1698 in England

Events from the year 1698 in England.

Incumbents

• Monarch – William III

• 4 January – the Palace of Whitehall is destroyed by fire.^[1]
• 11 January–21 April – Czar
  Grand Embassy, making a particular study of shipbuilding.^[2]
• March – Jeremy Collier's pamphlet A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage is published.
• 24 June – abolition of the Royal African Company's monopoly is confirmed under terms of the Trade with Africa Act 1697, opening the slave trade to any merchant.
• 25 July – engineer
  steam pump.^[3]
• July–August –
  New Country Tories.^[4]
• 11 October –
  Treaty of the Hague signed between France, England and Holland.^[5]
• 14 November – first Eddystone Lighthouse illuminated.^[6]

Undated

• Piracy Act ("An Act for the more effectuall Suppressions of Piracy") passed.
• Roman Catholic
  priests.
• Reverend Thomas Bray founds the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.^[4]
• Thermal springs discovered at Matlock Bath in Derbyshire.^[7]
• The widow Bourne sets up the business which becomes
  wine merchants in the 21st century.^[8]
• Shepherd Neame Brewery established under this name in Faversham.

Births

• 10 January? – Richard Savage, poet (died 1743)
• 8 May – Henry Baker, naturalist (died 1774)
• 26 September – William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire (died 1755)
• 24 December – William Warburton, critic and Bishop of Gloucester (died 1779)

Deaths

• 24 January –
  1616
  )
• 7 February –
  1626
  )
• 29 April – Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, First Lord of the Admiralty (born 1655)
• 25 August – Fleetwood Sheppard, courtier and literary wit (born 1634)
• 3 September – Sir
  1626
  )
• 13 September (bur.) –
  1608
  )
• 1 October –
  1630
  )
• Unknown date – Nicholas Barbon, economist (born c. 1640)

References