This week we present The October 8th Birth Of Poets. On this day, three great were born:

• 70 BC – Virgil, Roman poet
• 1686 – Allan Ramsay, Scottish poet
• 1814 – Mikhail Lermontov, Russian author

Great things happened on this same day!

70 BC – Virgil, Roman poet

Publius Vergilius Maro (also known by the Anglicised forms of his name as Virgil or Vergil) (October 15, 70 BC – September 21, 19 BC) was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works—the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the Aeneid—although a number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, have also sometimes been attributed to him.

Virgil came to be regarded as one of Rome’s greatest poets. His Aeneid can be considered a national epic of Rome and has been extremely popular from its publication to the present day. His work has influenced Western literature. His epic, the Aeneid, had followed the literary model of Homer’s epic poems Iliad and Odyssey. The story is about Aeneas’s search for a new homeland and his war to found a city.

Virgil’s father was a wealthy landowner, who could afford a good education for his son that included schools in Cremona, Mediolanum, Rome and Naples. After considering briefly a career in rhetoric and law, the young Virgil turned his talents to poetry.

astronomy, which he soon abandoned for philosophy. From Virgil’s admiring references to the neoteric writers Pollio and Cinna, it has been inferred that he was, for a time, associated with Catullus’ neoteric circle. However schoolmates considered Virgil extremely shy and reserved, according to Servius, and he was nicknamed “Parthenias” or “maiden” because of his social aloofness. Virgil seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life and in some ways lived the life of an invalid. According to the Catalepton, while in the Epicurean school of Siro the Epicurean at Naples, he began to write poetry. A group of small works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the title Appendix Vergiliana, but are largely considered spurious by scholars. One, the Catalepton, consists of fourteen short poems, some of which may be Virgil’s, and another, a short narrative poem titled the Culex (“The Gnat”), was attributed to Virgil as early as the 1st century AD.

The Eclogues

The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began the hexameter Eclogues (or Bucolics) in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39-38 BC, although this is controversial. The Eclogues (from the Greek for “selections”) are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the bucolic hexameter poetry (“pastoral poetry”) of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus. After his victory in the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, fought against the army led by the assassins of Julius Caesar, Octavian tried to pay off his veterans with land expropriated from towns in northern Italy, supposedly including, according to the tradition, an estate near Mantua belonging to Virgil. The loss of his family farm and the attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as Virgil’s motives in the composition of the Eclogues. This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the Eclogues. In Eclogues 1 and 9, Virgil indeed dramatizes the contrasting feelings caused by the brutality of the land expropriations through pastoral idiom, but offers no indisputable evidence of the supposed biographic incident. Readers often did and sometimes do identify the poet himself with various characters and their vicissitudes, whether gratitude by an old rustic to a new god (Ecl. 1), frustrated love by a rustic singer for a distant boy (his master’s pet, Ecl. 2), or a master singer’s claim to have composed several eclogues (Ecl. 5). Modern scholars largely reject such efforts to garner biographical details from fictive texts preferring instead to interpret the diverse characters and themes as representing the poet’s own contrastive perceptions of contemporary life and thought.

Thematically, the ten Eclogues develop and vary pastoral tropes and play with generic expectations. 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside. 2 and 3 are highly pastoral and erotic, discussing love, both homosexual (Ecl. 2) and panerotic (Ecl. 3). Eclogues 4, addressed to Asinius Pollio, the so-called ‘Messianic Eclogue’ uses the imagery of the golden-age in connection with the birth of a child (who the child is has been highly contested). 5 and 8 describe the myth of Daphnis in a song contest, 6, the cosmic and mythological song of Silenus, 7, a heated poetic contest, and 10 the sufferings of the contemporary elegiac poet Cornelius Gallus. Virgil is credited in the Eclogues with establishing Arcadia as a poetic ideal that still resonates in Western literature and visual arts and setting the stage for the development of Latin pastoral by Calpurnius Siculus, Nemesianus, and later writers.

Sometime after the publication of the Eclogues (probably before 37 BC), Virgil became part of the circle of Maecenas, Octavian’s capable agent d’affaires who sought to counter sympathy for Antony among the leading families by rallying Roman literary figures to Octavian’s side. Virgil seems to have made connections with many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including Horace, in whose poetry he is often mentioned, and Varius Rufus, who later helped finish the Aeneid. At Maecenas’ insistence (according to the tradition) Virgil spent the ensuing years (perhaps 37–29 BC) on the longer didactic hexameter poem called the Georgics (from Greek, “On Working the Earth”) which he dedicated to Maecenas. The apparent theme of the Georgics is instruction in the methods of running a farm. In handling this theme, Virgil follows in the didactic (instructive) tradition of the Greek poet Hesiod one of whose poems focuses on farming and the later Hellenistic poets. The four books of the Georgics focus respectively on raising crops and trees (1 and 2), livestock and horses (3), and beekeeping and the qualities of bees (4). Significant passages include the beloved Laus Italiae of Book 2, the prologue description of the temple in Book 3, and the description of the plague at the end of Book 3. Book 4 concludes with a long mythological narrative, in the form of an epyllion which describes vividly the discovery of beekeeping by Aristaeus and the story of Orpheus’ journey to the underworld. Ancient scholars conjectured that the Aristaeus episode replaced a long section in praise of Virgil’s friend, the poet Gallus, who was disgraced by Augustus and committed suicide in 26 BC. Augustus is supposed to have ordered the section to be replaced. A major critical issue in considering the Georgics is the assessment of tone; Virgil seems to waver between optimism and pessimism, sparking a great deal of debate on the poem’s intentions. With the Georgics Virgil is again credited with laying the foundations for later didactic poetry. The biographical tradition says that Virgil and Maecenas took turns reading the Georgics to Octavian upon his return from defeating Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC.

The Aeneid is widely considered Virgil’s finest work and one of the most important poems in the history of western literature. Virgil worked on the Aeneid during the last ten years of his life (29-19 BC), commissioned, according to Propertius, by Augustus. The epic poem consists of 12 books in hexameter verse which describe the journey of Aeneas, a prince fleeing the sack of Troy, to Italy, his battle with the Italian prince Turnus, and the foundation of a city from which Rome would emerge. The Aeneid’s first six books describe the journey of Aeneas from Troy to Rome. Virgil made use of several models in the composition of his epic; Homer the preeminent classical epicist is everywhere present, but Virgil also makes especial use of the Latin poet Ennius and the Hellenistic poet Apollonius of Rhodes among the various other writers he alludes to. Although the Aeneid casts itself firmly into the epic mode, it often seeks to expand the genre by including elements of other genres such as tragedy and aetiological poetry. Ancient commentators noted that Virgil seems to divide the Aeneid into two sections based on the poetry of Homer; the first six books were viewed as employing the Odyssey as a model while the last six were connected to the Iliad.

