The Peace of Augsburg achieves a compromise which for a while solves the religious tensions deriving from the Reformation

The Protestant martyrs, though few in number, ensure the reputation of Bloody Mary in English history

John Knox returns to Scotland from Geneva and inspires the Protestants to march on Edinburgh

A national synod of France's Protestants, the Huguenots, is convened in Paris

Mary Queen of Scots returns from France to Edinburgh, and to an inevitable clash with John Knox

The Book of Common Prayer and the New Testament are published in Welsh, to be followed by the complete Bible in 1588

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

A massacre of French Protestants, known as the Huguenots, begins in Paris on St Bartholomew's Day

The Union of Arras and the Union of Utrecht split the Netherlands into Catholic and Protestant camps

Catholics are now the martyrs in England, their numbers almost matching the Protestant martyrs of the previous reign

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

The Edict of Nantes secures the civil rights of France's Protestants, the Huguenots

James I commissions the Authorized version of the Bible, which is completed by forty-seven scholars in seven years

A shipload of Puritans, among them some of the future Pilgrim Fathers, sail from Boston in Lincolnshire to seek religious freedom in Holland

The Pilgrims (or Pilgrim Fathers), a group of 102 English settlers, sail in the Mayflower to the new world

A Passion play is performed for the first time at Oberammergau, in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation

Rhode Island is founded by Roger Williams as a colony based on the principle of religious tolerance

A National Covenant, first signed in an Edinburgh churchyard, commits the Covenanters to oppose Charles I's reforms of the Church of Scotland