1.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
2.
Elizabethan era
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The Elizabethan era is the epoch in English history marked by the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Historians often depict it as the age in English history. In terms of the century, the historian John Guy argues that England was economically healthier, more expansive. This golden age represented the apogee of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of poetry, music, the era is most famous for theatre, as William Shakespeare and many others composed plays that broke free of Englands past style of theatre. It was an age of exploration and expansion abroad, while back at home and it was also the end of the period when England was a separate realm before its royal union with Scotland. The Elizabethan Age may be viewed especially highly when considered in light of the failings of the periods preceding Elizabeths reign, the Protestant/Catholic divide was settled, for a time, by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, and parliament was not yet strong enough to challenge royal absolutism. England was also compared to the other nations of Europe. The Italian Renaissance had come to an end under the weight of Spanish domination of the peninsula, France was embroiled in its own religious battles due to significant Spanish intervention, that would only be settled in 1598 with the Edict of Nantes. The one great rival was Spain, which England clashed both in Europe and the Americas in skirmishes that exploded into the Anglo-Spanish War of 1585–1604 and this drained both the English Exchequer and economy that had been so carefully restored under Elizabeths prudent guidance. English commercial and territorial expansion would be limited until the signing of the Treaty of London the year following Elizabeths death, economically, the country began to benefit greatly from the new era of trans-Atlantic trade, persistent theft of Spanish treasure, and the African slave trade. The Victorian era and the early 20th century idealised the Elizabethan era, the Encyclopædia Britannica maintains that he long reign of Elizabeth I, 1558–1603, was Englands Golden Age. Merry England, in love with life, expressed itself in music and literature, in architecture and this idealising tendency was shared by Britain and an Anglophilic America. In popular culture, the image of those adventurous Elizabethan seafarers was embodied in the films of Errol Flynn, in response and reaction to this hyperbole, modern historians and biographers have tended to take a more dispassionate view of the Tudor period. Elizabethan England was not particularly successful in a military sense during the period, having inherited a virtually bankrupt state from previous reigns, her frugal policies restored fiscal responsibility. Her fiscal restraint cleared the regime of debt by 1574, and this general peace and prosperity allowed the attractive developments that Golden Age advocates have stressed. The Elizabethan Age was also an age of plots and conspiracies, frequently political in nature, high officials in Madrid, Paris and Rome sought to kill Elizabeth, a Protestant, and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic. That would be a prelude to the recovery of England for Catholicism. In 1570, the Ridolfi plot was thwarted, in 1584, the Throckmorton Plot was discovered, after Francis Throckmorton confessed his involvement in a plot to overthrow the Queen and restore the Catholic Church in England
3.
Hartshill
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Hartshill is a large village in the borough of North Warwickshire, England. The village is situated 3 miles northwest of Nuneaton town centre but is considered as a suburb of the town despite being in the North Warwickshire borough. In the 2001 census, the parish of Hartshill had a population of 3,611. Hartshill is notable because of the writer Michael Drayton who knew William Shakespeare, Drayton was born at Chapel Cottage in Hartshill Green in 1563. A school in Hartshill bears his name, called Michael Drayton Junior School, other schools in the village include Hartshill School. Photos of Hartshill and surrounding area on geograph
4.
Nuneaton
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Nuneaton /nəˈniːtən/ is a town in Warwickshire, England. The population in 2011 was 81,877, making it the largest town in Warwickshire, the author George Eliot was born on a farm on the Arbury Estate just outside Nuneaton in 1819 and lived in the town for much of her early life. Her novel Scenes of Clerical Life depicts Nuneaton, the Nuneaton built-up area, incorporating Nuneaton and surrounding villages including Hartshill and Bulkington, had a population of 92,968 at the 2011 census. Nuneaton is 9 miles north of Coventry,20 miles east of Birmingham and 103 miles northwest of London, the River Anker runs through the town. Towns close to Nuneaton include Bedworth, Atherstone and Hinckley, with Tamworth and Lutterworth a little further afield, the town lies 3 miles from the Leicestershire border,8 miles from Staffordshire and 12 miles from Derbyshire. Nuneatons name came from a 12th century Benedictine nunnery around which much of the town grew, prior to this it was a settlement known as Etone, which translates literally as water-town. Nuneaton was listed in the Domesday Book as a small hamlet, a market was established in 1233, which is still held. The first recorded use of the name was in 1247 when a document recorded it as Nonne Eton. The nunnery fell into disrepair after 1539, with Henry VIIIs Dissolution of the Monasteries, king Edward VI School was established by a royal charter in 1552. From 1944 it became a school for boys and, although it was locally known as KEGS. In 1974 it became a sixth form college, the other grammar schools in Nuneaton in the 1944 to 1974 period were Nuneaton High School for Girls and Manor Park. Nicholas Chamberlaine School in Bedworth was a comprehensive school that had a grammar school stream. Nuneaton grew gradually from the 17th century onwards, due to its position at the centre of the Warwickshire coalfields, at the time of the first national census in 1801 Nuneaton was one of the largest towns in Warwickshire, with a population of 5,000. During the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, Nuneaton developed a textile industry. Other industries which developed in the town included brick and tile making and brewing, by 1901 the population of Nuneaton had grown to 25,000. Nuneaton parish included the settlements of Attleborough and Stockingford, the parish was joined with Chilvers Coton parish in 1894 to form an urban district. Nuneaton was upgraded to the status of a borough in 1907. Due largely to munitions factories being located in Nuneaton, the town suffered heavy bombing damage during the Second World War, as a result of the bombing, much of the town centre was rebuilt in the post-war years
5.
Warwickshire
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Warwickshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton, the county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare. Commonly used abbreviations for the county are Warks or Warwicks, the county is divided into five districts of North Warwickshire, Nuneaton and Bedworth, Rugby, Warwick and Stratford-on-Avon. The current county boundaries were set in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, the historic county boundaries also included Coventry and Solihull, as well as much of Birmingham. The northern tip of the county is only 3 miles from the Derbyshire border, an average-sized English county covering an area of almost 2,000 km2, it runs some 60 miles north to south. Equivalently it extends as far north as Shrewsbury in Shropshire and as far south as Banbury in north Oxfordshire, the majority of Warwickshires population live in the north and centre of the county. The market towns of northern and eastern Warwickshire were industrialised in the 19th century, and include Atherstone, Bedworth, Nuneaton, of these, Atherstone has retained most of its original character. Major industries included coal mining, textiles, engineering and cement production, of the northern and eastern towns, only Nuneaton and Rugby are well-known outside of Warwickshire. The south of the county is rural and sparsely populated. The only town in the south of Warwickshire is Shipston-on-Stour, the highest point in the county, at 261 m, is Ebrington Hill, again on the border with Gloucestershire, grid reference SP187426 at the countys southwest extremity. There are no cities in Warwickshire since both Coventry and Birmingham were incorporated into the West Midlands county in 1974 and are now metropolitan authorities in themselves, the largest towns in Warwickshire in 2011 were, Nuneaton, Rugby, Leamington Spa, Bedworth, Warwick, Stratford and Kenilworth. Much of western Warwickshire, including that area now forming part of Coventry, Solihull, thus the names of a number of places in the central-western part of Warwickshire end with the phrase -in-Arden, such as Henley-in-Arden, Hampton-in-Arden and Tanworth-in-Arden. The remaining area, not part of the forest, was called the Felden – from fielden, areas historically part of Warwickshire include Coventry, Solihull, Sutton Coldfield, Erdington, and some of Birmingham including Aston and Edgbaston. These became part of the county of West Midlands following local government re-organisation in 1974. Some organisations, such as Warwickshire County Cricket Club, which is based in Edgbaston, in Birmingham, Coventry is effectively in the centre of the Warwickshire area, and still has strong ties with the county. Coventry and Warwickshire are sometimes treated as an area and share a single Chamber of Commerce. Coventry has been a part of Warwickshire for only some of its history, in 1451 Coventry was separated from Warwickshire and made a county corporate in its own right, called the County of the City of Coventry. In 1842 the county of Coventry was abolished and Coventry was remerged with Warwickshire, in recent times, there have been calls to formally re-introduce Coventry into Warwickshire, although nothing has yet come of this
6.
Collingham, Nottinghamshire
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Collingham is a village and civil parish in Nottinghamshire, England. The population at the 2011 Census was 2,738, Collingham is located on the banks of the River Trent on the A1133 main road, just off the A46. It is approximately 6 miles from Newark-on-Trent,15 miles from the city of Lincoln, Collingham is close to the old Roman Fort at Brough and there have been several local finds of Roman coins, jewellery and villa remains. It lies close to the Fosse Way on its way to Lincoln, the village name suggests a fairly early Saxon foundation, preceding the occupation of eastern England by the Danes and it is naturally mentioned in the Domesday Book. Many of the villages close by have names which suggest that they were later daughter settlements. It possessed two churches in North and South Collingham from before the Norman Conquest, the parishes extended from the river floodplain onto the uncultivated moorland on the higher ground between Trent and Witham, allowing for good grazing and meadowland throughout the year. The wide square fields and relatively few isolated farms are the result, one field was set aside in the enclosure award of 1790 for lease every year with the revenues being put to the use of the poor of the parish. During the siege of Newark in the English Civil War, the countryside was subject to deprivation from the opposing armies wanting food and fresh horses and the village suffered. In 1664, a mercer of Collingham, one Thomas Ridge, issued his own copper halfpenny tokens, in the nineteenth century Collingham was fairly self-sufficient with its own watchmaker, shoemakers, blacksmiths, dressmakers, schools, grocers and carriers. There were many local societies and the Nonconformist Churches had their own congregations, at one point there was considerable enmity between the Vicar of North Collingham and the Rector of South Collingham with many disputes about the schools in the village. There are a number of listed buildings in the village, from the c16 through to the c19. More information is available on the villages website Collingham Website Local amenities include the Co-op and One-Stop convenience stores, butchers, general store, newsagent, there is a medical centre/dentist/pharmacy complex which serves much of the surrounding area, plus a library in the same building. This will add two to four retail outlets in the Village Centre, and is supported by the majority of the villagers who voted in a Parish Council survey. There are some sporting facilities in Collingham, notably Collingham Football Club, there are also facilities for tennis, bowling and croquet while the nearby River Trent seems very popular with anglers. Collingham is fairly easy to get to by road or railway, Collingham is served by the Nottingham-Lincoln railway line used by East Midlands Trains and you can reach most parts of the Midlands. There is an East Coast station at Newark Northgate from which London can be reached as well as all locations on the East Coast Main Line, a bus service to Newark operates on an irregular basis, with two daily buses running to Lincoln on a daily basis. One ongoing issue affecting the village regards a bypass, the issue is not new, and has surfaced a number of times over the past sixty years or so, the last time being rejected in favour of another project in the county, a new bus station in Mansfield. The proposed bypass is not seen as a priority and in addition would damage the countryside, pressure groups within the village continue to campaign for the bypass to be built, regardless of how remote the possibility
7.
