1.
Harlow
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Harlow is a former Mark One New Town and local government district in the west of Essex, England. In Old Harlow is a field named Harlowbury, a de-settled monastic area which has the remains of a chapel, the M11 motorway passes through the east of the district, entirely to the east of the town. It is also a part of the London commuter belt and employment centre of the M11 corridor which includes Cambridge. There is some dispute as to where the placename Harlow derives from, One theory is that it derives from the Anglo-Saxon words here and hlaw, meaning army hill, probably to be identified with Mulberry Hill, which was used as the moot or meeting place for the district. The other theory is that it derives from the here and hearg, meaning temple hill/mound, probably to be identified with an Iron Age burial mound. The earliest deposits are of a Mesolithic hunting camp excavated by Davey in Northbrooks in the 1970s closely followed by the large and these deposits are mostly known because of the large numbers of surface-bound, worked flint. Substantial amounts of worked flint suggest an organised working of flint in the area, large amounts of debitage litter the area and tools found include axeheads, hammers, blades, dowels and other boring tools and multipurpose flints such as scrapers. An organised field walk in the late 1990s by Bartlett indicates that most of the area, some 80 hectares and this indicates organised industry existed from 5000 BC to 2000 BC. The deposits are so large and dispersed that any major work in the area will have to take this into consideration before any ground work is started. Harlow was in Roman times the site of a town with a substantial stone built temple. The entry in the Norman Domesday Book reads, Herlaua, St Edmunds Abbey before and after 1066, Geoffrey from Count Eustace, Thorgils from Eudo the Steward, Richard from Ranulf, Mill,7 beehives,8 cobs,43 cattle,3 foals. The mill is now a 300-year-old listed building and restaurant, the original village, mentioned in the Domesday Book, developed as a typical rural community around what is now known as Old Harlow, with many of its buildings still standing. This includes for instance the Grade II listed St Marys Church in Churchgate Street and its former Chapel is in a ruinous state in a field which was once the Harlowbury Abbey part of Old Harlow, is Grade I listed and is a scheduled ancient monument. The original Harlow New Town was built after World War II to ease overcrowding in London, Harlow was a Mark One New Town along with other new towns such as Basildon, Stevenage and Hemel Hempstead. New Towns were designated following the New Towns Act of 1946, the town was planned from the outset and was designed to respect the existing landscape. A number of landscape wedges - which later known as Green Wedges - were designed to cut through the town. Each of the neighbourhoods is self-supporting with its own shopping precincts, community facilities. Harlow has one of the most extensive cycle track networks in the country, connecting all areas of the town to the town centre, the cycle network is composed mostly of the original old town roads
2.
Robinson Crusoe
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Robinson Crusoe /ˌrɒbɪnsən ˈkruːsoʊ/ is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the works protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading readers to believe he was a real person. Despite its simple style, Robinson Crusoe was well received in the literary world and is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. It is generally seen as a contender for the first English novel, Crusoe sets sail from the Queens Dock in Hull on a sea voyage in August 1651, against the wishes of his parents, who want him to pursue a career, possibly in law. After a tumultuous journey where his ship is wrecked in a storm and this journey, too, ends in disaster, as the ship is taken over by Salé pirates and Crusoe is enslaved by a Moor. Two years later, he escapes in a boat with a boy named Xury, the ship is en route to Brazil. Crusoe sells Xury to the captain, with the captains help, Crusoe procures a plantation. He observes the latitude as 9 degrees and 22 minutes north and he sees penguins and seals on his island. As for his arrival there, only he and three animals, the dog and two cats, survive the shipwreck. Overcoming his despair, he fetches arms, tools and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and he builds a fenced-in habitat near a cave which he excavates. By making marks in a cross, he creates a calendar. By using tools salvaged from the ship, and some he makes himself from ironwood, he hunts, grows barley and rice, dries grapes to make raisins, learns to make pottery and he also adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing, more years pass and Crusoe discovers native cannibals, who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. At first he plans to them for committing an abomination but later realizes he has no right to do so. He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing prisoners, when a prisoner escapes, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion Friday after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe then teaches him English and converts him to Christianity, after more natives arrive to partake in a cannibal feast, Crusoe and Friday kill most of the natives and save two prisoners. One is Fridays father and the other is a Spaniard, who informs Crusoe about other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is devised wherein the Spaniard would return to the mainland with Fridays father and bring back the others, build a ship, before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears, mutineers have commandeered the vessel and intend to maroon their captain on the island
3.
