1665 in England

Events from the year 1665 in England.

Incumbents

Monarch – Charles II

Events

4 March – beginning of the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
6 March – the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London begins publication, the first scientific journal in English and the oldest to be continuously published.
7 March – HMS London accidentally explodes in the Thames Estuary killing 300 with only 24 survivors.
March – Nell Gwyn, perhaps aged just 15, makes her first definitely recorded appearance as an actress on the London stage, in John Dryden's heroic drama The Indian Emperour, having previously been a theatre orange-seller.
12 April – the first recorded victim of the Great Plague of London dies. Over the summer it is thought to have spread as far as Derby and on 6 September the first plague death takes place in the Derbyshire village of Eyam.
19 May – Great Fire of Newport, Shropshire.
3 June – Second Anglo-Dutch War: English naval victory at the Battle of Lowestoft.
12 June – the city of New Amsterdam in the Province of New York is reincorporated as New York, named after James, Duke of York, and the first Mayor appointed.
7 July – the King and court leave London to avoid the plague, moving first to Salisbury, then Oxford.
2 August – Second Anglo-Dutch War: Dutch naval victory at the Battle of Vågen off Norway.
21 September – consecration of new chapel at Pembroke College, Cambridge, Christopher Wren's first completed work of architecture.
9 October – the Cavalier Parliament assembles in Oxford to avoid the Plague in London.
31 October – Parliament passes the Five Mile Act preventing non-conformist ministers from coming within five miles of incorporated towns or the place of their former livings.
7 November – The London Gazette begins publication as The Oxford Gazette.
Great Fire of Rolvenden, Kent.
Royal Navy Dockyard established at Sheerness for storage and refitting.

Publications

John Bunyan's The Resurrection.
Richard Head's The English Rogue.
Robert Hooke's Micrographia.

Births

6 February – Anne, Queen of Great Britain
March – Sir William Strickland, 3rd Baronet, Member of Parliament
1 May – John Woodward, naturalist
27 August – John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol, politician
September – Sir Thomas Frankland, 2nd Baronet, Member of Parliament
5 November – Sir William Brownlow, 4th Baronet, Member of Parliament
28 December – George FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Northumberland, general, illegitimate son of Charles II
William Cowper, 1st Earl Cowper, Lord Chancellor
Charles Gildon, writer
Benjamin Johnson, actor

Deaths

9 March – Thomas Wentworth, 5th Baron Wentworth, soldier and politician
3 June – Charles Weston, 3rd Earl of Portland
18 July ' – Elizabeth Stanhope, Countess of Chesterfield
11 July – Kenelm Digby, privateer
25 August – Charles Seymour, 2nd Baron Seymour of Trowbridge
17 November – John Earle, bishop
19 November ' – Elizabeth Cromwell, Lady Protectress
Walter Acton, Member of Parliament