University of Oxford
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The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university located in Oxford, England. It grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris, after disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east to Cambridge where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two ancient universities are frequently referred to as Oxbridge. The university is made up of a variety of institutions, including 38 constituent colleges, All the colleges are self-governing institutions within the university, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities. Being a city university, it not have a main campus, instead, its buildings. Oxford is the home of the Rhodes Scholarship, one of the worlds oldest and most prestigious scholarships, the university operates the worlds oldest university museum, as well as the largest university press in the world and the largest academic library system in Britain. Oxford has educated many notable alumni, including 28 Nobel laureates,27 Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, the University of Oxford has no known foundation date. Teaching at Oxford existed in form as early as 1096. It grew quickly in 1167 when English students returned from the University of Paris, the historian Gerald of Wales lectured to such scholars in 1188 and the first known foreign scholar, Emo of Friesland, arrived in 1190. The head of the university had the title of chancellor from at least 1201, the university was granted a royal charter in 1248 during the reign of King Henry III. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled from the violence to Cambridge, the students associated together on the basis of geographical origins, into two nations, representing the North and the South. In later centuries, geographical origins continued to many students affiliations when membership of a college or hall became customary in Oxford. At about the time, private benefactors established colleges as self-contained scholarly communities. Among the earliest such founders were William of Durham, who in 1249 endowed University College, thereafter, an increasing number of students lived in colleges rather than in halls and religious houses. In 1333–34, an attempt by some dissatisfied Oxford scholars to found a new university at Stamford, Lincolnshire was blocked by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge petitioning King Edward III. Thereafter, until the 1820s, no new universities were allowed to be founded in England, even in London, thus, Oxford and Cambridge had a duopoly, the new learning of the Renaissance greatly influenced Oxford from the late 15th century onwards. Among university scholars of the period were William Grocyn, who contributed to the revival of Greek language studies, and John Colet, the noted biblical scholar. With the English Reformation and the breaking of communion with the Roman Catholic Church, recusant scholars from Oxford fled to continental Europe, as a centre of learning and scholarship, Oxfords reputation declined in the Age of Enlightenment, enrolments fell and teaching was neglected
8.
Polesworth
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Polesworth is a large village and civil parish in the North Warwickshire district of Warwickshire, England. In the 2001 census it had a population of 8,439, inclusive of the continuous subvillages of St Helena, Dordon, the population had decreased slightly to 8,423 at the 2011 Census. This population technically allows Polesworth market town status, Polesworth is located close to the northern tip of Warwickshire 3 miles northwest of Atherstone and adjacent to the border with Staffordshire, and is only 4 miles from Tamworth. The border with Derbyshire is 5.5 miles to the north, the River Anker and the Coventry Canal run through Polesworth, and the A5 road runs nearby. Polesworth railway station is on the West Coast Main Line, in 2005, Polesworth received no train services due to the modernisation of the West Coast Main Line. Train services were replaced by a replacement bus service, the footbridge to the up platform was removed and has not been replaced. The station in 2011 only receives one northbound service each day, the name Polesworth is derived from pol meaning a pool and worth meaning a dwelling or enclosure in the Old English language. Polesworth was once the site of an abbey, Polesworth Abbey was founded in 827 by King Egbert with his daughter Editha as Abbess. It prospered for 700 years but was disbanded as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, in 1544 the lands of the Abbey were granted by the Crown to Francis Goodere, who used the stones of the Abbey to build a manor house, Polesworth Hall. Henry Goodere, son of Francis, was a patron of the arts, the poet Michael Drayton was in the service of the Goodere family around 1580, and his works contain allusions to Polesworth and the River Anker. It is rumoured that William Shakespeare also spent some time as a page boy here. Polesworth Hall no longer exists, as it was demolished in the 1860s, in around 1509 Thomas Cockayne constructed Pooley Hall, which today includes some of the oldest brickwork in the country. The hall still exists and overlooks Pooley View and that part of the hall known as Pooley Farm was once owned by Edwin Starr, famous for the song War. During the English Civil War, Polesworth and Wilnecote are listed among the towns paying arrears to the Parliamentary garrison at Tamworth. In an account drawn up by a Captain Thomas Layfield for the period from 1 November 1645 to 1 May 1646, Polesworth was assessed at and paid £196.16.0 while Wilnecote paid £50.7.0. When the Coventry Canal was built through Polesworth in the 1770s, the village developed a coal-mining and clay industry, a lime kiln became a focal point along the canal, however, it was demolished in the 1980s. During the Second World War, opencast coal-mining devastated the surrounding countryside, the former opencast site is now a public park and the river now flows on its original course. Industry is now gone and Polesworth serves mainly as a commuter town for nearby towns and cities such as Tamworth, Nuneaton, Lichfield, Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham
9.
Song of Solomon
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The Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, Canticles, or the Canticle of Canticles, is one of the scrolls of the Writings, the last section of the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible. It is also the book of Wisdom in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The Song of Songs is read on the Sabbath during the Passover, marking the beginning of the grain harvest, scripturally, the Song of Songs is unique in its celebration of sexual love. It gives the voices of two lovers, praising each other, yearning for each other, proffering invitations to enjoy, the two each desire the other and rejoice in their sexual intimacy. The daughters of Jerusalem form a chorus to the lovers, functioning as an audience participation in the lovers erotic encounters facilitates the participation of the reader. Jewish tradition reads it as an allegory of the relationship between God and Israel, Christian tradition, in addition to appreciating the literal meaning of a romantic song between man and woman, has read the poem as an allegory of Christ and his bride, the Christian Church. There is widespread consensus that, although the book has no plot, it does have what can be called a framework, the following schema from Kugler & al. It begins with the expression of desire for her lover and her self-description to the daughters of Jerusalem. She says she is black because she had to work in the vineyards, a dialogue between the lovers follows, the woman asks the man to meet, he replies with a lightly teasing tone. The two compete in offering flattering compliments, the section closes with the woman telling the daughters of Jerusalem not to stir up love such as hers until it is ready. The woman recalls a visit from her lover in the springtime and she uses imagery from a shepherds life, and she says of her lover that he pastures his flock among the lilies. The woman again addresses the daughters of Jerusalem, describing her fervent, when she finds him she takes him almost by force into the chamber in which her mother conceived her. She reveals that this is a dream, seen on her bed at night, the next section reports a royal wedding procession. Solomon is mentioned by name, and the daughters of Jerusalem are invited to come out, the man describes his beloved, Her hair is like a flock of goats, her teeth like shorn ewes, and so on from face to breasts. Place-names feature heavily, her neck is like the Tower of David and he hastens to summon his beloved, saying that he is ravished by even a single glance. The section becomes a poem, in which he describes her as a locked garden. The woman invites the man to enter the garden and taste the fruits, the man accepts the invitation, and a third party tells them to eat, drink, and be drunk with love. The woman tells the daughters of Jerusalem of another dream and she was in her chamber when her lover knocked
10.
Archbishop of Canterbury
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The current archbishop is Justin Welby. His enthronement took place at Canterbury Cathedral on 21 March 2013, Welby is the 105th in a line which goes back more than 1400 years to Augustine of Canterbury, the Apostle to the English, sent from Rome in the year 597. From the time of Augustine in the 6th until the 16th century, during the English Reformation the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. In the Middle Ages there was variation in the methods of nomination of the Archbishop of Canterbury. At various times the choice was made by the canons of Canterbury Cathedral, today the archbishop fills four main roles, He is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury, which covers the eastern parts of the County of Kent. Founded in 597, it is the oldest see in the English church and he is the metropolitan archbishop of the Province of Canterbury, which covers the southern two-thirds of England. He is the primate and chief religious figure of the Church of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury plays a part in national ceremonies such as coronations, due to his high public profile. As spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop, although without legal authority outside England, is recognised by convention as primus inter pares of all Anglican primates worldwide, since 1867 he has convened more or less decennial meetings of worldwide Anglican bishops, the Lambeth Conferences. In the last two of these functions he has an important ecumenical and interfaith role, speaking on behalf of Anglicans in England, the archbishops main residence is Lambeth Palace in the London Borough of Lambeth. He also has lodgings in the Old Palace, Canterbury, located beside Canterbury Cathedral, as holder of one of the five great sees, the Archbishop of Canterbury is ex officio one of the Lords Spiritual of the House of Lords. He is one of the men in England and the highest ranking non-royal in the United Kingdoms order of precedence. Since Henry VIII broke with Rome, the Archbishops of Canterbury have been selected by the English monarch, today the choice is made in the name of the monarch by the prime minister, from a shortlist of two selected by an ad-hoc committee called the Crown Nominations Commission. Since the 20th century, the appointment of Archbishops of Canterbury conventionally alternates between more moderate Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals, the current archbishop, Justin Welby, the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury, was enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral on 4 February 2013. As archbishop he signs himself as + Justin Cantuar and his predecessor, Rowan Williams, 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, was enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral on 27 February 2003. Immediately prior to his appointment to Canterbury, Williams was the Bishop of Monmouth, on 18 March 2012, Williams announced he would be stepping down as Archbishop of Canterbury at the end of 2012 to become Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. In addition to his office, the archbishop also holds a number of positions, for example, he is Joint President of the Council of Christians. Some positions he formally holds ex officio and others virtually so, geoffrey Fisher, 99th Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first since 1397 to visit Rome, where he held private talks with Pope John XXIII in 1960
11.
