History of Great Britain to the death of Queen Victoria
Click here for History of Great Britain
1/2/1901 - present
SCOTLAND
- See Appendix One below for events up to Act of Union 1707 relating solely to
Scottish history.
See also Ireland
See also Economy & Prices
“As for Britain, it is set in the Sea of Darkness. It is a
considerable island, whose shape is that of the head of an ostrich, and where
there are flourishing towns, high mountains, great rivers and plains. This
country is most fertile; its inhabitants are brave, active and enterprising,
but all is in the grip of perpetual winter." Muhammad Al Idrisi, 12th century Arab
geographer
Colour key: Note The
following time periods may also include preliminary events and aftermath.
People
Places
Urban unrest
Military
Wales
Scotland
Religion-Catholic
Religion-Protestant
Dissolution of the Monasteries
Danish attacks
Anglo-French
conflict 1100s
King John
(1199-1216)
BaronsWars (1217-68)
Hundred Years War 1340-1453
Peasants Revolt 1381
Wars of the Roses (1452-85)
King Henry VII
1485 - 1509
Civil War events (1628-51)
Anti Charles II / James II plots 1683-5
Seven
Years War
Wool
and sheep
Briton-Welsh
defeats, post Rome
22/1/1901. Queen Victoria died, at of a cerebral haemorrhage Osborne House on the Isle of
Wight, aged 81; the longest reigning and longest lived monarch of Britain. Accession of King
Edward VII to the British throne. His coronation was on 9/8/1902. King Edward VII
was born on 9/11/1840, and was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Crowned at 60 years of age, he proved a popular monarch who gave his name to
the Edwardian era. He was made
Prince of Wales by his mother when only one month old. His free and easy social
life made him a prominent figure in society and he was involved in several scandals. His coronation was elaborate
and was a departure from the rather dour
image of the monarchy in the latter part of Queen Victoria’s reign. Edward VII
is remembered as a popular man who tried to ensure peace in Europe, touring
European capitals in a diplomatic role. An estimated 500,000 watched the funeral. procession of Queen Victoria as
it travelled through the silent streets of London, on 2/2/1901. The
funeral took place at Windsor.
19/1/1901, Queen Victoria became seriously ill.
31/12/1900, At Stonehenge, Stone No. 21 and its lintel fell down.
17/10/1900. Lord
Salisbury’s Tory government
was re-elected, in the British General Election. Tory popularity was high after the Boer War victory.
See South Africa
for events of Boer War
26/8/1900, General Sir John Adye died aged 81.
4/8/1900. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was born in
St Pauls, Waldenbury, Hertfordshire, as Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon, the 9th
of 10 children.
25/6/1900. Earl Louis
Mountbatten,
military commander and last Viceroy of India, was born at Frogmore House,
Windsor.
4/4/1900, The Prince of Wales escaped unhurt after an
attempt on his life by a 16-year old anarchist, Jean-Baptiste Sipido, in
Brussels railway station, Belgium. The
would-be assassin said he targeted the Prince because he held him responsible
for the many deaths in the Boer War
under Lord
Kitchener.
27/2/1900. The British
Labour Party was formed by the Trades Unions, along with the Fabians. Ramsay MacDonald was its secretary; he later
became its leader and Prime Minister.
18/2/1900, Joseph Cowen, British politician, died.
23/1/1899, Lord Denning,
British Judge and Master of the Rolls, was born.
19/5/1898. William Ewart Gladstone,
born 29/12/1809, four times Liberal Prime Minister, died at Hawarden Castle,
north Wales, aged 88.
15/11/1897, British Labour leader Aneurin Bevan
was born in Tredegar, Wales. He was one of 13 children, son of a miner.
22/6/1897. Queen Victoria celebrated her diamond jubilee.
12/6/1897, Anthony Eden, Conservative Prime
Minister, was born at Windlestone Hall, Bishop Auckland, Durham. He later became the Earl of Avon.
1895, The National Trust was founded, to ‘preserve lands and buildings of
historic interest or natural beauty for public access and benefit’.
29/12/1895. Leander Starr Jameson, an agent of the British South
Africa Company, invaded the Boer Republic of Transvaal with 470 men. On
2/1/1896 Jameson
surrendered At Doorn Kop after a defeat at Krugersdorp. On 3/1/1896 Kaiser William
II sent a telegram to Paul Kruger
congratulating him on the defeat of Jameson.
This caused outrage in Britain, which saw the telegram as an attempt by Germany
to expand its influence in Africa. Britain mocked the German Navy, saying
it would be ‘child’s play’ for the British Navy to wipe it out. Wilhelm I
now decided on a course of massive expansion of the German Navy, seeing Britain
no longer as an ally but a potential threat.
14/12/1895. The future King George VI was born
in Sandringham, Norfolk, second son of George
V
and Mary, see 11/12/1936.
15/5/1895, Joseph
Whitaker,
who founded Whitaker’s Almanac in 1869, died.
24/1/1895, Lord Randolph Churchill, founder of the
British Conservative Party, died.
28/9/1894. The first Marks and Spencer store opened,
as a Penny Bazaar at Cheetham Hill, Manchester.
18/9/1894. The Blackpool
Tower opened. It is a 500 foot high replica of the Eiffel Tower.
1/9/1894, The first use of postcards with adhesive stamps in
Britain.
7/9/1893, (1)
The Featherstone Massacre. In Yorkshire, striking miners campaigning for a
living wage were fired upon; soldiers killed 2 and wounded 16.
(2) Leslie Hore-Belisha, British Liberal politician, was born in
Devonport.
14/1/1893. The UK Labour Party was founded in
Bradford, W Yorks.
18/8/1892. In Britain, William Ewart Gladstone formed his fourth Liberal Government after his election defeat of the Conservatives under Lord Salisbury.
11/8/1892, (1) The Marquess of
Salisbury left office as prime Minister.
(2) Hugh McDaimid, Scottish poet
and founder of the Scottish Nationalist
Party, was born.
18/7/1892, The pioneer travel agent Thomas Cook died.
4/7/1892. James Kier Hardie, standing in the General
Election at Holytown, Lanarkshire, became the first Socialist to win a seat
in the British Parliament. He was MP for the London docklands area of West
Ham. He was elected as an independent socialist but planned to form a Labour
party to represent the workers. See 14/1/1893.
13/4/1892. Sir Arthur (Bomber) Harris,
RAF Marshal was born. He joined the
Royal Flying Corps in 1915, and was appointed Commander in Chief of the RAF
Bomber Command in 1942. From 1942 on he
developed and applied the technique of “saturation bombing” to Axis occupied
cities, totally demolishing them.
10/12/1891, Earl Alexander, British Army Commander in
North Africa, and Italy in World War II, was born in County Tyrone, Ireland.
8/10/1891. The first
street collection for charity took place in Britain. It was on the streets
of Manchester and Salford, for Lifeboat Day.
6/10/1891, Death of W H Smith, the bookseller.
25/9/1891, The foundation of Blackpool Tower was laid.
31/5/1889. Britain passed the Naval Defence Act in response to the growing naval power of both
Russia and France.
24/4/1889.
Sir Stafford Cripps, the Labour Chancellor who introduced austerity measures in Britain
after the Second World War, was born.
6/8/1888. Elected County Councils were established in
Britain through the local Government Act.
9/7/1888, Simon Marks, British retailer, was born in Leeds.
1887, Victoria Park, 16 acres
was laid out in Salisbury.
21/6/1887, Queen Victoria’s Jubilee celebrations.
1/2/1886, William
Gladstone resumed office as Prime Minister.
28/1/1886, The Marquess of
Salisbury left office as Prime Minister.
19/11/1885, William
Benjamin Carpenter, English naturalist, died (born 29/11/1813).
23/6/1885, The Marquess of
Salisbury took up post as Prime Minister.
9/6/1885, William
Gladstone left office as Prime Minister.
1884, The Fabian Society
was founded. Named after the Roman General Fabius Maximus Cunctator (The
Delayer), noted for his cautious military tactics, the Fabians adopted a
gradualist approach to socialist reform. The movement was closely associated
with the founding of the British Labour
Party.
6/12/1884, The
Franchise Act, or Third
Parliamentary Reform Act was passed, giving almost all adult males the
vote. However domestic servants, bachelors living with their parents, and those
of no fixed address were still voteless. This measure increased the electoral
roll by some 2 million, four times the number added in 1832.
15/7/1884, Henry Cowley, British diplomat, was born in
London.
1/2/1884. The first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary, A
– Ant, was published.
4/10/1883, Sir William Alexander Smith founded the Boys Brigade in Glasgow.
3/10/1883, Burnham Beeches was dedicated to public use
for all time.
1/8/1883, Inland parcel
post began in Britain.
25/2/1883, Princess Alice Mary, later Countess of Athlone, was born.
24/4/1882, Lord Dowding, British Air Force Commander who won the Battle of Britain, was born in
Moffat, Scotland.
2/3/1882. Roderick MacLean tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Queen
Victoria, as she sat in a railway carriage at Windsor station.
19/4/1881. Benjamin Disraeli,
British Conservative Prime Minister, died. He was buried at Hughenden, near
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. Robert Gascoyne Cecil, Lord Salisbury, was
chosen to replace him as leader of the Conservative Party.
7/3/1881, Ernest Bevin, Labour Party politician, was
born in Winsford, Somerset.
22/12/1880. George Elliot died.
15/4/1880. In Britain the Liberals
won the General Election. Prime Minister William
Gladstone took over from Benjamin
Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield.
18/9/1879, Blackpool’s first annual illuminations were
switched on.
23/4/1879. First Royal Shakespeare Theatre opened in
Stratford on Avon (replaced by a new one on 23/4/1932).
13/9/1877. Manchester Town Hall opened.
23/8/1877. Britain passed the Merchandise Act, obliging exporters to indicate the place of
manufacture of their goods.
13/8/1877, Birkenhead, near Liverpool, became a
borough; John
Laird was the first Mayor.
20/9/1876, Sir Titus Salt, born 20/9/1803, died.
3/8/1876, Stanley Baldwin, British Prime Minister in the
1920s and 30s, was born.
7/5/1876, Samuel Courtauld, British industrialist and arts patron, was born in Braintree,
Essex.
26/8/1875, John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir, British
administrator, and author, was born.
25/8/1875. Matthew Webb, 27, from Shropshire, became the first
person to swim the English Channel. He took 21 hours 45 minutes, using the
breast-stroke, from Admiralty Pier,
Dover, to Calais.
26/12/1874. Boxing Day was first recognised as a Bank
Holiday in the UK.
30/11/1874, Sir
Winston Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire.
5/4/1874, Birkenhead Park, the first publically-funded park
in Britain and model for Central Park, New York, opened.
17/2/1874, William
Gladstone left office as Prime Minister.
6/9/1873, Austin Reed, men’s outfitter, was born in Newbury, Berkshire.
9/5/1873, Howard Carter, who discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922,
was born at Swaffham, Norfolk.
8/5/1873, The English economist and philosopher John Stuart
Mill died.
1872, Hastings Pier opened.
18/7/1872. Britain passed the Ballot Act, providing for secret ballots at elections.
24/10/1871. The Aurora
Borealis was seen as far south as southern England.
18/6/1871, The Test Act allowed students at Oxford and
Cambridge universities to gain degrees and fellowships without subscribing to
any particular religion.
29/5/1871, Whit Monday,
became the first Bank Holiday in Britain.
25/5/1871. The House of Commons passed the Bank
Holiday Act, creating public holidays on Easter Monday, Whit Monday,
and Christmas Day. Monday
17/1/1871, David Earl Beatty, British Admiral and Fleet
Commander in World War One, was born
in Nantwich, Cheshire.
4/8/1870. The British
Red Cross was founded by Lord Wantage.
30/11/1869, James Albert Abercorn, British
politician, was born (died 13/9/1953).
18/3/1869, Neville Chamberlain,
British Conservative Prime Minister
1937 to 1940 was born in Birmingham.
10/12/1868. The first edition of Whitakers Almanack was
published.
9/12/1868. Following a Liberal
General Election victory, William Ewart Gladstone formed the next UK
government, defeating Disraeli.
This was the first of Gladstone’s four
terms of office as Prime Minister.
8/11/1868, Viscount Lee of Fareham, who gave the
Buckinghamshire country house Chequers
to the nation in 1921, was born.
26/7/1868, Robert Cranworth, Lord Chancellor of England,
died in London.
12/7/1868, The Scottish Reform Act was passed.
28/3/1868. The Earl of Cardigan, who led the Charge of the Light Brigade (25/10/1854) to disaster at
Balaclava, in the Crimean War, died. He
is best remembered for the woollen garment named after him.
17/2/1868. Ill health caused the resignation of the Conservative Prime Minister Lord Derby.
He was succeeded by Benjamin Disraeli
on 29/2/1868.
12/11/1867, The
Conservative Party held their first Annual Parry Conference, in a London pub,
the Freemasons in Great Queen Street.
15/8/1867. By a Parliamentary
Reform Act, one million more voters were added to the UK electorate, mostly
urban ratepayers. Those who owned house and paid rates, or lodgers paying more
than £10 a year rent, could now vote.
The enfranchised population of the UK now stood at 7.9%.
3/8/1867, Stanley Baldwin, British Conservative and
three times Prime Minister between 1923 and 1937, was born at Bewdley, Worcestershire,
the only son of a wealthy industrialist and member of parliament. The author Rudyard Kipling
was Baldwin's cousin on his mother's side of the family
1866, Britain passed the Metropolitan Commons Act, prohibiting
any further enclosure (for private housing development) of urban commons lands.
This Act was largely the result of disputes over development of common lands
around London, Hampstead Heath, Wimbledon and
Epping Forest in particular. The rapid expansion of britsin’s towns and cities
put great pressure on common lands. In London the Lord of Hampstead Manor in the
early 19th century, Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson, had fought a legal
battle from 1829 onwards to be allowed to build on Hampstead Heath. After the
passage of the Metropolitan Commons Act, and the death of Sir Wilson in 1868, his heir
withdrew from the legal fight. The Metropolitan Board of Works then bought the
rights to Hampstead Heath for £45,000 (Sir Wilson had been asking for £400,000) and
Hampstead Heath became public property.
12/10/1866. Ramsay MacDonald,
who in 1924 became Britain’s first Labour Prime Minister, was born in
Lossiemouth, Morayshire, Scotland.
18/10/1865. Lord
Palmerston died, two
days short of his 81st birthday. He was staying at his wife’s house,
Brockett Hall in Welwyn, Hertfordshire,
when struck by fever. He was Secretary for War, Foreign Secretary, and then
Prime Minister during a time when Britain was the richest and most powerful
nation on Earth. When he was born, on 20/10/1784, Britain had a population of 9 million,
80% of whom worked in agriculture. When he died, Britain had a population of 29
million, 60% of whom worked in manufacturing.
21/2/1865, Stapleton Cotton Combermere,
British Field-Marshal, (born 14/11/1773) died at Clifton.
17/6/1864, William Cureton, British
orientalist, born 1808, died.
10/3/1864, Prince Edward was born.
1/2/1864, Austrian and Prussian
troops under the command of Friedrich von Wangle invaded Schleswig, Denmark.
Although the British monarch, Queen Victoria, was pro-German, the British Prince Edward,
the future King
Edward VII – who had only months earlier married Alexandra of
Denmark – was shocked; they supported Denmark. The Second Schleswig
War began. This event ensured that under King Edward VII’s reign, British foreign
policy was pro-Danish, anti-German, and
Britain formed a triple entente with France and Russia against Germany.
16/10/1863, Sir Austin Chamberlain, British politician,
was born in Birmingham.
29/7/1863, Sir Cresswell, English judge, died of heart
disease.
27/5/1863, Broadmoor
asylum for the criminally insane at Crowthorne, Berkshire was opened.
10/3/1863, King Edward VII, as the Prince of Wales, married Princess
Alexandra of Denmark. The marriage was
in St Georges Chapel, Windsor.
17/1/1863, David Lloyd George, British Liberal Prime Minister 1916-22, was born in Manchester.
14/12/1861. Prince Albert
Consort of Queen
Victoria, died, of typhus in Windsor Castle.
19/6/1861, Earl Haig, British military commander in WWI, was born.
23/4/1861, Viscount Allenby, British World
War One Army Commander, was born in Brackenhurst, Nottinghamshire.
See India for British colonisation of India
23/6/1861, John Campbell, Lord Chancellor of England
(born 17/9/1779) died.
1/2/1861, Baron Henry Sinclair Horne, British soldier,
was born.
14/12/1860, George Aberdeen, British statesman, died (born
28/1/1784).
5/12/1859, Admiral Jellicoe, British naval commander, was born in Southampton,
son of a sea captain.
28/6/1859, The first dog show in the UK took place
at Newcastle on Tyne Town Hall, with 60 entries split between two classes,
Pointers and Setters.
18/6/1859, Lord Palmerston became Prime
Minister.
21/2/1859, (1) Viscount Palmerston left office as Prime
Minister.
(2) George Lansbury, British Labour
politician and party leader, was born near Lowestoft, Suffolk.
16/9/1858, Andrew Bonar
Law, UK Prime Minister, was born.
24/11/1858, A legal case in Dorset caused the UK
Parliament to standardise time to GMT across the country. A judge in a land
case in Dorset ruled against a man who had failed to turn up for a 10,00 am
case, at 10.06. Two minutes later he turned up and claimed he was on time, by
the station clock of his home town, Carlisle in Cumbria. At that time all towns
set their clocks by their own, local, noon, meaning accurate rail
timetables were problematic. By 1850 the rail companies all used London
time, adding to confusion as provincial clocks often had two minute hands, one
for local time, one for London time. The case was re-tried, and in 1880
Parliament ordered the entire country keep Greenwich Mean Time.
19/8/1857, Edgar D’Abernon,
British diplomat, was born.
11/1/1857. Birth of Henry Gordon Selfridge,
founder of Britain’s first large department store. Also on this day was born
the champion jockey Fred Archer.
1856, An Army Staff College was set up at Sandhurst.
15/8/1856, Kier Hardie, Labour leader, was born near Holytown, Lanarkshire. He
helped found the Labour Party.
30/7/1856, Viscount Richard Burdon Haldane (British Army)
was born.
18/4/1856, Aldershot Camp was publically inaugurated by Queen Victoria.
29/1/1856. Queen Victoria instituted the Victoria
Cross, Britain’s highest military decoration. Awarded for conspicuous
bravery or great devotion to duty. The
award was backdated to 1854 to cover the Crimean War; on 26/6/1856
62 men were given the Victoria Cross for deeds during this war. The VC has been
awarded 1,354 times since then, to 2002, but has only been given posthumously
since 1920. It has been awarded only 11 times since 1945, the last 2 being in
the Falklands War of 1982. The medal is
made of metal from Russian guns captured in the
Crimean War.
9/2/1855, Mysterious hoof-prints appeared in the snow in
Devon, as if a two legged creature had walked 100 miles over fields, walls, and
roof-tops. No explanation was ever found.
6/2/1855, The Whig/Liberal
Lord
Palmerston became Prime
Minister. He succeeded Lord Aberdeen, who resigned on 20/1/1855.
For Crimean
War see Russia
1850s
1854, The UK Govermnent purchased a large tract of
moorland known as Aldershot Heath, to set up Aldershot Camp. This was to enable
military practices in a large enough area to allow for brigade and divison
manoeuvres in peacetime, since this had not been done since the Napoleonic Wars
with France.
21/6/1854, The first Victoria Cross was awarded, to Charles Lucas,
a 20-year-old
Irishman who threw an unexploded Russian bomb overboard, whilst on HMS Hecla
at Bomarsund in the Baltic.
9/1/1854, Lady Randolph Churchill, mother of Winston Churchill, was born.
1/4/1853,
Manchester, UK, was constituted a city.
13/10/1852,
Birth of Lilly Langtry, actress and
mistress to King Edward VII.
14/9/1852, The
Duke of Wellington, victor at Waterloo, died at Walmer Castle, Kent,
aged 83, as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.
19/1/1852, Robert Adamson, Scottish
philosopher (died5/2/1902) was born.
1851, Saltaire Village, near Shipley,
Yorkshire, was opened by Sir Titus Salt as model housing for his workers The
solid stone houses were served by a wash-house, hospital, library, concert
hall, gym and science laboratory.
14/9/1851, Death of the Duke
of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo and subsequently became Prime
Minister.
24/7/1851, In Britain the Window Tax was abolished.
8/7/1851, Sir Arthur
John Evans, British archaeologist who excavated Knossos on Crete,
was born.
24/6/1850, Lord Kitchener, British army commander and
Secretary of State for War in 1914, was born near Ballylongford, County Kerry,
Eire.
1/12/1849, Queen Adelaide, wife of King William IV, died.
19/5/1849, William
Hamilton
attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria.
13/2/1849, Lord Randolph Churchill, British Conservative
politician and father of Winston Churchill, was born at Blenheim
Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire.
31/1/1849, Britain’s Corn
Laws were abolished.
1848, Manchester prohibited the
construction of back-to-back housing. However such accommodation was still
being constructed in Leeds until after 1900.
25/7/1848, Arthur James
Balfour, British Conservative and Prime Minister, was born in East
Lothian, Scotland.
13/5/1848, Alexander Baring, British
financier and politician, died (born 27/10/1774)
19/1/1848, Matthew Webb, the first person to swim the English
Channel, was born in Dawley, Shropshire, the son of a doctor.
1847, The British Army replaced
service for life by a minimum ten-year term.
9/8/1847, Andrew Combe, Scottish doctor, died near
Edinburgh (born 27/10/1797 in Edinburgh).
1842, The first public laundry
opened, in Manchester. It was not a place for the respectable.
1841, Norfolk Park, Sheffield,
was laid out as a public park.
8/12/1841, Prince Albert Edward was created
Prince of Wales; he later became King Edward VII.
28/8/1841. The Conservative leader Sir Robert Peel succeeded the
Whig, Lord
William Melbourne, as Prime Minister. Under Peel’s second term in office, he
intended to reduce import duties to
promote free trade.
26/2/1841, Evelyn Baring, British statesman, was born.
28/1/1841, Henry Stanley, British explorer and
journalist, was born at Denbigh, north Wales, as John Rowlands.
8/10/1840, John Camden, English politician, born 1759,
died.
30/3/1840, Beau
Brummel, the Regency Dandy, died at Caen in a pauper’s lunatic
asylum. He had fled Britain to escape gambling debts.
10/2/1840. Marriage of Queen Victoria, born 24/5/1819, to her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, born
26/8/1819 at Rosenau, near Coburg, Germany. They were married in the Chapel Royal
at St James Palace.
15/10/1839. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert became betrothed. She proposed to him,
as recorded in her diary, ‘it was a nervous thing to do, but Albert could not
propose to the Queen of England. He would never presume to take such a
liberty’.
1/7/1837. The first Register of Births, Deaths, and
Marriages was begun in England and Wales.
The first entry was for the birth of a baby girl, Mary Ann Aaaron, born in
Dewsbury, Yorkshire.
20/6/1837. (1) King William IV
died at Windsor. He was born on 21/8/1765 and was known as the sailor king,
for his service in the Royal Navy. His numerous affairs included 10
illegitimate children born to the Irish actress Dorothy Jordan.
