March 19 – King James opens his first parliamentary session as King of England. In his opening speech to the "Blessed Parliament", the King makes clear that he wants to bring a legal union between England and Scotland and that he does not wish to be "a husband to two wives." The House of Commons refuses to agree with him on the unification of the crown or on the funding that the King requests.
April 9 – On the first day of the new year 966 M.E. on the Burmese calendar, KingNyaungyan Min ofBurma makes a triumphant return to his capital atInwa after his victory in the war against the principality ofMongnai (Monē), one of theShan States between Burma andSiam
April 17 –Tsar Dmitry of Russia makes a public conversion to Roman Catholicism in order to attract the aid of Jesuits in his attempt to rule all of Russia.
April 18 –Maurice of Nassau assembles a combined army of 7,000 Dutch and 4,000 English soldiers to make an attack on the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium).
May 19 – Maurice of Nassau begins theSiege of Sluis, a port in the Spanish Netherlands, with 11,000 Dutch and English troops. Despite reinforcements from Spanish relief troops, the city surrenders after three months, with both sides having lost hundreds of casualties.
Five conspirators in England, led byRobert Catesby, who has invited Thomas Wintour, John Wright, Thomas Percy and Guy Fawkes, meet at the Duck and Drake Inn in London to make a plan for the assassination of King James.[5]
Peace discussions between England and Spain begin at Somerset House in London to end theAnglo-Spanish War after 19 years of fighting.
May 22 – English entrepreneurCharles Leigh and a crew of 46 arrive in South America at what is now theOyapock River inFrench Guiana after traveling on the shipOlive Plant. The 35 men and boys who stay create a colonial settlement which they call Oliveleigh, and make a claim to all of the area.
June 9 –Thomas Percy, one of the English conspirators in theGunpowder Plot to assassinate King James I, is appointed as one of the king's bodyguards by the Earl of Northumberland.
July 4 – TheJesuits Act 1603 (officially "An Act for the due execution of the Statutes against Jesuits, seminary Priests and recusants") is given royal assent by King James I of England to create penalties against Jesuits and Catholics who send their children abroad to Catholic colleges.[6]
King James angrily dismisses the English parliament after failing to get full financial subsidies. He tells the members in his closing speech, "I am not of such a stock as to praise fools."[7]
July 16 – The last of the 18 sessions of the English and Spanish peace conference is held at theOld Somerset House inLondon, with the parties reaching an agreement on terms of a treaty.
August 19 – The Dutchsiege of Sluis in the Spanish Netherlands ends after three months, a day after relief troops commanded by GeneralAmbrogio Spinola retreat. At least 2,000 of the members of the Spanish garrison inside had been killed or incapacitated by disease and famine. Sluis becomes part of the Netherlands afterward.
^Leeds Barroll,Anna of Denmark, Queen of England: A Cultural Biography (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), p. 83
^Martin Butler,The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture (Cambridge, 2008), p. 63.
^Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992).The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 166–168.ISBN0-7126-5616-2.
^Antonia Fraser,The Gunpowder Plot (Phoenix Press, 1996) pp. 41-42
^C. Northcote Parkinson,Gunpowder Treason and Plot (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976) p. 48
^"Toleration and Diplomacy: The Religious Issue in Anglo-Spanish Relations, 1603–1605", by Albert J. Loomie,Transactions of the American Philosophical Society ((1963), p. 31
^Pauline Croft,King James (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) p. 62
