1668 in England

Events from the year 1668 in England.

Incumbents

17 January – George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, fights a duel with Francis Talbot, 11th Earl of Shrewsbury (with whose wife he was having an affair) in which the latter is fatally wounded^[1] and a second is killed.
23 January – England signs the Triple Alliance with the Dutch Republic and Sweden.^[2]
13 February – Charles II mediates a peace treaty between Spain and Portugal.
13 April – John Dryden becomes Poet Laureate.^[3]
April (traditional date) – Actress Nell Gwyn becomes the King's mistress.^[4]
7 May – Queen Catherine miscarries.^[5]
May – The King's former mistress, Barbara Castlemaine, leaves the Court and is pensioned.^[5]
21 September – The British East India Company takes over Bombay under a Royal Charter of 27 March.
December – William Penn imprisoned for nearly 8 months in the Tower of London for writing a pamphlet attacking Trinitarian doctrine.^[2]

The Forest of Dean is re-established as a royal forest.
Isaac Newton builds the first reflecting telescope (Newton's reflector)^[6]
Richard Duckworth's Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing, the first work on change ringing, is compiled and published complete by Fabian Stedman in London.^[7]
George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, probably originates the field sport of organised fox hunting in England with The Bilsdale Hunt in Yorkshire.
1668 or 1669 – James, Duke of York, the heir to the throne, secretly takes Eucharist in the Roman Catholic Church.

November (baptised) – Thomas Woolston, deist (died 1733)
December (baptised) – Sarah Fyge Egerton, poet (died 1723)
John Eccles, composer (died 1735)
Approximate date
- Thomas Archer, baroque architect (died 1743)
- John Poulett, 1st Earl Poulett (died 1743)

^ "January 17th". Chambers' Book of Days. Archived from the original on 17 December 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-16.
^ ^a ^b Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 190–191. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
^ Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
^ Beauclerk, Charles (2005). Nell Gwyn: Mistress to a King. Atlantic Monthly Press. p. 128. ISBN 0-87113-926-X.
^ ^a ^b Uglow, Jenny (2010) [2009]. A Gambling Man. London: Faber. p. 458. ISBN 978-0-571-21734-2.
^ Hall, Rupert (11 April 1996). Isaac Newton: adventurer in thought. p. 67. ISBN 9780521566698.
^ Eisel, John C. (September 2014). "Stedman, Fabian (bap. 1640, d. 1713)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/68907. ISBN 9780198614111. Retrieved 2015-04-23. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)