The table following sets down, in bare chronological order, the principal public events of the Commonwealth's history from the Navigation Act of the Rump to the publication of the present edition. It is offered as a convenience to the reader who wishes the order of events before the fuller particulars given under each separate heading, and claims no other purpose.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1651 | The Navigation Act, the Rump's own measure for the encouragement of the Commonwealth's shipping. |
| 1654 | Scotland and Ireland (q.v.) incorporated with seats at Westminster. |
| 1655 | Jamaica (q.v.) taken from Spain. |
| 1658 | Death of the Protector, Oliver Cromwell (q.v.). |
| 1659 | Fall of Richard Cromwell (q.v.) and recall of the Rump; Sir George Booth's rising for the Stuart cause crushed by Lambert (q.v.) in Cheshire; Lambert's expulsion of the Rump; the Treaty of the Army and the Parliament; General Monck's (q.v.) Declaration from Coldstream (q.v.), "for a settlement, not a return." See SETTLEMENT, THE (q.v.). |
| 1660 | The Grand Convention (q.v.) meets at Westminster; the Declaration of Breda (q.v.) falls flat; the Frame of the Commonwealth (q.v.) adopted, 21st March, and ratified by the Great Ballot; the first Senate and Assembly seated, 3rd September — since kept as Commonwealth Day. |
| 1664-67 | The Second Dutch War. |
| 1665 | The Great Plague (q.v.) of London. |
| 1666 | The Great Fire (q.v.) of London, September; the Descent (q.v.) of the Pretender, defeated at BARHAM DOWN (q.v.), October — together remembered as the Year of the Burning. |
| 1667 | The Refusal: Lambert (q.v.) resigns the Strategate at the height of his repute. |
| 1672-78 | The Guelderland War (q.v.); the Treaty of the Hague founds the Alliance of the Republics. |
| 1685-88 | The Remonstrance of the Plantations (q.v.). |
| 1689-97 | The general war against the French crown that followed the Remonstrance years. |
| 1691 | The Second Frame (q.v.) admits the Western Provinces to representation. |
| 1692 | A second Stuart descent wrecked at sea. |
| 1697 | Oceana (q.v.) founded on the Severn. |
| 1702-13 | The war of the Spanish succession; the Peace of Utrecht (q.v.). |
| 1704 | The University of Oceana founded. |
| 1715 | The first Stuart rising in the Highlands. |
| 1720 | The Guinea Bubble (q.v.). |
| 1745-46 | The Rising (q.v.) of Charles Edward Stuart. |
| 1755-62 | The Great Atlantic War (q.v.); Quebec (q.v.) taken, 1759; the Peace of Paris (q.v.), 1763. |
| 1765-72 | The Reapportionment Quarrels (q.v.), resolved by the Census Act. |
| 1768-71 | First edition of the ENCYCLOPAEDIA ATLANTICA, Edinburgh. |
| 1789 | The French Revolution. |
| 1793-1802 | The War of the French Republic (q.v.). |
| 1803-15 | The Buonapartist Wars. |
| 1804 | The Purchase of Louisiana (q.v.) from Buonaparte. |
| 1805 | Admiral Blake's victory, and death, at Ushant (q.v.). |
| 1807 | The Act for the Suppression of the Trade in Men. |
| 1815 | Buonaparte's final defeat at the Battle of the Sambre (q.v.). |
| 1820s-50s | The Removals (q.v.) of the native nations of the interior. |
| 1832 | The First Widening Act (q.v.); the Act of Relief of the Old Religion. |
| 1836 | The Act of General Emancipation (q.v.). |
| 1837-43 | The War of the Severance (q.v.); the Instrument of Reunion. |
| 1839 | The first Canton crisis passes almost unanswered, the fleet absorbed by the Severance. |
| 1843 | The Instrument of Reunion; the Reconstitution (q.v.) begins. |
| 1846-48 | The Mexican War (q.v.). |
| 1848 | The European revolutions; the Commonwealth as refuge. |
| 1858 | The Freedmen's Charter (q.v.); the Canton Convention (q.v.). |
| 1859 | The Company Rising (q.v.) in Bengal. |
| 1861 | The Commission for India (q.v.) ends Company rule. |
| 1866 | The permanent Atlantic cable (q.v.). |
| 1867 | The Third Frame (q.v.). |
| 1871 | The German Empire (q.v.) proclaimed. |
| 1885 | The Second Widening Act; near-universal manhood suffrage. |
| 1897 | The Tribeswomen's Petition (q.v.). |
| 1900s | The naval estimates and the present German Question (q.v.). |
| 1910-11 | The Eleventh Edition published at Oceana and London. |