John Guy (governor)
John Guy was an English merchant adventurer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1621 to 1624. He was the first proprietary governor of Newfoundland Colony, the first attempt to establish a colony on Newfoundland. Guy was the eldest son and second child of a cordwainer of Bristol, he was born on 25 December 1568, baptized a week on 1 January 1569 at St. Mary le Port church, in what is now Bristol, he spent his youth growing up amongst his siblings, was well educated for his times, he managed to in life write poetry in Latin. He was apprenticed to a Yeoman farmer, on his parents deaths, he inherited the family shoemaking business, he had various farming interests, served as a factor representing the interests of the Bristol merchant community overseas for a period in Spain, where he mastered the art of navigation. Guy became a merchant and was admitted to the corporation of the city in 1603, as a Councillor of Bristol, he was appointed the Sheriff of Bristol for the year 1605–06.
During the emergency of 1605 when the country was threatened with invasion from overseas, he was appointed one of Rear-Admirals in the Royal Navy, as Bristol was at the time of the two main naval ports in the country. In 1607 he was appointed Surveyor of Bristol, a post which gave him the responsibility for obtaining provisions for the naval vessels that visited the port of Bristol. In 1608 Guy and other members of the Society of Merchant Venturers, decided to act upon a letter received by the mayor from Chief Justice Sir John Popham concerning the colonisation of Newfoundland. Since John Cabot had discovered the island and Sir Humphrey Gilbert had formally taken possession of it for Elizabeth I of England, the merchants of the city had a special interest in Newfoundland, but there had been little attempt to exploit and colonise the island; the merchants decided not to embark on the scheme without the co-operation of King James VI of Scotland and I of England, forthcoming. Guy visited the island in 1608 to scout possible locations for a settlement, selecting Cuper's Cove as the site of the colony.
In 1609, he put forward a proposal "to animate the English to plant in Newfoundland." The merchants of Bristol and London took up the idea with enthusiasm and a list of contributions was made out with Guy and others subscribing twenty marks a year for five years. The idea was popular with members of the court. Amongst the 50 shareholders were John Guy and his younger brother Philip Guy, in effect, Guy had the largest shareholding invested in the venture. On 27 April 1610 James I granted a charter to Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton, Keeper of the Privy Seal, others including John Guy and his brother Philip Guy, which incorporated them as the "Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the Cities of London and Bristol, for the purpose of colonising Newfoundland, comprehending as their sphere of action the southern and eastern parts of the new found land between 46° and 52° N. L."Guy was appointed governor in 1610 by the London and Bristol Company and arrived at Cupers Cove in August of that year with colonists and livestock, after a quick passage of 21 days.
Thirty-nine colonists spent the winter of 1610–1611 in the colony. During his governorship the colonists built and fortified the settlement, explored the area and planted crops. Guy returned to England in 1611 leaving William Colston - one of his brothers-in-law, distantly related to the family of the philanthropist Edward Colston, his brother Philip to manage the colony, as the first two Lieutenant-Governors of the Colony. Back in England, he was elected to the Bristol Society of Merchant Venturers, he was elected as the treasurer of the merchant venturers from 1611 to 1612 and returned the next year with more livestock and female settlers. In 1612 the actions of the English pirate - Peter Easton convinced Guy to abandon a second colony established at Renews in the spring of that year and strengthen the fortifications at Cupers Cove. At one point Guy and three other colonists in a canoe were attacked by the pirates, captured, the colonist with the musket was injured; the pirates were discussing how was the best way to execute John Guy and his men, when they escaped with the help of a former colonist who had decided to throw in his lot with the pirates, but who remembered the help John Guy had given him in the past, wasn't prepared to stand aside whilst his former friend was murdered.
