Events from the year

1638 Events January–March * January 4 – **A naval battle takes place in the Indian Ocean off of the coast of Goa at South India as a Netherlands fleet commanded by Admiral Adam Westerwolt decimates the Portuguese fleet. **A fleet of 80 ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Incumbents

Monarch A monarch is a head of stateWebster's II New College DictionarMonarch Houghton Mifflin. Boston. 2001. p. 707. Life tenure, for life or until abdication, and therefore the head of state of a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest authority ...

–

Charles I Charles I may refer to: Kings and emperors * Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings * Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily * Charles I of ...

* Secretary of State –

Sir John Coke Sir John Coke (5 March 1563 – 8 September 1644) was an English civil servant and naval administrator, described by one commentator as "the Samuel Pepys of his day". He was MP for various constituencies in the House of Commons between 1621 and ...

Events

* 18 April – flogging of

John Lilburne John Lilburne (c. 161429 August 1657), also known as Freeborn John, was an English people, English political Leveller before, during and after the English Civil Wars 1642–1650. He coined the term "''freeborn, freeborn rights''", defining them ...

for refusing to swear an oath when brought before the court of

Star Chamber The Star Chamber (Latin: ''Camera stellata'') was an English court that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster, from the late to the mid-17th century (c. 1641), and was composed of Privy Counsellors and common-law judges, to supplement the judic ...

for distributing Puritan publications. * 12 June – trial of

John Hampden John Hampden (24 June 1643) was an English landowner and politician whose opposition to arbitrary taxes imposed by Charles I made him a national figure. An ally of Parliamentarian leader John Pym, and cousin to Oliver Cromwell, he was one of th ...

for non-payment of

ship money Ship money was a tax of medieval origin levied intermittently in the Kingdom of England until the middle of the 17th century. Assessed typically on the inhabitants of coastal areas of England, it was one of several taxes that English monarchs cou ...

concludes: a narrow majority of judges find the tax to be legal. * 21 October – The Great Thunderstorm at

Widecombe-in-the-Moor Widecombe in the Moor () is a village and large civil parish in Dartmoor National Park in Devon, England. Its church is known as the Cathedral of the Moors on account of its tall tower and its size, relative to the small population it serves. It ...

in Devon: 4 are killed and around 60 injured when probable

ball lightning Ball lightning is a rare and unexplained phenomenon described as luminescent, spherical objects that vary from pea-sized to several meters in diameter. Though usually associated with thunderstorms, the observed phenomenon is reported to last c ...

strikes the parish church. * The

Queen's House Queen's House is a former royal residence built between 1616 and 1635 near Greenwich Palace, a few miles down-river from the City of London and now in the London Borough of Greenwich. It presently forms a central focus of what is now the Old Ro ...

Greenwich Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...

, designed by

Inigo Jones Inigo Jones (; 15 July 1573 – 21 June 1652) was the first significant architect in England and Wales in the early modern period, and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmetry in his buildings. As the most notable archit ...

in 1616 as the first major example of

classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the works of the Roman architect V ...

in the country, is completed for

Henrietta Maria Henrietta Maria (french: link=no, Henriette Marie; 25 November 1609 – 10 September 1669) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from her marriage to King Charles I on 13 June 1625 until Charles was executed on 30 January 1649. She wa ...

.Display captions at house, October 2016. *

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...

's elegy "

Lycidas "Lycidas" () is a poem by John Milton, written in 1637 as a pastoral elegy. It first appeared in a 1638 collection of elegies, ''Justa Edouardo King Naufrago'', dedicated to the memory of Edward King, a friend of Milton at Cambridge who drown ...

" is published.

Births

* 24 January –

Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset and 1st Earl of Middlesex, KG (24 January 164329 January 1706) was an English poet and courtier. Early life Sackville was born on 24 January 1643, son of Richard Sackville, 5th Earl of Dorset (1622–1677) ...

, poet and courtier (died

1706 In the Swedish calendar it was a common year starting on Monday, one day ahead of the Julian and ten days behind the Gregorian calendar. Events January–March * January 26 – War of Spanish Succession: Bavarian uprising of 1705 ...

) * 6 March–

Henry Capell, 1st Baron Capell Henry Capell, 1st Baron Capell of Tewkesbury KB, PC (1638 – 30 May 1696) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1660 and 1692. He was then created Baron Capell. Early life Henry Capell was born in Hadham Parva, ...

, First Lord of the British Admiralty (died

1696 Events January–March * January 21 – The Great Recoinage of 1696, Recoinage Act, passed by the Parliament of England to pull counterfeit silver coins out of circulation, becomes law.James E. Thorold Rogers, ''The First Nine Y ...

) * 2 June –

Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, PC (2 June 163831 October 1709) was an English aristocrat and politician. He held high office at the beginning of the reign of his brother-in-law, King James II. Early life He was the eldest son of Edward Hyde ...

, politician (died 1709) * 24 December –

Ralph Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu Ralph Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu (24 December 1638 – 9 March 1709) was an English courtier and diplomat. Background Ralph Montagu was the second son of Edward Montagu, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton (1616–1684), and Anne Winwood, daughte ...

, diplomat (died 1709) *

William Sacheverell William Sacheverell (1638 – 9 October 1691) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1670 and 1691. Life Sacheverell was the son of Henry Sacheverell, a country gentleman, by his wife Joyce Mansfield. Hi ...

, statesman (died

1691 Events January–March * January 6 – King William III of England, who rules Scotland and Ireland as well as being the Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, departs from Margate to tend to the affairs of the Netherlands. * January 14 – A ...

)

Deaths

* 14 September – John Harvard, clergyman and colonist (born

1607 Events January–June * January 13 – The Bank of Genoa fails, after the announcement of national bankruptcy in Spain. * January 19 – San Agustin Church, Manila, is officially completed; by the 21st century it will be the ...

)

References

{{England year nav Years of the 17th century in England