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Polish war hero Jan Tarnowski dies at Tarnów May 16 at age 72 after an outstanding career in which he has led a Portuguese army against the Moors, led Polish forces against the Teutonic Knights, halted Tatar raids into Poland, defeated a Moldavian army, directed a campaign against Muscovy, and encouraged settlement in southeastern Poland.
Irish chieftain Shane O'Neill captures his rival Calvagh O'Donnell and imprisons him in a monastery at Kildonnell, taking O'Donnell's wife, Catherine (née MacLean) as his mistress (see 1557). Previously the wife of the earl of Argyll, Catherine will be savagely abused but will nevertheless bear several of O'Neill's children (see 1562).
Mary, Queen of Scots, returns from France August 19, landing at Leith because England has refused her passage (see 1559). Escorted by a party that includes the courtier Pierre de Bocosel de Chastelard, 21 (who has developed a passion for her), the 18-year-old queen becomes embroiled in argument with Calvinist John Knox, who last year drew up a Confession of Faith denying papal authority in Scotland (see 1558; Chastelard, 1563).
Spain withdraws troops from the Netherlands, partly because she is preoccupied with resisting Ottoman power in the Mediterranean (but see 1568).
Spain abandons her 2-year-old American colony at Fort Royal Sound because it is too isolated. Spain remains Europe's leading power and holds dominion over much of the world.
Anthony Jenkinson of England's Muscovy Company reaches Isfahan through Russia and opens trade with Persia (see 1555). Anglo-Persian trade will continue until 1581.
Merchant prince Bartholomeus Welser dies at Amburg near Turkheim, in Swabia, at age 73 (approximate), having monopolized trade with Venezuela but lost his family's holdings there to the Spanish Crown 5 years ago.
England reforms her coinage at the persuasion of Queen Elizabeth's secretary William Cecil, who is given the lucrative mastership of the Court of Wards (see inflation, 1559). Financial agent Thomas Gresham has advised the queen to recoin the currency, which was debased with inferior metal by her late father. A 42-year-old government agent in the Lowlands who has engaged in espionage, smuggled war materials and bullion, and negotiated with England's foreign creditors, Gresham will note that when two coins are equal in debt-paying power but unequal in intrinsic value, the less valuable coin will have a tendency to remain in circulation while the more valuable one is hoarded ("bad money drives out good"), and it will be called Gresham's Law even though the principle was expounded in the late 14th century by the French philosopher Nicole Oresme and in 1525 by the late Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.
The English make no effort to break Portugal's monopoly in the spice trade, finding it easier and more profitable to seize Portuguese carracks than to bargain with the Moluccan natives for spices.
The Anabaptist priest Menno Simons dies outside Lübeck January 31 at age 64, having established a printing press to circulate Anabaptist literature. His followers will be called Mennonites.
The Edict d'Orléans suspends persecution of France's Huguenots (but see politics, 1562).
England receives her first Flemish Calvinist refugees.
The Order of the Teutonic Knights in the Baltic states is secularized.
Franciscan priest Diego de Landa, 37, wins appointment as bishop of Yucatán, having made efforts as a missionary to help natives of the area and protect them as much as possible from the Spanish authorities. Remnants of the Maya tribes that flourished in the region before 1519, they have been decimated by disease and starvation (see 900); Landa makes considerable progress in deciphering hieroglyphs that the Maya themselves can no longer read, but when evidence turns up of human sacrifices in caves containing sacred statues he orders all Mayan idols destroyed along with Mayan books, icons, and hieroglyphs (see Nonfiction, 1566).
Painting: Portrait of Queen Isabel de Valois and Self-Portrait by Sofonisba Anguissola.
Sculpture: A monument to the doge Francesco Venier for Venice's Church of San Salvatore by Jacopo Sansovino.
Theater: Gorboduc, or Ferrex and Porrex by English playwrights Thomas Norton, 29, and Thomas Sackville, 25, 1st earl of Dorset and grandmaster of England's Freemasons. The earliest known English tragedy, it marks the first use of blank verse in English drama (all action occurs offstage).
The French ambassador to Lisbon Jean Nicot, 31, sends seeds and powdered leaves of the tobacco plant home to the queen mother Catherine de' Medici (see 1560) (French physicians consider tobacco a panacea for many ills). The botanical name for tobacco, Nicotiana rustica, will be derived from Nicot's name, as will the word nicotine, but the seeds and leaves that he sends are from an inferior rusticum variety grown in Florida whereas Brazilian tobacco snuff (rapé) will be the basis of most French snuff (see Hawkins, 1565; Thevet, 1567; Vauquelin, 1810).
Venice's Ca' Corner della Ca' Grande is completed to designs by Jacopo Sansovino, now 75, who has built the imposing palazzo on the Grand Canal for Jacopo Cornaro, a nephew of the queen of Corsica.
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