1590s in England - Events

Events

• 1590
  • Publication of Edmund Spenser's poetry The Faerie Queene and his satire Mother Hubbard's Tale.
  • Publication of Thomas Lodge's prose tale Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacie.
• 1591
  • 10 April - The merchant James Lancaster sets off on a voyage to the East Indies.
  • August - Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex leads an English army in support of the Protestant Henry IV of France at the Siege of Rouen.
  • 1 September - HMS Revenge captured by the Spanish following battle near the Azores.
  • 3 November - Rebel Irish lord Brian O'Rourke is hanged at Tyburn having been extradited from Scotland and tried in London for treasons committed in Ireland.
  • John Harington translates Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando furioso into English.
  • Probable first production of William Shakespeare's play Henry VI, Part 1 and writing of Henry VI, Part 2 and Part 3.
  • Approximate date of the writing of Shakespeare's play Richard III.
  • Posthumous publication of Sir Philip Sidney's poetry Astrophel and Stella.
  • Nicholas Bacon completes the building of his red brick mansion, Culford Hall, in Suffolk, planting an oak in Culford Park which, as 'King of the Park', will still be flowering in the 21st century.
  • The Durtnell (Dartnell) family of Brasted, Kent, begin to work as building contractors. They will still be functioning under the twelfth generation of the family in the 21st century.
• 1592
  • First performance of Shakespeare's play Richard III.
  • 3 November - Sir John Perrot, former Lord Deputy of Ireland, dies in the Tower of London awaiting sentence for a conviction for high treason.
  • December - Outbreak of plague in London; 17,000 deaths over the next twelve months. Theatres in London are consequently closed for much of the period.
• 1593
  • January - John Norden commissioned to make maps of all the counties of England.
  • 23 February - Peter Wentworth imprisoned for raising the issue of succession to the throne in Parliament.
  • 6 April - Witches of Warboys: Alice, John and Agnes Samuel found guilty of witchcraft and hanged.
  • 12 May - Arrest of dramatist Thomas Kyd over bills posted in London threatening Protestant refugees from France and the Netherlands.
  • 20 May - Dramatist Christopher Marlowe appears before the Privy Council in connection with the bills.
  • 29 May - Execution of the Welsh Protestant John Penry suspected of involvement with the Marprelate Controversy.
  • 30 May - Marlowe killed in the house of widow Eleanor Bull in an argument over the bill of a tavern in Deptford.
  • Publication of Shakespeare's poem Venus and Adonis.
  • Irish pirate queen Grace O'Malley meets with Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich.
  • Sir Thomas Tresham designs and begins construction of Rushton Triangular Lodge in Northamptonshire, symbolic of his Catholic recusancy.
• 1594
  • May - Nine Years' War: In Ireland, Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone and Hugh Roe O'Donnell form an alliance to try to overthrow English domination.
  • 7 June - Roderigo Lopez executed for allegedly trying to poison Queen Elizabeth.
  • 24 June–1 July - Action of San Mateo Bay: Privateer Richard Hawkins in the Dainty is attacked and captured by a Spanish squadron off Esmeraldas, Ecuador.
  • Christmas - Students of Gray's Inn perform The Maske of Proteus and the Adamantine Rock before the Queen. Written by Francis Davison with music by Thomas Campion, it is probably the first staged masque in England.
  • First known performances and publication of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus in London.
  • Publication of Shakespeare's narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece.
  • Posthumous publication of Marlowe's play Edward II.
  • Thomas Nashe's picaresque novel The Unfortunate Traveller published.
  • Richard Hooker's Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie commences publication.
  • Bevis Bulmer sets up a system at Blackfriars to pump water to London.
• 1595
  • 21 February - Catholic martyr Robert Southwell hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, London.
  • 23 July - Spanish raid burns Penzance and Mousehole in Cornwall.
  • 28 August - Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins depart on their final voyage to the Spanish Main which ends in both of their deaths.
