1598

1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600

political events

Muscovy's Fyodor I dies at his native Moscow January 7 at age 40 after a weak reign of more than 13 years. He is succeeded by his brother-in-law Boris Godunov, who has actually controlled the country since 1584, recovering towns taken by the Swedes, fighting off a Tatar raid on Moscow, building fortresses in the northeast and southeast to keep Tatars and Finns in order, recolonizing Siberia, supporting the middle classes at the expense of the old nobility and peasantry, and encouraging trade with English merchants by exempting them from tolls. Boris will reign until 1605.

The Treaty of Vervins signed by Henri IV May 2 ends the war between France and Spain. Felipe II is permitted to retain Flanders, Artois, and Charolais but is obliged to quit Picardy as his war with the United Provinces continues. Felipe dies in his Spartan quarters at the new Escorial palace September 13 at age 71 after a 42-year reign, leaving his country in dire financial straits. Having outlived six of his eight children, he is succeeded by his indolent 20-year-old son, who will reign until 1621 as Felipe III with the duque of Lerma controlling the nation.

Former English royal adviser William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, dies at London August 5 at age 77, having been fed soup with her own hand by the queen. He married the widow of the 16th earl of Oxford, who died under mysterious circumstances at a relatively early age, and Burghley's stepson Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford, now 49, is known to some at court as a talented poet and playwright.

The Battle of Yellow Ford in Ireland August 15 ends in victory for rebel forces over the English, who lose 1,200 men in a bloody ambush and proceed to lose another 1,300 out of a 4,000-man army to disease and desertion. Sir Henry Bagnal is replaced as lord deputy of Ireland by Robert Devereux, 2nd earl of Essex, who will anger the queen with his inaction (see 1600).

Ottoman peasant military leader Karayazici Abdülhalim (Abd al-Halim) unites malcontent Jelali rebels in central Anatolia (see 1595). Forcing the towns to pay tribute, he will soon hold a dominant position in the Dulkadir and Sivas provinces, and the Ottoman sultan Mehmed III will send an army to suppress the insurgency (see 1602).

The Japanese dictator Toyotomi Hideyoshi dies at Fushimi September 18 at age 62. His son Hideyori, now 5, was borne to his mistress Ochacha, now 31, who is known as Yodogimi (Lady Yodo). A power struggle begins among Hideyoshi's former vassals, plunging Japan into turmoil (see Ieyasu Tokugawa, 1600).

The Japanese launch a second invasion of Korea and nearly succeed in destroying almost the entire Korean fleet, but Admiral Yi Sun-Sin is reinstated as commander of the remaining ships and soon restores Korean control of the sea, forcing the Japanese to evacuate after a disastrous 6-year campaign which has cost the lives of 260,000 men and ruined the Japanese peasantry, whose crops have been commandeered to feed the troops (see Ear Mound, 1597). Close to one-third of Korea's population has died in the conflict, and Admiral Yi is killed by a stray bullet off Noryang December 16 at age 54 while pursuing the retreating Japanese.

exploration, colonization

Dutch admiral Wijbrand van Warwijck lands on a Pacific island, takes possession, and names it Mauritius after Maurice of Nassau.

The marquis de la Roche tries to establish a French colony on Sable Island off Acadia (Nova Scotia). He has obtained a patent from Henri IV and lands two shiploads of vagabonds (see Champlain, 1603).

Spanish forces under the command of Juan de Oñate, 47, cross the Rio Grande April 30 at a point that later will be the site of El Paso and move into Pueblo territory with 500 men, women, and children to establish the first European settlements in the region. Son of the governor of Nueva Galicia and one of the richest men in the hemisphere, Oñate won appointment from the Spanish viceroy 3 years ago as first governor of New Mexico, giving him the right to conquer and settle the area, albeit at his own expense. Equipped by Oñate, the colonists have traveled from Chihuahua on an oxcart tract that will be called El Camino Real (the Royal Road) and arrive in more than 80 wagons with 7,000 head of livestock. Oñate in the next few years will venture as far as the Gulf of California in one direction and, in another, as far as what later will be Kansas, putting down native uprisings (see human rights, 1599).

