Chepstow is a town and community in Monmouthshire, adjoining the border with Gloucestershire, England. It is located on the tidal River Wye, about 2 miles above its confluence with the River Severn, adjoining the western end of the Severn Bridge, it is 16 miles east of Newport, 28 miles east-northeast of Cardiff, 18 miles northwest of Bristol and 110 miles west of London. Chepstow Castle, situated on a clifftop above the Wye and its bridge, is cited as the oldest surviving stone castle in Britain; the castle was established by William FitzOsbern after the Norman conquest, was extended in centuries before becoming ruined after the Civil War. A Benedictine priory was established within the walled town, the centre of the Marcher lordship of Striguil; the port of Chepstow became noted in the Middle Ages for its imports of wine, became a major centre for the export of timber and bark, from nearby woodland in the Wye valley and Forest of Dean. In the late eighteenth century the town was a focus of early tourism as part of the "Wye Tour", the tourist industry remains important.

Other important industries included shipbuilding – one of the First World War National Shipyards was established in the town – and heavy engineering, including the prefabrication of bridges and wind turbine towers. Chepstow is well known for its racecourse, which has hosted the Welsh National each year since 1949; the town had a population of 10,821 according to the 2001 census, increasing to 12,350 at the 2011 census. It is served by the M48 motorway, its accessibility to the cities of Bristol and Cardiff means it has a large number of commuters, it is administered as part of Monmouthshire County Council, is within the Monmouth parliamentary constituency and Wales Assembly constituency. Chepstow is on the western bank of the Wye, while adjoining villages on the eastern bank of the river and Sedbury, are located in England; the ancient Welsh name was Ystraigyl, meaning "A Bend In The River". This name was adopted by the Normans as Striguil for the lordship; the modern Welsh name Cas-gwent refers to the "Castell of Gwent".

The name Gwent itself derives from the Roman settlement Venta Silurum or'Market of the Silures', now named Caerwent, 5 miles west of Chepstow, the Romano-British commercial centre of south-east Wales. The English name Chepstow derives from the Old English ceap/chepe stowe, meaning market place or trading centre; the word "stow" denotes a place of special significance, the root chep is the same as that in other placenames such as Chipping Sodbury and Cheapside. The name may have been used by the English in earlier centuries; the oldest site of known habitation at Chepstow is at Thornwell, overlooking the estuaries of the Wye and Severn close to the modern M48 motorway junction, where archaeological investigations in advance of recent housing development revealed continuous human occupation from the Mesolithic period of around 5000 BC until the end of the Roman period, about 400 AD. There are Iron Age fortified camps in the area, dating from the time of the Silures, at Bulwark, 1 mile south of the town centre, at Piercefield and Lancaut, some 1.5 miles to the north.

During the Roman occupation, there was a bridge or causeway across the Wye, about 0.6 miles upstream of the town bridge. Chepstow is located at a crossing point directly between the Roman towns at Caerwent. Although historians think it that there was a small Roman fort in the area, the only evidence found so far has been of Roman material and burials, rather than buildings. After the Romans left, Chepstow was within the southern part of the Welsh kingdom of Gwent, known as Gwent Is-coed. To the north of the modern town centre, a small church was established dedicated to St. Cynfarch, a disciple of St. Dyfrig; this became an Augustinian priory on what is now Kingsmark Lane, but no traces of it remain. The town is close to the southern point of Offa's Dyke, which begins on the east bank of the Wye at Sedbury and runs all the way to the Irish Sea in north Wales; this was built in the late 8th century as a boundary between Mercia and the Welsh kingdoms, although some recent research has questioned whether the stretch near Chepstow formed part of the original Dyke.

It is possible, though not substantiated, that Chepstow may have superseded Caerwent as a trading centre, been used by both Saxons and the Welsh. The Lancaut and Beachley peninsulas, opposite Chepstow, were in Welsh rather than Mercian control at that time, although by the time of the Domesday Book Striguil was assessed as part of Gloucestershire. After the Norman conquest of England, Chepstow was a key location, it was at the lowest bridging point of the River Wye, provided a base from which to advance Norman control into south Wales, controlled river access to Hereford and the Marches. Chepstow Castle was founded by William fitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford, in 1067, its Great Tower cited as the oldest surviving stone fortification in Britain, dates from that time or shortly afterwards, its site, with sheer cliffs on one side and a natural valley on the other, afforded an excellent defensive location. A Benedictine priory, now St Mary's Church, was established nearby; this was the centre of a small religious community, the remains of which are buried under the adjoining car park.

