Mary Queen of Scots' secretary, David Rizzio, is dragged from her presence and stabbed to death

Mary Queen of Scots' husband Darnley is treacherously involved in the murder of her secretary, Rizzio

Darnley is murdered, almost certainly at the instigation of Mary Queen of Scots' lover, Bothwell, whom she marries just three months later

A casket of letters seems to incriminate Mary Queen of Scots herself in the murder of her husband, Darnley

The events of this year give the Protestant nobility the occasion and opportunity of deposing Mary Queen of Scots

On the removal of Mary from the Scottish throne, her one-year-old son succeeds her as James VI

Mary Queen of Scots flees across the border to seek the help of her English cousin, Elizabeth, but finds herself kept under close guard

A rebellion in the north of England aims to put Mary Queen of Scots on the English throne

Pope Pius V excommunicates the English queen, Elizabeth I, causing a severe crisis of loyalty for her Catholic subjects

Roberto di Ridolfi, a Florentine banker, coordinates a scheme to win the English throne for Mary Queen of Scots

William of Orange declares himself a Calvinist and assumes the leadership of the united provinces of the Netherlands

Oda Nobunaga takes power into his own hands, after ruling for a while through the Ashikaga shogun

Stefan Báthory, prince of Transylvania, is elected king of Poland

A Spanish army marches into Portugal to claim the crown for the king of Spain, Philip II

Anthony Babington is involved in a plot to assassinate Elizabeth and place Mary Queen of Scots on the English throne

Mary Queen of Scots, implicated in the Babington plot, is beheaded in Fotheringay castle

16-year-old Abbas I, subsequently one of the greatest of shahs, inherits the throne of Persia

The House of Orange becomes the leading family of the new Dutch republic

Henry IV becomes a Catholic so as to secure Paris and the throne of France

James VI of Scotland argues in an anonymous book that kings, appointed by God, are above human law

The warlord Tokugawa Ieyasu is awarded the title of shogun, beginning nearly three centuries of the Tokugawa shogunate

James VI of Scotland inherits peacefully the crown of his English cousin Elizabeth, and becomes James I of England

The accession of James I and VI to the throne of England brings the union of the crowns of England and Scotland

On the death of Akbar, his son Jahangir succeeds to the Mughal throne

Henry IV is assassinated in a Paris street by a Roman Catholic, François Ravaillac