Sonnet
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A sonnet is a poem in a specific form which originated in Italy, Giacomo da Lentini is credited with its invention. The term sonnet is derived from the Italian word sonetto, by the thirteenth century it signified a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure. Conventions associated with the sonnet have evolved over its history, writers of sonnets are sometimes called sonneteers, although the term can be used derisively. The sonnet was created by Giacomo da Lentini, head of the Sicilian School under Emperor Frederick II, guittone dArezzo rediscovered it and brought it to Tuscany where he adapted it to his language when he founded the Siculo-Tuscan School, or Guittonian school of poetry. Other Italian poets of the time, including Dante Alighieri and Guido Cavalcanti, wrote sonnets, other fine examples were written by Michelangelo. The structure of a typical Italian sonnet of the included two parts that together formed a compact form of argument. First, the octave, forms the proposition, which describes a problem, or question, followed by a sestet, typically, the ninth line initiates what is called the turn, or volta, which signals the move from proposition to resolution. Even in sonnets that dont strictly follow the structure, the ninth line still often marks a turn by signaling a change in the tone, mood. Later, the abba, abba pattern became the standard for Italian sonnets, for the sestet there were two different possibilities, cde, cde and cdc, cdc. In time, other variants on this scheme were introduced. Petrarch typically used an abba, abba pattern for the octave, in English, both the English or Shakespearean sonnet, and the Italian Petrarchan sonnet are traditionally written in iambic pentameter. Early twentieth-century American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay also wrote mostly Petrarchan sonnets, on His Blindness by Milton, gives a sense of the Petrarchan rhyme scheme, Most Sonnets in Dantes La Vita Nuova are Petrarchan. Chapter VII gives sonnet O voi che per la via, with two sestets and two quatrains, and Ch. VIII, Morte villana, with two sestets and two quatrains and it was written by Paolo Lanfranchi da Pistoia and is addressed to Peter III of Aragon. It employs the rhyme scheme a-b-a-b, a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d-c-d and this poem is historically interesting for its information on north Italian perspectives concerning the War of the Sicilian Vespers, the conflict between the Angevins and Aragonese for Sicily. It congratulates Robert of Naples on his recent victory, there are also two poorly regarded sonnets by the Italian Dante de Maiano. By the late 17th century poets on increasingly relied on stanza forms incorporating rhymed couplets, and by the 18th century fixed-form poems – and, in particular, the resulting versification – less constrained by meter and rhyme patterns than Renaissance poetry – more closely mirrored prose. The Romantics were responsible for a return to many of the poems used during the 15th and 16th centuries. The sonnet however was used until the Parnassians brought it back into favor
12.
Thomas Fairfax
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Fairfax became unhappy with Cromwells policy and publicly refused to take part in Charless show trial. Eventually he resigned, leaving Cromwell to control the republic and his dark hair and eyes and a swarthy complexion earned him the nickname Black Tom. Thomas Fairfax was born at Denton Hall, halfway between Ilkley and Otley in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on 17 January 1612, the eldest son of Ferdinando Fairfax, 2nd Lord Fairfax of Cameron. He studied at St Johns College, Cambridge, and Grays Inn, in the Second Bishops War the following year the English army was routed at the Battle of Newburn. Fairfax fled with the rest of the army but was nevertheless knighted for his services in January 1641. His distant cousin was Sir Thomas Fairfax of Gilling Castle - the common ancestor of both Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and her husband, Prince William and this was at a great meeting of the freeholders and farmers of Yorkshire convened by the king on Heworth Moor near York. Charles evaded receiving the petition, pressing his horse forward, but Fairfax followed him and placed the petition on the pommel of the kings saddle. When the civil war broke out in 1642, his father, Lord Fairfax, was appointed general of the Parliamentary forces in the north, both father and son distinguished themselves in the campaigns in Yorkshire. A gathering of national forces within a few square miles of ground naturally led to a battle. The younger Fairfax bore himself with the greatest gallantry in the battle, and though severely wounded managed to join Oliver Cromwell, one of his brothers, Colonel Charles Fairfax, was killed in the action. But the Marquess of Newcastle fled the kingdom, and the Royalists abandoned all hope of retrieving their affairs, the city of York was taken, and nearly the whole north submitted to the Parliament. In the south and west of England, however, the Royalist cause was still strong, the war had lasted two years, and the nation began to complain of the contributions that were exacted, and the excesses that were committed by the military. Dissatisfaction was expressed with the commanders, and, as a preliminary step to reform. This involved the removal of the Earl of Essex from the supreme command and this was followed by the New Model Ordinance, which replaced the locally raised Parliamentary regiments with a unified army. Sir Thomas Fairfax was selected as the new general with Cromwell as his lieutenant-general. Fairfax besieged Leicester, and was successful at Taunton, Bridgwater, the whole west was soon reduced. Fairfax arrived in London on 12 November 1645, in his progress towards the capital he was accompanied by applauding crowds. Complimentary speeches and thanks were presented to him by both houses of parliament, along with a jewel of great value set with diamonds, in January 1647 he was delivered up by the Covenanters to the commissioners of Englands parliament
13.
Edmund Waller
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Edmund Waller, FRS was an English poet and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1624 and 1679. Educated at Eton and Kings College, Cambridge, Waller entered Parliament at an age and was at first an active member of the opposition. In 1631 he married a London heiress who died in 1634, later he became a Royalist during the political turmoil of the 1640s, and in 1643 was leader in a plot to seize London for Charles I. For this he was arrested, but escaped the penalty by betraying his colleagues. Instead he was imprisoned, fined, and banished and he made his peace with the Commonwealth government in 1651, returned to England, and was restored to favour at the Restoration. After the death of his first wife he unsuccessfully courted Lady Dorothy Sidney, rejecting the dense intellectual verse of Metaphysical poetry, Waller adopted generalizing statement, easy associative development, and urbane social comment. His Poems first appeared in 1645, and Divine Poems in 1685 and his opus includes poetic tributes to both Oliver Cromwell and Charles II. Edmund Waller was born on 3 March 1606 at Stocks Place, Coleshill and he was the eldest son of Robert Waller and Anne, his wife, daughter of Griffith Hampden. On his fathers side of the family Waller was related to the Parliamentarian generals Sir Hardress Waller and Sir William Waller. By Wallers own account he was bred under several ill, dull and ignorant schoolmasters, until he went to Mr Dobson at Wycombe and this refers to his time at the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe, under the tutelage of Gerard Dobson. Wallers father died in 1616, and his mother Ann sent him to Eton between 1618 and 1621, and to the University of Cambridge. He was admitted a fellow-commoner of Kings College, Cambridge on 22 March 1620, he left without a degree, before completing his education at Lincoln’s Inn in 1622. The family settled at Hall Barn, Beaconsfield in 1624, in 1626 he was elected MP for Chipping Wycombe. He was elected MP for Amersham in 1628 and sat until 1629 when King Charles decided to rule without parliament for eleven years and he made virtually no impact on the records of these parliaments. Wallers first marriage, on 15 July 1631, was to Anne Banks, or Bancks, daughter of John Banks, John Banks had died in 1630, leaving his wealth, some £8,000, to Anne. Anne was a ward of the Court of Aldermen at the time and he received a heavy fine, but his own fortune was large, and all his life Waller was a wealthy man. After bearing him a son and a daughter at Beaconsfield, Anne Waller died in childbirth in October 1634. It was about time that the poet was elected into the literary circle, or Club, of Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland at his house at Great Tew
14.
John Dryden
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John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made Englands first Poet Laureate in 1668. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in circles as the Age of Dryden. Walter Scott called him Glorious John, Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire, where his maternal grandfather was rector of All Saints. He was a cousin once removed of Jonathan Swift. As a boy Dryden lived in the village of Titchmarsh. In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a Kings Scholar where his headmaster was Dr. Richard Busby, having recently been re-founded by Elizabeth I, Westminster during this period embraced a very different religious and political spirit encouraging royalism and high Anglicanism. Whatever Drydens response to this was, he respected the headmaster. As a humanist public school, Westminster maintained a curriculum which trained pupils in the art of rhetoric and this is a skill which would remain with Dryden and influence his later writing and thinking, as much of it displays these dialectical patterns. The Westminster curriculum included weekly translation assignments which developed Drydens capacity for assimilation and this was also to be exhibited in his later works. Busby had first prayed for the King and then locked in his schoolboys to prevent their attending the spectacle, in 1650 Dryden went up to Trinity College, Cambridge. Though there is specific information on Drydens undergraduate years, he would most certainly have followed the standard curriculum of classics, rhetoric. In 1654 he obtained his BA, graduating top of the list for Trinity that year, in June of the same year Drydens father died, leaving him some land which generated a little income, but not enough to live on. Returning to London during the Protectorate, Dryden obtained work with Cromwells Secretary of State and this appointment may have been the result of influence exercised on his behalf by his cousin the Lord Chamberlain, Sir Gilbert Pickering. At Cromwells funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden processed with the Puritan poets John Milton, shortly thereafter he published his first important poem, Heroic Stanzas, a eulogy on Cromwells death which is cautious and prudent in its emotional display. In 1660 Dryden celebrated the Restoration of the monarchy and the return of Charles II with Astraea Redux, in this work the interregnum is illustrated as a time of anarchy, and Charles is seen as the restorer of peace and order. After the Restoration, as Dryden quickly established himself as the poet and literary critic of his day. Along with Astraea Redux, Dryden welcomed the new regime with two more panegyrics, To His Sacred Majesty, A Panegyric on his Coronation and To My Lord Chancellor and these, and his other nondramatic poems, are occasional—that is, they celebrate public events. Thus they are written for the rather than the self
15.
Anacreontics
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Anacreontics are verses in a meter used by the Greek poet Anacreon in his poems dealing with love and wine. His later Greek imitators took up the themes and used the Anacreontic meter. In modern poetry, Anacreontics are short pieces that keep the Anacreontic subject matter. The Anacreontic verse or anacreonteus is the seven-syllable line ˘ ˘ ¯ ˘ ¯ ˘ ¯ ¯. While the Anacreontic may well not be in its origin an anaclastic variant of the Ionic dimeter, one example of anacreontics from the corpus of Anacreon is fr. 11b PMG, ἄγε δηὖτε μηκέτ οὕτω πατάγωι τε κἀλαλητῶι Σκυθικὴν πόσιν παρ οἴνωι μελετῶμεν, in English poetry, Anacreontics are the title given to short lyrical pieces, of an easy kind, dealing with love and wine. Make the most of life you may, Life is short, Anacreontic Society This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Anacreontics
16.
Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall
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Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall was an English nobleman of Gascon origin, and the favourite of King Edward II of England. At a young age he made an impression on King Edward I Longshanks. Edward bestowed the Earldom of Cornwall on Gaveston, and arranged for him to marry his niece Margaret de Clare, Gavestons exclusive access to the King provoked several members of the nobility, and in 1307 the King was again forced to send him into exile. During this absence he served as the Kings Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Edward managed to negotiate a deal with the opposition, however, and Gaveston returned the next year. Upon his return his behaviour even more offensive, and by the Ordinances of 1311 it was decided that Gaveston should be exiled for a third time. When he did return in 1312, he was hunted down and executed by a group of magnates led by Thomas of Lancaster and Guy de Beauchamp and this assertion has received the support of some modern historians, while others have questioned it. According to Pierre Chaplais, the relationship between the two was that of a brotherhood, and Gaveston served as an unofficial deputy for a reluctant king. Piers Gavestons father was Arnaud de Gabaston, a Gascon knight in the service of Gaston VII of Béarn. Gabaston had come into an amount of land in Gascony through his marriage to Claramonde de Marsan. Through the possessions of his wife, Gabaston also became a vassal of the King of England and his service to Edward I of England stretched over a long period of time, starting in the Welsh Wars of 1282–83, in which he participated with a substantial contingent. Sometime before 4 February 1287, Claramonde died, and for the rest of his life Gabaston struggled to retain his wifes inheritance from rival claims by relatives, because of this, he became financially dependent on the English king, and was continuously in his service. He was used as a hostage by Edward twice, first in 1288 to Aragon, secondly in 1294 to the French king, after returning home, he was back in England in 1300, where he served with Edward I in the Scottish Wars. He died at some point before 18 May 1302, little is known of Piers Gavestons early years, even his year of birth is unknown. He and Prince Edward of Caernarfon were said to be contemporaries, though one chronicle claims he accompanied his father to England in 1297, the first reliable reference to him is from Gascony later that year, when he served in the company of Edward I. In 1300 he sailed to England with his father and his older brother and it was at this time that he became a member of the household of the young Prince Edward – the future Edward II. The King was apparently impressed by Gavestons conduct and martial skills, in 1304, the King awarded Gaveston the wardship of Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, after the death of Rogers father, on the request of Edward, Prince of Wales. This put Gaveston in charge of Mortimers possessions during the latters minority, as part of the circle around the prince, however, Gaveston also became entangled in conflicts between the King and his son. These difficulties first materialised in a dispute between treasurer Walter Langton and Prince Edward, the case enraged King Edward to the point where he banned his son from court, and banished several men from the princes household
17.
Epic poetry
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An epic poem, epic, epos, or epopee is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Milman Parry and Albert Lord have argued that the Homeric epics and these works form the basis of the epic genre in Western literature. Nearly all Western epic self-consciously presents itself as a continuation of the tradition begun by these poems, classical epic employs dactylic hexameter and recounts a journey, either physical or mental or both. Epics also tend to highlight cultural norms and to define or call into question cultural values, another type of epic poetry is epyllion, which is a brief narrative poem with a romantic or mythological theme. The term, which means little epic, came into use in the nineteenth century, the most famous example of classical epyllion is perhaps Catullus 64. The first epics were products of preliterate societies and oral history poetic traditions, in these traditions, poetry is transmitted to the audience and from performer to performer by purely oral means. Early twentieth-century study of living oral traditions in the Balkans by Milman Parry. What they demonstrated was that oral epics tend to be constructed in short episodes, each of equal status, interest and this facilitates memorization, as the poet is recalling each episode in turn and using the completed episodes to recreate the entire epic as he performs it. Parry and Lord also contend that the most likely source for written texts of the epics of Homer was dictation from an oral performance, poets in literate societies have sometimes copied the epic format. The earliest surviving European examples are the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes and Virgils Aeneid, other obvious examples are Nonnus Dionysiaca, Tulsidas Sri Ramacharit Manas. In his work Poetics, Aristotle defines an epic as one of the forms of poetry, contrasted with lyric poetry, an attempt to delineate ten main characteristics of an epic, Begins in medias res. The setting is vast, covering many nations, the world or the universe, Begins with an invocation to a muse. Begins with a statement of the theme, contains long lists, called an epic catalogue. Shows divine intervention on human affairs, features heroes that embody the values of the civilization. Often features the tragic heros descent into the Underworld or hell, the hero generally participates in a cyclical journey or quest, faces adversaries that try to defeat him in his journey and returns home significantly transformed by his journey. The epic hero illustrates traits, performs deeds, and exemplifies certain morals that are valued by the society the epic originates from, many epic heroes are recurring characters in the legends of their native culture. Conventions of epics, Preposition, Opens by stating the theme or cause of the epic and this may take the form of a purpose, of a question, or of a situation. Invocation, Writer invokes a Muse, one of the nine daughters of Zeus, the poet prays to the Muses to provide him with divine inspiration to tell the story of a great hero
18.
Thomas Lodge
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Thomas Lodge was an English physician and author during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Thomas Lodge, born about 1558 in west Ham, was the son of Sir Thomas Lodge, Lord Mayor of London. He was educated at Merchant Taylors School and Trinity College, Oxford, taking his BA in 1577, in 1578 he entered Lincolns Inn, where, as in the other Inns of Court, a love of letters and a crop of debts were common. Lodge, disregarding the wishes of his family, took up literature, when the penitent Stephen Gosson had published his Schoole of Abuse, Lodge responded with Defence of Poetry, Music and Stage Plays, which shows a certain restraint, though both forceful and learned. The pamphlet was banned, but appears to have been circulated privately and it was answered by Gosson in his Playes Confuted in Five Actions, and Lodge retorted with his Alarum Against Usurers —a tract for the times which may have resulted from personal experience. In the same year he produced the first tale written by him on his own account in prose and verse, The Delectable History of Forbonius and Prisceria, both published and reprinted with the Alarum. From 1587 onwards he seems to have made a series of attempts at play writing, though most of those attributed to him are mainly conjectural. Having been to sea with Captain Clarke in his expedition to Terceira and the Canaries, Lodge in 1591 made a voyage with Thomas Cavendish to Brazil and the Straits of Magellan, returning home by 1593. Another romance in the manner of Lyly, Euphues Shadow, the Battaile of the Sences, two years afterwards he received the degree of M. D. from Oxford University. He was abroad on urgent private affairs of one kind and another in 1616, from this time to his death nothing further concerning him remains to be noted. Lodge while practising medicine in London lived first in Warwick Lane, afterwards in Lambert Hill and he died in Old Fish Street in 1625, apparently in the Roman Catholic communion. Lodges known dramatic work is small in quantity, in conjunction with Robert Greene he, probably in 1590, produced in a popular vein the odd but far from feeble play, A Looking Glass for London and England. He had already written The Wounds of Civil War, a good second-rate piece in the fashion of its age. That Lodge is the Young Juvenal of Greenes Groatsworth of Wit is no longer a generally accepted hypothesis and his second historical romance, the Life and Death of William Longbeard, was more successful than the first. Lodge also brought back with him from the new world A Margarite of America, to this tale Shakespeare was possibly indebted for the idea of Venus and Adonis. In a lost work, the Sailors Kalendar, he must in one way or another have recounted his sea adventures. After Lodge received his M. D. Lodge seems to have married his first wife Joan in or before 1583 and that his family viewed his conduct at the time with disfavour may be inferred from the absence of his name from his fathers will in 1583. Lodge and Joan had a daughter Mary and he married secondly Jane, widow of Solomon Aldred, at one time a Roman Catholic agent of Francis Walsingham in Rome
19.
Edmund Spenser
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Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the craftsmen of nascent Modern English verse. He was deeply affected by Irish faerie mythology, which he knew from his home at Kilcolman and his genocidal tracts against Gaelic culture were war propaganda. His house was burned to the ground during the war, causing him to flee Ireland, Edmund Spenser was born in East Smithfield, London, around the year 1552, though there is some ambiguity as to the exact date of his birth. As a young boy, he was educated in London at the Merchant Taylors School, while at Cambridge he became a friend of Gabriel Harvey and later consulted him, despite their differing views on poetry. In 1578, he became for a time secretary to John Young. In 1579, he published The Shepheardes Calender and around the time married his first wife. They had two children, Sylvanus and Katherine, in July 1580, Spenser went to Ireland in service of the newly appointed Lord Deputy, Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey de Wilton. Spenser served under Lord Gray with Walter Raleigh at the Siege of Smerwick massacre, when Lord Grey was recalled to England, Spenser stayed on in Ireland, having acquired other official posts and lands in the Munster Plantation. Raleigh acquired other nearby Munster estates confiscated in the Second Desmond Rebellion, some time between 1587 and 1589, Spenser acquired his main estate at Kilcolman, near Doneraile in North Cork. He later bought a second holding to the south, at Rennie and its ruins are still visible today. A short distance away grew a tree, locally known as Spensers Oak until it was destroyed in a strike in the 1960s. Local legend has it that he penned some of The Faerie Queene under this tree. In 1590, Spenser brought out the first three books of his most famous work, The Faerie Queene, having travelled to London to publish and promote the work and he was successful enough to obtain a life pension of £50 a year from the Queen. By 1594, Spensers first wife had died, and in that year he married Elizabeth Boyle, the marriage itself was celebrated in Epithalamion. They had a son named Peregrine, in 1596, Spenser wrote a prose pamphlet titled A View of the Present State of Ireland. This piece, in the form of a dialogue, circulated in manuscript and it is probable that it was kept out of print during the authors lifetime because of its inflammatory content. The pamphlet argued that Ireland would never be totally pacified by the English until its indigenous language and customs had been destroyed, in 1598, during the Nine Years War, Spenser was driven from his home by the native Irish forces of Aodh Ó Néill
20.
Samuel Daniel
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Samuel Daniel was an English poet and historian. Daniel was born near Taunton in Somerset, the son of a music-master and he was the brother of lutenist and composer John Danyel. Their sister, whose name is unknown, may have married Daniels friend John Florio, in 1579, Daniel was admitted to Magdalen Hall at Oxford University, where he remained for about three years and afterwards devoted himself to the study of poetry and philosophy. A Samuel Daniel is recorded in 1586 as being the servant of Edward Stafford, the Baron of Stafford and this is probably the same person as the poet. He was first encouraged and, by his own account, taught in verse, by the Countess of Pembroke and he had entered her household as tutor to her son, Lord Herbert. His first known work, a translation of Paulus Jovius, to some original matter is appended, was printed in 1585. His first known volume of verse is dated 1592, it contains the cycle of sonnets addressed to Delia, twenty-seven of the sonnets had already been printed at the end of Sir Philip Sidneys Astrophil and Stella without the authors consent. Several editions of Delia appeared in 1592, and they were frequently reprinted during Daniels lifetime. To an edition of Delia and Rosamond, in 1594, was added the tragedy of Cleopatra, written in style, in alternately rhyming heroic verse. The First Four Books of the Civil Wars, a poem on the subject of the Wars of the Roses, in ottava rima. About this time he became tutor to Lady Anne Clifford, daughter of the Margaret Clifford, Countess of Cumberland. On the death of Edmund Spenser, in the year, Daniel received the somewhat vague office of Poet Laureate. Many later editions contained in addition his Poetical Epistles to his patrons and this was not just a defense of rhyme in the formal sense, but of the idea of there being positive post-classical literary developments. As Nicholas Birns puts it, Daniels defense of rhyme entails a defense of the medieval and he even went so far as seeing Tamburlaine in Christopher Marlowes play as a barbarian to be admired. In 1603, Daniel was appointed master of the queens revels, as a dramatist, Daniel maintained a traditional relationship with Court and University, and had little to do with the popular drama that was such a striking development of his culture in his era. The hero of the play was perceived to resemble Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex—a troubling connection, in 1605, Certain Small Poems appeared, with the tragedy of Philotas. Certaine small Workes heretofore divulged by Samuel Daniel was a version of all his works except Delia. In 1609 the Civil Wars had been completed in eight books, in 1612 Daniel published a prose History of England, from the earliest times down to the end of the reign of Edward III
21.
