1638 in England explained

Events from the year 1638 in England.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Charles I
• Secretary of State – Sir John Coke

Events

• 18 April – flogging of John Lilburne for refusing to swear an oath when brought before the court of Star Chamber for distributing Puritan publications.^[1]
• 12 June – trial of John Hampden for non-payment of ship money concludes: a narrow majority of judges find the tax to be legal.^[1]
• 21 October – The Great Thunderstorm at Widecombe-in-the-Moor in Devon: 4 are killed and around 60 injured when probable ball lightning strikes the parish church.
• The Queen's House at Greenwich, designed by Inigo Jones in 1616 as the first major example of classical architecture in the country, is completed for Henrietta Maria.^[2]
• John Milton's elegy "Lycidas" is published.^[3]

Births

• 24 January – Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset, poet and courtier (died 1706)
• 6 March– Henry Capell, 1st Baron Capell, First Lord of the British Admiralty (died 1696)
• 2 June – Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, politician (died 1709)
• 24 December – Ralph Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu, diplomat (died 1709)
• William Sacheverell, statesman (died 1691)

Deaths

• 14 September – John Harvard, clergyman and colonist (born 1607)

Notes and References

1. Web site: 1638, British Civil Wars, Commonwealth and Protectorate 1638–60. 2007-11-23. 2007-09-27. https://web.archive.org/web/20070927210909/http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/timelines/1638.htm. dead.
2. Display captions at house, October 2016.
3. Book: Palmer, Alan. Palmer . Veronica. 1992. The Chronology of British History. Century Ltd. London. 177–178. 0-7126-5616-2.