Politics & Power

  • 685: Battle of Dun Nechtain checks Northumbrian power

    On 20 May 685, a Pictish force led by Bridei defeated a Northumbrian army led by King Ecgfrith at the Battle of Dun Nechtain, also known as Nechtansmere. Ecgfrith was killed in the fighting. That made the battle more than a failed expedition. Northumbria was one of the strongest kingdoms in northern Britain, and Ecgfrith’s…

  • 946: Edmund I is killed at Pucklechurch

    Edmund I was killed at Pucklechurch in Gloucestershire on 26 May 946. His death was sudden. The usual account says he was killed during a confrontation at a feast or court gathering, after trying to intervene against a man with a violent reputation. That makes it different from the more familiar royal deaths in battle,…

  • 1043: Edward the Confessor is crowned at Winchester

    Edward the Confessor was crowned king at Winchester on 3 April 1043. The ceremony made the kingship public. It did not remove every difficulty. Edward had already been king for months when he was crowned at Winchester on Easter Day, 3 April 1043. Harthacnut, his half-brother, had died in 1042, and Edward had succeeded him…

  • 1100: William II is killed in the New Forest

    On 2 August 1100, William II was killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest. His death left no agreed successor and allowed his younger brother Henry to take the English throne before their elder brother could return from abroad. William, known as William Rufus, had ruled England since 1087. He was a…

  • 1170: Thomas Becket is killed at Canterbury

    On 29 December 1170, Thomas Becket was killed inside Canterbury Cathedral. The murder was carried out by four knights, but it grew out of a longer conflict between Becket and Henry II. Becket was not a distant critic of the king. He had been Henry’s chancellor, a close royal servant and a man trusted with…

  • 1199: King John is crowned at Westminster Abbey

    John was crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey on 27 May 1199. His brother Richard I had died the previous month after being wounded in France. John now took the crown. The ceremony gave him public recognition in England, but his claim was open to challenge. John was Richard’s younger brother. Arthur of Brittany,…

  • 1216: Prince Louis lands in Kent to challenge King John

    On 21 May 1216, Prince Louis of France landed at Thanet in Kent with an army. He came into a kingdom already broken by civil war. Less than a year earlier, King John had agreed to Magna Carta at Runnymede. The agreement had not restored peace. John rejected the limits placed on him, the rebel…

  • 1217: Second Battle of Lincoln helps secure Henry III’s cause

    On 20 May 1217, royalist forces relieved Lincoln Castle and defeated a French-backed rebel army during the First Barons’ War. The battle came two years after Magna Carta, but England was still unsettled. King John had died in 1216, leaving his nine-year-old son, Henry III, as king. That changed the war. The quarrel over John’s…

  • 1307: Edward I dies on campaign against Scotland

    On 7 July 1307, King Edward I died at Burgh by Sands in Cumberland while leading another campaign against Scotland. He had ruled England since 1272 and spent much of his later reign trying to bring Scotland under English control. Edward was about sixty-eight years old when he died. His army was moving north to…

  • 1337: Philip VI confiscates Guyenne from Edward III

    On 24 May 1337, Philip VI of France declared Edward III’s lands in Guyenne forfeit. The act was legal in form, but political in effect. Edward was king of England, yet he held land in south-west France as Duke of Aquitaine. For that land, he owed duties to the French king. The arrangement left him…

  • 1381: Peasants’ Revolt begins at Brentwood

    On 30 May 1381, resistance to the poll tax broke out in Brentwood, Essex. The government was trying to raise money for the war with France. The poll tax had already caused anger because it was difficult to avoid and fell on many ordinary people. When officials came to investigate unpaid taxes in Essex, they…

  • 1400: Richard II dies in captivity

    Richard II is usually said to have died at Pontefract Castle on or about 14 February 1400. The year before, his cousin Henry Bolingbroke had deposed him and taken the throne as Henry IV. Richard was now a former king. He was still dangerous. Henry IV’s rule began with force, ceremony and argument. Richard had…

  • 1420: Treaty of Troyes makes Henry V heir to France

    On 21 May 1420, Henry V of England and Charles VI of France agreed on the Treaty of Troyes. The treaty made Henry regent of France and heir to the French throne. He was also to marry Charles’s daughter, Catherine of Valois. On paper, it was an extraordinary settlement. Henry had turned military success into…

