Stuart

  • 1567: Mary, Queen of Scots is forced to abdicate

    On 24 July 1567, Mary, Queen of Scots, signed documents surrendering the Scottish crown to her thirteen-month-old son. She was twenty-four years old and a prisoner at Loch Leven Castle. Mary’s position had collapsed during the months after the murder of her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, was widely…

  • 1630: Charles II is born at St James’s Palace

    Charles II was born at St James’s Palace on 29 May 1630, the son of Charles I and Henrietta Maria. At the time, his birth was a dynastic event. He was the eldest surviving son of the king, born into the Stuart line when monarchy still appeared to be England’s settled form of rule. Such…

  • 1633: James II and VII Is Born at St James’s Palace

    James, the future James II of England and Ireland and James VII of Scotland, was born at St James’s Palace on 14 October 1633. He was the second surviving son of Charles I and Henrietta Maria and was titled Duke of York. The Civil War disrupted his childhood. After his father’s execution in 1649, James…

  • 1642: Charles I raises his royal standard at Nottingham

    Charles I raised his royal standard at Nottingham on 22 August 1642, calling on his supporters to join him against Parliament. The ceremony is conventionally treated as the formal beginning of the First English Civil War. The dispute had already moved beyond ordinary disagreement between the king and Parliament. In January, Charles had entered the…

  • 1642: Royalists Defeat Parliamentarian Cavalry at Powick Bridge

    Royalist and Parliamentarian cavalry fought south of Worcester on 23 September 1642 in one of the first military encounters between the main field armies of the English Civil War. The immediate issue was a Royalist convoy. Sir John Byron was taking money and silver plate from Oxford towards King Charles I’s army at Shrewsbury when…

  • 1645: Parliament Defeats the Royalists at Rowton Heath

    Parliamentarian forces defeated a Royalist army outside Chester at the Battle of Rowton Heath on 24 September 1645, ending Charles I’s attempt to relieve the besieged city. The King had come to Chester after learning that Parliamentarian forces were threatening one of the Royalists’ remaining important strongholds. Charles entered the city on 23 September with…

  • 1646: John Flamsteed is born in Derbyshire

    John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, was born in Denby, Derbyshire, on 19 August 1646. Flamsteed developed an interest in astronomy while young and, by the early 1670s, corresponded with established scientific figures about his observations. His work became known at a time when the government wanted better astronomical information to improve navigation at sea.…

  • 1649: Charles I is executed at Whitehall

    Charles I was executed outside the Banqueting House at Whitehall on 30 January 1649. He had lost the Civil War, lost effective power and then lost the claim that those beneath him could not judge a king. His death was public. That was part of the point. Charles had not been killed quietly after defeat.…

  • 1649: England is declared a Commonwealth

    On 19 May 1649, Parliament declared England to be a Commonwealth and Free State. The old order had already been broken. Charles I had been tried and executed in January. In March, Parliament abolished the monarchy and the House of Lords. By May, the new regime needed legal form. The Act of 19 May gave…

  • 1658: Oliver Cromwell Dies

    Oliver Cromwell died on 3 September 1658, leaving the office of Lord Protector to his son Richard. The succession was peaceful, but the political system Cromwell had headed soon began to break down. Cromwell had been Lord Protector since December 1653. England had abolished the monarchy after the execution of Charles I in 1649. The…

  • 1659: Richard Cromwell resigns as Lord Protector

    Richard Cromwell resigned as Lord Protector on 25 May 1659. The Protectorate, which had seemed the strongest alternative to monarchy after the execution of Charles I, was over. Richard had inherited the office after Oliver Cromwell died in 1658. He had the title, but little of the authority that had made his father powerful. Oliver…

  • 1660: Charles II lands at Dover

    Charles II landed at Dover on 25 May 1660 after years in exile, as the political order that had replaced his father was breaking apart. His return was not a military conquest. That is what makes the date useful. Charles returned because enough people in England had decided that monarchy was once again the least…

  • 1660: Charles II enters London at the Restoration

    Charles II entered London on 29 May 1660, his thirtieth birthday. The Restoration now had a public centre: the king in the capital, recognised in the streets, with monarchy visibly returned after eleven years without a ruling king in England. The road back had been long and violent. Charles I had been tried and executed…

  • 1662: Charles II marries Catherine of Braganza

    On 21 May 1662, Charles II and Catherine of Braganza were formally married at Portsmouth. Charles had been restored to the throne two years earlier, after civil war, republic and exile. His marriage was part of the effort to restore the Stuart monarchy to European politics. Catherine was a Portuguese princess, and the match tied…

  • 1666: The Great Fire of London begins

    The Great Fire of London began at around 1 a.m. on Sunday 2 September 1666 in the bakery of Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane. Within four days, it would burn through most of the City of London and leave around 100,000 people homeless. The first warning came inside Farriner’s household. His journeyman, Thomas Dagger, woke…

  • 1666: The Great Fire of London is brought under control

    On 6 September 1666, the Great Fire of London was finally brought under control after burning through the City for four days. The fire had begun early on 2 September in the bakery of Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane. A dry summer had left buildings vulnerable, while strong winds carried the fire through streets packed…

  • 1669: Samuel Pepys writes the final entry in his diary

    On 31 May 1669, Samuel Pepys wrote the final entry in his diary. He stopped because he feared that continuing to write was damaging his eyesight. The reason was practical and personal. Pepys was not bringing a public work to a planned end. He had kept a private record, written in shorthand, for nearly ten…

  • 1676: Robert Walpole is born in Norfolk

    Robert Walpole was born in Houghton, Norfolk, on 26 August 1676. He later spent more than twenty years as First Lord of the Treasury. He became widely regarded as Britain’s first prime minister. However, he did not hold a formal office of prime minister. Walpole was the son of a Norfolk landowner and MP. He…

  • 1679: Habeas Corpus Act receives royal assent

    The Habeas Corpus Act received royal assent on 27 May 1679. Habeas corpus already existed. The act made the remedy harder to ignore. Habeas corpus was a way of testing detention. A prisoner could be brought before a court, and the court could ask by what authority that person was being held. Locking someone up…

  • 1689: Toleration Act receives royal assent

    On 24 May 1689, the Toleration Act received royal assent. The Act gave many Protestant dissenters in England a legal right to worship outside the Church of England. It was a real change. People who had faced penalties for nonconformist worship could now meet more openly, provided they accepted the conditions set by law. Those…

  • 1694: The Bank of England receives its Royal Charter

    On 27 July 1694, William III and Mary II granted a Royal Charter to the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. The institution had been created mainly to provide the government with money for war against France. The Nine Years’ War placed heavy demands on government finances. England needed a larger and more…

  • 1694: Lord George Murray is born near Perth

    Lord George Murray was born at Huntingtower Castle near Perth on 4 October 1694. A younger son of John Murray, first Duke of Atholl, he became one of the principal military commanders of the 1745 Jacobite rising. Murray gained military experience early, serving in the British Army in Flanders. He then joined two of his…

  • 1701: Captain Kidd is executed at Execution Dock

    William Kidd was hanged at Execution Dock in London on 23 May 1701 after being convicted of piracy and murder. Kidd’s case was awkward because he had not begun as a simple outlaw. He was a Scottish sailor who had been commissioned as a privateer and authorised to attack certain enemy or pirate vessels. Privateering…

  • 1706: Marlborough wins at Ramillies

    On 23 May 1706, the Duke of Marlborough led Allied forces to victory over the French at Ramillies during the War of the Spanish Succession. The war had begun over the Spanish inheritance, but it had become a wider struggle over power in Europe. England, the Dutch Republic and their allies sought to prevent Bourbon…