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Robert Aytoun
Sir Robert Aytoun or Ayton (1570–1638) was a Scottish poet. Biography Aytoun was the son of Andrew Ayton of Kinaldie Castle, in Fife, Scotland, and Mary Lundie. Aytoun and his elder brother John entered St Leonard's College in St Andrews in 1584. After graduating MA from St Andrews in 1588, he studied civil law at Paris. He appears to have been well known to his literary contemporaries in Scotland and England. He became a groom in the privy chamber of King James in succession to Laurence Marbury, was knighted and became a gentleman of the bedchamber in 1612. He became secretary to Anne of Denmark in succession to another Scottish poet, William Fowler. He was sent as ambassador to Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor in 1609. He was later secretary to Henrietta Maria. He wrote poems in Latin, Greek, and English, and was one of the first Scots to write in standard English. His major work was ''Diophantus and Charidora''. ''Inconstancy Upbraided'' is perhaps the best of his sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United Kingdom's most notable religious buildings and since Edward the Confessor, a burial site for English and, later, British monarchs. Since the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, all coronations of English and British monarchs have occurred in Westminster Abbey. Sixteen royal weddings have occurred at the abbey since 1100. According to a tradition first reported by Sulcard in about 1080, a church was founded at the site (then known as Thorney Island) in the seventh century, at the time of Mellitus, Bishop of London. Construction of the present church began in 1245 on the orders of Henry III. The church was originally part of a Catholic Benedictine abbey, which was dissolved in 1539. It then served as the cathedral of the Dioce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Burns
Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is in a "light Scots dialect" of English, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland. He also wrote in standard English, and in these writings his political or civil commentary is often at its bluntest. He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement, and after his death he became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism, and a cultural icon in Scotland and among the Scottish diaspora around the world. Celebration of his life and work became almost a national charismatic cult during the 19th and 20th centuries, and his influence has long been strong on Scottish literature. In 2009 he was chosen as the greatest Scot by the Scottish pub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sydney Goodsir Smith
Sydney Goodsir Smith (26 October 1915 – 15 January 1975) was a New Zealand-born Scottish poet, artist, dramatist and novelist. He wrote poetry in literary Scots often referred to as Lallans (Lowlands dialect), and was a major figure of the Scottish Renaissance. Life He was born in Wellington, New Zealand, the son of Catherine Goodsir Gelenick and Sydney Smith, a pioneer in forensic science who later became a Regius Professor in forensic medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He moved to Edinburgh with his family in 1928. He was educated at Malvern College. He went to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine, but abandoned that, and started to study history at Oriel College, Oxford; whence he was expelled, but managed to complete a degree. He also claimed to have studied art in Italy, wine in France and mountains in Bavaria. In the late 1930s, Smith was introduced to the works of Hugh MacDiarmid by Hector MacIver, a literary critic who taught English at Edinburgh's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Newnes Ltd
George Newnes Ltd is a British publisher. The company was founded in 1891 by George Newnes (1851–1910), considered a founding father of popular journalism. Newnes published such magazines and periodicals as ''Tit-Bits'', ''The Wide World Magazine'', '' The Captain'', ''The Strand Magazine'', ''The Grand Magazine'', ''John O'London's Weekly'', '' Sunny Stories for Little Folk'', ''Woman's Own'', and the ''"Practical"'' line of magazines overseen by editor Frederick J. Camm. Long after the founder's death, Newnes was known for publishing ground-breaking consumer magazines such as ''Nova''. Newnes published books by such authors as Enid Blyton, Hall Caine, Richmal Crompton, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, George Goodchild, W. E. Johns, P. G. Wodehouse, and John Wyndham. Initially an independent publisher, Newnes became an imprint of the International Publishing Company in 1961. Today, books under the Newnes imprint continue to be published by Elsevier. History Origins Founder George ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chambers's Encyclopædia
''Chambers's Encyclopaedia'' was founded in 1859Chambers, W. & R"Concluding Notice"in ''Chambers's Encyclopaedia''. London: W. & R. Chambers, 1868, Vol. 10, pp. v–viii. by William Chambers (publisher), William and Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802), Robert Chambers of Edinburgh and became one of the most important English language encyclopaedias of the 19th and 20th centuries, developing a reputation for accuracy and scholarliness that was reflected in other works produced by the Chambers Harrap, Chambers publishing company. The encyclopaedia is no longer produced. A selection of illustrations and woodblocks used to produce the first two editions of the encyclopaedia can be seen on digital resourcehosted on thNational Museums Scotland website ''Chambers's Information for the People'' Before publishing an encyclopedia, Chambers produced a smaller publication, ''Chambers's Information for the People''. This began as a serial publication in 1835. Like the ''Penny Cyclop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Border Ballad
Border ballads are a group of songs in the long tradition of balladry collected from the Anglo-Scottish border. Like all traditional ballads, they were traditionally sung unaccompanied. There may be a repeating motif, but there is no "chorus" as in most popular songs. The supernatural is a common theme in border ballads, as are recountings of raids and battles. Ballad types The ballads belong to various groups of subjects, such as riding ballads like "Kinmont Willie"; historical ballads like "Sir Patrick Spens"; comic ballads like "Get Up and Bar the Door";''About this book'' - inside front cover of and those with supernatural themes including "Thomas the Rhymer" (also known as "True Thomas" or "Thomas of Erceldoune") and "Tam Lin". Writings about Some of the earliest known references (in Middle Scots) to the ballads appeared in ''The Complaynt of Scotland'' (1549). Sir Walter Scott wrote about border ballads in ''Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border'', first published in 1802– ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Jock Elliot
