Interest

William Congreve, The Double-Dealer (drama)

John Dryden, Love Triumphant (drama)

Thomas D'Urfey, The Comical History of Don Quixote

Robert Molesworth, An Account of Denmark

William Wotton, Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning

1695

General election

Royal Bounty for relief of Huguenot refugees

Speaker of House of Commons, Sir John Trevor, dismissed for corruption

Allied forces successfully besiege Namur

Press Licensing Act lapses

Gregory King's "social table" analyzing social classes of England

Death of marquis of Halifax, politician and pamphleteer

Death of Henry Purcell, composer

Death of Henry Vaughan

Sir Richard Blackmore, Prince Arthur (poetry)

William Congreve, Love for Love (drama)

John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity

Henry Purcell, composer, adapts Dryden's The Indian Queen

John Woodward, Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth

1696

Jacobite assassination plot

The “Whig Junto” rule (till 1700)

Last Determinations Act

Recoinage, supervised by Isaac Newton, as the new Warden of the Mint (cf. 1773)

Board of Trade and Plantations established

Inspector General of Customs established

Register of Shipping established

Failed attempt to establish the Land bank

Whiggish Kit Kat club founded

Elizabeth Singer (later Rowe), Poems on Several Occasions (poetry)

John Toland, Christianity Not Mysterious:--
Although the imprecations in Toland's work are directed against Roman Catholicism, his anti-clericalism and the vehemence of his condemnation of the various "Absurdities . . . vented among Christians" made others anxious as well. The book "was condemned by the Irish House of Commons and burned by the common hangman in 1697" (Sambrook 1993: 40).

William Whiston, A New Theory of the Earth

1696-1704

James Tyrrell, The General History of England

1697

Recipients of poor relief forced to wear badges

Stockjobbers Act

Sept.: Treaty of Ryswick ends Nine Years War (opening up space for domestic disputes in England, especially the Standing Army Controversy, 1697-99):--
By the Treaty of Ryswick, Louis XIV recognized William III as king of England. Upon his return to England, William received a triumphant welcome, but he was no longer so popular as he had been when he first arrived and ousted James II. Resentment against his Dutch entourage and the patronage they received contributed to this diminished popularity. One of the issues around which opposition crystalized was his determination to maintain a large standing army. This debate--almost entirely an intramural debate among Whigs--pitted those who favored a domestic militia against a professional standing army (with, inevitably, a significant proportion of foreign mercenaries). Parliament passed a motion "requiring all land forces raised since September 1680 to be disbanded--leaving a force of something under 10,000 men"; in 1698, the Commons "resolved on an even more drastic reduction of the army, also insisting that it must be composed of English-born troops--which meant that William must dismiss his faithful Dutch guards. He was bitterly wounded and contemplated abdication. Even worse, from his point of view, was to follow. In the summer of 1699, a Parliamentary committee was set up to investigate the lavish grants he had made, to friends and supporters, of forfeited estates in Ireland, and on receiving its report, the House ruled that these grants must be rescinded. There followed a prolonged and bitter clash between the two Houses of Parliament and a further attack on William's personal entourage. An address was made to the King to appoint no foreinger to his Privy Council, and eventually he had to give way. He then prorogued Parliament, being too angry to make his usual speech from the throne, and set off once more for Holland" (Furbank & Owens, ed. 1997: xi-xii).

Death of John Aubrey

Francis Atterbury, Letter to a Convocation Man

John Castaign's Course of the Exchange begins

William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World

Daniel Defoe, An Essay upon Projects

Daniel Defoe, An Enquiry into the Occasional Conformity of Dissenters, in Cases of Preferment, with a Preface to the Lord Mayor (non-fiction)

John Dryden, Alexander's Feast (poetry)

John Dryden et al., trans., Works of Virgil (poetry)

John Trenchard and Walter Moyle, An Argument Shewing that a Standing Army is Inconsistent with a Free Government

John Vanbrugh, The Relapse (drama) and The Provok'd Wife (drama)

1698

General election

Blasphemy Act passed

Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) founded:--
The SPCK, like the SPG (founded in 1701), brought together both Anglicans and Dissenters in the common work of promoting Protestantism in the "dark regions" of the British Isles and the wider world. The group was a leading force in the charity school movement that changed the face of popular education in England and Wales in the early 18th century.

Civil List Act

Royal Africa Company monopoly ended

New East India Company chartered:-- This meant that there were two rival English East India companies for a time (until the two companies united in 1709): Sir Gilbert Heathcote and several other merchants had subscribed a loan of £2,000,000 to the government and had received this charter in return. Heathcote would later serve on the commission to unite the Old and New East India Companies.