Samuel Johnson
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Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory, and is described by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history. He is also the subject of perhaps the most famous biography in English literature, born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, Johnson attended Pembroke College, Oxford for just over a year, before his lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write for The Gentlemans Magazine and his early works include the biography Life of Mr Richard Savage, the poems London and The Vanity of Human Wishes, and the play Irene. After nine years of work, Johnsons A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755 and it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship. This work brought Johnson popularity and success, until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later, Johnsons was viewed as the pre-eminent British dictionary. His later works included essays, an annotated edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare. In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he travelled to Scotland. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Johnson was a tall and robust man. His odd gestures and tics were disconcerting to some on first meeting him, after a series of illnesses, he died on the evening of 13 December 1784, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Born on 18 September 1709, to Michael Johnson, a bookseller and he did not cry and, with doubts surrounding the newborns health, his aunt exclaimed that she would not have picked such a poor creature up in the street. Since it was feared that the baby die, the vicar of St Marys was summoned to perform a baptism. Two godfathers were chosen, Samuel Swynfen, a physician and graduate of Pembroke College, Oxford, and Richard Wakefield, a lawyer, coroner, Johnsons health improved and he was put to wet-nurse with Joan Marklew. He soon contracted scrofula, known at time as the Kings Evil because it was thought royalty could cure it. Sir John Floyer, former physician to King Charles II, recommended that the young Johnson should receive the royal touch, however, the ritual was ineffective, and an operation was performed that left him with permanent scars across his face and body. Johnson demonstrated signs of intelligence as a child, and his parents, to his later disgust. His education began at the age of three, and was provided by his mother, who had him memorise and recite passages from the Book of Common Prayer. When Samuel turned four, he was sent to a nearby school, a year later, Johnson went to Lichfield Grammar School, where he excelled in Latin. During this time, Johnson started to exhibit the tics that would influence how people viewed him in his years
4.
Robert Southey
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Robert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called Lake Poets, and Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 until his death in 1843. Although his fame has long been eclipsed by that of his contemporaries and friends William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey was also a prolific letter writer, literary scholar, essay writer, historian and biographer. His biographies include the life and works of John Bunyan, John Wesley, William Cowper, Oliver Cromwell, the last has rarely been out of print since its publication in 1813 and was adapted for the screen in the 1926 British film, Nelson. He also wrote on issues, which led to a brief, non-sitting. Robert Southey was born in Wine Street, Bristol, to Robert Southey and he was educated at Westminster School, London, and Balliol College, Oxford. Southey later said of Oxford, All I learnt was a little swimming, experimenting with a writing partnership with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, most notably in their joint composition of The Fall of Robespierre, Southey published his first collection of poems in 1794. Each young man should take to himself a mild and lovely woman for his wife, it would be her part to prepare their innocent food, and tend their hardy and beautiful race. Southey was the first to reject the idea as unworkable, suggesting that they move the location to Wales. In 1799 Southey and Coleridge were involved with experiments with nitrous oxide. Southey married Edith Fricker at St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol and she was a sister of Sara Fricker, Coleridges wife. The Southeys made their home at Greta Hall, Keswick, in the Lake District, also living at Greta Hall and supported by him were Sara Coleridge and her three children, after Coleridge abandoned them, as well as the widow of poet Robert Lovell and her son. In 1808 Southey met Walter Savage Landor, whose work he admired and that same year he wrote Letters from England under the pseudonym Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella, an account of a tour supposedly from a foreigners viewpoint. From 1809 Southey contributed to the Quarterly Review and he had become so well known by 1813 that he was appointed Poet Laureate after Walter Scott refused the post. In 1819, through a friend, Southey met the leading civil engineer Thomas Telford. From mid-August to 1 October 1819, Southey accompanied Telford on an tour of his engineering projects in the Scottish Highlands. This was published in 1929 as Journal of a Tour in Scotland in 1819 and he was also a friend of the Dutch poet Willem Bilderdijk, whom he met twice, in 1824 and 1826, at Bilderdijks home in Leiden. In 1837 Southey received a letter from Charlotte Brontë, seeking his advice on some of her poems and he wrote back praising her talents, but also discouraging her from writing professionally. He said Literature cannot be the business of a womans life, years later, Brontë remarked to a friend that the letter was kind and admirable, a little stringent, but it did me good
5.