(2) Accession of William IV’s
niece Queen Victoria, born 24/5/1819;
crowned on 28/6/1838, aged 19. She was originally named Alexandrine Victoria but
instructed the Privy Council to delete her first name.
9/2/1837, Alfred Ainger, English writer (died 8/2/1904)
was born.
27/12/1836, A
landslide at Lewes, Sussex, swallowed up houses and killed 8 people.
See Economy & Prices for more events
related to Chartist Movement
17/8/1836. Registration of all births, marriages, and
deaths in Britain was required under the Registration Act.
11/7/1836, Bristol Zoo
opened.
9/9/1835. The Municipal Corporation Act in Britain
reformed city and town government in line with the major population
shifts brought on by the Industrial Revolution. The old ruling oligarchies
of borough councils were replaced by elected councils, elected by all rate
paying householders of three year’s standing. Tory lawyers, Anglican clergy,
and the aristocracy lost power to small shopkeepers, businessmen,
Non-conformists, and better off members of the working class. This paved the way for public improvements
like street widening, public utilities such as gas and water, and a municipal
fire service.
18/6/1835, William Cobbett, journalist and reformer,
died.
22/4/1834, Saint
Helena became a British colony.
29/1/1833, The Reform Parliament of Great Britain opened.
30/9/1832, Lord Roberts, British military leader, was
born in Cawnpore, India.
6/6/1832, Jeremy Bentham
died.
4/6/1832. The Representation of the People Act
received Royal Assent. It introduced electoral
reform in Britain. Smaller property owners were given the vote (tenant
farmers paying £50 or more a year in rent), extending the electorate to 20% of
adult males, twice as many as before. However the ballot was till not secret,
until 18/7/1872. Landlords often evicted tenants who failed to vote for the
candisate the landlord supported. Furhtermore, 56 ‘rotten boroughs’ with a total population of 2,000 were abolished,
and some rural areas lost one of their two MPs. New constituencies were created
in the expanding industrial towns of
Manchester, Birmingham, and elsewhere. There
was resistance in the House of Lords from 21 bishops.
31/10/1831, Riots in
Bristol raised fears of revolution breaking out across Britain. Four
of the rioters were executed.
10/10/1831, Three days of rioting in Derby (8-10 October)
following the defeat in the House of Lords of the Reform Bill. This Bill, which passed its Third reading in the
Commons in September 1831, would have enlarged the electorate. Further riots
in Bristol, 29-31 October. In April 1832 a second Reform Bill was passed by the House of Lords.
8/9/1831, Coronation of King William IV.
8/1830, The Swing Revolt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_Riots
got underway in Kent, spreading rapidly to other counties in the South East.
‘Captain Swing’ was the pseudonym used by the rebels when they threatened the
destruction of machinery unless wages were raised or tithe payments cut.
Impoverished agricultural
workers destroyed 387 threshing machines and 26 other agricultural machines
across 22 counties between now and September 1832. Machinery worth £20,000 was
destroyed, and a further £100,000 damage done through arson. See Luddites
3/1811. Agricultural
wages were raised, at least temporarily, and the spread of labour-saving
threshing machines was curbed. However the Swing Revolt resulted in the
execution of 19 labourers and the transportation to Australia of nearly 500 more.
26/6/1830. King George IV
died, aged 67. He was England’s fattest king, and his favourite breakfast was 2
pigeons, 3 beefsteaks, a bottle of Moselle, a glass of champagne, two of port,
and one of brandy. William IV, his brother, succeeded him. With no
legitimate children to succeed him, Victoria was to be the next monarch.
13/4/1829. The Catholic Emancipation Act became law. Catholics were allowed to hold every public office
except those of Regent, Lord Chancellor, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
This was a concession reluctantly granted by the British Conservative
government of the Duke of Wellington, following Catholic
agitation in Ireland by Daniel O’Connell and the Catholic Association.
11/4/1829, Alexander Buchan, Scottish meteorologist, was
born.
26/1/1828, The Duke of Wellington became Tory Prime
Minister.
25/1/1828. The Duke of Wellington and Robert Peel
formed a Conservative government.
13/8/1827, The first giraffe
arrived in Britain.
8/8/1827, George Canning,
British Prime Minister, died.
16/7/1827, The potter Josiah Spode died.
17/2/1827, The Earl of Liverpool left post as Prime Minister,
paralysed by a stroke.
17/1/1827, The Duke of Wellington was appointed Commander in
Chief of the British Army.
24/6/1825. William Henry
Smith, English newsagent and bookseller, was born. He joined his father’s
news agency business and took full control in 1846, building the biggest chain of newsagents in Britain.
24/2/1825, Thomas Bowdler died, aged 71. He was notorious
for prudishly editing text he considered unsuitable, giving rise to the term ‘bowdlerising’.
1824, The UK Government
standardised official weights and measures across Britain.
22/3/1824, The British Government agreed to spend £57,000 to
purchase 38 paintings to establish a national collection.
25/11/1823, Brighton’s Chain Pier was opened.
29/12/1822, John Campbell, Gaelic scholar (died 17/2/1885)
was born.
14/2/1822. The increasing popularity of Valentines Cards
forced the Post Office to employ extra sorters. See 14/2/1477.
19/6/1820, Sir Joseph Banks, English botanist who accompanied Cook on his voyage round the world in The
Endeavour, died aged 77.
29/1/1820. King George III,
longest lived and longest reigning (over 59 years) King of England, died at
Windsor aged 81. (See 26/10/1760, coronation of George III). Accession of King George IV; his long-separated wife Caroline returned form the Continent to claim
her position as Queen. Caroline was warmly welcomed by the British
public, who perceived her as having been badly treated by her husband. George IV
nevertheless persuaded his Cabinet ministers to immediately begin divorce proceedings.
26/8/1819, Prince Albert was born at Rosenau, near
Coburg, in Bavaria.
16/8/1819.At St Peters Fields, or Peterloo, Manchester, a meeting
demanding parliamentary reforms was dispersed by the military. There was a crowd of 60,000 present to hear the
speech of the pugnacious reformer Henry Hunt, who also demanded an end to the
Corn Laws. 11 demonstrators were killed and 600 injured by the Manchester
Yeomanry. After this the UK government issued the Six Laws, in 1819, banning
any gathering of over 50 people, and any flag-bearing procession, authorising
the arrest of anyone carrying a firearm, and imposing a tax on newspapers.
10/3/1817, Several hundred
Manchester weavers set out from St Peters Fields, Manchester, to march
to Westminster, demanding Parliamentary
Reform. They were called the Blanketeers, as they carried blankets
to keep
warm at
night. Troops stopped most of them at Stockport but some reached Derbyshire,
and one made it as far as London.
This march
later inspired the Jarrow March.
24/8/1816, Tristan da
Cunha, four islands in the south Atlantic, were annexed and garrisoned by
the UK.
27/6/1816, Samuel 1st Viscount Hood, British
Admiral whose military successes included defeating the French off Dominica in
1782 and the capture of Toulon in the French Revolutionary Wars, died.
15/1/1815, Emma, Lady Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson,
died in poverty in Calais.
1814, Sheerness Naval Dockyard opened.
29/10/1813, William Benjamin Carpenter, English
naturalist, was born (died 19/11/1885).
27/11/1812, Roundell Palmer, Earl of Selborne, Britain,
was born.
7/6/1812, The Earl
of Liverpool took up post as Prime Minister.
12/4/1812, 150 masked
Luddites attacked Cartwright’s Mill, between Leeds and Huddersfield.
The mill owner5 had been forewarned and had prepared defences, including vats
of acid. 40 Luddites
were injured in the affray and 2 subsequently died. It took some time to
discover the identity of the attackers but a trial was eventually held at York
Assizes in January 1813, at which 8 were sentenced to death.
11/5/1812, Spencer Perceval became the only British Prime
Minister so far to be assassinated as he entered the House of Commons, by a
bankrupt broker, Francis Bellingham, who blamed the Government for his woes.
8/1/1812, Two British regiments were called out to control
outbreaks of Luddite rioting.
3/1811, The Luddite movement, distressed
textiles workers smashing machinery, began in Nottinghamshire and spread across
the Midlands and Yorkshire. Britain had lost access to continental markets
because of the Napoleonic Wars, and this was exacerbated by
the collapse of the American
market in 1811. The machine breakers took up the name ‘Ned Lud’, and used large
sledgehammers, nicknamed ‘Enoch’, to smash their way into textiles mills.
Between March 1811 and February 1812 the Luddites destroyed some 1,000 frames, valued
at £6,000 to £10,000, In February 1812 Parliament made frame-breaking a capital
offence. See also wages of textiles workers (decline 1805-31). See Swing Revolt
8/1830.
5/2/1811. King George III,
73 years old, was officially declared insane; the Prince of Wales, 49 years
old, became Prince Regent.
29/12/1809, William Ewart
Gladstone, four times Liberal Prime Minister, was born in
Liverpool. He was the son of a wealthy
Scottish merchant.
18/12/1809, Alexander Adam, Scottish teacher and
antiquarian (born 24/6/1741), died.
24/5/1809. Dartmoor Prison was opened to house French
prisoners of war. From 1850 it was used for British convicts.
12/2/1809, Charles Darwin was born. His father, Robert Darwin, was a doctor and
financier, and his mother, Susannah Darwin, was the daughter of pottery
magnate Josiah
Wedgewood.
22/11/1808, The pioneer travel agent Thomas Cook was born in Melbourne,
Derbyshire. He died in 1892.
21/8/1808, British troops under Wellington defeated the French under General Junot.
This was at the Battle of Vimiero,
during the Peninsular
War. The Peninsular War
absorbed some 300,000 of Napoleon’s best
troops, and was ended when Napoleon heard reports that Austria, backed by Britain, was arming against him.
2/9/1807, Britain bombarded and destroyed the Danish fleet at
Copenhagen, to prevent its use by France or Russia.
20/5/1806, John Stuart Mill, English
philosopher and economist, was born.
21/3/1806. The foundation stone of Dartmoor
Prison in Devon was laid. See 24/5/1809.
23/1/1806. William Pitt the Younger, twice
Prime Minister (the first when only 24), died at Putney aged 47. He was buried
in Westminster Abbey. Napoleon was still strong in Europe. Prussia,
who had been reluctant to join the Allies, now had to live with French
domination of the puppet state of the Confederation of the Rhine.
9/1/1806, The funeral and burial of Admiral Lord
Nelson at St Paul’s Cathedral.
21/10/1805. Battle of Trafalgar. Death of Nelson. Nelson blockaded the combined fleets of France
and Spain in Cadiz. The French Admiral, Villeneuve, attempted to break out, but
British ships sank or captured most of the French and Spanish ships. The
French had planned to link up with the Spanish fleet in the West Indies and so
lure the British into giving chase across the Atlantic. However Nelson
guessed at the French tactics and the Admiralty was warned. A British fleet
under Calder found the French fleet off Cape Finistere and they put into
Spanish harbours. The French fleet later emerged to sail, not for Britain, but
to return to the Mediterranean. The French were intercepted off Cape Trafalgar,
and destroyed in the Battle of Trafalgar.
See also France-Germany
for events connected to Napoleon
3/6/1804, Richard Cobden, British politician and
economist, was born in Heyshott, near Midhurst, Sussex, the son of a farmer.
10/5/1804, William Pitt
the Younger resumed office as Prime Minister.
7/3/1804. John Wedgwood, son of the famous Midland
pottery manufacturer, and uncle to Charles Darwin, founded the Royal Horticultural Society. John’s
mother’s garden inspired his interest in plants and in 1801 he wrote to William Forsyth,
gardener to George
III, suggesting the formation of a horticultural society. Forsyth
passed the idea on to the Royal Society President, Sir Joseph Banks, and the
society was founded three years later. The inaugural meeting was at the London
booksellers, Mr
Hatchard, at 187 Piccadilly. In 2003 the Royal Horticultural Society
had over 300,000 members who have access to over 80 gardens in the UK. It
organises the Chelsea Flower Show, runs courses at Wisley in Surrey, and
organises over 1,000 lectures and talks annually.
10/7/1802, Robert Chambers, Scottish bookseller and
publisher, was born in Peebles.
29/6/1801, The figures from Britain’s first census were published. Britain’s
population was set at 8,872,000.
14/3/1801, William Pitt the Younger left office as Prime
Minister.
10/3/1801, Britain’s first census was held.
1/1/1801, The Act of Union between Britain and Ireland
came into force. Irish MPs could sit at Westminster. However some smaller Irish
boroughs were disenfranchised so as to limit the number of Irish MPs to 100,
25/12/1800, Britain’s
first Christmas Tree was erected at Windsor by Queen Charlotte.
7/10/1799. The bell was salvaged from the Lutine, which
sank off the island of Vlieland, off the coast of Holland. It was presented to
Lloyds of London. Known as the Lutine Bell, it has been rung ever since
to mark a marine disaster.
1797, Following Britain’s naval
mutinies, the Mutiny Act was passed
making it a treasonable offence to incite disaffection amongst the armed
forces. Meanwhile the army and navy received pay rises.
16/10/1797, James Cardigan, English lieutenant general
(died 28/3/1868) was born.
9/7/1797, Edmund Burke, British politician and orator,
died.
30/6/1797, The naval
mutiny at The Nore, led by Richard Parker, was put down. It had started as a protest against poor food
and low pay.
17/4/1797. Britain’s first prisoner of war camp opened at
Norman Cross Depot, near Stilton, Huntingdonshire. Prior to this, PoWs had
been confined in civil prisons, floating hulks, or fortresses, but by 1796 the
number of French PoWs was so large other accommodation had to be found.
16/4/1797. The British
navy mutinied at Spithead, near Portsmouth, over poor pay, bad food, and
arduous blockade duty. On 2/5/1797 the mutiny spread to the North Sea fleet.
20/2/1797, Nelson was made a Knight of the Bath and
promoted to Rear Admiral for his action in the Battle of Cape St Vincent.
12/2/1797, The last
invasion of Britain. The Irish-American General William Tate landed at Fishguard,
Pembrokeshire with 1,400 French troops, who soon surrendered.
18/4/1794, Charles Camden, Lord Chancellor of England
(born 1714) died.
1/11/1793, Lord George Gordon, British
anti-Catholic agitator and leader of the Gordon Riots
in 1780, died in Newgate Prison, London. He had been convicted of libelling
Marie
Antoinette.
1/2/1793. Britain declared war on France.
The British economy entered a depression.
1792, In Britain, a barracks building programme began to house troops in ports and
major industrial centres. Often the least affluent areas of town were chosen to
site the barracks, in the event of urban riots breaking out there.
18/8/1792, Earl Lord John Russell, British
statesman, was born.
3/1/1791, George Rennie, English civil
engineer, was born in Surrey.
5/3/1790, Flora Mac Donald, the Scottish
Jacobite heroine who helped Prince Charles Edward (The Younger Pretender)
to escape from the island of Benbecula, died.
22/2/1790, French soldiers landed at Fishguard, Wales,
but were soon captured.
1788, Cheltenham became famous as a spa town with the six-week visit of
King George III. The spa waters had
first been commercially exploited by Captain Henry Skillicorne (born 1678, died
1763) in 1738, though some locals had drunk the water before then.
31/1/1788, Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), the Young
Pretender and leader of the Jacobite
Rebellion, aimed at deposing King George II,
died in exile in Rome.
3/1787, Horatio Nelson married Nisbet,
at Nevis in the Caribbean. He was frustrated at being put on half pay and out
of service for the next five years.
1784, A window tax was introduced in Britain. To save money, many
householders bricked up some of their wondows.
13/12/1784. Samuel Johnson,
born 18/9/1709, died. Aged 75, he had lived in near-poverty for many years but
from 1762 was granted a Crown Pension of £3,000 a year. He is best remembered
for his comprehensive dictionary, which took him eight years to complete.
7/12/1783 William Pitt the
Younger became the youngest
Prime Minister of Britain, aged 24.
24/2/1783, The
British Parliament voted to discontinue the American War.
1/1/1783, Britain’s
oldest Chamber of Commerce was established, in Glasgow.
20/3/1782, Lord North
left office as Prime Minister.
5/1/1781,
John Burke,
British genealogist who founded Burkes
Peerage (first published 1826) was born.
2/6/1780, The Gordon
Riots, anti-Catholic ‘No Popery’ demonstrations named after Lord
George Gordon, broke out in London. Lord Gordon had called his supporters to St
Georges Fields and led them to protest
against removal of some restrictions on Roman Catholics under the Catholic Relief Act of 1778.
6/1779, Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) was
appointed captain of the Hinchinbrooke.
1777, Dolly Pentreath, the last known person to
speak the Cornish language only, and no English, died.
9/7/1777, Henry Hallam, English historian,
was born.
27/10/1774, Alexander Baring, British
financier and politician, was born (died 13/5/1848)
1773, An Assay Office was established in
Sheffield due to the amount of silver cutlery being manufactured there.
11/4/1770, George Canning, British
statesman, was born.
13/12/1769, James Abinger, English judge,
was born (died 1844).
18/6/1769, Viscount Castlereagh, British Foreign
Secretary who played a key role in the reconstruction of Europe after the fall
of Napoleon,
at the Congress of Vienna, was born.
29/4/1769, The Duke of
Wellington was born in Dublin, as Arthur Wellesley.
5/12/1766. Christies
auctioneers held their first sale.
1/1/1766, James Stuart, the Old Pretender, and father of Bonnie Prince
Charlie, died in Rome.
1765, The Cyfarthfa iron works at Merthy Tydfil was set up.
21/8/1765, King William IV, known as the ‘Sailor King’
because he joined the Royal Navy at 13, was born in Buckingham Palace. He was the third son of King George III and Queen Charlotte.
7/5/1765. HMS Victory was launched. She is now in dry dock in
Portsmouth. Nelson
was on board when killed by a musket shot.
26/4/1765, Emma, Lady Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson,
was born in Ness, Cheshire.
10/2/1763. The end
of the Seven Years War. France ceded
Canada to Britain at the Treaty
of Paris. See 26/7/1758 and 13/9/1759. The same treaty gave Florida to
Britain in exchange for Britain returning Cuba, which it had invaded on
12/8/1762, to Spain; Spain also regained Louisiana and the Philippines. Britain
gained all of America east of the Mississippi. Britain also gained Minorca,
Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Tobago, St Vincent, Grenada, Dominica, and Senegal,
as well as becoming pre-eminent in India; Britain therefore became the world’s
major colonising power. Frederick of Prussia retained Silesia, which set
Prussia on the road to also becoming a major European power.
3/11/1762, Britain concluded
a peace with France at Fontainbleau. See 10/2/1763.
For main events of Seven Years
War see France-Germany
and East
Europe
1/11/1762, Spencer Perceval, British Prime Minister from
1809 who was assassinated in the House of Commons, was born.
12/8/1762, King George IV
was born in St James Palace,
London. He was the eldest son of George
III. His lavish lifestyle and cruelty towards his wife, Caroline of Brunswick,
undermined popular support for the monarchy.
3/2/1762, The English dandy and gambler Richard ‘Beau’ Nash died.
2/1/1762, Britain
declared war on Spain, three months after William Pitt resigned (see 5/10/1761).
5/10/1761, In Britain, Pitt
resigned because Britain would not declare war on Spain; France was trying to
bring Spain into its war on Prussia and Britain, with France allied to Austria
and Russia. Britain virtually abandoned support for Prussia.
22/9/1761, Coronation of King George III,
see 26/10/1760
26/10/1760. Accession of George III. His coronation was on 22/9/1761. He was
the son of Frederick,
Prince of Wales, and Augusta. George III became one of the longest reigning
monarchs in Britain. He saw the emergence of Britain as a leading European
power after the Seven Year’s War as well as the early stages of the Industrial
Revolution. He had a devoted wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg, who bore him 15
children. But George
III faced problems at home, fighting with Parliament to recover
Royal Prerogative, and having Revolutionary France for a neighbour. He also had
the debilitating disease porphyria. He died deaf, mad, and blind at Windsor
Castle on 29/1/1820, leaving a legacy of social unrest and an outmoded constitution.
25/10/1760, George II died suddenly at 8am, in
Kensington, London, aged 76. His successor George
III was inclined to concentrate on British, not Hanoverian,
interests, and disliked William Pitt, Earl of
Chatham, who had promoted the Anglo-Prussian Alliance. Without
British help, Prussia could not continue fighting.
For
British-French conflict in Canada, 1700s, see Canada
23/7/1759. Work began on the Royal Navy’s 104 gun battleship HMS
Victory at Chatham, Kent, built with the wood of 2,200 oak trees.
29/9/1758, Horatio Nelson
was born in Burnham Thorpe rectory, Norfolk.
He was the son of a clergyman, one of 11 children. He died in battle in 1805.
14/6/1755, Dr Johnson’s dictionary went on sale at £4 10s
for the two volumes.
15/4/1755. Dr Samuel’s dictionary was published, after
nine years of work. It contained 40,000 words.
11/7/1754, Thomas Bowdler, whose expurgation of
vulgarities in literary works gave the word ‘bowdlerise’, was born.
18/3/1754, Robert Walpole, Britain’s first Prime
Minister, died.
6/3/1754, Henry Pelham
left office as Prime Minister.
3/4/1753, Samuel Johnson began the second volume of his
dictionary.
26/9/1750, Lord Collingwood, British naval officer, Nelson’s
second in command at Trafalgar, was born in Newcastle on Tyne.
4/1/1749, Charles James
Fox, British statesman, was born.
9/4/1747, The Scottish Jacobite
Lord Lovat
was executed by beheading at the Tower of London for High Treason. He was the last person to be executed this
way in Britain. Only persons of high
rank were beheaded; lesser persons were hanged. After this date, all were
hanged. Hanging, drawing, and quartering for treason was not abolished until
1870.
20/9/1746, Prince Charles Edward escaped capture by dressing as a girl and sailing to
France on the ship L’Heureux.
18/8/1746, Two rebellious
Scottish Jacobite Lords, the Earl of Kilmarnock and Lord Balmeniro, were beheaded
at the Tower of London.
1/8/1746, England passed
the Dress Act, banning the wearing of Scottish Highland Dress, including the kilt,
from 1/8/1747. This was an attempt to suppress Scottish Highland culture.
16/4/1746. Bonnie
Prince Charlie and his 5,000 Jacobite soldiers were decisively defeated at Culloden, near Inverness, by the Duke of Cumberland and an army of 9,000
regulars. Fought on flat ground, the battle gave the advantage to Cumberland’s
latest artillery. This ended the Jacobite Rebellion and the hopes of the Stuart dynasty
of any return to power in Britain. On 27/6/1746 Charles escaped over the sea to
Skye, disguised as the Irish maid Betty Burke, with Flora MacDonald. In Scotland, the Highlanders were disarmed
and forbidden to wear their tartan kilts. The hereditary jurisdiction of the
Highland Chiefs over their clans was abolished. This was the last battle fought in Britain.
17/1/1746, At the Battle of Falkirk, Charles and the Jacobites defeated the English under General Hawley. This was
the last Jacobite success.
8/1/1746, Bonnie Prince Charlie occupied Stirling.
18/12/1745, Battle of Clifton Moor. The Jacobites won a victory over the English at Penrith.