Tsar Peter the Great visits England

Thomas Savery develops the first "fire" (steam) engine

William III secretly negotiates and signs the First Partition Treaty:--
This was an agreement with France and the Dutch about how the huge Spanish dominions would be carved up upon the death of the ailing Carlos II of Spain (d. 1700). The terms of the Treaty became public in England in Oct. 1698, and caused an outcry. In any case, the Treaty became moot when the electoral Prince of Bavaria, who was the main beneficiary of the scheme, died.

Aphra Behn (d. 1689), Histories and Novels

Jeremy Collier, Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage

Dec.: Daniel Defoe, An Argument, Shewing, that a Standing Army, with Consent of Parliament, is not Inconsistent with a Free Government

William Molyneux, Case of Ireland's being Bound by Acts of Parliament in England

Algernon Sidney (d. 1683), Discourses concerning Government

1698-1700

Edward Ward, The London Spy (repr. 1703)

1699

Parliament challenges William's grants of forfeited Irish estates

Shoplifting made a capital offence

Irish Woollen Act

Castle Howard, designed by John Vanbrugh, begun

Death of Sir William Temple

Sir Samuel Garth, The Dispensary (poetry)

1700

Duke of Gloucester dies (see Act of Settlement, 1701)

Collapse of the Scottish Darien scheme

Feb.: Second Partition Treaty, to divide the Spanish empire among claimants:--
By the terms of this new treaty, France was to receive all the Spanish possessions in the Mediterranean and Archduke Charles of Austria was to receive the rest of the Spanish Empire.

May: Death of John Dryden (1631-1700)

Oct.: Death of Carlos II of Spain:--
In his will, Carlos left all his dominions to Louis XIV's grandson, the young Duke of Anjou--with the proviso that the crowns of Spain and France must remain separate. But the prospect now arose that, if Louis XIV chose to recognize the will (against his prior commitments in the Second Partition Treaty), he would effectively take control of the Spanish dominions as well as the French. He did, in fact, decide to do so: he recognized his 16-year-old grandson as Philip V, king of the Spanish dominions, and then accepted an invitation from the Spanish Regency Council to govern the dominions during Philip's minority. The upshot of this situation--along with Louis XIV's recognition of James II's son as rightful king of England, upon the death of James II in 1701 (see below)--was the War of the Spanish Succession, in which England was involved from 1702-13.

Aphra Behn (d. 1689), The Dumb Virgin (fiction)

William Congreve, The Way of the World (drama)

John Dryden, Fables Ancient and Modern (poetry)

James Harrington (d. 1677), Works

John Pomfret, The Choice (poetry)

Matthew Prior, Carmen Seculare (poetry)

John Tutchin, The Foreigners (poetry)

1700-03

Pierre Motteux's trans. of Cervantes's Don Quixote

1701

Population estimates:--
England and Wales 5.8 million; Scotland 1.0 million; Ireland [n/a] (Gregory & Stevenson 2000: 289); other estimates put the population of England and Wales at around 5.1 million.

General election

Convocation meets

Portland, Somers, Orford, and Halifax unsuccessfully impeached

Kentish petition

Commons blocks Bill to reunite American colonies under the Crown

Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) founded

Act of Settlement:-- This act established the terms of the Hanoverian succession to the English throne. By the terms of the Revolutionary settlement of 1689 (see above), after the reign of William and Mary (who remained childless), the Protestant Succession was to continue through Anne of Denmark (the daughter of James II) and her heirs. The death of the duke of Gloucester, Anne's last surviving child, in 1700, created a crisis in this projected succession--especially since Louis XIV of France, upon the death of James II in Sept. 1701, proclaimed James's son, James Francis Edward Stuart (1688-1766), as "James III" of England and "James VIII" of Scotland. The existence of this Stuart claimant to the throne, referred to in England as "the Pretender" (or, later as "the Old Pretender"--in distinction from his son, Charles Edward Stuart [1720-1788], "Bonnie Prince Charlie," aka "the Young Pretender") made urgent a need to "settle" the question of the succession after the forthcoming reign of Anne, so as to diminish the likelihood of a Stuart return at the end of her reign. The new Act placed the succession after Anne in Electress Sophia of Hanover and her heirs (namely, George, who would become George I of England). In doing so, the Act had to bypass more than 50 other, more immediate, claimants in line for the throne because they were Catholics, and, as noted previously, it carried the succession out of the Stuart line and enthroned a "foreign" dynasty. This set the stage for tensions between Jacobites and supporters of the Hanoverians throughout the first half of the 18th century, a tension that is evident in the Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707 and the Jacobite revolts of 1715, 1718, and 1745.

