1580s in England

Events from the 1580s in England.

Incumbents Monarch – Elizabeth I

Events 1580 March – Thomas Legge's Richardus Tertius, the first known history play performed in England, is acted at St John's College, Cambridge. 6 April – Dover Straits earthquake. 9 April – Anglo-Spanish War: English Fury at Mechelen: English and Scottish mercenaries, assisting the Dutch Republic, storm the city of Mechelen in the Spanish Netherlands, killing 60 civilians and plundering houses and churches. 21 June – England signs a commercial treaty with the Ottoman Empire. 6 July – new buildings banned within three miles of the City of London. 7 July – Robert Parsons and Edmund Campion begin a Jesuit mission in an attempt to restore Roman Catholicism to England, having landed the previous month. 26 September – Francis Drake returns to Plymouth from his voyage of circumnavigation (westabout) on the Golden Hind, the first made by an Englishman. First recorded appearance of the ballad Greensleeves. 1581 18 March – Act against Reconciliation to Rome establishes heavy fines for recusancy or attending Catholic Mass. 4 April – Drake knighted by Queen Elizabeth I aboard the Golden Hind at Deptford. 14 July – Jesuit priest Edmund Campion is arrested at Lyford, Berkshire. 1 December – Edmund Campion is hanged, drawn and quartered for treason with two other priests at Tyburn. 1582 May–August – Robert Browne and his Brownist congregationalist companions are obliged to leave England and go to Middelburg in the Netherlands. 26 July – Battle of Ponta Delgada (Anglo-Spanish War): English mercenary galleons are among the fleet decisively defeated by the Spanish in the Azores. 29 November – marriage of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, perhaps at Temple Grafton. Publication of Richard Hakluyt's Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America. Publication of the first part of Richard Mulcaster's textbook on the teaching of English, the Elementarie. 1583 10 March – Queen Elizabeth's Men acting company founded. 19 April – Queen Elizabeth dissolves her 4th Parliament which had been convened in 1572 but last met in 1581."4th Parliament of Elizabeth I" , "The History of Parliament" online (The History of Parliament Trust, 2020) 23 April – the Kingdom of England establishes diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire. 11 June – Sir Humphrey Gilbert sails from Dartmouth, Devon, to establish a colony in North America. 17 June – Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Steenbergen in the Netherlands: the Spanish Army of Flanders is victorious over combined French, English and Dutch forces. 18 June – the first known life insurance policy is issued in London."Insurance", by Charlton Lewis and Thomas Ingram, in Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition, Vol. 14 (Cambridge University Press, 1911) pp. 657–658. 5 August – Humphrey Gilbert, in what is to become the city of St. John's, claims the island of Newfoundland on behalf of England. Ships of his fleet are wrecked, and Gilbert drowns, on the return passage of the Atlantic. 14 August – John Whitgift nominated as Archbishop of Canterbury (enthroned 23 October). 4 November – Francis Throckmorton's plot to invade England with the assistance of Henry I, Duke of Guise, and replace Elizabeth with Mary, Queen of Scots, is discovered by Francis Walsingham and Throckmorton is arrested for treason. 10 December – great fire of Nantwich in Cheshire breaks out. Posthumous publication of Thomas Smith's treatise De Republica Anglorum: the Maner of Gouernement or Policie of the Realme of England (written 1562–65). Publication of Philip Stubbs' tract The Anatomie of Abuses. The Bunch of Grapes, Limehouse opens as a public house in London. 1584 11 January – Sir Walter Mildmay is granted a royal licence to found Emmanuel College, Cambridge. 10 July – execution of Francis Throckmorton. 19 October – Bond of Association: thousands pledge to defend Queen Elizabeth, and avenge any successful assassination attempt. December – Jesuits and seminary priests banned from the country. The landmark decision in Heydon's Case introduces the mischief rule into the interpretation of statutes by the courts.76 ER 637, 3 CO REP 7a, Pasch 26 Eliz, plea began 20 Eliz Rot 140. Publication of the cookbook A Booke of Cookry. 1585 6 January – Walter Ralegh knighted. 21 January – Robert Nutter, Thomas Worthington and 18 other Roman Catholic priests are perpetually banished from England by order of Queen Elizabeth, placed on the ship Mary Martin of Colchester and transported to France."Vens. Robert Nutter and Edward Thwing", in The Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. by John Wainewright (Robert Appleton Company, 1911). 2 March – William Parry executed for plotting Queen Elizabeth's murder. 19 May – Spain seizes English ships in Spanish ports. 7 July – England establishes the Roanoke Colony in North America. 8 August – explorer John Davis (having set out on 7 June from Dartmouth) enters Cumberland Sound in Baffin Island in his quest for the Northwest Passage. 14 August – Queen Elizabeth establishes a protectorate over the Netherlands. 20 August – the Treaty of Nonsuch is signed, committing England to support for the Dutch Revolt against Habsburg rule. 15 September – John Adams and 72 other Catholic priests are banished from England and transported by ship to Boulogne in France. 1586 4 February – Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester accepts the title governor of the Netherlands. 11 February – Battle of Cartagena de Indias concludes after 2 days with an English assault force led by Francis Drake capturing the port of Cartagena in the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru. 14 March – Black Assize of Exeter opens: "gaol fever" (jail fever, probably epidemic typhus), spreading from Rougemont Castle in Exeter, kills 8 judges, 11 of 12 jurors, and ravages the surrounding population for several months; many prominent members of the Devonshire gentry are among the dead. 25 March – Catholic convert Margaret Clitherow of York is tortured and crushed to death by peine forte et dure for refusing to plead to a charge of harbouring priests; in 1970 she will be canonized as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. 