Events
- 1550
- 1 February – Parliament's Putting away of Books and Images Act 1549 receives royal assent, encouraging iconoclasm.
- c. March – First Edwardine Ordinal published.
- 24 March – England and France sign the Treaty of Boulogne; England withdraws from Boulogne in France and returns territorial gains in Scotland.
- 29 March – Sherborne School in Dorset is refounded by King Edward VI.
- c. May – Vestments controversy begins: Protestant reformer John Hooper declines appointment as Bishop of Gloucester because he objects to the vestments and oath prescribed in the new Ordinal. He is imprisoned for a time.
- 24 July – French Protestant Church of London established by royal charter.
- The value of the angel is raised from eight to ten shillings.
- 1551
- 14 February – Alice Arden conspires with her lover and others to carry out the murder of her husband, Thomas Arden, Mayor of Faversham. The conspirators will be executed.
- 8 May - John Hooper submits to consecration as Bishop of Gloucester, ending the vestments controversy.
- By July – fifth and last outbreak of sweating sickness in England. John Caius of Shrewsbury writes the first full contemporary account of the symptoms of the disease.
- 11 October – John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, de facto Lord Protector of England, is created Duke of Northumberland.
- St Thomas' Hospital is re-established on its former site in Southwark by the Corporation of London, taken as the founding date for St Thomas's Hospital Medical School.
- Silver sixpence and crown first minted.
- 1552
- January – Act of Uniformity imposes the Second Book of Common Prayer (with effect from March). Parish priests are to give instruction in the catechism every Sunday afternoon.
- 22 January – execution of the former Lord Protector Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset for treason.
- 24 February – the privileges of the Hanseatic League are abolished in England.
- 15 April – Ale Houses Act 1551 receives royal assent, providing for licensing of taverns for the first time.
- 24 September – the Debatable Lands on the border of England and Scotland are divided between the two kingdoms by a commission creating the Scots' Dike in an unsuccessful attempt to halt lawlessness here, but giving both countries their modern borders.
- King Edward VI founds 35 grammar schools, including Shrewsbury; Leeds Grammar School is also established.
- 1553
19 July: Queen Mary - 25 May – Lady Jane Grey is married to Lord Guildford Dudley, son of the Duke of Northumberland, in an elaborate ceremony at Durham House, London, in which her two sisters are also married. The bride and groom are both aged around 15 or 16.
- 16 June – King Edward founds Christ's Hospital for London orphans.
- 21 June – King Edward, having no male heir or brother, nominates his cousin Lady Jane Grey as his successor (without her knowledge).
- 6 July – King Edward VI dies aged 15, probably of tuberculosis, at the Palace of Placentia (Greenwich).
- 7 July – Northumberland secures the Tower of London and other strategic locations against Mary.
- 9 July – Lady Jane Grey is summoned by Northumberland to Sion House and informed for the first time that she is to be queen. On the same day, Mary writes from Kenninghall requiring the Privy Council to proclaim herself as queen.
- 10 July – Lady Jane Grey is proclaimed Queen of England by the Privy Council and the proclamation is set into print and sent around the country. She refuses to make her husband king and would be the country's first queen regnant.
- 12 July – Mary arrives at Framlingham Castle where she gathers armed supporters.
- c. 13 July – troops headed by Northumberland march from London to resist Mary, reaching Cambridge probably on 15 July.
- 15 July – the naval fleet intended to blockade Mary's access to the East Anglian coast largely transfers its loyalty to her and she has the use of its ordnance.
- 19 July – the Privy Council and Thomas White, Lord Mayor of London, proclaim the Catholic Queen Mary as the rightful Queen. Lady Jane Grey is imprisoned within the Tower after using the title of queen for nine days.
- 30 July – Mary is greeted at Wanstead on the approach to London by her half-sister Elizabeth, who has ridden out from her new London residence, Somerset House.
- 3 August – Mary rides triumphantly into London to claim the throne, accompanied by Elizabeth.
- 8 August – funeral of Edward VI at Westminster Abbey.
- 22 August – the Duke of Northumberland, who has promoted Lady Jane Grey's claim to the throne, is beheaded on Tower Hill.
- August – Richard Chancellor enters the White Sea and reaches Archangel, going on to the court of Ivan IV of Russia, opening up trade between England and Russia.
- September – Protestant bishops in England are arrested and Roman Catholic bishops are restored.
- 1 October – Coronation of Mary I of England at Westminster Abbey.
- Approximate date – Ralph Roister Doister, the first known comedy in the English language, is written by London schoolmaster Nicholas Udall for his pupils to perform. Gammer Gurton's Needle by "Mr. S." follows.
- 1554
- 25 January – Wyatt's rebellion: Sir Thomas Wyatt leads a rebellion against Queen Mary's proposed marriage to Prince Philip of Spain.
- 9 February – Wyatt's rebellion collapses and he surrenders in London.
- 12 February – after claiming the throne of England the previous year, Lady Jane Grey is beheaded for treason as is her husband – he publicly on Tower Hill and she privately within the Tower of London, where she has remained since the proclamation.
- 17 March – Princess Elizabeth is imprisoned in the Tower of London, suspected of involvement in Wyatt's rebellion.
- 21 May – a royal charter is granted to Derby School.
- 25 July – the wedding of Queen Mary and Prince Philip of Spain, the only son of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and her cousin, at Winchester Cathedral under the terms of the Act for the Marriage of Queen Mary to Philip of Spain, which effectively makes them joint monarchs.
