1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600
Contents: political eventsexploration, colonization commerce transportation literature art theater, film music environment agriculture population |
English authorities arrest the queen's personal physician January 21 on charges that he has intrigued with Spain's Felipe II and accepted 50,000 crowns to perform a service that may entail poisoning Elizabeth. The Portuguese-born Rodrigo Lopez is a Marrano who came to England 35 years ago to escape the Inquisition; he goes on trial at London February 28 and (perhaps to avoid torture) confesses, the court convicts his along with two Portuguese agents, the men are taken from the Tower of London June 7 to Tyburn, and there they are hanged, cut down while still alive, castrated, and their bodies drawn and quartered.
France's Henri IV obtains the surrender of Paris March 22, is crowned at Chartres, and continues his campaign to win over each French province, either by negotiation or by force of arms.
An Irish rebellion begins in Ulster, where exiled Roman Catholics have returned as missionaries after training on the Continent, determined to oust the English queen as the only way to permit survival of Catholicism. Hugh Roe O'Donnell and other chieftains try to drive out English troops and gain a tactical success August 7 in the Battle of the Ford of the Biscuits on the Arney River five miles south of Enniskillen. Some 1,000 infantry rebels under the command of Hugh Maguire and Cormac O'Neill, brother of Hugh, 2nd earl of Tyrone, ambush an English force of 600 infantry and 46 cavalry under the command of Sir Henry Duke and Sir Edward Herbert that is marching to the relief of Enniskillen. The English lose 56 killed, 69 wounded; rebel losses are minimal (see 1595).
Seaman Richard Hawkins sights the Falkland Islands in February, rounds Cape Horn, burns four Spanish ships at the port of Valparaiso, and defeats the six Spanish warships that he encounters off Callao (see 1593). Two more Spanish warships defeat him in a 3-day battle north of Paita in Peru's San Mateo Bay, and he is wounded June 22 and taken prisoner. He will be held at Lima until 1597, sent back to Spain, and held for ransom (the £3,000 pound ransom will not be paid until 1602).
The Mughal emperor Akbar gains control of Baluchistan and Makran, which he annexes.
Navigator-explorer Sir Martin Frobisher sustains a mortal wound while fighting a Spanish force on the west coast of France and dies at Plymouth November 22 at age 59 (approximate); geographer Gerardus Mercator (Gerhard Kremer) dies at Duisburg December 5 at age 82, having suffered strokes in 1590 and again last year.
Lisbon closes her spice market to the English and Dutch, forcing creation of the Dutch East India Company to obtain spices directly from the Orient (see English East India Company, 1600).
"The Seaman's Secret" by navigator John Davis is a treatise on navigation. Davis has invented a "backstaff" that represents a major improvement on the quadrant and astrolabe used by navigators for the past century to determine latitude by observing the altitude of the polestar. Instead of making the user look directly into the sun, Davis's quadrant requires him to have his back to the sun, and it will remain in wide use until the 19th century (see octant, 1731). His discussion of a possible Northwest Passage will appear next year in "The World's Hydrographical Description."
Fiction: The Unfortunate Traveller, or The Life of Jack Wilton by English novelist-playwright Thomas Nashe, 27, who pioneers the adventure novel; Promenade with M. de Montaigne (Le Proumenoir de M. de Montaigne) by French professional writer Marie de Gournay (née le Jars), 28, who has edited the later Essais of the late Michel Eyquem de Montaigne and will publish them next year. He was mayor of Bordeaux when she met him in 1588 and he died in September 1592: "The common man believes that in order to be chaste a woman must not be clever: in truth it is doing chastity too little honor to believe it can be found beautiful only in the blind."
Author William Painter dies at London in February at age 53 (approximate). His son Anthony confessed 3 years ago that his father and he have abused William's position of trust as clerk at the Tower of London and thereby enriched themselves, but the elder Painter has held the position until his death.
Poetry: "The Rape of Lucrece" by William Shakespeare (who has probably used a tale by the late William Painter as a source for some of his details): "Men's faults do seldom to themselves appear"; The Shadow of the Night by English poet George Chapman, 35.
Soldier-poet Alonso de Ercilla y Zuñiga dies at his native Madrid November 29 at age 41, having distinguished himself in battle against Aurucanian tribesmen in Chile and (from 1569 to 1590) written the 39 cantos of the epic poem La Araucana, extolling the bravery of the Aurucanian resistance.
Painting: Cardsharps and The Musical Party by Italian painter Caravaggio (originally Michelangelo Merisi), 21, who travels to Rome, where he will paint from life, rejecting the current taste for the classics. Tintoretto dies at Venice May 31 at 75.
Theater: Mother Bombie by John Lyly: "There is no fool like an old fool"; Dido, Queen of Carthage by the late Christopher Marlowe, whose tragedy has been completed by Thomas Nashe; King John by William Shakespeare: "Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back/ When gold and silver becks me to come on" (III, iii); "Life is as tedious as a twicetold tale/ Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man" (III, iv); "To gild refinèd gold, to paint the lily,/ . . . Is wasteful and ridiculous excess" (IV, ii); Love's Labour's Lost by Shakespeare.
Playwright Thomas Kyd dies at London in December at age 36.
Composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina dies at Rome February 2 at age 68; composer Roland de Lassus (Orlando di Lasso) at Paris June 14 at age 61.
Tulips bloom for the first time in the Lowlands, where they will flourish as nowhere else in the world (see 1573) (they have probably been cultivated for at least 20 years in private gardens at Amsterdam and Antwerp, but 1594 will become the official date). Botanist Carolus Clusius planted the bulbs late last year at Leyden, where he took up his position as director of the newly-established Hortus Botanicus (see commerce, 1610).
The governor of China's Fujian (Fukien) Province propagates sweet potatoes from Manila for famine relief. Spaniards introduced the tuber into the Philippines 30 years ago.
Chinese farmers now grow maize and peanuts in addition to sweet potatoes and in some cases grow such other New World crops as tomatoes, guava, and papaya, but will probably not grow chili peppers for another 40 or 50 years.
Spain's Atlantic gateway port of Seville has a population of 90,000, up from 45,000 in 1530.
1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600
