Events from the year 1639 in England.
Incumbents Monarch – Charles I Secretary of State – Sir John Coke
Events 26 January – King Charles I raises (with difficulty) an army and begins to march north to fight the Scottish Covenanters in the First Bishops' War, opening the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. 27 February – Charles denounces the Covenanters. 21 April – William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele and Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke imprisoned for refusing to fight against the Covenanters. 25 April – Charles issues a proclamation promising to pardon rebels. 14 May – Charles issues a further proclamation promising to settle the Covenanters' grievances and not to invade Scotland. 19 June – Treaty of Berwick signed between the King and the Covenanters, ending the First Bishops' War. 15 September – Battle of the Downs between the Dutch and Spanish in English waters. 24 November (4 December in Gregorian calendar) – Lancashire astronomers Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree are the first and only scientific observers of a transit of Venus, predicted by Horrocks.
Births 7 March – Charles Stewart, 3rd Duke of Richmond (died 1672) c. April – Martin Lister, naturalist and physician (died 1712) 8 July – Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester (died 1660) 29 September – Lord William Russell, politician (executed 1683)
Deaths January – Shackerley Marmion, dramatist (born 1603) 7 November – Thomas Arundell, 1st Baron Arundell of Wardour, politician (born c. 1560) possible – John Ford, dramatist and poet (born 1586)
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