1490s in England

Events from the 1490s in England.

Incumbents

Monarch – Henry VII
Regent – Arthur, Prince of Wales

Events

1490

* Construction begins on the tower of Magdalen College, Oxford. John Colet receives his M.A. from the college.
* Perkin Warbeck claims to be the son of King Edward IV of England at the court of Burgundy.1491
* November – Perkin Warbeck begins a campaign to take the English throne with a landing in Ireland.
* 21 December – Truce of Coldstream secures a 5-year peace with Scotland.
* Henry VII imposes a benevolence (tax).1492
* October – English army lays siege to Boulogne.
* 3 November – Peace of Etaples signed between England and France, ending French support for the pretender Perkin Warbeck. All English-held territory in France with the exception of Calais is returned to France. France withdraws its support for Perkin Warbeck.
*Richard Pynson prints his first known dated book in London, an edition of Alexander Grammaticus's Doctrinale.
* Founding date of Ermysted's Grammar School, Skipton, North Yorkshire.1493
* Sanctions imposed on Burgundy for supporting Warbeck.1494
* May – Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, recognises Warbeck as rightful King of England.
* John Lydgate's translation The Fall of Princes is published posthumously.1495
* 16 February – William Stanley, the Lord Chamberlain, executed for supporting Warbeck.
* 3 July – Battle of Deal: Perkin Warbeck's troops land at Deal, Kent, in support of his claim to the English crown, backed by Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy. They are routed before Warbeck himself can disembark, and he retreats to Ireland and then to Scotland.
* October
** Parliament passes the Treason Act, still in force.
** Vagabond Act requires vagabonds to be punished.
* Henry VII commissions the world's first dry dock at Portsmouth.1496
* 24 February – Henry VII signs the commercial treaty Intercursus Magnus with Venice, Florence and the villes of the Hanse and Pays-Bas.
* 5 March – King Henry VII issues letters patent to Italian-born adventurer John Cabot and his sons, authorising them to discover unknown lands.
* 12 June – Jesus College, Cambridge, founded.
* 21-25 September – James IV of Scotland invades Northumberland in support of the pretender Perkin Warbeck.
* A public convenience is built on the "Old Welsh Bridge" in Shrewsbury.1497
* May
**Cornish Rebellion incited by war taxes.
** John Cabot sets sail from Bristol on the ship Matthew looking for new lands to the west.
* 17 June – Cornish rebels under Michael An Gof are soundly defeated by Henry VII at the Battle of Deptford Bridge near London.
* 7 September – Second Cornish Uprising: Perkin Warbeck lands at Whitesand Bay near Land's End.
* 10 September – Warbeck proclaimed as King in Bodmin.
* 30 September – Treaty of Ayton establishes 7-year peace with Scotland.
* 4 October – leaders of the Second Cornish Uprising surrender to the King at Taunton.
* 5 October – Warbeck, having deserted his army, is captured at Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire.
* John Alcock's Mons Perfectionis is published, the first printed sermon by an English bishop.
* Possible date – first performance of the earliest known full-length secular play wholly in English, Fulgens and Lucrece by Henry Medwall, the first English vernacular playwright known by name, perhaps at Lambeth Palace in London.1498
* May
** Merchant Adventurers granted a trade monopoly with the Netherlands.
** Cabot leaves Bristol on his second voyage to the Americas; he is never to be seen again.
* Summer – the final Welsh revolt of the medieval era breaks out in Meirionnydd, North Wales; Harlech Castle is captured by the rebels before the revolt is suppressed.1499
* 19 May – 13-year-old Catherine of Aragon, the future first wife of Henry VIII, is married by proxy to his brother, 12-year-old Arthur, Prince of Wales.
* 23 November – Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the English crown, is hanged at Tyburn following an alleged attempt to escape from the Tower of London.
* 28 November – Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick, last legitimate male heir to the House of York, is beheaded for allegedly conspiring in Warbeck's escape.
* Giggleswick School is founded by Reverend James Carr.

Births

1490
* Approximate date
**Thomas Elyot, diplomat and scholar
** John Taverner, composer and organist
1491
* 28 June – King Henry VIII of England
1492
* 2 July – Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII
* Edward Wotton, physician and zoologist
* Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland
1494
*John Sutton, 3rd Baron Dudley
* William Tyndale, religious reformer
1495
* 21 November – John Bale, churchman
* Robert Barnes, reformer and martyr
* Thomas Wharton, 1st Baron Wharton
1496
* 28 March – Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VII of England and queen of Louis XII of France
* Edward Foxe, English churchman
* Anthony St Leger, Lord Deputy of Ireland
* Henry Somerset, 2nd Earl of Worcester
* Approximate date – Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich, Lord Chancellor
1497
*Anne Stanhope, noblewoman
* John Heywood, playwright

Deaths

1490
* 22 May – Edmund Grey, 1st Earl of Kent
1491
* 6 March – Richard Woodville, 3rd Earl Rivers
* c. 21 May – John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk
1492
* 7 June – Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of Edward IV of England
* 20 September – Anne Beauchamp, 16th Countess of Warwick
1493
* James Blount, soldier
1495
* 31 May – Cecily Neville, mother of Edward IV of England and Richard III of England
* 14 September – Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of Henry VII of England
* 21 December – Jasper Tudor, 1st Duke of Bedford
1497
* 27 June
** Thomas Flamank, Cornish lawyer
** Michael An Gof, Cornish rebel
1498
* 24 March – Edward Stafford, 2nd Earl of Wiltshire
1499
* 23 November – Perkin Warbeck, Flemish imposter, claimant to the English throne
* 28 November – Edward, Earl of Warwick, last male member of the House of York
* Approximate date – John of Gloucester, Captain of Calais, illegitimate son of Richard III