4/12/1745, Marching south, Charles’s forces reached Derby. However they were faced there by the superior
forces of General Wade and William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. The
Jacobite army retreated, to be finally defeated at Culloden (16/4/1746).
31/10/1745, Charles led his 5,000-strong army into
England hoping, in vain, for popular support.
Not gaining this, he returned to Scotland.
21/9/1745. Bonnie Prince Charlie (Charles Stuart) and his Jacobite army defeated
the English under Sir John Cope at the Battle of Prestonpans.
11/9/1745. The Jacobites under the Young Pretender occupied Edinburgh,
with 2,000 men.
19/8/1745, To claim the
English throne, Prince
Charles raised his father’s flag at Glenfinnan, after travelling
from France.
25/7/1745, Prince Charles (Edward Stuart), the Young Pretender, landed in Scotland. He
proclaimed his father as King James VIII of Scotland and James III of England.
Highland clans rose in support of him.
11/5/1745, The Battle of Fontenoy took place in
Belgium, during the War of the Austrian
Succession. Marshal
de Saxe won a French
victory over British and Allied forces. William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, had been
sent with Austrian, British, Dutch and Hanoverian troops to relieve Tournai,
Belgium, under siege by the French. Cumberland’s army was beaten back with
casualties of 7,000 and forced to retreat during the night towards Brussels.
The British suffered further setbacks in Flanders and as troops were called
back to fight the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart. The
British made peace with France at Aix la Chapelle in 1748.
27/8/1743, Henry Pelham
took up office as Prime Minister.
16/6/1743, The last battle in which a British monarch
commanded an army on the battlefield. George II
defeated the French at the Battle of Dettingen, in Bavaria, during the War of the Austrian Succession.
8/2/1742, Sir Robert
Walpole left office as Prime Minister.
1740, In Sheffield, Thomas Boulsover developed a method of plating
a copper ingot with silver; this could then be rolled into ‘Sheffield Plate’
items.
13/2/1741, In the House of Commons, Sir Robert Walpole first used
the phrase ‘Balance of Power’ to
describe Britain’s approach to foreign policy.
1/8/1740, Rule Britannia,
written by Scotsman James Thomson, with music by Londoner Thomas Arne,
was heard for the first time, at the Prince of Wales’ country home at Cliveden.
28/12/1734, Rob Roy, Scottish outlaw (real
name Robert
McGregor, nicknamed ‘Roy’, Gaelic for ‘red’ because of his ruddy complexion
and red hair, died at his home in the Scottish Highlands. Born in 1671, he
became famous for his sword-fighting skills and was chosen as head of the
MacGregor clan in 1693. His business was selling Scottish black cattle to
England; he was declared an outlaw in 1712 after defaulting on a business debt
owed to the Duke
of Montrose. He then gathered a group of armed followers and
harassed the estates and tenants of the Duke of Montrose. In 1722 he surrendered to
the English authorities and was imprisoned. He was nearly transported, but was
pardoned and allowed to return home. He was also noted for his generosity to
the poor, at the expense of the wealthy.
22/9/1735. Sir Robert Walpole became the first Prime Minister to move into 10
Downing Street. The office of ‘Prime
Minister’ was not officially recognised, and some considered it
unconstitutional. However Walpole had widespread support of both the King
and Parliament. Walpole was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and at age 24
inherited a country estate, which gave him the means of self-sufficiency to
enter politics. In 1701 he became the Whig member for castle rising in Norfolk.
An excellent speaker, he rose rapidly within the party. In 1717 he resigned
amid in-party fighting, returning as Paymaster General in 1720.
4/6/1730, King George III of Britain was born. His
mental health was unstable, and his mishandling of the American colonies led to
their independence.
3/9/1729, The Treaty of Hanover was signed between
Britain, France and Prussia. It was to counterbalance the Treaty of Vienna, between Spain and Austria, which treaty had
broken the Quadruple Alliance. The Vienna treaty was intended to restore the
Stuarts to the English throne and to compel Britain to return Gibraltar and
Minorca to Spain. The Treaty of Hanover was a mutual defence pact, in case any
signatory was attacked.
11/10/1727, Coronation of King
George II.
11/6/1727, King George II was proclaimed King of Britain,
succeeding his father, George I, the
first Hanoverian King.
10/6/1727, King
George I died of apoplexy on his way
to Hanover, in the room where he was born at Osnabruck Castle. He was succeeded
by his 44 year-old son, George II.
2/1/1727, General James Wolfe was born at Westerham,
Kent. Wolfe, son of a general, was to command the British army at the capture
of Quebec from the French.
2/9/1726. Birth of prison reformer John Howard. English campaigner
for better conditions for prisoners and wages for gaolers.
29/9/1725, Robert Clive, British soldier and politician,
was born in Styche, near Market Drayton, Shropshire. He was the so of a lawyer, the eldest of 13
children.
17/5/1723, Christopher Layer was hung, drawn and quartered
for treason, for a plot to kill King George I and restore the Catholic Stuart
dynasty. James
Francis Edward Stuart, son of James II, would have become James III. In
England the military was reinforced and put on standby against a possible
Catholic invasion of the country; this was paid for by a £100,000 tax (£313
million in 2015 prices) on Catholic estates. This was the Atterbury plot, named
after Francis
Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, who was exiled for his part in it.
16/6/1722, John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, British
General famous for his victories in the Spanish
War of Succession, died at Windsor aged 72.
1/1/1722, So-called
‘blacking’ was becoming a problem for British landowners. Large deer parks
established by the landed gentry were excluding commoners from their
traditional grazing lands where they could also gather peat and firewood. The
commoners would black their faces and raid these parks. In response to this
Parliament passed the Black Act in May
1723, making it a hanging offence to black one’s face and carry weapons, many
other offenders were transported under this Act. The Black Act was not repealed
until 1824.
3/4/1721, Sir Robert Walpole was appointed First Lord of
the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, effectively making him Britain’s first Prime Minister. He held
this office until 12/2/1742.
31/12/1720, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Charles Edward Stuart, was born in Rome, the
elder son of James,
the ‘Old Pretender’.
11/8/1718, Admiral Byng
destroyed the Spanish fleet off Cape Passaro.
2/8/1718, A Quadruple Alliance was formed between
Britain, France, Holland, and Austria, against Spain, after Spain seized Sardinia
and Sicily, threatening another European war. Under the Treaty of Utrecht
(11/4/1713) Sardinia had been assigned to Austria and Sicily to Savoy (see also
17/2/1720). However King Philip V of Spain,
influenced by his wife Elizabeth Farnese of Parma and her advisor Giulio Alberoni,
seized these islands. Admiral Byng was sent to defend Sicily, with
Austrian troops. In a sea battle off Cape Passaro, he totally destroyed the
Spanish fleet. Meanwhile French troops occupied northern Spain. The purpose of the Quadruple Alliance were, to maintain
the terms of the Peace of Utrecht, for Spain to renounce any claim to the
French throne, and to guarantee the Protestant succession in Britain. The four
powers would also assist each other if any were attacked. Spain initially
backed a Jacobite invasion of Britain, but after the dismissal of Cardinal
Alberoni in December 1719 Spain changed policy and joined the
Alliance, which provided a forum to discuss territorial disputes in Europe.
1717,
The first copper smelting works was set up in
the Tawe Valley, Swansea, area. By 1860 the previously wooded rural valley was
smelting over 50% of all copper imported into the UK.
24/2/1716, The leaders of the
Jacobite
uprising I November 1715 captured at Preston were executed. Some escaped to France. The Pretender himself also escaped. The
aim of the rebels was to overthrow the Hanoverian dynasty ands restore the Stuarts to the throne.
22/12/1715. James Stuart, the ‘Old
Pretender’, son of King James II, deposed Roman Catholic King of England, landed at Peterhead after his exile
in France. However he was forced to leave on 5/2/1716 for France again with the
Earl of Mar,
as the Jacobite
Army, defeated, dispersed.
13/11/1715, A Royalist army
defeated the Jacobites
at Preston, Lancashire. On this day Mar also failed to dislodge the Royalists
under Argyll
from Sheriffmuir, north of Stirling.
6/9/1715, The Earl of Mar
raised the Stuart Standard at Braemar, starting the Jacobite Rebellion.
20/10/1714, Coronation of King George
I.
18/9/1714, George I landed in England.
1/8/1714. Queen Anne,
the last Stuart monarch, died childless.
King George I, Elector
of Hanover, Prince George Louis, son of the Electress Sophia, daughter of
Elizabeth, daughter of James I, became King under the 1701 Act of Settlement. Unfortunately he spoke no English.
30/7/1714, The
pro-Hanoverian Duke
of Shrewsbury was appointed Lord
Treasurer.
12/7/1712, Richard Cromwell, second
Lord Protector, son of Oliver Cromwell, died.
10/4/1710. The Copyright Act came into effect in
Britain. This allowed authors to hold exclusive rights to their work for up to
50 years after their death.
24/7/1707, Britain captured Gibraltar from Spain.
For other events in the War of the Spanish Succession, see Spain-Portugal, and France-Germany.
1/5/1707. Act of Union between
England and Scotland. The Union of the English and Scottish crowns was on
24/3/1603, when James VI of Scotland also became King of England. Scotland
failed economically, and England put pressure for Union on the Scottish
Parliament. Scottish aristocrats were offered compensation and voted for Union.
Coinage, taxation, sovereignty, and
parliament became one, but Scotland retained its own legal and religious
system. The Union Jack was adopted as the National Flag.
12/7/1705, Death of Anglican priest Titus Gates, the anti-Catholic
conspirator who alleged the existence of
a plot to assassinate King Charles II
and place his Catholic brother James
on the throne, thus causing the execution of 35 suspects and the
exclusion of Catholics from the British Parliament.
27/12/1703, The Methuen Treaty was signed.
12//9/1703, The Hapsburg Archduke
Ferdinand was proclaimed King of Spain, War of the Spanish Succession began. France had already, in 1701,
begun to occupy key fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands, following the death
of the Spanish monarch Charles II on 2/10./1700, with no heir.
23/4/1702, The coronation of Queen
Anne.
8/3/1702, King William III
died when his horse, Sorrel, stumbled on a molehill in the grounds of
Hampton Court Park. He had no children, and the Crown passed to Queen Anne. second
daughter of James II, who was born on 6/2/1665 in London, and
brought up as a strict Protestant. By the time Anne became Queen she had
already had 17 children, and seen them all die in childhood. She died on
1/8/1714, and was succeeded by King George I.
12/6/1701. The Act of Settlement was passed in London.
It settled the Royal accession on the Protestant descendants of Sophia of
Hanover and barred Roman Catholics from
the English throne.
30/7/1700, William, Duke of Gloucester,
died aged 11. He was the only surviving child of Queen Mary, so the succession to
the English throne passed to the Electress Sophia of Hanover.
20/9/1697, The Treaty
of Ryswick ended the Nine Years War. This Treaty led to the Barrier Treaties (1709-15) between
Britain and the Netherlands, with the idea that Britain would assist The
Netherlands to maintain a line of fortresses against any future French attacks.
These fortresses included Ypres, Lille, Tournai, Valenciennes and Namur. In
return the Dutch promised to send 6,000 troops to help Britain resist a
Jacobite uprising, which they did supply in 1715.
10/4/1696, England’s
Navigation Act forbade the Colonies
in America from exporting directly to Ireland or Scotland.
28/12/1694. Queen Mary II died from smallpox, leaving William III
to reign alone.
11/4/1694, The
Dukedom of Bedford was created.
18/5/1692, Elias Ashmole,
founder of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, died (born 23/5/1617).
13/2/1692. Massacre at Glencoe. 40 members of
the MacDonald
clan were massacred by the Campbells. This
massacre was on the orders of William III, because of their Jacobite
sympathies of the MacDonalds and their delay in swearing an oath
of allegiance. On 27/8/1691 a proclamation was issued offering indemnity
to all who took the oath of allegiance before 1/1/1692. All Scottish chiefs
took the oath except MacIan, chief of the MacDonalds of Glencoe, who postponed
the submission until 31/12/1691. He then could not take the oath until 6/1/1692
because there was no magistrate at Fort William. This irregularity gave Breadalbane
(John
Campbell, First Earl of Breadalbane) the excuse to destroy the clan
that had for generations plundered the lands of himself and his neighbours. The
Macdonalds
were in fact giving hospitality to their murderers when they rose up and killed
them. Breadalbane managed to prevent
most of the evidence against him from being presented; he was imprisoned for a
short time in Edinburgh Castle on the grounds of earlier negotiations with the
Highland chiefs, but was released when it was known he was acting with the
knowledge of King
William.
30/6/1690. The Battle
of Beachy Head. An allied force of 37 British ships and 22 Dutch ships
was at anchor off Beachy head whilst a French
fleet of 70 ships waited off to the south-west, waiting to co-operate with an
anticipated Catholic Jacobite uprising in England. The English
commander, Torrington, wished to retire to the mouth of the Thames till he
could be reinforced, but the Council of Regency ordered him to remain where he
was, and fight if he could secure an advantageous position. Torrington took this as an order to fight
the French and bore down on them; however with inferior numbers, there were
gaps between the British ships. The Anglo-Dutch fleets began to suffer heavy
losses from French fire. But the tide turned from flood to ebb during the
engagement, and whilst the Anglo-Dutch ships dropped anchor, the French did
not, and were carried away westwards on the current. Some of the most damaged
British ships were abandoned in Pevensey Bay. Torrington was tried for his conduct but acquitted.
27/7/1689. The Scottish Jacobites, supporters of the deposed James II, won the Battle of Killiecrankie,
near Pitlochry, against the English under William III. However the Jacobite leader John Graham,
Earl of Dundee, was killed.
24/5/1689. The English
Parliament passed the Act of Toleration exempting dissenting Protestants
from certain legal penalties so long as they have sworn oaths of allegiance to
the Crown. Catholics were
specifically excluded from this relief.
18/4/1689, Judge Jeffreys
died in The Tower of London, aged 44, before he could be tried. A
Protestant, he had been hired by King James II to set up a court to deal with
the Monmouth
Rebellion of 1685. He was the Lord
Chancellor who was notorious for the harshness of his sentences at the ‘Bloody Assizes’. 300 of Monmouth’s
peasant followers were sentenced to hang and a further 800 sent to forced
labour in Barbados . After the trials, Jeffreys was made Lord Chancellor by James II,
a position he held until the Glorious Revolution of 1688. See 19/8/1685.
11/4/1689, The coronation of King
William III and Queen Mary as
joint sovereigns (see 13/2/1689). The Bishop of London performed the service,
as the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to participate.
13/2/1689. William and Mary
ascended the English throne. Mary was the daughter of James II; William was born in
The Hague. This ended the ‘Glorious Revolution’ (see 6/6/1685 and 6/7/1685); James II fled to France on 22/12/1688. They were crowned by the Bishop of London,
because the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to do this (see 11/4/1689). James
II’s support for the Catholic cause had made him unpopular.
22/1/1689, The Convention
Parliament agreed that Charles II had abdicated by fleeing to France
(on 22/12/1688) and that the throne was vacant, for William and Mary to accede.
12/12/1688, Judge Jeffreys took refuge from a mob in the
Tower of London.
5/11/1688, William of Orange
landed at Torbay, having been
invited by Whig and Tory leaders to save Britain from Catholicism on 30/6/1688; William
accepted this invitation on 5/11/1688. See 30/6/1688. William had some 40,000 troops
in 463 ships but they were not necessary. James prepared to fight him, but was unsettled
by defections in his army. The English population welcomed William. They almost missed
Torbay, due to poor navigation, and the next port was Plymouth, strongly guarded
by James
II’s garrison. However the wind turned and Wiliam’s fleet was able to make
landfall at Torbay as planned. James later fled to France.
30/6/1688, William of Orange was invited to
England.
10/6/1688, A son (James Stuart, the ’Old Pretender’)
was born to James
II, opening up the possibility of a line of Catholic Kings to rule England. He was James II’s only son; his mother was Mary of Modena.
13/11/1687. Nell
Gywnne,
actress, died, aged in London aged 37. The mistress of Charles II, who had borne him
two sons, was perhaps the best known orange seller of all time.
14/4/1687. Having failed to persuade Parliament to repeal the 1673 Test Act (forbidding a Catholic from being
the monarch of England), James II
issued a Declaration of Indulgence. This
granted toleration to Catholics and to non-conformists.
19/8/1685. Judge
Jeffreys began
sentencing people to death at what became known as the Bloody Assizes. This followed the Monmouth Rebellion, see 6/7/1685.
15/7/1685, The Duke of Monmouth, illegitimate son of King Charles II and Lucy Walter, was executed on Tower Green, London, for
leading a Protestant rebellion on the accession of King James II.
6/7/1685. James
II’s troops
defeated the Duke of Monmouth at
Sedgemoor, Somerset, the last battle fought on English soil. Monmouth’s
troops had attempted a night attack late on
5/7/1685 but the King’s troops under John
Churchill, later Duke of Marlborough, successfully
counterattacked at dawn. The rebel Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate
son of King Charles II, was executed on 15/7/1685. See 13/2/1689.
11/6/1685, An
abortive rebellion against King James II,
by the same
faction as promoted the Rye House Plot
of 1683 (21/7). Monmouth, having
been expelled from Holland upon the accession of James II, landed at Lyme Regis, Dorset, and issued a proclamation
claiming the throne of England. He gathered a small army of 3-4,000, mainly of
middle social class status, and managed to capture Taunton before being
defeated by pro-Royal troops at Sedgemoor
on 6/7/1683.
6/6/1685. James II
became King of England. See 13/2/1689.
7/2/1685; Charles II,
James II’s
brother, died after suffering an apoplectic fit on 2/2/1685, see 6/6/1685.
10/1/1684, The
Dukedom of St Albans was created.
10/11/1683, George II,
King of England, was born in Hanover, Germany, the only son of George I.
21/7/1683, Algernon Sidney and William Russell
were executed for their part on the Rye House Plot. Along with the Earl of Wessex
(who cheated the executioner by committing suicide
in gaol), they planned to ambush King Charles II and
the Duke
of York (future James II) on their return from Newmarket to London at a narrow
point at Rye House, near Hoddesdon, and assassinate them. The plot failed
because the monarch left Newmarket early. The Government took advantage of the
plot to implicate others whose loyalty to Charles II was questionable.
6/6/1683. Elias Ashmole opened the first public museum,
the Ashmolean, in Broad Street,
Oxford. Exhibits included stuffed animals and a dodo.
2/12/1682, The
Dukedom of Beaufort was created.
29/11/1682, Prince Rupert,
commander of the Royalist troops in the English Civil war, died.
22/6/1679, The Battle of Bothwell Bridge. The Duke of
Monmouth defeated the Scottish Covenanters, who had rebelled against
the policies of John
Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale.
1/6/1679, At the Battle of Drumclog, Scottish
Covenanters defeated a small government force.
27/5/1679. The Habeas Corpus Act, stating that nobody could
be held in prison without a trial, was passed. The rights of a prisoner
were mentioned as early as the 14th century in England, but it was
Lord Shaftesbury who suggested such an Act on the statute books. Charles I
believed himself to be above Parliament so the Act was passed to counter his
rulings. This enabled political prisoners of the King to demand a trial,
and to obtain bail if prison was not justified. Habeas Corpus can only be
suspended in times of war or a terrorist threat.
6/3/1679, In England the Habeas Corpus Parliament, or First
Exclusion Parliament, assembled for the first time.
24/1/1679, King Charles II of England dissolved the Cavalier Parliament.
12/8/1678, Titus Oates’ Popish plot was revealed to King Charles II.
18/2/1678, John Bunyan, 50-year old Baptist, published
his book Pilgrim’s Progress.
4/11/1677, King William II married his cousin Princess Mary
(future Queen
Mary II of England), the eldest daughter of King James II and Anne Hyde.
26/8/1676, Sir Robert Walpole, the first British Prime
Minister, was born at Houghton Hall, Norfolk.
11/9/1675, The Dukedom of Grafton was created.
9/8/1675, The
Dukedom of Richmond (Lennox & Gordon) was created.
18/10/1674, Richard (Beau)
Nash, Master of Ceremonies at Bath, who established the city as a
centre of fashion, was born.
19/2/1674, The Peace of Westminster.
17/3/1672, The third Anglo-Dutch war began, because Charles II
was bound under the secret provisions of the Treaty of Dover to support Louis XIV.
The Treaty of Dover, 1670, was
concluded between Charles II and Louis XIV of France, following
negotiations begun back in 1668. However the weaker Dutch fleet held back the
English, who were facing difficulties in financing this war. In 1673 the
English Parliament agreed to raise taxes to fund the conflict in return for the
passing of the Test Act. This Act
required all holding civil or military office to accept the Church of England
sacrament and reject the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation. The
subsequent resignation of the Duke of York (the future James II) and others betrayed
the presence of Catholics in the English high office. Meanwhile in August 1672
a revolution in the Netherlands brought William of Orange (future King William III) to power. In
August / September 1673 Spain, Austria and Brandenburg, and in January 1674
Denmark, all declared war on France. The Dutch encouraged the belief amongst
the English that the war constituted a betrayal of Protestant interests by
Catholics in high office. In 1674 England concluded a separate peace with The
Netherlands, the Treaty of Westminster.
12/11/1671, Thomas Fairfax, general and leader of the
Parliamentary side in the Civil War, died in
Nunappleton, Yorkshire.
1/6/1670, Two Treaties of Dover – one
public, one secret – were made by
Charles II
with Louis XIV. Charles II secretly
agreed to declare his conversion to Catholicism and subsequently to restore it
to Britain. Charles
II did not announce his
conversion, to the annoyance of Louis XIV. The public
Treaty committed Britain and France to declare war on Holland – if this war
was successful, Britain would receive Zeeland and the port of Ostend. Britain
would assist Louis
XIV’s claim on the Spanish throne. The private Treaty, known only to Charles II and a select few of his government ministers,
stated that Charles
would re-establish Catholicism in Britain in return for £150,000 from France
and the use of 6,000 French troops to cope with any ‘internal resistance’.
2/5/1668, Treaty of
Aix la Chapelle.
13/1/1668. The Triple Alliance was formed between England,
Holland, and Sweden to defend The Netherlands from the ambitions of the French
King, Louis
XIV, who was pursuing a claim based on his wife’s rights as Spanish
Infanta. This was the War of Devolution which was ended on 2/5/1668 by the Peace of Aix la Chapelle.
30/8/1667, King Charles II dismissed the Lord Chancellor Edward Hyde
over the humiliating terms imposed on Britain by Holland in the Treaty of
Breda.
31/7/1667. The Peace
of Breda ended the war between England and the Netherlands (Second Anglo-Dutch
War). Trade laws were modified in
favour of the Dutch, who also gained Surinam but recognised British possession
of New York. See 18/6/1667 and 2/2/1665.
The English sought peace with the Dutch in order to curb the growing military
power of (Catholic) France. In the ‘War of Devolution’ France had already
seized the Spanish Netherlands and Franche-Comte; Holland and England now
sought to mediate in this war between France and Spain. The other principal Protestant power in Europe, Sweden, then joined
with (Protestant) Holland and Britain in a Triple Alliance (formalised by the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle, 2/5/1668).