7 May – John Davis sets out from Dartmouth, Devon, for a second attempt to find the Northwest Passage. 1 July – Treaty of Berwick agreed between Queen Elizabeth I of England and King James VI of Scotland. 17 July – Walsingham uncovers the Babington Plot to murder Elizabeth. 21 July – Thomas Cavendish sets out from Plymouth in the Desire on the first deliberately planned circumnavigation of the globe. 28 July – Thomas Harriot returns from a voyage to Colombia with the first potatoes seen in England. 20–21 September – execution of Anthony Babington, John Ballard, Chidiock Tichborne, Thomas Salisbury and the other 10 conspirators in the Babington Plot, who are hanged, drawn and quartered (the first seven being disembowelled before death) in St Giles Field, London. 22 September – Battle of Zutphen: Spanish troops defeat Dutch rebels and their English allies. Poet and courtier Sir Philip Sidney is mortally wounded and dies on 17 October. 15–25 October – Mary, Queen of Scots, placed on treason trial at Fotheringhay Castle for complicity in the Babington Plot and sentenced to death. 19 November – Separatist Puritan Henry Barrowe is imprisoned. Great fire of Beccles. Vanguard, the first Royal Navy ship to bear this name, is launched at Woolwich Dockyard. Topographer William Harrison becomes canon of Windsor. William Camden publishes his pioneering antiquarian study Britannia. William Warner first publishes his long historical poem Albion's England. Oxford University Press is recognised by decree of the Star Chamber. From about this date an informal College or Society of Antiquaries begins to meet.Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 1587 8 February – Mary, Queen of Scots, is beheaded at Fotheringay Castle. 1 March – Sir Anthony Cope and Sir Peter Wentworth are imprisoned for attempting to bring forward Parliamentary legislation interfering with the Queen's ecclesiastical prerogative. 15 March – Sir Francis Drake accepts a privateering commission from Queen Elizabeth to disrupt shipping routes in order to slow supplies from Italy and Andalucia to Lisbon, to trouble enemy fleets in their home ports, to capture Spanish treasure ships and to attack the Spanish Armada if it were to sail for England. On 12 April, his fleet sails from Plymouth. 19 April (29 April New Style) – "Singeing the King of Spain's Beard": On an expedition against Spain, Sir Francis Drake leads a raid in the Bay of Cádiz, sinking or capturing at least 30 ships of the Spanish fleet, delaying by a year the sailing of the Spanish Armada for England. 19 May – John Davis sets out from Dartmouth, Devon, for a third attempt to find the Northwest Passage. 8 June – Sir Francis Drake captures Portuguese carrack the São Filipe, laden with treasure from the Indies, off the Azores. Its cargo is valued at £108,000 (), of which 50% goes to Queen Elizabeth and 10% to Drake; it also includes valuable documents relating to the Indies trade. 22 July – Roanoke Colony: A group of English settlers arrive on Roanoke Island off North Carolina to re-establish the deserted colony. 21 December – Lord Howard of Effingham given command of both army and navy in the war against Spain. Late (probable date) – the first part of Christopher Marlowe's drama Tamburlaine the Great is performed in London by the Admiral's Men with Edward Alleyn playing the lead. The Rose (theatre), the first on Bankside in London, is built by Philip Henslowe and functioning by the year's end. Everard Digby's De Arte Natandi, the first treatise on swimming in England, is published. The doctrine Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos is established in common law by Edward Coke.Bury v. Pope, Cro. Eliz. 118 [78 Eng. Rep. 375]. 1588 1 January – the Children of Paul's act at the court of Queen Elizabeth, probably performing John Lyly's Gallathea. 18–20 May (28–30 May NS) – the Spanish Armada sets sail from the Tagus estuary for an attempted invasion of England. 19 July (29 July NS) – the Armada is sighted off The Lizard in Cornwall; the news is relayed to London via a series of beacons built along the south coast. 21 July (31 July NS) – the first engagement between the English and Spanish fleets, off Plymouth, results in an English victory. The English fleet is under the command of Lord Howard of Effingham with Sir Francis Drake as Vice Admiral. 23 July (2 August NS) – the English and Spanish fleets meet again, off Portland; the English again have the better of it. 28 July (7 August NS) – the English send fire ships into the French fleet, now anchored off Calais, breaking their formation. 29 July (8 August NS) – the English fleet defeats the Armada at the Battle of Gravelines. 2 August (12 August NS) – the fleeing Spanish fleet sails past the Firth of Forth and the English call off their pursuit. Much of the Spanish fleet will be destroyed by storms as it sails for home around Scotland and the west coast of Ireland. 9 August – Queen Elizabeth makes her speech to the Troops at Tilbury. 1 October – Oaten Hill Martyrs: four Catholics are hanged, drawn and quartered at Canterbury. October–November – the Marprelate Controversy, a war of pamphlets between Presbyterians and supporters of the established church, breaks out with publication of the Epistle by "Martin Marprelate" on Robert Waldegrave's secret press at Molesey and Fawsley. George Gower paints the Armada Portrait of Queen Elizabeth. Nicholas Hilliard paints the portrait miniature Young Man Among Roses. First record of marbles being played at Tinsley Green, West Sussex. 1588–1589 – earliest probable date for the composition and first performance of Christopher Marlowe's The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus in London. 1589