Book 1 (at the head of the Odyssean section) opens with a storm which Juno, Aeneas’ enemy throughout the poem, stirs up against the fleet. The storm drives the hero to the coast of Carthage, which historically was Rome’s deadliest foe. The queen, Dido, welcomes the ancestor of the Romans, and under the influence of the gods falls deeply in love with him. At a banquet in Book 2, Aeneas tells the story of the sack of Troy, the death of his wife, and his escape to the enthralled Carthginians, while in Book 3 he recounts to them his wanderings over the Mediterranean in search of a suitable new home. Jupiter in Book 4 recalls the lingering Aeneas to his duty to found a new city, and he slips away from Carthage, leaving Dido to commit suicide, cursing Aeneas and calling down revenge in a symbolic anticipation of the fierce wars between Carthage and Rome. In Book 5, Aeneas’ father Anchises dies and funeral games are celebrated for him. On reaching Cumae, in Italy in Book 6, Aeneas consults the Cumaean Sibyl, who conducts him through the Underworld where Aeneas meets the dead Anchises who reveals his Rome’s destiny to his son.

Book 7 (beginning the Iliadic half) opens with an address to the muse and recounts Aeneas arrival in Italy and betrothal to Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus. Lavinia had already been promised to Turnus, the king of the Rutulians, who is roused to war by the Fury Allecto and Amata Lavinia’s mother. In Book 8, Aeneas allies with King Evander, who occupies the future site of Rome, and is given new armor and a shield depicting Roman history. Book 9 records an assault by Nisus and Euryalus on the Rutulians, 10, the death of Evander’s young son Pallas, and 11 the death of the Volscian warrior princess Camilla and the decision to settle the war with a duel between Aeneas and Turnus. The Aeneid ends in Book 12 with the taking of Latinus’ city, the death of Amata, and Aeneas’ defeat and killing of Turnus, whose pleas for mercy are spurned.

Reception of the Aeneid

Critics of the Aeneid focus on a variety of issues (see Fowler for an excellent bibliography and summary). The tone of the poem as a whole is a particular matter of debate; some see the poem as ultimately pessimistic and politically subversive to the Augustan regime, while others view it as a celebration of the new imperial dynasty. Virgil makes use of the symbolism of the Augustan regime, and some scholars see strong associations between Augustus and Aeneas, the one as founder and the other as re-founder of Rome. A strong teleology, or drive towards a climax, has been detected in the poem. The Aeneid is full of prophecies about the future of Rome, the deeds of Augustus, his ancestors, and famous Romans, and the Carthaginian Wars; the shield of Aeneas even depicts Augustus’ victory at Actium against Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII in 31 BC. A further focus of study is the character of Aeneas. As the protagonist of the poem, Aeneas seems to constantly waver between his emotions and commitment to his prophetic duty to found Rome; critics note the breakdown of Aeneas’ emotional control in the last sections of the poem where the “pious” and “righteous” Aeneas mercilessly slaughters Turnus.

The Aeneid appears to have been a great success. Virgil is said to have recited Books 2,4, and 6 to Augustus; Book 6 apparently caused Augustus’ sister Octavia to faint. Unfortunately, the poem was unfinished at Virgil’s death in 19 BC.

Virgil’s death and editing of the Aeneid

According to the tradition, Virgil traveled to Greece around 19 BC in order to revise the Aeneid. After meeting Augustus in Athens and deciding to return home, Virgil caught a fever while visiting a town near Megara. After crossing to Italy by ship, weakened with disease, Virgil died in Brundisium harbour on September 21, 19 BC. Augustus ordered Virgil’s literary executors, Lucius Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca, to disregard Virgil’s own wish that the poem be burned, instead ordering it published with as few editorial changes as possible. As a result, the text of the Aeneid that exists may contain faults which Virgil was planning to correct before publication. However, the only obvious imperfections are a few lines of verse that are metrically unfinished (i.e., not a complete line of dactylic hexameter). Other alleged “imperfections” are subject to scholarly debate.

The works of Virgil almost from the moment of their publication revolutionized Latin poetry. The Eclogues, Georgics, and above all the Aeneid became standard texts in school curricula with which all educated Romans were familiar. Poets, following Virgil often refer intertextually to his works to generate meaning in their own poetry. The Augustan poet Ovid parodies the opening lines of the Aeneid in Am. 1.1.1-2, and his summary of the Aeneas story in Book 14 of the Metamorphoses, the so-called “mini-Aeneid”, has been viewed as a particularly important example of post-Virgilian response to the epic genre. Lucan’s epic, the Bellum Civile has been considered an anti-Virgilian epic, disposing with the divine mechanism, treating historical events, and diverging drastically from Virgilian epic practice. The Flavian poet Statius in his 12 book epic Thebaid engages closely with the poetry of Virgil; in his epilogue he advises his poem not to “rival the divine Aeneid, but follow afar and ever venerate its footsteps.” In Silius Italicus, Virgil finds one of his most ardent admirers. With almost every line of his epic Punica Silius references Virgil. Indeed, Silius is known to have bought Virgil’s tomb and worshipped the poet. Partially as a result of his so-called “Messianic” Fourth Eclogue—widely interpreted later to have predicted the birth of Jesus Christ — Virgil was in later antiquity imputed to have the magical abilities of a seer; the sortes Virgilianae, the process of using Virgil’s poetry as a tool of divination, is found in the time of Hadrian, and continued into the Middle Ages. In a similar vein Macrobius in the Saturnalia credits the work of Virgil as the embodiment of human knowledge and experience, mirroring the Greek conception of Homer. Virgil also found commentators in antiquity. Servius, a commentator of the 4th century AD based his work on the commentary of Donatus. Servius’ commentary provides us with a great deal of information about Virgil’s life, sources, and references, however many modern scholars find the variable quality of his work and the often simplistic interpretations frustrating. Even as the Western Roman empire collapsed, literate men acknowledged that Virgil was a master poet. Gregory of Tours read Virgil, whom he quotes in several places, along with some other Latin poets, though he cautions that “we ought not to relate their lying fables, lest we fall under sentence of eternal death.”

