1562 (event)

"Prove thy friend ere thou have need; but, in-deed a friend is never known till a man have need."

- English proverb that was later shortened to "A friend in need is a friend indeed,"
as recorded in John Heywood's A Dialogue Conteynyng Prouerbes and Epigrammes, (1562)

Water is a very good servant, but it is a cruell maister.

- Queen Elizabeth I's physician William Bullein, Bulwarke of Defence against All Sicknesses (1562),
the earliest known usage of the phrase "a good servant but a cruel master," which would later be
applied to many other things, including "fire," "alcohol," "money," and "markets."

In the year AD 1562...

• The First War of Religion breaks out in France, leading to four decades of on-and-off warfare.
  • On the eve of the conflict, the French regent Catherine de' Medici attempts to forestall the conflict by issuing the Edict of Saint-Germain, recognizing the existence of the Protestant Huguenots and guaranteeing them freedom of conscience and private worship. However, a convoluted process was required for the Parlement of Paris to ratify the edict and add it to the statutes.
  • Therefore the edict is not yet law when the staunch Catholic Francis, Duke of Guise bullies his way into a Huguenot religious service being held in a barn. In the ensuing skirmish, Guise orders his troops to fire on the unarmed worshipers, killing 63 of them and wounding more than 100 in the infamous Massacre of Wassy.
  • The Huguenots, who had already been preparing for war, seize upon the massacre as evidence that the Edict of Saint-Germain was a sham, and launch a military campaign led by Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé that captures Rouen, Lyon, and Orléans.
  • Under pressure to do something to help the Protestants, English queen Elizabeth I dispatches 6,000 English troops to the Huguenot-held port city of Le Havre, under the command of Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick.
  • At the Siege of Rouen, Catholic forces successfully at recapture Rouen, but at the cost of Catholic commander Antoine de Navarre, who dies of his wounds.
  • Catholic forces under Marshall of France Anne de Montmorency then defeat the Protestants under Condé in the Battle of Dreux, but with more than 10,000 casualties, the battle is one of the bloodiest ever fought up to that time and leaves both sides in disarray, allowing the Huguenots in Orléans valuable time to fortify the city and prepare for a protracted siege.
• Fanatical Spanish priest Diego de Landa, bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán, infamously burns the Mayan codices as part of his efforts to stamp out Mayan "idolatry," forever destroying manuscripts that would have been useful in deciphering Mayan script, Mayan religion and civilization, and the history of the American continent.
• News reaches Spanish king Phillip II that Hasan Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Algiers, plans to capture the Spanish ports of Oran and Mers El Kébir. Phillip hastily gathers a fleet of 28 galleons and nearly 8,000 men at Málaga to go reinforce the two ports, but a storm unexpectedly appears forcing the fleet to take shelter in La Herradura Bay. The storm then turns directly into the bay, sinking 25 of the 28 galleons and killing around 5,000, including Captain General Don Juan Hurtado de Mendoza y Carrillo, in what is remembered as the La Herradura naval disaster.
• Mughal emperor Akbar conquers the Malwa Sultanate in central India.
• English naval commander John Hawkins becomes the first to successfully execute the Triangular trade, trading European manufactured goods for slaves in West Africa, trading the slaves to Spanish colonies in the New World, and bringing back raw materials to Europe, while making a profit at every stop. This launches a new era in the Transatlantic slave trade and drastically increases the westward trade of African slaves.
• Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville's play Gorboduc is performed for the first time, before Queen Elizabeth I of England. It is the first known English tragedy, and the first English language play to employ blank verse.
• Italian poet Torquato Tasso pens one of his greatest works, the 12-canto epic poem Rinaldo.
• English poet Arthur Brooke pens his lengthy poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, considered to be the main source for William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.

These people were born in 1562...

• Spanish poet and dramatist Lope de Vega.
• Japanese warlord Katō Kiyomasa.
• Japanese warlord Kasuya Takenori, one of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's seven famous generals known as the Seven Spears of Shizugatake.
• Chinese scholar and Catholic convert Xu Guangqi.
• Ercole Grimaldi, Lord of Monaco.
• English poet Henry Constable.
• English poet and historian Samuel Daniel.

These people died in 1562...

• King of Navarre Antoine de Bourbon, killed at the Siege of Rouen.
• Italian physician and anatomist Gabriele Falloppio, famous for describing the eponymous fallopian tubes.
• Spanish military commander Don Juan Hurtado de Mendoza y Carrillo, drowned in the La Herradura naval disaster.
• English poet and playwright Nicholas Grimald.

1561 - 1562 - 1563

16th century

How they were made