1450

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political events

Agnès Sorel rejoins Charles VII at the manor of Mesnil, country villa of the abbots of Jumièges, is delivered of a daughter February 9, but suffers an attack of dysentery and dies that night at age 40 (the infant also dies). She is mourned as much by Queen Marie, who will henceforth live apart from Charles, as by the king himself.

France's Louis the dauphin, now 27, is married March 9 to Charlotte, 12-year-old daughter of the duke of Savoy. His father has not given his blessing to the marriage and is furious.

Charles VII's troops halt the English advance on Cherbourg, crushing the enemy at Formigny April 15, as factional quarrels begin to tear England apart (see 1449). The English lose 3,200 of their 4,000-man force, which includes 1,500 archers, in the battle 10 miles west of Bayeux in Normandy. Having now become the most powerful ruler in Christendom, Charles is seduced by Antoinette de Maignelais, a cousin of the late Agnès Sorel. He marries her off to André de Villequier, comte de Sauveur, a complaisant courtier with whom he caroused in his youth, and remains with his new mistress through October and November, giving her the château d'Issoudon, which he previously gave to Agnès Sorel, plus the château La Guerche in Touraine. The victory at Formigny completes France's reconquest of Normandy.

Francesco Sforza overthrows Milan's 3-year-old Ambrosian Republic in a February coup and makes a triumphal entry as duke March 25. His wife, Bianca Maria (née Visconti), now 26, helps him consolidate several territories into a powerful new duchy that controls the north of Italy. She has defended Cremona against the Venetians and led a naval attack against them. The Sforzas and their son Galeazzo Maria will make the Milanese court a rival to that of Florence's Medicis by attracting scholars and Greek exiles (see 1424; 1476).

England's Henry VI banishes William de la Pole, 1st duke of Suffolk, following the murder January 9 of former parliamentary treasurer Adam Molyneux by sailors at Portsmouth. Suffolk is widely resented for banishing Richard of York to Ireland and is accused of selling Anjou and Maine to France. Intercepted off Dover as he sails for France May 1, he is beheaded May 2 at age 53; other royal advisers are murdered.

Cade's rebellion demands English governmental reforms and restoration of power to Richard Plantagenet, 38, 3rd duke of York, who returns from Ireland and forces his way into the Council. Kentish rebel John (Jack) Cade rallies 30,000 small Kentish and Sussex landowners in May to protest oppressive taxation and corruption in the court of Henry VI, issuing a formal Complaint of the Poor Commons of Kent. Reviving the rebellious spirit of 1381, they defeat Henry's forces June 18 at Sevenoaks, enter London July 3, force the lord mayor and judges to pass a death sentence on Kent's sheriff and tax collector William Crowmer and on the hated Lord Saye-and-Sele, whose head is cut off in Cheapside and paraded through the streets on a pole. Cade tries to stop the killing, but the rebels grow violent, exact forced contributions to their cause, are denied readmission to the city, repulsed at London Bridge, and dispersed June 6 after the 70-year-old lord chancellor, Cardinal Kempe, promises pardons. Official sources claim that Cade is an Irishman who murdered a Sussex woman last year, fled abroad, and returned to work under the name John Aylmer; he learns at Rochester June 9 that the government has offered 1,000 marks for his capture dead or alive, he leaves 2 days later in disguise, but the sheriff of Sussex hunts him down and kills him July 12 at Heathfield. His body is taken to Southwark, quartered, and put on display around the country (see Wars of the Roses, 1455).

A 14-year civil war ends in the Swiss confederacy which has been strengthened by the conflict.

Korea's Yi dynasty king Sejong dies at age 53 (approximate) after a 31-year reign in which his country has achieved new heights of culture.

commerce

England's nobility encloses more lands to raise sheep at the expense of the peasantry (see 1351). The landowning class is enriched by the rapidly developing wool trade and by the continuing war with France (see More, 1515).

religion

Pope Nicholas V authorizes the Portuguese to "attack, subject, and reduce to perpetual slavery the Saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ southward from Cape Bajador and Non, including all the coast of Guinea" (see 1433; 1434; 1460).

education

Glasgow University is founded by Bishop Turnbull under a bull issued by Pope Nicholas V in response to a petition from Scotland's James II. Land in High Street granted by Lord Hamilton in 1460 will provide a site for the institution, which will move to the west end of the city between 1870 and 1871 and survive as Scotland's second-oldest institution of higher learning.

art

Painting: The Flood and The Drunkenness of Noah by Paolo Uccello.

architecture, real estate

Leon Battista Alberti redesigns the exterior of Rimini's Church of San Francesco.

The Porta Giova of Milan's Sforesco Castle is designed by Florentine architect Filarete (Antonio di Pietro Averlino), 50.

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