The Aeneid remained the central Latin literary text of the Middle Ages and retained its status as the grand epic of the Latin peoples, and of those who considered themselves to be of Roman provenance, such as the English. It also held religious importance as it describes the founding of a “Holy City”. Virgil’s fourth Eclogue was often seen as a prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ. It has been argued that this originated in a need on the part of medieval scholars to reconcile Virgil’s non-Christian background with the high regard in which they held his works, who were thus forced to make him a prophet of sorts. This view is defended by a few scholars today, notably Richard Thomas (see below, under links). Cicero and other classical writers too were declared Christian due to similarities in moral thinking to Christianity.

Also during the Middle Ages, as Virgil was developed into a kind of magus, manuscripts of the Aeneid were used for divinatory bibliomancy, the Sortes Virgilianae (Virgilian lottery), in which a line would be selected at random and interpreted in the context of a current situation (Compare the ancient Chinese I Ching). The Old Testament was sometimes used for similar arcane purposes. The inscription at Virgil’s tomb describes the circumstances of his death and includes the famous verses allegedly composed by Virgil himself: “Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces.” (“Mantua bore me, the Calabrians snatched me away, now Naples holds me. I sang of pastures, countrysides, leaders.”)

The structure known as “Virgil’s tomb” is found at the entrance of an ancient Roman tunnel (also known as “grotta vecchia”) in the Parco di Virgilio in Piedigrotta, a district two miles from old Naples, near the Mergellina harbor, on the road heading north along the coast to Pozzuoli. (The site called Parco Virgiliano is some distance further west along the coast.) While Virgil was already the object of literary admiration and veneration before his death, in the following centuries his name became associated with miraculous powers, his tomb the destination of pilgrimages and veneration. The poet himself was said to have created the cave with the fierce power of his intense gaze.  It is said that the Chiesa della Santa Maria di Piedigrotta was erected by Church authorities to neutralize this adoration and “Christianize” the site. The tomb, however, is a tourist attraction, and still sports a tripod burner originally dedicated to Apollo, although the tripod is not original to the site.

1686 – Allan Ramsay, Scottish poet

Allan Ramsay was born at Leadhills, Lanarkshire to John Ramsay, superintendent of Lord Hopetoun’s lead-mines and his wife, Alice Bower, a native of Derbyshire. He was educated at the parish school of Crawford, and in 1701 was apprenticed to a wig-maker in Edinburgh. He married Christian Ross in 1712; a few years after he had established himself as a wig-maker (not as a barber, as has been often said) in the High Street, and soon found himself in comfortable circumstances. They had six children. His eldest child was Allan Ramsay, the portrait painter.

Ramsay’s first efforts in verse-making were inspired by the meetings of the Easy Club (founded in 1712), of which he was an original member; and in 1715 he became the Club Laureate. In the society of the members he assumed the name of “Isaac Bickerstaff,” and later of “Gawin Douglas,” the latter partly in memory of his maternal grandfather Douglas of Muthill (Perthshire), and partly to give point to his boast that he was a “poet sprung from a Douglas loin.” The choice of the two names has some significance, when we consider his later literary life as the associate of the Queen Anne poets and as a collector of old Lowland Scots poetry.

By 1718 he had made some reputation as a writer of occasional verse, which he published in broadsheets, and then (or a year earlier) he turned bookseller in the premises where he had hitherto plied his craft of wig-making. In 1716 he had published a rough transcript of Christ’s Kirk on the Green from the Bannatyne manuscript, with some additions of his own. In 1718 he republished the piece with more supplementary verses. In the following year he printed a collection of Scots Songs. The success of these ventures prompted him to collect his poems in 1722. The volume was issued by subscription, and brought in the sum of four hundred guineas. Four years later he removed to another shop, in the neighbouring Luckenbooths, where he opened a circulating library (the first in Scotland) and extended his business as a bookseller.

Between the publication of the collected edition of his poems and his settling down in the Luckenbooths, he had published a few shorter poems and had issued the first instalments of The Tea-Table Miscellany and The Ever Green (both 1724-1727). The Tea-Table Miscellany is “A Collection of Choice Songs Scots and English,” containing some of Ramsay’s own, some by his friends, several well-known ballads and songs, and some Caroline verse. Its title was suggested by the programme of The Spectator: and the compiler claimed the place for his songs “e’en while the tea’s fill’d reeking round,” which Addison sought for his speculations at the hour set apart ” for tea and bread and butter.”

In The Ever Green, being a Collection of Scots Poems wrote by the Ingenious before 1600, Ramsay had another purpose, to reawaken an interest in the older national literature. Nearly all the pieces were taken from the Bannatyne manuscript, though they are by no means verbatim copies. They included his version of Christ’s Kirk and a remarkable pastiche by the editor entitled the Vision. While engaged on these two series, he produced, in 1725, his dramatic pastoral The Gentle Shepherd. In the volume of poems published in 1722 Ramsay had shown his bent to this genre, especially in “Patie and Roger,” which supplies two of the dramatis personae to his greater work. The success of the drama was remarkable. It passed through several editions, and was performed at the theatre in Edinburgh; its title is still known in every corner of Scotland, even if it be no longer read. In 1726 he published anonymously Poems in English and Latin, on the Archers and Royal Company of Archers, by several Hands for the Royal Company of Archers. He wrote the words to the Archer’s March,

Sound, sound the music, sound it,

Let hills and dales rebound it,

Let hills and dales rebound it

In praise of Archery.

Used as a Game it pleases,

The mind to joy it raises,

And throws off all diseases

Of lazy luxury.

Now, now our care beguiling,

When all the year looks smiling,

When all the year looks smiling

With healthful harmony.

The sun in glory glowing,

With morning dew bestowing

Sweet fragrance, life, and growing

To flowers and every tree.”

Tis now the archers royal,

An hearty band and loyal,

An hearty band and loyal,

That in just thought agree,

Appear in ancient bravery,

Despising all base knavery,

Which tends to bring in slavery,

Souls worthy to live free.

Sound, sound the music, sound it,

Fill up the glass and round wi’t,

Fill up the glass and round wi’t,

Health and Prosperity

To our great chief and officers,

To our president and counsellors,

To all who like their brave forbears

Delight in Archery.

