1600: Shakespeare - “Hamlet”, “The Merry Wives of Windsor”; Recorders become popular;
1603: heavy outbreak of plague; Q.Elizabeth I dies & is succeeded by her cousin James VI of Scotland as James I of England;
1605: Guy Fawkes arrested accused of trying to blow up Parliament; Shakespeare - “King Lear”, “Macbeth”;
1611: Authorised version (1st English translation) of the Bible published;
1612: Last recorded burning of heretics in England; Shakespeare - “Henry VIII”;
1616: Shakespeare dies; “Stuart collars” become fashionable for men & women;
1618:
Sir Walter Raleigh executed;
Puritans object to playing of popular sports;
1624: Monopolies made illegal; England declares war on Spain;
1625: James I dies & is succeeded by Charles I of England & Scotland; Sir Thomas Coventry made Lord Keeper;
1633: trial of the Lancashire witches; Witherings reforms the English postal service; The Royal Scots military established;
1638: torture abolished;
1639: 1st Bishop's War in Scotland;
1640: 2nd Bishop's War in Scotland;
1641: massacre of Ulster Protestants; Catholic rebellion in Ireland;
1642: income & property tax tax introduced; all theatres closed by Puritan order;
1642,
civil war broke out between the
Puritan dominated parliament & supporters of the Crown with the Puritan
Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) raising a regiment of cavalry to fight on the side of the Parliament of which in 1645 he became commander in the crucial Battle of Marston Moor which he won earning he & his men the name Ironsides. His leadership again was decisive in the Battle of Naseby (June 14, 1645) which destroyed the king's army. When fruitless negotiations with the king divided the victors, Cromwell sided with the army faction, which favoured religious toleration, against the intransigent Presbyterians in Parliament. The arguing stopped when the king escaped, made an alliance with the Scots, & renewed the civil war in 1648. Cromwell quelled an uprising in Wales then crushed the Scots at Preston (Aug. 1648). Cromwell approved a purge of the army's opponents from Parliament & was involved in the king's trial & subsequent execution on Jan 30, 1649.
1649, Cromwell becomes a virtual dictator of England, proclaiming a Commonwealth and his 1st task was the subjection of Ireland & Scotland which resulted in massacres that always seemed excessive & resulted from his hatred for the Irish & for Roman Catholics. Cromwell's war crime of unspeakable murder (3000 butchered, most after they had surrendered and given up their arms, many more burnt alive) against the Irish has resulted in perpetual hatred of the English by the Irish. In 1951, Cromwell crushed a Scottish army.
in April 1653, walked into Parliament with musketeers & shut it down making himself a virtual dictator & thus ironically doing the same thing that he had accused Charles I of doing!
1653, after several failed Parliaments, Cromwell accepts the Instrument of Government (Dec 1653), a written constitution creating a protectorate & naming himself Lord Protector - “authority but not tyranny”. His primary concerns were to provide a stable government & to give toleration to all Puritan sects.
1655, the pious Cromwell set his major generals of the army against fornicators, evil & banning Christmas, resulting in public outcry forcing him to back off, & thus in pragamatic mode allows Jews back into England after being excluded since 1290, as the Jews had knowledge of foreign trade. His vigorous foreign policy & the success of his army & navy gave England prestige abroad it had not seen since Elizabeth I.
Cromwell ironically is responsible for laying down the vision for England's new democratic parliamentary system.
1658, allied with France, they capture Dunkirk from Spain, gaining a foothold on the Continent to take the place of Calais, which had been lost a hundred yrs before. Cromwell died Sep 3 1658 & named his son Richard his successor but he was unable to retain his power, resulting in temporary anarchy and loss of order.
1661, Charles II restored to the throne & Cromwell's body was disinterred from Westminster Abbey & hanged as that of a traitor, his head put on a pole mounted above Westminster Hall, & his body buried at the foot of the gallows. 11 other “king killers” were hanged or drawn & quartered. Thus started the golden age of ogling with plunging necklines and hedonism - a backlash against the pious reign of Cromwell.
1662: last silver pennies minted; Charles II marries Catherine of Braganza, daughter of King John IV of Portugal;
1663: 1st gold guinea coins in England; Hearth tax; Turnpike tolls introduced;
1664: a bright comet appears which religious superstition warned would herald the apocalypse of pestilence & war and the end of hedonism
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1666: the number of the devil 666 & thus came Great Fire of London (Feb 2-9) burning over 13,200 houses, and buildings such as St Paul's Cathedral.
1673: Test Act excludes Roman Catholics from office in England;
1675: Greenwich Observatory established;
1676: influenza epidemic;
1678: “Popish Plot” revealed; Catholics persecuted, trials of many leading Roman Catholics; the catholic-converted heir - James, Charles II's brother created a crisis; Import ban on French goods;
1683: Dampier begins circumnavigation of world; Wild boars extinct in England;
1684: 1st attempts in London to light the streets;
1685: Charles II dies & is succeeded by his Catholic brother James II; French Huguenots begin silk manufacture in Great Britain;
1686: Roman Catholics readmitted into English army;
1688: James II alienates his supporters; Seven English Lords invite William of Orange to England (the “Glorious Revolution”); William of Orange main concern was his Dutch interests & the great European fight against the Catholic French King Louis XIV, but his Dutch armada was successful in scaring James II who escaped to France;
1689: Declaration of Rights; William III & Mary II proclaimed King & Queen, but the British monarchy would never be the same again.
1690: Act of Grace passed; James II went to catholic Ireland & led an army against the protestant English at the Battle of Boyne, the Irish again became pawns in someone else's chess game, this time with no winners.
1691: New East India company formed; Treaty of Limerick ends Irish rebellion;
1692: massacre of Clan Macdonald at Glencoe; French invasion of England thwarted by destruction of the French navy
1693: National Debt begins; Scotland impoverished in famine.
1694: Bank of England founded; Q. Mary II dies; salt tax doubled;
1695: end of government press censorship;
1698: Scottish Darian scheme to commence trading post in Panama to facilitate trade between Japan & England, but the Darian fleet colonists met disaster with malarial-ridden swamps. The English were banned from supporting this scheme. The failed scheme consumed 2/3rds of Scotland's capital putting an end to Scotland's desire for economic independence and further cemented anti-Anglo sentiment, but set the scene for England to bail out Scotland financially in 1707 in return for union with England - “Brittania Incorporated” or “Great Britain”;