Events from the year

1668 Events January–March * January 23 – The Triple Alliance (1668), Triple Alliance of 1668 is formed between Kingdom of England, England, Sweden and the Dutch Republic, United Provinces of the Netherlands. * February 13 &ndash ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Incumbents

Monarch A monarch is a head of stateWebster's II New College DictionarMonarch Houghton Mifflin. Boston. 2001. p. 707. Life tenure, for life or until abdication, and therefore the head of state of a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest authority ...

– Charles II *

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

–

Cavalier The term Cavalier () was first used by Roundheads as a term of abuse for the wealthier royalist supporters of King Charles I and his son Charles II of England during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration (1642 – ). It ...

Events

* 17 January –

George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, 20th Baron de Ros, (30 January 1628 – 16 April 1687) was an English statesman and poet. Life Early life George was the son of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, favourite of James I ...

, fights a duel with

Francis Talbot, 11th Earl of Shrewsbury Francis Talbot, 11th Earl of Shrewsbury, 11th Earl of Waterford (1623 – 16 March 1668), was an English peer who was a Royalist officer in the English Civil War. He survived the war only to be mortally wounded in a duel with the Duke of Buckingh ...

(with whose wife he was having an affair) in which the latter is fatally wounded and a second is killed. * 23 January – England signs the Triple Alliance with the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...

and

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. * 13 February – Charles II mediates a peace treaty between

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

and

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. * 13 April –

John Dryden '' John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the per ...

becomes

Poet Laureate A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) ...

. * April (traditional date) – Actress

Nell Gwyn Eleanor Gwyn (2 February 1650 – 14 November 1687; also spelled ''Gwynn'', ''Gwynne'') was a celebrity figure of the Restoration period. Praised by Samuel Pepys for her comic performances as one of the first actresses on the English stage ...

becomes the King's mistress. * 7 May – Queen Catherine miscarries. * May – The King's former mistress, Barbara Castlemaine, leaves the Court and is pensioned. * 21 September – The

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

takes over

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

under a Royal Charter of 27 March. * December –

William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...

imprisoned for nearly 8 months in the

Tower of London The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is separa ...

for writing a pamphlet attacking

Trinitarian The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the Fa ...

doctrine.

Undated

* The

Forest of Dean The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and northwest, Herefordshire to the n ...

is re-established as a

royal forest A royal forest, occasionally known as a kingswood (), is an area of land with different definitions in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The term ''forest'' in the ordinary modern understanding refers to an area of wooded land; however, the ...

. *

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

builds the first

reflecting telescope A reflecting telescope (also called a reflector) is a telescope that uses a single or a combination of curved mirrors that reflect light and form an image. The reflecting telescope was invented in the 17th century by Isaac Newton as an alternati ...

(

Newton's reflector The first reflecting telescope built by Sir Isaac Newton in 1668 is a landmark in the History of the telescope, history of telescopes, being the first known successful reflecting telescope. It was the prototype for a design that later came to be ...

) * Richard Duckworth's ''Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing'', the first work on

change ringing Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuned bells in a tightly controlled manner to produce precise variations in their successive striking sequences, known as "changes". This can be by method ringing in which the ringers commit to memor ...

, is compiled and published complete by

Fabian Stedman Fabian Stedman (1640–1713) was an English author and a leading figure in the early history of campanology, particularly in the field of method ringing. He had a key role in publishing two books ''Tintinnalogia'' (1668 with Richard Duckworth) an ...

in London. * George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, probably originates the field sport of organised

fox hunting Fox hunting is an activity involving the tracking, chase and, if caught, the killing of a fox, traditionally a red fox, by trained foxhounds or other scent hounds. A group of unarmed followers, led by a "master of foxhounds" (or "master of ho ...

in England with The Bilsdale Hunt in Yorkshire. * 1668 or 1669 –

James, Duke of York James VII and II (14 October 1633 16 September 1701) was King of England and King of Ireland as James II, and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685. He was deposed in the Glorious Re ...

, the heir to the throne, secretly takes

Eucharist The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was instit ...

in the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Births

* November (baptised) –

Thomas Woolston Thomas Woolston (baptised November 166827 January 1733) was an English theologian. Although he was often classed as a deist, his biographer William H. Trapnell regards him as an Anglican who held unorthodox theological views. Biography Thomas ...

, deist (died 1733) * December (baptised) –

Sarah Fyge Egerton Sarah Fyge Egerton (1668–1723) was an English poet who wrote in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In her works ''The Female Advocate'' and ''Poems on Several Occasions'', Egerton wrote about gender, friendship, marriage, ...

, poet (died 1723) * John Eccles, composer (died 1735) * Approximate date **

Thomas Archer Thomas Archer (1668–1743) was an English Baroque architect, whose work is somewhat overshadowed by that of his contemporaries Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. His buildings are important as the only ones by an English Baroque architec ...

, baroque architect (died 1743) **

John Poulett, 1st Earl Poulett John Poulett, 1st Earl Poulett KG (c. 1668 – 28 May 1743) was an English peer. Life Poulett was the son of John Poulett, 3rd Baron Poulett and his second wife, Susan Herbert, daughter of Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke. He was the ...

(died 1743)

Deaths

* 21 February –

John Thurloe John Thurloe (June 1616 – 21 February 1668) was an English politician who served as secretary to the council of state in Protectorate England and spymaster for Oliver Cromwell and held the position of Postmaster General between 1655 and 1660. ...

, Puritan spy (born 1616) * 16 March –

(born 1623) * 7 April – Sir

William Davenant Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned bot ...

, poet (born 1606) * 19 September – Sir

William Waller Sir William Waller JP (c. 159719 September 1668) was an English soldier and politician, who commanded Parliamentarian armies during the First English Civil War, before relinquishing his commission under the 1645 Self-denying Ordinance. ...

, English Civil War general (born c. 1635) * 17 November –

Joseph Alleine Joseph Alleine (baptised 8 April 1634 – 17 November 1668) was an English Nonconformist pastor and author of many religious works. Life Alleine belonged to a family that had originally settled in Suffolk. As early as 1430, some of the descendant ...

, English non–conformist preacher (born 1634) * ''probable date'' –

Daniel Blagrave Daniel Blagrave (1603–1668) was a prominent resident of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. He was Member of Parliament for the Parliamentary Borough of Reading over several periods between 1640 and 1660, and was also on ...

, Member of Parliament (born 1603)

References

{{Year in Europe, 1668 Years of the 17th century in England