1568
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Contents: political eventsexploration, colonization religion literature art everyday life agriculture |
Huguenots under the command of Louis I de Bourbon, 1st Prince de Condé, lay siege to Chartres in February with help from his German mercenaries (see 1567), but Louis I shrugs off advice from Admiral de Coligny and signs the Peace of Longjumeau with Catherine de' Medici March 23, ending a second French religious war. Nonetheless, hostilities resume in August (see 1569).
Mary, Queen of Scots, escapes from captivity in May after charming her jailer but is defeated at Langside May 13 and placed in confinement after fleeing to England (see 1567). Queen Elizabeth convenes a board of inquiry at York October 4, and Mary is defended by the Roman Catholic bishop John Leslie, who next year will be named Mary's accredited representative at Elizabeth's court.
Leaders of the Flemish opposition to the Spanish Inquisition are beheaded as traitors at Brussels June 5, and the action precipitates a revolt of the Lowlands that will continue for 80 years. The comte d'Egmont, the comte d'Horn, and 18 others are executed, and there is a general confiscation of the estates of those who have failed to appear before the Council of Blood, including Willem of Orange, who has left Holland along with thousands of other Netherlanders. The Battle of Jemmingen July 21 gives Fernando, duque de Alva, a crushing victory over Louis of Nassau, whose 15,000-man rebel army suffers 7,000 killed and wounded (the 15,000-man Spanish army loses only 100 killed and wounded) but destroys the rebellion, which will not be revived for several years (see 1572).
The last grand master of the Teutonic Knights and first duke of Prussia Albrecht von Brandenburg dies at Tapiau in East Prussia March 20 at age 77, having founded an hereditary Hohenzollern dukedom in place of the government that controlled the region for centuries; the autocratic and militaristic tradition of the order will continue to dominate Prussian rule.
Sweden's Erik XIV raids the Danish province of Scania together with his brothers Johan and Carl, entering the counties of Lister, Villand, and Eastern Goeinge, plundering the countryside, putting villages to the torch, and murdering the inhabitants (see 1566). Erik has reigned since 1560 but has grown increasingly mad and is deposed September 30, succeeded by his elder brother, now 31, who will reign until 1592 as Jan III (see 1569).
The Spanish queen Isabel de Valois has a miscarriage and dies at Madrid October 3 at age 23, leaving the Hapsburg dynasty without a male heir.
Burma's king Braginoco (Bayinnaung) invades Siam again to suppress a rebellion (see 1564), but the Siamese put up a fierce resistance (see 1569).
Sir John Hawkins departs from Veracruz in October after a third slaving expedition and is ambushed by the Spanish in West Indian waters. He loses two of his five ships and the incident precipitates an undeclared state of war (see 1567; 1588).
Portuguese forces in the western Pacific try to take the Philippines from her Spanish colonial rulers, but the viceroy Miguel López de Legazpi repels their attack and will do so again in 1570 (see 1565). Legazpi's chaplain and former navigator, the monk Andrés de Urdaneta, dies at Mexico City June 3 at age 69, having established a medieval-style Church dominance that will make bishops the islands' largest landowners with powers rivaling those of the lay authorities (see Manila, 1571).
Japan's Azuchi-Momoyama period of unification begins following the seizure of Kyoto by the Taira clan general Nobunaga Oda, now 34, who helps Yoshiaki Ashikaga, 30, depose his cousin, the shōgun Yoshihide Ashikaga, and begins subjugating feudal lords (daimyo), humbling Buddhist priests, destroying the political power of Buddhism, and establishing order in many provinces (see 1570).
The walled city of Udaipur becomes the capital of the princely Rajasthan state of Udaipur in northwestern India, founded in the 8th century by Sisodia Rajputs. It replaces Chittaurgarh, which has been sacked; construction will begin in 1570 of a palace for the Maharana Udai Singh.
The Solomon Islands of the southwestern Pacific Ocean are explored by Spanish mariner Alvaro de Mendaña de Neira, 27, who discovered the islands last year and will find the Marquesas just before he dies in 1595. False rumors that Mendaña found gold in the islands and that they were the source of the gold used by King Solomon for his temple at Jerusalem will lead to the name Islas de Solomón. Settled since at least 2000 B.C., the double chain of volcanic Melanesian islands and coral atolls occupy a land area that total 10,954 square miles with mountains that rise as high as 8,028 feet.
English explorer David Ingram travels from the Gulf of Mexico north to Canada and finds "vines which beare grapes as big as a mans thumbs."
Transylvania's Unitarian king Jan Sigismund grants religious freedom to Roman Catholics, Lutherans, the Reformed Church, and people who will soon be called Unitarians (see 1571).
Mennonites fleeing Spanish persecution in the Lowlands move east. The pacifist Protestant sect will settle in the German states, Switzerland, and eastern Russia (see 1523; 1536; Catherine, 1783).
Moriscos in Granada rebel against the restrictions placed upon them 2 years ago by Felipe II.
Nonfiction: Abridgement of the Chronicles of England by English printer Richard Grafton includes the first record of the mnemonic rhyme "Thirty days hath September,/ April, June and November;/ All the rest have thirty-one,/ Excepting February alone,/ And that has twenty-eight days clear/ And twenty-nine in each leap year."
Humanist Roger Ascham dies at London December 10 at age 53, having tutored Princess Elizabeth in Greek and Latin, served as Latin secretary to the late Edward VI, helped Queen Elizabeth with her Greek, and composed her official letters to foreign heads of state.
Painting: Imperial Art Dealer Jacopo della Strada by Titian; The Peasant Dance, The Peasant and the Bird-Nester, The Cripples, Landscape with the Magpie in the Gallows, The Misanthrope, and The Parable of the Blood by Pieter Brueghel.
Paris gets its first public pay toilet (sanisette), a primitive facility that will have more modern counterparts in centuries to come (see 1843).
English farmers grow spinach for the first time and it gains quick popularity because it appears in early spring when vegetables are scarce and Lenten dietary restrictions discourage consumption of other foods. Cookbooks will advise rich families to keep silver saucepans for preparing spinach.
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