1652 in England

Incumbents

Events

• 10 April – Prudence Lee becomes the last woman in England burned alive at the stake for mariticide, at Smithfield, London (subsequent recipients of the sentence being in practice strangled before burning).
• 19 May – First Anglo-Dutch War: Battle of Dover fought inconclusively off Dover between Lt.-Admiral Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp's 42 Dutch ships and 21 English ships divided into two squadrons, one commanded by Robert Blake and the other by Nehemiah Bourne.
• 13 June – George Fox preaches to a large crowd on Firbank Fell in Westmorland, leading to the establishment of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).
• 30 June – First Anglo-Dutch War: Britain formally declares war on the Dutch Republic (United Provinces of the Netherlands).
• 26 August – First Anglo-Dutch War: An English fleet attacks an outward-bound Dutch convoy of the escorted by 23 men-of-war and six fire ships commanded by Vice-Commodore Michiel de Ruyter at the Battle of Plymouth; the Dutch escape.
• 6 September – First Anglo-Dutch War: Battle of Elba, a Dutch naval victory.
• 8 October – First Anglo-Dutch War: Battle of the Kentish Knock fought in the North Sea about 30 km from the mouth of the river Thames; the Dutch are forced to withdraw.
• 30 November – First Anglo-Dutch War: English under Blake defeated by Dutch under Tromp at the Battle of Dungeness.
• Royal Navy Dockyard established at Harwich.
• Probable date – second coffeehouse in England opened, in London, by Pasqua Rosée.

Publications

• Thomas Nicols' Lapidary, or, the history of pretious stones, the first work in English on gemstones.

Births

• 2 January – Sir Gilbert Heathcote, 1st Baronet, Lord Mayor of London (died 1733)
• 13 January – Henry Booth, 1st Earl of Warrington, politician (died 1694)
• 16 January – Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 2nd Earl of Shaftesbury, politician (died 1699)
• 3 March – Thomas Otway, dramatist (died 1685)
• 13 April – Thomas Ward, religious writer, Catholic convert (died 1708)
• 1 May – John King, churchman (died 1732)
• 7 May – Edward Northey, barrister and politician (died 1723)
• 3 August – Samuel Western, politician (died 1699)
• 11 October – Nathaniel Higginson, politician (died 1708)
• 3 November – William Lowndes, politician (died 1724)
• 20 December – Samuel Bradford, bishop and politician (died 1731)

Deaths

• 21 June – Inigo Jones, architect (born 1573)
• 23 August – John Byron, 1st Baron Byron, royalist politician (born 1600)
• September – Ralph Hopton, 1st Baron Hopton, royalist commander (born 1596)
• 8 October – John Greaves, mathematician and antiquarian (born 1602)
• Eleanor Davies, prophet (born 1590)
• James Hind, highwayman, executed (born 1616)

References

References

1. Napier, Gordon. "Maleficium: Witchcraft and Witch Hunting in the West".
2. Cates, William L. R.. (1863). "The Pocket Date Book". Chapman and Hall.
3. Palmer, Alan. (1992). "The Chronology of British History". Century Ltd.
4. Nicols, Thomas. (1652). "Lapidary or the History of Pretious Stones". Thomas Buck.