1650 in England

Events

• 1 May – claimant King Charles II of England signs the Treaty of Breda with the Scottish Covenanters.
• 10 May – Commonwealth (Adultery) Act (1650) imposes the death penalty for incest, and for adultery, that is defined as sexual intercourse between a married woman and a man other than her husband. Both partners would be liable for death sentence in such a case, although the courts are reluctant to impose the ultimate penalty. If a man has sex with an unmarried woman, that would be fornication, punishable only by three months for first offenders, applicable to both partners. In the history of adultery in English law, this represents the only time since the twelfth century when adultery has been outlawed in secular statute law.
• 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, occasioning Andrew Marvell's An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland.
• 23 June – Charles arrives in Scotland where he signs the Covenant.
• 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, opening the Anglo-Scottish war (1650–1652).
• 19 September – Treaty of Hartford: the English Connecticut Colony and the Dutch Republic's colony of New Netherland establish their frontiers in North America.
• 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".
• 14 December – domestic servant 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.

Undated

• 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 Gwyn, actress and royal mistress
• 24 March – Sir Jonathan Trelawny, 3rd Baronet, bishop
• 18 April – Sir Edward Dering, 3rd Baronet, Member of Parliament
• 20 April – William Bedloe, informer
• 1 May ' – John Radcliffe, physician
• 26 May – John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, general
• 14 September – Theophilus Oglethorpe, soldier and Member of Parliament
• 23 September – Jeremy Collier, theatre critic, non-juror bishop and theologian
• 20 October – Robert Shirley, 1st Earl Ferrers, courtier
• 7 November – John Robinson, diplomat
• November – Cloudesley Shovell, admiral
• 14 November – King William III of England, Scotland, and Ireland
• 1 December ' – William Talman, architect
• Undated
• * George Rooke, admiral
• * Richard Lumley, 1st Earl of Scarbrough, statesman
• Approximate date
• * Solomon de Medina, French-born army contractor
• * Charlotte Paston, Countess of Yarmouth, née FitzRoy, noblewoman, illegitimate daughter of Charles II

Deaths

• February – Sir Thomas Bowyer, 1st Baronet, politician
• 9 March – Elizabeth Savage, Countess Rivers, courtier
• 18 April – Simonds d'Ewes, antiquarian and politician
• 9 July – Alice Barnham, wife of Francis Bacon
• 25 August – Richard Crashaw, poet
• 8 September – Princess Elizabeth of England, daughter of Charles I
• 13 November – Thomas May, poet and historian
• 13 December – Phineas Fletcher, poet
• 25 December – Thomas Cooper, former Usher of Gresham's School and Royalist, hanged
• Probable date – Isaac Ewer, soldier and regicide