William Wordsworth
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William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworths magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published, before which it was known as the poem to Coleridge. Wordsworth was Britains Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850 and his sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, to whom he was close all his life, was born the following year, and the two were baptised together. Wordsworths father was a representative of James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale and, through his connections. He was frequently away from home on business, so the young William and his siblings had little involvement with him and remained distant from him until his death in 1783. However, he did encourage William in his reading, and in particular set him to commit to memory large portions of verse, including works by Milton, Shakespeare, William was also allowed to use his fathers library. William also spent time at his mothers house in Penrith, Cumberland, where he was exposed to the moors, but did not get along with his grandparents or his uncle. His hostile interactions with them distressed him to the point of contemplating suicide, Wordsworth was taught both the Bible and the Spectator, but little else. It was at the school in Penrith that he met the Hutchinsons, including Mary, after the death of his mother, in 1778, Wordsworths father sent him to Hawkshead Grammar School in Lancashire and sent Dorothy to live with relatives in Yorkshire. She and William did not meet again for nine years. Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine and that same year he began attending St Johns College, Cambridge. He received his BA degree in 1791 and he returned to Hawkshead for the first two summers of his time at Cambridge, and often spent later holidays on walking tours, visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape. In 1790 he went on a tour of Europe, during which he toured the Alps extensively, and visited nearby areas of France, Switzerland. In November 1791, Wordsworth visited Revolutionary France and became enchanted with the Republican movement and he fell in love with a French woman, Annette Vallon, who in 1792 gave birth to their daughter Caroline. Financial problems and Britains tense relations with France forced him to return to England alone the following year. The circumstances of his return and his subsequent behaviour raised doubts as to his wish to marry Annette. With the Peace of Amiens again allowing travel to France, in 1802 Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy visited Annette, the purpose of the visit was to prepare Annette for the fact of his forthcoming marriage to Mary Hutchinson
6.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan and his critical work, especially on William Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. Coleridge coined many words and phrases, including suspension of disbelief. He was an influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson and American transcendentalism. Throughout his adult life Coleridge had crippling bouts of anxiety and depression, it has been speculated that he had bipolar disorder and he was physically unhealthy, which may have stemmed from a bout of rheumatic fever and other childhood illnesses. He was treated for these conditions with laudanum, which fostered a lifelong opium addiction, Coleridge was born on 21 October 1772 in the town of Ottery St Mary in Devon, England. He had previously been Master of Hugh Squiers School in South Molton, Devon, John Coleridge had three children by his first wife. Samuel was the youngest of ten by the Reverend Mr. Coleridges second wife, Anne Bowden, probably the daughter of John Bowden, Mayor of South Molton, Devon, Coleridge suggests that he took no pleasure in boyish sports but instead read incessantly and played by himself. At that school Coleridge became friends with Charles Lamb, a schoolmate, in fancy I can almost hear him now, exclaiming Harp. Pen and ink, boy, you mean, oh aye. the cloister-pump, I suppose. Be this as it may, there was one custom of our masters and he would often permit our theme exercises. To accumulate, till each lad had four or five to be looked over, throughout his life, Coleridge idealised his father as pious and innocent, while his relationship with his mother was more problematic. His childhood was characterised by attention seeking, which has linked to his dependent personality as an adult. He was rarely allowed to return home during the term. He later wrote of his loneliness at school in the poem Frost at Midnight, With unclosed lids, from 1791 until 1794, Coleridge attended Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1792, he won the Browne Gold Medal for an ode that he wrote on the slave trade, afterwards, he was rumoured to have had a bout of severe depression. His brothers arranged for his discharge a few months later under the reason of insanity and he was readmitted to Jesus College, at Jesus College, Coleridge was introduced to political and theological ideas then considered radical, including those of the poet Robert Southey. Coleridge joined Southey in a plan, soon abandoned, to found a utopian society, called Pantisocracy
7.
