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 Monarch – Elizabeth I (until 24 March 1603), then James I
Events 1600 January – In Ireland, Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, renews the Nine Years' War against England with an invasion of Munster. 11 February–March – Clown William Kempe ("Will Kemp") morris dances from London to Norwich.Kemp's Nine Daies Wonder. c. April – Publication of Ben Jonson's play Every Man out of His Humour in London; it goes through three editions this year. 5 June – Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, former favourite of the Queen, is put on trial before a commission of 18 after being charged with malfeasance. He is deprived of his main business, a monopoly on sweet wines, and stripped of his noble title. 13 June – Barrister Nicholas Fuller is granted the exclusive right to manufacture playing cards. 25 June – A fire destroys much of the town of North Walsham in Norfolk, burning down 118 homes, 70 shops and most of the stalls in the market square. 26 July – The original Banbury Cross is demolished on the orders of a Puritan local corporation. 31 December – East India Company granted a Royal Charter for trade with Asia. William Shakespeare's plays Henry IV, Part 2, Henry V, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Much Ado About Nothing are published in London. William Gilbert publishes De Magnete in London, discussing Earth's magnetic field, one of the first important scientific works to be published in England. Caister Castle falls into ruin. 1601 7–8 January – Essex's Rebellion: Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, stages a short-lived rebellion against Elizabeth I. 25 February – Essex is executed for treason, becoming the last person beheaded on Tower Green in the Tower of London, the sword being wielded by Thomas Derrick. The sentence of co-conspirator Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, is commuted to imprisonment. 5 March – The treason trial for five secondary participants in Essex's Rebellion – Gelli Meyrick, Henry Cuffe, Christopher Blount, Charles Danvers and Sir John Davies – is held in London. All five are found guilty. Meyrick and Cuffe are hanged at Tyburn on 13 March, and Blount and Danvers are beheaded at Tower Hill on 18 March. Davies is allowed to go free. 22 April – 1601 East India Company Voyage: The first expedition of the East India Company, having set out from Woolwich on 13 February, sets sail from Torbay for the Spice Islands with John Davis as pilot-major. Spring – Possible first performance of Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet in London. Scholars date its writing as between 1599 and 1601. 19 September – Fourth Spanish Armada makes landfall in southern Ireland (Anglo-Spanish war and Nine Years' War (Ireland)). 2 October–24 December – Siege of Kinsale by Spanish forces. 27 October – The 10th Parliament of Elizabeth I (her last, summoned on 11 September) is opened. It serves until 19 December and on 30 November the Queen addresses it with her Golden Speech. An Act for the Relief of the Poor codifies the English Poor Laws. 6 December – The Battle of Castlehaven is fought off the south coast of Ireland as six Spanish navy ships led by General Pedro de Zubiaur are intercepted by an English fleet of four warships led and commanded by Sir Richard Levenson. Two of the Spanish ships are sunk and the other four are run aground. by December – Ben Jonson's satirical comedy Poetaster is first performed. 1602 2 February (Candlemas night) – First recorded performance of Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night, in Middle Temple Hall, London. 15 May – English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold, sailing in the Concord, becomes the first European at Cape Cod. 3 June – Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604): Battle of Sesimbra Bay off of the coast of Portugal – Five galleons of the English Royal Navy defeat a larger force of Spanish Navy ships. 5 June – James Lancaster's 1601 East India Company Voyage arrives at Achin (modern-day Aceh) in Sumatra to deal with the local ruler. Having defeated Portugal's ally, the ruler is happy to do business, and Lancaster seizes a large Portuguese galleon and loots it. 18 June – Nine Years' War (Ireland): Dunboy Castle in Ireland is taken by the English after an 11-day siege by more than 4,000 English soldiers under the command of Sir George Carew. The 143 Irish soldiers are either killed in the siege or hanged afterwards. 3–4 October – Battle of the Narrow Seas: an English fleet (joined by the Dutch) pursues six Spanish galleys through the Strait of Dover. 8 November – The Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford is opened. November – Final judgement in Slade's Case, allowing an effective modernisation of English contract law. Publication of Shakespeare's comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor, in London. Richard Carew publishes The Survey of Cornwall. 1603
