1705 in England

Events from the year 1705 in England.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Anne

• 16 April – Isaac Newton knighted by Queen Anne.^[1]
• May
  • General election results in no clear majority for either political faction in Parliament.^[2]
  • The
    Twelfth Siege of Gibraltar
    ends with the defending Confederate forces (including the English) retaining control of the town.
• 25 September – Queen Anne appoints commissioners to negotiate political union with Scotland.^[2]
• 15 October – War of the Spanish Succession: Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough leads an English naval force in the capture of Barcelona.^[3]
• 30 October –
  Haymarket.^[4][5]
• 27 December – John Vanbrugh's play The Mistake (adapted from the French) is first performed at his new London playhouse, The Queen's Theatre in Haymarket.^[4][5]
• December – the Sophia Naturalization Act is passed by Parliament, which naturalizes Sophia of Hanover (next in succession to the British throne) and the "issue of her body" as British subjects.

Undated

• Construction begins on Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire designed by John Vanbrugh for the Duke of Marlborough.^[3] It is completed in 1724.
• Edmond Halley publicly predicts the periodicity of Halley's Comet and computes its expected path of return in 1757.^[6]

Births

• 21 February – Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke, naval officer (died 1781)
• 11 April – William Cookworthy, chemist (died 1780)
• 23 July – Francis Blomefield, topographer (died 1752)
• 30 August – David Hartley, philosopher (died 1757)
• 21 September (bapt.) – Dick Turpin, thief and highwayman (hanged 1739)
• 28 September – Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, statesman (died 1774)
• 23 November – Thomas Birch, historian (died 1766)
• Undated – Bay Bolton, racehorse (died 1736)

Deaths

• 17 January – John Ray, naturalist (born 1627)
• 6 April – Sir William Lowther, 1st Baronet, of Marske, landowner and Member of Parliament (born 1676)
• 12 July – Titus Oates, conspirator (born 1649)

References