ENG331 Early English History Exam

1467, London

William Caxton starts up England’s first printing press

1485, Coventry/London

King Richard III sees the Coventry Corpus Christi plays (late May or early June); then, in August, he is killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field, and his forces defeated, by Henry Tudor. Soon after, Henry Tudor, descended from a legitimate-ish line, is crowned King Henry VII; as his Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry appoints John Morton

1489, Yorkshire

The Yorkshire Uprising, against unusually heavy taxation demands from the Crown

c. 1490-1500, London

Composition/performance of Medwall’s Fulgens and Lucres (published c. 1512)

1491, London

Prince Henry Tudor is born: the third child of Henry VII (after Prince Arthur, who dies at 16 with no issue, despite his marriage to Katherine of Aragon, and Princess Margaret Tudor, who marries King James IV of Scotland in 1503).

1491-1520, Coventry

From these years, the Records of Early English Drama includes multiple references to reworking, rewriting, and reassigning the Coventry Corpus Christi Plays, probably because of serious shrinkage in Coventry’s textilemanufacturing economy

1512, East Anglia

Inscription of the Digby Manuscript (includes plays composed as early as the late fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries).

1516, London/East Anglia

Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon have their first child: Mary Tudor. But no boys. To pray for an heir, Henry makes several pilgrimages to Our Lady of Walsingham, once walking there two miles barefoot; he makes multiple

donations to the priory there

1534, London

Under Henry VIII, Parliament passes the Act of Submission of the Clergy, the Act of Succession, the Act of Supremacy, and the Treason Act.

1534, Coventry

Robert Croo finishes inscribing the “nevly correcte” revisions of the Coventry Weavers’ Play and the Shearmen and Tailors’ play. The latter manuscript has since been lost; only a late transcript now survives.

1536, Yorkshire

The Pilgrimage of Grace, a major Northern rising against Reformation legislation (as well as against increased government control in the North, including the enclosure of once communal lands).

1549, East Anglia

Crowds, who had gathered to watch a traditional play celebrating the life of St Thomas Becket (whose commemorations were outlawed under Henry VIII), erupt into Kett’s Rebellion, a rising agains increased taxes and enclosure

1550s(?), Yorkshire

Inscription of the Towneley Manuscript (includes plays composed as early as the mid-fifteenth century, possibly revised or rewritten later).

1560, London

Publication of Robin Hood and the Friar and Robin Hood and the Potter.

1562(?), East Anglia

A large-scale drama festival happens in Chelmsford, Essex; soon afterward, Miles Blomefylde is also living in Chelmsford, with the Digby Manuscript in his library there.

1567, London

The first theatre opens (the Red Lion in Shoreditch)

1568-9, Yorkshire

The Northern Rebellion aims to destroy Elizabeth I and replace her with her Catholic cousin, Mary Stewart.

1572, Cheshire

The Chester Plays, which have been running repeatedly on wagon stages in Chester for decades (and, in some form, for over a century), are de-legalized by the Archbishop of York. The 1572 production proceeds anyway; they do another in 1575.

1587, London

The Rose Theatre is built.

1591, Cheshire

The earliest surviving copy of the Chester Plays is completed.