''Little Jock Elliot'' is Border ballad of indeterminate age. It is sometimes referred to as the "lost ballad" since the only certain remaining of it is the famous verse "Wha daur meddle wi me ?". A version of it was written by James Smail (1828–1905) under the pseudonym of Matthew Gotterson in The Scotsman, in 1872. He gave it a second part in 1892. Synopsis John Elliot of Park was a famous Scottish border reiver and infamous plunderer and cattle 'lifter' from the powerful Elliot family along the lawless Scottish border with England in the mid 16th Century. He is also the subject of a well-known Border ballad called "Little Jock Elliot". The ballad asserts Elliot's prowess in battle and contains the famous refrain "My name is Little Jock Elliot, and wha daur meddle wi' me!," which has traditionally been offered as one possible source for the origins of the Latin motto of the Order of the Thistle, "Nemo me impune lacessit". The ballad ends by referencing Little Jock Elliot' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Border Reivers
Border reivers were Cattle raiding, raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border from the late 13th century to the beginning of the 17th century. They included both Scotland, Scottish and England, English people, and they raided the entire border country without regard to their victims' nationality. Their heyday was in the last hundred years of their existence, during the time of the House of Stuart in the Kingdom of Scotland and the House of Tudor in the Kingdom of England. Background Scotland and England were frequently at war during the late Middle Ages. During these wars, the livelihood of the people on the Borders was devastated by the contending armies. Even when the countries were not formally at war, tension remained high, and royal authority in either or both kingdoms was often weak, particularly in remote locations. The difficulty and uncertainties of basic human survival meant that communities and/or people kindred to each other would seek security through group streng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Hepburn, 4th Earl Of Bothwell
James Hepburn, 1st Duke of Orkney and 4th Earl of Bothwell ( – 14 April 1578), better known simply as Lord Bothwell, was a prominent Scottish nobleman. He was known for his marriage to Mary, Queen of Scots, as her third and final husband. He was accused of the murder of Mary's second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, a charge of which he was acquitted. His marriage to Mary was controversial and divided the country; when he fled the growing rebellion to Norway, he was arrested and lived the rest of his life imprisoned in Denmark. Early life He was the son of Patrick Hepburn, 3rd Earl of Bothwell, and Agnes Sinclair (d. 1572), daughter of Henry Sinclair, 3rd Lord Sinclair, and was styled ''The Master of Bothwell'' from birth. He succeeded his father as Earl of Bothwell and Lord Hailes in 1556. Marriages As Lord High Admiral of Scotland, Lord Bothwell visited Copenhagen around 1559. He fell in love with Anna Tronds, known in English as Anna Throndsen or Anna Rustung. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jane Whorwood
Jane Whorwood ( Ryder; 1612 – September 1684) was a Royalist agent during the English Civil War. She managed circulation of intelligence, as well as smuggling of funds to sustain the Royalist faction. Whorwood was a close confidante of King Charles I, having helped to co-ordinate his attempts to escape captivity in the late 1640s. Personal life Jane was born in Westminster, in 1612. Her father was Scots courtier William Ryder, surveyor of the royal stables, and her mother was Elizabeth de Boussy, a laundress to Anne of Denmark, queen consort of James I of England. Soon after accompanying King James I in his return visit to Scotland, in 1617, her father died of undetermined illness. Two years later, her mother remarried to a more influential courtier, James Maxwell, himself also originally from Scotland. Jane married Brome Whorwood, four years her junior, in 1634. However, in 1642, at the outbreak of the Civil War, her husband fled England, leaving for continental Europe where ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Murray, 1st Earl Of Dysart
William Murray, 1st Earl of Dysart (1600? – December, 1655), was the childhood whipping boy of Charles I of England and later, an adviser to the king. Early life Born about 1600, Murray was son of William Murray (1561?–1616), minister of Dysart, Fife, by his wife Margaret. The father was a younger brother of Alexander Murray of Woodend, and was descended from a younger son of the family of Dollarie, which was a branch of the house of Tullibardine. William's uncle, Thomas Murray, took his nephew to court when a boy, and educated him along with Prince Charles. The latter and Murray were about the same age, and became very intimate. Service to Charles Murray was a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Prince Charles. On 26 February 1626 he went to fight a duel with Humphrey Tufton. Instead, Murray fought with his own second, Gibson, a Scottish master gunner of the royal artillery and killed him. In 1626, Charles, now king, appointed him a Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, and retained h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francesco Fanelli
Francesco Fanelli (c. 1590–1653) was an Italian sculptor, born in Florence, who spent most of his career in England. He likely had contacts if not training in the studio of Giambologna, then in the hands of Pietro Francavilla and Pietro Tacca. He is recorded at work in Genoa in 1609-10 then worked in London from about 1610, as a sculptor in ivory — Joachim von Sandrart mentions an ivory statuette of Pygmalion that attracted the attention of Charles I of England — but mostly as a skilled bronze-caster. He made a fountain of sirens astride dolphins, alternating with scallop shells, with putti clasping fish and other figures, for the king at Hampton Court Palace. It was noticed by John Evelyn in 1662, and some elements remain, perched on a high rusticated base, as the Diana Fountain in Bushy Park. He received a pension in 1635 as "sculptor of the King". His only signed sculpture is a portrait bust of a youthful Charles II as Prince of Wales, dated 1640, at Welbeck Abbey. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