The colonists built a boat called the Endeavour, using which Guy led a voyage into Trinity Bay in the Autumn of 1612, in an attempt to contact and establish a fur trade with the Beothuk tribe of red Indians, the native inhabitants of the island. On 6 November Guy's party met, shared a meal and exchanged gifts with a group of Beothuk somewhere in Bull Arm, Trinity Bay. Guy returned to England in April 1613. In that same year, a cousin of the first Governor, Nicholas Guy, became the father of the first son born in Newfoundland, from whom most of the current Guys now living in Canada are descended. John Guy returned to Newfoundland in 1614-15, when he had the indignity of being sent home in irons by the second Governor of the Colony, John Mason, who didn't want the previous Governor being around, as he felt threatened by Guy's knowledge and respect amongst the colonists, his withdrawal was in part the result of the troubles caused by the pirates led by Peter Easton. Five years a visitor to Newfoundland wrote that the Bristol citizens had "planted a large circuit of the country, builded there many fine houses, done many other good services" Guy became disillusioned due to the lack of support from the London
Charles Connell
Charles Connell was a Canadian politician, now remembered for placing his image on a 5-cent postage stamp. Born in Northampton in the then-British colony of New Brunswick to a family of Loyalists who had fled the American Revolution, he entered politics in 1846, serving in the colony's Legislative Assembly and House of Assembly. In 1858, Connell was appointed Postmaster General of the colony, at a time when increasing trade with the United States was forcing the British colonies to reconsider their currencies and institute a decimal system that would be more familiar to their American neighbors. New Brunswick adopted a decimal currency in 1859, in the following year, Connell issued the first series of postage stamps in the new denomination. While few people had problems with the new currency, they were outraged that Connell chose to depict himself on the 5-cent stamp, instead of Queen Victoria. In an effort to stem the criticism and charges of extreme arrogance, he offered to buy up all the stamps and burned them publicly on the front lawn of his house.
He resigned his office as postmaster general. It is unknown how many stamps survived, but they number no more than a few dozen and are now rare; some counterfeits of the stamp exist also. Despite the episode, Connell continued to serve in the colonial legislature up until 1867. A member of the Executive Council of New Brunswick, he served as Surveyor General from July 10, 1866 to July 17, 1867. An ardent supporter of Canadian Confederation, Connell was elected as a Member of Parliament representing the New Brunswick electoral district of Carleton in the first two Canadian parliaments. From 1865 to 1866, he published The Union. On August 5, 1835, he married sister of Lewis P. Fisher, they had seven children. She is buried in the Old Methodist Cemetery in Woodstock, New Brunswick, his son George Heber went on to serve in the House of Commons. He died at his house on June 28, 1873, his house, known as the Charles Connell House is located in Woodstock, New Brunswick, is now a museum run by the Carleton County Historical Society.
Postage stamps and postal history of New Brunswick "Charles Connell". Dictionary of Canadian Biography. University of Toronto Press. 1979–2016. Charles Connell – Parliament of Canada biography Charles Connell Gravestone Our Maritime Ties genealogical information
Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II is Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms. Elizabeth was born in London as the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, she was educated at home, her father acceded to the throne on the abdication of his brother King Edward VIII in 1936, from which time she was the heir presumptive. She began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In 1947, she married Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, a former prince of Greece and Denmark, with whom she has four children: Charles, Prince of Wales; when her father died in February 1952, she became head of the Commonwealth and queen regnant of seven independent Commonwealth countries: the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Ceylon. She has reigned as a constitutional monarch through major political changes, such as devolution in the United Kingdom, Canadian patriation, the decolonisation of Africa. Between 1956 and 1992, the number of her realms varied as territories gained independence and realms, including South Africa and Ceylon, became republics.
Her many historic visits and meetings include a state visit to the Republic of Ireland and visits to or from five popes. Significant events have included her coronation in 1953 and the celebrations of her Silver and Diamond Jubilees in 1977, 2002, 2012 respectively. In 2017, she became the first British monarch to reach a Sapphire Jubilee, she is the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch as well as the world's longest-reigning queen regnant and female head of state, the oldest and longest-reigning current monarch and the longest-serving current head of state. Elizabeth has faced republican sentiments and press criticism of the royal family, in particular after the breakdown of her children's marriages, her annus horribilis in 1992 and the death in 1997 of her former daughter-in-law Diana, Princess of Wales. However, support for the monarchy has been and remains high, as does her personal popularity. Elizabeth was born at 02:40 on 21 April 1926, during the reign of her paternal grandfather, King George V.
