24 March – Queen Elizabeth I dies at Richmond Palace aged 69, after 45 years on the throne, and is succeeded by her distant cousin King James VI of Scotland (where he has ruled since 1567), thus uniting the crowns of Scotland and England. Elizabeth was never married and had no children, neither did her only legitimate siblings, the late Mary and Edward VI.[10]
25 July – Coronation of James I as King of England in Westminster Abbey.[10]
17 November – Raleigh goes on trial for treason in the converted Great Hall of Winchester Castle.[10] He is found guilty but his life is spared by the King at this time and he is returned to imprisonment in the Tower of London.
2 April – Speaker of the House of CommonsSir Edward Phelips rules that members of the House may not bring forward an identical (or near-identical) motion to one that has already been decided in that same session.[16]
20 May – Gunpowder Plot conspirators first meet, in London.
5 November – Gunpowder Plot: a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament is foiled when, following an anonymous tip-off (passed to Lord Monteagle in October), Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, finds Catholic plotter Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the Parliament building and orders a search of the area, finding 36 barrels of gunpowder. Fawkes is arrested for trying to kill King James I and the members who were scheduled to sit together in Parliament the next day. Fawkes speaks the legendary words: "Remember, remember, the Fifth of November".[1][19]
Spring – Ben Jonson's satiric play Volpone first performed.
May – Severe penalties are imposed for Catholic recusancy, and for refusal to take an Oath of Allegiance to James to serve in public office, by An Act for the better discovering and repressing of popish recusants (proclaimed law 22 June).[4]
27 May – Second session of Parliament under King James prorogued.[15]
7 August – Possible first performance of Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth.[4][21]
18 November – Third session of Parliament begins.[15]
30 January – Bristol Channel floods (a possible tsunami)[22] result in the drowning of an estimated 2,000 people, with 200 square miles (518 km2) of farmland inundated.[23]
late April – Start of Midland Revolt against land enclosures.[1] The rebels are referred to as "Levellers".
14 May – Jamestown, Virginia, is established as the first permanent English settlement in North America.[4]
25 July – The London Company's ship Sea Venture, en route to relieve the Jamestown settlement, is driven ashore in Bermuda, thus effectively first settling the colony.
26 July – English scientist Thomas Harriot becomes the first to draw an astronomical object after viewing it through a telescope: he draws a map of the Moon, preceding Galileo by several months.[27][28]
12 October – A version of the rhyme "Three Blind Mice" is published in Deuteromelia or The Seconde part of Musicks melodie (London). The editor, and possible author of the verse, is the teenage Thomas Ravenscroft.[31] This collection follows his publication of the first rounds in English, Pammelia.
Plantation of Ulster proceeds: Protestant English and Scots settlers take over forfeited estates of rebel leaders.[4]
^Edwards, Phillip, ed. (1985). Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. New Cambridge Shakespeare. p. 8. ISBN0-521-29366-9. Any dating of Hamlet must be tentative. Scholars date its writing as between 1599 and 1601.
^Shakespeare, William (2001). Smith, Bruce R. (ed.). Twelfth Night: Texts and Contexts. Boston, Mass: Bedford/St Martin's. p. 2. ISBN0-312-20219-9.
^Ibbetson, David (1984). "Sixteenth Century Contract Law: Slade's Case in Context". Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. 4 (3). Oxford University Press: 295–317. doi:10.1093/ojls/4.3.295. ISSN0143-6503.(subscription required)
^Dekker, Thomas. The Wonderfull Yeare 1603, wherein is shewed the picture of London lying sicke of the plague.
^Lee, Christopher (2014). 1613: The Death of Queen Elizabeth I, the Return of the Black Plague, the Rise of Shakespeare, Piracy, Witchcraft, and the Birth of the Stuart Era. St Martin's Press. ISBN9781466864504.