Incumbents
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- 27 February – The island of New Britain is discovered by William Dampier in the western Pacific.[1]
- early March – William Congreve's comedy The Way of the World is first performed at the New Theatre, Lincoln's Inn Fields.[2][3]
- 24 March – Treaty of London signed between France, England and the Dutch Republic.[4]
- 24 June – Responsibility for vagrants passes from churchwardens to parish constables under terms of the Vagrant Removal Costs Act (1698).[5]
- 30 July – Princess Anne's only surviving child, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, dies aged eleven of "a malignant fever" at Windsor Castle, leaving the Protestant succession to the British throne in doubt.[2]
- September – While in the Netherlands, William III meets his cousin Sophia at Het Loo Palace. This is a precursor to the Act of Settlement of the following year that opens the way to the future succession of the House of Hanover.
- 6 September – Edmond Halley returns to England after a voyage of almost one year on HMS Paramour, from which he has observed the Antarctic Convergence,[6] and publishes his findings on terrestrial magnetism in General Chart of the Variation of the Compass.
- 20 November – First boats reach Leeds from the tideway by way of the Aire and Calder Navigation.[7]
- 19 December – The 4th Parliament of King William III is dissolved and new elections are ordered by the King.
- 25 December – First Christmas hymn authorised to be sung in the Anglican church, "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks", the words by Nahum Tate having been first published this year, in a supplement to "Tate and Brady".
- 28 December – Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester is appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
- Approximate date – Jeremiah Clarke writes the Prince of Denmark's March.
- 29 March – Charles Cornwallis, 1st Earl Cornwallis (died 1762)
- April – John Wyatt, inventor (died 1766)
- 4 May (bapt.) – Joseph Adams, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company (died 1737)
- 14 May – Mary Delany, Bluestocking, artist and writer (died 1788)
- 13 July – John Dandridge, colonel and planter in Virginia (died 1756)
- 20 September – Benedict Leonard Calvert, Governor of Maryland (died 1732)
- 26 September? – Mary Hervey, née Lepell, courtier (died 1768)
- 13 October – Phanuel Bacon, playwright, poet and author (died 1783)
- 31 October – Joseph Blake, alias Blueskin, highwayman (executed 1724)
- 28 November – Nathaniel Bliss, Astronomer Royal (died 1764)
Full date unknown
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- 16–27 January – John Dormer, born Huddleston, Jesuit priest (born 1636)
- 21 January – Henry Somerset, 1st Duke of Beaufort (born 1629)
- 14 March – Henry Killigrew, dramatist (born 1613)
- 12 May – John Dryden, poet (born 1631)
- 10 July – John Lowther, 1st Viscount Lonsdale, politician (born 1655)
- 19 July (date found dead) – Thomas Creech, translator (born 1659; suicide)
- 29 July – Prince William, Duke of Gloucester (born 1689)
- 8 August – Joseph Moxon, mathematician and lexicographer (born 1627)
- 7 September – William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford, peer and soldier (born 1616)
References
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