Chronology of the Life of Charles II

1630 – Charles Born

1642 August – English Civil War

1648 – Charles takes his first, of many, mistresses (some of them concurrently) a Welshwoman Lucy Walter, who will give birth to his first child, James, who later becomes Duke of Monmouth

1649 January – King Charles I beheaded. Britain becomes a republic between 1649 and 1660.

1651 – Civil War ends, Charles II and his Scottish army defeated by Cromwell and the Parliamentarian army.

1658 – Cromwell dies from malaria.

Restoration of Charles II

1660 May – Charles II returns to London, from France and is restored to the English throne after the Puritan Commonwealth.
1660 August – Charles, a lover of theater, grants permission to the playwrights Sir William Davenant and Sir Thomas Killigrew to establish two companies Duke's and King's, respectively.

1662 – Charles marries Portuegese Princess Catherine the Braganca.

1662 –  Affair with Barbara Villiers, later Countess of Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland, who bears two sons by him in 1662 and 1663.

1664 March – New Jersey becomes a British colony, which Charles grants to his brother James, Duke of York.

1664 September – After negotiation, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam surrenders to the British. It is later renamed New York.

1665 – Charles declares war on the Netherlands in the beginning of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667)

1665 – The Great Plague of London kills a quarter of the population

1666 September – Great Fire of London destroys 80% of the city. It started at the house of Charles’ baker. It did, however, help impede the spread of the Plague as most of the disease-carrying rats were killed in the fire.

1667 – Charles takes up with Moll Davis, an actress, she has a daughter by him. Moll, like many of the mistresses flaunted her status.

1667 July – Second Anglo Dutch war ends with the cession of Surinam to the Dutch; the British keep New York.

1668 – Begins an affair with actress Nell Gwyn.

1670 – Begins an affair with Louise de Keroualle, she is of better class than Nell and he makes her his “official mistress”; the following year she gives birth to Charles Lennox, later Duke of Richmond.

1672-1674 – Third Anglo Dutch war

1685 December – Charles II dies, converting to Catholicism on his deathbed. He is succeeded by his brother, James II, a Roman Catholic. His dying request to his brother was “Let not poor Nelly starve” asking James to support his mistress Nell Gwyn.