1600s in England explained
Events from the
1600s in England. This decade marks the end of the
Elizabethan era with the beginning of the
Jacobean era and the
Stuart period.
Incumbents
Events
- 1603
- 24 March – Queen Elizabeth I dies at Richmond Palace aged 69, after 45 years on the throne, and is succeeded by her distant cousin King James VI of Scotland (where he has ruled since 1567), thus uniting the crowns of Scotland and England. Elizabeth was never married and had no children, neither did her only legitimate siblings, the late Mary and Edward VI.[9]
- 31 March – The Nine Years' War is ended by the submission of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, to the English Crown and the signing of the Treaty of Mellifont.[1]
- April – Thomas Cartwright delivers his Millenary Petition, demanding an end to ritualistic practices, and signed by 1,000 Puritan ministers, to the King.
- c. April – Outbreak of bubonic plague epidemic in London in which between 29,000 and 40,000 die.[10] [11] [12] [13]
- 28 April – Funeral of Elizabeth I in Westminster Abbey.
- 17 July – Sir Walter Raleigh arrested for treason.[9]
- 21 July – Thomas Howard created the 1st Earl of Suffolk.
- 25 July – Coronation of James I as King of England in Westminster Abbey.[9]
- 17 November – Raleigh goes on trial for treason in the converted Great Hall of Winchester Castle.[9] He is found guilty but his life is spared by the King at this time and he is returned to imprisonment in the Tower of London.
- 1604
- 1605
- 1606
- 31 January – Fawkes and his co-plotters are executed by hanging, drawing and quartering,[1] four having been executed the previous day.
- 24 February – Commercial treaty between England and France signed in Paris.[19]
- 10 April – Charter of 1606: The First Charter of Virginia is adopted, by which King James I of England grants rights to the Virginia Company (comprising the London Company and Plymouth Company) to settle parts of the east coast of North America.
- 12 April – First version of the Union Flag created,[9] designed by Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, to be worn at the maintopmast of English and Scots ships.
- Spring – Ben Jonson's satiric play Volpone first performed.
- May – Severe penalties are imposed for Catholic recusancy, and for refusal to take an Oath of Allegiance to James to serve in public office, by An Act for the better discovering and repressing of popish recusants (proclaimed law 22 June).
- 27 May – Second session of Parliament under King James prorogued.[14]
- 7 August – Possible first performance of Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth.[20]
- 18 November – Third session of Parliament begins.[14]
- 19 December – The Susan Constant sets out from the River Thames leading the Virginia Company's fleet for the foundation of Jamestown, Virginia.
- 26 December (St. Stephen's night) – one of the first performance of Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear, before the King at Whitehall.[20]
- Paston School founded in Norfolk.
- 1607
- 30 January – Bristol Channel floods (a possible tsunami)[21] result in the drowning of an estimated 2,000 people, with 200sqmi of farmland inundated.[22]
- late April – Start of Midland Revolt against land enclosures.[1] The rebels are referred to as "Levellers".
- 14 May – Jamestown, Virginia, is established as the first permanent English settlement in North America.
- 8 June – Midland Revolt suppressed at Newton, Northamptonshire, by local gentry.[23]
- 4 July – Third session of Parliament ends, having refused a proposed union with the Parliament of Scotland. It does not assemble again until 1610.[14]
- September – The Scrooby Congregation of Protestant Separatists from Nottinghamshire attempt to flee to the Dutch Republic from The Haven, Boston, but are betrayed, arrested and imprisoned for a time.
- 14 September – Flight of the Earls from Ireland: Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, flee to Spain to avoid capture by the English crown,[1] thus facilitating the Plantation of Ulster with English and Scots settlers.
- November – Case of Prohibitions: Sir Edward Coke determines that legal cases should not be tried by the monarch.
- 5 December - 14 February 1608 – severe frost. Many rivers, including the Thames, freeze.[24]
- First performance of the first wholly parodic play in English, Francis Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle, unsuccessfully, probably by the Children of the Chapel at the Blackfriars Theatre in London.
- 1608
- 1609
- 20 May – London publisher Thomas Thorpe issues Shake-speares Sonnets, with a dedication to "Mr. W.H.", and the poem A Lover's Complaint appended; it is uncertain whether this publication has Shakespeare's authority.