  • 1455: First Battle of St Albans opens the Wars of the Roses

    On 22 May 1455, a Yorkist force defeated the royal army at St Albans. Henry VI was captured. Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, was killed. The battle was small beside later fighting in the Wars of the Roses, but its consequences were serious. It showed that the king’s government could no longer contain the rivalries…

  • 1491: Henry VIII is born at Greenwich

    Henry Tudor was born at Greenwich on 28 June 1491, the second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. He was born into a dynasty that was still finding its footing. Henry VII had won the throne at Bosworth in 1485, ending Richard III’s rule and placing the Tudors at the centre of English…

  • 1502: Arthur, Prince of Wales, dies at Ludlow

    Arthur, Prince of Wales, died on 2 April 1502. Was the wrong brother left in charge? Arthur was fifteen, newly married, and meant to be the Tudor future. Instead, he died at Ludlow Castle, less than five months after his wedding to Catherine of Aragon, and Henry VII’s plan for his dynasty changed at once.…

  • 1533: Cranmer declares Henry VIII’s first marriage invalid

    On 23 May 1533, Thomas Cranmer’s court at Dunstable declared Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon invalid. The judgment was brief, but it carried more weight than a private ruling about a failed royal marriage. Henry had already married Anne Boleyn. Catherine was still widely regarded as queen. Anne was pregnant. Henry’s marriage case…

  • 1533: Cranmer declares Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn valid

    On 28 May 1533, Thomas Cranmer declared Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn good and valid. The ruling did not begin the marriage. Henry and Anne had already married. Cranmer’s judgement gave the marriage formal standing in England, at a moment when Henry needed more than private agreement, royal will or court loyalty. Five days…

  • 1533: Anne Boleyn is crowned queen at Westminster Abbey

    Anne Boleyn was crowned queen of England at Westminster Abbey on 1 June 1533. The ceremony followed Henry VIII’s decision to set aside his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, had declared Henry’s marriage to Catherine invalid and had recognised Henry’s marriage to Anne. In England, those rulings gave Anne the…

  • 1533: Elizabeth I is born at Greenwich

    Elizabeth Tudor was born at Greenwich on 7 September 1533, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. The birth came after one of the most dangerous decisions of Henry’s reign. He had set aside Catherine of Aragon, married Anne and forced a break with papal authority in England. The marriage was a matter of…

  • 1536: Henry VIII marries Jane Seymour

    On 30 May 1536, Henry VIII married Jane Seymour. The wedding came eleven days after the execution of Anne Boleyn. Henry had removed one queen and taken another almost at once. The main issue was succession. Henry still had no legitimate son. Mary, his daughter by Catherine of Aragon, had been pushed out of the…

  • 1540: Thomas Cromwell is executed on Henry VIII’s wedding day

    On 28 July 1540, Thomas Cromwell was beheaded on Tower Hill. Later that day, Henry VIII married Catherine Howard at Oatlands Palace in Surrey. Cromwell had been one of the most powerful men in England. As Henry’s chief minister, he had helped establish the king’s authority over the English Church, increased Parliament’s role in carrying…

  • 1543: Henry VIII marries Katherine Parr at Hampton Court

    Henry VIII married Katherine Parr at Hampton Court Palace on 12 July 1543. The private ceremony took place in the Queen’s Closet. It was attended by members of the royal family, including Henry’s daughters Mary and Elizabeth. Parr was Henry’s sixth wife. She was also a twice-widowed woman in her early thirties with experience of…

  • 1566: James VI and I is born at Edinburgh Castle

    James VI and I was born at Edinburgh Castle on 19 June 1566, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. His birth gave Scotland a male heir, but it did not give Mary a settled kingdom. Her rule was already under pressure from noble rivalry, religious division and her troubled…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 1745: Charles Edward Stuart lands on Eriskay

    On 23 July 1745, Charles Edward Stuart landed on the Hebridean island of Eriskay. He had come to begin an uprising intended to place his father on the British throne. Charles was the grandson of James II of England and VII of Scotland, who had been removed in 1688. His father, James Francis Edward Stuart,…

  • 1759: William Pitt the Younger is born at Hayes Place

    William Pitt the Younger was born at Hayes Place in Kent on 28 May 1759. He was born into politics. His father, William Pitt the Elder, had already held high office and carried a public reputation that gave the family name weight. That background helps explain why Pitt’s birth belongs in the record, but it…

