1539 Leaden pipes to convey water invented.
1540 645 religious houses seized, and their property, amounting to £161,000, given to the King. The number of monasteries suppressed in England and Wales, were 313, Priories 290, Friaries 122, Nunneries 142, Colleges 152, and Hospitals 129; in all 1148.
1541 1st voyage to India by an English ship.
1543 Mortars and cannon first cast in iron.
1544 Pistols first used.
1545 William Foxley slept fourteen days, and lived forty-one days after.
1547 The vows of celibacy before taken by priests, annulled, and the communion ordered to be administered in both kinds. Evening prayers began to be read in English in the King’s chapel, April 16th. The Scots refusing to marry their young Queen to King Edward (according to their promise in his father’s life-time), the protector enters Scotland with an army of 12,000 foot, and 600 horse, and fights them in Pinkey-field, near Musselburgh, and kills 14,000 Scots, and takes 1500 prisoners, having lost but sixty of his own men.
1548 Some ceremonies were now abrogated, and an order of council against the carrying of candles, on Candlemas-day, ashes on Ash-Wednesday, and palms on Palm-Sunday.
1549 Telescopes invented.
1551 The sweating-sickness broke out this year In England with such contagion, that 800 died in one week of it in London. Those that were taken with it were inclined much to sleep, and all that slept died; but if they were kept awake a day, they got well. A college founded in Galway in Ireland. Common-prayer books established by act of parliament. Monks and nuns allowed inheritances. Sternhold and Hopkins translated and put the Psalms into verse.