Ramsay wrote little afterwards, though he published a few shorter poems, and new editions of his earlier work. A complete edition of his Poems appeared in London n 1731 and in Dublin in 1733. With a touch of vanity he expressed the fear lest “the coolness of fancy that attends advanced years should make me risk the reputation I had acquired.” He was already on terms of intimacy with the leading men of letters in Scotland and England. He corresponded with William Hamilton of Bangour, William Somervile, John Gay and Alexander Pope. Gay visited him in Edinburgh, and Pope praised his pastoral—compliments which were undoubtedly responsible for some of Ramsay’s unhappy poetic ventures beyond his Scots vernacular. The poet had for many years been a warm supporter of the stage. Some of his prologues and epilogues were written for the London theatres. In 1736 he set about the erection of a new theatre, “at vast expense,” in Carrubber’s Close, Edinburgh; but the opposition was too strong, and the new house was closed in 1737. In 1755 he retired from his shop to the house on the slope of the Castle Rock, still known as Ramsay Lodge. This house was called by his friends “the goose-pie,” because of its octagonal shape.

He is buried at Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh.

Ramsay’s importance in literary history is twofold. As a pastoral writer (“in some respects the best in the world,” according to James Henry Leigh Hunt) he contributed, at an early stage, to the naturalistic reaction of the 18th century. His Gentle Shepherd, by its directness of impression and its appreciation of country life, anticipates the attitude of the school which broke with neo-classical tradition. It has the “mixed” faults which make the greater poem of his Scots successor, Thomson, a ” transitional ” document, but these give it an historical, if not an individual, interest. His chief place is, however, as an editor. He is the connecting-link between the greater “Makars” of the 15th and 16th centuries, and Robert Fergusson and Robert Burns. He revived the interest in vernacular literature, and directly inspired the genius of his greater successors. The preface to his Ever Green is a protest against “imported trimming” and “foreign embroidery in our writings,” and a plea for a return to simple Scottish tradition. He had no scholarly interest in the past, and he never hesitated to transform the texts when he could give contemporary ” point ” to a poem; but his instinct was good, and he did much to stimulate an ignorant public to fresh enjoyment. In this respect, too, he anticipates the reaction in England which followed securely on the publication of Percy’s Reliques. The Tea-Table Miscellany was reprinted in 1871 (2 vols., Glasgow; John Crum); The Ever Green in 1875 (2 vols., Glasgow; Robert Forrester); The Poems of Allan Ramsay in 1877 (2 vols., Paisley; Alex. Gardner). These volumes are uniform in size and binding, though issued by different publishers. A selection of the Poems appeared in 1887 (1 vol. 16mo, London; Walter Scott). This volume includes a biographical sketch written by J. Logie Robertson. There are many popular reprints of The Gentle Shepherd.

1814 – Mikhail Lermontov, Russian author

Lermontov was born in Moscow to a respectable noble family of the Tula Oblast, and grew up at the Tarkhany estate in in the village of Tarkhany (now Lermontovo) in Penza Oblast. According to one disputed and uncorroborated theory his paternal family was believed to have descended from the Scottish Learmonths, one of whom settled in Russia in the early 17th century, during the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov. The legendary Scottish poet Thomas the Rhymer (Thomas Learmonth) is claimed to be a relative of Lermontov. However this claim has been neither proved nor disproved, and thus remains a legend. Lermontov’s father, Yuri Lermontov, like his father before him, was a military man. Having moved up the ranks to captain, he married the sixteen year old Mariya Arsenyeva, to the great dismay of her mother, Yelizaveta Alekseyevna. A year after the marriage, on the night of October 3 (Old Style), 1814, Mariya Arsenieva gave birth to Mikhail Lermontov. According to tradition, soon after his birth, some discord between Lermontov’s father and grandmother erupted, and unable to bear it, Mariya Arsenieva fell ill and died in 1817. After the daughter’s death, Yelizaveta Alekseyevna devoted all her love to her grandson, always in fear that his father might move away with him. Either because of this pampering or continuing family tension or both, Lermontov as a child developed a fearful and arrogant temper, which he took out on the servants, and vandalizing his grandmother’s garden.

As a small boy Lermontov listened to stories about the outlaws of the Volga region, about their great bravery and wild country life. When he was ten, Mikhail fell sick, and Yelizaveta Alekseyevna took him to the Caucasus for its better climate, that originated his love for this region. The intellectual atmosphere in which he grew up was similar to that experienced by Pushkin, though the domination of French had begun to give way to a preference for English, and Lamartine shared popularity with Byron. In his early childhood Lermontov was educated by a Frenchman named Gendrot. Yelizaveta Alekseyevna felt that this was not sufficient and decided to take Lermontov to Moscow, to prepare for gymnasium. In Moscow, Lermontov was introduced to Goethe and Schiller by a German pedagogue, Levy, and shortly afterwards, in 1828, he entered the gymnasium. He showed himself to be an exceptional student. Also at the gymnasium he became acquainted with the poetry of Pushkin and Zhukovsky, and one of his friends, Katerina Hvostovaya, later described him as “married to a hefty volume of Byron”. This friend had at one time been an object of Lermontov’s affection, and to her he dedicated some of his earliest poems. At that time, along with his poetic passion, Lermontov also developed an inclination for poisonous wit, and cruel and sardonic humor. His ability to draw caricatures was matched by his ability to pin someone down with a well aimed epigram or nickname.

After the academic gymnasium, in August 1830, Lermontov entered Moscow University. That same summer the final, tragic act of the family discord played itself out. Having been deeply struck by his son’s alienation, Yuri Lermontov left the Arseniev house for good, only to die a short time later. His father’s death on such a note was a terrible loss for Mikhail, and is reflected in his poems: “Forgive me, Will we Meet Again?” and “The Terrible Fate of Father and Son”. Lermontov’s career at the university was short-lived. He attended lectures faithfully, but he would often read a book in the corner of the auditorium, and rarely took part in student life. A prank pulled by a group of students against one of the professors named Malov brought his time at the University to an end. Several biographers see this incident as the reason for Mikhail’s departure. The events at the University led Lermontov to seriously reconsider his career choice. From 1830 to 1834 he attended the cadets school in Saint Petersburg, and in due course he became an officer in the guards. At that time he began writing poetry. He also took a keen interest in Russian history and medieval epics, which would be reflected in the Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov, his long poem Borodino, poems addressed to the city of Moscow, and a series of popular ballads.

