The Line of Kings

Edward VI was crowned king in 1547 at the age of nine after the death of his father, Henry VIII. A sickly child, Edward was nonetheless an enthusiastic Protestant who continued the Reformation of the English church began by his father. In 1553, Edward developed tuberculosis and died, leaving behind a power struggle that saw his half-sister Mary inherit the throne.

With the death of Mary Tudor, her half-sister Elizabeth claims the throne. Elizabeth's reign was marked by stability and a flourishing arts scene. She helped to establish the 39 Articles which eased some of the religious strife caused by the break with Roman Catholicism. Yet Elizabeth also continued a hostile policy towards Ireland, and she dealt harshly with those thought to oppose her, including her own cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. 

Since the death of Mary Tudor, relations had soured between England and Spain. Philip II, Mary's former husband, supported attempts to overthrow Elizabeth and have her replaced with a Catholic monarch. Elizabeth, by contrast, supported the Dutch in their fight for independence from Spain. In May 1588, Philip resolved to conquer England and sent a great fleet with over 20,000 men for the purpose. Due to a series of English victories in the Channel and a large storm, the Armada was scattered and returned to Spain with under half the ships that had set sail.

In 1603, the 69-year-old Elizabeth I died at Richmond Palace. James VI of Scotland, son of her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, was named her successor and became James I of England. James was religiously tolerant for the time, but was a believer in witchcraft and personally oversaw the persecution of women accused of being witches in Scotland. His ascension to the English throne united the monarchies of England and Scotland but both Parliaments refused to unite politically or legally. 

In November 1605, Guy Fawkes was found with 36 barrels of gunpowder in a basement underneath the Houses of Parliament. The intention had been to start a pro-Catholic coup by assassinating the king, his heirs, and most of Parliament. Fawkes was arrested and his co-conspirators fled. Many of the would-be assassins, including the ringleader Robert Catesby, were tracked down to a manor in Staffordshire and either arrested or shot. Fawkes and 8 other men were hanged, drawn, and quartered in January 1606. 

The English colony of Jamestown is founded in Virginia. It is the first permanent English colony in North America. A previous settlement in Roanoke, North Carolina, in the late 16th century is beset by problems and deserted. 

Charles I, second son of James I, is crowned King of England. According to observers, Charles was a shy and reserved person who nevertheless believed in the divine right of kings. A series of disastrous wars against Spain, France, and Scotland soured Charles' relationship with Parliament as well as his authoritarian rule. Charles fathered five children who reached adulthood, two of whom would become king. 

The English Civil War, sometimes known as the British Civil War or the War of the Three Kingdoms, was a conflict between the Royalists under Charles I and the English Parliament under Sir Thomas Fairfax and John Pym. From 1642 to 1644, the two sides held a stalemate. This was until the Battle of Marston Moor in July 1644 when a cavalry charge by a troop under Oliver Cromwell helped defeat a large Royalist army. The war also led to the creation of the New Model Army, England's first standardised army. Charles would eventually surrender to a Scottish army at Newark in 1646. 

After his surrender, Scotland ransomed Charles back to the English Parliament in 1647. Despite this, Charles continued to enjoy support throughout Scotland and England. Uprisings in the south east of England and an invasion from Scotland led to a second Civil War, which ended with the defeat of the Royalists at the Battle of Preston in 1648. Charles was increasingly seen as a tyrant, and after a Parliamentary purge led by Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Pride, the king was tried for treason. Charles I was found guilty and executed on 30th January 1649.

The Interregnum period refers to the time between the execution of Charles I and the official crowning of Charles II. During this period, England became a republic known as the Commonwealth ruled at first by Parliament and then by Oliver Cromwell as the Lord Protector. The Interregnum was a time of unrest as Royalist supporters in Scotland and Ireland were brutally repressed by Cromwell. The First Anglo-Dutch War (1652-54) also broke out as the two nations wrestled for control of trading ports across the globe. When Oliver Cromwell died in 1658, his son Richard was made Lord Protector. Richard however was not as capable as his father and the Commonwealth was dissolved between 1659-1660.

Following the Battle of Worcester in 1651, Charles II lived in exile in France. On the collapse of the Commonwealth, Charles was invited back to England as king in 1660 and crowned the following year. During his reign, England witnessed a revival of art, theatre, and literature that had been suppressed under the Puritanical Commonwealth. The sciences also blossomed as the Royal Society, the oldest scientific academy in the world, was established in 1660.

England and the United Provinces, otherwise known as The Netherlands, had been at peace since the end of the First Anglo-Dutch War in 1654. With the Restoration, Charles II was keen to expand England's trading interests - largely at the expense of the Dutch. In 1664, Richard Nicholls was dispatched to gain control of the land between Maine and Delaware, which at that time was largely under the control of the Dutch. In August, Nicholls arrived off the coast of New England and threatened the colony of New Amsterdam. In September, to avoid bloodshed, the Dutch administrator Peter Stuyvesant surrendered the town to the English, which was renamed New York.

The Great Plague of London was the worst outbreak of Bubonic Plague since the Black Death of 1348. Over 68,000 people lost their lives over the course of 12 months. In one week in September, over 7,000 Londoners died. The wealthy fled to the countryside, while the dead were carted off to communal plague pits just outside the old city. The nursery rhyme "Ring-a-ring-a-roses" is often, incorrectly, believed to be about the 1665 plague.

After years of growing tension between England and The Netherlands, the Second Anglo-Dutch War broke out in 1665. Causes include competition for trade, differences in political outlooks, and factionalism in both the court of Charles II and the Dutch republic. Despite an initial English victory at Lowestoft, France entered the war on the side of the Netherlands in 1666, leading to a series of defeats. The most humiliating of these was the Raid on the Medway in June 1667, when the Dutch sailed up the River Medway and destroyed the docked English fleet at Chatham. The war ended with the Treaty of Breda, which largely preserved the status quo in favour of the Dutch.

On 2nd September 1666, a small spark in a bakery on Pudding Lane in London grew into a blaze that would consume 80% of the city. For 4 days, teams of people with buckets and pumps attempted to keep the fire under control, including reports of Charles II and his brother James. Others took the opportunity to loot abandoned houses and businesses. Eventually, gunpowder was used to destroy buildings and create firebreaks. 100,000 people were left homeless by the fire and buildings that stood for 6 centuries were left in ashes. Remarkably, only six people are recorded as losing their lives. In the aftermath, much of the city, including St. Paul's Cathedral, was rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren.

After the setbacks experienced after the Second Anglo-Dutch War, Charles II signed the secret Treaty of Dover in 1670. In the treaty, England promised to assist the French king Louis XIV in any future invasion of The Netherlands. In 1672, France invaded the Dutch Republic aided by the Royal Navy. The Dutch, led by William of Orange, deliberately flooded large areas of their land, halting the French army. This move also allowed the Dutch navy to prevent further French and English landings along the coast. Many in England felt the war was unjust and in 1674, Charles made peace.

As England's colonial ambitions developed, the need for accurate naval charts became more important. As well as cartography, trading companies and captains needed to know exactly where their ships were. This was easy when it came to the latitude on a north to south line, but harder when it came to the longitude on an east to west line. Charles II aimed to solve this problem by founding a Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park. It was due to the efforts of generations of scientists at Greenwich that the Observatory became the home of the Prime Meridian - the place where by all degrees of longitude are measured.