Sept.: death of James II (see comment above on Act of Settlement)

French troops move into Spanish Netherlands (in the maneuvering after the death of Carlos II of Spain)

Marlborough restored to royal favor

Treaty of the "Grand Alliance" between England, Holland, and Austria

The pirate Captain Kidd executed

Yale College founded in Connecticut

Lady Mary Chudleigh, The Ladies' Defence (poetry):--
Written in response to John Sprint's sermon, The Bride-Woman's Counsellor (1699), which emphasized the supposed moral weakness of women

Jan.: Daniel Defoe, The True-Born Englishman (poetry)

John Dennis, Advancement and Reformation of Poetry

Charles Gildon, ed. A New Collection of Poems on Several Occasions (anthology, incl. Anne Finch's "The Spleen")

Norwich Post, the first provincial newspaper, established

John Philips, The Splendid Shilling (poetry)

Richard Steele, The Christian Hero and The Funeral (drama)

Jonathan Swift, Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions in Athens and Rome

1702-13: English involvement in War of the Spanish Succession

Hostilities actually began in 1701, but England joined the War in 1702. The long series of English/British campaigns in the Iberian peninsula and elsewhere on the Continent continued till Britain exited the war and signed the Peace of Utrecht in 1713--though other parties continued to wage war till the Peace of Rastadt in 1714. The war--which involved such famous battles as those of Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), Oudenarde (1708), and Malplaquet (1709)--made a hero out of Marlborough, though latterly he came under increasing attack from Tories who believed that he and the Whigs were interested in extending the war for personal advantage.

1702

Abjuration Act passed

Sidney, Lord Godolphin (Treasurer) emerges as first minister (till 1710, sharing power with the second Whig Junto 1708-10)

Marlborough made Captain General

Spanish treasure fleet destroyed at Vigo Bay

March: death of William III; accession of Anne

1702-1714: Reign of Anne

1702

Godolphin made Lord Treasurer

General election

Nov.: Occasional Conformity bill introduced

Nicholas Rowe, Tamerlane (drama; acted 1701)

Daniel Defoe, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (Dec. 1702)

Henry Sacheverell, The Political Union: A Discourse Showing the Dependence of Government on Religion in General, and of the English Monarchy on the Church of England in Particular

Tom Brown, The Letters from the Dead to the Living

Edmund Halley, Chart of the Whole World Shewing Variations of the Compass

William Dampier, Voyage to New Holland

Anon., The Adventures of Lindamira

1702-04

Earl of Clarendon (d. 1674), History of the Great Rebellion

1702-35

The Daily Courant (first daily newspaper)

1703

First Occasional Conformity Bill fails:--
This measure was intended to enforce the system of Anglican monopoly of public offices (initiated by the Municipal Corporations Act of 1661 and strengthened by the Test Act of 1673) by restricting the ability of Nonconformists to own property, attend university, hold public office. Initially put forward on 1 November 1702, the measure was reintroduced several times, in this and the following year, but failed each time. Eventually such an Act was passed in 1711.

English and Scottish Union Commissioners fail

Anne vetoes Scottish Act of Security

Second Occasional Conformity Bill fails

Anglo-Portuguese "Methuen" Treaty

Nov.: the Great Storm:--
Causing much death and the destruction of thousands of houses, churches, and public buildings.

Death of Robert Hooke, scientist

Death of Samuel Pepys, diarist and naval administrator (1633-1703)

Joseph Addison, Letter from Italy (poetry)

Lady Mary Chudleigh, Poems on Several Occasions (poetry)

Daniel Defoe, Hymn to the Pillory

Sarah Fyge Egerton, Poems on Several Occasions (poetry)

Nicholas Rowe, The Fair Penitent (drama)

Russen, Iter-lunare: or a Voyage to the Moon

1704

Queen Anne's Bounty established

Third Occasional Conformity Bill fails

Scottish Act of Security passed

Marlborough's victory at the battle of Blenheim

Anglo-Dutch forces capture Gibraltar

Death of John Locke, political theorist and philosopher

Colley Cibber, The Careless Husband (drama)

John Dennis, The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry

Ladies' Diary established (to 1840) (periodical)

Isaac Newton, Opticks (trans. into Latin by Clarke, 1706) (rev. ed. with expanded queries, 1718)

Jonathan Swift, The Battle of the Books (pub.; orig. written ca. 1697) and Tale of a Tub

1704-13

Daniel Defoe, Review (periodical)

1704-17

Antoine Galland, trans., Les Milles et une nuits; English trans. as The Arabian Nights Entertainment (from 1706)

1704-35

Thomas Rymer et al., Foedera (historical documents collection)

1705

Climax of "Aylesbury men" case

General election

House of Lords declare Church not in danger

Alien Act

Barcelona taken by allied forces

Blenheim Palace, designed by John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor, begun

