| 1563 | Drayton born at Hartshill, Warwickshire. |
| 1572? | Drayton a page in the house of Sir Henry Goodere, at Polesworth. |
| c. 1574 | Anne Goodere born? |
| Feb. 1591 | Drayton in London. Harmony of Church. |
| 1593 | Idea, the Shepherd's Garland. Legend of Peirs Gaveston. |
| 1594 | Ideas Mirrour. Matilda. Lucy Harrington becomes Countess of Bedford. |
| 1595 | Sir Henry Goodere the elder dies. Endimion and Phoebe, dedicated to Lucy Bedford. |
| 1595-6 | Anne Goodere married to Sir Henry Rainsford. |
| 1596 | Mortimeriados. Legends of Robert, Matilda, and Gaveston. |
| 1597 | England's Heroical Epistles. |
| 1598 | Drayton already at work on the Polyolbion. |
| 1599 | Epistles and Idea sonnets, new edition. (Date of Portrait of Drayton in National Portrait Gallery.) |
| 1600 | Sir John Oldcastle. |
| 1602 | New edition of Epistles and Idea. |
| 1603 | Drayton made an Esquire of the Bath, to Sir Walter Aston. To the Maiestie of King James. Barons' Wars. |
| 1604 | The Owle. A Pean Triumphall. Moyses in a Map of his Miracles. |
| 1605 | First collected edition of Poems. Another edition of Idea and Epistles. |
| 1606 | Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall. Odes. Eglogs. The Man in the Moone. |
| 1607 | Legend of Great Cromwell. |
| 1608 | Reprint of Collected Poems. |
| 1609 | Another edition of Cromwell. |
| 1610 | Reprint of Collected Poems. |
| 1613 | Reprint of Collected Poems. First Part of Polyolbion. |
| 1618 | Two Elegies in FitzGeoffrey's Satyrs and Epigrames. |
| 1619 | Collected Folio edition of Poems. |
| 1620 | Second edition of Elegies, and reprint of 1619 Poems. |
| 1622 | Polyolbion complete. |
| 1627 | Battle of Agincourt, Nymphidia, &c. |
| 1630 | Muses Elizium. Noah's Floud. Moses his Birth and Miracles. David and Goliah. |
| 1631 | Second edition of 1627 folio. Drayton dies towards the end of the year. |
| 1636 | Posthumous poem appeared in Annalia Dubrensia. |
| 1637 | Poems. |