1580
John Day is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He dies four years later.
1581
William Norton is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is the first recognised bookseller to hold the office and is re-elected in 1586 and in 1593 alongside George Bishop.
1581
John Stubbs and William Page both lose their right hand as a punishment for printing and dispersing a pamphlet called 'Gaping Gulf' which opposes the marriage between Elizabeth and Francis, Duke of Anjou. Copies of the pamphlet are publicly burned at Stationers' Hall and a royal proclamation denounces Stubbs and demands all copies of the tract to be destroyed.
1583
John Harrison is elected Master of Stationer's Company. He is re-elected in 1588 and 1596.
1586
A decree prohibiting the publication of any book contrary to statute, injunction, ordinance and letters patents, as well as any ordinance set down by the Company of Stationers. The formal protection of the Star Chamber was extended not only to books protected under royal printing privileges but to books printed in contravention of the internal regulations of the Stationers' Company itself, further enhancing the significance of "stationers' copyright".'
1587
John Judson is elected Master of Stationers' Company.
1587
In December of this year, Stationers' Court of Assistants passes a new set of orders to control the quantity of printing. Books can no longer be reprinted from standing type and impressions shall not be larger than 1,500.
1587
The playhouse is built on Bankside and is the fifth purpose-built theatre in London. It is disused by 1603.
1588
In April, following instructions from Archbishop Whitgift, officials of the Stationers' Company raid the London premises of the veteran Puritan printer Robert Waldegrave and confiscate his printing press as a response to the printing of the anti-episcopal tract The State of the Church of England.
1589
Richard Watkins is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected in 1594.
1590
George Bishop is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected in 1592, 1593 (alongside William Norton), 1600, 1602 and 1608.
1591
Francis Coldock is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected in 1595.
1591
The Company agrees to allow the Cambridge printers a month's options on books from the Frankfurt Fair, as long as the books were entered in the register.
1592
An Act of Parliament is put to be consulted by Parliament against foreign merchants who were deemed to be competing unfairly with English merchants. The attempt to get it passed is not successful.
1593
Theatres across London are closed due to the spread of the bubonic plague.
1595
The Swan Theatre is opened in Southwark.
1597
The Lord Mayor and aldermen petition the Privy Council to close the theatres in London. According to the petition, one of the many reasons to close the theatres is because they 'maintain idleness in such person as have no vocation, and draw apprentices and other servants from their ordinary works.'
1597
Gabriel Cawood is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected in 1599.
1598
Ralph Newbery is elected Master of Stationers' Company.
1599
The Globe Theatre is opened on Bankside.
1603
Isaac Binge is elected Master of Stationers' Company.
1603
The Stationers' Company forms the English Stock, a publishing company with shares held by members of the Company.
1603
The basis of the founding of the English Stock, this grants "to the whole Companie of Stationers for the benefit of the poore of the same that they and none others shall ymprint the Bookes of private prayers, prymers, psalters, and psalms in English or Latin, & Almanrackers and Prognosticacons within this Realme".
1603
James I becomes King on 29 July.
1603
James VI, King of Scots, accedes to the English throne as James I and so unites the two crowns.
1604
Thomas Man is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected to the same position in 1610, 1614 and 1616.
1605
Robert Barker is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected the following year.
1605
The Gunpowder Plot is discovered and stopped on 5 November when Guy Fawkes is found hiding under the Houses of Parliament with 36 barrels of gunpowder.
1606
The Company buys Abergavenny House for £3,500 and moves out of Peter's College to this new site.
1607
John Norton is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected in 1611 and 1612.
1607
Two Stock-keepers are added to the ranks of the Master and Wardens to reflect those holding Assistant's shares, as well as two members reflecting the opinions of those with Livery shares.
1608
Two Stock-keepers representing those with Yeomanry shares are also allowed to join the Company's committee.
1608
It is decided that an elected Stock-keeper cannot be an Under Warden without relinquishing his Stock-keeper position to someone else.
1609
Thomas Dawson is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected in 1615.
1610
An agreement is signed by the Company with Sir Thomas Bodley to deposit a copy of every new book in the University Library, situated in Oxford.
1611
Upon the death of George Bishop and per request of his will, Stationers' Company acquires Newton Farm at Milbournstroke in Shropshire.
