1650 in England

{{Year in England|1650}}

Events from the year 1650 in England, second year of the Third English Civil War.

Incumbents

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.{{cite book|last=Lay|first=Paul|title=Providence Lost|location=London|publisher=Head of Zeus|year=2021|orig-year=2020|isbn=9781781853368|page=176}} If a man (married or unmarried) has sex with an unmarried woman (including a widow), that would be fornication, punishable only by three months for first offenders, applicable to both partners.{{cite book|author-link=J. P. Kenyon|chapter=The Interregnum, 1649–1660|first=J. P.|last=Kenyon|editor=Kenyon, J. P.|title=The Stuart Constitution|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1969|page=330}} 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.{{cite journal|first=Jeremy D.|last=Weinstein|url=https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_law_journal/vol38/iss1/3|title=Adultery, Law and the State: A History|journal=Hastings Law Journal|volume=38|issue=1|year=1986|pages=195–238}}
  • 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 (following the Siege of Clonmel), occasioning Andrew Marvell's An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland.
  • 23 June – Charles arrives in Scotland (at Garmouth) where he signs the Covenant.{{cite web|url=http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/timelines/1650.htm|title=1650, British Civil Wars|access-date=2007-09-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012050419/http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/timelines/1650.htm|archive-date=12 October 2007}}
  • 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.{{cite book|last=Williams|first=Hywel|title=Cassell's Chronology of World History|url=https://archive.org/details/cassellschronolo0000will/page/263|url-access=registration|location=London|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson|year=2005|isbn=0-304-35730-8|pages=[https://archive.org/details/cassellschronolo0000will/page/263 263–264]}}
  • 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".{{cite book|title=Penguin Pocket On This Day|publisher=Penguin Reference Library|isbn=0-14-102715-0|year=2006}}
  • 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.{{cite book|author=A Scholler in Oxford|title=Newes from the Dead, or a True and Exact Narration of the Miraculous Deliverance of Anne Greene; whereunto are prefixed certain Poems casually written upon that subject|location=Oxford|publisher=printed by Leonard Lichfield for Tho. Robinson|year=1651}} Includes Latin verses by Christopher Wren.{{cite journal|doi=10.1136/bmj.285.6357.1792|pmid=6816370|pmc=1500297|last=Hughes|first=J. Trevor|title=Miraculous Deliverance of Anne Green: An Oxford Case Of Resuscitation In The Seventeenth Century|jstor=29509089|journal=British Medical Journal|url=|volume=285|issue=6357|year=1982|pages=1792–1793}}

=Undated=

Births

Deaths

References

{{Reflist}}

{{England year nav}}

{{Year in Europe|1650}}

Category:Years of the 17th century in England