January–March •
January 1 • At daybreak, English Army Colonel
George Monck, with two brigades of troops from his Scottish occupational force, fords the
River Tweed at
Coldstream in
Scotland to cross the
Anglo-Scottish border at
Northumberland, with a mission of advancing toward
London to end military rule of England by General
John Lambert and to accomplish the
English Restoration, the return of the monarchy to England. By the end of the day, he and his soldiers have gone through knee-deep snow to
Wooler while the advance guard of cavalry had covered to reach
Morpeth. • At the same time, rebels within the
New Model Army under the command of Colonel
Thomas Fairfax take control of
York and await the arrival of Monck's troops. •
Samuel Pepys, a 36-year-old member of the
Parliament of England, begins keeping a diary that later provides a detailed insight into daily life and events in 17th century England. He continues until May 31, 1669, when worsening eyesight leads him to quit. Pepys starts with a preliminary note, "Blessed be God, at the end of the last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain but upon taking of cold. I lived in Axe-yard, having my wife and servant Jane, and no more in family than us three." For his first note on "January 1. 1659/60 Lords-day", he notes "This morning (we lying lately in the garret) I rose, put on my suit with great skirts, having not lately worn any other clothes but them," followed by recounting his attendance at the Exeter-house church in London. •
January 6 – The
Rump Parliament passes a resolution requesting Colonel Monck to come to London "as speedily as he could", followed by a resolution of approval on January 12 and a vote of thanks and annual payment of 1,000 pounds sterling for his lifetime on January 16. •
January 11 – Colonel Monck and Colonel Fairfax rendezvous at
York and then prepare to proceed southward toward London. gathering deserters from Lambert's army along the way. •
February 13 –
Charles XI becomes king of
Sweden at the age of five, upon the death of his father,
Charles X Gustavus. •
February 26 – The
Rump Parliament, under pressure from General Monck, votes to call back all of the surviving members of the group of 231 MPs who had been
removed from the House of Commons in 1648 so that the
Long Parliament can be reassembled long enough for a full Parliament to approve elections for a new legislative body. •
March 16 – The
Long Parliament, after having been reassembled for the first time in more than 11 years, votes for its own dissolution and calls for new elections for what will become the
Convention Parliament to make the return from republic to monarchy.
April–June •
April 2 – The
Merces baronets, a
British nobility title is created. •
April 4 – The
Declaration of Breda, signed by
Charles Stuart, son of the late King Charles I of England, promises amnesty, freedom of conscience, and army back pay, in return for support for the
English Restoration. •
May 14 – The Irish Parliament declares Charles to be King of Ireland. •
May 15 –
John Thurloe is arrested for
high treason, for his support of
Oliver Cromwell's regime. •
May 21 – The Desormeaux caravan and 300 Iroquois die in explosion at Long Sault. •
May 23 – With the way cleared for his return to England, King Charles II ends his exile at
the Hague in the Netherlands and departs from
Scheveningen harbor on the English ship
Naseby, renamed for the occasion HMS
Royal Charles , as part of a fleet of English warships brought by Admiral Edward Montagu. •
May 27 • The
Treaty of Copenhagen is signed, marking the conclusion of the
Second Northern War. Sweden returns
Trøndelag to Norway, and
Bornholm to Denmark. •
William Morice takes office as the first
Secretary of State for the Northern Department in Great Britain, with responsibility for conducting foreign relations with the
Netherlands,
Scandinavia,
Poland,
Russia, and the
Holy Roman Empire. Relations with
France,
Spain,
Portugal,
Switzerland, the
Italian states, and the
Ottoman Empire are assigned to the Secretary of State for the Southern Department. The position will eventually evolve into the office of the
Foreign Secretary. •
May 29 – King
Charles II of England arrives in London and assumes the throne, marking the beginning of the
English Restoration. •
July 24 – The
Great Fire of 1660 begins in
Constantinople, capital of the
Ottoman Empire (now
Istanbul in
Turkey), and destroys two-thirds of the city over two consecutive days, consuming 280,000 buildings and killing 40,000 people. •
July –
Richard Cromwell, the last
Lord Protector of England during its years as a republic, leaves the British Isles quietly and goes into exile in France, taking on an alias as "John Clarke". •
August 19 – Dr Edward Stanley preaches a sermon in the nave of
Winchester Cathedral, to commemorate the return of the Chapter, following the
English Restoration. •
August 29 – The
Indemnity and Oblivion Act, officially "An Act of Free and General Pardon, Indemnity, and Oblivion" is given royal assent. as a general pardon for everyone who had committed crimes during the English Civil War and Interregnum (with the exception of certain crimes such as murder, piracy, buggery, rape and witchcraft, and people named in the act such as those involved in the regicide of Charles I). It also said that no action was to be taken against those involved at any later time, and that the Interregnum was to be legally forgotten. •
September 1 –
Grigore I Ghica becomes the new
Prince of Wallachia (now in Romania) •
September 14 – The 13-day long
Battle of Lyubar begins at
Liubar (now in
Ukraine) during the
Russo-Polish War between soldiers of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth against
Russia and ends with a victory by Poland. •
September 16 –
Juan Francisco Leiva y de la Cerda arrives in
Mexico City as the new Viceroy of
New Spain. •
September 25 –
Samuel Pepys has his first cup of
tea (an event recorded in his diary). •
October 13 to
October 19 – Ten of the 57 "
regicides" who signed the death warrant of
Charles I of England in 1649 are executed over a period of one week, mostly at
Charing Cross by being
hanged, drawn and quartered, a process which includes being disemboweled (in some cases before they have died) and then and burned. The first to die is
Thomas Harrison, a leader of the
Fifth Monarchists. He is followed by
John Carew (October 15);
John Cook and
Hugh Peter (October 16); (
Adrian Scrope,
John Moore,
Gregory Clement and
Thomas Scot) (October 17); and
Daniel Axtell and
Francis Hacker (October 19). •
November 28 – At
Gresham College in London, twelve men, including
Christopher Wren,
Robert Boyle,
John Wilkins, and Sir
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). •
December 8 – The first English actress appears on the professional stage in England in a non-singing role, as
Desdemona in
Othello at
Vere Street Theatre in London, following the reopening of the theatres (various opinions have been advanced that the actress was
Margaret Hughes,
Anne Marshall or
Katherine Corey). Historian Elizabeth Howe notes, however, that both
William Davenant and
Thomas Killigrew had women in their acting companies before 1660, and that Anne Marshall might be just one of the first rather than the actual first. •
December 15 – Andres Malong, a native chieftain of the town of
Binalatongan (now San Carlos) in the Philippines, leads a successful revolt against the Spanish colonial administrators to liberate
Pangasinan. He is proclaimed the King of Pangasinan, but the rebellion is suppressed on January 17, 1661, •
December 29 – The
Convention Parliament is dissolved by King Charles II and elections are called for what will be called the
Cavalier Parliament.
Date unknown •
Blaise Pascal's
Lettres provinciales, a defense of the
Jansenist Antoine Arnauld, is ordered to be shredded and burned by King
Louis XIV of France. • The
Expulsion of the Carib indigenous people from
Martinique is carried out by French occupying forces. •
Hopkins School is founded in New Haven, Connecticut. • A permanent standing army is established in
Prussia. == Births ==