However (Catholic) King Charles II regretted this
Triple Alliance against France and began negotiations with Louis XIV that led to the
Treaties of Dover (1/6/1670).
18/6/1667. The Dutch
humiliated the English by breaking through a defensive chain in the Thames
Estuary at Chatham and sailing up The Thames to burn or capture English ships.
The English flagship Royal Charles was captured and carried off. See 31/7/1667.
15/10/1666. King
Charles II, according to Pepys, wore the first waistcoat this day.
6/2/1665, Queen Anne
was born at St James Palace, the second daughter of James II by his first wife,
Anne Hyde. She was the last Stuart
monarch of Britain.
28/10/1664, The Admiral’s Regiment was formed, later known as
the Royal Marines.
20/4/1663, The
Dukedom of Buccleuch was created.
20/5/1662, King Charles II
of England married Catherine of Braganza, starting a fruitful
alliance with Portugal.
30/4/1662, Mary II
of England was born.
23/4/1661, The coronation of King
Charles II.
19/4/1661, Postmarks were introduced in Britain by the Post
Office.
16/4/1661, Charles Montagu, founder of the Bank of
England, was born.
30/1/1661, The body of Oliver Cromwell (died 3/9/1658) was exhumed,
hanged and beheaded, and reburied at Tyburn.
6/1/1661, The Royal Horse Guards Regiment was formed, by
Royal Warrant.
12/11/1660. John Bunyan, 32, author
of Pilgrim’s progress, was arrested for preaching without a licence, and
not in a parish church. He was put in Bedford gaol.
1/10/1660. The English reinforced the Navigation Act by
insisting that certain colonial goods were only to be shipped to Britain. This
was directed against the Dutch but caused resentment in the British colonies.
29/5/1660, King Charles II entered London; he landed at Dover on 26/5/1660.
26/5/1660. The British monarchy was restored with Charles II,
born 29/5/1630, as king. He was crowned on 23/4/1661, ending an exile of nearly nine years. On 29/5/1660, his 30th birthday,
Charles II rode into London to scenes of great rejoicing. Everyone
was glad to see the end of the kill-joy Puritan regime that had banned
Christmas, maypoles, and theatre; a regime that had run out of steam after Cromwell died.
The bodies of Cromwell and his chief associates were dragged from
Westminster Abbey and buried beneath Tyburn Gallows. Other regicides were executed.
23/5/1660, King Charles II sailed from Scheveningen, to
return to England, ending his exile. See 16/3/1660.
25/4/1660, The English
Parliament voted for the restoration of the Monarchy, see 26/5/1660.
16/4/1660, Sir Hans Sloane, physician and collector, was
born.
28/3/1660, George I, first
Hanoverian king of England, was born at Osnabruck Castle in Hanover.
16/3/1660. England’s Long
Parliament was dissolved after sitting for 20 years (with a break, 1653-59),
throughout the Civil War. This was an
important step towards the restoration of the monarchy and the House of Lords. See
23/5/1660.
21/2/1660, The Rump (Long) Parliament, recalled on 7/5/1659,
was rejoined by surviving MPs that had been purged on 6/12/1648.
24/5/1659, Richard
Cromwell resigned as Lord Protector.
7/5/1659, The Long (Rump) Parliament was recalled (see
20/4/1653). It called for Cromwell’s resignation.
3/9/1658. Oliver Cromwell died of pneumonia. A Puritan,
he was aged 60 and had ruled England for 5 years. His son Richard succeeded him as Protector. However Richard lacked the
authority of his father.
27/5/1657, Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell refused an offer to make him King of
England. To have accepted the Crown would have lost him the loyalty of the
anti-Royalist Army.
17/9/1656, (-105,412) Cromwell’s Third Parliament
convened.
30/5/1656, The Grenadier
Guards, the senior regiment of the British Army, was formed.
22/4/1659. Richard
Cromwell dissolved the English Parliament, at the request of the
Army.
12/9/1654, Cromwell
ordered the exclusion of Members of Parliament that were hostile to him.
3/9/1654, In the
English Parliament, the Republican, Vance, questioned the pre-eminence of Cromwell.
16/4/1654. The Peace
of Westminster ended the First
Anglo-Dutch war between England and The Netherlands, but the Navigation Act which led to the war was
retained. See 6/10/1651.
16/12/1653. Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, effectively
an uncrowned King. He ruled for over
four years.
13/12/1653, The Barebones Parliament ended.
4/7/1653, The Barebones Parliament began sitting.
20/4/1653, Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament (Rump
Parliament) due to its slowness in implementing Cromwellian reforms. It was
recalled on 7/5/1659, after Cromwell’s
death.
8/7/1652, The First Anglo-Dutch war began.
6/10/1651. The English issued a commercial challenge to
the Dutch by passing the Navigation Act; this prohibited the
import of goods into England from America, Asia, or Africa in any except
British or colonial ships; with a crew at least half-English. This was a challenge to Amsterdam’s status
as Europe’s leading port. This was an attempt to revive the English
economy, depressed by three years of plague and bad harvests. In 1652
England declared war on The Netherlands (First Anglo-Dutch War) after an
incident where a Dutch fleet refused to be searched by the British. See
15/4/1654, and 1/10/1660.
3/9/1651. Oliver Cromwell’s army defeated the Royalist
army at Worcester. Charles
II, destitute and
friendless, spent the night in an oak tree at Boscobel to evade capture, and
fled to France on 17/10/1651.
Cromwell’s troops hauled twenty large boats upstream to make a pontoon bridge,
crossing the Severn into the Royalist side.
The battle concluded with fighting inside Worcester itself. Some 3,000 Royalist forces were killed, and
10,000 taken prisoner, many of whom were transported to New England as
slaves. The Parliamentarian forces lost
only 200 men. This was the final
battle for the Royalist cause.
28/8/1651, The
Parliamentarians captured Upton Bridge, 10 miles south of Worcester. The Royalist
General
Massey was badly wounded. Cromwell’s
forces occupied the west bank of the
Severn with 11,000 troops, so cutting off any support for Charles II from
Wales, and aiming to attack Worcester from
the south.
25/8/1651, A force of Lancashire Royalists raised the Earl of Derby was crushed by Colonel Robert Lilburne at Wigan. Cromwell returned to England via the east
coast from Scotland; harassing Charles II’s
rearguard. Cromwell marched on Worcester with a force of around
28,000 regular troops plus a further 3,000 militiamen who were against the
Scots. Lilburne blockaded Charles
route back into Scotland. Charles hoped to draw extra forces from Wales
and the south-west.
22/8/1651, Charles II
occupied the loyal Royalist city of Worcester, but his army numbered less than 16,000 troops. See 25/8/1651.
5/8/1651, King Charles II began a march south into
England, crossing the border from Scotland this day. His plan was to march through
the traditionally Royalist regions of Lancashire and the Welsh border, picking
up troops along the way. However the
English Royalists and Presbyterians failed to join him, due to anti-Scots
propaganda from the Cromwellian camp. See 22/8/1651.
2//8/1651, Cromwell’s army took Perth.
1/1/1651, Charles II was crowned King of Scotland
at Scone Palace. He then marched south into England (see 5/8/1651).
19/12/1650. Cromwell’s army took Edinburgh Castle.
4/11/1650, William III,
King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was born in The Hague, Holland, son of William II of Orange.
3/9/1650, The Battle of Dunbar; Cromwell’s army marched into Scotland and
defeated a Scottish Royalist Persbyterian army under David Leslie twice its size. This battle,
along with Worcester (3/9/1651), put an end to Charles I’s Royalist cause.
24/6/1650, Charles II landed
in Scotland and was proclaimed King.
26/5/1650, The Duke of Marlborough, British general, was
born as John
Churchill in Ashe, Devon.
See Ireland for Cromwell’s activities in Ireland
15/9/1649, Birth of Titus Gates,
English Anglican priest who successfully stirred up anti-Catholic sentiments by
creating a ‘Popish plot’.
5/1649, The Levellers were defeated at Burford, Oxfordshire. The Levellers,
led by John Lilburne (ca, 1614-1657), Richard Overton (ca. 1631-1664) and William Walwyn (1600-1680), were a radical political movement calling for
all but the very poorest to be enfranchised, religious toleration, the end of
the monarchy and the abolition of the House of Lords. They were supported by
‘agitators; from the Parliamentarian ranks.
9/4/1649, The Duke of Monmouth, son of King Charles II
and Lucy
Walter, was born in Rotterdam.
16/3/1649. Oliver Cromwell, (born 25/4/1599 in Huntingdon,
died 3/9/1658) declared England to be a republic, and abolished the monarchy
and the House of Lords.
9/2/1649, King Charles I was buried at St George’s
Chapel, Windsor.
5/2/1649, King Charles I’s son, 18 years old, was proclaimed Charles II.
30/1/1649. Charles I, convicted of treason on 29/1/1649 (see 22/8/1642), was beheaded outside the
Banqueting House in Whitehall. He stepped on to the scaffold at 2pm. Four
years had passed since the decisive Royalist defeat at Naseby (14/6/1645).
Since then Charles I had sought the
support of the Irish and the Roman Catholics and even the Pope, all in vain. The Scots, too, were sceptical of his
promises to re-establish Presbyterianism and handed him over to the English. The executioner, Richard Brandon,
received £30 for a job well done. Charles I’s funeral and burial was in St
George’s Chapel on 9/2/1649.
20/1/1649 - 27/1/1649, At the week-long trial
of Charles I, no defence witnesses
were called.
6/12/1648, Pride’s purge of Parliament. Oliver Cromwell’s troops
surrounded Parliament and refused to admit the 200 Presbyterian MPs, purging the whole of the majority that was
opposing Cromwell’s Independents. The remaining 50 MPs, all Independents,
then voted for Cromwell’s purge. They then discussed the fate of King Charles,
who Cromwell
was holding prisoner on the Isle of Wight. The Presbyterian faction had tried
to make a deal with the King, and Cromwell’s swift solution was unexpected. The
remaining MPswere dubbed the Rump
Parliament.
17/8/1648. Cromwell’s army victorious at the Battle of Preston.
15/1/1648, The British parliament renounced allegiance to the King and voted to have no further communication with him.
This was because of his secret treaty with Scotland.
24/12/1647, The British Parliament presented Charles I
with four Bills to sign. One gave Parliament control of
the army for 20 years, another required all declarations of Parliament so far
to be recalled, a third excluded all peers created by Charles I from sitting in
the Lords, and the last allowed the two Houses to adjourn at their own pleasure.
11/11/1647, Charles I fled from Hampton Court to the
Isle of Wight. He was arrested and detained in Carisbrooke Castle. He signed a secret treaty with
the Scots, who promised to restore him by force.
4/6/1647, At
Holmby House in Northamptonshire, Charles I was seized by the Army, and taken to Hampton Court
.30/1/1647, The Scots agreed to hand over Charles I to the English Army for the sum of
£400,000.
5/5/1646, Charles I surrendered to the Scots at
Newark, ending the military phase of the Civil War.
3/2/1646, Chester fell to Parliamentarian forces.
13/9/1645, The Battle of Philiphaugh, at which Montrose’s army, supporting Charles I,
was routed by General
Leslie’s forces. Montrose escaped to the Continent.
23/7/1645, The Royalist town of Bridgewater
fell to the Parliamentarians.
2/7/1645, At the Battle of
Alford, Royalists beat the Covenanters.
14/6/1645. Battle of Naseby,
Northamptonshire,
in the Civil War. 10,000 Royalists (Cavaliers), under Prince Rupert,
were heavily defeated by 14,000 Roundheads under Cromwell and Fairfax, and effectively lost
the Civil War. The Royalists had lost their best officers as well as artillery
and other weaponry they could ill-afford to lose. The Royalists successfully attacked Cromwell’s left wing, but then made the fatal mistake of pursuing
the fleeing soldiers. Cromwell regrouped the right wing of his cavalry
to rout Prince Rupert’s army.
13/6/1645, Cromwell arrived at Naseby, raising the morale of
the Parliamentary troops there.
11/6/1645, Cromwell’s New Model Army marched northwards from its siege of Oxford,
travelling from Stony
Stratford to Wootton, three miles from Northampton. Rainy weather
hampered their progress, turning dirt roads into mud.
2/2/1645, At
the Battle
of Inverlochy, Royal Highlanders under the Marquess of
Montrose defeated the Covenanters
under the Earl
of Argyll.
27/10/1644, The second Battle
of Newbury was indecisive. After it, Charles escaped to Oxford. The
Parliamentarian Army under Charles Montagu, Duke of
Manchester failed to prevent a Royalist force relieving the siege of
Donnington
Castle.
1/9/1644, At the Battle of
Tippamuir, Royalist Highlanders beat the Covenanters.
2/7/1644. Battle of Marston Moor, near York, in the Civil War. The Royalists were crushed, and Cromwell’s forces took some 1,500
prisoners and kill 4,000 Royalist troops.
This was the turning point in the Civil War; the Royalists had
effectively lost the north of England.
1/7/1644, Prince Rupert lifted the siege of York.
22/3/1644, Newark capitulated to Prince Rupert.
25/1/1644, Royalists were defeated at the Battle of Nantwich.
22/1/1644, King Charles summoned a ‘Counter Assembly’,
a rival Parliament to the London one, at
Oxford.
He was pleased to find that 83 Peers and 175 MPs attended. However there was bad news for Charles
on the military front, with the arrival on the Parliamentarian side of a
Scottish army of 18,000 foot soldiers and 3,000 horsemen. London agreed to
pay the Scots £31,000 a month plus cost of equipment for this military
assistance. From the Scottish point of view, they were being invited to invade
a larger country, at its own expense, and would gain considerable influence
over its religious affairs.
20/9/1643. The First Battle of
Newbury was indecisive. The Royalist Army was attempting to block
the path of the Parliamentarians
under Robert
Devereux, Earl of Essex, who were returning to their base at Reading
after raising the siege of Gloucester.
Essex’s
Army failed to break through the Royalist
position but made such an impact that the Royalists
withdrew anyway.
6/9/1643, The
siege of Hereford
Castle ended, see 25/7/1643.
10/8/1643, Royalist forces began a siege of
Gloucester. The city constituted a vital strategic link
between the Royalist areas of Wales and Oxfordshire, and its governor, the
Parliamentarian Massey,
was rumoured to be ready to switch allegiance.
25/7/1643, Prince Rupert captured Bristol. The seuge of Hereford Castle
began, see 6/9/1643.
13/7/1643. In the English Civil War, the Cavaliers secured an
early success with victory overt the Roundheads under Sir William Waller at Roundway Down. This victory gave Charles I control over most of
south-west England, leading to his capture of the strategic port of Bristol.
27/4/1643, A skirmish between Royalists and Parliamentarians at
Reading.
12/4/1643, The
Dukedom of Hamilton was created.
12/11/1642, Charles I marched on London, but was
turned back at Turnham Green.
23/10/1642. The Royalists narrowly beat the Roundheads at
the Battle of Edgehill, the first of
the English Civil War. Both sides claimed victory.
22/8/1642. The English Civil War began, between the Cavaliers
who supported King Charles I and the Roundheads
who supported Parliament, when the King raised his standard at Nottingham. Parliament raised an army of
10,000; the nobility and gentry supported the King, fearing a Parliament of
commoners.
1/6/1642, Parliament presented nineteen
propositions (demands) to Charles I.
These asked for Parliamentary control of the military, the Church, and of the
tutors of the Royal children
10/3/1642, Parliament requested the Lord
High Admiral to appoint Robert Rich, Earl of
Warwick, as commander of the fleet. Simultaneously Charles told him to appoint the Royalist Sir John Pennington. Warwick was appointed, and Charles had lost the
navy.
10/1/1642, Charles I withdrew from London, to
Hampton Court. The Commons, emboldened, prepared Bills excluding bishops
from the House of Lords and giving Parliament control of the army.
4/1/1642, Charles
I entered Parliament and attempted to arrest five members for treasonable
correspondence with the Scots. He failed; the five were in hiding, and
Parliament refused to back the arrests. The five MPs were John Hampden, Arthur
Haselrigg, Denzil Holles, John Pym and William Strode.
This was the first time a monarch had entered the Commons, with militia, in
defiance of convention. Charles left the Commons, angry, and five days later left London and began raising an army against
Parliament.
22/11/1641, The Long Parliament passed the Grand
Remonstrance, part of a series of measures to curb the excesses of King Charles
I’s absolutist ambitions.
1640, Oliver Cromwell was elected MP for Cambridge.
He supported Parliament’s greivances against King Charles I.
3/11/1640, In Britain, the Long Parliament
assembled. It lasted until 1660, due to the Civil War.
13/4/1640. In order to raise money
for a war against Scotland, Charles I
convened Parliament for the first time since 1629. This ‘short parliament’
was dissolved on 4/5/1640 after refusing to give the King any money.
8/1/1639, Henry, son of Charles I, was born.
9/10/1636, King Charles I issued a third writ for ship money
4/8/1635, King Charles I issued a second writ for ship money (see 11/2/1628), again the writ was resisted.
14/10/1633, James II
was born at St James Palace, the second son of Charles
I and Henrietta Maria.
16/5/1633, Charles I was crowned King of Scotland at Edinburgh.
4/11/1631, Mary, daughter of Charles I, was born.
29/5/1630, King Charles II
was born.
10/3/1629, King Charles I of England dissolved Parliament, starting the Eleven Years Tyranny.
23/8/1628, The Duke of Buckingham, courtier and royal
favourite of James
I, was assassinated in Portsmouth
11/2/1628, King Charles I demanded ‘ship money’ of £173,000 to
secure Britain against French invasion.
Ship money could be levied by The Crown without Parliamentary consent,
although it was of dubious legality.,
However on this occasion the demands caused serious unrest but Charles I
was determined to rule without parliamentary consent. See 4/8/1635.
20/1/1628, Henry, fourth son of Cromwell, was born.
4/10/1626, Richard Cromwell, third son of Oliver Cromwell, was born.
11/5/1625. Charles I
married Henrietta
Maria, daughter of Henry IV of France.
27/3/1625. Charles I
became king.
5/3/1625, King James I, the ‘wisest fool in Christendom’ died suddenly at Theobalds Park,
Hertfordshire.. He had been born in Edinburgh Castle on 19/6/1566, and was originally King
James IV of Scotland. As King James I of England he was the first Stuart King.
8/2/1622, In England,
King James I disbanded the Parliament.
3/5/1621, The Lord
Chancellor, Sir
Francis Bacon, was charged with accepting bribes to grant
monopolies, and impeached.
29/10/1618. Sir Walter
Raleigh, 54,
English seafarer and once a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I - he named Virginia after
her – was beheaded at Whitehall after being falsely accused of treason. The
execution was to appease Spain. Elizabeth
was possessive towards Raleigh and when she found he had married she sent him
and his wife to The Tower of London. However Raleigh bought their release
and went adventuring overseas, plundering Spanish possessions. His aggression
towards Spain led the new monarch, James I,
to believe Raleigh was plotting to overthrow him. However again Raleigh escaped
in 1616 when the death sentence was lifted at the last minute, without,
however, an official pardon. It was now re-invoked when Raleigh returned
empty-handed from a gold-seeking expedition in Guiana, and at this time a
Spanish settlement had been burnt by Raleigh’s men.
7/1/1618, Francis Bacon, lawyer philosopher and writer,
became Lord Chancellor of England.
1614, Sheffield now had 182
Master Cutlers. In 1624 the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire was established.
7/6/1614, In England, the Addled Parliament was dissolved
by James I without having passed a single Bill since it first sat on 5/4/1614,
hence its name.
5/4/1614. The ‘Addled
Parliament’ began sitting. It was dissolved on 7/6/1614 without passing a
single Bill, hence its name.
24/5/1612, Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of
Salisbury, Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth I, died.
17/1/1612, Thomas Fairfax, commander of the Parliamentary
Army during the Civil War, was born in Denton, Yorkshire.
22/5/1611. King James I created the title ‘Baronet’.
12/4/1606, The Union Jack was adopted as the flag of
England, Wales, and Scotland.
31/1/1606, Guy
Fawkes and co-conspirators were
executed.
5/11/1605. Guy
Fawkes attempted to blow up King
James I and the Houses of Parliament with 36 barrels of gunpowder (see
11/12/1604). His trial was at Westminster Hall on 27/1/1606. This was part of a Catholic plot to
overthrow the Protestant English monarchy BUT see 11/12/1604. However the gunpowder barrels were discovered
in the cellars of Parliament before they were detonated. Lord Monteagle, a Catholic peer, had received a letter warning him to stay away from
the State Opening of Parliament and hinting at an explosion. Monteagle
and the Lord Chamberlain investigated the cellars below the House of Lords and
discovered a man piling wood, who gave his name as Guy Fawkes, and claimed that the
wood belonged to his master, Lord Percy. They let him go but after further
investigating the wood pile they found 36 barrels of gunpowder underneath. Guy Fawkes,
a 36-year-old Yorkshireman, was arrested when he returned at midnight to make
final preparations for the explosion. Guy Fawkes was hung, drawn, and quartered on
31/1/1606. Sir Everard Digby, Thomas Winter,
John Grant,
and Thomas
Bates, other conspirators, were hung, drawn, and quartered on
30/1/1606.
11/12/1604, Guy Fawkes began digging a tunnel from a house he had rented
near the Houses of Parliament (see 5/11/1605). His plan was to reach the
cellars under the House and fill it with gunpowder to blow it up. They reached
the foundations of the House by Christmas 1604, but then the opening of
Parliament was unexpectedly postponed, from 7/2/1605, first to 3/10/1605 and
then to 5/11/1605. This was lucky for Guy Fawkes because the foundations, 12
foot thick, were difficult to dig through, and then the coal merchant who had
been renting the House cellars gave up his lease. Allegedly a roaring noise
above the tunnelers first alarmed them, then alerted them to the vacated rent,
the noise being due to the removal of the coal stored there. The conspirators
quickly took up the rent themselves. However some historians have doubted
elements of this story, such as the tunnel being dug under a busy part of
London; it is possible that the entire episode was in fact a Protestant scheme
to discredit English Catholics.
In 2005, at the Spadeadam military
research centre in Cumbria, a mock-up of the 1605 Houses of Parliament, with
the approximately 1 tonne of gunpowder in the 36 barrels, was created and set
off. The force of the explosion would have destroyed Parliament, demolishing 7
foot thick stone walls.
14/1/1604, The Hampton Court Conference began.
17/11/1603, (-) Walter Raleigh went on trial for treason.
25/7/1603, Coronation of King
James I of England.
27/3/1603. King James VI of
Scotland halted in Berwick, on his way to also become King James I of
England. He attended a church service at Berwick to ‘give thanks for his
peaceful entry into his new dominions. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to ban the
use of the word ‘borders’ and replace it by ‘middle shires’. However frontier fortresses in both England
and Scotland were dismantled and their garrisons reduced to nominal strength.
James I left Berwick on 5/4/1603, and
entered London on 7/5/1603.
24/3/1603. Queen Elizabeth I died at Richmond Palace
aged 69; her funeral was on 28/3/1603. She ruled as Queen for nearly 45
years. See 13/1/1559. This was the Union of the Scottish and English crowns.
The Scottish
King James VI, who then became King
James I of Britain, succeeded her. The Act of Union between
England and Scotland was on 1/5/1707.