commerce

Some 14 Dutch ships leave early in the year on five well-equipped trade missions to India following Lisbon's closing of trade with Holland. Cornelis Van Houtman heads one of the missions (see 1596), Admiral Jacob van Neck another. As commercial representative of the Verre Company, van Neck is accompanied by Vice Admiral Jacob van Heemskerck. Van Houtman establishes trade with Madagascar before proceeding to the East Indies. The Dutch establish cordial relations with the sultan of Bantam, who sees them as potential allies against the hated Portuguese, who enslave his people, and gives them a warm welcome. The Dutch set out to trade directly with the East and commence a gradual conquest of Portuguese possessions (see 1599).

transportation

Spain's new king Felipe III offers a prize of 1,000 crowns for a method of ascertaining longitude (see 1524; 1530). Holland's States-General offers a prize of 10,000 florins for a solution to the problem (see science [Greenwich Observatory], 1676).

religion

The Edict of Nantes issued April 15 by France's Henri IV gives Huguenots equal political rights with Catholics, allows them to obtain some fortified towns, and opens political offices to them. The Edict does not establish complete freedom of worship, but it does permit Huguenots to practice their Protestant religion in a number of French cities and towns (see Revocation, 1685).

literature

Nonfiction: A Survay of London and Westminster by chronicler John Stow, now 73 (approximate).

Oxford's Bodleian Library is founded; in later years it will receive a copy of every book published in Britain.

Printer-scholar Henri Etienne dies at Lyons at age 70 (approximate).

Fiction: Arcadia by Spanish novelist-poet-playwright Lope (Félix) de Vega (Carpio), 36, who sailed with the Armada against England in 1588.

Poetry: La Dragontea by Lope de Vega is an epic poem about the late Sir Francis Drake; "Address to the Nightingale" by English poet Richard Barnfield, 24, begins "As it fell upon a day/ In the merry month of May . . . "; "Hero and Leander" by the late Christopher Marlowe: "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"

art

Painting: St. Martin and the Beggar by El Greco.

theater, film

Theater: The Peony Pavilion by Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu, whose erotic, 55-scene work will endure as a popular opera lasting 20 hours; Every Man in His Humour by English playwright-poet Ben Jonson, 26, in September at London with a cast (The Lord Chamberlain's Men) that includes William Shakespeare: "The rule, Get money, still get money, boy;/ No matter by what means"; "Odds me, I marvel what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco! It's good for nothing but to choke a man and fill him full of smoke and embers" (III, ii); King Henry IV, Part II, by Shakespeare: "Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety" (II, iii); "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown" (III, i).

Members of the Globe Theater company dismantle the theater in Shorditch, timber by timber, on the night of December 28 and reassemble it on cheaper land across the Thames on the South Bank (see 1599).

architecture, real estate

Cuzco Cathedral is completed by Spanish architect Francisco Becerra, 53, who has been in Peru since 1573.

agriculture

French tillage and pasturage are "the true mines and treasures of Peru," says Maximilien de Bethune, 38, duc de Sully. One of Henri IV's highest officials, Sully calls le labourage et le pastourage the two breasts of France (les deux mamelles dont la France) from which the nation takes her nourishment (see Boisguilbert, 1695).

nutrition

William Shakespeare relates overweight and life expectancy in Henry IV, Part II. The king warns a "surfeit-swell'd" Falstaff to "Leave gourmandizing; know the grave doth gape/ For thee thrice wider than for other men" (V, v). Twentieth-century statistics correlating obesity with shorter life expectancy will bear out the three-to-one ratio cited.

A German traveler visiting England notes the blackness of Queen Elizabeth's teeth: "Next came the Queen, in the Sixty-fifth year of her Age, as we were told," writes Paul Hentzner, "very majestic; her Face oblong, fair, but wrinkled; her Eyes small, yet black and pleasant; her Nose a little hooked; her Lips narrow; her Teeth black; (a defect the English seem subject to, from their too great use of sugar) . . ." It is the first recorded association between sugar and tooth decay.

1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600