- November – English captain John Lok voyages to Guinea.
- 30 November – England formally rejoins the Roman Catholic Church.
- c. December – Revival of the Heresy Acts: Parliament revives laws against heresy.
- Foundation of Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall, and The Free Grammar School of King Philip and Queen Mary, Clitheroe.
- 1555
- 4 February – John Rogers suffers death by burning at the stake at Smithfield, London, the first of the Protestant martyrs of the English Reformation under Mary I.
- 8 February – Laurence Saunders is the second of the Marian Protestant martyrs, being led barefoot to his death by burning at the stake in Coventry.
- 9 February – Rowland Taylor, Rector of Hadleigh, Suffolk, and John Hooper, deposed Bishop of Gloucester, are burned at the stake.
- 26 February – The Muscovy Company is chartered to trade with the Tsardom of Russia and Richard Chancellor negotiates with the Tsar.
- 1 May – the foundation of St John's College, Oxford.
- 30 May – the foundation of Trinity College, Oxford.
- 12 July – the first four Canterbury Martyrs are burned at the stake.
- 16 October – two of the Oxford Martyrs, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, are burned at the stake.
- English captain John Lok returns from Guinea with 5 Africans to train as interpreters for future trading voyages.
- Establishment of the following grammar schools: Boston Grammar School, Gresham's School at Holt, Norfolk (founded by Sir John Gresham) and Ripon Grammar School (re-foundation).
- Richard Eden translates The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West India, urging his countrymen to follow the lead of Spain in exploring the New World.
- 1556
- January – Soldier Sir Henry Dudley, from France, plots to raise an invasion force which is planned to land on the Isle of Wight, march on London, remove Queen Mary to exile in Spain and place the Protestant Elizabeth on the throne. By July, the plot is discovered and abandoned.
- 21 March – the third of the Oxford Martyrs, Thomas Cranmer, deposed Archbishop of Canterbury, is burned at the stake for treason.
- 22 March – Reginald Pole enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury.
- 27 June – thirteen Protestant Stratford Martyrs are burned at the stake in London.
- 18 July – three Protestant martyrs are burned at the stake in East Grinstead.
- Establishment of Laxton Grammar School.
- Period of rapid inflation; prices of many basic commodities double in 12 months.
- 1557
- 28 February – a commercial treaty is signed with Russia.
- May – Benedictine monks are allowed to return to Westminster Abbey.
- 5 June – publication in London of Tottel's Miscellany (Songes and Sonettes), the first printed anthology of English poetry.
- 7 June – Italian War of 1551–59: England, now allied with Spain, declares war on France.
- Summer – 1557 influenza pandemic reaches the British Isles.
- 10 August – Italian War: English and Spanish victory over the French at the Battle of St. Quentin. First record of a Royal Artillery Band.
- 4 September – Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, is refounded by surgeon John Caius.
- The following schools are founded: Brentwood School, Essex, by Sir Antony Browne; Hampton School, Hampton, London, by Robert Hammond; and Repton School, Derbyshire, by Sir John Port.
- Robert Recorde's The Whetstone of Witte is published, the first English book on algebra, containing the first recorded use of the equals sign and also the first use in English of plus and minus signs.
- Thomas Tusser's instructional poem A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie is published.
- 1558
- 7 January – French troops led by Francis, Duke of Guise take Calais, the last continental possession of England.
- 13 July – Battle of Gravelines: near the border between France and the Spanish Netherlands, Spanish forces assisted by the English Royal Navy inflict a major defeat on the French.
- By September – second wave of the 1557 influenza pandemic in England.
- 15 November – the last five Protestant martyrs of the English Reformation are burnt, at Canterbury.
- 17 November – Elizabethan era begins: Queen Mary I dies of uterine cancer at St James's Palace aged 42 and the English throne passes to her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth (at this time resident at Hatfield House) as her designated successor, who will rule for 44 years. 12 hours later, Mary's Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Reginald Pole, dies in London.
- 20 November – William Cecil is appointed principal Secretary of State.
- Mary's widower Philip II of Spain offers his hand in marriage to Elizabeth provided she adopts the Catholic faith. She takes time before replying and he remarries elsewhere the following year.
- Elizabeth grants rest and refreshment to pilgrims and travellers who pass by the Holy Well Spring at Malvern, Worcestershire.
- English explorer Anthony Jenkinson travels from Moscow to Astrakhan and Bukhara.
- 1559
- 15 January – Elizabeth I of England is crowned in Westminster Abbey by Owen Oglethorpe, Bishop of Carlisle.
- 23 January – Elizabethan Religious Settlement: The 1st Parliament of Elizabeth I (summoned on 5 December) assembles at Westminster and passes the Act of Supremacy 1558 (requiring any person taking public or church office in England to swear allegiance to the English monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England) and the Act of Uniformity 1558 (requiring all persons in England to attend Anglican services on penalty of a fine for noncompliance), re-establishing the Protestant Church of England (royal assent 8 May).
- 10 February – House of Commons makes a 'Loyal Address', urging Queen Elizabeth to marry.
- 2 April – the Italian War of 1551–1559 is ended by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in which France makes peace with England and Spain; among the few gains retained by France is the formerly English town of Calais.
- 19 December – Matthew Parker enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury.
- Reintroduction of the Book of Common Prayer.
- Benedictine monks are once again expelled from Westminster Abbey.
- The predecessor of the private banking house of Child & Co. (which will still exist in the 21st century) is established in London.