30/11/1601, Queen Elizabeth I made her last
address to Parliament, see 24/3/1603.
25/2/1601, Robert, Earl of Essex, favourite
of Queen
Elizabeth I, was executed.
19/11/1600. Charles I, who believed in the Divine Right of Kings to rule but who was beheaded after losing the Civil War, was born in Fife. He was the second son of King James I and Anne of Denmark.
25/4/1599. Oliver
Cromwell was born in Huntingdon. He became Lord Protector of
England, Britain’s first and only dictator.
4/8/1598, William Cecil, Baron Burghley,
chief advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, died.
22/11/1594, English explorer Sir Martin
Frobisher died this day in Plymouth.
6/4/1590, Sir Francis Walsingham, diplomat
and creator of Elizabeth
I’s secret service, died.
15/9/1588, The remnants of the Spanish Armada
limped back into Spanish ports.
4/9/1588. The death of Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, Robert Dudley,
Earl of Leicester.
8/8/1588, Queen Elizabeth I reviewed her
troops at Tilbury.
29/7/1588. The Spanish Armada under Medina
Sidonia was defeated. (See 19/5/1588). On the night of the 28 July
the English sent fireships amongst the 130 ships of the Armada
sent by Philip
II to invade England, as they were anchored off Calais. This caused
panic amongst the Spanish, who cut anchor, one ship running aground. By now the
Spanish had lost several of their best ships and, whilst maintaining good
order, were demoralised. The Spanish
sent a signal to Parma to
put his ships to sea from Dunkirk but he could not as he was closely blockaded
by the British. On 29 July the English decimated the Spanish with broadside
fire, preventing the Spanish closing and boarding, which would have been their
only chance of success. The Spanish soldiers were outgunned and had inferior seamanship
to the English sailors. The Spanish were nearly driven aground off The
Netherlands on 30 July but a sudden change of wind saved them, with only 6
fathoms below them, and they were able to sail northwest into the North Sea.
The English, running low on food and ammunition, followed them as far as the
Firth of Forth, then returned south, satisfied that the Spanish would not
return via the Straits of Dover. The Armada, short of both food and fresh water,
encountered further problems with strong westerly winds as they attempted to
sail around the north of Scotland and south to Spain. Many ships were wrecked
at open sea or off the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. Only half the ships that left Spain returned home; death and sickness
took a great toll of the crews. The
failure of the Armada checked the naval growth of Spain and assisted the
Netherlands to gain independence. Two further Armadas prepared by Spain, in 1596 and 1597,
were disrupted by bad weather.
25/7/1587, The Spanish Armada and the English
navy engaged off the Isle of Wight. There were fears that the Spanish planned
to seize the island as a base.
19/5/1588. The Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon. The Armada consisted of 130 vessels, containing
7,000 sailors and 17,000 soldiers, commended by the Duke of Medina, sent by King Philip II.
It arrived off the Lizard, Cornwall, on 19/7/1588, and off Plymouth on
20/7/1588. The English Navy was only
just able to get out to sea and avoid being blockaded in Plymouth harbour.
On 23 July the English and Spanish fleets clashed off Portland, and again on 25
July off the Isle of Wight. The defeat
of the Armada was on 29 July, see
29/7/1588.
19/4/1587. Sir
Francis Drake led his convoy of ships into Cadiz, where the Spanish Armada
was being prepared to attack England, and, taking
the Spanish completely by surprise, looted, burnt, and sank many ships. He also
looted the harbour stores and managed to escape with no casualties.
This
adventure became known as ‘the singeing of the King of Spain’s beard’. Sir Francis Drake
also brought back 2,900 barrels of ‘sack’, a wine made in the Jerez region of
Spain, so named from the Spanish word ‘sacar’, meaning ‘to take out, or
export’. This was the forerunner of today’s sherry drink. Sack had been popular
abroad since a Spanish law passed in 1492 exempting wine made for export from
taxes; it was a robust wine that did not go off easily.
8/2/1587. Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded
in the Great Hall of Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, after nearly 19
years in prison. She had been implicated
in a Catholic plot to overthrow her cousin Queen
Elizabeth I. The leader of the plot, Anthony Babington, had planned to free Mary, and rally support amongst
English Roman Catholics for a
Spanish invasion force. Mary married the French Dauphin in her teens and
was Queen of France for a year until
he died. Her second marriage was to Lord Darnley. After Darnley’s murder, in which
Mary may have been implicated, she married the Earl of Bothwell. Mary was
defeated in battle in Scotland and fled to England, but her cousin Elizabeth I
had her imprisoned.
Elizabeth
had been reluctant to execute Mary, because this might bring reprisals from
Catholic Europe, and might legitimate her own execution at some future point;
however Francis
Walsingham persuaded Elizabeth to order the execution.
20/9/1586, Chidiock
Tichborne, one of
the conspirators in the Catholic Babington Plot to murder Queen Elizabeth I, was executed
at the Tower of London.
10/8/1585, Elizabeth I of England signed
the Treaty of Nonsuch, promising 64,000 foot soldiers, 1,000 cavalry, and
600,000 florins a year to support Protestant rebels in The Netherlands against
Spain. Although Elizabeth
disliked involvement in foreign European wars, the Spanish presence in The
Netherlands was too close to England to ignore. King Philip II of Spain, who had laid
siege to Antwerp in 1584, saw this Treaty as a declaration of war.
1584, A copper smelting works was set up at Neath, south Wales, an early harbinger of industrialisation there.
1/12/1581. The Jesuit martyr Edmund Campion was hanged at Tyburn, for
distributing an anti-Anglican pamphlet in Oxford.
4/4/1581. Queen Elizabeth I knighted Francis Drake on his ship The Golden Hind
at Deptford, London, after he completed his circumnavigation of the world. See
26/9/1580. En route, Drake had captured and plundered several Spanish
galleons; Spain demanded that Elizabeth I hang Drake for piracy, but Drake was
a hero in England.
11/6/1573, In Britain, a Puritan pamphlet
calling for the abolition of episcopacy was suppressed by Parliament.
24/11/1572. John Knox, father
of the Scottish reformation, died
in Edinburgh. He had returned to Scotland after the rebellion against the Catholic Mary
Queen of Scots.
25/2/1570. Queen Elizabeth I was excommunicated
by Pope Pius
V who declared her a usurper.
20/2/1570, The Northern Rebellion ended. In November 1569 the Catholic Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland
had started the rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I, motivated by the flight of
(Catholic) Mary Queen of Scots to England,
also by the arrest of Thomas Howard, 9th Duke of Norfolk,
in October 1569. In November 1569 Northumberland had seized Durham Cathedral to celebrate Catholic
Mass. The Earls now marched south to fight Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex,
at York. However their elevated social position, and religious fervour, failed
to inspire enough foot soldiers to follow them and their march petered out.
After a battle at Naworth, Cumbria,
this day, 20/2/1570, the Earls fled to Scotland. Government reprisals against Catholics were harsh and Protestantism
became more firmly established in England.
4/9/1566, Queen
Elizabeth I
visited Oxford, to consolidate her acceptance by the University and Town as
Supreme Head of the Church.
1/6/1563, Robert Cecil, English statesman,
was born.
20/9/1562, The Treaty of Hampton
Court was signed.
10/11/1559, Queen Elizabeth I confirmed the
Charter of the Stationer’s company.
8/5/1559, The Act of Uniformity was
signed by Queen Elizabeth I. This
enshrined the monarch as head of the Church in England, ensuring the supremacy
of Protestantism under Queen Elizabeth
I.
17/4/1559, The Act of Supremacy was partly re-enacted in England.
15/1/1559. Queen Elizabeth I
crowned. She was born on 7/9/1533 at Greenwich Palace. Daughter of King Henry VIII
and Anne
Boleyn, she ruled from 1558 to 1603 and was one of England’s
greatest rulers, succeeding her Catholic half-sister Mary Tudor. She cleverly
preserved England’s independence from Catholic Europe whilst also outflanking
the more radical Puritans, and her reign
saw the emergence of England as a major sea power through Drake and others. This was also a time when the arts thrived.
She died on 24/3/1603.
14/12/1558, Funeral
of Queen
Mary of England.
17/11/1558. Queen
Mary of England (Bloody Mary), daughter of Henry VIII, died in St James Palace
London at the age of 42. Born in 1516 to
Catharine of
Aragon, she outmanoeuvred Lord Dudley’s attempt to put Lady Jane Grey
on the throne, on the death of her half-brother King Edward VI. Mary’s
marriage to Philip
II of Spain dragged England into the war between France and Spain,
and caused the loss to England of Calais, an English outpost since the reign of
Edward III.
Under her five-year reign Catholicism
was restored and Protestants persecuted.
On Mary’s
death, her half-sister Elizabeth,
daughter of Anne
Boleyn, became Queen Elizabeth I.
24/4/1558, Mary Queen of Scots, aged 16, married the Dauphin of France.
7/1/1558. Calais, the last English possession on mainland
France, was taken by the French under the Duke of
Guise. The English had captured Calais in 1346 after a year
besieging it.
16/7/1557, Anne of Cleves, 4th wife of King Henry VIII,
died.
19/6/1556, King James I of England, son of Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley, the first Stuart King of England and Ireland, also King James VI of Scotland,
was born.
21/3/1556, Thomas
Cranmer, first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, was burnt at the stake in
Oxford as a heretic and a traitor, under the Catholic rule of Queen ‘Bloody’ Mary. He had been deprived of
his office on 11/12/1555. He had assisted in having the marriage of Mary’s
parents, King
Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, annulled.
16/10/1555. Bishops Hugh Latimer
and Nicholas
Ridley, British Protestant
martyrs and Oxford reformers, were burnt at the stake for heresy.
30/11/1554, Cardinal Pole pardoned England for its Protestant heresy and
welcomed the country back into the Roman Catholic Church.
25/7/1554. Mary
I, Bloody Mary, married Philip II of Spain, son and heir of Charles V, in Winchester.
This was her second marriage; the first had been when, aged three, she was
married to the King of France, then nine months old. Catholicism returned to England. See 17/11/1558.
20/7/1554, Philip II of Spain arrived in Southampton, having
crossed the Channel during a terrible storm.
19/5/1554, Queen Elizabeth was released from the Tower of London.
18/3/1554, Elizabeth was imprisoned in the Tower of London for alleged
complicity in a plot against Mary led by Sir Thomas Wyatt; she was
released on 19/5/1554.
11/2/1554, Lady Jane Grey and her husband Lord Guildford Dudley were executed on Tower
Green, Tower of London, for high treason; she was aged 16. Lady Grey became Queen on
10/7/1553 but was deposed nine days later by her cousin Mary Tudor who then became Queen
of England. The Protestant King Edward VI had proclaimed Jane Queen above
her half sister Mary
because that kept England away from Catholic Spain. Mary delayed executing Jane
but changed her mind when Jane’s father
attempted a revolution.
20/12/1553, In England, Protestant Church services were ruled illegal.
1/10/1553, Mary
Tudor was crowned
Queen of England.
19/7/1553. Lady Jane Grey, a
Protestant, was deposed, aged 16, after a reign of only nine days. She was
sent to the Tower of London and beheaded
on 12/2/1554. Mary Tudor (Bloody Mary), a Catholic,
half sister of Edward IV, was proclaimed Queen, but died on 17/11/1558.
10/7/1553. Following the death of Edward VI,
Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen of
England.
21/5/1553, Lady Jane Grey was forced to marry Lord Guildford
Dudley; Dudley had ambitions
to be King of England.
2/5/1551, William Camden, English
historian (died 1623) was born.
7/12/1549, Robert Kent, rebel leader, was
hanged.
9/8/1549. England declared war on
France.
12/7/1549, Robert Kett, with 16,000 men,
camped on Mousehold Heath outside Norwich and demanded an audience with Edward Seymour,
1st Duke of Somerset, who was Protector of England during
the minority years of King Edward VI. Kett’s demands concerned rising
rents, rising food prices and the increase in sheep farming (which demanded
enclosure whereas crop farming did not). Somerset ordered Kett’s mob to disperse, with a
pardon for any crimes committed up to that point; Kett refused. Somerset now
ordered William
Parr, Marquis of Northampton, to defeat Kett. Parr marched into Norwich with
1,800 men, unopposed, but a surprise night attack by Kett’s men routed Parr’s
force. Parr
retreated to London and Kett was unable to follow, as his men had no
wish to extend the dispute out of their native Norfolk. Somerset now ordered John Dudley,
Earl of Warwick, south from Scotland, with 6,000 foot soldiers and
1,500 cavalry. Dudley
surrounded Kett
in Norwich, and the two leaders began negotiations. However some of Kett’s
hotheads opened a fight with Dudley; Kett’s men were massacred with nearly 50
hanged.
20/6/1549, Kett’s Rebellion against enclosure of common land began when a
group of men led by Robert Kett, a smallholder and tanner, tore
down the new hedges and fences at Attleborough near Norwich. Copycat mobs
sprang up all across Suffolk and Norfolk. In particular they resented the
enclosure activities of landowner Edward Flowerdew.
9/6/1549. The Church of England adopted the
Book of Common Prayer, compiled by Thomas Cranmer. In Devon, where the abolition
of the chantries had caused economic hardship, there was considerable
opposition.
20/3/1549. Death of Thomas Seymour,
Lord High Admiral of England. He married King Henry VIII’s widow, Catherine Parr. When she died, he planned to marry Queen Elizabeth
I, but was arrested for
treason and executed.
5/9/1548, Catherine Parr, 6th wife of Henry
VIII, died in childbirth. By
then she was the wife of Lord Seymour, at Sudeley castle, near
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
20/2/1547, King Edward VI,
aged 9, crowned as King at Westminster Abbey.
16/2/1647, King
Henry VIII was buried at Windsor.
28/1/1547. King Henry VIII, born 28/6/1491, died aged 56, probably
of kidney and liver failure.. King Edward VI, the only son of Henry VIII,
by Jane Seymour, born 12/10/1537 and
now aged 9, ascended the throne
on 20/2/1547. However he died on 9/7/1553 at the age of 15. He was succeeded by Lady Jane Grey, see 19/7/1553.
19/1/1547, Henry Howard,
Earl of Surrey, was beheaded at the Tower of London for treason.
7/12/1545, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was
born.
19/7/1545. The Mary Rose, pride of Henry VIII’s
battle fleet, keeled over and sank in
the Solent with the loss of 700 lives. It was raised on 11/10/1982 and
taken to Portsmouth Dockyard.
14/9/1544. Henry VIII of
England captured Boulogne. On 7/6/1546 the English and French signed the
Peace of Ardres. This said Boulogne
was to remain in English hands for another eight years.
12/7/1543. King Henry VIII married
his sixth wife, Katherine Parr.
13/2/1542. Catherine
Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII, was beheaded. She stood accused of
adultery. Her last words were ‘I die a queen but I would rather have died the
wife of Culpepper’.
28/7/1540. Thomas Cromwell, Chancellor
to Henry VIII, was beheaded
on Tower Hill for promoting the King’s failed marriage to Anne of Cleves. (See 6/1/1540). On the
same day Henry
VIII married his fifth wife, Catherine
Howard. She was beheaded on
13/2/1542.
9/7/1540. Henry VIII divorced his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves.
23/3/1540. The Crown seized Waltham Abbey. It was the last of the
great monasteries to be seized by Henry VIII, bringing to an end a four-year campaign that had seen
some 550 church properties, with their gold and jewels, pass to the King. The
total income from these properties was around £132,000 a year and Henry VIII
gave some of
this to his supporters.
6/1/1540. King Henry VIII’s ill-fated
marriage to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves (see
28/7/1540). Anne
was born on 22/9/1515; her father was
leader of the German Protestants and so Anne was regarded as a suitable wife
for Henry VIII by Cromwell. However she had no looks, spoke only her own
language, and had no dowry. Her only recommendations were her proficiency in
needlework and her meek and mild temper. The marriage contract was signed on
24/9/1539; she landed at Deal on 27/12/1539, and Henry VIII met her at Rochester
on 1/1/1540. On 2/1/1540 Henry VIII openly said about her looks, “She is no better than a Flanders mare”.
On the wedding morning, 6/1/1540, he
said nothing would have persuaded him to marry her but the fear of driving the
Duke of Cleves into the arms of the Holy Roman Emperor. Soon after Henry
regretted identifying so closely with the German Protestants. Henry
then declared the marriage
non-consummated and so null and void, on 9/7/1540. Anne lived the rest of her life
happily in retirement in England, dying on 28/7/1557; she was buried at
Westminster Abbey.
4/9/1539, King Henry VIII contracted to marry Anne of Cleves.
24/10/1537, Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII,died, of the all-too-common childbed
fever.
12/10/1537. Edward
VI, son of Henry VIII and his third wife Jane Seymour, was born at Hampton Court
Palace, London. He succeeded his
father at the age of 9 but died aged 15. Henry intended him to marry Mary,
daughter of King James V of Scotland. In 1543 the Treaty of Greenwich
provided for this marriage when Edward reached the age of 10; however the
Scottish Parliament rejected this Treaty.
25/8/1537, The Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest surviving regiment in
the British Army and the second most senior, was founded.
1536, The Dissolution of the smaller
monasteries, the 374 houses with income under £200,000 a year, began. In 1538
the Dissolution of the 186 ‘Great and solemn monasteries’ began, continuing
until this process was complete in 1540.
1536, The Act of Union with Wales, passed by King Henry VIII.
1536, German-born painter Hans Holbein became Court
Painter to King
Henry VIII.
16/10/1536, York was occupied by rebels against
the takeover of the Church by King Henry VIII. This was the Pilgrimage of
Grace. Much of northern England, from Lincolnshire to north Yorkshire, was in
uproar at this takeover, the valuation of Church property, the suppression of
smaller monasteries, and the cancellation of some Saints day holidays. Led by Robert Aske,
rebels seized northern towns. Henry VIII made peace with the rebels and
issued a pardon, only to go back on this on a pretext in January 1537 and
execute the leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace, including Aske.
30/5/1536. King
Henry VIII married Jane Seymour,
his third wife, in the Queen’s
Chapel, Whitehall, eleven days after the
execution of Anne Boleyn.
19/5/1536. Anne Boleyn, the
second wife of Henry VIII,
mother of Queen Elizabeth I, was beheaded at Tower Green, in the Tower
of London, aged 29. She was accused of adultery – Henry VIII
was already flirting with his third wife Jane. Elizabeth was declared illegitimate and lost her
right of succession to the English throne.
2/5/1536, Anne Boleyn was charged with incest and adultery, and taken to the Tower of London.
7/1/1536, Catharine of Aragon died at Kimbolton Palace, Huntingdonshire. She
was the first of Henry VIII’s six wives, and
the mother of Queen Mary I.
1535, Hurst Castle was built by King Henry VIII,
to guard the south-western approaches to the Solent.
6/7/1535. Sir Thomas Moore was beheaded in London, for refusing to accept Henry VIII as head of the Church of England. Thomas More was born in 1477 in London. He
published Utopia in 1515 which described a pagan, communist, city state in which the institutions and policies are
governed entirely by reason. His ideas contrasted with the self-interest and
greed for power seen in Europe’s Christian states.
15/1/1535, The Act of Supremacy was passed in England. This made King Henry VIII
head of the Church.
7/9/1533. Queen Elizabeth I was born at Greenwich Palace in London, the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth was recognised as heir
to the English throne ahead of her half
sister Mary,
daughter of Henry
VIII’s first wife Catherine of Aragon. See 19/5/1536.
21/1/1535, Henry VIII appointed Cromwell
as vice-regent in spiritual or vicar-general. Cromwell
now set about assessing the value of England’s monasteries.
See also History of Christianity
1534, Henry VIII banned the keeping of
flocks of over 2,000 sheep. This was a measure to reduce the eviction of
tenants by landlords.
11/7/1533. Henry VIII was excommunicated by Pope Clement VII.
23/5/1533, The marriage of Henry VIII
and Catharine
of Aragon was annulled.
25/1/1533. King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
were secretly married by the Bishop of
Lichfield, and became the future parents of Queen Elizabeth I..
Anne Boleyn
was crowned at Westminster on 1/6/1533, shortly after Thomas Cranmer (who was appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury on 30/3/1533)
had declared Henry
VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon null and void. On
23/5/1533 Henry
VIII actually divorced Catherine of Aragon, resulting in a break between England and the Church of Rome.
1/9/1532, Lady Anne Boleyn was created Marquess of Pembroke by her fiancé, King Henry VIII.
16/5/1532, Sir Thomas More resigned
as Lord Chancellor of England. This was in protest at King Henry VIII’s break with
Rome.
18/1/1532, English Parliament banned payment by English church to Rome.
11/2/1531, King Henry VIII was recognised as official head of the
Church of England.
29/11/1530. Cardinal Wolsey died after being arrested as a traitor. He died at Market Harborough
whilst being taken from York to London.
17/10/1529, Henry VIII of England dismissed Cardinal Wolsey
as Lord Chancellor, replacing him with Thomas Moore.
21/6/1529, John Skelton, tutor to the King Henry VIII
as a boy, died.
15/8/1521, King Henry VIII of England and Holy Roman
Emperor Charles V signed the Treaty
of Bruges against France, in contrast to the Anglo-French friendship at the
Field of the Cloth of Gold (6/6/1520). This Treaty involved English forces in
long campaigns in northern Europe.
13/9/1520, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley,
Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth 1st, was born in
Bourne Lincolnshire.
6/6/1520. Henry
VIII and Francis I of France met in a glittering
ceremony at The Field Of The Cloth Of Gold near Calais. However see 15/8/1521.
18/2/1516, Queen Mary I,
Mary Tudor (Bloody
Mary), was born at Greenwich Palace, the daughter of Henry VIII and
Catharine of
Aragon. She was known as
Bloody Mary due to her relentless persecution of the Protestants.
15/11/1515, Thomas Wolsey was invested as a Cardinal.
22/9/1515, Anne of Cleves, one of King Henry
VIII’s wives, was born.
9/10/1514, Louis XII, King of France,
married Mary
Tudor.
15/9/1514, Thomas Wolsey was appointed Archbishop
of York.
16/8/1513, The Battle of the Spurs. King Henry VIII defeated the
French.
24/6/1509, King Henry VIII of England was
crowned.
11/6/1509. King Henry VIII,
aged 18, married his sister in law, the Spanish princess Catharine of Aragon, aged 24. She was the
first of his six wives.
21/4/1509. King Henry VII died in Richmond, Surrey, probably from tuberculosis.
His second son, Henry VIII, succeeded him. The
coronation of Henry VIII was on 24/6/1509.
2/4/1502, Arthur, eldest son of King Henry VII, died after an
illness.
23/11/1499. Perkin Warbeck was executed at the Tower of
London. He was a Flemish impostor, the
son of a boatman from Tournai, claiming to be Richard of York, son of Edward II,
whom he closely resembled. Initially treated leniently after his attempt on the
throne (see 31/7/1495), he then attempted to escape the Royal Palace and team
up with another usurper, Edward Earl of Warwick.
3/7/1495, The Pretender to the English throne, Perkin Warbeck, landed at Deal,
Kent, with 150 men. He hoped to gather enough supporters to overthrow King Henry VII.
