Stuart Timeline
1603
1604
1604
24 March James VI of Scotland crowned
James I of England uniting the two
kingdoms. James's accession meant that the
three separate kingdoms of England, Scotland and
Ireland were now united, for the first time, under a
single monarch.
August - James I ends the war with Spain
The long war with Spain had continued
intermittently for 20 years. England and Spain
were now at peace for the next 50 years.
James styles himself as King of Great Britain
1605
5 November - Gunpowder Plot to assassinate
James I is discovered
Guy Fawkes is thwarted when he tried to blow up
Parliament.
1606
The Union Flag adopted as the
National Flag
1607
First permanent British colony in North America.
Jamestown in Virginia, founded by Captain John
Smith
1611
King James Bible is published
1613
14 February - James I's daughter Elizabeth marries
Frederick V, Elector Palatine. It was through
Elizabeth's descendants that the House of
Hanover came to inherit the English throne after
the Stuarts.
1616
23 April - William Shakespeare dies
1620
August - The Pilgrim Fathers set sail for New
England from Plymouth, aboard the
'Mayflower' to escape religious
persecution in England.
16241630
War with Spain
1625
1625
27 March - James I dies and his son Charles I
accedes to the throne
14 May - Barbados comes under British control
Captain John Powell landed in Barbados in 1625
and claimed the island as a British Caribbean
colony.
16261629
War with France
1629
Charles I dissolves parliament and begins 11
years of personal rule
1640
13 April - 'Short Parliament' opens at Westminster
Desperate for money to fight the Scots, Charles I
was forced to summon a new parliament. Only
open a month before Charles dissolved it.
1640
1640
1641
1642
1642
28 August - Scots defeat the English at Newburn
on the River Tyne
3 November -'Long Parliament' opens at
Westminster
With the Scottish army firmly established in
Northern England and refusing to leave until its
expenses had been paid, Charles I was again
forced to summon a parliament. Many of the
members of parliament voiced angry complaints
against his policies.
October - Rebellion breaks out in Ireland
Several thousand English and Scottish Protestant
settlers were killed and many more were forced to
flee.
4 January - Charles I tries to arrest five leading
members of parliament
Fearing that his opponents in parliament were not
only determined to seize political control, but also
to impeach his Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria,
Charles I marched into the House of Commons and
attempted to arrest five leading members of
parliament. Forewarned, they slipped away and
Charles was forced to leave empty-handed.
22 August- Civil War begins as Charles I raises
his standard at Nottingham
1642
23 October - Royalist and Parliamentarian armies
clash at Edgehill, Warwickshire
1643
25 September - Parliamentarians enter into an
alliance with the Scots
1646
1649
5 May - Charles I surrenders to the Scots
30 January - Charles I is executed at Whitehall,
London
16491650
Cromwell's conquest of Ireland
16501652
Cromwell's conquest of Scotland
1651
1651
1 January 1651 Charles II is crowned
king of Scotland
3 September Oliver Cromwell defeats
Charles II at the Battle of Worcester
No
monarch
England
became a
Republic for
eleven
years from
1649 1660
1652
Tea arrived in Britain
1653
16 December - Oliver Cromwell
makes himself Lord Protector
Cromwells self-appointment as 'Lord
Protector' gave him powers akin to a
monarch. His continuing popularity
with the army propped up his regime.
1660
Restoration of the Monarchy under King Charles
II
1660
1 January - Samuel Pepys starts his diary
1664 1665
1666
1667
29 May - The Great Plague of London killed more
than 100,000 people died. By the time the
epidemic finished in December 1665, a quarter of
the capital's inhabitants had perished.
Great Fire of London raged from 2 - 5
September destroying two-thirds of the city
June - Dutch ships attack the English fleet in the
River Medway
1677
1685
4 November - Mary Stuart marries William of
Orange, Charles I's grandson
Mary Stuart was the elder daughter of Charles II's
brother, James, Duke of York (James II). Her
marriage in 1677 to the Dutch Protestant Prince
William of Orange, himself the grandson of Charles
I, strengthened William's claim to the English
throne.
6 February 1685 Charles II dies and his
brother James II accedes to the throne
James II suspends parliament indefinitely
16871688
James II attempts to re-catholicize England
1688
10 June - Birth of a Catholic male heir, James
Edward Stewart sparks popular outrage. Many of
James II's opponents, furious that their Catholic
king now had a male heir, denounced the infant as
an imposter, and claimed that the baby had been
smuggled into the queen's bedroom in a warmingpan.
16881689
The Glorious Revolution - the overthrow of King
James the II, the crowning of William of Orange
and his wife Mary II, and the final recognition of
parliament supremacy.
1689
13 February William of Orange (William II) and
his wife Mary II proclaimed king and queen
1689
16 December English Bill of rights 1689
From now on England's monarchs ruled in
partnership with Parliament.
1690
1692
1694
1694
1701
1702
1707
1 July - William III defeats James II at the Battle
of the Boyne, Ireland
William III massacres the Jacobites at Glencoe
Bank of England is established to manage
mounting debts
December 1694 Mary dies, leaving William III to
rule alone
William III's wife Mary died at the age of 32
leaving no children.
English Act of Settlement secures the Postestant
Succession placing the House of Hanover in line
for the English throne
8 March - William III dies and his sister-inlaw Anne accedes to the throne
William III died two weeks after being thrown from
his horse when it tripped over a molehill in Hyde
Park, London.
England and Scotland officially became one
country - Great Britain
The Scottish parliament was dissolved and England
and Scotland became one country - Great Britain
Act of Union between Scotland and England part of the Union flag story
1710
St Paul's Cathderal, London, completed by Sir
Christopher Wren
1711
First race meeting held at Ascot
1714
1 August - Anne dies and George I accedes to the
throne
Anne, the last Stuart monarch, died at Kensington
Palace in London aged 49. None of her children
survived her, so under the terms of the Act of
Succession of 1701 she was succeeded by George,
Elector of Hanover, who was proclaimed as George
I. He was the first of the Hanoverian monarchs.
