1536
Calvin Publishes the Institutes
A young French exile named Jean Calvin, hiding in Basel, published a slim Latin volume called the Institutes of the Christian Religion. It laid out predestination, church discipline, and the sovereignty of God in clear, remorseless prose. Geneva would soon be its laboratory, and the world would feel it. The Institutes, expanded over twenty-five years, became the most influential work of Protestant theology, shaping Reformed churches worldwide.
Pizarro Besieged in Cuzco
Manco Inca's army of perhaps a hundred thousand warriors besieged the Spaniards trapped in Cuzco for ten months. The Spanish, starving and outnumbered, held the central plaza through desperate cavalry sorties. When the siege finally broke, Spanish reinforcements poured into Peru and Inca sovereignty was finished for good. Manco's burning slingshots nearly drove the Spanish from their stronghold, and only a desperate cavalry charge retook the fortress of Sacsayhuaman.
Anne Boleyn Beheaded
Fewer than three years after her coronation, Anne Boleyn was executed within the Tower of London on charges of adultery and treason that few historians now believe. A French swordsman, imported for the occasion, took her head off cleanly. Henry VIII was betrothed to Jane Seymour the next morning. The charges of adultery with five men were almost certainly fabricated by Cromwell to clear the way for Jane Seymour.
Dissolution of the Smaller Monasteries
Thomas Cromwell's agents descended on English monasteries with inventories and battering rams, dissolving the smaller houses and funneling their lands and silver to the Crown. Monks were pensioned off or executed. Across the countryside, roofless abbey walls began their picturesque centuries of decay. The redistribution of Church land created Protestant gentry whose economic interest in maintaining the Reformation ensured no Catholic restoration.
Erasmus Dies in Basel
The great humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam died in Basel, caught between Catholic and Protestant camps that each accused him of betraying them. He had refused both the cardinal's hat and the Reformer's robes. His last words were reportedly Dear God, in Flemish rather than Latin. His death marked the end of an era when reforming the Church through scholarship alone had seemed possible.