History
1509-1547. Reign of Henry VIII. He presides
over the English Reformation, severing England from the Church of Rome, and
declaring himself Supreme Head of the Church in England.
1525 William Tyndale publishes the New Testament of the Bible in
English and smuggles copies into England. He is later executed as a heretic.
1547-1553 Reign of Henry's son, Edward VI. The Book of
Common Prayer (1549 and 1552) establishes an English liturgy in the Church
of England.
1553-1558 Reign of Henry's elder daughter, Mary I (Bloody Mary). A
Roman Catholic, she restores England to the Roman (Papal) obedience. Wyatt's
rebellion (1554) attempts to win the throne for Elizabeth, but is crushed.
Another plot in favor of Elizabeth is crushed in 1556.
1558 Accession of Henry's younger daughter, Elizabeth I. In the first
years of her reign the protestant (Anglican) Church is re-established and
Elizabeth assumes the title of "Supreme Governour of the Church in England" by
the Act of Supremacy (1559). The Act of Uniformity outlaws non-attendance at
parish churches. The Book of Common Prayer and the Geneva translation of
the Bible are republished and royally promulgated. Queen Elizabeth rejects
Phillip II of Spain.
1560 The treaty of Edinburgh. The French withdraw from Scotland and a
Presbyterian church is established in Scotland.
1561 O'Neill rebellion in Ireland
1562 Civil war in France. Le Havre occupied by English forces. John
Hawkins begins trading in slaves.
1563 Penal bills against Catholics and witches passed by Parliament.
Church of England adopts the Thirty-nine Articles of religion as its platform
of orthodoxy. John Foxe, Actes and Monuments (Foxe's "Book of Martyrs"),
a Protestant hagiography. Plague in London
1564 The Peace of Troyes (with France): Elizabeth gives up claims to
Calais for a cash settlement. Persecution of puritans intensifies. Birth of
William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon, son to glover John Shakespeare and
Mary Arden Shakespeare.
1566 Tobacco introduced from the New World.
1568 Mary Queen of Scots, having misruled Scotland since 1561 and
having been forced to abdicate in favor of her infant son, James VI, flees to
England. Kept in confinement, she conspires with various Catholics in England
and abroad to take the crown from her cousin Elizabeth. The "Bishop's Bible"
published and appointed to be read in churches for divine service. Jesuits
found an English College at Douai to train English Jesuits abroad.
1570-71 Elizabeth I formally excommunicated and "deposed" by Pope Pius
V. The Ridolfi plot (in favor of Mary Queen of Scots) is exposed. Treasons bill
passes Parliament. St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of protestants in France.
1572 John Donne and Ben Jonson born. Vagrancy act passed in
Parliament. Thomas Duke of Norfolk beheaded on Tower Hill.
1576 The Theatre, the first permanent playhouse building in England,
built by James Burbage on the northern outskirts of London. Over the next 40
years, some seven other large playhouses are built, mostly on the northern
outskirts or on the south bank of the Thames, although no more than four were
in operation at any given time.
1577 Francis Drake begins his voyage around the world (returns in
1580). First edition of Holinshed's Chronicles.
1579 Sir Thomas North publishes a translation of Plutarch's
Lives, the major source for the plots of Shakespeare's Roman plays.
Stephen Gosson in School of Abuse and Thomas Lodge in Defence of
Stage Plays inaugurate several generations of lively printed controversiy
over the immorality of the stage. Protestants in Holland unite under the treaty
of Utrecht.
1580 Jesuit mission established in England.
1582 Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway. She is 26; he is 18
Duke of Alencon, suitor to the Queen, leaves England. Plague in London.
Pope Gregory XIII reforms the calendar; Protestant countries retain old
calendar.
1583 Shakespeare's daughter, Susanna, is born, six months after his
marriage (See Norton 44-45). Arden and Throgmorton plots against Elizabeth in
favor of Mary Queen of Scots. Galileo's pendulum. Queen Elizabeth's Men
(players' company) established by royal order.