Her father, the Duke of York, was the second son of the King. Her mother, the Duchess of York, was the youngest daughter of Scottish aristocrat the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, she was delivered by Caesarean section at her maternal grandfather's London house: 17 Bruton Street, Mayfair. She was baptised by the Anglican Archbishop of York, Cosmo Gordon Lang, in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace on 29 May, named Elizabeth after her mother, Alexandra after George V's mother, who had died six months earlier, Mary after her paternal grandmother. Called "Lilibet" by her close family, based on what she called herself at first, she was cherished by her grandfather George V, during his serious illness in 1929 her regular visits were credited in the popular press and by biographers with raising his spirits and aiding his recovery. Elizabeth's only sibling, Princess Margaret, was born in 1930; the two princesses were educated at home under the supervision of their mother and their governess, Marion Crawford.
Lessons concentrated on history, language and music. Crawford published a biography of Elizabeth and Margaret's childhood years entitled The Little Princesses in 1950, much to the dismay of the royal family; the book describes Elizabeth's love of horses and dogs, her orderliness, her attitude of responsibility. Others echoed such observations: Winston Churchill described Elizabeth when she was two as "a character, she has an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant." Her cousin Margaret Rhodes described her as "a jolly little girl, but fundamentally sensible and well-behaved". During her grandfather's reign, Elizabeth was third in the line of succession to the throne, behind her uncle Edward and her father. Although her birth generated public interest, she was not expected to become queen, as Edward was still young. Many people believed he would have children of his own; when her grandfather died in 1936 and her uncle succeeded as Edward VIII, she became second-in-line to the throne, after her father.
That year, Edward abdicated, after his proposed marriage to divorced socialite Wallis Simpson provoked a constitutional crisis. Elizabeth's father became king, she became heir presumptive. If her parents had had a son, she would have lost her position as first-in-line, as her brother would have been heir apparent and above her in the line of succession. Elizabeth received private tuition in constitutional history from Henry Marten, Vice-Provost of Eton College, learned French from a succession of native-speaking governesses. A Girl Guides company, the 1st Buckingham Palace Company, was formed so she could socialise with girls her own age, she was enrolled as a Sea Ranger. In 1939, Elizabeth's parents toured the United States; as in 1927, when her parents had toured Australia and New Zealand, Elizabeth remained in Britain, since her father thought her too young to undertake public tours. Elizabeth "looked tearful", they corresponded and she and her parents made the first royal transatlantic telephone call on 18 May.
In September 1939, Britain entered the Second World War. Lord Hailsham suggested that the two princesses should be evacuated to Canada to avoid the frequent aerial bombing; this was rejected by Elizabeth's mother. I won't leave wit
Italo Balbo
Italo Balbo was an Italian Blackshirt leader who served as Italy's Marshal of the Air Force, Governor-General of Libya, Commander-in-Chief of Italian North Africa, the "heir apparent" to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. After serving in World War I, Balbo became the leading Fascist organizer in his home region of Ferrara, he was one of the four principal architects of the March on Rome that brought Mussolini and the Fascists to power in 1922, along with Michele Bianchi, Emilio De Bono and Cesare Maria De Vecchi. In 1926, he began the task of building the Italian Royal Air Force and took a leading role in popularizing aviation in Italy, promoting Italian aviation to the world. In 1933 to relieve tensions surrounding him in Italy, he was given the government of Italian Libya, where he resided for the remainder of his life. Balbo, hostile to anti-semitism, was the only leading Fascist to oppose Mussolini's alliance with Nazi Germany. Early in World War II, he was accidentally killed by friendly fire when his plane was shot down over Tobruk by Italian anti-aircraft guns who misidentified his plane.
