Events from the year

1674 Events January–March * January 2 – The French West India Company is dissolved after less than 10 years. * January 7 – In the Chinese Empire, General Wu Sangui leads troops into the Giuzhou province, and soon takes cont ...

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

* 15 January – The Earl of Arlington is impeached by the House of Commons on charges of popery, but the Commons rejects the motion to remove him from office, 127 votes for and 166 against. * 9 February (19 February New Style) – England and 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 ...

sign the Treaty of Westminster ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War. * 14 March – Third Anglo-Dutch War: Battle of Ronas Voe – the English

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

captures the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

ship '' Wapen van Rotterdam'' in

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...

. * 26 March –

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Dr ...

, London, re-opens, having been rebuilt after a fire in 1672. * 25 April – Great Fire of

Watton, Norfolk Watton is a market town in the district of Breckland in the English county of Norfolk, about west-southwest of Norwich and northeast of Thetford. The annual Wayland Agricultural Show in its west is one of the oldest one-day such shows in Eng ...

. * 12 June – 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 ...

arranges a commercial treaty with the

Maratha Empire The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern Indian confederation that came to dominate much of the Indian subcontinent in the 18th century. Maratha rule formally began in 1674 with the coronation of Shi ...

after Henry Oxenden, the company's deputy governor, meets Emperor Shivaji at his recent coronation. * 17 July – two skeletons of children are discovered at the White Tower (Tower of London) and believed at this time to be the remains of the

Princes in the Tower The Princes in the Tower refers to the apparent murder in England in the 1480s of the deposed King Edward V of England and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York. These two brothers were the only sons of King Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville sur ...

. The remains are subsequently buried in

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...

. * 10 November – as provided in the Treaty of Westminster of 19 February, the Dutch Republic cedes its colony of

New Netherland New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the East Coast of the United States, east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territor ...

to England. This includes the colonial capital, New Orange, which is returned to its English name of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Publications

* The second edition of

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...

's epic poem ''

Paradise Lost ''Paradise Lost'' is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse (poetry), verse. A second edition fo ...

'' is published, shortly before the writer's death in November, by

Samuel Simmons Samuel Simmons (1640–1687) was an English printer, best known as the first publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditional ...

in London.

Births

* 8 February – Henry Sacheverell, churchman and politician (died 1724) * 24 January – Thomas Tanner, bishop and antiquarian (died 1735) * March – Jethro Tull, agriculturist (died 1741) * 18 April – Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, statesman (died 1738) * 20 June – Nicholas Rowe, dramatist (died 1718) * 17 July – Isaac Watts, hymnist (died 1748) * 11 September –

Elizabeth Rowe Elizabeth Singer Rowe (née Singer, 1674–1737) was an English poet, essayist and fiction writer called "the ornament of her sex and age" and the "Heavenly Singer". She was among 18th-century England's most widely read authors. She wrote ma ...

, poet and novelist (died 1737) * 18 October – Beau Nash, dandy (died 1762) * Approximate date ** Jeremiah Clarke, composer (suicide 1707) **

Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington, (2 July 1743) was a British Whig statesman who served continuously in government from 1715 until his death. He sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1698 and 1728, and was then raised ...

Prime Minister of Great Britain The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern pri ...

(died 1743) ** John Potter,

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...

(died 1747)

Deaths

* 23 March –

Henry Cromwell Henry Cromwell (20 January 1628 – 23 March 1674) was the fourth son of Oliver Cromwell and Elizabeth Bourchier, and an important figure in the Parliamentarian regime in Ireland. Biography Early life Henry Cromwell – the fourth son of Oli ...

, soldier, politician and lord lieutenant of Ireland (born 1628) * 10 October – Thomas Traherne, poet (born c. 1637) * 15 October – Robert Herrick, poet (born 1591) * 8 November –

, poet (born 1608) * 9 December –

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (18 February 16099 December 1674), was an English statesman, lawyer, diplomat and historian who served as chief advisor to Charles I during the First English Civil War, and Lord Chancellor to Charles II from ...

, statesman and historian (born 1609)

References

{{Year in Europe, 1674 Years of the 17th century in England