1604 in England - Events

Events

• 1600
  • January - In Ireland, Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, renews the Nine Years' War against England with an invasion of Munster.
  • 31 December - East India Company granted a Royal Charter.
  • Publication of Ben Jonson's play Every Man Out of His Humour.
  • First publication of William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream.
  • William Gilbert publishes De Magnete, discussing Earth's magnetic field, one of the first important scientific works to be published in England.
• 1601
  • 7–8 January - Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, stages a short-lived rebellion against Elizabeth I.
  • 25 February - Essex executed for treason.
  • Spring - Possible first performance of Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet.
  • 2 October–3 January 1602 - The Siege of Kinsale ends the rebellion in Ireland.
  • November - Elizabeth I addresses her final parliament with the Golden Speech.
  • An Act for the Relief of the Poor codifies the English Poor Laws.
• 1602
  • 2 February (Candlemas night) - First recorded performance of Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night, in Middle Temple Hall, London.
  • 8 November - The Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford is opened.
  • Publication of Shakespeare's comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor.
  • Richard Carew publishes The Survey of Cornwall.

• 1603
  • 24 March - Queen Elizabeth I dies at Richmond Palace and is succeeded by her cousin King James VI of Scotland, thus uniting the crowns of Scotland and England.
  • 31 March - The Nine Years War (Ireland) is ended by the submission of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, to the English Crown and the signing of the Treaty of Mellifont.
  • April - Thomas Cartwright delivers his Millenary Petition, demanding an end to ritualistic practices, and signed by 1,000 Puritan ministers, to the King.
  • 28 April - Funeral of Elizabeth I in Westminster Abbey.
  • 17 July - Sir Walter Ralegh arrested for treason.
  • 21 July - Thomas Howard created the 1st Earl of Suffolk.
  • 25 July - Coronation of James I as King of England in Westminster Abbey.
  • 17 November - Ralegh goes on trial for treason in the converted Great Hall of Winchester Castle.
• 1604
  • 14 January to 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.
  • 19 March - Parliament assembles and debates Robert Cecil's proposal for union with Scotland.
  • 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, an intermittent conflict which has been going on since 1585.
  • 7 July - Parliament prorogued.
  • 20 October - King James assumes the style king of Great Britain.
  • November - Richard Bancroft enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury.
  • 1 November (Hallowmas day) - First recorded performance of Shakespeare's tragedy Othello, at Whitehall Palace in London.
  • Christopher Marlowe's play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus published.
  • Table Alphabeticall, the first known English dictionary to be organised by alphabetical ordering, is published.
  • Peter Blundell founds Blundell's School in Tiverton, Devon.
• 1605
  • 5 November - Gunpowder Plot: A plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament is foiled when Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, finds 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. Guy Fawkes spoke the legendary words: "Remember, remember, the Fifth of November".
  • 8 November - Gunpowder Plot conspirator Robert Catesby shot while plotters are being arrested at Holbeche House in the west midlands.
  • Publication of Francis Bacon's treatise The Advancement of Learning.

• 1606
  • 31 January - Fawkes and his co-plotters are executed by hanging, drawing and quartering.
  • 10 April - The London Company is granted a Royal Charter to encourage colonisation in Virginia.
  • 12 April - First version of the Union Flag created.
  • 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.
  • August (approx.) - Possible first performance of Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth.
  • 18 November - Third session of Parliament begins.
  • 26 December (St. Stephen's night) - First recorded performance of Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear, before the King at Whitehall.
• 1607
  • 30 January - Bristol Channel floods (a possible tsunami) result in the drowning of an estimated 2,000 people, with 200 square miles (518 km2) of farmland inundated.
  • late April - Start of Midland Revolt against land enclosures.
  • 13 May - English settlers establish Jamestown, Virginia.
  • 8 June - Midland Revolt suppressed at Newton, Northamptonshire, by local gentry.
  • 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 - 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, thus facilitating the Plantation of Ulster with English and Scots settlers.
  • 5 December–14 February 1608 - Severe frost. Many rivers, including the Thames, freeze.
  • First performance of Francis Beaumont's parodic play The Knight of the Burning Pestle.
• 1608
  • First performance of George Chapman's play The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron. The play is prohibited after the French Ambassador complains to the King.
  • Ben Jonson's satiric play Volpone published.
  • Thomas Middleton's city comedy A Mad World, My Masters published.
• 1609
  • 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.
  • 28 August - English explorer Henry Hudson (in the service of the Dutch East India Company) finds Delaware Bay.
  • 11–12 September - Explorer Henry Hudson's ship Halve Maen sails into Upper New York Bay and begins a journey up the Hudson River.
  • 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.
  • Plantation of Ulster proceeds: Protestant English and Scots settlers take over forfeited estates of rebel leaders.
  • Publication of Pericles, Prince of Tyre with attribution to Shakespeare.