Momus
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Momus was in Greek mythology the personification of satire and mockery, two stories about whom figure among Aesop’s Fables. During the Renaissance, several literary works used him as a mouthpiece for their criticism of tyranny, onstage he finally became the figure of harmless fun. As a sharp-tongued spirit of criticism, Momus was eventually expelled from the company of the gods on Mount Olympus. His name is related to μομφή, meaning blame, reproach, hesiod said that Momus was a son of Night, “though she lay with none”, and the twin of the misery goddess Oizys. In the 8th century BCE epic Cypria, Momus was credited with stirring up the Trojan War in order to reduce the human population, sophocles wrote a later satyr play called Momos, now almost entirely lost, which may have derived from this. Two of Aesops fables feature the god, the most widely reported of these in Classical times is numbered 100 in the Perry Index. There Momus is asked to judge the handiwork of three gods, a man, a house and a bull, because of it, Plutarch and Aristotle criticized Aesop’s story-telling as deficient in understanding, while Lucian insisted that anyone with sense was able to sound out a man’s thoughts. As another result, Momus became a by-word for fault-finding, thus a poem in the Greek Anthology remarks of statues by Praxiteles that “Momus himself will cry out, Father Zeus, this was perfect skill. A social comedy from the 2nd century CE served as inspiration for later criticisms of society, at the start of the Renaissance, Leon Battista Alberti wrote the political work Momus or The Prince, which continued the god’s story after his exile to earth. Since his continued criticism of the gods was destabilizing the divine establishment, later, however, missing his candor, he sought out a manuscript that Momus had left behind in which was described how a land could be ruled with strictly regulated justice. At the start of the 16th century, Erasmus also presented Momus as a champion of legitimate criticism of authorities. Allowing that the god was “not quite as popular as others, because few people freely admit criticism, yet I dare say of the crowd of gods celebrated by the poets. Momus there plays a part in the series of dialogues conducted by the Olympian deities. 17th century English writers introduced the figure of Momus in a spirit of fun, as in Thomas Carew’s masque Coelum Britannicum. There too Momus and Mercury draw up a plan to reform the ‘Star Chamber’ of Heaven, two centuries on, it was to influence Henry David Thoreau as he was preparing to write his Walden. Elsewhere in Europe, Momus was becoming softened into a figure of light-hearted and sentimental comedy, a typical production has him competing for the amorous favours of a nymph in Henry Desmarets’ opéra-ballet Les amours de Momus. By this period, then, Momus was the patron of humorous satire and he also lent his name to George Saville Carey’s satirical poem, Momus, or a critical examination into the merits of the performers and comic pieces at the Theatre-Royal in the Hay-Market. The god himself plays no part there, only “Momus’ sons”, media related to Momus at Wikimedia Commons Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Momus, God of Laughter, Poem at www. americanpoems. com
22.
Robert Curthose
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Robert Curthose, sometimes called Robert II or Robert III, was the Duke of Normandy from 1087 until 1106 and an unsuccessful claimant to the throne of the Kingdom of England. Robert was the eldest son of William the Conqueror, the first Norman king of England, and Matilda of Flanders, and a participant in the First Crusade. His reign as duke is noted for the discord with his brothers in England, eventually leading to his death in captivity, Roberts birth-date is usually given as 1054, but may have been 1051. As a child he was betrothed to Margaret, the heiress of Maine, but she died before they could be wed, in his youth he was reported to be courageous and skillful in military exercises. He was, however, also prone to laziness and weakness of character that discontented nobles and he was unsatisfied with the share of power allotted to him and quarreled with his father and brothers fiercely. In 1063, his father made him the Count of Maine in view of his engagement to Margaret, the county was presumably run by his father until 1069 when the county revolted and reverted to Hugh V of Maine. In 1077, Robert instigated his first insurrection against his father as the result of a prank played by his younger brothers William Rufus and Henry, who had dumped a full chamber-pot over his head. Robert was enraged and, urged on by his companions, started a brawl with his brothers that was interrupted by the intercession of their father. Feeling that his dignity was wounded, Robert was further angered when King William failed to punish his brothers, the next day Robert and his followers attempted to seize the castle of Rouen. The siege failed, but, when King William ordered their arrest, Robert and they were forced to flee again when King William attacked their base at Rémalard. Relations were not helped when King William discovered that his wife, at a battle in January 1079, Robert unhorsed King William in combat and succeeded in wounding him, stopping his attack only when he recognized his fathers voice. Humiliated, King William cursed his son, King William then raised the siege and returned to Rouen. At Easter 1080, father and son were reunited by the efforts of Queen Matilda, Robert seems to have left court soon after the death of his mother, Queen Matilda, and spent several years travelling throughout France, Germany and Flanders. He visited Italy seeking the hand of the great heiress Matilda of Tuscany but was unsuccessful, during this period as a wandering knight Robert sired several illegitimate children. His illegitimate son, Richard, seems to have spent much of his life at the court of his uncle William Rufus. This Richard was killed in a accident in the New Forest in 1099 as was his uncle, King William Rufus. An illegitimate daughter was married to Helias of Saint-Saens. In 1087, the elder William died of wounds suffered from an accident during a siege of Mantes
23.
Ovid
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Publius Ovidius Naso, known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists and he enjoyed enormous popularity, but, in one of the mysteries of literary history, was sent by Augustus into exile in a remote province on the Black Sea, where he remained until his death. Ovid himself attributes his exile to carmen et error, a poem and a mistake and his poetry was much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and greatly influenced Western art and literature. The Metamorphoses remains one of the most important sources of classical mythology, Ovid talks more about his own life than most other Roman poets. Information about his biography is drawn primarily from his poetry, especially Tristia 4.10, other sources include Seneca the Elder and Quintilian. Ovid was born in Sulmo, in an Apennine valley east of Rome, to an important equestrian family and that was a significant year in Roman politics. He was educated in rhetoric in Rome under the teachers Arellius Fuscus and Porcius Latro with his brother who excelled at oratory and his father wanted him to study rhetoric toward the practice of law. According to Seneca the Elder, Ovid tended to the emotional, after the death of his brother at 20 years of age, Ovid renounced law and began travelling to Athens, Asia Minor, and Sicily. Ovids first recitation has been dated to around 25 BC, when he was eighteen and he was part of the circle centered on the patron Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, and seems to have been a friend of poets in the circle of Maecenas. 4.10. 41–54, Ovid mentions friendships with Macer, Propertius, Horace, Ovid was very popular at the time of his early works, but was later exiled by Augustus in AD8. He married three times and divorced twice by the time he was thirty years old and he had one daughter, who eventually bore him grandchildren. His last wife was connected in some way to the influential gens Fabia, the first 25 years of Ovids literary career were spent primarily writing poetry in elegiac meter with erotic themes. The chronology of early works is not secure, tentative dates. 2.18. 19–26 that seems to describe the collection as a published work. The authenticity of some of these poems has been challenged, between the publications of the two editions of the Amores can be dated the premiere of his tragedy Medea, which was admired in antiquity but is no longer extant. Ovid may identify this work in his poetry as the carmen, or song. The Ars Amatoria was followed by the Remedia Amoris in the same year and this corpus of elegiac, erotic poetry earned Ovid a place among the chief Roman elegists Gallus, Tibullus, and Propertius, of whom he saw himself as the fourth member
24.
Elizabeth I of England
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Elizabeth I was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, his second wife, who was executed two and a half years after Elizabeths birth. Annes marriage to Henry VIII was annulled, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate, edwards will was set aside and Mary became queen, deposing Lady Jane Grey. During Marys reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels, in 1558, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister to the throne and set out to rule by good counsel. She depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers, led by William Cecil, one of her first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor. This Elizabethan Religious Settlement was to evolve into the Church of England and it was expected that Elizabeth would marry and produce an heir to continue the Tudor line. She never did, despite numerous courtships, as she grew older, Elizabeth became famous for her virginity. A cult grew around her which was celebrated in the portraits, pageants, in government, Elizabeth was more moderate than her father and half-siblings had been. One of her mottoes was video et taceo, in religion, she was relatively tolerant and avoided systematic persecution. Elizabeth was cautious in foreign affairs, manoeuvring between the powers of France and Spain. She only half-heartedly supported a number of ineffective, poorly resourced military campaigns in the Netherlands, France, by the mid-1580s, England could no longer avoid war with Spain. Englands defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 associated Elizabeth with one of the greatest military victories in English history, Elizabeths reign is known as the Elizabethan era. Some historians depict Elizabeth as a short-tempered, sometimes indecisive ruler, towards the end of her reign, a series of economic and military problems weakened her popularity. Such was the case with Elizabeths rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, after the short reigns of Elizabeths half-siblings, her 44 years on the throne provided welcome stability for the kingdom and helped forge a sense of national identity. Elizabeth was born at Greenwich Palace and was named after both her grandmothers, Elizabeth of York and Elizabeth Howard and she was the second child of Henry VIII of England born in wedlock to survive infancy. Her mother was Henrys second wife, Anne Boleyn, at birth, Elizabeth was the heir presumptive to the throne of England. She was baptised on 10 September, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the Marquess of Exeter, the Duchess of Norfolk, Elizabeth was two years and eight months old when her mother was beheaded on 19 May 1536, four months after Catherine of Aragons death from natural causes. Elizabeth was declared illegitimate and deprived of her place in the royal succession, eleven days after Anne Boleyns execution, Henry married Jane Seymour, who died shortly after the birth of their son, Prince Edward, in 1537
25.
