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John Francis Edward Acton
Sir John Francis Edward Acton, 6th Baronet (3 June 1736 12 August 1811) was a French-born English gentleman who served as Commander of the naval forces of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and later as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Naples under Ferdinand IV. He served at Naples during the turbulent times when French Revolutionary fervour under Napoleon was sweeping across Europe and threatening to extinguish the monarchy he served. Origins John was born on 3 June 1736 at Besançon in France, the son of Edward Acton, an English-born physician who had settled in that town, the great-grandson of Sir Walter Acton, 2nd Baronet (1623–1665) of Aldenham Park, Morville, in Shropshire, England. In 1791, aged 55, John succeeded his second cousin once removed as 6th Baronet. Career Service in Tuscany He served under his uncle in the navy of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. In 1773, while serving as Captain of the Tuscan frigate ''Austria'', he destroyed several vessels in the Gulf of Tunis. Whi ...
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Besançon
Besançon (, , , ; archaic german: Bisanz; la, Vesontio) is the prefecture of the department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzerland. Capital of the historic and cultural region of Franche-Comté, Besançon is home to the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté regional council headquarters, and is an important administrative centre in the region. It is also the seat of one of the fifteen French ecclesiastical provinces and one of the two divisions of the French Army. In 2019 the city had a population of 117,912, in a metropolitan area of 280,701, the second in the region in terms of population. Established in a meander of the river Doubs, the city was already important during the Gallo-Roman era under the name of ''Vesontio'', capital of the Sequani. Its geography and specific history turned it into a military stronghold, a garrison city, a political centre, and a religious c ...
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Aldenham Park, Morville
Aldenham Park, also known as Aldenham Hall, is a late 17th-century country house in Morville, near Bridgnorth, Shropshire, England which stands in 12 hectares of parkland. It is a Grade II* listed building. The house is built of ashlar in two-storeys with an 11 bay frontage and a raised parapet. It is approached via a lime-lined avenue through a set of ornate gates surmounted by the Acton family crest. The surrounding parkland is Grade II listed. History The manor of Morville was acquired in 1465 by Thomas Acton, who built a fortified manor house. That house was replaced in the early 17th century by his descendant Walter Acton. Walter's son, Sir Edward, was created a baronet in 1643 and was succeeded in turn by Sir Walter and Sir Edward. All three baronets served as MPs for Bridgnorth. The third baronet married a wealthy heiress and in the late 17th century started to remodel the early 17th century house. The work was continued after Sir Edward's death in 1716 by his son, Si ...
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Kingdom Of Great Britain
The Kingdom of Great Britain (officially Great Britain) was a Sovereign state, sovereign country in Western Europe from 1 May 1707 to the end of 31 December 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of Union 1707, which united the kingdoms of Kingdom of England, England (which included Wales) and Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland to form a single kingdom encompassing the whole island of Great Britain and its outlying islands, with the exception of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The unitary state was governed by a single Parliament of Great Britain, parliament at the Palace of Westminster, but distinct legal systems – English law and Scots law – remained in use. The formerly separate kingdoms had been in personal union since the 1603 "Union of the Crowns" when James VI of Scotland became King of England and King of Ireland. Since James's reign, who had been the first to refer to himself as "king of Great Britain", a political un ...
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William Hamilton (diplomat)
Sir William Hamilton, (13 December 1730 – 6 April 1803), was a British diplomat, antiquarian, archaeologist and vulcanologist. After a short period as a Member of Parliament, he served as British Ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples from 1764 to 1800. He studied the volcanoes Vesuvius and Etna, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society and recipient of the Copley Medal. His second wife was Emma Hamilton, famed as Horatio Nelson's mistress. Early life and career Hamilton was born on 13 December 1730 (or 12 January 1731) in either London or at Park Place, Berkshire, the fourth son of Lord Archibald Hamilton, governor of Jamaica, seventh son of William Douglas-Hamilton, Earl of Selkirk, by the 3rd Duchess of Hamilton, and Lady Jane Hamilton, daughter of James Hamilton, 6th Earl of Abercorn.Constantine 2001: 1–2. His mother was a favourite, and possibly a mistress, of the Prince of Wales and William grew up with his son George III, who would call him his "foster brother". At age n ...
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Francesco D'Aquino, Prince Of Caramanico
Francesco Maria Venanzio d'Aquino, prince of Caramanico (27 February 1738, Naples - 9 January 1795, Palermo) was ambassador to London and Paris for the Kingdom of Naples and later viceroy of Sicily. Life Family He was the son of prince Antonio and of Ippolita Pignatelli, his mother being from the line of princes of Monteroduni. In 1767 he married Vittoria de Guevara, from the family of the dukes of Bovino - she was the widow of Carlo Carafa, duke of Maddaloni. On his father's death in 1775, Francesco succeeded to the titles prince of Caramanico, duke of Casoli, marquess (marchese) of Francolise and count (conte) of Palena. Francesco had a brother, Luigi d'Aquino, who was an associate of Cagliostro. Early career A supporter of Freemasonry in Naples, in 1769 he was elected Grand Master of the 'loggia della Vittoria' (Victory Lodge). In 1776 Bernardo Tanucci had several supporters of Freemasonry arrested to thwart an attempt by them and the queen Maria Carolina of Austria to with ...
