1599
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England's Elizabeth sends Robert Devereux, 2nd earl of Essex, to subdue Ireland's rebellious Hugh Roe O'Neill, 2nd earl of Tyrone (see 1598). Defeated at Arklow, Essex makes a truce with Tyrone and leaves his post as governor general of Ireland to vindicate himself before the queen (see 1600).
The Spanish infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, now over 30, is betrothed to her 38-year-old cousin, the Archduke Albrecht of Austria, a cardinal who has reluctantly given up his holy orders and received papal dispensation to take a wife at the insistence of Isabella's father, his uncle Felipe II of Spain. A son of the late Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, Albrecht was appointed governor general of the Low Countries following the death of his brother Ernest in February 1595 and charged with subduing the rebellious Protestants; having previously served a viceroy of Portugal, he is given joint sovereignty of the Low Countries as a dowry and will rule the 10 Roman Catholic provinces as Albrecht VII until his death in 1621. Fighting with the Dutch Protestants will continue until 1609.
Marguerite d'Angoulême's marriage to France's Henri IV is pronounced null and void November 10 (see 1593). The king now has two sons by his mistress Gabrielle d'Estrées, who has insisted that his divorce be finalized. The Vatican opposes a new marriage because of Gabrielle's relationship to leading Protestants, the king's courtiers oppose it lest her two sons be legitimized and she bear more sons after becoming queen. Gabrielle resolves the matter by dying in childbirth, and Henri, after insisting that he is inconsolable, finds solace with Henriette d'Entragues, 18. Under pressure from her father, he signs a document agreeing to marry Henriette if she should become pregnant within 6 months and give birth to a son (see 1600).
Sweden's Riksdag votes in November to depose the Roman Catholic Polish king Sigismund III Vasa, who has ruled the Swedes since 1592 and supported the Counter-Reformation. Sigismund's uncle Karl is named regent for the grandson of the late Gustav I (see 1604).
Philosopher Tommaso Campanella participates in a plot to overthrow Spanish rule in his native Calabria, where he has found the people living in misery. The plot is discovered, and Campanella is forced under torture at Naples to confess his spiritual leadership of the conspirators; he feigns insanity to escape execution and is given a term of life imprisonment (he will remain incarcerated until 1626 but will continue to write).
Burma's Toungoo dynasty king Nanda Bayin is deposed after a troubled 17-year reign in which his armies have struggled to keep the Siamese subjugated. His brothers (the viceroys of Ava, Prome, and Toungoo) have invited the king of Arakan to join them in laying siege to Pegu. They take Nanda Bayin prisoner, and they divide among them what remains of the empire established by their late father, Bayin Naung.
English women gain greater freedoms by an October act of Parliament.
New Mexico's royal governor Juan de Oñate punishes rebellious Pueblo of the Acoma tribe by cutting off the right feet of 24 captive warriors (see politics, 1598; 1607).
The New World has an estimated 900,000 black slaves, most of them engaged in producing sugar, which is found to be effective in preserving fruit.
English geographer Richard Hakluyt publishes a recognizable map of North America (see 1582).
Four Dutch vessels return from India under the command of Admiral Jacob van Neck with cargoes of pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg to establish Holland's control of the Oriental spice trade (see 1598). Profit from the eight Dutch ships of Van Neck and the Houtman brothers comes to 400 percent, whetting Dutch appetites for further trade. Cornelis and Frederik de Houtman return to Sumatra, but Cornelis is killed there September 11 at age 59 while fighting the sultan Acheh, who will hold Frederik prisoner until 1602. Vice Admiral Jacob van Heemskerck takes over the Verre Company's fleet and establishes trade relations with the rulers of Banda, Amboina, and Ternate. The Dutch raise the price of pepper from three shillings per pound to six or eight, and 80 London merchants are motivated to form their own East India Company (see 1600).
Prices in western Europe are generally at least six times what they were a century ago. The nobility is impoverished, and in many cases is forced to sell its land to the despised middle class.
An English worker must work 48 days to buy eight bushels of wheat, 32 days to buy eight bushels of rye, 29 days to buy eight bushels of barley (see 1506).
Essen merchant Arndt Krupp seizes the opportunity of plague in the Ruhr Valley to buy up extensive lands outside the city at giveaway prices. Krupp survives the plague to found a dynasty (see 1811).
The bubonic plague that will be called the Black Death takes a heavy toll in the Hanseatic city of Essen, whose population of 5,000 makes it one of Europe's largest.
Plague breaks out in Andalusia and Castile, where disease and famine will decimate the population in the next 2 years.
Poetry: Know Thyself (Nosce teipsum) and Hymnes of Astraea in Acrosticke Verse by John Davies. The first gives a clear account of his philosophy on the nature and immortality of the soul, the second is a series of poems in which the initials of the first lines form the words Elisabetha Regina.
Poet Edmund Spenser dies at London January 16 at age 46 (approximate) and is buried in Westminster Abbey. His Kilcolman castle was destroyed last year in the Irish civil war and he fled to England.
Painting: Portrait of the Spanish Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia by Sofonisba Anguissola, now 67, who has known the princess since her infancy. Isabella Clara has stopped at Genoa en route to her wedding in order to have Anguissola paint her betrothal portrait.
Theater: Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare: "Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,/ Men were deceivers ever,/ One foot in sea and one on shore,/ To one thing constant never" (II, iii); The Life of King Henry the Fifth by Shakespeare: "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,/ Or close the wall up with our English dead!/ In peace there's nothing so becomes a man/ As modest stillness and humility./ But when the blast of war blows in our ears,/ Then imitate the action of the tiger,/ Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,/ Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage" (III, i); "This day is called the Feast of Crispian. / He that outlives this day and comes safe home/ Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named/ And rouse him at the name of Crispin . . . / We few, we happy few, we band of brothers . . . / And gentlemen in England now abed/ Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,/ And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks/ That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day" (IV, iii).
The Globe Theatre reopens as a summer playhouse on London's South Bank under the management of William Shakespeare and some partners who include the brother of the late actor James Burbage, who died last year (see 1598). Burbage is survived by his son Richard, 33, who, as England's most popular actor, will help establish the roles that will make Shakespeare's plays endure.
Hymn: "Sleepers, Wake! The Watch-Cry Pealeth" by P. Nicolai, 43.
"It is unseasonable and unwholesome in all months that have not an R in their names to eat an oyster," writes London author Henry Buttes in Dyets DryDinner. But while oysters spawn in such months in French and English waters, the concern of Buttes is not with any threat to their seeming inexhaustibility but rather with the difficulty of keeping oysters fresh in warm weather.
Spain grows increasingly dependent on northern and eastern Europe for grain staples. Her standard of living has declined markedly as prices have risen above those seen elsewhere in Europe, and her small landowners (hidalgos) are being forced off the land, which is failing into the hands of large absentee landlords. American colonial demand for Spanish cloth, wine, olive oil, and flour has slackened with the development of agriculture in Peru and New Spain, and as a result Spanish workers are increasingly idle or unproductively employed.
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