1585 Hamnet and Judith, Shakespeare's twin son and daughter, are born.
Mid 1580s The Elizabethan drama begins to be a major commercial and 1585-1586 Parry plot (to assassinate Elizabeth) exposed. Babington
Plot against Elizabeth in favor of Mary Queen of Scots.
1587 The Rose Theatre built by Philip Henslowe. Mary Queen of Scots
beheaded for complicity in plots against Elizabeth. Second edition of
Holinshed's Chronicles, the principal source for Shakespeare's history
plays, and for Lear, Macbeth, and Cymbeline, published.
1588 The Spanish Armada, sent against England by Philip II of Spain
and backed by Pope Sixtus V, defeated by English ships and by the weather. The
Martin Marprelate tracts (against episcopacy) begin.
1589 The Master of the Revels (an official of the Queen's court) given
authority to license and censor all plays performed in London.
1590 Edmund Spenser publishes the first three books of The Faerie
Queene.
1591 Publication of Astrophil and Stella by Sir Philip Sidney
(died 1586) establishes the English vogue for sonnets. 1592 Earliest surviving reference to Shakespeare as an actor playwright (a sneering allusion in a pamphlet by Thomas Greene, including a
line parodied from 3 Henry VI). Plague in London.
1593-1594 Christopher Marlowe killed in a tavern brawl. A severe
outbreak of plague leads to the closing of the London theatres. Acting
companies try to survive by touring the provinces. Shakespeare publishes his
two long narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of
Lucrece , both dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. When London theatres re-open,
the Lord Chamberlain's Men is formed, a new company with Richard Burbage as
leading man, Will Kempe as chief comic actor, and William Shakespeare as actor
and leading playwright. The Warboys Witch trials; three "witches" executed.
Henry of Navarre becomes Catholic. Crowned Henry IV of France in 1594.
1595 Sir Walter Raleigh sails to Guiana. Apprentices riot in London;
five are hanged. Robert Southwell, Jesuit poet, executed.
1596 Shakespeare secures the grant of a coat of arms for his father,
giving him (and eventually Shakespeare himself) the right to sign himself a
"Gentleman," a member of the "gentry" class. Hamnet Shakespeare dies, aged 11
years. Ben Jonson's career as playwright begins. Spenser publishes books 4-6 of
The Faerie Queene. "League of Amity" between England and France.
1597 Shakespeare buys New Place, the largest house in Stratford. First
edition of Francis Bacon's Essays . The Theatre torn down. Lord Chamberlain's
Men playing at the Curtain.
1598 Death of William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, Elizabeth's principal
adviser since the start of her reign. George Chapman begins publishing his
translation of Homer's Iliad. Edict of Nantes ends French civil war and grants
toleration to Protestants.
1599 The Earl of Essex unsuccessful in combating revolt in Ireland.
Using timbers salvaged from the Theatre, the Lord Chamberlain's Men build the
Globe on the south bank of the Thames. They play there until 1642. "Offensive"
books burned by ecclesiastical order and Nashe and Harvey forbidden to publish.
1600 Fortune Theatre built. James VI's second son, Charles,
is born. East India Company founded.
1601 Essex attempts rebellion, is executed. New poor laws establish
local parishes as responsible for relief. Death of Shakespeare's father.
1603 Death of Elizabeth I; accession of James I. In the subsequent
reshuffling of court patronage, the Lord Chamberlain's Men become the King's
Men, by which name they are known for the rest of their career. Florio's translation of
Montaigne's Essays (died 1592) published. High O'Neil surrenders in
Ireland.
1604 Peace with Spain. A tougher statute against witches passes
Parliament. tax on tobacco.
1605 Gunpowder plot (Guy Fawkes) against James I. Bacon publishes his
The Advancement of Learning.
1606 Beaumont and Fletcher's career as playwrights begins. Tougher
acts against recusancy (non-attendance at churches) adopted. Oath of Allegiance
imposed.
1607 Settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. Susanna Shakespeare marries
John Hall, a Stratford physician.
