31 March – warship HMS Sapphire is wrecked beyond repair when her captain, John Pearce, orders the ship to be run aground at Sicily while fleeing what he believes to be four Algerian pirate ships, rather than attempting to fight. The ships turn out to have been friendly, and Pearce and his lieutenant, Andrew Logan, are court-martialed for their cowardice and executed on 17 September.[2]
11 April – Conventicles Act 1670 receives royal assent, imposing fines for attendance at "seditious conventicles" (any religious assembly other than of the Church of England).[3]
2 May – a royal charter is granted to the Hudson's Bay Company with the jurisdiction to control administration and commerce in Rupert's Land, governed for the crown by Rupert, Duke of Cumberland, the King's cousin, a 1.5 million square mile area around Hudson Bay in North America.
1 June – the secret Treaty of Dover is signed between King Charles II of England and Louis XIV of France, ending hostilities between their kingdoms.[4] Louis will give Charles 200,000 pounds annually. In return Charles promises to relax the laws against Catholics, gradually re-Catholicize England, support French policy against the Dutch Republic (leading England into the Third Anglo-Dutch War), and convert to Catholicism himself when conditions permit. The treaty is ratified on 4 June. The terms will not become public until the early 19th century.[5] Louis is represented in the negotiations by Charles' sister, Princess Henrietta, Duchess of Orléans, who dies suddenly on 30 June soon after returning to France.
14 August – Quakers William Penn and William Mead preach in Gracechurch Street in the City of London, in defiance of the new Conventicles Act, and are arrested and tried but on 5 September the jury refuses to convict.[6]
17 August – a joint fleet of warships from England (commanded by Commodore Richard Beach on HMS Hampshire) and from the Dutch Republic (led by Admiral Willem Joseph van Ghent on Spiegel) rescue 250 Christian slaves and then sink six Barbary pirate ships in a battle in the Mediterranean Sea off of the coast of Morocco at Cape Spartel.[7]
18 August – John Dryden is appointed as historiographer royal.[4]
9 November – Bushel's Case, following the trial of Penn, establishes that members of a jury may not be punished for delivering a verdict according to their conscience even if contrary to the view of the judge.
21 December
The Cabal Ministry in London signs a treaty with France based on June's secret Treaty of Dover but with the conversion clause removed.[9]
John Coventry, MP is maimed for making a joke about the King,[10] resulting in passing of the Maiming Act, making lying in wait to maim anyone a felony.
^Weinreb, Ben (2008). The London Encyclopaedia. Pan Macmillan. p. 762. ISBN978-1405049245.
^Clowes, William Laird (1898). The Royal Navy: A History from the Earliest Times to 1900. London: Sampson, Low, Marston & Co. pp. 439–40.
^Raithby, John, ed. (1819). "Charles II, 1670: An Act to prevent and suppress Seditious Conventicles". Statutes of the Realm (1628–80). Vol. 5. pp. 648–651.