Haymarket opera house opened by John Vanbrugh

Isaac Newton knighted by Queen Anne, "the first Englishman to be so honoured for scientific achievement" (Sambrook 1993: 12)

Death of John Ray, naturalist

Joseph Addison, The Campaign (poetry)

Edmund Halley, Astronomiae Cometicae Synopsis

Bernard Mandeville, The Grumbling Hive (poetry)

Delarivier Manley, The Secret History of Queen Zarah

Richard Steele, The Tender Husband (drama)

1706

Regency Act

Treaty of Union between England and Scotland

Bankruptcy Act

Marlborough's victory at battle of Ramillies

Antwerp, Dunkirk, Dendermonde, and Ath fall to allies

Allied victory at battle of Turin

Death of John Evelyn, ploymath and diarist (1620-1706)

Daniel Defoe, Jure Divino (poetry)

John Dennis, Operas after the Italian Manner

George Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer (drama)

White Kennett et al., Complete History of England

London Gazette under Richard Steele's editorship (to 1709)

Isaac Watts, Horae Lyricae (poetry)

1706-07

Daniel Defoe, An Essay at Removing National Prejudices Against a Union with England (first part, 1706, followed by several sequels and responses to criticisms)

1707

Union of England and Scotland to form Great Britain:--
A union of the crowns had existed since 1603, when James IV of Scotland became James I of England and there had even been a period of a unified "Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland" under Cromwell, but the standard rubric in the early modern period was that of the "three kingdoms" of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The Union of 1707 provided a parliamentary union to supplement (and to secure) the union of the crowns. It was prompted by Scottish hints that they might not choose to follow the English in designating the Elector of Hanover (the future George I of England) as successor to Queen Anne. To avoid any such separation of the crowns of England and Scotland (esp. the possibility of a Stuart restoration in Scotland), the English parliament pushed through the parliamentary union, bribing the Scottish parliamentarians to ensure its approval. The Union of 1707 created a single "national" parliament for "Great Britain" at Westminster, but it allowed Scotland to retain its own legal system and religious establishment.

Allied defeat at battle of Almanza

Failure of Touloun expedition

Somers' "No peace without Spain" motion adopted

Society of Antiquaries founded (re-founded in 1718)

Irish Parliament passes an act, directed against dispossessed Catholic gentry, branding as "vagrants" those who claim to be "Irish gentlemen" based on the loyalty of "fosterers, followers, and others" rather than on the possession of an estate or profession (Harris 2004: 1267)

Death of George Farquhar

Patrick Abercromby, Advantage of the Act of Security compared with those of the intended Union

Anthony Collins, Essay concerning the Use of Reason

George Farquhar, The Beaux Stratagem (drama)

Johannes Kip and Leonard Knyff, Britannia Illustrata

Alain René Le Sage (1668-1747), Le Diable Boiteux (rev. ed. 1726):--
Several translations of this work into English were published in the 18th century: an anonymous translation appeared in 1708 and reached at least four editions by 1718; in 1729, this translation was revised in accordance with Le Sage's 1726 edition; a new translation of Le Sage's revised version as The Devil upon Crutches appeared in 1750 (revised in 1759)--this was probably by Tobias Smollett; a third anonymous translation appeared in 1770 and was re-issued several times (Brack & Chilton, ed. 2005: xix). There were also several English adaptations of Le Sage's satiric work: e.g., The Devil upon Two Sticks: or the Town until'd (1708), The Devil upon Crutches in England, or Night Scenes in London (1755), and William Combe's The Devil upon Two Sticks in England: being a continuation of Le Diable Boiteux of Lesage (1790) (Brack & Chilton, ed. 2005: xxvi, note 20).

Edward Lhwyd, Archaeologia Britannica

Delarivier Manley, The Lady's Paquet of Letters

Francisco Gomez de Quevedo y Villegas, The Comical Works of Quevedo, trans. Capt. John Stevens

Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Songs (poetry)

1707-18

Laurence Echard, History of England

1707-25

Hans Sloane, Natural History of Jamaica

1708

Last royal veto of legislation passed by Parliament

Harley and followers resign from ministry, leaving Whig Junto in power (to 1710)

General election

Failed Franco-Jacobite landing in Scotland

Scottish Privy Council abolished

Anne's husband, Prince George, dies

Allied victory at battle of Oudenarde

British forces seize Minorca

Lille falls to allied forces

Death of John Blow, composer

Pierre Motteux et al, trans., Rabelais Works

John Philips, Cyder (poetry)

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3d earl of Shaftesbury, Letter concerning Enthusiasm