To express his own and the nation’s anger at the loss of Pushkin (1837) the young soldier wrote a passionate poem, Death of the Poet, — the latter part of which is explicitly addressed to the inner circles at the court, though not to the Tsar himself. The poem all but accuses the powerful “pillars” of Russian high society of complicity in Pushkin’s death. Without mincing words, it portrays that society as a cabal of self-interested venomous wretches “huddling about the throne in a greedy throng”, “the hangmen who kill liberty, genius, and glory” about to suffer the apocalyptic judgment of God.

The tsar Nicholas I, however, seems to have found more impertinence than inspiration in the address, for Lermontov was forthwith exiled to the Caucasus as an officer in the dragoons. He had been in the Caucasus with his grandmother as a boy of ten, and he found himself at home, with feelings deeper than those of childhood recollection. The stern and rocky virtues of the mountain tribesmen against whom he had to fight, no less than the scenery of the rocks and of the mountains themselves, were close to his heart; the tsar had exiled him to his native land.

Lermontov visited Saint Petersburg in 1838 and 1839, and his indignant observations of the aristocratic milieu, wherein fashionable ladies welcomed him as a celebrity, occasioned his play Masquerade. His doomed love for Barbara Lopukhina was recorded in the novel Princess Ligovskaya, which he never finished. His duel with a son of the French ambassador led to Lermontov being returned to the army fighting the war in the Caucasus, where he distinguished himself in hand-to-hand combat at the Battle of the Valerik River, the basis for his poem Valerik. By 1839 he completed his most important novel, A Hero of Our Time, which prophetically describes a duel like the one in which he would eventually lose his life.

On July 25, 1841, at Pyatigorsk, fellow army officer Nikolai Martynov, who felt hurt by one of Lermontov’s jokes, challenged Lermontov to a duel. The duel took place two days later at the foot of Mashuk mountain. Lermontov was killed by Martynov’s first shot. Several of his verses were posthumously discovered in his notebook. He is buried at Tarkhany.

This week we present The October 8th Birth Of Politicians. On this day, three great were born:

• 1747 – Jean-François Rewbell, French politician
• 1789 – John Ruggles, American politician
• 1818 – John Henninger Reagan, American politician

Great things happened on this same day!

1747 – Jean-François Rewbell, French politician

Jean-François Rewbell (October 8, 1747 – November 23, 1807) was a French lawyer, diplomat, and politician of the Revolution. Born at Colmar (now in the département of Haut-Rhin), he became president of the local order of lawyers, and in 1789 was elected as a deputy to the Estates-General by the Third Estate of the bailliage of Colmar-Schlestadt. In the National Constituent Assembly his oratory, legal knowledge and austerity of life gave him much influence. A partisan of revolutionary reforms, Rewbell voted in favor of reforms such as the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, but opposed the recognition citizenship rights for Alsatian Jews.

In July 1791, after the flight of Louis XVI, the constitutional king, Rewbell left the Jacobin Club and joined the Feuillants. During the session of the Legislative Assembly, after the Constituent Assembly was dissolved in September of that year, he exercised the functions of procureur syndic, and was subsequently secretary-general of the département of Haut-Rhin. He was elected to the Republic’s National Convention in 1792, and was its envoy to the Rhineland, advocating the union of the Palatinate and other territories with France. A zealous promoter of the trial of Louis XVI, he was absent on mission at the time of the king’s condemnation. He took part in the Thermidorian Reaction movement which led to the fall of Maximilien Robespierre, and became a member of the reorganised Committee of Public Safety and of the Committee of General Security. In early 1795, he assisted Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès in negotiating the surrender of the Batavian Republic to the French Republic. His moderation caused his election by seventeen département to the Council of Five Hundred.

Appointed a member of the Directory in November 1795, he became its president in 1796; he then entered the Council of Ancients. In office, Rewbell dealt with the Royalist attempted coup d’état (The 18 Fructidor), as well as the Conspiracy of the Equals; he engineered the annexation of Rhenania and the southern Low Countries to the Republic, as well as the invasion of Switzerland (and the creation of the Helvetic Republic), but was retired by ballot in 1799, after being held responsible for the French defeats of that year in front of the Second Coalition. After Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup of 18 Brumaire he retired from public life, and died

1789 – John Ruggles, American politician

John Ruggles (October 8, 1789 – June 20, 1874) was an American politician from the U.S. state of Maine. He served in several important state legislative and judicial positions before serving in the U.S. Senate. Ruggles was born in Westborough, Massachusetts. He attended public school there and in 1813 graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Ruggles studied law, and after being admitted to the bar in 1815 he began practicing in Skowhegan, Maine. Two years later, Ruggles moved to Thomaston. In 1823, Ruggles was elected to the Maine House of Representatives. He served in the House until 1831, and was speaker (1825–1829 and again in 1831). He resigned from the state house to replace Samuel E. Smith (who had been elected governor) as a justice of the supreme judicial court of Maine, serving until 1834. The state legislature elected Ruggles as a Democratic-Republican (Jacksonian) to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Peleg Sprague. He was later elected for the full term beginning March 4, 1835, and in total served from January 20, 1835, to March 3, 1841. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1840.

During his tenure in Congress, Ruggles had served as chairman of the Committee on Patents and Patent Office (25th Congress), and in 1836 framed the bill for the reorganization of the United States Patent Office. He was known for his interest in inventions and patents, and because of his legislative accomplishments in this area he has become known as the “Father of the U.S. Patent Office”. Ruggles also was an inventor and the patent-holder of U.S. Patent 1, issued July 13, 1836. His invention was a type of train wheel designed to reduce the adverse effects of the weather on the track. Note that this was not the first patent ever from the USPTO; the previous patents were destroyed by fire and afterwards called the X-Patents, and new patents afterwards were numbered from 1 again. Ruggles received the first patent granted under the new system; Samuel Hopkins received the first X-Patent.

In retirement, Ruggles resumed the practice of law in Thomaston. There he made several more inventions and was well-known as a political writer and orator. Ruggles was wealthy; he and his wife Margaret George Ruggles had children and lived in the largest house on the town’s Main Street. He died in 1874 a few months before reaching age 85. He is interred in the Elm Grove Cemetery.