24 January – Anglo-Spanish War: English Admiral Christopher Newport leads an unsuccessful attempt to take the Spanish-controlled Caribbean island of Jamaica, where he is attempting to pillage the area to obtain supplies. 24 March – Queen Elizabeth I dies at Richmond Palace aged 69, after 45 years on the throne, and is succeeded by her first cousin twice removed King James VI of Scotland (where he has ruled since 1567), hence the Union of 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. 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. 5 April – James VI and I sets out from Edinburgh for London. April – Thomas Cartwright delivers his Millenary Petition, demanding an end to ritualistic practices, allegedly signed by 1,000 Puritan ministers, to the King, who is en route to London. c. April – 1603 London plague: Outbreak of bubonic plague epidemic in London in which between 29,000 and 40,000 die. The theatres are closed. 28 April – Funeral of Elizabeth I in Westminster Abbey. 7 May – King James arrives in London, where he is enthusiastically received. 19 May – The London acting company previously known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men comes under the patronage of the new monarch and is chartered as the King's Men. William Shakespeare is among them. 24 June – Planned date for "Bye Plot", a conspiracy to kidnap King James in the interest of tolerance for Roman Catholic priests and Puritans. July – "Main Plot", an alleged conspiracy by English courtiers to remove James from the English throne and to replace him with his cousin Lady Arbella Stuart. 17 July – Sir Walter Raleigh is arrested for treason in connection with the "Main Plot". 21 July – Thomas Howard is created the 1st Earl of Suffolk. 25 July – Coronation of James I and Anne as King and Queen of England in Westminster Abbey. Ceremonies are restricted because of plague. 1 August – Members of Parliament and kinsmen Sir Matthew Browne and Sir John Townshend fight a horseback duel on Hounslow Heath, near London, which is fatal to both. September–October – The court is in residence in Winchester due to the London plague. November–December – The court is in residence at Wilton House in Wiltshire due to the London plague. 17 November – Raleigh goes on trial for treason in the converted Great Hall of Winchester Castle. 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. 2 December – The King's Men perform a play for the court at Wilton House, perhaps As You Like It.According to a letter which historian William Cory in 1865 claimed to exist. 1604 1 January – The earliest recorded performance of William Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream (probably premiered in 1595–96) takes place at Hampton Court. 14–16 January – Hampton Court Conference with James I, the Anglican bishops and representatives of Puritans. Work begins on the Authorized King James Version of the Bible and revision of the Book of Common Prayer. 17 February – James I issues an order for all Jesuits and Roman Catholic priests to leave his kingdom by March 19. 15 March – The King and Queen make their formal Royal Entry to London. 19 March – The "Blessed Parliament" assembles at Westminster and debates Robert Cecil's proposal, brought forward according to the King's desire, for union with Scotland. 1 May – James I and Anne of Denmark are treated to A Private Entertainment of the King and Queen on May-Day at Highgate.Matthew Steggle, "Jonson, Marston, Highgate, Horns", Notes and Queries, 67:3 (2020), pp. 354–358. 2 April – Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Edward Phelips rules that members of the House may not bring forward an identical (or near-identical) motion to one that has already been decided in that same session. 20 May – Gunpowder Plot: Five Catholic conspirators, led by Robert Catesby, who has invited Thomas Wintour, John Wright, Thomas Percy and Guy Fawkes, meet at the Duck and Drake Inn in London to make a plan for the assassination of King James. 20 May–16 July – 18 sessions of discussion between England and Spain at Somerset House in London agree a peace treaty to end the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604). 20 June – The Form of Apology and Satisfaction is read out in the House of Commons to justify the conduct of Parliament following a dispute between King and Parliament over a contested election in Buckinghamshire. 18 August – The Treaty of London brings an end to the Anglo–Spanish War. 4 July – The Jesuits etc. Act 1603 (An Act for the due execution of the Statutes against Jesuits, seminary Priests and recusants) is given royal assent, creating penalties against Jesuits and Catholics who send their children abroad to Catholic colleges. 7 July – Parliament prorogued, after failing to grant the King all the subsidies he has asked for. Before 1 October – Huntingdon Beaumont completes the Wollaton Wagonway, built to transport coal from the mines at Strelley to Wollaton just west of Nottingham, the world's oldest wagonway with provenance.The exact date is unknown, but a surviving account book for the year ended September 30 1604 proves it was built within the preceding 12 months. 20 October – King James assumes the style king of Great Britain. 1 November (Hallowmas day) – First recorded performance of Shakespeare's tragedy Othello, at Whitehall Palace in London. 10 December – Richard Bancroft (a leading participant in the King James Version Bible translation) is installed as Archbishop of Canterbury. Christopher Marlowe's play The Tragicall History of D. Faustus (probably written and first performed between 1588/89 and Marlowe's death in 1593) is published in London. King James publishes A Counterblaste to Tobacco. Table Alphabeticall, the first known English dictionary to be organised by alphabetical ordering, is published. Blundell's School is founded in Tiverton, Devon, under the will of merchant Peter Blundell. 1605 10 April – Spanish Catholic missionary Luisa Carvajal y Mendoza arrives in England. October – Publication of Francis Bacon's treatise The Advancement of Learning. 5 November – Gunpowder Plot: a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament is foiled when, following an anonymous tip-off (passed to Lord Monteagle in October), Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, finds Catholic plotter Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the Parliament building and orders a search of the area, finding 36 barrels of gunpowder. Fawkes is arrested for trying to kill King James I and the members who were scheduled to sit together in Parliament the next day. Fawkes speaks the legendary words: "Remember, remember, the Fifth of November".