1500 - 1760
Conflict, union and rebellion
Timeline of some of the major events and milestones during the years 1500 to 1760. Read the background section to put these into context.
- 1517
- Commission of Enquiry touching Enclosures.
- 1534
- Act of Supremacy. Henry VIII declared supreme head of the Church of England.
- 1536-43
- Union of England and Wales
- 1549
- Introduction of a uniform Protestant service in England.
- 1549
- Kett's rebellion.
- 1588
- Spanish Armada
- 1601
- Elizabethan Poor Law: 'The Old Poor Law' provides statutory relief for 'the poor' in England and Wales.
- 1605
- Gunpowder plot
- 1610s
- Protestant 'plantations' in Ulster.
- 1628
- Petition of Right.
- 1641
- Grand Remonstrance.
- 1642
- Start of Civil War.
- 1647
- The Putney Debates and Agreement of the People.
- 1649
- Execution of Charles I and the beginning of the Commonwealth [Republic].
- 1649
- Short-lived 'Diggers' community at St George's Hill, Surrey.
- 1656
- Readmission of the Jews.
- 1660
- Restoration of the monarchy and Declaration of Breda.
- 1661-5
- 'Clarendon Code' against non-conformists.
- 1672
- Declaration of Indulgence.
- 1688
- The 'Glorious Revolution'; James II flees England.
- 1689
- Bill of Rights.
- 1689
- William III is invited by Parliament to take the Crown.
- 1701
- Wrongous Imprisonment Act (Scotland's equivalent of the Habeas Corpus).
- 1715
- Jacobite rising
- 1745
- Jacobite rising
Human Rights
