Events from the 1560s in England.
Incumbents
Monarch – Elizabeth I
Parliament – 2nd of Queen Elizabeth I (starting 11 January 1563, until 2 January 1567)
Events
1560
27 February – Treaty of Berwick: Terms agreed with the Lords of the Congregation in the Kingdom of Scotland for English forces to enter Scotland to expel French troops defending the Regency of Mary of Guise. 6 July – Treaty of Edinburgh between England, France and Scotland, ending the Siege of Leith. The French withdraw from Scotland, largely ending the Auld Alliance between the two countries, and recognise Elizabeth I of England. Solihull School founded. 1561 1 March – Kingston Grammar School is chartered. 4 June – the spire of Old St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London catches fire and crashes through the nave roof, probably as the result of a lightning strike. The spire is not rebuilt. 25 June – astrologer Francis Coxe is pilloried at Cheapside in London, and makes a public confession of his involvement in "sinistral and divelysh artes". August – English merchant Anthony Jenkinson arrives in Moscow on his second expedition to the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Merchant Taylors' School is founded in the City of London by Sir Thomas White, Sir Richard Hilles, Emanuel Lucar and Stephen Hales, with Richard Mulcaster as first headmaster. Reform of coinage to combat debasement. The first Calvinists settle in England, after fleeing Flanders. First publication (anonymously in London) of William Baldwin's Beware the Cat (written 1553), an early example of extended fiction (and specifically of horror fiction) in English. This edition appears to have been suppressed and no copies survive. 1562 18 January – first performance of Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville's play Gorboduc before Queen Elizabeth I. It is the first known English tragedy and the first English language play to employ blank verse. March – Anthony Jenkinson has an audience with Ivan the Terrible in Moscow before continuing his expedition to Qazvin, capital of the Safavid dynasty in Persia. 20 September – Treaty of Hampton Court between Queen Elizabeth and Huguenot leader Louis, Prince of Condé. October – John Hawkins initiates the trans-Atlantic slave trade, shipping slaves from Sierra Leone to Hispaniola. 4 October – English troops occupy Le Havre in France in aid of the Huguenots. Church of England approves the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, defining its doctrinal stance. Publication of the metrical psalter The Whole Booke of Psalmes, Collected into English Meter, compiled mostly by Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins and printed by John Day. Dudley Grammar School established and Gresham's School granted a royal charter. 1563 March Poor Relief Act requires wealthier parishes to help their poorer neighbours. Publication of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, John Foxe's account of Protestant persecution during the reign of Mary I of England, printed by John Day in London. April – Parliament passes laws requiring Justices of the Peace to arbitrate trade disputes and conditions of apprenticeship. June to October – 1563 London plague outbreak kills over 20,000. 28 July – the English surrender Le Havre to the French after a siege. Publication of John Shute's The First and Chief Groundes of Architecture, the first work in English on architecture. 1564 11 April – Treaty of Troyes: England receives monetary compensation for renouncing its claims to Calais. 30 April – consecration of new St Michael the Archangel parish church at Woodham Walter in Essex, probably the first new post-Reformation Church of England place of worship. July – Anthony Jenkinson returns to London from his second expedition to the Grand Duchy of Moscow, having gained a considerable extension of trading rights for the English Muscovy Company. 1565 Thomas Gresham founds the Royal Exchange in London. College of Physicians of London first licensed to carry out human dissection. John Hawkins brings the first tobacco to England. Protestant weavers from Flanders, fleeing persecution, settle in Colchester. Hinchingbrooke School is established as Huntingdon Grammar School. 1566 Henry Sidney leads a punitive expedition to Ulster. June – German miners find calamine (needed for production of brass) in the Mendip Hills. Autumn – probable completion of the Exeter Canal, the first in England, and with the first use of a pound lock in England (engineer: John Trew of Glamorgan). 1567 2 January – Parliament dissolved as Queen Elizabeth refuses to name a successor. John Brayne builds the Red Lion theatre just east of the City of London, a playhouse for touring productions and the first known to be purpose-built in the British Isles since Roman times.