•
1610 • 9 February – Parliament assembles and debates the
Great Contract proposed by
Robert Cecil whereby in return for an annual grant of £200,000, the Crown should give up its
feudal rights of
Wardship and
Purveyance, as well as
New Impositions. • 23 May – the
House of Commons petitions King
James I against imposed duties. • 9 July –
Arbella Stuart, a claimant to the throne, imprisoned for marrying
William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset, another claimant, on 22 June. • First performance of
Ben Jonson's satirical comedy
The Alchemist. • 1 November – at
Whitehall Palace in
London,
William Shakespeare's romantic comedy and last solo play
The Tempest is performed, perhaps for the first time. ''The Winter's Tale'' is presented at Court on 5 November. •
John Donne's poem
An Anatomy of the World published. • Ben Jonson's play
Catiline His Conspiracy published. • The value of the
angel is raised from ten to eleven shillings. •
probable date –
Robert Dover stages the first
Cotswold Olimpick Games near
Chipping Campden. •
1613 • 14 February –
Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of King James I, marries
Frederick V, Elector Palatine, at the
Chapel Royal in
Whitehall. • 15 September – death of
Thomas Overbury by poisoning in the
Tower of London, having been imprisoned after quarrelling with
Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester. sailing in the
Lyon under the command of captain
Christopher Newport. • 27 September –
Lady Arbella Stuart starves herself to death in the
Tower of London. •
John Browne is created first ''King's Gunfounder''. •
The Perse School in
Cambridge is founded by Dr.
Stephen Perse. •
Wilson's Grammar School in
Wallington is founded by
royal charter. •
Roger Brereley becomes
perpetual curate at
Grindleton in Lancashire; his preaching originates the sect of
Grindletonians. • The first part of
William Camden's
Annales Rerum Gestarum Angliae et Hiberniae Regnate Elizabetha is published. •
Gervase Markham's
The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman first published in London. •
1616 • 1 January –
King James attends the
masque The Golden Age Restored, a satire by
Ben Jonson on fallen court favorite the
Earl of Somerset. The king asks for a repeat performance on 4 January. • 3 January – the King's current favourite
Sir George Villiers is appointed
Master of the Horse; • 11 March –
Roman Catholic priest Thomas Atkinson is
hanged, drawn, and quartered at
York, at age 70. • 19 March – Sir
Walter Ralegh is released from the
Tower of London, where he has been imprisoned for treason, to organise an expedition to
El Dorado. • 23 April – playwright and poet
William Shakespeare dies (on or about his 52nd birthday) in retirement in
Stratford-upon-Avon and is buried two days later in the
Church of the Holy Trinity there. • 25 April – Sir
John Coke, in the
Court of King's Bench, holds the King's actions in a case of
In commendam to be illegal. • 25 May – the King's former favourite the
Earl of Somerset and his wife
Frances are convicted of the murder of
Thomas Overbury. They are spared death and are sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London. • 12 June –
Pocahontas (now Rebecca) arrives in England, with her husband,
John Rolfe, their one-year-old son,
Thomas Rolfe, her half-sister Matachanna (alias Cleopatra) and brother-in-law
Tomocomo, the
shaman also known as Uttamatomakkin (having set out in May). Ten
Powhatan Indians are brought by Sir
Thomas Dale, the colonial governor, at the request of the
Virginia Company, as a fund-raising device. Dale, having been recalled under criticism, writes
A True Relation of the State of Virginia, Left by Sir Thomas Dale, Knight, in May last, 1616, in a successful effort to redeem his leadership but neither Dale nor Pocahontas see Virginia again. • July – King James begins to raise revenue by the sale of
peerages. •
John Donne is appointed as Reader in Divinity at his old
inn of court in London,
Lincoln's Inn. • October/November –
Ben Jonson's satirical five-act comedy
The Devil is an Ass is produced at the
Blackfriars Theatre by the
King's Men, poking fun at credence in witchcraft and Middlesex juries. • 4 November –
Prince Charles, the 15-year-old surviving son of King James and
Anne of Denmark, is invested as
Prince of Wales at Whitehall, the last such formal investiture until
1911. • 5 November – Bishop
Lancelot Andrewes preaches the annual
Gunpowder Treason sermon before the King at
Whitehall, both having been intended victims of the plot. • 6/25 November –
Ben Jonson's works are published in a collected
folio edition; the first of any English playwright. • 14 November – Sir
Edward Coke is dismissed as
Chief Justice of the King's Bench by royal prerogative. • 25 December • Captain
Nathaniel Courthope reaches the
nutmeg-rich island of
Run in the
Moluccas to defend it against the
Dutch East India Company. A contract with the inhabitants accepting James I as their sovereign makes it part of the
English colonial empire. •
Father Christmas is a main character of
Christmas, His Masque, written by
Ben Jonson and presented at the royal court. •
Epidemic typhus outbreak. •
Witch trials under the
Witchcraft Act 1603: Elizabeth Rutter is
hanged as a witch in
Middlesex, Agnes Berrye in
Enfield, and nine women in
Leicester at a
summer assize presided over by Sir
Humphrey Winch. •
Inigo Jones designs the
Queen's House at
Greenwich • Publications: •
Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy
The Scornful Lady (19 March). • Dr.
John Bullokar's dictionary
An English Expositor: teaching the interpretation of the hardest words used in our language, with sundry explications, descriptions and discourses. • John Deacon's tract
Tobacco Tortured in the Filthy Fumes of Tobacco Refined. •
Robert Fludd's defence of
Rosicrucianism Apologia Compendiaria, Fraternitatem de Rosea Cruce suspicionis ... maculis aspersam, veritatis quasi Fluctibus abluens (at
Leiden). •
Ben Jonson's poem "
To Celia". •
1617 • January • Sir George Villiers made Earl of Buckingham. •
1618 • 2 February -
The Coleorton Masque is performed at
Coleorton Hall,
Leicestershire. • July –
Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk imprisoned for embezzling state funds while serving as
Lord Treasurer. • 29 October – execution at the
Palace of Westminster of Sir Walter Ralegh who has angered the
Spanish on his final voyage by attacking one of their settlements on the Orinoco. The Spanish ambassador
Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, conde de Gondomar has pressurised King James I over the matter. • 2 June – a treaty is signed to regulate trade and resolve disputes between the
English and the
Dutch East India Company. • The value of the
angel returns from eleven to ten shillings. • First
Lizard Lighthouse erected in
Cornwall. • Publication of
Francis Beaumont and
John Fletcher's plays
A King and No King and ''
The Maid's Tragedy''. ==Births==