Shakespeare Timeline Overview 1533-1625

So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
Passed over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah, what a life were this! How sweet, how lovely! →

The Shakespeare Timelines, in three parts, span the lives of two English monarchs: Elizabeth I, 1533-1603, and James I, 1566-1625. Their lives encompassed the life of William Shakespeare, 1564-1616, and the publication of the First Folio, 1623.

Shakespeare's writing career, from approximately 1590 to within a couple of years of his death in 1616, was divided between these two monarchs' reigns. These timelines place Shakespeare's works and biography in the context of political, cultural and scientific events that occurred just before, during and immediately after Shakespeare's life.

• Prologue 1533-1564

  From the birth of Elizabeth I to the birth of William Shakespeare

• Elizabethan Years 1564-1603

  From the birth of William Shakespeare to the death of Elizabeth I

• Jacobean Years 1603-1625

  From the succession of James I to the throne of England to his death