In 1896, Balbo was born in Quartesana in the Kingdom of Italy. Balbo was politically active from an early age. At only 14 years of age, he attempted to join in a revolt in Albania under Ricciotti Garibaldi, Giuseppe Garibaldi's son; as World War I broke out and Italy declared its neutrality, Balbo supported joining the war on the side of the Allies. He joined in several pro-war rallies. Once Italy entered the war in 1915, Balbo joined the Italian Royal Army as an officer candidate and served in the Alpini Battalion "Val Fella" before volunteering for flight training on 16 October 1917. A few days the Austro-Hungarian and German armies broke the Italian lines in the Battle of Caporetto, Balbo returned to the front, now assigned to the Alpini battalion "Pieve di Cadore", where he took command of an assault platoon. At the end of the war, Balbo had earned one bronze and two silver medals for military valour and reached the rank of Captain due to courage under fire. After the war, Balbo completed the studies he had begun in Florence in 1914–15.
He obtained a degree in Social Sciences. His final thesis was written on "the economic and social thought of Giuseppe Mazzini", he researched under the supervision of the patriotic historian Niccolò Rodolico. Balbo was a Republican, but he hated Socialists and the unions and cooperatives associated with them. Balbo returned to his home town to work as a bank clerk. In 1921, Balbo joined the newly created National Fascist Party and soon became a secretary of the Ferrara Fascist organization, he began to organize Fascist gangs and formed his own group nicknamed Celibano, after their favorite drink. They broke strikes for local landowners and attacked communists and socialists in Portomaggiore, Ravenna and Bologna; the group once raided the Estense Castle in Ferrara. Italo Balbo had become one of the "Ras", adopted from an Ethiopian title somewhat equivalent to a duke, of the Fascist hierarchy by 1922, establishing his local leadership in the party; the "Ras" wished for a more decentralized Fascist Italian state to be formed, against Mussolini's wishes.
At 26 years of age, Balbo was the youngest of the "Quadrumvirs": the four main planners of the "March on Rome." The "Quadrumvirs" were Michele Bianchi, Cesare Maria De Vecchi, Emilio De Bono, Balbo. Mussolini himself would not participate in the risky operation that brought Italy under Fascist rule. In 1923, as one of the "Quadrumvirs," Balbo became a founding member of the Grand Council of Fascism; this same year, he was charged with the murder of anti-Fascist parish priest Giovanni Minzoni in Argenta. He fled to Rome and in 1924 became General Commander of the Fascist militia and undersecretary for National Economy in 1925. On 6 November 1926, though he had only a little experience in aviation, Balbo was appointed Secretary of State for Air, he began building the Italian Royal Air Force. On 19 August 1928, he became General of the Air Force and on 12 September 1929 Minister of the Air Force. In Italy, this was a time of great interest in aviation. In 1925, Francesco de Pinedo flew a seaplane from Italy to Australia to Japan and back again to Italy.
Mario De Bernardi raced seaplanes internationally. In 1928, Arctic explorer Umberto Nobile piloted the airship Italia on a polar expedition. Balbo himself led some transatlantic flights; the first was the 1930 flight of twelve Savoia-Marchetti S.55 flying boats from Orbetello Airfield, Italy to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between 17 December 1930 and 15 January 1931. The Crociera del Decennale featured the so-called "Italian Air Armada." From 1 July to 12 August 1933, twenty-four seaplanes flew round-trip from Rome to the Century of Progress in Chicago, Illinois. The flight had eight legs: Orbetello – Amsterdam – Derry – Reykjavík – Cartwright – Shediac – Montreal ending on Lake Michigan near Burnham Park and New York City. In honor of this feat, Mussolini donated a column from Ostia to the city of Chicago: the Balbo Monument, it can still be seen along a little south of Soldier Field. Chicago staged a great parade in his honor; the Newfoundland Post Office overprinted one of their 75-cent airmail stamps, issued just two months for the event: General Balbo Flight, The Land of Gold.