James VI and I
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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. The kingdoms of Scotland and England were individual sovereign states, with their own parliaments, judiciary, and laws, though both were ruled by James in personal union. James was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, James succeeded to the Scottish throne at the age of thirteen months, after his mother Mary was compelled to abdicate in his favour. Four different regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in 1578, in 1603, he succeeded the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, Elizabeth I, who died without issue. 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 and he was a major advocate of a single parliament for England and Scotland. In his reign, the Plantation of Ulster and British colonization of the Americas began, at 57 years and 246 days, Jamess reign in Scotland was longer than those of any of his predecessors. He achieved most of his aims in Scotland but faced difficulties in England, including the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. James himself was a scholar, the author of works such as Daemonologie, The True Law of Free Monarchies. He sponsored the translation of the Bible that would later be named after him, Sir Anthony Weldon claimed that James had been termed the wisest fool in Christendom, an epithet associated with his character ever since. Since the latter half of the 20th century, historians have tended to revise Jamess reputation and treat him as a serious, James was the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Both Mary and Darnley were great-grandchildren of Henry VII of England through Margaret Tudor, Marys rule over Scotland was insecure, and she and her husband, being Roman Catholics, faced a rebellion by Protestant noblemen. James was born on 19 June 1566 at Edinburgh Castle, and as the eldest son and heir apparent of the monarch automatically became Duke of Rothesay and Prince and 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, Mary refused to let the Archbishop of St Andrews, whom she referred to as a pocky priest, spit in the childs mouth, as was then the custom. The subsequent entertainment, devised by Frenchman Bastian Pagez, featured men dressed as satyrs and sporting tails, Jamess father, Darnley, was murdered on 10 February 1567 at Kirk o Field, Edinburgh, perhaps in revenge for Rizzios death. James inherited his fathers titles of Duke of Albany and Earl of Ross, Mary was already unpopular, and her marriage on 15 May 1567 to James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, who was widely suspected of murdering Darnley, heightened widespread bad feeling towards her. In June 1567, Protestant rebels arrested Mary and imprisoned her in Loch Leven Castle and 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, nursed, and upbrought in the security of Stirling Castle
26.
Moses
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Moses is a prophet in Abrahamic religions. Also called Moshe Rabbenu in Hebrew, he is the most important prophet in Judaism and he is also an important prophet in Christianity, Islam, the Baháí Faith as well as a number of other Abrahamic religions. Moses Hebrew mother, Jochebed, secretly hid him when the Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed in order to reduce the population of the Israelites. Through the Pharaohs daughter, the child was adopted as a foundling from the Nile river and grew up with the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slavemaster, Moses fled across the Red Sea to Midian, God sent Moses back to Egypt to demand the release of the Israelites from slavery. Moses said that he could not speak with assurance or eloquence, so God allowed Aaron, his brother, to become his spokesperson. After the Ten Plagues, Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, after which they based themselves at Mount Sinai, after 40 years of wandering in the desert, Moses died within sight of the Promised Land on Mount Nebo. According to archaeologist William G. Rabbinical Judaism calculated a lifespan of Moses corresponding to 1391–1271 BCE, Jerome gives 1592 BCE, the Biblical account of Moses birth provides him with a folk etymology to explain the ostensible meaning of his name. He is said to have received it from the Pharaohs daughter and she named him Moses, saying, I drew him out of the water. This explanation links it to a verb mashah, meaning to draw out, the princess made a grammatical mistake which is prophetic of his future role in legend, as someone who will draw the people of Israel out of Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea. Abraham Yahuda, based on the spelling given in the Tanakh, argues that it combines water or seed and pond, expanse of water, the Hebrew etymology in the Biblical story may reflect an attempt to cancel out traces of Moses Egyptian origins. The Egyptian character of his name was recognized as such by ancient Jewish writers like Philo of Alexandria and Josephus. Philo linked Mōēsēs to the Egyptian word for water, while Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, claimed that the element, -esês. Hizkuni suggested she either converted or took a tip from Jochebed, the Israelites had settled in the Land of Goshen in the time of Joseph and Jacob, but a new pharaoh arose who oppressed the children of Israel. At this time Moses was born to his father Amram, son of Kehath the Levite, who entered Egypt with Jacobs household, his mother was Jochebed, Moses had one older sister, Miriam, and one older brother, Aaron. One day after Moses had reached adulthood he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, Moses, in order to escape the Pharaohs death penalty, fled to Midian. There, on Mount Horeb, God revealed to Moses his name YHWH and commanded him to return to Egypt and bring his people out of bondage. Moses returned to carry out Gods command, but God caused the Pharaoh to refuse, from Egypt, Moses led the Israelites to biblical Mount Sinai, where he was given the Ten Commandments from God, written on stone tablets
27.
Battle of Agincourt
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The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory in the Hundred Years War. The battle took place on Friday,25 October 1415 in the County of Saint-Pol, Artois, Henry V led his troops into battle and participated in hand-to-hand fighting. The French king of the time, Charles VI, did not command the French army himself as he suffered from severe psychotic illnesses with moderate mental incapacitation, instead, the French were commanded by Constable Charles dAlbret and various prominent French noblemen of the Armagnac party. This battle is notable for the use of the English longbow in very large numbers, the battle is the centrepiece of the play Henry V by William Shakespeare. The Battle of Agincourt is well documented by at least seven contemporary accounts, the approximate location of the battle has never been in dispute and the place remains relatively unaltered even after 600 years. Two of the most frequently cited accounts come from Burgundian sources, one from Jean Le Fèvre de Saint-Remy, who was present at the battle, Henry V invaded France following the failure of negotiations with the French. He initially called a Great Council in the spring of 1414 to discuss going to war with France, Henry would marry Princess Catherine, the young daughter of Charles VI, and receive a dowry of 2 million crowns. The French responded with what they considered the terms of marriage with Princess Catherine, a dowry of 600,000 crowns. By 1415, negotiations had ground to a halt, with the English claiming that the French had mocked their claims and ridiculed Henry himself. In December 1414, the English parliament was persuaded to grant Henry a double subsidy, on 19 April 1415, Henry again asked the Great Council to sanction war with France, and this time they agreed. The siege took longer than expected, the town surrendered on 22 September, and the English army did not leave until 8 October. The campaign season was coming to an end, and the English army had suffered many casualties through disease and he also intended the manoeuvre as a deliberate provocation to battle aimed at the dauphin, who had failed to respond to Henrys personal challenge to combat at Harfleur. The French had raised an army during the siege which assembled around Rouen and this was not strictly a feudal army, but an army paid through a system similar to the English. The French hoped to raise 9,000 troops, but the army was not ready in time to relieve Harfleur, after Henry V marched to the north, the French moved to block them along the River Somme. They were successful for a time, forcing Henry to move south, away from Calais, the English finally crossed the Somme south of Péronne, at Béthencourt and Voyennes and resumed marching north. Without a river obstacle to defend, the French were hesitant to force a battle and they shadowed Henrys army while calling a semonce des nobles, calling on local nobles to join the army. By 24 October, both faced each other for battle, but the French declined, hoping for the arrival of more troops. The two armies spent the night of 24 October on open ground, the English had very little food, had marched 260 miles in two and a half weeks, were suffering from sickness such as dysentery, and faced much larger numbers of well equipped French men at arms
28.
Great Britain
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Great Britain, also known as Britain, is a large island in the north Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2, Great Britain is the largest European island, in 2011 the island had a population of about 61 million people, making it the worlds third-most populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan. The island of Ireland is situated to the west of it, the island is dominated by a maritime climate with quite narrow temperature differences between seasons. Politically, the island is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, most of England, Scotland, and Wales are on the island. The term Great Britain often extends to surrounding islands that form part of England, Scotland, and Wales. A single Kingdom of Great Britain resulted from the union of the Kingdom of England, the archipelago has been referred to by a single name for over 2000 years, the term British Isles derives from terms used by classical geographers to describe this island group. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a name for the British Isles. However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, the oldest mention of terms related to Great Britain was by Aristotle, or possibly by Pseudo-Aristotle, in his text On the Universe, Vol. III. To quote his works, There are two large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne. The name Britain descends from the Latin name for Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, Old French Bretaigne and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The French form replaced the Old English Breoton, Breoten, Bryten, Breten, Britannia was used by the Romans from the 1st century BC for the British Isles taken together. It is derived from the writings of the Pytheas around 320 BC. Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, described the group as αἱ Πρεττανικαὶ νῆσοι. The peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the Πρεττανοί, Priteni is the source of the Welsh language term Prydain, Britain, which has the same source as the Goidelic term Cruithne used to refer to the early Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of Ireland. The latter were later called Picts or Caledonians by the Romans, the Greco-Egyptian scientist Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain and to Ireland as little Britain in his work Almagest. The name Albion appears to have out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Britain. After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a term only. It was used again in 1604, when King James VI and I styled himself King of Great Brittaine, France, Great Britain refers geographically to the island of Great Britain, politically to England, Scotland and Wales in combination
29.
Poly-Olbion
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The Poly-Olbion is a topographical poem describing England and Wales. Written by Michael Drayton and published in 1612, it was reprinted with a part in 1622. Drayton had been working on the project since at least 1598, the Poly-Olbion is divided into thirty songs, written in alexandrine couplets, consisting in total of almost 15,000 lines of verse. Drayton intended to compose a part to cover Scotland. Each song describes between one and three counties, describing their topography, traditions and histories, copies were illustrated with maps of each county, drawn by William Hole, whereon places were depicted anthropomorphically. The first book was accompanied by historical and philological summaries written by John Selden, because of its length and its authors conflicting goals the Poly-Olbion was almost never read as a whole, but is an important source for the period nevertheless. 1612 in poetry 1622 in poetry William H. Moore, Poly-Olbion Summary Oliver Elton, Michael Drayton, a Critical Study, with a Bibliography Poly-Olbion in The Complete Works of Michael Drayton, vol
30.
John Selden
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John Selden was an English jurist and a scholar of Englands ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law. He was known as a polymath showing true intellectual depth and breadth and he was born at Salvington, in the parish of West Tarring, West Sussex, and was baptised at St Andrews, the parish church. The cottage in which he was survived until 1959 when it was destroyed by a fire caused by an electrical fault. His father, another John Selden, had a small farm, Selden was educated at the free grammar school at Chichester, The Prebendal School, and in 1600 he went on to Hart Hall, Oxford. In 1603 he was admitted to Cliffords Inn, London, in 1604 he moved to the Inner Temple, and in 1612 he was called to the bar. His earliest patron was Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, the antiquary, for some reason, Selden very rarely practised in court, but his practice in chambers as a conveyancer and consulting counsel was large and apparently lucrative. In 1618, his History of Tithes appeared, although it had passed censorship and licensing, this dissertation on the historical basis of the tithe system caused anxiety among the bishops and provoked the intervention of the king. The author was summoned before the Privy Council and was compelled to retract his opinions, also, his work was suppressed, and he was forbidden to reply to anyone who might come forward to answer it. This all seems to have caused Seldens entry into politics and he and several others were imprisoned, at first in the Tower and later under the charge of Sir Robert Ducie, sheriff of London. In 1623 he was returned to the House of Commons for the borough of Lancaster and he was also nominated reader of Lyons Inn, an office he declined to undertake. For this the benchers of the Inner Temple fined him £20, nevertheless, after a few years, he became a master of the bench. In the first parliament of Charles I, it appears from the returns of members printed in 1878 that contrary to the assertion of all his biographers, he had no seat. In Charless second parliament, he was elected for Great Bedwyn in Wiltshire, in the following year, in Darnells Case, he was counsel for Sir Edmund Hampden in the Court of Kings Bench. In 1628 he was returned to the parliament of Charles for Ludgershall, Wiltshire. There he remained for eight months, deprived for a part of the time of the use of books and he was then removed, under less rigorous conditions, to the Marshalsea, until Archbishop Laud arranged for him to be freed. Some years before, he had been appointed steward to the Earl of Kent, to seat, Wrest in Bedfordshire. He was not elected to the Short Parliament of 1640, but to the Long Parliament, summoned in the autumn, he was returned without opposition for Oxford University. He opposed the resolution against episcopacy which led to the exclusion of the bishops from the House of Lords and he was equally opposed to the court on the question of the commissions of lieutenancy of array and to the parliament on the question of the militia ordinance
31.