1818 – John Henninger Reagan, American politician

John Henninger Reagan (October 8, 1818 – March 6, 1905), was a leading 19th century American politician from the U.S. state of Texas. A Democrat, Reagan resigned from the U.S. House of Representatives when Texas seceded from the Union and joined the Confederate States of America. He served in the cabinet of Jefferson Davis as Postmaster General. After the Confederate defeat, he called for cooperation with the federal government and thus became unpopular, but returned to public office when his predictions of harsh treatment for resistance were proved correct. Reagan was born in what is now Gatlinburg, Tennessee, to Timothy Richard and Elizabeth (Lusk) Reagan. He left Tennessee at nineteen and traveled to Texas. He worked as a surveyor from 1839 to 1843, and then farmed in Kaufman County until 1851.

He studied law on his own and was licensed to practice in 1846, opening an office in Buffalo. The same year he was elected a probate judge in Henderson County and in 1847 he went to the state legislature, but was defeated for a second term in 1849. He was admitted to the bar in 1848 and practiced in both Buffalo and Palestine, Texas. Reagan was elected a district judge in Palestine, serving from 1852 to 1857. His efforts in defeating the American Party (Know-Nothings) led to his election to Congress in 1857 from First District. Reagan was a moderate and a supporter of the Union, but resigned from Congress on January 15, 1861 and returned home when it became clear that Texas would secede.  He participated in the secession convention that met at Austin on January 31, 1861. He was chosen a member of the Provisional Confederate Congress, but within a month he was appointed to his Cabinet post.

President Jefferson Davis chose Reagan to head the new Confederate States of America Post-office Department. He was an able administrator, presiding over the only cabinet department that functioned well during the war. Despite the hostilities, the United States Post Office Department continued operations in the Confederacy until June 1, 1861, when the Confederate service took over its functions.  Reagan’ sent an agent to Washington, D.C., with letters asking the heads of the United States Post Office Department’s various bureaus to come work for him. Nearly all did so, bringing copies of their records, contracts, account books, etc. “Reagan in effect had stolen the U.S. Post Office,” historian William C. Davis wrote. When President Davis asked his cabinet for the status of their departments, Reagan reported he had his up and running in only six weeks. Davis was amazed.

Reagan cut expenses by eliminating costly and little-used routes and forcing the railroads that carried the mail to reduce their rates. Despite the problems the war caused, his department managed to turn a profit, “the only post office department in American history to pay its own way,” wrote William C. Davis. Reagan was the only member of the cabinet to oppose Robert E. Lee’s offensive into Pennsylvania in June–July 1863. He instead supported a proposal to detach the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia to reinforce Joseph E. Johnston in Mississippi so that he could break the Siege of Vicksburg. Historian Shelby Foote noted that, as the only Cabinet member from west of the Mississippi, Reagan was acutely aware of the consequences of Vicksburg’s capture.

When Davis abandoned Richmond on April 2, 1865, shortly before the entry of Army of the Potomac under George G. Meade, Reagan accompanied the president on his flight to the Carolinas. On April 27, Davis made him Secretary of the Treasury after George A. Trenholm’s resignation and he served in that capacity until he, Davis, and Texas Governor Francis R. Lubbock were captured near Irwinville, Georgia on May 10. Reagan was imprisoned with Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens at Fort Warren in Boston, where Reagan spent twenty-two weeks in solitary confinement.  On August 11, he wrote an open letter to his fellow Texans urging cooperation with the Union, renunciation of the secession convention, the abolition of slavery, and letting freed slaves vote. He warned of military rule that would enforce these policies if Texans did not voluntarily adopt them. For this, he was denounced by Texans. He was released from prison later that year and returned home to Palestine in December.

To those who felt that the Reconstruction was unduly harsh, his prescience was hailed—he became known as the “Old Roman,” a Texas Cincinnatus. He was part of the successful effort to remove Republican Edmund J. Davis from the governorship in 1874, after Davis attempted to illegally remain in office after he had lost the election. That year Reagan returned to the Congressional seat he held before the war, serving from March 4, 1875 to March 4, 1887. In 1875, he served in the convention that wrote a new state constitution for Texas. In Congress, he advocated federal regulation of railroads and helped create the Interstate Commerce Commission. He also served as the first chairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads. Though he had been elected to the Senate in 1887 (serving March 4, 1887 to June 10, 1891), he resigned to become chairman of the Railroad Commission of Texas at the behest of his friend, Governor James Stephen “Jim” Hogg, who had run on a platform of state regulation of railroads, and chaired it until 1903. Conscious of the importance of history, he was a founder of the Texas State Historical Association and attended reunions of Confederate veterans in his state. He wrote his Memoirs, With Special Reference to Secession and the Civil War, published in 1905, and died of pneumonia at his home in Palestine in Anderson County later that year, the last surviving member of the government of the Confederacy. Reagan was laid to rest in East Hill Cemetery Palestine Anderson County in Texas. Historian Ben H. Procter included Reagan in his list of the “four greatest Texans of the 19th century,” along with Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin, and James Stephen Hogg. Reagan County, Texas is named in his honor.

This week we present The October 1st Birth Of Kings. On this day, three great were born:

• 1207 – King Henry III of England
• 1685 – Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor
• 1924 – Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

Great things happened on this same day!

1207 – King Henry III of England

Henry III (1 October 1207 – 16 November 1272) was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready. England prospered during his reign and his greatest monument is Westminster, which he made the seat of his government and where he expanded the abbey as a shrine to Edward the Confessor. He is the first of only five monarchs to rule the Kingdom of England or its successor states for 50 years or more, the others being Edward III (1327–1377), George III (1760–1820), Queen Victoria (1837–1901) and Elizabeth II (1952–present). He assumed the crown under the regency of the popular William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, but the England he inherited had undergone several drastic changes in the reign of his father. He spent much of his reign fighting the barons over Magna Carta and the royal rights, and was eventually forced to call the first “parliament” in 1264. He was also unsuccessful on the Continent, where he endeavoured to re-establish English control over Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitaine.