1608 Death of Shakespeare's mother. Birth of Shakespeare's
granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall (died 1670, Shakespeare's last surviving
descendant). The King's Men lease the Blackfriar's Theatre, a small indoor
theatre (once a monastery) to use along with the Globe. Several other small
roofed theatres open in subsequent years, eventually becoming more important as
a theatre venue than the big amphitheatres.
1609 Shakespeare's Sonnets piratically published. Moors are expelled from Spain.
1611 The Authorized Version (King James version) of the Bible in
English published; it gradually replaces the Geneva version and the Great Bible
as the standard English version of the scriptures. Large numbers of English and
Scots settle in Northern Ireland. James establishes a new order of knighthood,
the baronetcy; the "honor" was sold to raise crown funds. Shakespeare retiring
to Stratford; Fletcher taking over as principal playwright for the King's Men.
1612 Trial and execution of the Lancashire Witches.
1613 The Globe accidentally burnt down during a performance of
Shakespeare and Fletcher's Henry VIII, immediately rebuilt.
1616 Judith Shakespeare marries Thomas Quiney, a Stratford vintner.
Shakespeare dies at Stratford.
1620 Plymouth (Massachusestts) colony settled.
1623 Death of Anne Hathaway Shakespeare. Two of the King's Men,
Shakespeare's fellow actors Hemings and Condell, publish Mr. William
Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (the "First Folio"; in
facsimile in Sanborn) containing 36 plays. Of these eighteen had previously
been printed in cheap quarto editions; the other eighteen had not previously
appeared in print. Two plays at least partially written by Shakespeare
(Pericles, The Two Noble Kinsmen ) were omitted from the First
Folio.
1625 Death of James I; accession of his
son Charles I.
1642 A Puritan majority in Parliament passes an act forbidding
playacting and closing the theatres.
1649 Charles I executed after losing a civil war to parliamentary
forces led by puritan Oliver Cromwell. The monarchy is abolished; England
declared a Commonwealth. (See C. Hill 1964, 1970, 1972)
1660 Within two years of Cromwell's death, the
monarchy is restored in the person of Charles I's son, Charles II. Episcopacy
also restored. Theatre is once again permitted in England.
over the English Reformation, severing England from the Church of Rome, and
declaring himself Supreme Head of the Church in England.
1525 William Tyndale publishes the New Testament of the Bible in
English and smuggles copies into England. He is later executed as a heretic.
1547-1553 Reign of Henry's son, Edward VI. The Book of
Common Prayer (1549 and 1552) establishes an English liturgy in the Church
of England.
1553-1558 Reign of Henry's elder daughter, Mary I (Bloody Mary). A
Roman Catholic, she restores England to the Roman (Papal) obedience. Wyatt's
rebellion (1554) attempts to win the throne for Elizabeth, but is crushed.
Another plot in favor of Elizabeth is crushed in 1556.
1558 Accession of Henry's younger daughter, Elizabeth I. In the first
years of her reign the protestant (Anglican) Church is re-established and
Elizabeth assumes the title of "Supreme Governour of the Church in England" by
the Act of Supremacy (1559). The Act of Uniformity outlaws non-attendance at
parish churches. The Book of Common Prayer and the Geneva translation of
the Bible are republished and royally promulgated. Queen Elizabeth rejects
Phillip II of Spain.
1560 The treaty of Edinburgh. The French withdraw from Scotland and a
Presbyterian church is established in Scotland.
1561 O'Neill rebellion in Ireland
1562 Civil war in France. Le Havre occupied by English forces. John
Hawkins begins trading in slaves.
1563 Penal bills against Catholics and witches passed by Parliament.
Church of England adopts the Thirty-nine Articles of religion as its platform
of orthodoxy. John Foxe, Actes and Monuments (Foxe's "Book of Martyrs"),
a Protestant hagiography. Plague in London
1564 The Peace of Troyes (with France): Elizabeth gives up claims to
Calais for a cash settlement. Persecution of puritans intensifies. Birth of
William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon, son to glover John Shakespeare and
Mary Arden Shakespeare.
