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 .[ 1]
23 May – the House of Commons petitions King James I against imposed duties.[ 2]
9 July – Arbella Stuart , a claimant to the throne, imprisoned for marrying William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset , another claimant, on 22 June.[ 3]
23 July – Parliament prorogued.[ 1]
3 August – Henry Hudson leads an expedition to Hudson Bay .[ 3]
20 September – Case of Proclamations rules that the monarch cannot make decisions by proclamation unsupported by legislation.
16 October – Parliament assembles.[ 1]
6 December – Parliament prorogued and does not assemble again until 1614.[ 1]
December – Thomas Harriot becomes one of the first astronomers to observe sunspots .[ 2]
Winter – the decision in Dr. Bonham's Case asserts the supremacy of the common law .
Stained glass windows installed in the chapel of Hatfield House by Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury , are the first in the country since the start of the English Reformation .[ 4]
First performance of Ben Jonson 's satirical comedy The Alchemist .[ 2]
First performance of William Shakespeare 's late romance Cymbeline .[ 3]
The first edition of William Camden 's antiquarian chorography Britannia in English is published in an enlarged translation by Philemon Holland .
1611
4 March – George Abbot enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury .
2 May – the Authorized King James Version of the Bible is published,[ 2] printed in London by Robert Barker .
11 May – first recorded performance of Shakespeare 's The Winter's Tale , probably new this year,[ 3] by the King's Men at the Globe Theatre in London.
22 May – the first hereditary baronets are created by letters patent from the King, largely as a means of funding the army.[ 2] Sir Nicholas Bacon, 1st Baronet, of Redgrave in Suffolk becomes the premier baronet of England .
22 June – the crew of Henry Hudson 's ship Discovery mutiny leaving him adrift in Hudson Bay .[ 5]
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.[ 2]
Cyril Tourneur 's play The Atheist's Tragedy published.[ 2]
Last known traditional performance of an English mystery play , at Kendal .
Thomas Sutton founds Charterhouse School on the site of the old Carthusian monastery in Charterhouse Square , Smithfield, London .
1612
1613
14 February – Elizabeth Stuart , daughter of King James I, marries Frederick V, Elector Palatine , at the Chapel Royal in Whitehall .[ 2]
29 June – the original Globe Theatre in Southwark is destroyed by a fire started during a performance of the Shakespeare play Henry VIII .[ 5]
6 August – Great fire of Dorchester, Dorset .[ 8]
15 September – death of Thomas Overbury by poisoning in the Tower of London , having been imprisoned after quarrelling with Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester .[ 1]
29 September – the New River (engineered by Sir Hugh Myddelton ) is opened to supply London with drinking water from Hertfordshire .[ 2]
3 November – Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester , is created Earl of Somerset.[ 2]
23 December – marriage of the Earl of Somerset to Frances Howard ,[ 1] occasioning John Donne 's Eclogue .
Copper (tin-faced) farthings are produced by John Harington, 1st Baron Harington of Exton and his family under royal licence.
English colonists destroy a French settlement at Port Royal, Nova Scotia .[ 2]
The King condemns duels in his proclamation Against Private Challenges and Combats .
Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland 's closet drama The Tragedy of Mariam is published.
1614
5 April – Parliament assembles for the first time since 1610 and debates the imposition of taxes by the King.[ 1]
7 June – King James dissolves the Addled Parliament for refusing to impose new taxes.[ 5]
June – King James raises money through a Benevolence; non-contributors are arraigned before the Court of Star Chamber .[ 3]
31 October – first performance of Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fayre: A Comedy ;[ 3] it receives a Court performance the following day.
1615
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 ;[ 2] on 24 April he receives the Order of the Garter ; and on 27 August is created Viscount Villiers and Baron Waddon, receiving a grant of land valued at £80,000.
10 January – English diplomat Sir Thomas Roe presents his credentials to the Mughal Emperor Jahangir in Ajmer , opening the door to the British presence in India .[ 9]
1 February – King James grants Ben Jonson an annual pension of 100 marks , making him de facto poet laureate .[ 11]
11 March – Roman Catholic priest Thomas Atkinson is hanged, drawn, and quartered at York , at age 70.[ 12]
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 .[ 5]
26 March–30 August – William Baffin makes a detailed exploration of Baffin Bay whilst searching for the Northwest Passage .[ 13]
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.[ 1] [ 14]
12 June – Pocahontas (now Rebecca) arrives in England, with her husband, John Rolfe ,[ 13] [ 15] 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 .[ 3]
October
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.[ 17]
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.[ 3] [ 18]
14 November – Sir Edward Coke is dismissed as Chief Justice of the King's Bench by royal prerogative.
25 December
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 .[ 20]
Inigo Jones designs the Queen's House at Greenwich [ 13] as the first major example of classical architecture in the country (work is suspended in 1619 and resumed 1630–38).
