After a trial lasting a week in Westminster Hall, Charles I is convicted of treason for fighting a war against parliament

Charles I is beheaded on a scaffold erected in the street in London's Whitehall

Parliament chooses Oliver Cromwell to chair the new English Commonwealth's council of state

John Milton becomes Latin secretary in Cromwell's council of state

James Ussher, archbishop of Armagh, calculates that creation began on Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC

The poems of Massachusetts author Anne Bradstreet are published in London under the title The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America

Parliament in England passes the first of several Navigation Acts designed to reserve international trade for English ships

Charles II is defeated by Cromwell at Worcester and escapes in disguise to France

Scotland and England are merged under English parliamentary rule, in a forced union which lasts eight years

A clash at sea between English and Dutch fleets begins the first of three Anglo-Dutch wars

The first coffee house opens In London and Londoners soon find such places useful to meet in and do business

Cromwell uses troops to turn the members out of the House of Commons and locks the door behind them

Cromwell is appointed Lord Protector of the Commonwealth for life, under legislation entitled the Instrument of Government

The English admiral Robert Blake introduces a system of signalling at sea by means of flags

John Bunyan joins a Nonconformist church in Bedford and becomes one of their preachers

Devoted fisherman Izaak Walton publishes the classic work on the subject, The Compleat Angler

George Fox begins preaching in England, in a movement which develops into the Society of Friends - or Quakers

Jews return to England after Cromwell repeals the law of 1290 forbidding their residence in the country

Andrew Marvell works as assistant Latin secretary to Milton in Cromwell's department for foreign affairs

Samuel Pepys has a two-ounce stone cut from his bladder, in an operation carried out at home in the presence of his family

Cromwell dies after naming his son Richard to succeed him in the office of Lord Protector

Prince Rupert of the Rhine pioneers mezzotint, the first half-tone technique in printing

General George Monck marches south from Scotland to London, to intervene in England's unresolved political crisis

On the first day of the new year Samuel Pepys gets up late, eats the remains of the turkey and begins his diary

Monck, reaching London, dissolves the Long Parliament and convenes a new one