  • Probable first performance of William Shakespeare's plays Richard II, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet.
  • Sir Walter Raleigh travels up the Orinoco river in search of the fabled city of El Dorado.
• 1596
  • 14 February - Archbishop John Whitgift begins building his hospital at Croydon.
  • June - Sir John Norreys and Sir Geoffrey Fenton travel to Connaught to parley with the local Irish lords.
  • 30 June–4 July - An English fleet, commanded by Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex and Lord Howard of Effingham, sacks Cádiz.
  • 21 November - Bartholomew Steer attempts to launch a rebellion on Enslow Hill in Oxfordshire.
  • Blackfriars Theatre opens in London.
  • First production of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice.
  • Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge is founded.
  • William Slingsby discovers that water from the Tewitt Well mineral spring at Harrogate in North Yorkshire possesses similar properties to that from Spa, Belgium.
  • John Harington describes the "Ajax", a precursor to the modern flush toilet, in The Metamorphosis of Ajax.
• 1597
  • Parliament passes the Vagabonds Act introducing penal transportation of convicted criminals to England's colonies.
  • Gresham College founded in the City of London.
  • Completion of Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, designed by Robert Smythson for Bess of Hardwick.
  • Approximate date of the first performance of the Shakespeare plays Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2 and King John.
  • Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson's satirical comedy The Isle of Dogs performed in July or August before being suppressed by the Privy Council for its "slanderous matter".
  • Francis Bacon's first Essays published.
  • Thomas Deloney's Jack of Newbury published.
  • John Gerard's The Herball, or generall historie of plantes published.
  • John Dowland's The Firste Booke of Songes or Ayres published.
• 1598
  • March - Poor Relief Act establishes early workhouses.
  • 14 August - Nine Years' War: Battle of the Yellow Ford: Irish rebels under Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, rout an English expeditionary force under Henry Bagenal (who is mortally wounded in the action).
  • 28 December - In London, The Theatre is dismantled.
  • Thomas Bodley refounds the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford.
  • Montacute House, Somerset, built, a notable early example of an unfortified country residence built completely from new.
  • Publication of the poem Hero and Leander unfinished by Marlowe and completed by George Chapman.
  • Chapman translates Homer's Iliad into English.
  • First performance of Ben Jonson's play Every Man in His Humour.
  • Publication of Francis Meres' Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury, including the first critical discussion of Shakespeare's works.
  • Publication of John Stow's A Survey of London.
• 1599
  • 1 January - Darcy v. Allein (The Case of Monopolies): The Court of King’s Bench decides it is improper for any individual to be allowed a state monopoly over a trade.
  • 12 March - Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex is appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland by Queen Elizabeth I.
  • Spring/Summer - Globe Theatre built in Southwark utilising material from The Theatre.
  • 23 April - Essex in Ireland: Essex arrives in Dublin.
  • 29 May - Nine Years' War: Essex captures Cahir Castle in Munster.
  • 4 June - Bishops' Ban of 1599: Thomas Middleton's Microcynicon: Six Snarling Satires and John Marston's Scourge of Villainy are publicly burned as the ecclesiastical authorities clamp down on published satire.
  • 15 August - Nine Years' War: Irish rebel victory at the Battle of Curlew Pass.
  • 8 September - Essex in Ireland: Essex signs a truce with Hugh O'Neill. He leaves Ireland against the instructions of Queen Elizabeth.
  • 28 September - Essex returns to England and is arrested.
  • Late - War of the Theatres: Satire, being prohibited in print, breaks out in the London theatres. In Histriomastix, Marston satirizes Jonson’s pride through the character Chrisoganus; Jonson responds by satirizing Marstons's wordy style in Every Man Out of His Humour, acted by the Lord Chamberlain's Men.
  • Approximate date of the first performances of the Shakespeare plays As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V and Julius Caesar.
  • The publisher William Jaggard issues The Passionate Pilgrime, poems attributed to "W. Shakespeare".