Jonathan Swift, Argument against abolishing Christianity

William Whiston, The Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies

1708-41

John Oldmixon, British Empire in America

1709

Naturalization Act

Rev. Henry Sacheverell preaches against "false brethren" in St Paul's Cathedral

Failure of peace negotiations in War of the Spanish Succession

Allied victory at battle of Malplaquet, achieved at great cost

Act establishing diplomatic immunity

Anglo-Dutch Barrier Treaty

Old and New East India Companies unite

Abraham Darby smelts iron with coke

"Poor Palatines" arrive

Copyright Act of 1709 passed:--
Previous to the passage of this, the first copyright act, literary (or intellectual) property was treated like other species of property under common law, which meant that once an author sold the "copy" of a work to a bookseller, the work became the absolute property of the said bookseller in perpetuity. Under the older system, "property" was determined not by authorship but by "possession" [of a manuscript] (much like property in other material objects). This new Act created a kind of limited property for publications and a new notion of "public property": new works published after the Act was passed would be protected (under copyright) for 14 years; this could be renewed for a further 14 years if the author were still alive at the end of the first term. (Older works, which had been published previously to the passage of the Act, would be protected for a further 21 years.) After the expiration of copyright, a work became "public property." Under the Act, actions for copyright infringement could be undertaken only if the book had been entered in the Stationers' Register: that is, only published works were thus protected.

Anon., The Life and Adventures of Captain Avery

George Berkeley, New Theory of Vision

Daniel Defoe, History of the Union of Great Britain

Delarivier Manley, The New Atalantis (full title: Secret Memoirs and Manners of Several Persons of Quality of Both Sexes. From the New Atalantis, an Island in the Mediterranean)

Poetical Miscellanies, including Pastorals by Alexander Pope and by Ambrose Philips (poetry)

Nicholas Rowe's edition of Shakespeare

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3d earl of Shaftesbury, Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour

1709-11

Richard Steele (and Joseph Addison), The Tatler (periodical)

1710

Marlborough threatens resignation over influence of Abigail Masham

Split between Queen Anne and the duchess of Marlborough

Impeachment of Dr Henry Sacheverell stirs up High Church sentiment

Godolphin dismissed (Whig ministry falls); Tory ministry formed under Robert Harley (later, earl of Oxford) (Lord Chancellor, then Lord Treasurer) (till 1714)

General election

Allied defeat at battle of Brihuega, Spain

Nova Scotia captured by the British

Sun Fire Office established

Spalding Gentleman's Society established

Academy of Ancient Music established

First complete performance of Italian opera in England (Almahide)

George Frederick Handel comes to England:--
Handel, who was Kapellmeister to the Elector of Hanover (the future George I of England), came to England in 1710 and decided to settle there permanently in 1712. He composed the Te Deum and the Jubilate to celebrate the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 and was granted a £200 pension by Queen Anne. After George I came to the throne, he increased this pension and Handel wrote the Water Music for him in 1717. "He composed 'Zadok the Priest' for the coronation of George II in 1727, which has been sung at every coronation since"; this same year, Handel became a naturalized English citizen. He was appointed music director of the Royal Academy of Music (Gregory & Stevenson 2000: 403). Handel's career probably represents the greatest artistic fruit of the association of Britain and Hanover fostered by the Hanoverian succession.

Death of John Holt, Lord Chief Justice

Pierre Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary (first English edn.)

George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge

Leibnitz, Théodicée

Delarivier Manley, Memoirs of Europe

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3d earl of Shaftesbury, Advice to an Author

Jonathan Swift, Description of a City Shower (poetry) [text]

1710-11

Jonathan Swift et al., The Examiner (periodical)

1710-13

Jonathan Swift, Journal to Stella (written)

1711

Population estimates:--
England and Wales 6.0 million; Scotland [n/a]; Ireland 2.8 million (Gregory & Stevenson 2000: 289); other estimates put the population of England and Wales at 5.2 million.

Duchess of Marlborough dismissed from offices by Queen Anne

Act for Fifty New Churches in London

Property Qualification Act

Attempt to assassinate Harley

Act against Occasional Conformity

Harley made Earl of Oxford and Lord Treasurer

Allies take the "Ne Plus Ultra" lines

France and Britain sign peace preliminaries

Marlborough dismissed

South Sea Company formed:--
As with the establishment of the Bank of England (1694) and the New East India Company (1698), this Company was chartered in return for a large loan to the government (in this case, £9,000,000) subscribed by a group of merchant-financiers (including Sir Matthew Decker, who served as director of the Company till 1720).

