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The Danish-Norwegian king Frederik II dies at Antvorskov April 4 at age 53 after a 29-year reign. The beloved Frederik is succeeded by his 10-year-old son, who will reign until 1648 as Kristian IV.
Henri I de Lorraine, 3rd duc de Guise, enters Paris and is acclaimed king of France to the delight of the Holy League and Spain's Felipe II. Henri I de Bourbon, 2nd Prince de Condé, has died at Saint-Jean-d'Angély March 5 at age 35 from wounds sustained in October at the Battle of Coutras. A popular insurrection May 12 (the Day of the Barricades) forces Henri III to take refuge at Blois; receiving no support from the Estates-General against the Catholic League, he has the duc de Guise murdered at Blois December 23 at age 37 and Guise's brother Louis the cardinal murdered December 24 (see 1589).
An "invincible" Spanish Armada of 132 vessels sails against England under the command of Spain's "admiral of the ocean," the untrained nobleman Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, 37, 7th duque de Medina-Sidonia. Alvaro de Bazán, marqués de Santa Cruz, has died at Lisbon February 9 at age 61; it was he who urged the invasion in a letter written August 9, 1583, and his loss has left Felipe II without a competent naval commander. His largest ship is a 1,300-ton vessel but more than 30 are below 100 tons. The Royal Navy is commanded by Lord High Admiral Charles Howard, 52, Baron Howard of Effingham, whose brother-in-law Sir Edward Stafford is English ambassador to France. Short of funds, Stafford has offered his Spanish counterpart at Paris information about Queen Elizabeth's plans and sent back information to the effect, first, that the Armada has been disbanded and, later, that it is headed for Algiers. Lord Howard has only 34 ships, of which the largest is the 1,000-ton Triumph, but his 800-ton flagship Ark Royal enjoys the support of 163 armed merchant vessels, including the Edward Bonaventure, commanded by Hampshire-born captain James Lancaster, 34, and he has the help of Sir Francis Drake, Sir John Hawkins, and Sir Martin Frobisher, who are superior seamen. The two fleets engage forces July 31. However, a great storm blows up in the following week, and the elements help the English defeat the Armada by August 8, with the Royal Navy losing not a single vessel and scoring a victory that opens the world to English trade and colonization.
Queen Elizabeth travels by river August 8 to Tilbury, spends the night at Edward Ritche's house, Saffron Garden, and reviews her troops the next morning. Wearing a silver breastplate over her white velvet dress, she mounts a horse and addresses the men: "My loving people, we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved my self, that under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of all my subjects, and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all, to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor, and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of King of England, too."
Elizabeth appoints Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, lieutenant general of the army mustered at Tilbury, but he dies suddenly at his home in Cornbury, Oxfordshire, September 4 at age 56.
English merchants found the Guinea Company to traffic in slaves from Africa's Guinea coast.
A Briefe & True Report of the New Found Land in Virginia by English mathematician Thomas Harriot, 28, is based on a visit to Sir Walter Raleigh's Roanoke colony (see 1587; 1591).
Venice's library is completed on the Piazza San Marco after more than a century of construction following a plan by the late Jacopo Sansovino.
Philosopher Bernardino Telesio dies at his native Cosenza in October at age 79.
Painting: Madonna Nursing Her Child by Sofonisba Anguissola. Paolo Veronese dies at Venice April 19 at age 59; Alonso Sánchez Coello at Madrid August 8 at age 56.
Theater: Endimion; The Man in the Moon by John Lyly 2/2 at Greenwich with the Children of St. Paul; The Tragedy of Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe at London with the Admiral's Men (see Fiction, 1587). "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,/ And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" (XVIII, i, 99).
Lamentations by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina is published at Rome. Now 62, Palestrina complains in his introduction to Pope Sixtus V that he has been compelled by poverty to publish the book of sacred music in small format and omit many pieces. In truth, the composer lost two of his three sons, two brothers, and, finally, his wife in epidemics that swept Rome between 1572 and 1580, and after his wife died in the latter year he married a rich widow and has enjoyed considerable success operating the fur business that she inherited from her husband.
Potatoes reach Western Ireland by some accounts from the wreckage of ships in the Spanish Armada that wash up on Irish shores. The tubers are found to thrive in poor soils that will not support grain crops and can be planted and harvested with little equipment—even, if need be, with one's bare hands.
Potatoes are introduced into the Lowlands by Carolus Clusius (Charles de Lecluse), now 62, who may have received the tubers from English herbalist John Gerard (see environment [tulips], 1573). Once they are accepted, potatoes will take the place of asphodel, whose bulbs have been eaten since the days of ancient Greece (see 1597; 1601).
Virginia fields planted Indian fashion with corn, beans, squash, melons, and sunflowers yield "at the least two hundred London bushelles" per acre, whereas in England "fourtie bushelles of wheat [per acre] . . . is thought to be much," writes Thomas Hariot.
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