Walter Scott
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Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, FRSE was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright and poet. Many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and of Scottish literature, famous titles include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Old Mortality, The Lady of the Lake, Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of Lammermoor. A prominent member of the Tory establishment in Edinburgh, Scott was an member of the Highland Society. He survived a bout of polio in 1773 that left him lame. To cure his lameness he was sent in 1773 to live in the rural Scottish Borders at his grandparents farm at Sandyknowe, adjacent to the ruin of Smailholm Tower. Here he was taught to read by his aunt Jenny, and learned from her the speech patterns and many of the tales and legends that characterised much of his work. In January 1775 he returned to Edinburgh, and that went with his aunt Jenny to take spa treatment at Bath in England. In the winter of 1776 he went back to Sandyknowe, with another attempt at a cure at Prestonpans during the following summer. In 1778, Scott returned to Edinburgh for private education to him for school. In October 1779 he began at the Royal High School of Edinburgh and he was now well able to walk and explore the city and the surrounding countryside. His reading included chivalric romances, poems, history and travel books and he was given private tuition by James Mitchell in arithmetic and writing, and learned from him the history of the Church of Scotland with emphasis on the Covenanters. Scott began studying classics at the University of Edinburgh in November 1783, at the age of 12, in March 1786 he began an apprenticeship in his fathers office to become a Writer to the Signet. While at the university Scott had become a friend of Adam Ferguson, Scott met the blind poet Thomas Blacklock, who lent him books and introduced him to James Macphersons Ossian cycle of poems. During the winter of 1786–87 the 15-year-old Scott saw Robert Burns at one of these salons, for what was to be their only meeting. When Burns noticed a print illustrating the poem The Justice of the Peace and asked who had written the poem, only Scott knew that it was by John Langhorne, and was thanked by Burns. When it was decided that he would become a lawyer, he returned to the university to study law, first taking classes in Moral Philosophy, after completing his studies in law, he became a lawyer in Edinburgh. As a lawyers clerk he made his first visit to the Scottish Highlands directing an eviction and he was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1792. He had an unsuccessful love suit with Williamina Belsches of Fettercairn, as a boy, youth and young man, Scott was fascinated by the oral traditions of the Scottish Borders
8.
Thomas Moore
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Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byrons memoirs after his death, in his lifetime he was often referred to as Anacreon Moore. From a relatively early age Moore showed an interest in music and he sometimes appeared in musical plays with his friends, such as The Poor Soldier by John OKeeffe, and at one point had ambitions to become an actor. Moore attended several Dublin schools including Samuel Whytes English Grammar School in Grafton Street where he learned the English accent with which he spoke for the rest of his life. In 1795 he graduated from Trinity College, which had recently allowed entry to Catholic students, Moore was initially a good student, but he later put less effort into his studies. This movement sought support from the French government to launch a revolution in Ireland, in 1798 a rebellion broke out followed by a French invasion, neither of which succeeded. Thomas Moore was born at 12 Aungier Street in Dublin, Ireland, over his fathers grocery shop, his father being from the Kerry Gaeltacht and his mother, Anastasia Codd, from Wexford. He had two sisters, Kate and Ellen. From a relatively early age Moore showed an interest in music and he sometimes appeared in musical plays with his friends, such as The Poor Soldier by John OKeeffe, and at one point had ambitions to become an actor. Moore attended several Dublin schools including Samuel Whytes English Grammar School in Grafton Street