  • 1791: The Priestley Riots Begin in Birmingham

    On 14 July 1791, political reformers and religious dissenters met at the Royal Hotel in Birmingham. Their dinner marked the second anniversary of the fall of the Bastille and expressed support for the early French Revolution. The diners had left when a crowd gathered outside the hotel. The building was attacked, and the violence soon…

  • 1798: William Pitt fights George Tierney on Putney Heath

    William Pitt the Younger and George Tierney fought a pistol duel on Putney Heath on 27 May 1798. Pitt was the Prime Minister. Tierney was an opposition MP. Both men fired. Neither was hurt. The quarrel had begun in Parliament. Britain was at war with revolutionary France, and arguments over national defence carried heavy political…

  • 1819: Queen Victoria is born at Kensington Palace

    Victoria was born at Kensington Palace, London, on 24 May 1819. She was the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, one of George III’s sons. Her birth came at a fragile point for the Hanoverian succession. Two years earlier, Princess Charlotte had died after childbirth. Charlotte had been the only legitimate child of the Prince…

  • 1859: The Great Clock at Westminster begins ticking

    On 31 May 1859, the Great Clock at Westminster began ticking. The Great Bell, commonly called Big Ben, was not heard until July. The clock belonged to the new Palace of Westminster, built after the 1834 fire. It was part of the rebuilding of Parliament, but it also had a public use. It gave time…

  • 1900: Queen Victoria gives royal assent to the Australian Constitution Act

    On 9 July 1900, Queen Victoria gave royal assent to the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act. The Act had been passed by the British Parliament and gave legal force to the federation of the Australian colonies. Federation had not been created in London. Australian politicians and voters had debated the terms of union for years,…

  • 1902: Edward VII and Queen Alexandra are crowned

    On 9 August 1902, Edward VII and Queen Alexandra were crowned at Westminster Abbey. The ceremony took place more than six weeks later than planned because the King had required emergency surgery shortly before the original date. Edward had succeeded his mother, Queen Victoria, on 22 January 1901. His coronation was arranged for 26 June…

  • 1916: Roger Casement is executed for high treason

    On 3 August 1916, Roger Casement was hanged at Pentonville Prison in London for high treason. Five years earlier, he had been knighted for his work as a British consular official. Casement had spent more than twenty years in British government service. In 1903, he investigated conditions in the Congo Free State, which was controlled…

  • 1947: The Indian Independence Act Receives Royal Assent

    On 18 July 1947, the Indian Independence Act received Royal Assent. It provided for British India to be divided into the independent dominions of India and Pakistan in August. The legislation passed through Parliament under a compressed timetable. Prime Minister Clement Attlee had announced in February that British rule would end no later than June…

  • 1949: Britain becomes a founding member of NATO

    Britain became a founding member of NATO on 4 April 1949, when the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington. On paper, it was a diplomatic agreement between twelve states. In practice, it marked something Britain had to accept. The country had won the war, but it could no longer expect to defend its interests…

  • 1953: Elizabeth II is crowned at Westminster Abbey

    Elizabeth II was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953. She had been queen since 6 February 1952, when George VI died. Still, the coronation gave the reign its formal public and religious shape. The coronation followed a ceremony that had developed over many centuries. It was held at the Abbey, where English and…

  • 1956: Egypt nationalises the Suez Canal Company

    On 26 July 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that Egypt was nationalising the Suez Canal Company. Egyptian officials immediately began taking control of its offices and operations. The canal crossed Egyptian territory but was operated by a company dominated by British and French interests. It provided a short shipping route between the Mediterranean…

  • 1962: Jamaica becomes independent from Britain

    On 6 August 1962, Jamaica became independent from Britain. The British government ceased to have responsibility for governing the island, and a new Jamaican constitution came into force. British rule had begun in 1655, when English forces took Jamaica from Spain. The island later became a Crown colony, governed through institutions in which political power…

  • 1963: Britain signs the Partial Test Ban Treaty

    On 5 August 1963, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union signed a treaty in Moscow banning nuclear explosions in the atmosphere, outer space and underwater. The signatories were British Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home, United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. The agreement became commonly known as the…

  • 1998: Northern Ireland approves the Good Friday Agreement

    On 22 May 1998, voters in Northern Ireland approved the Belfast Agreement, better known as the Good Friday Agreement. The agreement had been signed the previous month. The referendum gave it democratic force. The vote came after decades of violence, failed political efforts and mistrust. The Troubles had left Northern Ireland with bombings, shootings, funerals,…