Monks from Cormeilles Abbey in Normandy, were there until the Dissolution of the Monaste

Mazarin is studio album by Swedish pop musician Per Gessle, released on June 16, 2003. Per Gessle thought of this album as his little side project but it turned out to be a huge success, gaining five × platinum status in his home country, he played some of the songs from it on the Gyllene Tider Finn 5 fel! tour in 2004, despite the fact that they were not Gyllene Tider songs. Mazarin was well received by Swedish publications, with Aftonbladet and Expressen both praising the album. "Vilket håll du än går" — 3:18 "Om du bara vill" — 3:47 "På promenad genom stan" — 3:21 "Smakar på ett regn" — 3:27 "Gungar" — 3:37 "Födelsedag" — 3:13 "Sakta mina steg" — 2:35 "Tycker om när du tar på mej" — 3:27 "Spegelboll" — 3:31 "För bra för att vara sant" — 3:29 "Här kommer alla känslorna" — 2:43 "Jag tror du bär på en stor hemlighet" — 3:59 "Varmt igen" — 4:21 "Mazarin" — 3:23

The Buteshire by-election, 1905 was a by-election held on 3 March 1905 for the British House of Commons constituency of Buteshire. The election was triggered by the resignation of Andrew Murray. Murray held the post of Secretary of State for Scotland with a seat in the Cabinet. In January 1905, Murray was appointed Lord Justice General and Lord President of the Court of Session and was given a seat in the House of Lords. At the previous General Election, he had withstood the Liberal challenge: The Conservative Party selected Edward Theodore Salvesen, the Solicitor General for Scotland, as their candidate. Salvesen had fought the Leith Burghs seat as a Unionist at the general election of 1900; the Liberals re-selected their candidate from the 1900 general election Norman Lamont. Lamont came from a prominent and wealthy local family with lands in Argyll and a plantation in Trinidad, his father had been Liberal MP for Buteshire from 1865–1868. It was reported that at one time it looked there would be a three-cornered contest.

A Mr. Sinclair, a convinced tariff reformer had issued an address to the electors as soon it had become known there was a Parliamentary vacancy; however Sinclair decided not to stand. It soon became clear that his supporters were content with the selection of Salvesen by the Tories as he was a member of the Tariff Reform League and had stated that if necessary he would be prepared to see the policy of Joseph Chamberlain on Imperial Preference adopted in full measure. Salvesen took advantage of his position as a Tariff Reformer to consolidate his support among the Unionist voters. A significant number of Buteshire electors were middle-class merchants and others doing business in Glasgow but who had villa residences in towns in the constituency like Rothesay and Millport and good number were Unionist supporters who were favourable to tariff reform. Conservative efforts to win the election was focused on these voters as it was felt that apathy in this key part of the electorate had been responsible for the narrowness of Graham's win over Lamont at the 1900 general election.

Lamont campaigned as a traditional Liberal free trader, although he was challenged on his previous support for a form of retaliatory duty to protect West Indian sugar producers from unfair foreign competition, which policy he now renounced. After the Boer War the government of Arthur Balfour had agreed to let the owners of the South African gold mines bring in thousands of indentured labourers of Chinese ethnicity to work in the mines, they lived under harsh conditions, in compounds they were not allowed to leave, worked long hours for little reward and were subject to corporal punishment. The issue was taken up by the Liberal Party under the slogan of'Chinese slavery' both as a crusade for humanitarianism but to exploit fear amongst British workers that the Conservative government might allow similar immigration to Britain, threatening British jobs; the issue was raised in Buteshire but was given an added salience because it was alleged against Lamont that the Coolie labour on his West Indian property were indentured and that it was hypocritical of him to object to the practice in the Transvaal.

Lamont was able to deflect this attack by showing he had removed the indenture system when he succeeded to the property and that the workers were now retained in an arrangement akin to being tenant farmers. His supporters made political capital from the fact that Lamont had been the subject of what they chose to characterise as an unwarranted and brutal assault; the question of Irish Home Rule was an ever-present in the election. The letter of support which Balfour sent to Salvesen for publication highlighted the difference between the parties on this issue. Lamont seemed to think Balfour's intervention on Home Rule strengthened the Liberal vote however, he was said to have received the votes of the Irish catholic electors, who numbered around 200. Apart from the specific points of conflict mentioned above, the by-election was fought principally on the basis of the government candidate defending the government record and the opposition candidate promoting the need for change; the result of the by-election was a gain for the Liberals, albeit by a narrow margin.

Lamont turned a Unionist majority of 195 at the previous general election into a Liberal majority of 34. In this context Lamont's collection of the Irish vote seems significant and the resolve of this constituency to come out and vote on the issue of Home Rule was stiffened by Balfour's focussing on it in his letter of support to Salvesen. However, Salvesen stated after the election that the Unionist vote had polled at its full strength and Buteshire should be seen in the context of the general political trend of the time which since 1902 had been decidedly against the government. Buteshire was the fifteenth by-election gain by the Liberals from the Conservatives since 1902; the government, in office since 1895, was seen as tired and divided and the Liberal opposition was united around key policies on free trade and education, as well as being sustained by a new approach to questions of social reform, the New Liberalism of thinkers such as Thomas Hill Green, Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse and J A Hobson as well as by dynamic, radical politicians such as David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill who had defected from the Tories in 1904