Game of Queens (3 page)

 

Dudley (Robert, first Earl of Leicester, 1532–1588)

The son of the man who promoted Lady Jane Grey to the throne, Robert Dudley nevertheless became Elizabeth I's great favourite, some said her lover, and the longest-lasting contender for her hand in marriage. Her reputation and his suffered when his wife Amy Dudley died in suspicious circumstances but he remained her close advisor and friend.

 

Burghley (William Cecil, first Baron Burghley, 1520–1598)

The great statesman of Elizabeth Tudor's reign, Cecil became principal secretary of state immediately upon her accession and subsequently lord treasurer. Like his rival Dudley he was a committed Protestant, urging the queen to aid her co-religionists in Europe and was a particularly determined enemy to the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots.

 

Reformers

Martin Luther (1483–1546)

The German theologian and former monk is credited with having launched the Protestant Reformation when, in 1517, he reputedly nailed his Ninety-five Theses, complaints of corrupt practices within the Catholic church, to a church door in Wittenberg. His refusal to recant sparked a great divide in Europe but Luther's ideas (which still shared some key points of Catholic doctrine) would be superseded in many territories by a new and more severe generation largely made up of Swiss reformers.

 

John Calvin (1509–1564)

Best known as leader of the Protestant church in Geneva, Calvin was born in France but fled after a clampdown in 1534 forced a distinction between those seeking reform of the Catholic church and those at odds with its central tenets. The doctrines of what became known as Calvinism include the belief that the fate of each human soul is predestined and the absolute sovereignty of God in its salvation, without reference to ritual or good works.

 

John Knox (1513?–1572)

The Scottish reformer and firebrand, once sentenced to row the French galleys as a prisoner for his part in a rebellion, found life in English and European exile hardened his virulent anti-Catholicism. An outspoken critic of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, his most famous work,
The first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women
, set him also at odds with the Protestant Elizabeth Tudor.

Chronology

1474 December 11

Isabella I becomes Queen Regnant of Castile, succeeding her half-brother whose putative daughter, La Beltraneja, also claimed the throne.

1479 January 20        

Isabella’s husband Ferdinand becomes King of Aragon, succeeding his father. He and Isabella exercise effective joint rule as the ‘Catholic Kings’ of Spain.

1482 March 27        

Mary, ruling Duchess of Burgundy, dies, to be succeeded by her young son Philip.

1483 August 30        

Charles VIII becomes King of France, succeeding his father Louis XI. Charles’s sister Anne de Beaujeu becomes regent in all but name during the thirteen-year-old’s minority.

1486 February 16        

Maximilian I (Maximilian of Austria), widower of Mary of Burgundy, is elected Holy Roman Emperor.

1491 December 6        

Anne, the ruling Duchess of Brittany, is forced to marry the French king Charles, beginning what would become a permanent attachment of Brittany to France’s interests.

1492        

Ferdinand and Isabella conquer Granada (2 January) and end the Moorish rule of southern Spain, expel the Spanish Jews (31 March) at the demand of Grand Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada and (17 April) sign an agreement with Italian navigator Christopher Columbus, allowing him to claim any new lands discovered on their behalf.

1498 April 7        

Louis XII becomes King of France, succeeding his kinsman Charles VIII.

1504 November 26        

Juana ‘the Mad’ becomes titular Queen Regnant of Castile, succeeding her mother Isabella. Her father Ferdinand and husband Philip of Burgundy contest control of the country.

1506 September 22        

Philip of Burgundy dies, leaving his widow Juana to spend most of her life in incarceration and leaving control of Castile to Ferdinand of Aragon. Philip’s Netherlands territories pass to his six-year-old son Charles.

1507 March 18        

Margaret of Austria appointed Regent of the Netherlands for her nephew Charles.

1509 April 21        

Henry VIII becomes King of England, succeeding his father Henry VII. He immediately marries Katherine of Aragon.

1513 September 9        

The Battle of Flodden between England and Scotland. James IV of Scotland dies, to be succeeded by his infant son James V, whose mother Margaret Tudor is left as regent.

1515 January 1        

François I becomes King of France, succeeding his cousin and father-in-law Louis XII.

1516 January 23        

The death of Ferdinand leaves Aragon to his grandson Charles, already ruler of the Netherlands. On 14 March it is announced that Charles will assume rule of all Spanish territories, nominally sharing that rule with his incarcerated mother Juana, official Queen Regnant of Castile.

1517 October 31        

Martin Luther posts Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Palast Church at Wittenberg, condemning corrupt practices in the Catholic church.

1519 June 28        

Charles V is elected Holy Roman Emperor, succeeding his grandfather Maximilian.

1521 January 3        

Pope Leo X (the first pope from the Florentine banking family, the Medici) excommunicates Martin Luther.

April 18        

Luther appears before the Diet of Worms but refuses to recant.

April 8        

Charles V gives control of his hereditary Habsburg Austrian lands to his brother Ferdinand (also his regent in the Holy Roman Empire) keeping control of his Spanish, New World and Netherlands territories himself.

1525 February 24        

Battle of Pavia sees the crushing defeat of the French by Charles V’s army and the capture of King François.

1526 August 29        

Battle of Mohacs; the Ottoman army under Suleiman the Magnificent defeats the Hungarian forces, which causes the subsequent reorganisation of Hungary. The Turkish threat to the east becomes an ever-greater factor in European politics through the following decades.

1527 May 6        

Rome plundered by imperial troops, Pope Clement VII (a second Medici pope, uncle of Catherine de Medici) is forced to flee. This has serious consequences for the papal inquiry into the validity of the marriage of Henry VIII to Katherine of Aragon.

1529 August 3        

Ladies’ Peace of Cambrai signed by Margaret of Austria (on behalf of her nephew Charles V) and Louise of Savoy (on behalf of her son François I).

October 1        

The Marburg Colloquy, a discussion between Martin Luther and the more radical Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli, illustrates important theological differences between different branches of the new Reforming faith. The following year, 1530, sees the ‘Protestant’ princes of Germany form the Schmalkaldic League, a defensive alliance against the overlordship of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

1531 January 3        

Mary of Hungary requested by her brother Charles V to assume regency of the Netherlands, following the death of their aunt Margaret of Austria.

1533 ?January?        

Henry VIII of England secretly marries Anne Boleyn, who is crowned queen 1 June before the birth of their daughter Elizabeth on 7 September.

1534 March 23        

First Act of Succession secures the English succession to King Henry’s children by Anne Boleyn and declares Princess Mary a bastard. In November, the Act of Supremacy declares Henry the ‘only supreme head on earth’ of the English church.

1536 January 7        

Katherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife, dies.

May 19        

Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, executed.

May 30        

Henry VIII marries his third wife, Jane Seymour.

October 13        

The Pilgrimage of Grace protests against Henry’s break with Rome and the dissolution of the monasteries but is harshly repressed.

1542 April 15        

James V of Scotland dies, to be succeeded by his infant daughter Mary, beginning the slow rise to power of James’s widow Marie de Guise.

1545 December 13        

Pope Paul III convenes the Council of Trent, the twenty-five sessions of which would be held off and on until 1563. The ecumenical council both consolidated the doctrines of the Catholic church and condemned those of Protestantism. This can be seen as the start of the Counter-Reformation.

1547 January 28        

Henry VIII dies, succeeded as King of England by his son Edward VI.

March 31        

Henri II becomes king of France, succeeding his father François I.

1553 July 6        

The early death of Edward VI sees the throne pass for a mere nine days to Lady Jane Grey before being seized by Edward’s half-sister Mary Tudor. Crowned as Mary I, she sets about returning England to the Catholic faith.