1566 Tobacco introduced from the New World.
1568 Mary Queen of Scots, having misruled Scotland since 1561 and
having been forced to abdicate in favor of her infant son, James VI, flees to
England. Kept in confinement, she conspires with various Catholics in England
and abroad to take the crown from her cousin Elizabeth. The "Bishop's Bible"
published and appointed to be read in churches for divine service. Jesuits
found an English College at Douai to train English Jesuits abroad.
1570-71 Elizabeth I formally excommunicated and "deposed" by Pope Pius
V. The Ridolfi plot (in favor of Mary Queen of Scots) is exposed. Treasons bill
passes Parliament. St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of protestants in France.
1572 John Donne and Ben Jonson born. Vagrancy act passed in
Parliament. Thomas Duke of Norfolk beheaded on Tower Hill.
1576 The Theatre, the first permanent playhouse building in England,
built by James Burbage on the northern outskirts of London. Over the next 40
years, some seven other large playhouses are built, mostly on the northern
outskirts or on the south bank of the Thames, although no more than four were
in operation at any given time.
1577 Francis Drake begins his voyage around the world (returns in
1580). First edition of Holinshed's Chronicles.
1579 Sir Thomas North publishes a translation of Plutarch's
Lives, the major source for the plots of Shakespeare's Roman plays.
Stephen Gosson in School of Abuse and Thomas Lodge in Defence of
Stage Plays inaugurate several generations of lively printed controversiy
over the immorality of the stage. Protestants in Holland unite under the treaty
of Utrecht.
1580 Jesuit mission established in England.
1582 Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway. She is 26; he is 18
Duke of Alencon, suitor to the Queen, leaves England. Plague in London.
Pope Gregory XIII reforms the calendar; Protestant countries retain old
calendar.
1583 Shakespeare's daughter, Susanna, is born, six months after his
marriage (See Norton 44-45). Arden and Throgmorton plots against Elizabeth in
favor of Mary Queen of Scots. Galileo's pendulum. Queen Elizabeth's Men
(players' company) established by royal order.
1585 Hamnet and Judith, Shakespeare's twin son and daughter, are born.
Mid 1580s The Elizabethan drama begins to be a major commercial and 1585-1586 Parry plot (to assassinate Elizabeth) exposed. Babington
Plot against Elizabeth in favor of Mary Queen of Scots.
1587 The Rose Theatre built by Philip Henslowe. Mary Queen of Scots
beheaded for complicity in plots against Elizabeth. Second edition of
Holinshed's Chronicles, the principal source for Shakespeare's history
plays, and for Lear, Macbeth, and Cymbeline, published.
1588 The Spanish Armada, sent against England by Philip II of Spain
and backed by Pope Sixtus V, defeated by English ships and by the weather. The
Martin Marprelate tracts (against episcopacy) begin.
1589 The Master of the Revels (an official of the Queen's court) given
authority to license and censor all plays performed in London.
1590 Edmund Spenser publishes the first three books of The Faerie
Queene.
1591 Publication of Astrophil and Stella by Sir Philip Sidney
(died 1586) establishes the English vogue for sonnets. 1592 Earliest surviving reference to Shakespeare as an actor playwright (a sneering allusion in a pamphlet by Thomas Greene, including a
line parodied from 3 Henry VI). Plague in London.
1593-1594 Christopher Marlowe killed in a tavern brawl. A severe
outbreak of plague leads to the closing of the London theatres. Acting
companies try to survive by touring the provinces. Shakespeare publishes his
two long narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of
Lucrece , both dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. When London theatres re-open,
the Lord Chamberlain's Men is formed, a new company with Richard Burbage as
leading man, Will Kempe as chief comic actor, and William Shakespeare as actor
and leading playwright. The Warboys Witch trials; three "witches" executed.
Henry of Navarre becomes Catholic. Crowned Henry IV of France in 1594.
1595 Sir Walter Raleigh sails to Guiana. Apprentices riot in London;
five are hanged. Robert Southwell, Jesuit poet, executed.
