1665. Epidemic of bubonic plague, especially in London.

1666. The Fire of London destroys about one-third of the city.

1667. Jonathan Swift born in Dublin (November 30); his parents were English, and his father (also Jonathan Swift) died before his birth.

1679-81. A period of great tension between the King and Parliament (the "Exclusion Crisis"). Since Charles II had no legitimate children, his successor was his brother, James, Duke of York, an open Catholic. Anti-Catholic forces try unsuccessfully to pass a measure in Parliament to exclude him from succession, in favor of Charles's illegitimate son, James, Duke of Monmouth. Development of the Whig (middle-class, Protestant, Parliamentary) and Tory (aristocratic, high-church or Catholic, monarchical) parties.

1682. Swift enters Trinity College, Dublin.

1685. Charles II dies, declaring himself a Catholic. James II succeeds. Monmouth invades England, is defeated at Sedgemoor and executed.

1686. Swift receives B. A. degree, speciali gratia [not an honorific degree]; continues at Trinity.

1688. A son (James Edward) is born to King James. After a period of considerable tension between the King and the Anglican Church (among other offended parties), William, Duke of Orange, a Dutchman married to James's Protestant daughter Mary, is invited to invade England and depose James, which he does. Birth of Alexander Pope (a Catholic). Swift lives in England with his mother (probably to avoid the "troubles" in Ireland, where the Catholic population remained loyal to James II).

1689. The Bill of Rights limits the power of the Crown; the Act of Toleration grants freedom of worship to Protestants. Swift enters the household of Sir William Temple, a former politician and man of letters (and relative of Swift).

1689-1697. The War of the League of Augsberg; England, Spain, and Austria against France, ending with the Treaty of Ryswick. William defeats Catholic forces in Ireland at the Battle of the Boyne (1690).

1690. Swift returns to Ireland but rejoins Temple's household in the next year.

1694. The Bank of England is founded in order to finance King William's wars. Death of Queen Mary. Swift receives an M.A. degree from Oxford. He goes to Ireland where he is ordained Deacon and then Priest in the Church of Ireland (the Irish equivalent of the Church of England). He remains in Ireland, performing clerical duties, until May 1696.

1696-1699. Swift returns to Sir William Temple's household, where he acts as Temple's private secretary and remains until Temple's death in 1699. Probable composition of significant parts of A Tale of a Tub.

1699-1707. Swift pursues his clerical career in Ireland, with occasional visits to London; Stella (Esther Johnson, whom Swift had tutored at Temple's) and Rebecca Dingley (her companion) join him in Ireland, which becomes their permanent home. Swift receives a Doctor of Divinity from Trinity College in 1701.

1701-1713. The War of Spanish Succession, occasioned in part by Louis's support of James Edward's claim to the English throne, following the death of James II in 1701.

1701. Act of Settlement provides that the monarch and his or her consort must be Protestants.

1702. King William dies and is succeeded by Queen Anne (Protestant daughter of King James, sister of Queen Mary).

1704. Publication of A Tale of a Tub (and other peices).

1707. The Act of Union between England and Scotland abolishes the Scottish Parliament; the country becomes Great Britain.

1707-1709. Swift lives in London as emissary of the Church of Ireland, to seek the remission of "first fruits" [a fee paid the government by Irish clergymen]; composition of Argument against Abolishing Christianity and other religious and political tracts.

1709. Alexander Pope's first major poem, the Pastorals. His political mission unsuccessful, Swift returns to Ireland.

1710. The Whigs, who dominated the country during the war (by controlling the army and the treasury) are dismissed, and the Tories, led by Robert Harley, later Earl of Oxford, and Henry St. John, later Viscount Bolingbroke, assume power and begin to negotiate peace with France. Tories win a Parliamentary election, but Whigs control the House of Lords.

1710-1714. Swift, again in London, becomes a leading Tory political propagandist, taking a leading role in arguing for the end of the War of Spanish Succession (especially in his tract The Conduct of the Allies); he becomes especially close friends with John Gay, Alexander Pope, William Congreve, John Arbuthnot, and Esther Vanhomrigh [Vanessa]; as tensions develop between the leading Tory ministers, Harley and Henry St. John, Swift tries, with indifferent success, to mediate.