Great Queen Street Academy for artists founded

John Dennis, Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakespeare

Georg Handel, Rinaldo (opera)

Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism (poetry)

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3d earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times

Jonathan Swift, Conduct of the Allies

Jonathan Swift, Argument against the Abolishing of Christianity

1711-12

Twelve new peers created to secure government majority in House of Lords (Dec. 1711-Jan. 1712)

Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, The Spectator (revived in 1714) (periodical)

William Whiston, Primitive Christianity Revived

1712

Walpole sent to the Tower of London

Repeal of Naturalization Act

Last assize trial and conviction for witchcraft in England

Ormonde now Commander-in-Chief (replacing Marlborough)

Peace negotiations at Utrecht

Death of two main heirs to French throne

Ormonde receives "restraining orders"

"Mohock" scare in London

Thomas Newcomen improves steam engine

Stamp Act taxes print

Death of Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwell

Death of Sidney, earl of Godolphin, politician

Death of Gregory King, political arithmetician

Death of Thomas Danby, duke of Leeds, politician

John Arbuthnot, The History of John Bull

Sir Richard Blackmore, Creation (poetry)

Anthony Collins (1676-1729), A Discourse of Free-Thinking

Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (2 canto version; 5 canto version, 1714) (poetry)

Alexander Pope, The Messiah (poetry)

Woodes Rogers, A Cruising Voyage Round the World

Jonathan Swift, Proposal for correcting the English Tongue

1713

Theft by servants made capital offence

Anglo-Dutch Barrier Treaty

Treaty of Utrecht ends British involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession:--
Engineered by the Tory ministry after a dozen years of war, the peace was nonetheless resented by many Whig supporters of the "permanent war" ethos and its terms were criticized as not achieving enough for Britain, despite the gain of Gibraltar, Minorca, and, for the next thirty years, the Asiento (the contract to supply slaves to the Spanish colonies in America). After the accession of George I and a change in ministries, leading members of the current Tory ministry would be impeached (in 1715).

With the Asiento, Britain became the major agent of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, in which, on average, 50,000 African slaves were shipped each year to the Americas in the first half of the 18th century (Hay & Rogers 1997: 14). Queen Anne singled out this provision in her speech to Parliament on 6 June 1712: "the Part which We have born in the Prosecution of this War, entitling Us to have some Distinction in the Terms of Peace, I have insisted and obtained, That the Asiento or Contract for furnishing the Spanish West-Indies with Negroes, shall be made with Us for the Term of Thirty Years, in the same manner as it hath been enjoyed by the French for Ten Years past" (quoted in Erskine-Hill 1998: 34).

Parliament offers a cash prize "for a method of accurately determining longitude":--
This was a quest that lay behind the earlier founding of the post of Astronomer-Royal. The cash prize was not won till 1764 when John Harrison (a maker of scientific instrument) developed a chronometer that allowed one to calculate distances and from that longitude (Sambrook 1993: 14-15).

Crisis over the Union

Anglo-French commerce bill fails

General election

Queen Anne seriously ill

Scriblerus club formed by Pope, Swift, Gay, Arbuthnot, and others

Three Choirs Festival established

Jonathan Swift appointed Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin

Death of Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, philosopher

Death of Henry Compton, bishop of London

Death of Thomas Sprat (1635-1713)

Joseph Addison, Cato (drama)

Jane Barker, Love Intrigues (2d rev. edn. as The Amours of Bosvil and Galesia, 1719 [text])

Richard Bentley, Remarks upon a Discourse of Freethinking

George Berkeley, Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous

Anthony Collins, A Discourse of Free-Thinking, occasion'd by the Rise and Growth of a Sect call'd Free-Thinkers

William Derham, Physico-Theology, or a Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God from his Works of Creation (12 editions by 1760)

Anne Finch, countess of Winchilsea, Miscellany Poems (poetry)

John Gay, Rural Sports (poetry)

Sir Matthew Hale (d. 1676), History of the Common Law

Alexander Pope, Windsor-Forest (poetry) [text]

Alexander Smith, History of the Lives of the most noted Highwaymen

Richard Steele, The Guardian (12 March-1 October) (periodical)

1713-14

Richard Steele, The Englishman (6 Oct. 1713-11 Feb. 1714) (periodical)

Rule of Hanoverian Dynasty (1714-1901)

1714-1727: Reign of George I

1714

Schism Act

Tories split between Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, and Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke

Richard Steele's The Crisis leads to his expulsion from the House of Commons

1 Aug.: death of Queen Anne; accession of George, Elector of Hanover as George I:--
Leads to a turning out of the previous Tory ministry, led by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, and the inauguration of a long period of rule by Whig oligarchs. The end of the Stuart dynasty's rule in England and Scotland upon Anne's death reignites Jacobite sentiments among loyalists to the displaced dynasty and foments opposition to the Hanoverians as "foreign" kings (much like the earlier opposition to William of Orange when he became William III of England). George I, notoriously, did not speak any English and remained more attached to his homeland of Hanover than to his new kingdom of Great Britain.

