Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619), Miniature painter. Artist associated with 34 portraits.
This miniature was probably painted around 1611, a momentous year for Carr in which he was created Viscount Rochester, installed as a Knight of the Garter and made keeper of Westminster Palace. He is shown in flamboyant costume with the blue ribbon of the Garter badge around his neck. The miniature is executed in watercolour on vellum which has been stuck to a playing card from the suit of diamonds.
Archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Bancroft, dies and is succeeded by George Abbot. Abbot's attempts to unite the churches of Scotland and England in 1608, found favour with the king, probably assisting in his preferment to the archbishopric.
Cartographer John Speed publishes the first comprehensive atlas of Great Britain.
Under the patronage of James I, the King James Bible is published, the most famous English translation of the scriptures.
Playwright Benjamin Jonson, with designs by Inigo Jones, stages his court masque, Oberon, at Whitehall Palace.
The betrothal of the ten year old French king, Louis XIII, to the daughter of Philip III of Spain, the equally young Infanta, Anne, is agreed in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, cementing a political alliance between their two respective countries, whilst raising Protestant fears in England.