1544
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Contents: political eventshuman rights, social justice literature art food availability |
Parliament recognizes two daughters of Henry VIII as heirs to the English throne in the event that Henry's only son, Edward, should die without issue. Mary is Henry's daughter by Catherine of Aragon; Elizabeth his daughter by Anne Boleyn.
An English army under Edward Seymour, 38, earl of Hertford, invades Scotland in May and sacks Edinburgh, but the Scots refuse to surrender.
English troops on the Continent join with those of Charles V to threaten Paris. The Battle of Ceresole south of Turin April 14 has brought victory to a French army over the imperial forces of Charles V, but the English take Boulogne September 14.
The Treaty of Crespy-en-Valois September 18 ends a 2-year war in the Netherlands between Charles V and François I, restoring unity in Europe. France loses Artois and Flanders and abandons her claims to Naples. Piedmont and Savoy are restored to their legitimate ruler. Charles renounces his claim to Burgundy, and Milan continues in the possession of Charles as Holy Roman Emperor.
The Diet of Speyer resolves a brief war between Denmark and the emperor Charles V, who has wanted to place his daughters on the Scandinavian thrones. His chancellor Johan Friis has persuaded Denmark's Kristian III to declare war on the emperor, and the settlement at Speyer favors Danish interests. Overcoming opposition from the Holstein nobility, Friis divides Schleswig and Holstein among the king and his younger brothers.
Korea's Chungjong dies after a 37-year reign in which the country's great families have defeated Confucian scholars charged by the king with curbing the families' power.
Madrid sends Antonio de Mendoza to Peru as the first Spanish viceroy; he is unable (and unwilling) to enforce the New Laws for the Indies promulgated 2 years ago but does try to ease the condition of the Native Americans by limiting the hours that they may work in the mines, ordering that freed Indians be paid for their labor, protecting their lands from appropriation, and hearing their petitions (see Las Casas, 1545).
Poet Clément Marot dies at Turin in September at age 48; he has taken refuge at the city from French persecution of Lutherans.
Painting: Portrait of an Old Man by Lorenzo Lotto.
Sculpture: Nymph of Fontainebleau by Florentine sculptor-goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini, now 43.
An epidemic of caracha kills an estimated two-thirds of the Peruvian llama flock. Under Inca rule, animals infected with the disease were slaughtered by state shepherds (there was a shepherd for every 500 llamas) and buried in out-of-the-way places, but this has not been done under the Spaniards. Meat and fish are generally eaten raw or dried, along with toasted maize; the poor eat mostly roots and greens, depending on where they live.
Northern Europe suffers a honey shortage as a result of the breakup of monasteries by the Reformation (see England, 1536). The decline in honeybee colonies creates a growing need for cheap sugar, but sugar will remain a luxury for more than a century.
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