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James VI and I
James VI and I was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death in 1625. The kingdoms of Scotland and England were individual sovereign states, with their own parliaments and laws, though both were ruled by James in personal union. James was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, a great-great-grandson of Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland, positioning him to accede to all three thrones. James succeeded to the Scottish throne at the age of thirteen months, after his mother was compelled to abdicate in his favour. Four different regents governed during his minority, which ended in 1578, though he did not gain full control of his government until 1583. In 1603, he succeeded the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, Elizabeth I, who died childless, he continued to reign in all three kingdoms for 22 years, a period known after him as the Jacobean era, until his death in 1625 at the age of 58.
After the Union of the Crowns, he based himself in England from 1603, only returning to Scotland once in 1617, styled himself "King of Great Britain and Ireland". He was a major advocate of a single parliament for Scotland. In his reign, the Plantation of Ulster and British colonisation of the Americas began. At 57 years and 246 days, James's reign in Scotland was longer than those of any of his predecessors, he achieved most of his aims in Scotland but faced great difficulties in England, including the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and repeated conflicts with the English Parliament. Under James, the "Golden Age" of Elizabethan literature and drama continued, with writers such as William Shakespeare, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Sir Francis Bacon contributing to a flourishing literary culture. James himself was a talented scholar, the author of works such as Daemonologie, The True Law of Free Monarchies, Basilikon Doron, he sponsored the translation of the Bible into English that would be named after him: the Authorised King James Version.
Sir Anthony Weldon claimed that James had been termed "the wisest fool in Christendom", an epithet associated with his character since. Since the latter half of the 20th century, historians have tended to revise James's reputation and treat him as a serious and thoughtful monarch, he was committed to a peace policy, tried to avoid involvement in religious wars the Thirty Years' War that devastated much of Central Europe. He tried but failed to prevent the rise of hawkish elements in the English Parliament who wanted war with Spain. James was the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots, her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Both Mary and Darnley were great-grandchildren of Henry VII of England through Margaret Tudor, the older sister of Henry VIII. Mary's rule over Scotland was insecure, she and her husband, being Roman Catholics, faced a rebellion by Protestant noblemen. During Mary's and Darnley's difficult marriage, Darnley secretly allied himself with the rebels and conspired in the murder of the Queen's private secretary, David Rizzio, just three months before James's birth.
James was born on 19 June 1566 at Edinburgh Castle, as the eldest son and heir apparent of the monarch automatically became Duke of Rothesay and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. He was baptised "Charles James" or "James Charles" on 17 December 1566 in a Catholic ceremony held at Stirling Castle, his godparents were Charles IX of France, Elizabeth I of England, Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy. Mary refused to let the Archbishop of St Andrews, whom she referred to as "a pocky priest", spit in the child's mouth, as was the custom; the subsequent entertainment, devised by Frenchman Bastian Pagez, featured men dressed as satyrs and sporting tails, to which the English guests took offence, thinking the satyrs "done against them". James's father, was murdered on 10 February 1567 at Kirk o' Field, Edinburgh in revenge for the killing of Rizzio. James inherited his father's titles of Duke of Earl of Ross. Mary was unpopular, her marriage on 15 May 1567 to James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, suspected of murdering Darnley, heightened widespread bad feeling towards her.
In June 1567, Protestant rebels imprisoned her in Loch Leven Castle. She was forced to abdicate on 24 July 1567 in favour of the infant James and to appoint her illegitimate half-brother, James Stewart, Earl of Moray, as regent; the care of James was entrusted to the Earl and Countess of Mar, "to be conserved and upbrought" in the security of Stirling Castle. James was anointed King of Scots at the age of thirteen months at the Church of the Holy Rude, Stirling, by Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, on 29 July 1567; the sermon at the coronation was preached by John Knox. In accordance with the religious beliefs of most of the Scottish ruling class, James was brought up as a member of the Protestant Church of Scotland, the Kirk; the Privy Council selected George Buchanan, Peter Young, Adam Erskine, David Erskine as James's preceptors or tutors. As the young king's senior tutor, Buchanan subjected James to regular beatings but instilled in him a lifelong passion for literature and learning. Buchanan sought to turn James into a God-fearing, Protestant king who accepted the limitations of monarchy, as outlined in his treatise De Jure Regni apud Scotos.
In 1568, Mary escaped from her i
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