- 25 July – The London Company's ship Sea Venture, en route to relieve the Jamestown settlement, is driven ashore in Bermuda, thus effectively first settling the colony.
- 26 July – English scientist Thomas Harriot becomes the first to draw an astronomical object after viewing it through a telescope: he draws a map of the Moon, preceding Galileo by several months.[26] [27]
- 28 August – English explorer Henry Hudson (in the service of the Dutch East India Company) finds Delaware Bay.[1] [28]
- 11 - 12 September – explorer Henry Hudson's ship Halve Maen[28] sails into Upper New York Bay[29] and begins a journey up the Hudson River.[1]
- 12 October – A version of the rhyme "Three Blind Mice" is published in Deuteromelia or The Seconde part of Musicks melodie (London). The editor, and possible author of the verse, is the teenage Thomas Ravenscroft.[30] This collection follows his publication of the first rounds in English, Pammelia.
- Plantation of Ulster proceeds: Protestant English and Scots settlers take over forfeited estates of rebel leaders.[31]
- Trinity House establishes the first lighthouses at Lowestoft.
- Publication of Pericles, Prince of Tyre with attribution to Shakespeare.[1]
Births
- 1600
- 1601
- 1602
- 29 March – John Lightfoot, churchman and rabbinical scholar (died 1675)
- April – William Lawes, composer and musician (died 1645)
- 1 May – William Lilly, astrologer (died 1681)
- 12 July – John Bradshaw, judge and regicide (died 1659)
- 12 October – William Chillingworth, churchman (died 1644)
- 13 October – Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland, military leader (died 1668)
- 18 December – Simonds d'Ewes, antiquarian and politician (died 1650)
- John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton (died 1678)
- John Greaves, mathematician and antiquary (died 1652)
- Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester, Parliamentary commander (died 1671)
- Henry Marten, lawyer and politician, regicide (died 1680)
- Dudley North, 4th Baron North, politician (died 1677)
- Owen Feltham, religious writer (died 1668)
- 1602 or 1603
- 1603
- 1604
- 1605
- 1606
- 1607
- 1608
- 15 April – John Huddleston, Catholic clergyman (died 1698)
- 20 April – Edward Rainbowe, clergyman and preacher (died 1684)
- June – Richard Fanshawe, diplomat (died 1666)
- 19 June – Thomas Fuller, churchman and historian (died 1661)
- 14 July – George Goring, Lord Goring, Royalist soldier (died 1657)
- 4 August – John Tradescant the Younger, botanist and gardener (died 1662)
- 13 November – John Desborough, soldier and politician (died 1680)
- 6 December – George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, soldier (died 1670)
- 9 December – John Milton, poet (died 1674)
- Thomas Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln (died 1691)
- 1609
- 10 February – John Suckling, poet (died 1642)
- 18 February – Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, historian and statesman (died 1674)
- 29 March – Sarah Boyle, noblewoman (died 1633)
- 8 October – John Clarke, physician (died 1676)
- 19 October – Gerrard Winstanley, Protestant religious reformer (died 1676)
- 26 October – William Sprague, co-founder of Charlestown, Massachusetts (died 1675)
- 1 November – Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice (died 1676)
- 24 December – Philip Warwick, writer and politician (died 1683)
- Samuel Cooper, miniature painter (died 1672)
Deaths
- 1600
- 1601
- 1602
- 1603
- 1604
- 1605
- 1606
- 1607
- 1608
- 1609
Notes and References
- Book: Williams, Hywel. Cassell's Chronology of World History. registration. London. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 2005. 0-304-35730-8. 238–243.
- Kemp's Nine Daies Wonder.
- Web site: Banbury History. Banbury Cross. 2005. 2018-11-03. 14 December 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20071214033830/http://www.banbury-cross.co.uk/banhistory.htm. dead.
- Web site: First Voyage of the English East India Company, in 1601, under the Command of Captain James Lancaster. 2021-02-08.
- Book: Edwards, Phillip. 1985. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. New Cambridge Shakespeare. 0-521-29366-9. 8. Any dating of Hamlet must be tentative.. Scholars date its writing as between 1599 and 1601.
- Book: Shakespeare, William. Smith, Bruce R.. Twelfth Night: Texts and Contexts. 2. Boston, Mass. Bedford/St Martin's. 2001. 0-312-20219-9.
