January 7 – TheCollege of Sorbonne votes a resolution that it is just and necessary to depose King Henry III of France, and that any private citizen is morally free to commitregicide.[1]
February 6 – King Philip of Portugal issues an order to the Viceroy in Portuguese India (Goa) for the arrest of explorerJoão da Gama, but da Gama continues toward Mexico without being aware of the order.
March 8 – England prohibits the construction of a cottage on any property that isn't at least four acres in size, with the passage of theErection of Cottages Act 1588.[3]
May 2 – Girolamo Bargagli's playThe Pilgrim Woman is given its first performance, premiering inFlorence, three years after Bargagli's death.[6]
May 4 – In Spain,María Pita leads the defense ofLa Coruña against the English Armada after her husband is killed by a crossbow."[7]
May 11 –The Earl of Bothwell, accused of treason against the Crown of Scotland, surrenders along with theEarl of Huntly and is imprisoned atHolyrood Palace. Convicted on May 24, the conspirators are never sentenced and set free by King James VI.
June 28 – On the island ofSumatra in what is now Indonesia, the Sultan ofAceh Darussalam,Ali Ri'ayat Syah II, is assassinated by a group of nobles dissatisfied with his rule. He becomes the fourth Sultan in a row to be murdered.[8]Sayyid al-Mukammal is approved by the nobles as the new Sultan of Aceh.[9]
July 23 –Abbas the Great, who has recently become the Safavid Emperor of Persia, arranges the assassination of his benefactor, the Viceroy Murshid Qoli Khan at a banquet.[13]
August 1 – KingHenry III of France is assassinated by a fanaticalDominicanfriarJacques Clément, who approaches the King on the pretext of delivering a secret message. Henry tells his guards to stand aside, and Clément approaches and fatally stabs the King. Clément is subsequently killed by the guards. King Henry dies the next day.[14]
August 2 – Following the death of Henry III of France, his army is thrown into confusion and an attempt to retake Paris is abandoned. Henry of Navarre succeeds to the throne as KingHenry IV of France, but is not recognized by theCatholic League, who acclaim the imprisonedCharles, Cardinal de Bourbon, as the rightful King of France, Charles X.
October 26 – Japanese warlordDate Masamune and his forces capture the Sukagawa Castle, defended by his auntOnamihime Nikaido, after her assistant Hodohara Yukifuji betrays her.
October 31 – Alleged serial killer and accused werewolfPeter Stumpp 'the Werewolf of Bedburg' is tortured and executed.
^Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch Indië (Nijhoff & Brill, 1917) p.74
^Anthony Wingfield,A True Coppie of a Discourse Written by a Gentleman Employed in the Late Voyage of Spaine and Portingale (Thomas Woodcock, 1589) p.58
^L. Petit, "Jérémie II Tranos", inDictionnaire de Théologie Catholique (Letouzey et Ané, 1924) pp. 886-894
^Andrew J. Newman,Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire (I.B. Tauris, 2006) p.50
^Rosanne M. Baars,Rumours of Revolt: Civil War and the Emergence of a Transnational News Culture in France and the Netherlands, 1561–1598 (Brill, 2021) pp.186-187
^Henry Constable (1960).Poems. Liverpool University Press. p. 234.
^Miles Kerr-Peterson and Michael Pearce, "James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts",Scottish History Society Miscellany XVI (Woodbridge, 2020) pp.93-94
^Jadunath Sarkar,A History of Jaipur (Orient Longman, 1984) pp.74-85
