Human Rights

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• 1215 - 1500
• 1500 - 1760
• 1760 - 1815
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1500 - 1760

• Background
• Timeline
• Related documents

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