1536 | Political Events
Political Events
Geneva adopts the Reformation as her ally Bern subdues Vaud, Chablais, Lausanne, and other territories belonging to the duke of Savoy. A long struggle begins between Bern and Savoy (see Calvin, 1541).
England's Henry VIII has his wife, Anne Boleyn, beheaded May 19 on charges of adultery and incest, although her guilt of anything more than arrogance is by no means clear. (It has also been suggested that she was a witch, the evidence being a rudimentary sixth finger on her left hand.) His first wife, Catherine of Aragon, has died in the dank and gloomy Kimbolton Castle January 7 at age 50. Henry has had witnesses tortured; 16 have testified that Anne had incestous relations with her brother George, swearing that they all clearly and at the same time saw her "alluring him with her tongue in the said George's mouth and the said George's tongue in hers." Five of her alleged lovers are also executed. "You have chosen me from a low estate to be your queen and companion, far beyond my desert or desire," Anne says in her final letter to Henry, and she tells her supporters, "The king has been very good to me. He promoted me from a simple maid to be a marchioness. Then he raised me to be a queen. Now he will raise me to be a martyr." She has borne the king a daughter, Elizabeth, but has recently miscarried, causing Henry to believe there is a curse on the marriage. On May 20 he marries Anne's 17-year-old lady-in-waiting Jane Seymour, whose brother is duke of Somerset. She takes as her motto, "Bound to obey and serve."
A Catholic rebellion in England gains support from the prelate Reginald Pole, 36, son of Margaret, countess of Salisbury. The rebellion is crushed, but Pope Paul III makes Pole a cardinal and will dispatch him as an emissary to incite both France's François I and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to send an expedition to depose Henry VIII.
A third war begins between Charles V and François I, who has renewed claims to Milan following the death last year of Francesco Sforza (see 1525). François makes a formal alliance in March with Suleiman the Magnificent after more than a decade of discussions between French and Ottoman emissaries. Suleiman advances on Hungary and sends fleets to ravage the coasts of Italy while French forces take Turin.
France's dauphin, the duc d'Orleans, now 17, becomes enamored of Diane de Poitiers, now 37, whose late husband, Louis de Brézé, died in 1531 at age 72. Despite the discrepancy in their ages, she will be the young man's mistress until his death in 1559.
Poland's gentry (szlachta) rebel against Sigismund I, who has tried to increase his power. Jan Tarnowski comes to the king's aid in what will be called the "Poultry War."
The Ottoman grand vizier Ibrahim conducts preliminary negotiations at Constantinople in January with representatives of France's François I for a commercial treaty (see 1534), but the sultan Suleiman I becomes alarmed at his boyhood friend Ibrahim's usurpation of authority and has him executed March 15 at age 42 (approximate).