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The Irish lord deputy Garret Fitzgerald, 9th earl of Kildare (Young Gerald), is summoned to London in February on charges of disloyalty to Henry VIII. James, 10th earl of Desmond, has intrigued with the emperor Charles V, and Henry fears that Kildare will be unable to keep his country neutral. False rumors that Kildare has been executed reach his London-born son Thomas, 20, who seizes Dublin, renounces his allegiance to the king, and with some confederates murders Archbishop John Alen (see 1535).
Swedish forces under the command of Gustav Eriksson Vasa invade Denmark to support a revolt by Danish noblemen loyal to the deposed king Kristian II (see 1524). Count Kristoffer of Oldenburg leads the Danish troops in what will be remembered as the "Clashes of the Counts" (see 1535).
Ulrich, duke of Württemberg, regains his duchy from Ferdinand of Hapsburg, who is preoccupied with war against the Ottoman Turks and agrees to Ulrich's restoration in the Treaty of Kaaden on condition that Württemberg be an Austrian fiefdom (see 1519). Now 46, Ulrich has served under France's François I and enriched himself as a brigand since his expulsion in 1519 (see 1547)
Mary de Lorraine, 19, daughter of Claude de Lorraine, 1st duc de Guise, marries Louis d'Orleans, duc de Longueville, who will soon die (see 1538).
Ferrara's Alfonso I d'Este dies after a 29-year reign in which he has battled the two Medici popes, Julius II and Leo X. He is succeeded by his eldest legitimate son (he has sired some illegitimate ones by his mistress Laura Eustochia Dianti, whose descendants will rule as dukes of Modena and Reggio), and the new signore will reign until 1572 as Ippolito, erecting a magnificent villa at Tivoli.
Ottoman forces invade Mesopotamia under the command of Suleiman I and his grand vizier Ibrahim, take Tabriz from the Persians July 13, and take Baghdad November 18 from the Safavid governor Muhammad Sultan Khan. Baghdad will remain part of the Ottoman Empire until 1623 (and the Turks will recover it in 1638). Shah Tahmasp, now 20, has his regent executed and assumes personal power (but see 1538).
Tunis falls to Turkish forces led by the Ottoman admiral Barbarossa (Khair ad-Din) (see 1533; 1535).
Spain's Carlos I (the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) sends Diego de Almagro to help in the conquest of territory to the south of Peru that will be called Chile (see 1538).
The Inca city of Quito falls December 6 to Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Benalcázar (or Moyano, or Belalcázar), 39 (see 1533). He arrived in the New World 15 years ago, served under the late Pedros Arias Dávila, conquered what later will be Nicaragua, joined Francisco Pizarro's expedition to Peru, and has defeated the Inca chief Rumiñahui.
Santiago de la Vega (Spanish Town) is founded on the West Indian island of Jamaica.
French seaman Jacques Cartier, 43, sets out for the New World from Saint-Malo April 20 with two small ships and 61 men on a commission from François I, who seeks a route to the spice islands that will free France from dependence on Spain and Portugal. Cartier sails into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, explores it as far as Anticosti Island, finds les sauvages growing beans, plants the cross at Gaspé Bay, takes possession of New France (Nouvelle-France) for François I (see 1529), seizes two of the natives, and returns home (see 1535). France's colonies in continental North America will soon grow from the banks of the St. Lawrence to cover Newfoundland and Acadia (Nova Scotia). They will later include much of the Great Lakes region and parts of the country west of the Appalachians, and they will be called New France until 1763.
Francisco Pizarro returns to Spain with the royal share (one-fifth) of the huge ransom paid for the Inca Atahualpa, who was executed last year at Cajamarca (see 1538).
England's Henry VIII begins breaking up the nation's Catholic monasteries, upsetting the nation's land system. A merchant class will arise, and more land will be enclosed. Landlords will prevent peasants from grazing their cows and sheep on common land. The need for rural labor will decline, and the enclosure system will lead to increased poverty and hunger. The breakup of the monasteries will have other effects (see food and drink [honey shortage], 1536; Fiction [Thomas More], 1515).
