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| 1587 |
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| WAR WITH SPAIN. Construction of an English fleet of war against the Spanish Armada (See 1587). | 1 |
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| 1597 |
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| Rebellion of the Irish under Hugh O'Neill, earl of Tyrone; Lord Mountjoy quickly subjugated the country (1601). Capture of Tyrone, flight of the earl of Desmond. | 2 |
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| 1600 |
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| Charter of the East India Company created a joint stock venture, the 219 members each to receive a percentage of the profits proportional to the amount each invested; the crown to participate in election of governor and company officials; company officials exempted from the charter; the company exempted from restrictions on bullion export. First voyages were to the Spice Islands. | 3 |
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| 1601 |
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| Elizabethan Poor Law, preceded by various measures regulating apprenticeship (1563), vagrancy, and so on. This famous law charged the parishes with providing for the needy. The measure implicitly recognized the problem of poverty and the large numbers of displaced persons created by noble enclosure of former common lands and new state authority in English society. | 4 |
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| 1603–49 (1714) |
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| THE HOUSE OF STUART. Personal Union of England and Scotland. | 5 |
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| 1603–25 |
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| JAMES I (as king of Scotland James VI), son of Mary Stuart. The Scots had brought him up in the Protestant faith. He was learned and initially popular but was devoted to the theory of the divine right of kingship. In this century the after-effects of the Reformation made themselves felt in England as on the Continent, and in both places resulted in war. Inflation, the debt inherited from Elizabeth, an expensive foreign policy (wars), and their own extravagances forced James I and Charles I to seek financial support from parliament. The sale of monastic lands in the late 16th century, general agricultural improvements and the reclamation of wasteland, and investment in lucrative financial ventures had brought about a social revolution: the growth of a rich and articulate upper middle class that wanted to discuss royal expenditure, religious reform, and foreign policy. In effect, this class wanted sovereignty, and it was learning to use the power of the purse to get it. In their repeated clashes, kings and parliamentarians both appealed to medieval precedents, which tended to support the crown. In the 1640s, advanced democratic ideas, coupled usually with extreme religious doctrines, appealed in minority groups (Levelers, Fifth Monarchy Men). | 6 |
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| 1603, March 24 |
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| James I was proclaimed king; he entered London on May 7 and was crowned on July 25. Presentation of the millenary petition immediately after James's arrival in London, signed by 1,000 ministers, asking for the reform of abuses. | 7 |
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| 1604, Jan |
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| Hampton Court Conference, between the bishops and the Puritans, James presiding. The Puritans failed to secure any relaxation of the rules of the Church. James issued a proclamation enforcing the act of Uniformity and another banishing Jesuits and seminary priests. Friction between the king and parliament over a disputed election in Bucks. | 8 |
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| 1604, March 19–1611, Feb. 9 |
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| First parliament of James I. The king's scheme of a real union of England and Scotland unfavorably received. Appointment of a commission to investigate the matter. | 9 |
| Convocation (ecclesiastical court and legislature, at first established (Edward I) as an instrument for ecclesiastical taxation; afterward convened by archbishops for the settlement of church questions; since Henry VIII, convened only by writ from the king, and sitting and enacting canons only by permission of the king) adopted some new canons which bore so hard upon the Puritans that 300 clergymen left their livings rather than conform. | 10 |
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| 1604 |
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| Peace with Spain. James proclaimed King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland (Oct. 24). Punishment of many recusants (under the recusancy laws of Elizabeth, whereby refusing to attend services of the Church of England and celebrating or assisting at the Roman Catholic Mass were severely punished). | 11 |
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| 1605, Nov. 5 |
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| GUNPOWDER PLOT, originating in 1604 with Robert Catesby, a Catholic, after the edict banishing Roman Catholic priests. Preparations for blowing up the Houses of Parliament with 36 barrels of gunpowder. Disclosure of the plot led to arrest of Guy Fawkes in the vaults on Nov. 4, the day before the meeting of parliament. Trial and execution of the conspirators. | 12 |
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| 1606 |
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| Plague in London. Episcopacy restored in Scotland. James urged the union anew but in vain. | 13 |
| Impositions. The grant of customs duties made at the beginning of every reign (tonnage and poundage, established by Edward III) proving insufficient to meet James's expenditure, he had recourse to impositions without parliamentary grant, which Mary and Elizabeth had used only to a small extent. Trial of Bates for refusing to pay an imposition on currants. The court of exchequer decided in favor of the king. | 14 |
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