where he learned the English accent with which he spoke for the rest of his life. In 1795 he graduated from Trinity College, which had recently allowed entry to Catholic students, Moore was initially a good student, but he later put less effort into his studies. This movement sought support from the French government to launch a revolution in Ireland, in 1798 a rebellion broke out followed by a French invasion, neither of which succeeded. In 1799 he travelled to London to study law at Middle Temple and he was an impecunious student and had difficulties in paying the fees and his tailors bills. He was helped in this by his friends in the expatriate Irish community in London, including Barbara, widow of Arthur Chichester and she and her sister became his lifelong friends. However, it was as a poet, translator, balladeer and singer that he found fame, often simply called Moores Melodies, they were originally published between 1808 and 1834. But Moore was far more than a balladeer and he had major success as a society figure in London, meeting the Prince of Wales on several occasions and enjoying in particular the patronage of the Irish aristocrat Lord Moira. Moore stayed repeatedly at Moiras house at Donnington Park in Leicestershire where he enjoyed the extensive library and he also collaborated with Michael Kelly and Charles Edward Horn in staging operas to his librettos in 1801 and 1811. In 1803 he was appointed registrar to the Admiralty in Bermuda and he spent around three months on the island, but he found his work very light and uninspiring
9.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, PC was a British historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer, his books on British history have been hailed as literary masterpieces, Macaulay held political office as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and the Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1848. He played a role in introducing English and western concepts to education in India. He supported the replacement of Persian by English as the language, the use of English as the medium of instruction in all schools. In his view, Macaulay divided the world into civilised nations and barbarism and he was wedded to the Idea of Progress, especially in terms of the liberal freedoms. He opposed radicalism while idealising historic British culture and traditions, Macaulay was the son of Zachary Macaulay, a Scottish Highlander, who became a colonial governor and abolitionist, and Selina Mills of Bristol, a former pupil of Hannah More. They named their first child after his uncle Thomas Babington, a Leicestershire landowner and politician, Thomas Macaulay was born in Leicestershire, England, where he was noted as a child prodigy. As a toddler, gazing out of the window from his cot at the chimneys of a local factory and he was educated at a private school in Hertfordshire and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Whilst at Cambridge he wrote poetry and won several prizes. In 1825 he published a prominent essay on Milton in the Edinburgh Review and he studied law and in 1826 he was called to the bar but showed more interest in a political than a legal career. Macaulay, who never married and had no children, was rumoured to have fallen in love with Maria Kinnaird. But in fact, Macaulays strongest emotional ties were to his youngest sisters, Margaret who died while he was in India, as Hannah grew older, he formed the same close attachment to Hannahs daughter Margaret, whom he called Baba. Macaulay retained a passionate interest in literature throughout his life. He likely had an eidetic memory, while in India, he read every ancient Greek and Roman work that was available to him. In his letters, he describes reading the Aeneid whilst on vacation in Malvern in 1851 and he also taught himself German, Dutch, and Spanish, and remained fluent in French. In 1830 the Marquess of Lansdowne invited Macaulay to become Member of Parliament for the borough of Calne. His maiden speech was in favour of abolishing the civil disabilities of the Jews in the UK, Macaulay made his name with a series of speeches in favour of parliamentary reform. After the Great Reform Act of 1832 was passed, he became MP for Leeds, in the Reform, Calnes representation was reduced from two to one, Leeds had never been represented before, but now had two members
10.
