1494 - Political Events

Political Events

King Ferrante of Naples dies January 25 at age 70. He has tried to persuade his son-in-law Ludovico Sforza to join him against France's Charles VIII.

Bianca Maria Sforza reaches Vienna in March; her husband, Maximilian I, arrives, and they finally consummate their marriage. He treats her kindly at first but quickly begins to find fault with her extravagant habits and will soon leave her mostly to her own devices as her health begins to fail (she will die in 1510).

France's Charles VIII crosses the Alps July 10 in the vanguard of an army with 40 lightweight, mobile bronze cannon that fire iron balls and can accomplish in hours what has previously required weeks of bombardment. Ludovico Sforza goes to meet him 3 days later; Charles asks for a loan of 60,000 ducats; Ludovico undertakes to arrange the loan; but they soon have a falling-out.

Piero de' Medici, 21, rides out to meet the invading French, and although the agreement he reaches with Charles VIII is the best that can be obtained under the circumstances, it creates a furor at Florence, where the people revolt, sack the Medici Palace, and expel the Medici family, which has dominated the city for 60 years but has come under attack from the religious fanatic Girolamo Savonarola, who has reportedly made Charles VIII burst into tears by chastising him for being desultory about undertaking his divine mission of reform and crusade. Piero will never again see Florence, but its republican leaders will fall to fighting among themselves.

Gian Galeazzo Sforza, duke of Milan, dies at Pavia October 21 at age 25, and there are false rumors that he was poisoned by his uncle, Ludovico Sforza (Il Moro), who receives the ducal crown October 22 (see 1476). He has received imperial investiture of the duchy of Milan from the German king, Maximilian I, who has married his niece Bianca. Young Gian Galeazzo's mother, Bona of Savoy, departs for Amboise and will return in 1499 to Savoy, where she will remain until her death in 1504. France's Charles VIII has helped the new duke, but he soon joins a league against Charles. Isabella d'Este arrives at Milan November 28 to be with her sister Beatrice, the duchess, and will remain in complete retirement for the next 2 years (see 1499).

The grand duke of Muscovy Ivan III gains his sobriquet Ivan the Great by driving out Novgorod's German merchants, closing the Hanseatic Kontor and extending his realm eastward to the Urals by annexing the vast territories of Novgorod (see 1480; Lithuania, 1501).

A new pretender to the English throne gains financial support from the German king Maximilian and others (see Simnel, 1487). Perkin Warbeck, 20, is a Walloon boatman's son who worked as a servant to a Breton silk merchant in Ireland, some people have mistaken him for the son of the duke of Clarence or of Richard III, and he professes to be the second son of Edward IV's sons murdered in the Tower of London in 1484. Margaret, dowager duchess of Burgundy, has accepted him as her nephew, the earls of Desmond and Kildare have lent their support, and France's Charles VIII has entertained him as Richard IV (see 1495).

The lord deputy of Ireland Garret Fitzgerald, 8th earl of Kildare, is removed from office for having supported the pretender Perkin Warbeck. Englishman Sir Edward Poynings, 35, is appointed in September to replace Kildare; he summons the Drogheda parliament, and it enacts Poyning's law, which provides that every act of Parliament must be approved by the English privy council (but not by Parliament) to be valid. Poynings subdues Kildare and will retain his title until December of next year, when he will be removed because his administrative expenses are considered excessive. Although he cannot reconquer the northern Gaelic Irish his law will prevail until 1782, barring Parliament from meeting in Ireland unless given license to do so by the English lord chancellor and then only after the causes of such a meeting and the issues put before it have first been approved by the English king and his council (see 1782). Henry VII will restore Kildare as lord deputy in 1496, and the earl will continue as lord deputy until his death in 1513.

The Treaty of Tordesillas signed June 7 divides the globe between Spain and Portugal along lines similar to those established last year by Pope Alexander VI. It is agreed that Spain shall be entitled to all lands discovered west of a north-south line drawn 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands; Portugal to all lands east of the line.