Scotland
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Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles, the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles, the legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, was one of the worlds leading industrial cities. Other major urban areas are Aberdeen and Dundee, Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europes oil capital, following a referendum in 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. Scotland is represented in the UK Parliament by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs, Scotland is also a member nation of the British–Irish Council, and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels, the Late Latin word Scotia was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the land mass of modern Scotland. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, the groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period and it contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time that early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves, in the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, when the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses
32.
Orkney
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Orkney /ˈɔːrkni/, also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of Great Britain. Orkney is 16 kilometres north of the coast of Caithness and comprises approximately 70 islands, the largest island Mainland is often referred to as the Mainland. It has an area of 523 square kilometres, making it the sixth-largest Scottish island, the largest settlement and administrative centre is Kirkwall. A form of the dates to the pre-Roman era and the islands have been inhabited for at least 8500 years, originally occupied by Mesolithic and Neolithic tribes. Orkney was invaded and forcibly annexed by Norway in 875 and settled by the Norse, the Scottish Parliament then re-annexed the earldom to the Scottish Crown in 1472, following the failed payment of a dowry for James IIIs bride Margaret of Denmark. Orkney contains some of the oldest and best-preserved Neolithic sites in Europe, Orkney is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, a constituency of the Scottish Parliament, a lieutenancy area, and a historic county. The local council is Orkney Islands Council, one of only three Councils in Scotland with a majority of elected members who are independents. In addition to the Mainland, most of the islands are in two groups, the North and South Isles, all of which have a geological base of Old Red Sandstone. The climate is mild and the soils are fertile, most of the land being farmed. Agriculture is the most important sector of the economy, the significant wind and marine energy resources are of growing importance, and the island generates more than its total yearly electricity demand using renewables. The local people are known as Orcadians and have a distinctive Orcadian dialect of Scots, there is an abundance of marine and avian wildlife. Pytheas of Massilia visited Britain – probably sometime between 322 and 285 BC – and described it as triangular in shape, with a northern tip called Orcas and this may have referred to Dunnet Head, from which Orkney is visible. Speakers of Old Irish referred to the islands as Insi Orc island of the pigs, the archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in modern Welsh and Arcaibh in modern Scottish Gaelic, the -aibh representing a fossilized prepositional case ending. The Anglo-Saxon monk Bede refers to the islands as Orcades insulae in his seminal work Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Norwegian settlers arriving from the ninth century reinterpreted orc as the Old Norse orkn seal. The plural suffix -jar was later removed in English leaving the modern name Orkney, according to the Historia Norwegiæ, Orkney was named after an earl called Orkan. The Norse knew Mainland Orkney as Megenland Mainland or as Hrossey Horse Island, the island is sometimes referred to as Pomona, a name that stems from a sixteenth-century mistranslation by George Buchanan, which has rarely been used locally. A charred hazelnut shell, recovered in 2007 during excavations in Tankerness on the Mainland has been dated to 6820–6660 BC indicating the presence of Mesolithic nomadic tribes
33.
River Tweed
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The River Tweed, or Tweed Water, is a river 97 miles long that flows east across the Border region in Scotland and northern England. Tweed derives its name from its association with the River Tweed, the Tweed is one of the great salmon rivers of Britain and the only river in England where an Environment Agency rod licence is not required for angling. Tweed is a British name of uncertain meaning and it flows primarily through the scenic Borders region of Scotland, and eastwards from the settlements on opposing banks of Birgham and Carham forms the historic boundary between Scotland and England. It rises in the Lowther Hills at Tweeds Well near where the Clyde, draining northwest, Annan, Tweed and Clyde rise oot the ae hillside is a saying from the Border region. East of Kelso, it becomes a section of the part of the border. Entering England, its reaches are in Northumberland, where it enters the North Sea at Berwick-upon-Tweed. The rivers valley floor is a field and the relic of a paleo-ice stream that flowed through the area during the last glaciation. Major towns through which the Tweed flows include Innerleithen, Peebles, Galashiels, Melrose, Kelso, Coldstream and Berwick-upon-Tweed, where it flows into the North Sea
34.
Margaret of Anjou
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Margaret of Anjou was the wife of King Henry VI of England. As such, she was Queen of England from 1445 to 1461, born in the Duchy of Lorraine into the House of Valois-Anjou, Margaret was the second eldest daughter of René of Anjou and Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine. She was one of the figures in the series of dynastic civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses. Owing to her husbands frequent bouts of insanity, Margaret ruled the kingdom in his place, Margaret was taken prisoner by the victorious Yorkists after the Lancastrian defeat at Tewkesbury. In 1475, she was ransomed by her cousin, King Louis XI of France and she went to live in France as a poor relation of the French king, and she died there at the age of 52. Margaret was born on 23 March 1430 at Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine, a fief of the Holy Roman Empire east of France ruled by a branch of the French kings. Margaret was the daughter of René of Anjou and of Isabella. She had five brothers and four sisters, as well as three half-siblings from her fathers relationships with mistresses. Her father, popularly known as Good King René, was duke of Anjou and titular king of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem, he has described as a man of many crowns. Her mother took care of her education and may have arranged for her to have lessons with the scholar Antoine de la Sale, in childhood Margaret was known as la petite créature. On 23 April 1445, Margaret married King Henry VI of England, Henry at the time also claimed the Kingdom of France and controlled various parts of northern France. The English government, fearing a negative reaction, kept this provision secret from the English public. Margaret was crowned Queen Consort of England on 30 May 1445 at Westminster Abbey by John Stafford and she was described as beautiful, and furthermore already a woman, passionate and proud and strong-willed. Those that anticipated the return of English claims to French territory believed that she already understood her duty to protect the interests of the Crown fervently. Thus by family example and her own personality, she was fully capable of becoming the champion of the Crown. Henry, who was interested in religion and learning than in military matters, was not a successful king. He had reigned since he was only a few months old, when he married Margaret, his mental condition was already unstable and by the birth of their only son, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, he had suffered a complete breakdown. Rumours were rife that he was incapable of begetting a child, many have speculated that either Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, or James Butler, 5th Earl of Ormond, both staunch allies of Margaret, was the young princes actual father
35.
Poets' Corner
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Poets Corner is the name traditionally given to a section of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey because of the high number of poets, playwrights, and writers buried and commemorated there. The first poet interred in Poets Corner was Geoffrey Chaucer, over the centuries, a tradition has grown up of interring or memorialising people there in recognition of their contribution to British culture. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the honour is awarded to writers, on 6 December 2011, former Poet Laureate Ted Hughes was commemorated with a floor stone. On 22 November 2013, the anniversary of his death. The poet Philip Larkin was commemorated with a stone dedicated on 2 December 2016. The first person interred, Geoffrey Chaucer, owed his burial there in 1400 more to his position as Clerk of Works of the Palace of Westminster than to his fame as a writer. The erection of his magnificent tomb, however, by Nicholas Brigham in 1556, burial or commemoration in the Abbey does not always occur at or soon after the time of death. Lord Byron, for example, whose poetry was admired but who maintained a scandalous lifestyle, the poets fate is here in emblem shown, He askd for bread, and he received a stone. Some of those buried in Poets Corner also had memorials erected to them over or near their grave, in some cases, such as Joseph Addison, the burial took place elsewhere in Westminster Abbey, with a memorial later erected in Poets Corner. In some cases a burial of a body took place, in other cases the body was cremated. There are also cases where there was support for an individual to be buried in Poets Corner. Other notable poets and writers, such as Aphra Behn, are buried elsewhere in the Abbey, at least two of the memorials were later moved to a location elsewhere in the Abbey due to the discovery of old paintings on the wall behind them. The memorials can take several forms, some are stone slabs set in the floor with a name and inscription carved on them, while others are more elaborate and carved stone monuments, or hanging stone tablets, or memorial busts. The grave of Ben Jonson is not in Poets Corner, but is in the aisle of the nave. It has the inscription O Rare Ben Johnson on the slab above it and it has been suggested that this could be read Orare Ben Jonson, which would indicate a deathbed return to Catholicism, but the carving shows a distinct space between O and rare. As well as the gravestone in the aisle of the nave. As floor and wall space began to run out, the decision was taken to install a stained glass memorial window, there is room for 20 names, and currently there are six names on this window, with a new entry unveiled on 25 September 2010. The memorial in Poets Corner, Westminster Abbey, to 16 Great War poets is a stone slab with the names of the poets inscribed on it
36.
Westminster Abbey
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It is one of the United Kingdoms most notable religious buildings and the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English and, later, British monarchs. Between 1540 and 1556, the abbey had the status of a cathedral, since 1560, however, the building is no longer an abbey nor a cathedral, having instead the status of a Church of England Royal Peculiar—a church responsible directly to the sovereign. The building itself is the abbey church. According to a tradition first reported by Sulcard in about 1080, a church was founded at the site in the 7th century, at the time of Mellitus, construction of the present church began in 1245, on the orders of King Henry III. Since the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, all coronations of English and British monarchs have held in Westminster Abbey. There have been at least 16 royal weddings at the abbey since 1100, two were of reigning monarchs, although, before 1919, there had been none for some 500 years. The first reports of the abbey are based on a tradition claiming that a young fisherman called Aldrich on the River Thames saw a vision of Saint Peter near the site. This seems to be quoted to justify the gifts of salmon from Thames fishermen that the abbey received in later years, in the present was, the Fishmongers Company still gives a salmon every year. The proven origins are that in the 960s or early 970s, Saint Dunstan, assisted by King Edgar, between 1042 and 1052, King Edward the Confessor began rebuilding St Peters Abbey to provide himself with a royal burial church. It was the first church in England built in the Romanesque style, the building was completed around 1090 and was consecrated on 28 December 1065, only a week before Edwards death on 5 January 1066. A week later, he was buried in the church, and, nine years later and his successor, Harold II, was probably crowned in the abbey, although the first documented coronation is that of William the Conqueror later the same year. The only extant depiction of Edwards abbey, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster, is in the Bayeux Tapestry, construction of the present church was begun in 1245 by Henry III who selected the site for his burial. The abbot and monks, in proximity to the royal Palace of Westminster, the abbot often was employed on royal service and in due course took his place in the House of Lords as of right. The abbey built shops and dwellings on the west side, encroaching upon the sanctuary, the abbey became the coronation site of Norman kings. The Confessors shrine subsequently played a part in his canonisation. The work continued between 1245 and 1517 and was finished by the architect Henry Yevele in the reign of Richard II. Henry III also commissioned the unique Cosmati pavement in front of the High Altar, Henry VII added a Perpendicular style chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1503. Much of the came from Caen, in France, the Isle of Portland
37.