However his force was routed and he went on to Ireland, where he was again
unsuccessful at besieging the pro-Henry town of Waterford. Warbeck then fled to
Scotland. See 23/11/1499.
28/6/1491. Henry
VIII, best known for his six wives
and religious split from Rome, was born
at Greenwich. He was the son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.
2/7/1489. Thomas
Cranmer, Henry
VIII’s first reformed Archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Aslockton, Nottinghamshire. He produced the Book
of Common Prayer in 1549.
16/6/1487, The Battle of Stoke Field. The rebellion of the Pretender Lambert Simnel
to the
English throne, led by John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, and Francis Lovell,
1st
Viscount Lovell, was crushed by troops loyal to Henry VII.
24/5/1487, Lambert Simnel was crowned ‘King Edward VI of England’ in
Christchurch cathedral. He claimed to be
Edward, Earl of Warwick, and challenged Henry VII for the throne of England. He was actually the son of a carpenter from Oxford who went
to France and won the backing of one of Warwick’s aunts, who had never actually
met the real Warwick. He then went to Ireland where he was welcomed, and from
where he planned to invade England.
19/9/1486, King
Henry VII’s son Arthur was born.
18/1/1486, In England, the houses of York and Lancaster were united by the marriage
of King
Henry VII to Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward IV.
16/12/1485, Catherine of Aragon, first wife of King Henry VIII, was born, the fourth daughter
of Ferdinand
Isabella.
30/10/1485. (1) Coronation of King Henry VII. aged 28.
(2) King Henry VII established the Yeoman of the Guard.
22/8/1485. Battle of Bosworth Field, 12 miles west of Leicester. The two sides
met at White Moor, on the slopes of Ambien Hill, some two miles from the market
town of Market Bosworth. Richard had a force twice the size of Henry’s, but the Stanleys, the Earl of
Derby and his brother, defected to Henry’s side. King Richard
III, (White
Rose, Yorkist) the last Plantagenet king, born 2/10/1452
at Fotheringay, was killed as he
tried to reach the usurper to
the English throne, Henry Tudor,
(Red
Rose, Lancastrian) now Henry VII.
Henry, exiled to France, had landed at Milford
Haven on 7/8/1485 and reached Shrewsbury on 15/8/1485, gathering only moderate
support along the way. He then passed through Newport (Shropshire), Stafford,
Lichfield, Tamworth, and reached Atherstone on the borders of Leicestershire on
20/81485. Here he linked up with the Stanley brothers, both
anti-Yorkist. The night of the 21st, Henry encamped at White Moors,
south west of what was to be the battlefield. Richard and his army halted three miles away on
high ground at Sutton Cheney. Both sides attempted to occupy Ambien Hill,
midway between the two armies. The Stanleys moved against the Yorkist flanks , and the
Yorkist Duke of Northumberland, at the rear, failed to intervene. Richard was unhorsed and killed, and
the Yorkist army melted away, unpursued.
7/8/1485, Henry Tudor (Henry VII) landed at Milford Haven, Wales.
1/8/1485, Henry
Tudor (Henry VII) set sail from France for Wales. He had been advised by
Rhys ap
Thomas (a powerful Welsh landowner), wrongly as it turned out,
that the whole of Wales would rise up in his favour.
21/6/1485, King
Richard III, anticipating a challenge for his rulership, issued a
proclamation against ‘Henry Tydder and other rebels.
17/8/1483. The date on which the two young princes, the uncrowned
Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke
of York, are believed to have been murdered by their uncle and
successor, Richard
III, in the Tower of London. See 9/4/1483.
6/7/1483. The coronation of King
Richard III.
28/6/1483, The
Dukedom of Norfolk was created.
26/6/1483, Richard III
became King of England.
9/4/1483. King Edward IV
died at Windsor. During his second reign he re-established peace after the Wars of the Roses, but his heir, Edward V, was only aged 12. See 17/8/1483.
25/8/1482, Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England, died.
7/2/1478, Sir Thomas Moore,
Lord Chancellor to King Henry VIII,
was born in London, the son of a judge. He was
executed for refusing to deny the authority of the Pope.
14/2/1477. A man in Norfolk received the world’s first
known Valentine. Margery Brews sent her fiancée John Poston
a letter saying ‘To my right welbelovyd Voluntyne’. She explained that she had
asked her mother to put pressure on her father to increase her dowry but also
said that if he loved her, she would marry him anyway. The Romans, around 600
BC, celebrated a February festival with romantic games and dancing. When the
Roman Empire was converted to Christianity, the festival was linked to the martyrdom
of St Valentine on 14 February, ca. 270
AD, by the Roman Emperor Claudius. Another possible origin is the
medieval belief that birds traditionally pair off on 14 February. Oliver Cromwell’s government banned St
Valentine’s day but it was restored when Charles II came to the throne in 1660. See
14/2/1822.
21/5/1471. King Henry VI died, in the Tower of London.
He was probably murdered, and was succeeded by Edward IV.
4/5/1471. The Yorkists under Edward IV defeated
the Lancastrians
under Margaret of Anjou at the Battle of
Tewkesbury. The Lancastrians were attempting to cross the River Severn
to join with Welsh troops under Jasper Tudor.
The death of Margaret’s
son, Prince
Edward, as he fled the battlefield extinguished the House of
Lancaster.
14/4/1471, Yorkists under King Edward IV
defeated the Earl of Warwick’s Lancastrians at the
Battle of Barnet.
2/11/1470, Edward V, King of England, was born.
9/10/1470. Lancastrian King Henry VI was restored to the English throne
after having been deposed nine years earlier. The power behind the throne here
was held by Richard
Neville, Earl of Warwick, a former Yorkist who abandoned the cause
when his protégé, Edward IV, strong-willed, secretly married the
woman he wanted to, the young widow Elizabeth Woodville, rather than undertake an
arranged marriage to a French Princess. Henry VI, a weak character, was accustomed to
abdication of political responsibilities so an alliance with power-hungry Warwick
suited them both. However Henry VI’s weak reign was blamed for the wars
that had split England for the previous 15 years, and the loss of
English lands in France, and Henry’s
days seemed numbered.
26/7/1469, Battle of Edgecote,
Northamptonshire, Wars of the Roses
12/8/1464, John Capgrave, English
historian, born 21/4/1393, died.
25/4/1464, At Hedgeley Moor, near
Alnwick, Northumberland, the Lancastrians in
northern England were defeated.
28/6/1461, Coronation of Yorkist King Edward IV.
29/3/1461, The Battle of Towton
(North Yorkshire) took place, during the Wars of the Roses, in a snowstorm. It was the
bloodiest battle ever on British soil; over 28,000 died. The Lancastrians were heavily defeated and the position of King Edward
IV was secured.
5/3/1461, Henry VI was deposed as King of England. Edward IV (Duke of York) succeeded him.
17/2/1461, The Second Battle of Barnet. Margaret of Anjou’s Lancastrian
forces defeated the Yorkist Earl of Warwick. Warwick, defending the Yorkists
in London, was taken by surprise and fled in disarray, failing to take King Henry VI
with him.
3/2/1461, At Mortimer’s Cross,
Richard’s son, Edward, Earl of March, defeated the Lancastrian
forces.
30/12/1460, The Battle of Wakefield. A
superior Lancastrian force caught Yorkists,
foraging, by surprise, and the Duke of York was killed. This would have ended the Yorkist cause but for the Battle of
Mortimer’s Cross, 3/2/1461.
10/7/1460. The Yorkists
defeated the Lancastrians in the Wars of the Roses
and captured King
Henry VI at the
Battle of Northampton.
23/9/1459, (-) The Battle of Blore Heath, during the Wars of
the Roses. The Yorkists under Richard Neville, Earl
of Salisbury, defeated the Lancastrians under Lord
Audley. Salisbury was now able to
join forces with the Yorkists at Ludlow.
28/1/1457, Henry VII born at Pembroke Castle. The start
of the Tudor dynasty. He was the son of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond,
and of Margaret
Beaufort.
22/5/1455. The First
Battle of Barnet. In the Wars of the Roses, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, Yorkist,
fought his way into the Lancastrian camp because Henry VI had refused Richard of
York’s demand that Simon Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, be
imprisoned. The Yorkists
won, killing their principal enemies, Somerset, Northumberland and Clifford.
17/7/1453. The end of the Hundred Years War, when the French defeated the English at Castillon. Now only Calais remained in English hands; in 1449 England occupied nearly a third of France.
2/10/1452, Richard III, King of England, was born.
3/2/1452, The Duke of York
accused the Beaufort family, who backed the Lancastrian
King Henry
VI, of incompetence and ineptitude and of thereby losing
the English territories in France.
20/8/1451, The French captured Bayonne, the
last English stronghold in Guyenne.
30/6/1451, French troops under the Comte de
Dunois invaded Guyenne and captured Bordeaux.
12/8/1450, Cherbourg, the last English
territory in Normandy, surrendered to the French.
12/7/1450, Cade
had been promised a free pardon and had disbanded his army. However he was then
hunted down by Government forces and killed this day.
6/7/1450, Caen surrendered to the French.
4/7/1450, Jack Cade entered London. Henry VI
had left London for Kenilworth, allowing Cade’s men to enter the caoital and execute
unpopular courtiers. However Cade proved unable to maintain discipline
amongst his followers and Londoners turned against him.
27/6/1450. Jack
Cade, an Irish born physician, led an insurrection march of 40,000
through Kent to London to protest against the high taxes of King Henry VI.
The English Government was unpopular after its defeat in the Hundred
Years War. Meanwhile Henry VI’s courtiers blamed the Men of Kent
for the murder of William de la Pole in May 1450 and wanted
reprisals, sparking the Kentish rebellion. Pole had been involved in the disastrous English military campaign in France
that culminated with the loss of Normandy to the French; Parliament
had him sent to The Tower on charges of treason. King Henry VI, to save Pole
from a trial with a foregone conclusion, declared him innocent but banished him
from England for five years. As Pole left Dover, his ship was intercepted, and
Pole
was forcibly dragged into a small boat and beheaded.
15/4/1450, The Battle of Formigny. Fought near Caen, the French
defeated an English force sent to halt King Charles VII’s reconquest of
Normandy.
29/10/1449, The French recaptured Rouen from the English.
11/12/1444, The earliest mention of the Welsh town of Bridgend, in a legal
document, as Bruggen Eynde. The older
market town of Kenfig had been
abandoned due to coastal flooding and encroachment by sand dunes, and a bridge
over the River Ogmore was constructed to the new town site.
28/4/1442, King Edward IV
was born in Rouen, son of Richard, Duke of York.
16/12/1431. The Bishop of Winchester, Henry Beaufort, crowned King Henry VI King of France.
23/3/1430, Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England, was born.
6/11/1429, The coronation of King Henry VI of England.
18/6/1429. Jeanne D’Arc,
13 years old, defeated the
British at the Battle of Patay. Historians are still in dispute over Jeanne
D’Arc’s role in the Hundred
Years War between Britain and France. Born a peasant’s daughter
on 7/1/1412, she believed she was led by divine guidance and her mission
was to make sure that Charles VII became King of France and not the
English Henry
V. The French and the English came face to face at Patay
on 18/6/1429 and Jeanne D’Arc had promised
the French a greater victory than ever they had seen so far. The English army
was indeed routed and also its reputation for invincibility, as the Earl of
Salisbury’s 5,000 men were forced back across the River Loire. She was captured by the English a year later,
on 24/5/1430, with the help of French collaborators, and burnt as a witch on
30/5/1431. She was canonised in 1920.
22/11/1428, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, was born.
17/8/1424, Battle of Verneuil. John of Lancaster,
Duke of
Bedford, defeated a French force, consolidating English conquest
of Normandy.
31/8/1422. King Henry V
died in Vincennes, France, struck down by dysentery.. Aged 35, he was just
about to take the crown of both France and England; his son, Henry VI, was just 9 months old, and English
power in France looked uncertain again.
For Hundred
Years War events see also France
6/12/1421, Henry VI was born in Windsor Castle, the only
child of Henry
V and Catherine Valois. Catherine Valois, daughter of Charles IV
and Isabella
of France, had married Henry V on 2/6/1420.
1/12/1420, Henry V made a triumphal entry into Paris, see
25/10/1415 and 21/5/1420.
21/5/1420, Under the Treaty
of Troyes, King
Henry V of England became ruler of France also, following his victory
at Agincourt. Henry V married Catherine de Valois and when
Charles de Valois dies Henry would inherit the throne, so long as Henry and
Catherine produce a male heir. Under
French Salic Law, a woman could not rule France.
19/1/1419, In the Hundred Years' War, Rouen
surrendered to Henry
V of England, which took Normandy under the
control of England.
14/12/1417, Sir John Oldcastle, prototype of Shakespeare’s
Falstaff,
was hanged.
24/6/1417, The Isle of Man held its first known Tynwald Day; the annual meeting of its
parliament (Tynwald) which has continued every year until the present.
25/10/1415. Battle of Agincourt, 20 miles inland from Boulogne.
The English forces, after the capture by the French of Harfleur, had set out to
march to Calais through Picardy. Their crossing of the River Somme was delayed
by torrential rains and the French set out to block their passage. The French
troops set up at the northern end of a defile of open ground between the woods
of Agincourt and Tramercourt. The English were short of food and supplies and
hunger might have eventually forced their surrender. The French outnumbered the
English three to one.
However King Henry V
was able to use his archers, in the restricted space of the battlefield, to mow
down the French cavalry and so win the battle. Thick mud, from the rains, restricted the movement of the French
cavalry. The English victory gave Henry the finances and reputation to continue
the war. Four years later the whole of Normandy was under British control, and
in 1420 the Treaty of Troyes
recognised Henry
as heir to the French throne, see
1/12/1420.
21/9/1415, Owain Glyndwr, Welsh independence fighter, died this day.
10/8/1415, Henry V of England set sail for Normandy with
an army of 12,000 men; two-thirds archers.
. Harfleur was captured in September 1415 and Henry V set out for Paris.
However illness began to thin his military ranks. On 5/10/1415 military
advisers told Henry to return to England via Calais.
20/3/1413 England’s King Henry IV
died, after suffering a stroke in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster Abbey.
He had earlier prophesied that he would die in Jerusalem. He was succeeded by
his eldest son Henry V. See
30/3/1399.
1/1/1409, The Welsh
surrendered Harlech Castle to the
English.
19/2/1408, The Battle of Bramham Moor. Near Tadcaster,
Yorkshire, forces loyal to King Henry IV defeated rebels under Henry Percy,
Earl of Northumberland. This ended the
Percy Rebellion.
14/7/1404, Rebel leader Owain Glyndwr,
having declared himself Prince of Wales, allied with the French against the
English. He later began holding parliamentary assemblies.
22/7/1403, The Battle
of Shrewsbury. Sir Henry Percy, known as Harry Hotspur, was killed trying
to overthrow King Henry IV.
16/9/1400, The Owen Glendower revolt in Wales;
Welsh landowners proclaimed Owen King of Wales, and attacked the English in
Flint and Denbigh.
14/2/1400, Richard II was killed whilst being held at
Pontefract Castle, to prevent further rebellions by his followers.
13/10/1399, Coronation of Henry
IV, first Lancastrian
King of England.
11/10/1399. The Order of the Bath was instituted.
30/9/1399. King Richard II,
born 6/1/1367, was deposed. Unpopular, he had dispossessed many of the
nobility. He was crowned, aged 10, on 22/6/1377. He surrendered to Bolingbroke
without a fight; Bolingbroke became King
Henry IV. Henry IV was born at Bolingbroke Castle, Lincolnshire, on
3/4/1366. He reigned from 1399 to 1413. See 20/3/1413.
4/7/1399, Henry of Lancaster, Henry IV, landed at Ravenspur,
Yorkshire.
3/2/1399, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, fourth son
of Edward
III and father of Henry IV, died (born 24/6/1340).
20/12/1387, The Battle
of Radcot Bridge. An army raised by
Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, to assist Richard II, was attacked as it crossed the
Thames. De Vere escaped and fled the country.
16/9/1387, King Henry V was born at Monmouth Castle, the
eldest of six children of Henry IV. He defeated the French at Agincourt.
24/3/1387, (-) In
the Hundred Years War, at the Battle of Margate: The English defeated an invading French and
Castilian naval force.
9/5/1386, The Treaty of Windsor cemented the alliance between
England and Portugal.
15/6/1381. Richard
II summoned
Wat Tyler, the first
poll tax rebel, and his band, to Smithfield. Tyler met the King, grew insolent and abusive,
and was killed by Mayor Walworth.
14/6/1381, Richard II rode to Mile End to negotiate with the rebels. They demanded an end to serfdom and limits on rents, and
the execution of Chancellor Sudbury, Treasurer Hales, John of Gaunt, and others.
Richard II
agreed to all but the executions. However at this time
Kentishmen were breaking into the Tower and beheading Sudbury and Hales. The
deaths of the Chancellor and the Treasurer (who was also the Archbishop of Canterbury)
were followed by a general massacre of
Flemings in the City of London. The rebels attempted to break into all
places where records might be stored, such as chirch buildings and lawyer’s
houses, and to massacre all clerks..
13/6/1381, The
rebels entered London and the King withdrew to the safety of The Tower. The
rebels ransacked and burnt John of Gaunt’s Palace.
12/6/1381, Kentish
rebels reached Blackheath, and Essex rebels reached Mile End.
10/6/1381, Wat Tyler led his rebels into
Canterbury.
7/6/1381, Rebels
entered Maidstone and chose Wat Tyler
as their leader.
6/6/1381, Rebels
in the Peasant’s Revolt besieged
Rochester.
4/6/1381, The
Peasants Revolt began.
Rebels attacked Dartford. The poor were protesting over the imposition of a Poll Tax, whilst the peasants wages were held down by the Statute of Labourers
Act, 1351. Peasant’s pay had been rising since the Black Death killed many
workers.
1378, A Sheffield-made knife (‘thwitle’)was famous across the UK.
16/7/1377, Coronation of Richard II, King of England.
22/6/1377. The 10 year old King Richard II inherited the English throne from his
grandfather, Edward III. Effective
power was with the Royal Council. He was deposed 22 years later on 30/9/1399.
21/6/1377, King Edward III of England died.
8/6/1376. Edward, the Black Prince, son of Edward III
of England, died.
29/4/1376, Sir Peter de la Mare took office as first Speaker of the House of Commons.
7/4/1374, King
Edward III appointed the Church reformer, John Wycliffe, to the rectory of
Lutterworth.
30/6/1399, Henry IV, exiled to France
by King
Richard II for treason, landed at Ravenspur, Humberside, to retake
the English throne.
3/4/1367, In the Hundred Years War, the English under the Black Prince defeated a Spanish
and French army at the Battle of Navarrete.
2/4/1367, Henry IV,
the first Lancastrian King of England, was born in Bolingbroke castle,
Lincolnshire, the son of John O’Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and Duchess Blanche.
6/1/1367, King Richard II
was born at Bordeaux, France. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince and the
grandson of King
Edward III.
24/10/1360, (-) (Britain, France) The Treaty of Brétigny was ratified at Calais, marking the end of the
first phase of the Hundred Years' War. Under its terms, King John II of
France, who had been captured at Poitiers, would be released for a
ransom of 3 million Ecus. Calais, Guines, Ponthieu and all of Aquitaine would
be ceded to Edward
III of England. In return Edward, who had besieged Rheims (December 1359
– January 1360) but failed to capture it, promised to renounce claims to the
French Crown when John renounced sovereignty over Aquitaine. In
fact these renunciations never took place and the Hundred Years War
resumed 1369.
19/9/1356. The English, led by Edward the Black Prince,
defeated the French under King John II, at the Battle of Poitiers, western France,
in the Hundred Years War.
10/8/1348, The first investiture ceremony of the Order of the Garter, at St Georges Chapel, Windsor Castle. King Edward III
revived the notion of King Arthur’s Round Table, and had the Round
Tower at Windsor built to house a replica version of the Table. In 1344 Edward III
began holding knightly tournaments and feasts around this Table. Following
British successes in the Hundred Years War against France, Edward III instituted the Order
oif the Garter, with Windsor as the new Camelot.
19/1/1348. Edward III established the Order of the
Garter.
17/10/1346, The Battle of Neville’s Cross. An attempted Scottish
invasion of England was routed, west of Durham. Whilst the English King Edward III
was occupied with the siege of Calais, King David II
of Scotland invaded England in support of his French ally. However his army was
heavily defeated by English archers, and David was wounded and captured. Held for 11
years, Scotland had to raise taxes to pay a heavy ransom for his release.
26/8/1346. The
Battle of Crecy
took place, 32 miles south of Boulogne. The outnumbered army of Edward III, aided by his son Edward the
Black Prince, defeated the French under Philip
IV, who fled,, leaving over 1,500 French dead. On 3/8/1347 the English
captured Calais after nearly a year’s siege, which began on 3/9/1346. This battle, during the Hundred Years War,
was the first time the English had used longbows
in continental warfare. The crossbow assault at Crecy decimated the
French-Geonese archers and the French knights behind, attempting an attack
through the Genoese, caused a troops jam into which the English longbowmen
continued to fire. The French retreated; Edward decided against pursuing the survivors
but marched on north to attack Calais.
For Hundred
Years War events see also France
12/7/1346, An English invasion force landed
unopposed at St Vaast, western Normandy, with the aim of capturing Paris.
This force was defeated by a superior French army and the English attempted a
retreat back to England, marching west 60 miles in four days. However the
French followed their march just to the south, denying the Seine Valley to the
English. The English needed a port to evacuate their forces. The English now
had to cross the lower Somme between Amiens and the sea, but this tract was
tidal, full of treacherous marches, passable only along narrow causeways for a
few hours a day at low tide. Crossing points to the north of the Somme were
guarded by the French. The English attempted to force a crossing of the Somme
at Crecy.
25/10/1340. Geoffrey Chaucer, writer, was born. He died on
his birthday in 1400.
24/6/1340. The English fleet, under Edward
III (see 21/9/1327) defeated the French fleet at Sluys. The French fleet was
virtually destroyed, giving Edward III control of the sea. However both
the French and English rulers were short of money and unable to pay their
troops; so Edward
III, and Philip VI of France, settled at the Treaty of Esplechin.
The dispute
between England and France had links to the Flemish weavers who rebelled but were defeated on
24/8/1328 by the new Philip VI of
France. Also Philip
VI supported the Scots under David Bruce against the English, see
21/9/1327. In 1336 Edward III renewed his
claim to the French throne. In 1338 Edward
III cut wool exports to Flanders, forcing up wool prices and causing economic hardship to the
weavers there. Edward then lifted the wool embargo, and encouraged
the weavers to rebel again against Philip VI, to secure the unification and
independence of Flanders.
17/3/1337, Edward, the Black Prince, was made the first
Duke of Cornwall, by his father King Edward III.
15/6/1330, Edward, the Black Prince, was born.
21/9/1327. Edward II
was murdered with a red-hot poker at Berkeley castle in Gloucestershire, to
ensure his son Edward
III, aged 15, could ascend the English throne under Isabella’s
Regency.. Edward II’s fate was sealed in 1326 when his wife Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer landed with a band of foreign
mercenaries and marched on London. Isabella found widespread support amongst
the barons, among whom Edward had caused dissension by granting some lands and
lordships, but not others. Edward was also resented after his defeat by Robert the Bruce in Scotland. See 21/6/1314,
and 24/6/1340.