New Testament
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The New Testament is the second major part of the Christian biblical canon, the first part being the Old Testament, based on the Hebrew Bible. The New Testament discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christianity, Christians regard both the Old and New Testaments together as sacred scripture. The New Testament has frequently accompanied the spread of Christianity around the world and it reflects and serves as a source for Christian theology and morality. Both extended readings and phrases directly from the New Testament are also incorporated into the various Christian liturgies, the New Testament has influenced religious, philosophical, and political movements in Christendom and left an indelible mark on literature, art, and music. In almost all Christian traditions today, the New Testament consists of 27 books, John A. T. Robinson, Dan Wallace, and William F. Albright dated all the books of the New Testament before 70 AD. Others give a date of 80 AD, or at 96 AD. Over time, some disputed books, such as the Book of Revelation, other works earlier held to be Scripture, such as 1 Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Diatessaron, were excluded from the New Testament. However, the canon of the New Testament, at least since Late Antiquity, has been almost universally recognized within Christianity. The term new testament, or new covenant first occurs in Jeremiah 31,31, the same Greek phrase for new covenant is found elsewhere in the New Testament. Modern English, like Latin, distinguishes testament and covenant as alternative translations, John Wycliffes 1395 version is a translation of the Latin Vulgate and so follows different terms in Jeremiah and Hebrews, Lo. Days shall come, saith the Lord, and I shall make a new covenant with the house of Israel, for he reproving him saith, Lo. Days come, saith the Lord, when I shall establish a new testament on the house of Israel, use of the term New Testament to describe a collection of first and second-century Christian Greek Scriptures can be traced back to Tertullian. In Against Marcion, written circa 208 AD, he writes of the Divine Word, by the 4th century, the existence—even if not the exact contents—of both an Old and New Testament had been established. Lactantius, a 3rd–4th century Christian author wrote in his early-4th-century Latin Institutiones Divinae and that which preceded the advent and passion of Christ—that is, the law and the prophets—is called the Old, but those things which were written after His resurrection are named the New Testament. The canon of the New Testament is the collection of books that most Christians regard as divinely inspired, several of these writings sought to extend, interpret, and apply apostolic teaching to meet the needs of Christians in a given locality. The book order is the same in the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, the Slavonic, Armenian and Ethiopian traditions have different New Testament book orders. Each of the four gospels in the New Testament narrates the life, death, the word gospel derives from the Old English gōd-spell, meaning good news or glad tidings. The gospel was considered the good news of the coming Kingdom of Messiah, and the redemption through the life and death of Jesus, Gospel is a calque of the Greek word εὐαγγέλιον, euangelion
11.
Edward III of England
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Edward III transformed the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe. Edward was crowned at age fourteen after his father was deposed by his mother, Isabella of France, at age seventeen he led a successful coup against Mortimer, the de facto ruler of the country, and began his personal reign. After a successful campaign in Scotland he declared himself heir to the French throne in 1337. This started what would become known as the Hundred Years War, following some initial setbacks the war went exceptionally well for England, victories at Crécy and Poitiers led to the highly favourable Treaty of Brétigny. Edwards later years, however, were marked by international failure and domestic strife, largely as a result of his inactivity, Edward III was a temperamental man but capable of unusual clemency. He was in ways a conventional king whose main interest was warfare. Admired in his own time and for centuries after, Edward was denounced as an adventurer by later Whig historians such as William Stubbs. This view has been challenged recently and modern historians credit him with some significant achievements, Edward was born at Windsor Castle on 13 November 1312, and was often referred to as Edward of Windsor in his early years. The reign of his father, Edward II, was a problematic period of English history. One source of contention was the inactivity, and repeated failure. Another controversial issue was the kings patronage of a small group of royal favourites. The birth of an heir in 1312 temporarily improved Edward IIs position in relation to the baronial opposition. To bolster further the independent prestige of the prince, the king had him created Earl of Chester at only twelve days of age. In 1325, Edward II was faced with a demand from his brother-in-law, Charles IV of France, Edward was reluctant to leave the country, as discontent was once again brewing domestically, particularly over his relationship with the favourite Hugh Despenser the Younger. Instead, he had his son Edward created Duke of Aquitaine in his place, the young Edward was accompanied by his mother Isabella, who was the sister of King Charles, and was meant to negotiate a peace treaty with the French. While in France, however, Isabella conspired with the exiled Roger Mortimer to have Edward deposed, to build up diplomatic and military support for the venture, Isabella had Prince Edward engaged to the twelve-year-old Philippa of Hainault. An invasion of England was launched and Edward IIs forces deserted him completely, the king was forced to relinquish the throne to his son on 25 January 1327. The new king was crowned as Edward III on 1 February 1327 and it was not long before the new reign also met with other problems caused by the central position at court of Roger Mortimer, who was now the de facto ruler of England
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Longmans". Encyclopædia Britannica. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 984–985.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 