Years 1607-1608
| Shakespeare's life | contemporary events |
| 1607 | |
|
June 5. Susanna Shakespeare marries Dr. John Hall at Holy
Trinity Church, Stratford. Sept. 5. Hamlet is performed aboard the English ship Dragon at Sierra Leone. Nov. 26. King Lear entered in Stationers' Register. Dec. 31. Edmund Shakespeare, an actor, is buried at St. Saviour's church in Southwark. He may have been Shakespeare's younger brother. |
Founding of Jamestown, Virginia. The Great Frost in London. The Thames freezes over. Cyril Tourneur's The Revenger's Tragedy is published. Theatres are closed from July to November because of the plague. Parliament rejects the unification of Scotland with England. Antagonism over enclosures leads to the Midlands Revolt. Thomas Deloney dies. |
| 1608 | |
|
Feb. 21. Shakespeare's first grandchild
Elizabeth, daughter of
John and Susanna Hall, is christened. May 20. Antony and Cleopatra is entered in the Stationers' Register. Aug. 9. Shakespeare and six associates lease the Blackfriars theatre for a twenty-one year period. Sept. 7. Shakespeare's mother, Mary, is buried at Stratford. Oct. 16. Shakespeare becomes godfather to William Walker of Stratford. Dec. 17. John Addenbrooke is arrested for a debt owed to Shakespeare. |
Parliament rejects James' proposal for the union of
England and Scotland, but all subjects born after 1603
acquire common nationality. Galileo constructs an astronomical telescope. John Milton is born. Robert Cecil is appointed Lord Treasurer; the Crown is over £500,000 in debt. |