Riots accompany and follow coronation

First Indemnity Act

Death of Sophia, Electress of Hanover

Usury law reduces legal interest to 5 per cent

Parliament establishes £20,000 reward for measuring longitude accurately to within half-a-degree by a method practicable for use at sea (unclaimed for 50 years, until 1764 when John Harrison won the prize)

St Mary-le-Strand begun, James Gibbs architect

Thomas Maddox appointed Historiographer Royal

Death of John Radcliffe, physician and benefactor

Death of George London formal gardener

Death of Charles Davenant, economist and public servant

John Gay, The Shepherd's Week (poetry)

John Locke (d. 1704), Collected Works

Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees (revised edns. to 1729)

Bernard Mandeville, Inquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue

Delarivier Manley, The Adventures of Rivella

Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (revised 5 canto version; orig. version pub. 1712) (poetry)

Nicholas Rowe, Jane Shore (drama)

1714-21

Stanhope ministry:--
Featuring Halifax, Townsend, Carlisle, Methuen, Walpole, Sunderland [Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland], Addison, Craggs, and Carteret, in addition to Stanhope [James, 1st earl of Stanhope] in the crucial offices of First Lord of the Treasury and the two Secretaries of State. Members of the ousted Tory ministry--Bolingbroke, Oxford, and Ormonde--were subsequently impeached in 1715 as part of the partisan strife of the age.

1715

General election

Impeachment of former ministers: Bolingbroke and Ormonde flee to France, Oxford in Tower of London

Riot Act

Jacobite rising ("The Fifteen"):--
Old Pretender briefly in Scotland, after the Earl of Mar declared his support for the Jacobite claimant to the throne. This rebellion "had been preceded by widespread riots with a Jacobite flavour, prompting the new Whig and Hanoverian government to make riot, hitherto a common-law misdemeanour, into a capital offence by statute" (Hay & Rogers 1997: 33).

Suspension of Habeas Corpus

William Wake appointed Archbishop of Canterbury

Death of Louis XIV (1638-1715); succeeded by Louis XV (reigned 1715-74)

Barrier Treaty

Cattle disease rife in southern England

Solar eclipse accurately predicted by Edmund Halley

Nicholas Rowe (d. 1718) appointed Poet Laureate

Death of Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Salisbury

Death of marquis of Wharton, politician

Joseph Addison, The Freeholder (periodical)

Jane Barker, Exilius, or the banish'd Roman

John Hughes's edition of Shakespeare

Alexander Pope, trans., Iliad, books 1-4 (rest completed by 1720) (poetry)

Jonathan Richardson, An Essay on the Theory of Painting

Isaac Watts, Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children (poetry)

1715-18

Abbé Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Méthode pour étudier la géographie, 4 vols.

1715-19

Andrea Palladio (d. 1580), Four Books of Architecture, ed. Leoni

1715-25

Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus

1715-35

Alain René Le Sage (1668-1747), L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane, 4 vols. (first two vols., 1715; vol. 3, 1724; vol. 4, 1735) (English translations by Tobias Smollett in 1748 and by Henry Malkin in 1809)

1716

Execution of two Jacobite lords

Failure of Select Vestries Bill

Septennial Act passed:--
This act required elections only every 7 years (rather than every 3 years as required since the passage of the Triennial Act in 1694), thus attempting to increase the insulation of the political class from the populace at large or, even, from the narrower group that constitutes the electorate. It underlined and reinforced the oligarchic structure of the traditional political order.

Whig schism follows Townshend's dismissal as Secretary of State

Anglo-French alliance

Treaty of Westminster with the Holy Roman Emperor

Nicholas Hawksmoor's designs for All Souls College, Oxford begun

Death of John, Lord Somers, lawyer and politician

Death of William Wycherley (1641-1716)

Death of Leibnitz

John Gay, Trivia (poetry)

Mary Molesworth Monck, Marinda, Poems and Translations upon Several Occasions (poetry)

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Town Eclogues:--
These poems were written 1714-16, but not published till 1747, except for a pirated edition of the first three eclogues, published by Edmund Curll as Court Poems (1716)

1716-20

Daniel Defoe, Mercurius Politicus (periodical)

1717

Convocation suspended: last significant meeting of Convocation in the century

Walpole and his followers resign office (see 1720)

Rift between King George I and the Prince of Wales (see 1720)

Collapse of impeachment of Robert Harley, earl of Oxford

Triple Alliance of Britain, France, and the Dutch Republic

Swedish Jacobite plot uncovered

James Francis Edward Stuart, known to Jacobite adherents as "James III" and to Hanoverian loyalists as "the Pretender" (or later the "Old Pretender"), moves to Rome

