January 24 – King Henry VIII of England is seriously injured when he falls from his horse at a jousting tournament in Greenwich, after which the fully armored horse falls on him. The King is unconscious for two hours, sustaining an injury to an ulcerated leg and a concussion.
February 18 – A Franco-Ottoman alliance exempts French merchants from Ottoman law and allows them to travel, buy and sell throughout the sultan's dominions, and to pay low customs duties on French imports and exports. The compact is confirmed in 1569.
March 8 – Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire since 1523, is executed after falling into disfavor with Hürrem Sultan, the wife of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. After Hürrem persuades her husband that Pargali Ibrahim has become a threat as his money and power have increased, Suleiman hosts an elaborate dinner with Pargali as his guest. After the dinner ends, Pargali prepares to go to bed but is seized and strangled upon reaching his bedroom.
March 14 – Ayas Mehmed Pasha is appointed by the Sultan Suleiman to be the new Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.
July 21 – The papal legation arrives in France, arriving at Lyon, to meet with King Francois I.
July 24 – Three days after the arrival of the peacekeeping team in Lyon, and 15 days after the legation had met with the Holy Roman Emperor to avoid war, troops of the Holy Roman Empire invade France, crossing over the Var river from Nizza in Italy (now Nice in France) as well as invading Picardie with a second force.
August 10 – Francis III, Duke of Brittany, Dauphin of France, dies having caught a chill after a game of tennis which had developed into a fever; under torture Sebastiano de Montecuccoli, his Italian secretary, confesses to poisoning him and is brutally executed on October 7. Francis' younger brother, Henry, Duke of Orléans, succeeds as heir to the kingdom.
October 1 – The Pilgrimage of Grace, a rebellion in England against Henry VIII's church reforms, begins in as the Lincolnshire and spreads across the kingdom to most of Yorkshire, and parts of Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, and Westmorland.
October 10 – English barristerRobert Aske becomes the leader of the Pilgrimate of Grace rebels, whose numbers have grown to 9,000 and marches with them to York.
October 16 – The three negotiators of Pope Paul III depart France after three months of discussions with representatives of King Francois I.
November 4 – Cardinal Agostino Trivulzio, the envoy of Pope Paul III, files his report of his peace mission to negotiate an agreement between the Holy Roman Empire and France.
On "a great misty morning such as hath seldom been seen", Robert Pakington, a London merchant and a member of the English Parliament, becomes the first person in Britain to be murdered with a handgun, while he is walking across the street from his home at Soper's Lane toward the Mercers' Chapel. His assailant is never caught, despite the offer of a large reward.
Robert Aske meets with royal delegates at York, including the Duke of Norfolk and negotiates the return of the homes of Catholic monks and nuns, as well as a safe passage for Aske and several Catholic representatives for a meeting with King Henry VIII.
November 26 – At the Château de Blois, the marriage contract between King James V of Scotland and King Francois of France to arrange the marriage of James to Francois' daughter Madeline, is signed despite the reluctance of the French monarch to send his daughter to an unhealthy climate.
December 5 – After two months, the Pilgrimage of Grace ends at Pontefract Castle after the Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk promises to present a list of 24 Articles of the pilgrims' demands, "The Commons' Petition", to King Henry VIII. The duke pledges a reprieve for abbeys from dissolution until Parliament can meet, and to obtain a general pardon for the rebel pilgrims.