Botanist-physician Otto Brunfels dies at Bern November 23 at age 46 (approximate).
Ulrich, duke of Württemberg, invites Lutheran clergymen to reform the Church in his duchy, dissolves the monasteries, confiscates ecclesiastical lands, and turns Württemberg's schools and universities over to Protestants.
France's François I initiates a large-scale prosecution of Protestants, forcing many to seek refuge abroad.
Henry VIII establishes the Reformation in England by breaking with the Church of Rome, which has voided the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and excommunicated him. The Act of Supremacy appoints the king and his successors Protector and only Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy of England, but English dogma and liturgy will remain for a time essentially unchanged from Roman Catholic dogma and liturgy (see 1551).
The Society of Jesus (Jesuit order) is founded August 15 in a chapel on Montmartre Hill at Paris by Basque ecclesiastic Ignatius Loyola, now 43, and six associates (see 1521). Its avowed purpose is be an order of apostles who pledge themselves to live lives of poverty and celibacy in imitation of Christ, to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and to be "ready to live in any part of the world where there is hope of God's greater glory and the good of souls," believers and nonbelievers alike (see 1540; 1541).
Pope Clement VII eats poisonous mushrooms and dies at Rome September 25 at age 56 after a weak 11-year reign in which the Protestant Reformation has made great strides. He has evaded Henry VIII's demand for nullification of the 1509 marriage to Catherine of Aragon and refused to sanction Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn, who last year bore Henry's daughter Elizabeth. Pope Clement is succeeded by Alessandro Cardinal Farnese, 66, who assumes the papacy as Paul III (the new pope has fathered four children and will make two of his teen-aged grandsons cardinals).
The Dutch Anabaptist fanatic John of Leyden (Jan Beuckelszoon), 27, establishes a theocratic kingdom of Zion at Münster, saying that the world will soon end but that his followers will be spared (see Müntzer, 1524). The former tailor, merchant, and innkeeper introduces communization of property and polygamy, shocks the Roman Catholic world with his hedonistic orgies, and discredits the Reformation; Catholics charge that the Anabaptists' antinomian anarchism illustrates the evil consequences of Martin Luther's doctrine of justification by faith alone (see 1535).
The Bavarian humanist and historian Aventinus (Johannes Turmair) dies at Regensburg (Ratisbon) January 9 at age 56, having expressed sympathy for reformers without ever accepting Protestantism without reservation. He has become known as the "Bavarian Herodotus."
Fiction: Gargantua by François Rabelais satirizes French theologians, scholasticism, politics, and manners.
Michelangelo moves from Florence to Rome after completing a tomb for the Medici family. Correggio dies at his native Correggio in Emilia March 5 at 45.
Chambord is completed in the Loire Valley for François I. Built over a period of 15 years by a crew of 1,800 men, the great château replaces a 50-room hunting lodge with a fantasy of steeples, turrets, bell towers, and cupolas. It will be enlarged by the king's successors, and it will eventually have 440 rooms, more than 350 chimneys, 75 staircases, and nearly 14,000 acres of gardens and game reserves surrounded by a continuous 20-mile wall.
The Farnese Palace designed by Antonio Sangallo the Younger goes up in Rome for the new pope.
English fish consumption begins to decline as the king's break with Rome relaxes Church rules against eating meat on Fridays and during Lent. Some fast days will continue to be observed, particularly in the Lenten season, but Wednesday will no longer be official fish days and even in Lent it will no longer be mandatory to serve fish. England will enact new fish laws to revive her coastal towns and to encourage the fishing industry from which the Royal Navy draws recruits (see 1554).
The first written description of a tomato appears in an Italian chronicle that calls the cherry-sized yellow fruit pomo d'oro (golden apple) (see 1519; 1596).
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