1596 Shakespeare secures the grant of a coat of arms for his father,
giving him (and eventually Shakespeare himself) the right to sign himself a
"Gentleman," a member of the "gentry" class. Hamnet Shakespeare dies, aged 11
years. Ben Jonson's career as playwright begins. Spenser publishes books 4-6 of
The Faerie Queene. "League of Amity" between England and France.
1597 Shakespeare buys New Place, the largest house in Stratford. First
edition of Francis Bacon's Essays . The Theatre torn down. Lord Chamberlain's
Men playing at the Curtain.
1598 Death of William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, Elizabeth's principal
adviser since the start of her reign. George Chapman begins publishing his
translation of Homer's Iliad. Edict of Nantes ends French civil war and grants
toleration to Protestants.
1599 The Earl of Essex unsuccessful in combating revolt in Ireland.
Using timbers salvaged from the Theatre, the Lord Chamberlain's Men build the
Globe on the south bank of the Thames. They play there until 1642. "Offensive"
books burned by ecclesiastical order and Nashe and Harvey forbidden to publish.
1600 Fortune Theatre built. James VI's second son, Charles,
is born. East India Company founded.
1601 Essex attempts rebellion, is executed. New poor laws establish
local parishes as responsible for relief. Death of Shakespeare's father.
1603 Death of Elizabeth I; accession of James I. In the subsequent
reshuffling of court patronage, the Lord Chamberlain's Men become the King's
Men, by which name they are known for the rest of their career. Florio's translation of
Montaigne's Essays (died 1592) published. High O'Neil surrenders in
Ireland.
1604 Peace with Spain. A tougher statute against witches passes
Parliament. tax on tobacco.
1605 Gunpowder plot (Guy Fawkes) against James I. Bacon publishes his
The Advancement of Learning.
1606 Beaumont and Fletcher's career as playwrights begins. Tougher
acts against recusancy (non-attendance at churches) adopted. Oath of Allegiance
imposed.
1607 Settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. Susanna Shakespeare marries
John Hall, a Stratford physician.
1608 Death of Shakespeare's mother. Birth of Shakespeare's
granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall (died 1670, Shakespeare's last surviving
descendant). The King's Men lease the Blackfriar's Theatre, a small indoor
theatre (once a monastery) to use along with the Globe. Several other small
roofed theatres open in subsequent years, eventually becoming more important as
a theatre venue than the big amphitheatres.
1609 Shakespeare's Sonnets piratically published. Moors are expelled from Spain.
1611 The Authorized Version (King James version) of the Bible in
English published; it gradually replaces the Geneva version and the Great Bible
as the standard English version of the scriptures. Large numbers of English and
Scots settle in Northern Ireland. James establishes a new order of knighthood,
the baronetcy; the "honor" was sold to raise crown funds. Shakespeare retiring
to Stratford; Fletcher taking over as principal playwright for the King's Men.
1612 Trial and execution of the Lancashire Witches.
1613 The Globe accidentally burnt down during a performance of
Shakespeare and Fletcher's Henry VIII, immediately rebuilt.
1616 Judith Shakespeare marries Thomas Quiney, a Stratford vintner.
Shakespeare dies at Stratford.
1620 Plymouth (Massachusestts) colony settled.
1623 Death of Anne Hathaway Shakespeare. Two of the King's Men,
Shakespeare's fellow actors Hemings and Condell, publish Mr. William
Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (the "First Folio"; in
facsimile in Sanborn) containing 36 plays. Of these eighteen had previously
been printed in cheap quarto editions; the other eighteen had not previously
appeared in print. Two plays at least partially written by Shakespeare
(Pericles, The Two Noble Kinsmen ) were omitted from the First
Folio.
1625 Death of James I; accession of his
son Charles I.
1642 A Puritan majority in Parliament passes an act forbidding
playacting and closing the theatres.
1649 Charles I executed after losing a civil war to parliamentary
forces led by puritan Oliver Cromwell. The monarchy is abolished; England
declared a Commonwealth. (See C. Hill 1964, 1970, 1972)
1660 Within two years of Cromwell's death, the
monarchy is restored in the person of Charles I's son, Charles II. Episcopacy
also restored. Theatre is once again permitted in England.