1660 in England

Events from the year 1660 in England. This is the year of Restoration.

← 1659 1658 1657 1660 in England → 1661 1662 1663
Centuries:	15th 16th 17th 18th 19th
Decades:	1640s 1650s 1660s 1670s 1680s
See also:	Other events of 1660

Incumbents

• Monarch – Charles II (starting 29 May)
• Parliament – Second Commonwealth Rump (until 20 February), Commonwealth Long (starting 21 February, until 16 March), Convention of 1660 (starting 25 April, until 29 December)

Events

• 1 January
  • Colonel George Monck with his regiment crosses from Scotland to England at the village of Coldstream and advances towards London in support of English Restoration.[1]
  • Samuel Pepys begins his diary.[2]
• 3 February – George Monck and his regiment arrive in London.[3]
• February – John Rhodes reopens the old Cockpit Theatre in London, forms a company of young actors and begins to stage plays. His production of Pericles will be the first Shakespearean performance of the Restoration era; Thomas Betterton makes his stage debut in the title role.
• 21 February – Presbyterian Members of Parliament expelled in 1648 are readmitted.[4]
• 27 February – John Thurloe is reinstated as England's Secretary of State for a short time.
• 16 March – the Long Parliament disbands.[4]
• 4 April – Declaration of Breda promises amnesty, freedom of conscience, and army back pay, in return for the Restoration of the Crown.[3]
• 22 April – General John Lambert, having escaped from imprisonment in the Tower of London and attempted to rekindle the Civil War in favour of the Commonwealth by issuing a proclamation calling on all supporters of the "Good Old Cause" to rally on the battlefield of Edgehill, is recaptured at Daventry by Colonel Richard Ingoldsby.[5]
• 25 April – the Convention Parliament meets to discuss the Restoration.[3] The House of Lords reconvenes for the first time since its abolition in 1649.[4]
• 1 May – the Declaration of Breda is presented to the Parliament of England which acknowledges that the lawful government of the nation is by King, Lords and Commons.[4]
• 8 May – Parliament declares that Charles has been lawful King of England since 1649 and invites him to return.[4]
• 15 May – John Thurloe is arrested for high treason.
• 19 May – the newly restored Church of England Convocation of the English Clergy canonises King Charles I as King Charles the Martyr and Saint Charles Stuart, the only saint formally canonised within the Anglican Communion.
• 23 May (2 June N.S.) – Charles II embarks from Scheveningen on HMS Royal Charles (1655), captained by Edward Montagu (created Earl of Sandwich two months later).
• 25 May – Charles II lands at Dover.[6]
• 29 May – Charles II arrives in London and assumes the throne, marking the beginning of the English Restoration,[3] commemorated as Oak Apple Day.
• 25 June – General Post Office established by Charles II.[7]
• 29 June – John Thurloe is released.
• 2 August – Charles II issues a grant for two theatre companies: a King's Company under his own patronage, led by Thomas Killigrew, and a Duke's Company under the patronage of his brother, the Duke of York, led by Sir William Davenant.
• 27 August – the books of John Milton are burnt because of his attacks on King Charles II.[2]
• 29 August – Indemnity and Oblivion Act passes into law, granting indemnities to those who had been active in the Interregnum (other than regicides).
• September – William Juxon appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury.[8]
• 3 September – James, Duke of York, the King's brother, and Anne Hyde are privately married in London.
• 25 September – one of the earliest references to tea in England appears in Samuel Pepys's diary.[2]
• 13 October – ten regicides who signed the death warrant of Charles I are hanged, drawn and quartered.[3]
• 25 October – King Charles proposes that some Presbyterian ministers become bishops to heal rifts in the Church; the plan is later abandoned.[3]
• 11 November – imprisonment of John Bunyan in Bedford Gaol for preaching without a licence.[2]
• 19 November – James, Duke of York, as Lord High Admiral of England, proclaims that use of the newly restored Union Jack is reserved to ships of the Royal Navy and merchant ships should fly the Red Ensign.[9]
• 28 November – at Gresham College, twelve men, including Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, and Robert Moray, meet after a lecture by Wren and decide to found "a College for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning" (later known as the Royal Society).[2]
• 8 December – first English actress to appear on the professional stage in a non-singing role, as Desdemona in Othello; variously considered to be Margaret Hughes, Anne Marshall or Katherine Corey.[10][11][12]
• 18 December – the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa is chartered; it will come to have a monopoly over the English slave trade. It is led by Duke of York.

Publications

• Robert Boyle's landmark book New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects. The second edition in 1662 will contain Boyle's Law.
• John Milton's anti-monarchic tract The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (editions in February and March).

Births

• 16 April – Hans Sloane, physician (died 1753)
• By May – Anne Killigrew, poet and painter (died 1685)
• 28 May – King George I of Great Britain (died 1727)
• 29 May – Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, friend of Queen Anne (died 1744)
• 24 July – Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury, politician (died 1718)
• September – Daniel Defoe, writer (died 1731)
• 20 October – Robert Bertie, 1st Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, statesman (died 1723)

Deaths

• c. 20 February – Philip Skippon, soldier (born c. 1600)
• 25 April – Henry Hammond, churchman (born 1605)
• 1 June – Mary Dyer, Quaker (hanged) (born c. 1611)
• 30 June – William Oughtred, mathematician (born 1574)
• 18 September – Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester (born 1639)
• 14 October – Thomas Harrison, soldier (born 1616)
• 17 October – Adrian Scrope, regicide (born 1601)
• 5 November – Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle, socialite (born 1599)
• 24 December – Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange (born 1631)

References

1. "January 1". Chambers' Book of Days. Archived from the original on 17 December 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-09.
2. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
3. Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 187–188. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
4. "The Convention Parliament". British Civil Wars, Commonwealth and Protectorate. 2007-06-16. Retrieved 2012-10-24.
5. Greaves, Richard L. (1986). Deliver Us From Evil: the radical underground in Britain, 1660-1663. Oxford University Press. pp. 27–29. ISBN 0-19-503985-8.
6. "Friday 25 May 1660". The Diary of Samuel Pepys. Retrieved 2011-08-24.
7. Allan, Marshall (2003). Intelligence and Espionage in the Reign of Charles II, 1660–1685. Cambridge University Press. p. 79. ISBN 0-521-43180-8. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
8. Quintrell, Brian (2004). "Juxon, William (bap. 1582, d. 1663)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/15179. Retrieved 2011-08-24. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
9. Groom, Nick (2007). The Union Jack: the story of the British Flag (Paperback ed.). London: Atlantic Books. pp. 150–1. ISBN 978-1-84354-337-4.
10. The Hutchinson Factfinder. Helicon. 1999. ISBN 1-85986-000-1.
11. Howe, Elizabeth (1992). The First English Actresses: Women and Drama, 1660–1700. Cambridge University Press. p. 24.
12. Gilder, Rosamond (1931). Enter the Actress: The First Women in the Theatre. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 166.