In 1330 Edward III took real power, sending his
mother Isabella into a monastery. He executed her lover, Roger
Mortimer. See 24/6 1340.
25/1/1327, Edward III became King of England.
7/1/1327, King Edward II of England was deposed.
16/3/1322, The Battle of Boroughbridge.
Forces loyal to the rebel, Thomas of Lancaster, were defeated at the
crossing of the River Ure by an army loyal to King Edward II, led by Andrew Barclay.
Edward
then ordered the execution of more than 20 of the rebel leaders, an act that
shocked contemporaries by its severity.
13/11/1312. Edward III, King of England from 1327, was
born in Windsor Castle, son of Edward II.
19/6/1312, Piers Gaveston was beheaded at Deddington on
the orders of the Duke of Warwick.
19/5/1312, After a 2-week siege of Scarborough Castle, Piers Gaveston,
close associate of King Edward II, was taken prisoner.
1310, King Edward II granted a market
charter to the town of Knaresborough. However a market had already been
operating here from 1240.
25/2/1308, Coronation of Edward
II of England.
17/11/1307. William Tell is reputed to have shot an apple
off his son’s head this day.
7/7/1307. King Edward I
of England died in his way north to invade Scotland and was succeeded by his
son Edward II.
25/3/1306. (-) Robert The Bruce, Eight Earl of Carrick, was crowned King of Scotland (Robert I) at
Scone. See 21/6/1314.
29/5/1303, Treaty of Paris restored Gascony to the English.
7/2/1301, The first Prince of Wales was created, Edward of
Caernarfon, who later became King Edward II.
1300, England now had about 18
million sheep.
1/4/1299, Kings Towne on the River Hull (Kingston upon
Hull) was granted city status by Royal Charter of King Edward I
of England.
1298, King Edward I financed the £750,000 cost of his war
against France by a £2 tax on sacks of wool.
28/11/1290, Eleanor of Castile, Queen of England, died at
Harby, near Clipstone.
28/8/1297, Edward I of England unsuccessfully invaded Flanders.
20/1/1288, Newcastle Emlyn
Castle in Wales was recaptured by English forces, bringing Rhys ap Maredudd's revolt to an
end.
8/6/1287, Rhys ap Maredudd revolted in Wales; the revolt was not suppressed
until 1288.
25/4/1284, Edward II
was born at Caernarfon Castle, third son of Edward
I.
11/12/1282, At the Battle of Orewin Bridge in
mid-Wales, Llewellyn
the Last was killed and the Welsh
suffered their final decisive defeat at the hands of the English. King Edward I
took Llewellyn’s head to London on a
stake as proof of English triumph in Wales. Wales had held out against the
Norman English for over 200 years thanks to its remote terrain, enabling the
Welsh to simply vanish whenever the English Armies went in, and its atrocious
weather, deterring these armies. The Welsh also made alliances with England’s
natural enemies, the Scots and the French. From
this time on, the Prince of Wales has always been the eldest son of the ruling
monarch of England.
20/7/1280, Neath, Wales,
held its first fair (St Margaret’s Day), granted by Charter. The local abbey had extensive sheep pasturage
so there was a large trade in wool.
12/11/1276, King Edward II began a decisive campaign to subdue the Welsh. He
marched into Wales with 15,000 troops and nearly 1,000 cavalry. Most Welsh
Lords, suspecting he would win, offered little resistance.
22/4/1275, The first Statute
of Westminster was passed by the English Parliament, establishing a series
of laws in its 51 clauses, including equal treatment of rich and poor, free and
fair elections, and definition of bailable and non-bailable offenses.
19/8/1274, Coronation
of King Edward I.
16/11/1272, Henry III died at Westminster, succeeded by his
eldest son Edward
I. Edward I was in Sicily at the time.
4/8/1265. Simon De Montfort, who had promoted the power of the barons against King
Henry III,
was defeated and
killed at the Battle of Evesham. Royalist forces won, led by the future King Edward I. This was during the
Second Barons War. The last Montfortian resistance ceased in 1268.
20/1/1265. England’s first Parliament met in
Westminster Hall, summoned by Simon De Montfort, Earl of Leicester. De Montfort was the
brother-in-law of King Henry III.
14/5/1264, The Battle of Lewes of
the Second Barons' War was fought between Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester and King Henry III
of England in
Sussex. By the end of the battle, de Montfort's forces had captured both King
Henry and his son, future King Edward I, making de Montfort the "uncrowned king of
England" for 15 months before Edward escaped captivity and regained the
throne.
11/5/1264, Henry III marched through Kent, captured Tunbridge
Castle, forcing the Cinque Port rebels to submit. He rested at Lewes.
24/4/1264, After his victory at
Northampton, Henry III
moved south to
deal with De Montfort in London.
De Montfort had been besieging Rochester Castle, a southern Royalist
stronghold, bit now abandoned the siege to return to protect London.
5/4/1264, Henry III attacked Simon de Montfort’s forces at
Northampton Castle and defeated them, forcing all De Montfort’s forces in the
east Midlands to surrender. De Montfort
himself was in
London, his other main base of support. The dispute between Henry
and de Montfort
had been
arbitrated in January 1264 by King Louis IX at Amiens, the Mise of Amiens (Mise =
settlement); however de Montfort refused to accept this result.
23/1/1264, The Mise of Amiens. An arbitration
between Henry
III of England and the Barons, with Louis IX of France as arbiter. The decision was in Henry’s favour, although he
was to respect established Baronial freedoms. De Montfort rejected the decision.
12/6/1261, King Henry III of England obtained a papal bull releasing him
from his oath to maintain the Provisions of Oxford (1258), setting the stage
for the Second Barons' War (1263–1268).
1259, The first historical record of mining in
England. King
Henry III granted the freemen of Newcastle on Tyne a licence to dig
for coals.
4/12/1259, Kings Louis
IX of France and Henry III of England
agreed to the Treaty of Paris, in which Henry renounced his claims to
French-controlled territory on continental Europe (including Normandy) in
exchange for Louis withdrawing his support for English rebels.
17/6/1259, Edward I, King of England, was
born.
20/5/1259, Britain and France signed the Treaty
of Abbeville, whereby Britain relinquished claims to French territories.
14/12/1251, King Henry III of England
granted the town of Bolton, Lancashire, a charter to hold a fair.
14/12/1247. Robin Hood
is said to have died on this day, aged 87.
26/3/1242, William Albermarle, English baron, died.
24/1/1236, King Henry III of England married Eleanor of
Provence.
12/9/1217, First Barons' War in
England ended by the Treaty of Kingston upon Thames: French
and Scots to leave England, and an amnesty was granted to rebels.
24/8/1217, First Barons' War: In
the Battle of Sandwich in the English Channel, English forces destroyed the
French and the French mercenary Eustace the Monk was captured and beheaded.
20/5/1217, First Barons' War in
England: French forces under Louis (21/5/1216) were defeated at the Battle of
Lincoln by English royal troops led by William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke and survivors
forced to flee south. Louis had alienated the English barons who
once supported him as he preferred to bring in French advisors to help him. Louis returned to France.
19/10/1216. King
John died
suddenly at Newark Castle, Nottinghamshire, of a fever, and was buried in
Worcester Cathedral. He had been King of
England since 1199. He was succeeded by
his nine year old son Henry III; William Marshall was made
Regent. The young Henry III of England was crowned at Gloucester
on October 28.
11/10/1216, King John’s baggage was lost in The Wash. His attendants had
attempted to ford the estuary of the River Welland as the tide was coming in,
rather than take a long detour inland to reach Newark.
14/6/1216, King Louis captured Winchester and by the end
of June controlled the southern half of England. King John fled north.
21/5/1216, King Louis VIII of France
attempted
an invasion of England, landing at
Stonor. This
was at the request of the English barons who were disgruntled at King John
having got Pope
Innocent III to annul the Magna
Carta (24/8/1215). Moreover the barons maintained that John had effectively abandoned
his kingship, as he had technically ‘abdicated’ rulership of England to Pope Innocent
III (4/3/1215), which made the barons enemies of the Church if they
resisted John.
Louis
was also married to John’s niece, giving him some claim to the
English throne. Louis entered London with little resistance and was crowned King
Louis I of England. King Alexander II of Scotland also
supported this development, attending Louis’ coronation.
24/8/1215, Pope Innocent III declared the Magna Carta invalid, at the request of King John.
15/6/1215. Magna Carta
was sealed by King John at Runnymede, near Windsor. King John was forced to have the
taxation of his subjects reviewed by a Great Council, which eventually evolved
into the Parliament of today. If the
King reneged on the Charter, a council of 25 barons could take him to war.
22/5/1215, King Philip II Augustus of France received instructions from the Pope to abandon his invasion of
Britain, following 4/3/1215. King John of England has considerable economic
interests in the District of Flanders, whose cloth merchants received almost
all their wool from England, With English agents in many Flemish towns, France
feared losing influence over the region to England.
4/3/1215, King John of England made an oath to Pope Innocent
III as a crusader to gain his support. John also technically passed
authority of his kingdom over to the Pope, thereby making anyone who tried to
depose him an enemy of the Pope and liable to excommunication. This move was a
precaution by John
who was facing rebellion by his barons. This healed the rift between King John
and Pope
Innocent III, see 15/7/1207.
27/7/1214, The Battle of
Bouvines. Near Lille, France, Philip II Augustus of France defeated an Anglo-German-Flemish alliance. This dashed the hopes of King John
of invading France on two fronts to recover the Angevin lands, and this
humiliation for John
brought on the Magna Carta rebellion.
30/5/1213, Battle of Damme: King John’s English fleet under William
Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury destroyed a French fleet off the
Belgian port of Bruges, in the first major victory for the fledgling Royal
Navy. This forced King Philip II Augustus to abandon plans for the invasion
of England.
18/3/1208, Great Yarmouth was granted a Royal Charter by King John
1/10/1207, Henry III, son
of King John,
was born at Winchester, Hampshire.
28/8/1207, Liverpool was created a borough by King John.
15/7/1207, King John expelled the monks at Canterbury
who were supporters of Stephen Langton. The dispute between John
and Pope Innocent led to King John being excommunicated in 1008; an
interdict was placed upon England, meaning Church services could not officially
be held there. In 1213 Pope Innocent III authorised King Philip II of France to
invade England and depose King John. However see 4/3/1215.
17/6/1207, Pope Innocent III consecrated Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, following the
death of the previous incumbent, Hubert Walter, in 2105. However King John of
England preferred John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, to succeed to
the post.
1/4/1204, Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of King Henry II
of England, died. She
was buried at Fonteraud. In June 1204 England lost Normandy to the French King,
Philip
Augustus.
1202, Crawley, Sussex, received its Royal
Charter from King
John.
1200, There were
about 6 million sheep in England, accounting for half its wealth.
25/5/1200, The town of Ipswich,
population ca. 3,000 received its Royal Charter from King John. Under the terms of
the Charter, the burgesses of Ipswich, a thriving fishimg port with a trade in
salt production and in export of grain and wool to the Netherlands, received
the right to govern the town in return for an annual payment to the Crown of
£65.
27/5/1199, King John became King of England.
6/4/1199. Richard I,
Richard Lionheart, died, killed by
an arrow in battle whilst besieging Chaluz Castle.
26/3/1194, Richard
captured Nottingham Castle – the cause of his brother, John was lost.
2/11/1192. Peace was concluded between Richard I (Lionheart) of England and Saladdin of Jerusalem. The Crusades never
achieved their objective of liberating the Holy Land from the Muslims but
because they caused the death of so many noblemen the system of serfdom
and landholding in Europe was gradually dismantled. Feudalism gradually
ended over the period from 1300 to the Thirty Year’s War, 1618-48.
4/7/1190, Richard
I set out on a Crusade, leaving his younger brother John
in Europe.
3/9/1189. Richard the
Lionheart (Richard I) was crowned King at Westminster, after his
father Henry II, died. His first act was to free his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine from the
Tower of London where King Henry II imprisoned her 16 years earlier for
supporting their sons, Richard and John, in a rebellion against
Henry. Richard was planning a Third Crusade.
13/8/1189, Richard the Lionheart arrived in England, to a
hero’s welcome.
6/7/1189, King Henry II,
King of England, died at Chinon, succeeded by his third son, Richard I
(Lionheart).
11/6/1183, Richard I’s elder brother died. Richard
became heir to the English throne, also the Angevin lands, Normandy and
Aquitaine.
29/6/1175, King
Henry II held a
Council at Gloucester, at which oaths of loyalty were obtained from the Welsh
princes.
24/12/1167, King John, sixth and youngest son of Henry II and Eleanor of
Aquitaine, was born in Oxford.
1161, The monks at Kirkstead, near Sheffield, had
four iron-smelting furnaces.
7/2/1161, The title ‘Confessor’ was
conferred upon King
Edward, by Papal Bull. It signified his adherence to religious
principles in the face of temptation.
8/9/1157. King Richard I was born in Oxford, third son of Henry II
and Eleanor
of Aquitaine, and later known as Richard the Lionheart. Although
he reigned for nearly ten years he was only in England twice, for a total of
160 days. He was mostly away on crusades.
28/2/1155, (-) Henry,
son of Henry
II, was born.
19/12/1154. Henry II became King of England, on the death of Stephen
on 24/10/1154.
24/10/1154. King Stephen of England died at
Dover.
1/11/1141.
Following
the death of King
Henry I, Matilda his daughter and her cousin Stephen of
Blois were fighting a civil war for the English throne. Rival barons
robbed and burned villages and abbeys.
14/9/1141, The Battle of Winchester; King Stephen’s
release was secured.
20/2/1141, At the Battle of Lincoln, King Stephen
was captured. He had been besieging Lincoln Castle, and was taken by forces
under Earl Robert of Gloucester and Earl Ranulf of Chester.
22/8/1138, At the Battle of The Standard,
a Scottish Highland and Pict army under King David was defeated near Northallerton by
English from Yorkshire and the east Midlands.
22/12/1135, The coronation of King Stephen
took place.
1/12/1135. King Henry I died, aged 66, apparently of a surfeit of
lampreys, near Rouen. See 1/11/1141. His
nephew Stephen
succeeded him. Henry’s
only son, Robert,
had drowned in 1120 and Henry I wanted his daughter Maud
to succeed him; the barons considered it unfitting for a woman to be monarch
and backed the claim of Stephen, Henry’s nephew.
25/3/1133, (-) Henry II, first Plantagenet King of England, was
born near Le Mans, eldest son of Geoffrey Count of Anjou and Matilda,
daughter of Henry I.
25/11/1120, William Aethelney, son and heir of the English
King Henry I,
drowned when his ship hit rocks whilst sailing from Normandy to England.
28/9/1106. King Henry of England defeated his brother Robert at the Battle of Tinchebrai in France
and reunited England and Normandy,
divided since William the Conqueror died, see 5/8/1100 and 9/9/1087.
5/8/1100, Henry I, youngest
son of William
the Conqueror aged 31, was crowned in Westminster Abbey. The rightful heir, older brother Robert,
was away on the First Crusade and
not expected to return until 1101. Henry I was expected to buy him off with territories in Normandy, see 28/9/1101.
2/8/1100. William Rufus, (William II), king of England
after William
the Conqueror, (see 9/9/1087) was killed in the New Forest by an
arrow in a hunting accident; he was allegedly mistaken for a deer. His brother,
Henry,
who became Henry
I, was crowned on 5/8/1100, succeeded him.
1092, Carlisle Castle built. William II
subdued Cumberland.
15/11/1087. Domesday Book completed.
26/9/1087, The coronation of King William II of England.
9/9/1087. William the
Conqueror died, aged 60, in Rouen, France, from injuries sustained
when his horse stumbled. He was succeeded in Normandy by Robert Curthose and in England by William Rufus, William II, who was crowned on
26/9/1087. See 2/8/1100, and 28/9/1106.
25/12/1085, (-) King William I of England ordered a complete
survey of the wealth of the kingdom, known as the Domesday Book.
1079, The Noirmans built a
castle at Newcastle on Tyne as a
base for subjugation of the North.
1075, Richmond Castle, Yorkshire, built.
25/12/1066. (-) William
the Conqueror was crowned King of England, in Westminster Abbey.
14/10/1066 Battle of Hastings. William the Conqueror had landed in England, at
Pevensey Bay, seven miles from the Batlle site, on 28/9/1066. The English
lost partly because they left their strong position on the crest of a hill, and
partly because they were exhausted by the Battle
of Stamford Bridge and the long march south. The Witan chose Edgar Atheling,
grandson of Edmund
Ironside, as King. William circled London and approached from the
north. At Berkhamsted, Edgar and other Saxon nobles met William and offered him
the crown.
King Edward
the Confessor of England (1003-66, see 5/1/1066) had promised the throne of
England to King William of Normandy upon his death. However in response to a
Viking threat, Edward also promised the throne to the Danish King Svein
Estrithsson, and Harald Hadraada of Norway had also been promised the English
throne by an earlier King. The English nobility preferred
a native ruler, Harold of Wessex.
28/9/1066, William the
Conqueror landed at Hastings.
25/9/1066. King Harold
defeated the Norwegians under Tostig at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, near York, unaware that William of
Normandy was about to invade the south coast. Tostig had begun an invasion of
Northumbria.
20/9/1066. Harald Hardraada of Norway and Earl Tostig
defeated the northern English Earls Edwin and Morcar. However the Norwegian forces were
weakened so that they lost to Harold II at Stamford Bridge (25/9/1066). In
turn the noerthen English forces were so weakened by these two battles that
they could not fully assist Harold at Hastings (14/10/1066).
7/1/1066. Harold was
crowned King of England in succession to Edward the Confessor. Ten months
later he died at the Battle of Hastings.
5/1/1066. Death of Edward
the Confessor, said to be England’s most pious king. Leaving no heir, he recommended Harold
as his successor. See 14/10/1066.
14/4/1053, Godwin, Earl of Wessex, died.
3/4/1043, Edward the Confessor
was crowned.
8/6/1042, Harthacanute, King of Denmark
and England, died.
17/3/1040, Harold Harefoot, King of England, was born.
12/11/1035. (-)
Death of the Danish King of England, Canute (Cnut),
aged 40. His kingdom disintegrated. Harold
I, Cnut’s son by Aelgifu
of Northampton, became Regent of England whilst his half-brother delayed in
Denmark. England split into the old political pattern of Northumbria and
Mercia against Wessex.
30/11/1016, (-)
King Edmund was murdered and Cnut became King of England.
18/10/1016, (-) The
Danes under Canute defeated the
Saxons at the Battle of Assandun (now Ashingdon, Essex)
23/4/1016, Ethelred died and was succeeded by his son Edmund II, Ironside.
Edmund and Cnut fought for the
throne. Edmund agreed to keep Wessex
and leave Cnut ruling over the rest
of England.
25/12/1013, The Danish King, Swein Forkbeard, invaded England and was
declared its King. However he died 5 weeks later.
2/12/1001. The Danes
in England were massacred on the orders of King Aethelred, after his policy
of buying them off had failed to halt the Dane’s raids. In revenge Sweyn
returned in 1002 and ravaged Exeter
in 1003 and Norwich and Thetford in 1004. After a lull in 1005 Danish
attacks on English towns resumes and Aethelred bought them off for a larger sum
than ever, £36,000, in 1007. But in 1010 the Danes were bough off again, for
£48,000 this time. In the 1010s the Danes made efforts to gain political
control of the English Kingdom of northern and western England. Aethelred,
called the Unready
as he was without rede or
counsel, had been a weak, improvident, and self-indulgent monarch, and he died
in London on 23/4/1016. His wife Emma subsequently married Canute, and died in retirement
at Winchester on 6/3/1052 after not her son (Hardicanute) but Harold Harefoot
had become king of England.
See also Christianity
18/3/978, King Edward
the Martyr was murdered at Corfe castle, and succeeded by Ethelred II (The Unready).
975, Edgar, younger son of Edmund
I,
King of Mercia and Northumbria 957-75, and King of all England 959-75, died
(born 943).
970, Teignmouth Devon, was
burned by the Danes.
965, England invaded the Celtic Kingdon of Gwynedd.
1/10/959, King Eadwig of England died, and was succeeded by
his brother Edgar, who effectively
completed the unification of England when Northumbria finally submittted to his
rule.
945, Scotland took the Lake District area from England.
27/10/939, King Athelstan of Mercia died. Son
of Edward the Elder, grandson of Alfred the Great, he was elected King of Wessex and Mercia
on his father’s death in 924.
He invaded Northumbria, thereby becoming the first King of all England in 937.
937, The Battle of Brunanburh. This probably took place at Bromborough, on The Wirral.
Aethelstan had inherited
the thrones of Mercia from his aunt and of Wessex from his father, making him the first true king of all
England. In 934 Aethelstan, as part of a border campaign to secure his northern frontier,
attacked Scotland and the Welsh Kingdom of Strathclyde (comprising the modern
Strathclyde region plus the Lake District). In 937 King Constantine III
of Scotland and Owain
map Dynfwal, King of Strathclyde, allied with Olaf (Anlaf) Gothfrithson, the Viking King of
Dublin, and attacked the Kingdom of England. Aethelstan
and his brother Eadmund marched to meet them in battle. Athelstan won a notable
victory at Brunanburh; five northern kings and seven Irish-Viking earls were
killed. This was the first victory by an
English as opposed to an Anglo Saxon King.
17/7/924, King Edward
the Elder of England died and was succeeded by his son Aethlstan.
911, Tamworth was burnt
by the Danes.
13/12/902, The Anglo-Saxon men of Kent defeated the Vikings of
East Anglia at the Battle of the Holme
8/1/900, Coronation of Edward
the Elder.
26/10/899. Death of King Alfred the Great, succeeded by Edward the Elder. Born in 849,
he was sent at the age of 5 to be confirmed by Pope
Leo IV. At this time Alfred had three elder brothers and so was by
no means guaranteed to be the future King of Wessex. Alfred’s two eldest
brothers, Aethelbald and Aethelbert, had short reigns. The third
brother, Aethelred, became
king in 866. In 868 Aethelrerd and Alfred made an unsuccessful attempt to throw
the Danes out of Mercia. In 870 numerous battles were fought by Aethelred
against the Danes; a Danish defeat at Englefield, Berkshire, on 31/112/870 was
followed by a Danish victory at Reading on
4/1/871. The Danes lost again at the Battle of Ashdown, near
Compton Beauchamp, Shrivenham, on 8/1/871, but defeated the English on 22/1/871
at Basing, and repeated the Danish victory at Marton, Wiltshire, on 22/3/871.
Aethelred, Alfred’s older brother, died in April 871, and while Alfred was busy
with the funeral the Danes won another victory, and defeated his army once more
at Wilton in May 871.