Henry III was born in 1207 at Winchester Castle, the son of King John and Isabella of Angoulême. His coronation at age nine was a simple affair, attended by only a handful of noblemen and three bishops at St Peter’s Abbey, Gloucester. In the absence of a crown (the crown had recently been lost with all the rest of his father’s treasure in a wreck in East Anglia) a simple golden band was placed on the young boy’s head, not by the Archbishop of Canterbury (who was at this time supporting Prince Louis “the Lion”, the future king of France) but by another clergyman—either Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, or Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, the Papal legate. In 1220 a second coronation was ordered by Pope Honorius III who did not consider that the first had been carried out in accordance with church rites. This occurred on 17 May 1220 in Westminster Abbey.

Under John’s rule the barons had supported an invasion by Prince Louis because they disliked the way that John had ruled the country. However, they quickly saw that the young prince was a safer option. Henry’s regents immediately declared their intention to rule by Magna Carta, which they proceeded to do during Henry’s minority. The treatment of his elder cousin Eleanor of Brittany, who was 23 years his senior (and older than his mother), was a difficult problem for Henry.

Eleanor was the daughter of Duke Geoffrey II of Brittany, elder brother of King John, which meant that she had a better claim to the English throne than John and Henry according to Primogeniture, thus should have been queen regnant in 1203. But in 1202 John captured Eleanor at Mirebeau. When John died, the barons passed her over and crowned Henry, leaving the beautiful and defiant princess still imprisoned at Corfe Castle at Dorset, guarded by Peter de Maulay.

Viewing her claim to England and Aquitaine, though with little baronial support for her sex, as a threat, the regents, later Henry himself, viewed Eleanor as “state prisoner” and kept her in a state of semi-captivity, or “under a gentle house arrest”, and never permitted her to marry. Before Henry held real power, it was alleged that there was a plot to spirit Eleanor away and deliver her to the king of France; de Maulay was accused of the plot and fell out of favor. However many believed such a plot was just an excuse aiming to discredit de Maulay and Peter des Roches, who would also fall out of favor in spring 1234. Shortly after the plot was discovered, Eleanor was moved away from coast and transferred between Gloucester, Marlborough and Bristol Castle. To prevent her from liberation, the princess was under strict custody and always closely guarded, even after child-bearing years. But on the other side, Henry also showed his generosity to his cousin. He styled Eleanor, who had been left no title, as “king’s kinswoman” , referred her as “our cousin”, and it was recorded that she lived as comfortably as a royal princess who received generous gifts from royal family. Henry himself once gave Eleanor a saddle, suggesting that she was probably a horsewoman, and was not always confined in her apartment. On another occasion, Henry sent her 50 yards of linen cloth, three wimples, 50 pounds of almonds and raisins respectively and a basket of figs. In November 1237 at Woodstock, Henry met a healthy Eleanor. Then the princess was again taken captive to Gloucester under the custody of William Talbot, and the sheriff there paid for her expenses. In the final years of her life Eleanor was moved to Bristol, and Henry ordered the mayor and bailiff there to increase her household. The governor there exhibited her to the public annually, in case there might be rumors that the royal captive had been injured. The fact might suggest that English people were sympathetic to her.

On 10 August 1241 Eleanor died, and was buried at Amesbury. In the Chronicle of Lanercost there was a legend saying that before her death, the remorseful Henry gave her a gold crown, which would be donated to his young son Edward three days later. Another version of events stated that Eleanor returned the crown after wearing it for only one day. After his cousin, who actually never gave up her rights and claim, finally died an unmarried prisoner, Henry was now indisputably the rightful king of England, although years later he was still unwilling to admit that Eleanor had preceded him in English succession line. In 1268 Henry donated a manor in Melksham, a place that Eleanor had shown her interest in, to Amesbury for the souls of Eleanor and her younger-brother Arthur, who was captured along with his sister and disappeared mysteriously the next year, it being widely believed that John had him murdered. In 1244, when the Scots threatened to invade England, King Henry III visited York Castle and ordered it rebuilt in stone. The work commenced in 1245, and took some 20 to 25 years to complete. The builders crowned the existing moat with a stone keep, known as the King’s Tower.

Henry’s reign came to be marked by civil strife as the English barons, led by Simon de Montfort, demanded more say in the running of the kingdom. French-born de Montfort had originally been one of the King’s foreign counselors—a group much resented by the barons. Henry, in an outburst of anger over de Monfort’s behaviour in a financial matter, accused de Montfort of seducing his sister and forcing him to give her to de Montfort to avoid a scandal. When confronted by the Barons about the secret marriage that Henry had allowed to happen, a feud developed between the two. Their relationship reached a crisis in the 1250s when de Montfort was brought up on spurious charges for actions he had taken as lieutenant of Gascony, the last remaining Plantagenet land across the English Channel. He was acquitted by the Peers of the realm, much to the King’s displeasure.

Henry also became embroiled in funding a war in Sicily on behalf of the Pope in return for a title for his second son Edmund. This situation led many of the barons to fear that Henry was following in his father’s footsteps and therefore also needed to be kept in check. De Montfort became leader of those who wanted to reassert Magna Carta and force the king to surrender more power to the baronial council. In 1258 seven leading barons forced Henry to agree to the Provisions of Oxford, which effectively abolished the absolutist Anglo-Norman monarchy, giving power to a council of fifteen barons to deal with the business of government and providing for a thrice-yearly meeting of parliament to monitor their performance. Henry was forced to take part in the swearing of a collective oath to the Provisions of Oxford. In the following years those supporting de Montfort and those supporting the king grew more and more polarised. Henry obtained a papal bull in 1262 exempting him from his oath and both sides began to raise armies. The Royalists were led by Prince Edward, Henry’s eldest son. A civil war, known as the Second Barons’ War, ensued. The charismatic de Montfort and his forces had captured most of southeastern England by 1263, and at the Battle of Lewes on 14 May 1264, Henry was defeated and taken prisoner by de Montfort’s army. While Henry was reduced to being a figurehead king, de Montfort broadened representation to include each county of England and many important towns—that is, to groups beyond the nobility. Henry and Edward remained under house arrest. The short period that followed was the closest England was to come to complete abolition of the monarchy until the Commonwealth period of 1649–60 and many of the barons who had initially supported de Montfort began to suspect that he had gone too far with his reforming zeal.

Fifteen months later Prince Edward had escaped captivity (having been freed by his cousin Roger Mortimer) and led the royalists into battle, turning the tables on de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in 1265. Following this victory, savage retribution was exacted on the rebels. Though not seen as the most tyrannical of kings, unlike his son Prince Edward, discontent was common during Henry’s time and, though traditionally thought of as belonging to the time of King John, the earliest Robin Hood sources and tales suggest that, if he existed at all, it was during Henry’s reign. On Henry’s death in 1272 he was succeeded by his son Edward I. His body was laid, temporarily, in the tomb of Edward the Confessor while his own sarcophagus was constructed in Westminster Abbey.

