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The Conspiracy of Amboise tries to overthrow France's Catholic House of Guise (see 1559). Louis de Bourbon, 1st Prince de Condé has organized the Huguenot rebellion, but the queen mother Catherine de' Medici declares herself regent and helps thwart the Huguenots. Some 1,200 are hanged at Amboise in March. Condé flees the court and presents himself in October to François II at Orléans, where he is arrested and sentenced to death November 26. François II dies at Orléans December 5 at age 16. His 10-year-old brother assumes the throne and will reign until 1574 as Charles IX with his mother, Catherine de' Medici, ruling the realm. She needs Condé as a counterbalance to the Guise family and remits his death sentence (see 1562).
French troops in Scotland try to assert the claims of France's queen Mary Stuart, now 17, against Elizabeth of England, whom Roman Catholics consider illegitimate (see 1559). English troops besiege the French at Leith. Mary's mother, Marie of Lorraine, dies in June. Elizabeth's secretary William Cecil overcomes her reluctance and persuades her to intervene in Scotland; and the Treaty of Edinburgh July 6 brings a temporary end to French interference in that country (but see 1561).
England's Elizabeth appoints Thomas Radcliffe, 3rd earl of Sussex, her lord lieutenant of Ireland with instructions to establish settlements at Offaly and Leix in the province of Leinster (see 1556). Sussex, 35, will remain in the post until 1566, exercising English authority for the first time in any meaningful way beyond the Pale (parts of what later will be the counties of Dublin, Louth, Meath, and Kildare) (see O'Neill's rebellion, 1562).
Sweden's Gustav I Eriksson abdicates June 25 at age 64 after a 37-year reign that has made the country independent. His 27-year-old son has been writing love letters of marriage proposals for 2 years to Elizabeth of England; he will reign until 1568 as Erik XIV as the House of Vasa continues its suzerainty.
Former Genoese statesman and admiral Andrea Doria dies at Genoa November 25 just 5 days short of his 94th birthday.
The Auracanian Federation destroys Spanish settlements in the interior of Chile.
Antwerp reaches the height of its prosperity. The city has a thousand foreign merchants in residence with as many as 500 ships entering its harbor each day from Danish, English, Hanse, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish ports.
Augsburg merchant Anton Fugger dies after 20 years of declining health and fortunes (see 1547). An inventory of his wealth shows assets of 5.6 million guilders and liabilities of 5.4 million (2.9 million in Spain alone), but Fugger has protected part of the family fortune by purchasing landed estates that include the Babenhausen. His nephew Hans Jakob has been in partnership with him since 1543 and declares personal bankruptcy, but he will eventually become chancellor of Bavaria while Anton's eldest son Markus II will carry on the remains of the business with considerable success.
A smallpox epidemic decimates Portugal's Brazilian colony and increases the need for African slaves to cut sugar cane.
The Geneva Bible published by followers of John Calvin is the first Bible to have both chapter and verse numbers. The same numerical divisions will be used for more than 400 years.
The Blot on the Spanish Nobility (Tizón de la nobeleza de España) by Cardinal Mendoza, archbishop of Burgos, claims that virtually the entire aristocracy, including, by implication, the royal family, has Jewish or Moorish blood. Mendoza's purpose is to ridicule the Inquisition, whose agents have been campaigning to prevent anyone with Jewish blood from securing a position of authority.
Poet Joachim du Bellay dies at Paris January 1 at age 37 (approximate); botanist-poet Petrus Lotichius Secundus dies at Heidelberg October 22 at age 31.
Painting: Children's Games by Pieter Brueghel; Portrait of Don Carlos by Sofonisba Anguissola, who gives painting lessons to the new Spanish queen, Isabel de Valois, upon her recovery from an attack of smallpox.
Tobacco grows in Spain and Portugal, where it is cultivated as an ornamental plant and for its alleged medicinal properties (see 1531; Nicot, 1561).
The Villa Foscari (Villa Malcontenta) is completed by Andrea Palladio overlooking the Brenta at Vicenza.
Moscow's Pokrovsky Cathedral (later called the Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed, or Svyatooy Vasily Blazhenny) is completed after 27 years of construction. Ivan IV has ordered construction of the church as a votive offering for his military victories over the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan, and it is dedicated to the protection and intercession of the Virgin. Its design will be credited variously to one or two Russian architects and to an Italian architect who (legend will have it) has been blinded to prevent him from creating its equal.
The Château de Chenonceaux passes into the hands of France's queen mother Catherine de' Medici, who ousts her late husband's mistress (giving her the Château de Chaumont in exchange) and engages the architect Philibert Delorem, 35, to design a two-story gallery on the bridge erected by Diane de Poitiers (see 1547).
Venice gets its first coffee house (see 1475; Mecca, 1511). The city is a major sugar-refining center, using raw sugar imported through Lisbon, but Europe's chief sugar refiner is Antwerp, which also gets its raw materials from Lisbon but refines as much sugar in a fortnight as Venice does in a year (see coffee, 1582).
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