1650 in England

Events from the year 1650 in England, second year of the Third English Civil War.

Incumbents[]

• Parliament – First Commonwealth Rump

Events[]

• 1 May – claimant King Charles II of England signs the Treaty of Breda with the Scottish Covenanters.
• 17 May – a quarter of the New Model Army at the Siege of Clonmel in Ireland is trapped and killed.
• 26 May – Oliver Cromwell leaves Ireland (following the Siege of Clonmel), occasioning Andrew Marvell's An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland.
• May – Commonwealth (Adultery) Act (1650) imposes the death penalty on men and women for adultery and incest, and three months' imprisonment for fornication,^[1] the only time since the twelfth century when adultery has been outlawed in secular statute law.^[2]
• 23 June – Charles arrives in Scotland (at Garmouth) where he signs the Covenant.^[3]
• 13 August – Colonel George Monck forms Monck's Regiment of Foot, forerunner of the Coldstream Guards.
• 3 September – Oliver Cromwell is victorious over the Scottish Covenanters at the Battle of Dunbar.^[3]
• 29 September – Henry Robinson opens his Office of Addresses and Encounters, a form of employment exchange, in Threadneedle Street, London.
• 30 October – the Religious Society of Friends acquires the nickname "Quakers" when the judge at George Fox's blasphemy trial says that they "tremble at the word of the Lord".^[4]
• 14 December – Anne Greene is hanged at Oxford Castle for infanticide, having concealed an illegitimate stillbirth. The following day she revives in the dissection room and, being pardoned, lives until 1665.^[5][6]

Undated[]

• With the Treaty of Hartford, the Dutch and English establish the frontiers between their colonies in North America.^[7]
• Cornelius Vermuyden completes excavation of the New Bedford River as part of the drainage of The Fens.
• William How publishes his flora Phytologia Britannica.
• Puritans chop down the original Glastonbury Thorn.

Births[]

• 2 February – Nell Gwynne, actress and royal mistress (died 1687)
• 24 March – Sir Jonathan Trelawny, 3rd Baronet, bishop (died 1721)
• 18 April – Sir Edward Dering, 3rd Baronet, Member of Parliament (died 1689)
• 20 April – William Bedloe, informer (died 1680)
• 26 May – John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, general (died 1722)
• 14 September – , soldier and Member of Parliament (died 1702)
• 23 September – Jeremy Collier, theatre critic, non-juror bishop and theologian (died 1726)
• 20 October – Robert Shirley, 1st Earl Ferrers, courtier (died 1717)
• 7 November – John Robinson, diplomat (died 1723)
• November – Cloudesley Shovell, admiral (died 1707)
• 14 November – King William III of England, Scotland, and Ireland (died 1702)
• 1 December (bapt.) – William Talman, architect (died 1719)
• Solomon de Medina, French-born army contractor (died 1720)
• George Rooke, admiral (died 1709)
• Richard Lumley, 1st Earl of Scarbrough, statesman (died 1721)

Deaths[]

• February – Sir Thomas Bowyer, 1st Baronet, politician (born 1586)
• 9 March – Elizabeth Savage, Countess Rivers, courtier (born 1581)
• 18 April – Simonds d'Ewes, antiquarian and politician (born 1602)
• 9 July (burial) – Alice Barnham, wife of Francis Bacon (born 1592)
• 25 August – Richard Crashaw, poet (born c. 1613)
• 8 September – Princess Elizabeth of England, daughter of Charles I (born 1635)
• 13 November – Thomas May, poet and historian (born 1595)
• 13 December – Phineas Fletcher, poet (born 1582)
• 25 December – Thomas Cooper, former Usher of Gresham's School and Royalist, hanged
• Probable date – Isaac Ewer, soldier and regicide (year of birth unknown)

References[]