- Ibbetson. David. 1984. Sixteenth Century Contract Law: Slade's Case in Context. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. Oxford University Press. 4. 3. 295–317. 10.1093/ojls/4.3.295. 0143-6503.
- Web site: Goff . Moira . The Merry Wives of Windsor – Shakespeare in quarto . bl.uk . 19 January 2022.
- Book: Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 0-14-102715-0. 2006.
- Book: Dekker, Thomas. Thomas Dekker (writer). The Wonderfull Yeare 1603, wherein is shewed the picture of London lying sicke of the plague.
- Book: Lee, Christopher. Christopher Lee (historian)
. Christopher Lee (historian). 1613: The Death of Queen Elizabeth I, the Return of the Black Plague, the Rise of Shakespeare, Piracy, Witchcraft, and the Birth of the Stuart Era. St Martin's Press. 2014. 9781466864504.
- Web site: Worst Diseases in Shakespeare's London. 2021-05-15.
- Book: Bell, Walter George. 1951. Hollyer, Belinda. The Great Plague in London. Folio Society. 3–5.
- Web site: The government of James I. 2008-03-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20080514135210/http://history.wisc.edu/sommerville/123/123%20282%20James%20government.htm. 14 May 2008. dead.
- Web site: Speaker's Statement. Hansard. 2019-03-18. 2019-03-19.
- Web site: Case 1: The Treaty of London. 2008-03-17.
- Web site: A proclamation concerning the Kings Majesties Stile, of King of Great Britaine, &c.. 2008-03-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20080317124222/http://www.heraldica.org/topics/britain/britstyles.htm. 17 March 2008 .
- Web site: Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night. 2008. 2011-02-25.
- Book: de Milititz, Alexander. Manuel des consuls: Établissement des consulats à l'étranger. 2. A. Asher. London. 1839. Google Books. 65.
- Scholars date completion as between 1603 and 1606. Book: Boyce, Charles. Encyclopaedia of Shakespeare. New York. Roundtable Press. 1990.
- Bryant. Edward. Haslett. Simon. 2002. Was the AD 1607 Coastal Flooding Event in the Severn Estuary and Bristol Channel (UK) Due to a Tsunami?. Archaeology in the Severn Estuary. 13. 163–7. 2010-09-06. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20110616185829/http://www.bathspa.ac.uk/schools/science-and-the-environment/geography/Tsunami/archaeology-in-the-severn-estuary-2003-paper.pdf. 2011-06-16.
- Web site: The great flood of 1607: could it happen again?. 2008-02-20. BBC Somerset. https://web.archive.org/web/20080403082713/http://www.bbc.co.uk/somerset/content/articles/2007/01/30/somerset_flood_1607_anniversary_feature.shtml. 2008-04-03.
- Web site: Newton Rebels 1607. 2011-10-22. https://web.archive.org/web/20110930180931/http://www.newtonrebels.org.uk/rebels/index.htm. 30 September 2011. dead.
- Book: Stratton, J. M.. Agricultural Records. John Baker. 1969. 0-212-97022-4.
- Web site: Heritage. Royal Blackheath Golf Club. Eltham. 2016-06-12.
- Web site: 'English Galileo' maps on display. Christine. McGourty. BBC News. 2009-01-14. 2012-07-04.
- Web site: Thomas Harriot's Moon Drawings. The Galileo Project. 1995. 2012-07-04.
- Book: Hunter, Douglas. 2009. Half Moon: Henry Hudson and the voyage that redrew the map of the New World. London. Bloomsbury Press. 978-1-59691-680-7. registration.
- Web site: New York's many 9/11 anniversaries: the Staten Island Peace Conference. Nevius. Michelle. James. Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City. 2008-09-08. 2011-10-25.
- Book: Opie, Iona. Iona and Peter Opie. Peter. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes. Oxford University Press. 2nd. 1997. 0-19-860088-7. 306.
- Book: Palmer, Alan. Palmer . Veronica. 1992. The Chronology of British History. Century Ltd. London. 166–168. 0-7126-5616-2.
- Web site: Elizabeth I Biography, Facts, Mother, & Death Britannica . Encyclopædia Britannica . 18 January 2022 . en.