From then until 876 the Danes were occupied fighting
elsewhere in England but in 876 they returned to Wessex to occupy Wareham and
in 877 managed to take Exeter. Here the Danes were blockaded by Alfred, and a
Danish relief fleet was scattered by storms. Hence the Danes submitted and withdrew to Mercia. In early January
878 the Danes suddenly attacked King Alfred’s Christmas celebrations at
Chippenham; most were killed but Alfred and a few men escaped to the fort at
Athelney, from where he made preparations for attacks on the Danes. By May 878
Alfred was ready and he moved out of Athelney, joined by armed soldiers from
Somerset, Wiltshire, and Hampshire. The Danes also moved out of their camp at
Chippenham and the two armies met at Edington in Wiltshire.The result was a decisive victory for Alfred; the Danes
surrendered, and Guthrum, the
Danish King, and 29 of his chief men, submitted to baptism as Christians. By
the Peace of Wedmore, 878, the Danes were cleared from all of Wessex and from Mercia
west of Watling Street. There were no more Danish attacks on England until
884 or 885 when a Danish landing in Kent was successfully repelled; this
nevertheless encouraged an uprising by East Anglian Danes. Alfred then managed
to capture London from the Danes. After a further period of peace, the Danes on
the continent found their position becoming more precarious and in 892 or 893,
attempted to colonise, with their women and children, areas of Kent and the
Thames estuary.
890, Death of Guthrum, Danish King of East Anglia from
880. In 871 he led a major Viking omvasion of Britain, seizing much of the east
coast. He attacked Wessex in 878, with initial success, driving Alfred into hiding in Wedmore. However by
May 878 Alfred had
recovered and defeated Guthrum at the
Battle of Edlington. Guthrum agreed to
become a Christian, and to leave Wessex and return to his Kingdom of East
Anglia.
23/4/871, King Ethelred
of Wessex died in battle against the Danes; he was succeeded by King Alfred.
22/3/871, Battle of Marton (Wiltshire), between the
Danes and Wessex.
22/1/871, Battle of Basing, between the Danes and
Wessex. King Ethelred of Wessex
was defeated.
8/1/871, Battle of Ashdown, between
the Danes and Wessex. King Ethelred of Wessex
defeated the Danes.
4/1/871, Battle of Reading, between
the Danes and Wessex. King Ethelred of Wessex
was defeated.
31/12/870, Battle of Englefirld (Berkshire),
between the Danes and Wessex. King Ethelred of Wessex
defeated the Danes.
20/11/870, The Danes murdered Edmund, King of East Anglia, when he
refused to become their subject. He was succeeded by Oswald, last English King of East Anglia.
The
Danes moved south west and camped at Reading, ready to invade Wessex.
3/6/859. Edgar, King of All England, was
crowned on Whit Sunday by Dunstan, Archbishop of
Canterbury, in the Saxon Abbey on the site of the present Bath Abbey.
13/6/858, Ethelwulf, King of Wessex, died and was succeeded
by his son Ethelbald, who had
been his co-ruler for three years and who married his stepmother Judith.
851, Canterbury Cathedral sacked by the Danes; rebuilt
ca. 950.
849, King Alfred was born, in Wantage,
815, King Egbert of Wessex defeated the Britons
of Cornwall.
29/7/796. Death of King Offa of
Mercia. His kingdom covered
much of England south of a line from the Humber to Preston, and he had subdued
the only other kingdom south of this line, Wessex, (Hampshire to Cornwall) in
777. on 17/12/796 Offa’s son and successor Egfrith died and was succeeded by Cenwulf.
793, Monastery at
Lindisfarne looted by the Danes.
789, First Viking raids
on Britain.
757, Accession
of Offa, King of Mercia, after he
had defeated the usurper, Beornred.
25/5/735. Death of the historian Bede at Jarrow
monastery, aged 63.
9/5/729, Osric, King of
Northumbria, died and was succeeded by Ceolwulf.
20/5/685, Ecgfrith, King of
Northumbria, died.
4/7/673, Egbert I, King of
Kent, died.
15/2/670, Death of King Oswy of
Bernicia (northern England). Born ca. 612, son of King
Aedilfrith of Bernicia,, he became king in 642. He attempted to gain
control of the neighbouring Kingdom of Deira.
642, Oswald, King of Northumbria from 634,
died in battle against King Penda of Mercia.
20/1/640, Eadbald, King of Kent, died and was succeeded by
his son Earconberht.
617, Death of Ethelfrid, king of Northumbria; killed in
battle against Raedwald of East
Anglia,
616, Death of Ethelbert, king of Kent, who was converted
to Christianity by Augustine in 597.
See also Christianity
for early Church conversion work in Britain
577, Battle of
Deorham (Dryham, Gloucestershire). The (Saxon) Kingdom of Wessex defeated the
Welsh (Britons), pushing the Britons back into Wales and Cornwall.
571, The Saxons captured Aylesbury from the Britons.
560, Kentish King Eormenric died and was succeeded by his son, who
ruled until 616 as Ethelbert I.
514, The history of Wessex began, when a band of Saxons, calling
themselves the Gewissas, landed at Southampton. Under King Cerdic (519-34) the Kingdom of Wessex formed from
an alliance of the Gewissas and Jutes, becoming known as the West Saxons. Under King Cynric (534-60) Wessex expanded from Hampshire and the Isle of Wight to encompass
Salisbury Plain and up to the Thames, where the East Saxons held their ground. Under King
Ceawlin (560-92) Wessex defeated the
Jutes of Kent, and then pushed northwards from the Thames and up the Severn
Valley as far as Uriconium (The Wrekin, Shropshire), where, however, he was defeated at Faddiley by Mercian forces.
Mercia then expanded southwatds to the Thames Valley. Meanwhile Wessex bevame Christian in 635, and
under King Cenwealh (643-72) it
expended its territory west from the River Axe to the River Parrett. Further
westwards expansion was achieved under King Ine (688-726) . Underr King Cuthred (741-54) Wessex pushed the Mercians back
north, although in 779 King Offa of Mercia (757 – July 796)
again pushed Wessex back south to the Thames. Under King
Egbert (802-839) Wessex defeated Mercia in 829 (under King Wiglaf, who was temporarily forced into exile).
Although Wiglaf returned in 830 and Mercian power
was reasserted, Egbert had captured London
and was now known as Bretwald, Lord of all Britain. Wessex eventually came to dominate all of England.
457, The Battle of Crayford; the Britons were defeated by Hengest, and gave up Kent
to the Jutes.
436, No Roman troops
were now left in Britain.
429, Saxons, Jutes and Angles displaced the Picts and Scots from
southern England.
410, The last Roman legions left Britain, to
protect Italy from Germanic invasions.
383, Roman legions began to leave Britain,
forever, see 410.
360, The first Saxon invasion of Britain.
See also Roman Empire
285 AD, Carausius, Roman Commander of the British Fleet, proclaimed
himself independent Emperor of Britain.
127, Hadrian’s Wall, Britain, was completed (work began in 122).
330 BCE, The Greek
explorer Pytheas of Massilia (now Marseilles)
reached Britain.
450 BCE, Major migration of
Celtic peoples into the British
Isles.
2800 BCE, Building of
Stonehenge commenced.
6,500 BCE, Separation of
Britain from mainland Europe, as sea levels rose.
Appendix
One – Events relating solely to Scottish history up to 1707 Act of Union.
1/5/1707. Act of Union between
England and Scotland. The Union of the English and Scottish crowns was on
24/3/1603, when James VI of Scotland also became King of England. Scotland
failed economically, and England put pressure for Union on the Scottish
Parliament. Scottish aristocrats were offered compensation and voted for Union.
Coinage, taxation, sovereignty, and
parliament became one, but Scotland retained its own legal and religious
system. The Union Jack was adopted as the National Flag.
12/4/1606, The Union Jack was adopted as the flag of
England, Wales, and Scotland.
27/3/1603. King James VI of
Scotland halted in Berwick, on his way to also become King James I of
England. He attended a church service at Berwick to ‘give thanks for his
peaceful entry into his new dominions. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to ban the
use of the word ‘borders’ and replace it by ‘middle shires’. However frontier fortresses in both England
and Scotland were dismantled and their garrisons reduced to nominal strength.
James I left Berwick on 5/4/1603, and
entered London on 7/5/1603.
1/1/1600, Scotland adopted
1st January as New Year’s Day.
10/12/1599, The Assembly of
the Convention of States at Edinburgh.
16/5/1568. Mary
Queen of Scots escaped from Loch Leven Castle. She had been imprisoned there on
16/6/1567. She sailed from Point Mary, crossing the Firth of Forth to begin her
exile in England.
29/7/1567, James VI, then 12
months old, was crowned King at Stirling.
24/7/1567, Mary Queen of Scots abdicated, after being defeated by Protestants at Carberry Hill.
15/5/1567, Mary Queen of Scots was married to the Earl of Bothwell.
9/2/1567, Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and father
of James IV
of Scotland and I of England, was murdered at his house near Edinburgh.
19/6/1566. James VI of Scotland,
later James I of England, the first Stuart
King, was born in Edinburgh Castle. He was the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Lord Darnley.
9/3/1566, Lord Darnley killed the secretary of Mary Queen of Scots, David Riccio
(born 1531?). Mary
I, six months pregnant with the future James VI of Scotland, witnessed
the murder. Mary
had romantic feelings for Riccio, and the nobility feared the rising
influence of Riccio
upon the royal court.
29/7/1565. Mary
Queen of Scots married her cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, in the Old Abbey
Chapel at Holyrood, Edinburgh.
19/8/1561, Mary Queen of Scots returned from France. She arrived at Leith, near
Edinburgh, in thick fog; this may have saved her life, because her
half-brother, James
Stuart Earl of Moray, wanted to rule Scotland and was waiting for
her in English ships.
6/7/1560, The Treaty of
Edinburgh was signed.
This ended French interference in Scottish affairs. French troops in Scotland
had tried to support Mary Queen of Scots claim to the throne.
10/9/1547. The English won a major victory over the Scots at Pinkie.
25/2/1545, The English were defeated by the Scots at Ancrum Moor. See
24/11/1542. In September 1545 the English again invaded Scotland.
14/12/1542, James V, King of Scotland, died, aged 30. He was succeeded by
his baby daughter, Mary Queen of Scots.
7/12/1542, Mary Queen of Scots, cousin of
Queen
Elizabeth I, was born in Llinlithgow Palace, daughter of King James V of Scotland.
24/11/1542. The English
defeated the Scots at Solway Moss as Henry VIII fought to gain control of Scotland. On 1/7/1543 England
and Scotland signed the Peace of
Greenwich, but this was repudiated by the Scottish Parliament on
11/12/1543. England invaded Scotland again in 1544, pillaging Edinburgh, but
failed to gain a surrender from Scotland. See 25/2/1545.
18/10/1541, Margaret, Queen of Scotland, died.
29/2/1528, Patrick Hamilton, Scottish martyr, was burnt at the stake.
9/9/1513. Battle of
Flodden Field, at Branxton, Northumberland. The Scots were defeated by
the English, under Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, and James IV
of Scotland was killed. James IV had abandoned his alliance with Henry VIII and
attempted an invasion of England. Margaret, the sister of King Henry VIII, became regent
for her one year old son, James V.
10/4/1512, James V, King of Scotland, born.
8/8/1503, The marriage of King James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII, took place at Holyrod Palace, Edinburgh.
28/5/1503, The Treaty of
Everlasting Peace between Scotland and England was signed; peace actually
lasted ten years.
21/12/1491, A five-year truce
between England and Scotland was declared at Coldstream.
11/6/1488, James III, King of Scotland, was assassinated. He was succeeded by his son, James IV.
21/9/1484, Treaty of Nottingham: Three-year truce between the kingdoms of England
and Scotland signed.
17/3/1473, James IV, King of Scotland, was born.
20/2/1472, Orkney and
Shetland were returned by Norway to Scotland, due to a defaulted dowry payment. King Christiaan of Norway and
Denmark wanted to form an alliance with Scotland by marrying his daughter Margaret
to James III.
However Christiaan
lacked money for a dowry, so Orkney and Shetland were temporarily handed over
in lieu. The dowry was never paid so these islands became part of Scotland.
3/8/1460. James II, King of
Scotland, killed during the siege
of Roxburgh Castle by the English.
20/2/1437. James
I, King of Scotland, aged 42, was assassinated by a group of dissident
nobles led by Sir
Robert Graham, who wanted a rival on the Scottish throne. James
had become King in 1424, executing many
of the nobility to establish control. James was staying at the Dominican
Friary at Perth when murdered.
16/10/1430, James II, King of Scotland, was born.
13/5/1390, Scotland’s first
Stuart King, Robert II, died aged 74. His legitimised 50-year-old son succeeded
him as King Robert III, and ruled until 1424.
19/4/1390, Robert II, King of Scotland 1371-90, died at
Dundonald, Ayrshire.
10/12/1394, King James I of Scotland was born.
10/8/1388, The Battle of Otterburn. A Scottish raiding
party led by the Earls of Douglas, March and Moray was confronted by the English at
Redesdale, Northumberland. The Scots won, and the English leader, Hotspur,
was captured.
22/2/1371, King David II of Scotland died; Robert II succeeded him, as the first Stuart King of Scotland.
19/7/1333, The Battle of Halidon Hill. Edward III
defeated Sir
Archibald Douglas, during the last of the Wars of Scottish Independence.
12/8/1332, Edward Balliol (1283-1364, the elder son of John Balliol), having landed at
Kinghorn, Fife, made a surprise attack on the Scottish Army at Duplin Moor. Balliol
was leading an army of 3,400 soldiers fighting for the ‘disniherited Barons’. Balliol
routed the Scots under the Regent, the Earl of Mar, and was crowned King of Scotland
on 24/9/1332 at Scone. However in December 1332 Balliol himself fell victim to a
surprise counter attack at Annan and fled across into England on an unsaddled horse.
Further attempts by Balliol to gain the Scottish throne in 1334
and 1335 were unsuccessful and in 1356 he formally renounced his claim in
favour of King
Edward III. Balliol died without heirs.
7/6/1329. Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland from 1306, died of leprosy at
Cardross Castle on the Firth of Clyde. He was buried at Dunfermline Abbey under
the High Altar.
6/4/1320, The Scots
reaffirmed their independence by signing the Declaration of Arbroath. The Pope
did not recognise Robert The Bruce as legitimate King of
Scotland, and Pope
John XXII had demanded that Scotland make peace with England,
However the Scottish barons, with the support of the Church in Scotland,
asserted under this Declaration the identity of Scotland as a separate nation
with its ‘uninterrupted succession of 113
Kings, all our native and royal stock’. The Declaration also noted the
injuries caused by English incursions into Scotland. Since then this has been a
key document for those campaigning for Scottish independence.
1/4/1318, Berwick-upon-Tweed was retaken by the Scottish from the English.
24/6/1314. English forces
under Edward II suffered a major defeat at
Bannockburn by the Scots. Robert The Bruce
was confirmed in power in Scotland.
See 21/9/1327. By the time the Battle of Bannockburn was fought, Scotland had
been almost cleared of English troops, with the exception of Stirling Castle.
Here the governor, Alexander Mowbray, had promised to surrender
if not relieved by St John the Baptist’s Day. Edward II
collected a huge army for the relief of Stirling, and Robert the Bruce assembled his
smaller force at Torwood, 4 miles north-west of Falkirk. At the Battle, on the
Bannock Burn, the superior numbers of the English cavalry were hampered by the
cramped site of the battle; the rear ranks of the English could not reach the
fighting, but hampered the retreat of those in front under Robert’s attacks.
Robert then led his reserves in to complete the rout of the English. Many
English, uninjured in the battle, perished in the Bannock Burn and the marshes
beyond. Edward II, seeking refuge in
Stirling Castle, was refused on account of its imminent surrender; he escaped
by a roundabout route via Dunbar back to England.
8/11/1308, Duns Scotus, Scottish theologian, born ca.
1266, died in Cologne, Germany.
23/8/1305, William Wallace, Scottish patriot, was hanged in
London, see 5/8/1305.
5/8/1305. Sir William Wallace, leader of the
Scots, campaigner for their independence from the English, was captured by the
English and later executed.
20/7/1304, Fall of Stirling
Castle: Edward
I of England took the last rebel stronghold in the Wars of Scottish Independence.
24/7/1298. The English under King Edward I
used longbows for the first time when they defeated the Scots under William Wallace
at the battle of Falkirk.
11/9/1297. Scottish hero William Wallace defeated the
English under Edward
I at Stirling Bridge. William Wallace
was a minor noble from Elderslie and one of the few to take on Edward
when he assumed the overlordship of Scotland. He realised that the neck of land
between the rivers Forth and Clyde at Stirling was narrow enough to create a
tactical advantage for the Scottish defenders. Wallace’s men stood at the
slopes of the Abbey Craig, in front of a narrow bridge across the Forth, wide
enough for only two horsemen abreast. As the English drew up, Wallace’s
men charged them before they could get into battle position. The narrow bridge then collapsed,
drowning many English.
27/4/1296. English defeated the Scots at the Battle
of Dunbar.
30/3/1296, Capture of Berwick: King Edward I of England captured
Berwick-upon-Tweed, sacking what was at this time a Scottish border town with
much bloodshed. He slaughtered most residents, including those who fled to the
churches.
10/2/1296, King Edward I of England forced John Balliol (1250-1313), King of Scotland (see 17/11/1792) to surrender his Crown. Although John
had started out his reign as a vassal and ally of Edward, by 1295 a council of
Scottish Lords had taken power from John and started making alliances with France,
which was then at war with England. John was imprisoned for three years, first on
Hertford and then in the Tower of London. In 1302 John was permitted to retire to
his estates in Normandy.
23/10/1295, The first treaty forming the Auld
Alliance between Scotland and France against England was signed in Paris.
17/11/1292, John Balliol was selected by King Edward I of England as King
of Scotland from among 13 candidates; Edward
then treated John as a puppet ruler and Scotland as a vassal state, eventually
provoking the Wars of Scottish Independence, commencing in 1296.
16/3/1286. Death of King Alexander
III of Scotland, killed by a fall from his horse whilst riding in
the dark to visit the Queen at Kinghorn, with only Yolande of Dreux, Queen of
Scotland's unborn child and 3-year-old Margaret, Maid of Norway as heirs; this sets the stage for the First War of Scottish
Independence and increased influence
of England over Scotland.. Alexander III was born in 1241 and became king in 1249 aged
eight. See 8/7/1249. He laid a formal claim against King Haakon of Norway for
sovereignty of the Hebrides, settled by Scandinavians since the ninth
century. King
Haakon responded by sending a large naval fleet in 1263. Haakon’s
fleet halted off Arran, where Alexander III stalled negotiations until the autumn storms should
begin. Haakon
finally attacked only to encounter a severe storm; the Battle of Largs on 12/10/1263
was indecisive but left Haakon in a hopeless position. He turned back
to Norway but died on the way.
8/10/1275, Battle of Ronaldsway: Scottish forces defeated the Manx of the Isle of
Man in a decisive battle, firmly establishing Scottish rule of the island.
11/7/1274. Robert
the Bruce, King of Scotland, who
defeated the English at Bannockburn, was born at Turnberry, Ayrshire. He was raised at Turnberry Castle
amid the political upheavals of the 13th century; he was created
Earl of Carrick in 1296. He supported the Scots against the English, hoping to
secure the kingship of Scotland. However he saw Edward I proclaim himself king
of Scotland, and defeat William Wallace. Initially Bruce joined with John Comyn
against the English but later sided with the English to obtain the Scottish
throne. He murdered Comyn, and there was a price on his head for
doing this. However Bruce now used force, not politics, to obtain
his goals; this paid off and he was crowned King at Scone in 1306, having been
granted absolution by Bishop Wishart. Bruce managed to unite the
Scottish clans to defeat the English at
Bannockburn in 1314.
2/7/1266, The Treaty of
Perth was signed, between King Magnus ‘the lawmaker’ of Norway and King Alexander
III of Scotland. Norway sold to Scotland the ownership of the Isle
of Man (Sodor, or Southern Island) and the Western Isles, although Norway
retained the Orkney and Shetland Islands. This treaty was a result of the Battle of Largs
(2/10/.1263).
2/10/1263, The Battle of Largs. Fought at Largs on the Clyde
between Norwegian forces under King Haakon and Scottish levies under King Alexander III. Haakon wanted to put on a show of strength to
demonstrate continued Norwegian power over the Western Isles (see 2/7/1266).
However Alexander III’s 1500 Scots defeated the Norwegians. A barefoot Norwegian footsoldier
attempting a surprise attack on the Scottish camp by night trod on a thistle and cried out in pain, alerting
the Scottish camp. In memory of this
event the Scots adopted the thistle as their national emblem.
8/7/1249. Death of King Alexander II of Scotland. He was born in 1198, and
succeeded William
the Lion to the Scottish throne in 1214. He joined the English
barons in their struggle against King John, marched into England, and
besieged Norham Castle in 1215. In 1217 he again invaded England but then made
peace with King Henry
III, marrying his sister Joanna in 1221. Alexander captured Argyll from the Norwegians, and was on
an expedition to capture the Western Isles also from Norway when he died at
Kerrera. See 16/3/1285.
1239, King Alexander
II of Scotland married Mary de Courcy
of Picardy; she survived him to act as Regent for her son.
25/9/1237, The Treaty of York fixed
the border between England and Scotland. The Treaty confirmed English control
over Northumberland, Westmoreland and Cumberland, with the border almost in its
current position.
9/12/1165, Malcolm IV, King of Scotland, died aged 24. He was succeeded
by his 22-year-old brother, William the Lion, who ruled until 1214.
1164, Death of Somerled,
Viking
King of the Kingdom of the Isles. His name means ‘summer traveller’.
1135, King David of Scotland expelled the Norwegians (Vikings) from Arran and
Bute.
24/5/1154, David I, King of Scotland 1124-53, died.
27/11/1124. Death of King Alexander I of Scotland.. He was born in
ca.1078. He founded many abbeys and bishoprics,
among them Incholm and Scone.
8/1/1107, King Edgar of Scotland died and was succeeded by his brother Alexander I.
12/11/1094, Duncan II, son of Malcolm III
Canmore and his first wife Ingibiorg,
was murdered by his uncle Donald III Ban.
In 1072 Duncan II had been sent as
hostage to the court of William I The Conqueror,
where he remained until his father’s death in 1093. Then, with the help of an
army supplied by William II Rufus, he
defeated Donald III in May 1094.
However Duncan II was loathed in
Scotland for being too pro-Norman/English and so he was assassinated.
13/11/1093, Malcolm III, King of Scotland, died.
1074, Malcolm
III began to
fortify the city of Edinburgh.
1070, Malcolm
III made a link
with England by marrying Margaret, sister of Edgar.
17/3/1058, Lulach, King of Scots, died and was succeeded by Malcolm III,
son of Duncan
I.
15/8/1057. The Scottish king
Macbeth, who killed King Duncan 1 in
1040, was killed in battle by
Duncan’s son, Malcolm.
14/8/1040, Macbeth murdered Duncan I, King
of Scotland, and became King himself.
1005, King Kenneth II of Scotland died after an 8-year reign. He was
succeeded by King
Malcolm II, who ruled until 1034.
945, Scotland took the Lake District area from England.
863, Constantine II, son of Kenneth I, became King of Scotland.
843, Kenneth MacApin, King of Dalraida, united Scotland to become Kenneth I, King of Scotland.
22/8/565, First recorded sighting of the Loch Ness Monster, by St Columba.
See also Christianity
for early Church conversion work in Britain
See also Roman Empire