"Sinking Fund" established

Inauguration of the Union of the English Freemasons Grand Lodge

Georg Handel's first Chandos anthem

Georg Handel, Water Music

William Penn, The Religion Professed by Quakers

Alexander Pope, Collected Works (poetry)

Lewis Theobald, History of the Loves of Antiochus and Stratonice

1717-20

Bangorian Controversy:--
Benjamin Hoadly, bishop of Bangor, preaches sermon on the text "[Christ's] kingdom is not of this world" before George I and the sermon is published by royal command:--
Hoadly was "an Erastian, who believed that the Church should be subordinate to the state in ecclesiastical affairs. . . . In his view Christianity subsisted not in the visible church but in the commitment of each sincere individual believer to the teachings of Jesus"; his sermon of 1717 "prompted over two hundred replies in the space of two or three years: testimony both to the firepower of orthodox Anglicans and the importance attached to questions of church doctrine and government by a quite large educated reading public" (Sambrook 1993: 45)

1718

Abortive Jacobite invasion plan

Transportation Act

Introduction of innoculation for smallpox by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, based on her observations of Turkish practices

Thomas Lombe builds silk-throwing mill at Derby

Refoundation of the Society of Antiquaries (originally established in 1707)

Laurence Eusden (d. 1730) named Poet Laureate

Death of Nicholas Rowe

Death of William Penn

Anon., The Double Captive: or chain upon chains

Abraham de Moivre, Doctrine of Chances

Charles Gildon, The Complete Art of Poetry

Matthew Prior, Poems on Several Occasions (poetry)

Nicholas Rowe, translation of Lucan's Pharsalia

1718-20: War of the Quadruple Alliance

Pitting Britain, France, Dutch Republic, and the Holy Roman Empire against Spain

1719

Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts repealed

Peerage Bill defeated:--
Walpole, himself lacking in aristocratic parentage, led the opposition to this "blatant attempt to establish the British aristocracy as an inaccessible caste" (Langford 1989: 34).

University Bill defeated

Dissenters split over Trinity

Attempted Spanish-Jacobite landing in Scotland

Royal Academy of Music founded

Norwich, Colchester calico riots; Lombe's silk-mill riot in Derbyshire

Death of Joseph Addison

Death of Sir Samuel Garth

Death of John Flamsteed, Astronomer Royal

Patrick Abernethy, Religious Obedience Founded on Personal Persuasion

Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe and Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

Isaac Watts, Psalms and Hymns (poetry)

1719-20

Eliza Haywood, Love in Excess

1719-24

Bernard de Montfaucon, L'Antiquité expliqué et représentée en figures

1719-27

Jonathan Swift, "Stella's Birthday" poems

1720

Walpole and Townshend return to office, ending Whig schism (see 1717)

King and Prince of Wales reconciled (see 1717)

Declaratory Act, reaffirms Irish legislative and judicial subordination to English Parliament (repealed in 1782)

End of war with Spain

Anglo-Swedish alliance

Birth of Charles Edward Stuart, the "Young Pretender"

Collapse of "South Sea Bubble" in Britain and of John Law's financial schemes in France

Bubble Act passed

London calico riots

Quarantine to stop spread of plague from Marseilles, where 40,000-60,000 people died during this year

Royal Exchange Assurance established

Hell Fire clubs reported

Mereworth Castle, Kent, designed by Colen Campbell

James Thornhill appointed Sergeant Painter to King

Death of Anne Finch, countess of Winchelsea

Daniel Defoe, Memoirs of a Cavalier

Daniel Defoe, Captain Singleton

Daniel Defoe, Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe

Martha Fowke and William Bond, Epistles of Clio and Strephon (poetry)

John Gay, Poems on Several Occasions (poetry)

Anthony Hammond, ed. A New Miscellany of Original Poems, Translations and Imitations. By the most Eminent Hands (anthology)

Delarivier Manley, The Power of Love, in Seven Novels

Jonathan Swift, A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture

1720-23

John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, Cato's Letters (periodical)

1721

Population estimates:--
England and Wales 6.0 million; Scotland 1.1 million; Ireland 2.9 million (Gregory & Stevenson 2000: 289); other estimates put the population of England and Wales at 5.5 million (in 1726).

House of Commons investigates South Sea affair

Statutory ban on importation of Indian calicoes (see riots in 1719 and 1720)

West Country weavers riot

Quarantine Act passed to address plague threat (but repealed and replaced by a modified Act in 1722)

First use of smallpox inoculation in England

Edmund Halley (1656-1742) appointed Astronomer-Royal

Death of Stanhope

Death of Grinling Gibbons, wood carver

Death of Matthew Prior