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Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor
, house =Habsburg-Lorraine , father = Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor , mother = Maria Theresa of Hungary and Bohemia , religion =Roman Catholicism , succession1 =Grand Duke of Tuscany , reign1 =18 August 1765 – 22 July 1790 , predecessor1 = Francis Stephen , successor1 = Ferdinand III , date of burial = , place of burial =Imperial Crypt , signature =Signatur Leopold II. (HRR).PNG Leopold II (Peter Leopold Josef Anton Joachim Pius Gotthard; 5 May 1747 – 1 March 1792) was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and Bohemia, and Archduke of Austria from 1790 to 1792, and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790. He was a son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Emperor Francis I, and the brother of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples, Maria Amalia, Duchess of Parma, and Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. Leopold was a moderate proponent of enlightened absolutism. He granted the Academ ...
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Marie Caroline Of Austria
Maria Carolina Louise Josepha Johanna Antonia (13 August 1752 – 8 September 1814) was List of consorts of Naples, Queen of Naples and List of Sicilian consorts, Sicily as the wife of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies. As ''de facto'' ruler of her husband's kingdoms, Maria Carolina oversaw the promulgation of many reforms, including the revocation of the ban on Freemasonry, the enlargement of the navy under her favorite, Sir John Acton, 6th Baronet, Sir John Acton and the expulsion of Spanish influence. She was a proponent of enlightened absolutism until the advent of the French Revolution, when, in order to prevent its ideas gaining currency, she made Naples a police state. Born an archduchess of Austria, the thirteenth child of Empress Maria Theresa and Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor Francis I, Maria Carolina married Ferdinand as part of an Austrian alliance with Spain, of which Charles III of Spain, Ferdinand's father was king. Following the birth of a male heir in ...
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Henry Swinburne
Henry Swinburne (1743–1803) was an English travel writer. Life He was born at Bristol on 8 July 1743, into a Catholic family, and was educated at Scorton school, near Catterick, Yorkshire. He was then sent to the monastic seminary of La Celle in France. He afterwards studied at Paris, Bordeaux, and in the Royal Academy at Turin, devoting special attention to literature and art. The death of his brother, who had devised to him a small estate at Hamsterley in Durham, placed him in independent circumstances. He proceeded to Turin, Genoa, and Florence. He met in Paris his future wife Martha, daughter of John Baker of Chichester, solicitor to the Leeward Islands, who was being educated at a convent of Ursuline nuns. They were married at Aix-la-Chapelle on 24 March 1767. The couple then settled at Hamsterley, where the husband laid out the estate. They passed the autumn of 1774 and the following months until September 1775 at Bordeaux, and then visited the Pyrenees. Swinburne i ...
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Larache
Larache ( ar, العرايش, al-'Araysh) is a city in northwestern Morocco. It is on the Moroccan coast, where the Loukkos River meets the Atlantic Ocean. Larache is one of the most important cities of the Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region. Many civilisations and cultures have influenced the history of Larache, starting in the ancient city of Lixus during the 12th centuryBCE. Between the period of being a strategic Berber town and then a Phoenician trading centre to Morocco's independence era around the 1950s, Larache was a nexus for many cultures. History In 1471, the Portuguese settlers from Asilah and Tangier drove the inhabitants out of Larache, and again it remained uninhabited until the Saadi Sultan Mohammed ash-Sheikh decided to repopulate it and build a stronghold on the plateau above river Loukos. He constructed a fortress at the entrance to the port as a means of controlling access to the river. For a long time, attempts by the Portuguese, Spanish and French to take ...
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Algiers
Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques de l'Algérie (web). and in 2020 was estimated to be around 4,500,000. Algiers is located on the Mediterranean Sea and in the north-central portion of Algeria. Algiers is situated on the west side of a bay of the Mediterranean Sea. The modern part of the city is built on the level ground by the seashore; the old part, the ancient city of the deys, climbs the steep hill behind the modern town and is crowned by the Casbah or citadel (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), above the sea. The casbah and the two quays form a triangle. Names The city's name is derived via French and Catalan ''Origins of Algiers'' by Louis Leschi, speech delivered June 16, 1941, published in ''El Djezair Sheets'', July 194History of Algeria . from the Arabic name '' ...
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Salé
Salé ( ar, سلا, salā, ; ber, ⵙⵍⴰ, sla) is a city in northwestern Morocco, on the right bank of the Bou Regreg river, opposite the national capital Rabat, for which it serves as a commuter town. Founded in about 1030 by the Banu Ifran, it later became a haven for pirates in the 17th century as an independent republic before being incorporated into Alaouite Morocco. The city's name is sometimes transliterated as Salli or Sallee. The National Route 6 connects it to Fez and Meknes in the east and the N1 to Kénitra in the north-east. It recorded a population of 890,403 in the 2014 Moroccan census. History The Phoenicians established a settlement called Sala, later the site of a Roman colony, Sala Colonia, on the south side of the Bou Regreg estuary. It is sometimes confused with Salé, on the opposite north bank. Salé was founded in about 1030 by Arabic-speaking Berbers who apparently cultivated the legend that the name was derived from that of Salah, son of Ha ...
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Cape Spartel
Cape Spartel ( ar, رأس سبارطيل; french: Cap Spartel; ary, أشبرتال) is a promontory in Morocco about above sea level at the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, 12 km West of Tangier. Below the cape are the Caves of Hercules. Etymology According to Mohamed Chafik, the name of this location is derived from Latin ''spartium'', which is the name of a plant genus (Spanish broom). Description Cape Spartel is frequently but incorrectly referred to as the northernmost point of Africa, which is instead Ras ben Sakka, Tunisia. It is the most North Western point of mainland Africa. The cape rises to a height of 326 m. at the top of Jebel Quebir where there is a tower. There is another tower nearer to the end of the cape which serves as a lighthouse. Below the cape are the Caves of Hercules, Tanger, Caves of Hercules. These are open to the public and they are accessible from Robinson Plage. The caves have shown evidence of Neolithic occupation. Before they were a to ...
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