1562
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Irish chieftain Shane O'Neill, now 31, arrives at London January 4 with the earls of Ormonde and of Kildare (see 1561). They meet with Elizabeth, who fears that O'Neill is becoming a tool of Spanish intriguers (see 1560). She permits him to return to Ireland and recognizes him as "the O'Neill," captain of Tyrone. His kinsman Turlough O'Neill tries to supplant him in his absence, but Shane reasserts his authority upon his return in May and resumes fighting with other chieftains, notably the MacDonnells, whom he routs along with the loyal O'Donnells in the northwest as he endeavors to obtain support from Scotland and France (see 1569; O'Donnell, 1564).
A massacre of Huguenots at Vassy March 1 begins a series of French civil wars. François de Lorraine, duc de Guise, has ordered the massacre in violation of last year's Edict d'Orléans, and the Huguenots retaliate by murdering priests and raping nuns. Led by Louis I de Bourbon, 1st Prince de Condé, they come largely from the nobility and the new capitalist-artisan class, with some peasant support in the southwest, while Paris and the northeast remain Catholic. The Huguenots hold Lyons and Rouen, having been driven out elsewhere with much bloodshed; both sides seek to control the government in the absence of a strong crown. A treaty signed at Hampton Court September 20 pledges Elizabeth of England to support the Huguenot leader Louis de Bourbon against the Catholics. England is to occupy Le Havre pending restoration of Calais to English control. Condé occupies Orléans and marches on Paris but meets with defeat at Dreux December 19 and is captured by François de Guise, with whom he was formally reconciled in August of last year (see Peace of Amboise, 1563).
The Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I agrees after decades of hostilities to pay tribute to the Ottoman sultan for Austria's share of Hungary (see 1541).
English navigator John Hawkins, 30, hijacks a Portuguese ship carrying African slaves to Brazil, trades 300 slaves at Hispaniola for ginger, pearls, and sugar, and makes a huge profit. His enterprise marks the beginning of English participation in the slave trade (see 1563).
A French expedition of three ships under the command of Jean Ribaut, 42, lands near the mouth of the St. John's River May 1 with about 150 colonists to establish a Huguenot colony (see 1559; 1561). Ribaut leaves 30 men at Charlesfort, which he names in honor of France's 13-year-old Charles IX, and returns to France July 20, but the men are without means of support and soon set out in small boats that they have built. An English vessel picks them up half dead (see Ribaut, 1565).
Parliament acts to aid the employment of England's poor as it did in 1551, but at the same time it raises the price level at which wheat, barley, and malt may be exported, thus making food and drink more costly at home and enriching the landed gentry at the expense of the lower classes.
Spanish nun Teresa of Avila, 47, founds a convent at Avila for Discalced Carmelites, which will be followed by many such convents in which practicality will be combined with the most sublime spirituality.
Painting: Europa and the Bull by Titian; Marriage at Cana by Paolo Veronese; Dulle Griet, The Suicide of Saul, The Monkeys, The Fall of the Rebel Angels, and The Triumph of Death by Pieter Brueghel.
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