1637 in England

Incumbents

• Monarch – Charles I
• Secretary of State – Sir John Coke

  Events

• 18 February – Eighty Years' War: Battle off Lizard Point: off the coast of Cornwall, a Spanish fleet intercepts an Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of 44 vessels escorted by 6 warships, destroying or capturing 20 of them.
• 30 April – King Charles issues a proclamation attempting to stem emigration to the North American colonies.
• 27 June – English merchants led by captain John Weddell establish the first trading settlement at Canton.
• 30 June – William Prynne is branded as a seditious libeller, and sentenced to pillorying and mutilation.
• 13 October – First-rate ship of the line is launched at Woolwich Dockyard at a cost of £65,586, adorned from stern to bow with gilded carvings.
• Member of Parliament John Hampden continues to refuse to pay ship money although a 7-5 majority verdict among a group of judges supports its legality.

  Births

• March – Anne Hyde, first wife of King James II
• 17 March – Princess Anne
• 27 August – Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore, Governor of Maryland
• 6 December – Edmund Andros, colonial administrator

  Deaths

• 6 August – Ben Jonson, writer
• 8 September – Robert Fludd, mystic
• 4 December – Nicholas Ferrar, trader