The Anchor Brewery is established in London by James Monger next to the Globe Theatre in Southwark ; it will be the world's largest by the early nineteenth century and brew until the 1970s.[ 21]
Publications:
1617
1618
1619
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
23 January – Ralph Josselin , vicar of Earls Colne in Essex (died 1683 )
June – John Thurloe , secretary to the council of state in Protectorate England and spymaster for Oliver Cromwell (died 1668 )
August – William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford , peer and soldier (died 1700 )
17 September (bapt.) – Obadiah Walker , academic and Master of University College, Oxford from 1676 to 1688 (died 1699 )
18 October – Nicholas Culpeper , botanist (died 1654 )
23 November – John Wallis , mathematician (died 1703 )
17 December – Roger L'Estrange , pamphleteer and author (died 1704 )
Henry Bard, 1st Viscount Bellomont , Royalist (died 1656 )
Thomas Harrison , puritan soldier and Fifth Monarchist (died 1660 )
William Holder , music theorist (died 1698 )
John Owen , Nonconformist church leader and theologian (died 1683 )
Edward Sexby , Puritan soldier and Leveller in the army of Oliver Cromwell (died 1658 )
1617
1619
1610
1611
Henry Hudson , sea explorer and navigator (lost at sea) (born c. 1565?)
1612
9 January – Sir Leonard Holliday , a founder of the East India Company and a Lord Mayor of London (born c. 1550?)
15 January – Hadrian à Saravia , theologian (born 1532 in the Spanish Netherlands)
11 April – Edward Wightman , Baptist preacher (burned at the stake) (born 1566 )
24 May – Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury , statesman and spymaster (born 1563 )
4 August – Hugh Broughton , scholar (born 1549 )
6 November – Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales , heir to the throne (born 1594 in Scotland)
12 November – Sir John Harington , courtier, writer and inventor of a flush toilet (born 1561 )
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
7 June – Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr , Governor of Virginia (born 1577 )
20 July – James Montague , bishop and academic (born 1568 )
28 September – Joshua Sylvester , poet (born 1563 )
29 October – Sir Walter Ralegh , soldier, politician, courtier, explorer, historian, poet and spy (executed) (born 1552 or 1554)
1619
^ a b c d e f g h "The government of James I" . Archived from the original on 2008-05-14. Retrieved 2008-03-17 .
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History . London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 243–248 . ISBN 0-304-35730-8 .
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History . London: Century Ltd. pp. 170–172. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2 .
^ Nicolson, Adam (2003). Power and Glory . London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-710893-1 .
^ a b c d e Penguin Pocket On This Day . Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0 .
^ Grafton, Anthony. "A Sketch Map of a Lost Continent: The Republic of Letters" . Archived from the original on 22 May 2010. Retrieved 2010-04-28 .
^ Haddon, Celia (2004). The First Ever English Olimpick Games . London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-86274-2 .
^ "The Great Fire of Dorchester" . Dorset Ancestors. 2011-05-28. Retrieved 2018-02-27 .
^ a b Strachan, Michael (2004). "Roe, Sir Thomas (1581–1644)" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press. doi :10.1093/ref:odnb/23943 . Retrieved 2012-10-09 . (subscription or UK public library membership required)
^ Friar, Stephen (2001). The Sutton Companion to Local History (rev. ed.). Stroud: Sutton Publishing. p. 241. ISBN 0-7509-2723-2 .
^ Donaldson, Ian (2004). "Jonson, Benjamin (1572–1637)" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press. doi :10.1093/ref:odnb/15116 . Retrieved 2012-10-09 .
^ This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Ven. Thomas Atkinson ". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company.
^ a b c Everett, Jason M., ed. (2006). "1616". The People's Chronology . Thomson Gale.
^ Bellany, Alastair (2004). "Carr, Robert, earl of Somerset (1585/6?–1645)" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press. doi :10.1093/ref:odnb/4754 . Retrieved 2012-10-09 .
^ Tilton, Robert S. (1994). Pocahontas: The Evolution of an American Narrative . Cambridge University Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-521-46959-3 .
^ Kellett, Arnold (2003). King James's School, 1616–2003 . Knaresborough: King James's School. ISBN 0-9545195-0-7 .
^ Published 1631.
^ Bland, M. (1998). "William Stansby and the production of the Workes of Beniamin Jonson , 1615–16". The Library . 20 . Bibliographical Society : 10. doi :10.1093/library/20.1.1 .
^ Ratnikas, Algirdas J. "Timeline Indonesia" . Timelines.ws. Archived from the original on 2010-07-10. Retrieved 2010-08-12 .
^ Robbins, Russell Hope (1959). The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology . New York: Bonanza Books.
^ Lesley Richmond; Alison Turton (1990). The Brewing Industry: A Guide to Historical Records . Manchester University Press. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-7190-3032-1 .
^ Homer, Trevor (2006). The Book of Origins . London: Portrait. pp. 283–4. ISBN 0-7499-5110-9 .
^ "March 11th" , The Book of Days , Chambers, 1869, archived from the original on 18 December 2007, retrieved 2007-11-21
^ Stratton, J. M. (1969). Agricultural Records . John Baker. ISBN 0-212-97022-4 .