1605. Discovery of a plot for blowing up the king and parliament with gunpowder. The principal conspirators were either killed in resisting their arrest, or executed. The executions took place early in 1606.
1607. James Town, in Virginia, founded;—the earliest permanent settlement of the English in North America.
1611. Commencement of British colonization of Ulster. Institution of the order of baronets. Publication of a new translation of the Bible (our present authorized version).
1612. Death of Robert Cecil (earl of Salisbury, and chief minister of the crown), and of Prince Henry, the king’s eldest son.
1616. Sir Walter Raleigh released from the Tower. The earl and countess of Somerset convicted of procuring the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury.
1617. Raleigh sailed to Guiana in search of a gold mine, but was unsuccessful, and on his return was committed to prison, because he had engaged in hostilities with the Spaniards, who had attacked him on his landing at St. Thomas.
1618. Raleigh executed on his former sentence.
1620. Emigration of the “Pilgrim Fathers” to New England.
1621. Parliament complained of monopolies, and prosecuted some of the monopolists. Francis Bacon, viscount St. Alban’s, convicted of bribery and corruption in the exercise of his office of Lord Chancellor. The Commons recorded in their journal that the liberties of parliament are the undoubted birthright of the subjects of England.
1622. On the dissolution of Parliament, Sir Edward Coke, Pym, and some other distinguished and patriotic members were imprisoned.