1611
Plumbers' Company is incorporated under a Royal Charter.
1612
Order by the Assistants of the Company that a bookbinder may take on a second apprentice if he reports when his current one has served for four years.
1613
Bonham Norton is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected in 1626 and 1629.
1613
The Hope Theatre finishes construction and opens in Southwark.
1613
During a performance of Shakespeare's Henry VIIIon the 29 June, the Globe burns down. Sir Henry Wotton says that the fire 'ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very grounds.'
1613
Thomas Mountfort is appointed Clerk to Stationers' Company.
1614
A year after it burnt down, the Globe Theatre is rebuilt with a tiled, instead of thatched, roof.
1616
The Latin Stock is established, which purchases and distributes books printed abroad.
1617
Simon Waterson is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected in 1621.
1617
Scriveners' Company is incorporated under a Royal Charter.
1617
Expanding on the 1608 resolution, it is decided that neither Warden can also be a Stock-keeper.
1618
William Leake is elected Master of Stationers' Company.
1618
Irish Stock set up, aimed at the Irish market. It most likely lasted around thirty years.
1619
Stationers' Company acquires property in Wood Street for £1,200.
1619
On 9 May 1619 the Stationers' Company make and order limiting the number of presses in the City of London to nineteen.
1619
Richard Field is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected in 1622.
1620
Humphrey Lownes is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected in 1624.
1621
St Paul's Cathedral undergoes restoration. King James I supports restoration work on the cathedral, which takes place over 40 years, often hindered by the Civil War and damage by Parliamentarian forces.
1623
George Swinhowe is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected in 1625 and 1630.
1623
A Privy Council decree allows the University of Cambridge printers to print certain books alongside printers in London, up to the capacity of one printer.
1623
Shakespeare's First Folio is first published and is entered into the Stationer's Register, providing the running order in which the plays will appear in the theatre.
1625
Charles I succeeds as King of England, and marries Princess Henriette Maria, a French Roman Catholic.
1626
Charles I is crowned on 27 February.
1627
George Cole is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected in 1628, 1631 and 1632.
1627
The Latin Stock is brought to a close.
1629
King Charles I abolishes Parliament, beginning a period in which he rules without said structure of government, lasting until 1640.
1629
The Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers is founded. This livery company is established after a royal charter by King Charles I.
1629
On April 16 a Privy Council decree is passed which allows the University of Cambridge printers to produce Bibles of a certain size, as well as some versions of the psalms and up to 3000 copies each year of Lily's 'Grammar'.
1630
Henry Walley is appointed Clerk to Stationers' Company.
1631
The English Stock signs an agreement with the University of Cambridge printers. This allowed for the continued printing of certain books at Cambridge but decreed that it was to be governed by the English Stock, with their own paper sent from London, and completed sheets which were not needed for the Cambridge market were to be sent to Stationers' Hall.
1633
Adam Islip is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected the following year.
1633
King Charles I becomes King of Scotland at a coronation at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh.
1635
Felix Kingston is elected Master of Stationers' Company. He is re-elected in 1636.
1637
Edmund Weaver is elected Master of Stationers' Company.
1637
This decree states that nothing could be printed without it being licensed and registered with the Company, which managed the Stationers' Register.
1637
Oxford University devises an arrangement whereby the Company and the King's Printers will pay them £200 per annum and in return they would refrain from printing the Bible and almanacks.
1638
John Harrison is elected Master of Stationer's Company.
1639
John Smethwick is elected Master of Stationers' Company.
1639
Under a new arrangement, the English Stock would pay the University of Cambridge printers £200 a year in order to send their own books to the Cambridge market and prevent those printers from producing their own. Exceptions to this would be books for which the Cambridge printers had written instructions from London, which the Stock would still oversee.
1640
William Aspley and John Smethwick are both elected as Master of Stationers' Company.
1640
Habeas Corpus Act 1640. This act abolishes the Star Chamber, thus ending de facto censorship and leading to an increase in published materials.
1640
King Charles summons what came to be known as the Short Parliament on April 13.
1640
King Charles dissolves parliament on 5 May. This arises after a disagreement with members of Parliament regarding subsidies for a war against Scotland.
1640
King Charles summmons the Long Parliament on 3 November, in order to pass financial bills needed in the aftermath of the Bishops' Wars.