1711. Pope's An Essay on Criticism.

1713. The Treaty of Utrecht ends the War of Spanish Succession. England gains major colonial rights in Canada and the West Indies, as well as bases in the Mediterranean and rights over the slave trade. Pope celebrates the victory in Windsor Forest. Swift is installed as Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin; returns to London, September 13.

1714. The enlarged version of The Rape of the Lock is published in March. The Tory ministry begins to break apart because of the rivalry of Harley (now Earl of Oxford) and St. John (now Viscount Bolingbroke), despite Swift's efforts to mediate. Swift flees from London and eventually to Ireland, where he remains (with occasional visits to London) in virtual exile. Queen Anne dies in August, and with the ascension of George I (the German Elector of Hanover) a long period of Whig power begins. Harley is imprisoned on charges of treason, and Henry St. John flees to France.

1715. Abortive Jacobite revolution (on behalf if James III). Pope publishes the first volume (Books I-IV) of his translation of the Iliad and probably writes his character of Addison (Attacus in Epistle to Arbuthnot).

1720. Pope publishes his final Iliad volumes. The collapse of the South-Sea Company ("the South-Sea Bubble") produces financial chaos and the loss of the fortunes of many (including John Gay). A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture (the first of Swift's important Irish tracts); probable beginning of Gulliver's Travels.

1721. Robert Walpole becomes First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer-in effect Prime Minister.

1724. Swift's The Drapier's Letters argues successfully against the use of new copper coins in Ireland; the government offers a reward (uncollected) for the discovery of their author.

1725. Pope's edition of Shakespeare is published. Bolingbroke returns from exile.

1726. Lewis Theobald's Shakespeare Restored: or, a Specimen of the Many Errors . . . Committed . . . by Mr. Pope. Swift visits Pope in London. Publication of Voyages to Several Remote Nations of the World, by Lemuel Gulliver.

1727. Swift visits Pope again (his final trip to England). Two volumes of their joint Miscellanies are published. Death of George I. He is succeeded by George II. Walpole remains Prime Minister.

1728. Death of Stella. Pope's The Dunciad, in three books, with Theobald as prime dunce. The production of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera is smashingly successful.

1729. The Dunciad Variorum (still in three books but with greatly expanded notes as well as preliminary and concluding material, composed by Pope and his friends). Swift's A Modest Proposal ironically argues that the economic problems caused by Ireland's position as England's virtual colony can be solved by using children as food.

1731. Pope begins publication of his series of four Moral Essays.

1732. Vol. III of the Pope-Swift Miscellanies. The death of Gay. His self-composed epitaph: "Life is a joke, and all things show it; / I thought so once, but now I know it."

1733. Walpole proposes an Excise Tax but is forced by political pressure to withdraw it. Walpole, supported by the King and Queen and a somewhat weak majority in Parliament, is opposed by alienated Whigs as well as Tories, and by Frederick, Prince of Wales (the "Patriots" mentioned in Dunciad IV). Pope publishes his first Imitation of Horace (Sat. II.i) and the first three epistles of An Essay on Man.

1734. Pope publishes further moral essays and Horatian imitations and Epistle iv of An Essay on Man.

1735. Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (January); Arbuthnot dies (February). Bolinbroke returns to France. First collected edition of Swift's Works, 4 vols., published by George Faulkner (Dublin).

1737. Death of Queen Caroline, one of Walpole's prime allies. Rupture between George II and Frederick, Prince of Wales. The Playhouse (or Licensing) Act requires censorship of plays by the Lord Chamberlain.

1738. Pope publishes his final Horatian imitations. Swift begins to decline notably in physical and mental health.

1739. Walpole reluctantly declares war against Spain (the "War of Jenkins' Ear").

1740. Colley Ciber, An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Comedian.

1741-42. Walpole loses electoral support because of his handling of the war and is forced to resign. A coalition of Whigs assumes power. The War of Jenkins' Ear becomes the War of Austrian Succession.

1742. Pope, The New Dunciad (Book IV). Swift is found to be "of unsound mind and memory."

1743. Pope, The Dunciad in Four Books (Cibber replaces Theobald as chief dunce).

1744. Death of Pope (May 30).

1745. Swift dies (October 19) and is buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral (October 22), having left most of his estate to found a hospital for the insane.

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