Lady Anne Clifford, 14th Baroness de Clifford
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Lady Anne Clifford, Countess Dowager of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery, suo jure 14th Baroness de Clifford was an English peeress. In 1605 she inherited her fathers ancient barony by writ and became suo jure 14th Baroness de Clifford and she was a patron of literature and as evidenced by her diary and many letters was a literary personage in her own right. She held the office of High Sheriff of Westmorland which role she exercised from 1653 to 1676. Lady Anne was born on 30 January 1590 and was baptised the following 22 February in Skipton Church in Yorkshire and he had bequeathed to Anne the sum of £15,000. Her main argument was that she was just 15 years old at the time and her parents marriage was soured by the deaths of Annes two elder brothers before the ages of 5 and her parents lived apart for most of her childhood. She was brought up in an almost entirely female household—evoked in Emilia Laniers Description of Cookeham—and received an excellent education from her tutor, as a child she was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I. Lady Anne married twice, Firstly on 27 February 1609 to Richard Sackville, both marriages were reportedly difficult, contemporaries cited Lady Annes unyielding personality as a cause, whilst her cousin Edward Russell, 3rd Earl of Bedford compared her to the River Rhone. A more sympathetic view might blame some of the troubles in her first marriage on her husbands extravagance, the title Baron de Clifford thenceforth descended in the Tufton family. Lady Isabella Sackville, younger daughter, wife of James Compton and her children died without progeny, and her share of the Clifford maternal inheritance reverted to the Earls of Thanet, her sisters family. Secondly in 1630, as his wife, she married Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke and 1st Earl of Montgomery, KG, whose first wife. A central conflict with her husband lay in her decision to allow her younger daughter to make her own choice of husband. She was an important patron of literature and due to her own writings in the form of letters, john Donne said of her that she could discourse of all things from Predestination to Slea-silk. Jan van Belcamp painted a huge portrait of Anne Clifford to her own design. Titled The Great Picture, it portrays Lady Anne at three points in her life, at age 56, at age 15, and before birth in her mothers womb. In connection with the painting, Anne Clifford dated her own conception at 1 May 1589, in 1656 she erected the Countess Pillar near Brougham, Cumbria, in memory of her late mother. She restored churches at Appleby-in-Westmorland, Ninekirks, Brougham and Mallerstang, after moving north, she rotated her residence amongst her castles, living in various ones for several months to a year at a time. She died aged 86 at Brougham Castle, in the room in which her father had been born, at her death she was the Dowager Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery. Her tomb and monument is in St Lawrences Church, Appleby-in-Westmorland, the Diaries of Lady Anne Clifford
38.
Ben Jonson
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Benjamin Jonson was an English playwright, poet, actor, and literary critic of the 17th century, whose artistry exerted a lasting impact upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours, Ben Jonson said that his family originally came from the folk of the Anglo-Scottish border country, which genealogy is attested by the three spindles in the Jonson family coat of arms. One spindle is a heraldic device shared with the Border-country Johnstone family of Annandale. Jonsons clergyman father died two months before his birth, his mother married a master bricklayer two years later, Jonson attended school in St. Martins Lane. Later, a family friend paid for his studies at Westminster School, on leaving Westminster School, Jonson was to have attended the University of Cambridge, to continue his book learning but did not, because of his unwilled apprenticeship to his bricklayer stepfather. According to the churchman and historian Thomas Fuller, Jonson at this time built a wall in Lincolns Inn. After having been a bricklayer, Ben Jonson went to the Netherlands. After his military activity on the Continent, Jonson returned to England and worked as an actor, as an actor, Jonson was the protagonist “Hieronimo” in the play The Spanish Tragedy, by Thomas Kyd, the first revenge tragedy in English literature. Regarding his marriage Jonson described his wife to William Drummond as a shrew, concerning the family of Anne Lewis and Ben Jonson, the St. Martins Church registers indicate that Mary Jonson, their eldest daughter, died in November 1593, at six months of age. Moreover,32 years later, a son, also named Benjamin Jonson. By summer 1597, Jonson had an engagement in the Admirals Men, then performing under Philip Henslowes management at The Rose. John Aubrey reports, on authority, that Jonson was not successful as an actor, whatever his skills as an actor. By this time Jonson had begun to write plays for the Admirals Men. None of his early tragedies survive, however, an undated comedy, The Case is Altered, may be his earliest surviving play. In 1597 a play which he co-wrote with Thomas Nashe, The Isle of Dogs, was suppressed after causing great offence, arrest warrants for Jonson and Nashe were issued by Queen Elizabeth Is so-called interrogator, Richard Topcliffe. Jonson was jailed in Marshalsea Prison and charged with Leude and mutynous behaviour, two of the actors, Gabriel Spenser and Robert Shaw, were also imprisoned. A year later, Jonson was again imprisoned, this time in Newgate Prison. While in jail Jonson converted to Catholicism, possibly through the influence of fellow-prisoner Father Thomas Wright, in 1598 Jonson produced his first great success, Every Man in His Humour, capitalising on the vogue for humorous plays which George Chapman had begun with An Humorous Days Mirth
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Thomas Dekker (writer)
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Little is known of Dekkers early life or origins. From references in his pamphlets, Dekker is believed to have born in London around 1572. His last name suggests Dutch ancestry, and his work, some of which is translated from Latin, Dekker embarked on a career as a theatre writer in the middle 1590s. His handwriting is found in the manuscript of Sir Thomas More, More certain is his work as a playwright for the Admirals Men of Philip Henslowe, in whose account book he is first mentioned in early 1598. While there are connected with his name performed as early as 1594, it is not clear that he was the original author, his work often involved revision. Between 1598 and 1602, he was involved in about forty plays for Henslowe, to these years belong the collaborations with Ben Jonson and John Marston, which presumably contributed to the War of the Theatres in 1600 and 1601. But Dekker is credited as the author of The Shoemakers Holiday, his acknowledged masterpiece – a boisterous. Francis Meres includes Dekker in his list of notable playwrights in 1598, for Jonson, however, Dekker was a bumbling hack, a dresser of plays about town, Jonson lampooned Dekker as Demetrius Fannius in Poetaster and as Anaides in Cynthias Revels. Dekkers riposte, Satiromastix, performed both by the Lord Chamberlains Men and the actors of Pauls, casts Jonson as an affected. After this commission, however, the early Jacobean period was mixed for the author. In late 1602, he appears to have broken his association with Henslowe and he wrote for Worcesters Men for a time, then returned to the Admirals Men to produce The Honest Whore, an apparent success. In 1612, Dekkers lifelong problem with debt reached a crisis when he was imprisoned in the Kings Bench Prison on a debt of forty pounds to the father of John Webster and he continued as pamphleteer throughout his years in prison. On release, he resumed writing plays, now with collaborators both from his generation and slightly younger writers, among these plays is one, Keep the Widow Waking, which dramatized two recent murders in Whitechapel. In the latter half of the decade, Dekker turned once more to pamphlet-writing, revamping old work and writing a new preface to his most popular tract, The Bellman of London. Dekker published no more work after 1632, and he is associated with the Thomas Dekker, householder. When Dekker began writing plays, Thomas Nashe and Thomas Lodge were still alive, the majority of his surviving plays are comedies or tragicomedies. Most of Dekkers work is lost and his apparently disordered life, and his lack of a firm connection with a single company, may have militated against the preservation or publication of manuscripts. Close to twenty of his plays were published during his lifetime, of these, more than half are comedies, the first phase of Dekkers career is documented in Henslowes diary
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Sir John Oldcastle
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Sir John Oldcastle is an Elizabethan play about John Oldcastle, a controversial 14th-15th century rebel and Lollard who was seen by some of Shakespeares contemporaries as a proto-Protestant martyr. The play was published anonymously in 1600, printed by Valentine Simmes for the bookseller Thomas Pavier. In 1619, a new edition carried an attribution to William Shakespeare, the Diary of Philip Henslowe records that the play was written by Anthony Munday, Michael Drayton, Richard Hathwaye and Robert Wilson. In 1664, the play was one of the seven dramas added to the impression of the Shakespeare Third Folio by publisher Philip Chetwinde. The genesis of Sir John Oldcastle is crucially linked to the fact that when Shakespeares Henry IV plays premiered on stage in 1597–98 and this is indicated by abundant external and internal evidence. The change of names, from Oldcastle to Falstaff, is mentioned in works by Richard James. It is also indicated in details in the texts of Shakespeares plays. In the quarto text of Henry IV, Part 2, one of Falstaffs speech prefixes in Act I, Scene ii is mistakenly left uncorrected, Old. instead of Falst. In III, ii, 25-6 of the play, Falstaff is said to have been a page to Thomas Mowbray. In Henry IV, Part 1, I, ii,42, iambic pentameter verse lines in both parts are irregular when using the name Falstaff, but correct with Oldcastle. Finally, there is the blatant disclaimer at the close of Henry IV, there is even a hint that Falstaff was originally Oldcastle in The Merry Wives of Windsor too. When his fingertips are singed with candles — which of course works for Oldcastle, there is also the castle reference in IV, v,6 of the same play. The name Falstaff was derived from Sir John Fastolf, who was also a historical person—allegedly a greedy and grasping individual, Fastolf, however, died without descendants, making him safe for a playwrights use. He had already appeared as a knight in Henry VI. Even more so, Frances Brooke, the 10th Barons wife, the elder Lord Cobham even had a strong negative impact upon the lives of Shakespeare and his contemporaries in the theater. The players were left to the mercies of the officials of the City of London. Thomas Nashe, in a letter, complained that the actors were piteously persecuted by the Lord Mayor. In 1601 a narrative poem, The Mirror of Martyrs, by one John Weever, was published, it praises Oldcastle has a valiant captain and most godly martyr
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gosse, Edmund (1911). "Drayton, Michael". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 557–558.