1685 – Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles VI (October 1685 – 20 October 1740) was the penultimate Habsburg sovereign of the Habsburg Empire. He succeeded his elder brother, Joseph I, as Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia (Charles II), Hungary and Croatia (Charles III), Archduke of Austria, etc., in 1711. He unsuccessfully claimed the throne of Spain as Charles III following the death of its ruler, and Charles’s relative, Charles II of Spain, in 1700. He married Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, by whom he had his two children: Maria Theresa, born 1717, the last Habsburg sovereign, and Maria Anna, born 1718, Governess of the Austrian Netherlands. Four years before the birth of Maria Theresa, due to his lack of male heirs, Charles provided for a male-line succession failure with the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713. The Emperor favoured his own daughters over those of his elder brother and predecessor, Joseph I, in the succession, ignoring the decree he had signed during the reign of his father, Leopold I. Charles sought the other European powers’ approval. They exacted harsh terms: England demanded that Austria abolish its overseas trading company. In total, Great Britain, France, Saxony-Poland, the Dutch Republic, Spain, Venice, States of the Church, Prussia, Russia, Denmark, Savoy-Sardinia, Bavaria, and the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire recognised the sanction. France, Spain, Saxony-Poland, Bavaria and Prussia later reneged. Charles died in 1740, sparking the War of the Austrian Succession, which plagued his successor, Maria Theresa, for eight years. Archduke Charles (baptised: Carolus Franciscus Josephus Wenceslaus Balthasar Johannes Antonius Ignatius), the second son of the Emperor Leopold I and of his third wife, Princess Eleonor Magdalene of the Palatinate, was born on 1 October 1685. His tutor was Anton Florian, Prince of Liechtenstein.

Following the death of Charles II of Spain, in 1700, without any ostensible heir, Charles declared himself King of Spain—both were members of the House of Habsburg. The ensuing War of the Spanish Succession, which pitted France’s candidate, Philip, Duke of Anjou, Louis XIV of France’s grandson, against Austria’s, Charles, lasted for almost 14 years. The Kingdom of Portugal, Kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland and the majority of the Holy Roman Empire endorsed Charles’s candidature. Charles III, as he was known, disembarked in his kingdom in 1706, and stayed there for five years, only being able to exercise his rule in Catalonia, until the death of his brother, Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor; he returned to Vienna to assume the emperorship. Not wanting to see Austria and Spain in personal union again, the new Kingdom of Great Britain withdrew its support from the Austrian coalition, and the war culminated with the Treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt three years later. The former, ratified in 1713, recognised Philip as King of Spain, however, the Kingdom of Naples, the Duchy of Milan, the Austrian Netherlands and the Kingdom of Sardinia — all previously possessions of the Spanish—were delegated to Austria. To prevent a union of Spain and France, Philip was forced to renounce his right to succeed his grandfather’s throne. Charles was extremely discontented at the loss of Spain, and as a result, he mimicked the staid Spanish Habsburg court ceremonial, adopting the dress of a Spanish monarch, which, according to British historian Edward Crankshaw, consisted of “a black doublet and hose, black shoes and scarlet stockings”. Charles’s father and his advisors went about arranging a marriage for him. Their eyes fell upon Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, the eldest child of Louis Rudolph, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. She was held to be strikingly beautiful by her contemporaries. On 1 August 1708, in Barcelona, Charles married her by proxy. She gave him two daughters that survived to adulthood, Maria Theresa and Maria Anna.

Elisabeth Christine’s inability to produce male heirs irked Charles and eventually led to the promulgation of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, a document which abolished male-only succession (hitherto effective in all the Habsburg realms) and declared his lands indivisible. The Emperor favoured his own daughters over those of his elder brother and predecessor, Joseph I, in the succession, ignoring the decree he had signed during the reign of his father, Leopold I. Charles sought the other European powers’ approval. They exacted harsh terms: England demanded that Austria abolish its overseas trading company. In total, Great Britain, France, Saxony-Poland, the Dutch Republic, Spain, Venice, States of the Church, Prussia, Russia, Denmark, Savoy-Sardinia, Bavaria, and the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire recognised the sanction. France, Spain, Saxony-Poland, Bavaria and Prussia later reneged. For a moment, however, it seemed that the Pragmatic Sanction was gratuitous, when Elisabeth Christine gave birth to a baby boy in 1716. Unfortunately, he died soon after. A year later, Maria Theresa, his elder surviving child, was born. At her baptismal ceremony, contemporaries wrote that Charles, despite his best efforts, appeared upset at the child’s sex. The next year saw the arrival of another girl, Maria Anna.

Charles waged a productive conflict against the Ottoman Empire from 1716 to 1718. Austria came out of it with sizeable gains in Serbia and Royal Hungary, extending its empire to the Danube. Another war, that of Quadruple Alliance, soon followed. It too ended in an Austrian victory; by the Treaty of The Hague, Charles swapped Sardinia, which went to the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus, for Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean, which was more difficult to defend from foreign aggression than Sardinia. The treaty also recognised Philip V of Spain’s son, Don Carlos, as the heir to the Duchy of Parma and Grand Duchy of Tuscany; Charles had prior endorsed the succession of the incumbent Grand Duke’s daughter, Anna Maria Luisa, Electress Palatine.

In 1722, Charles founded the Ostend Company to augment Austria’s trade with the East Indies, West Indies and Africa. The charter was for a period of thirty years. The Austrian exchequer was to receive between 3 to 6 percent of its annual surplus. The company was unpopular with the British and the Dutch; and he was forced to dissolve the company in 1731, by means of the Treaty of Vienna, in exchange for Britain’s recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction. Peace in Europe was shattered by the War of the Polish Succession (1733–1738), which started as a dispute over the throne of the Poland between Augustus of Saxony, the previous King’s elder son, and Stanislaw Leszczynski. Austria supported the former, France the latter; thus, a war broke out. The Treaty of Vienna concluded it in 1738; the Austrian candidate ascended the throne, however, Charles was obliged to surrender the Kingdom of Naples to Don Carlos of Spain, in exchange for the minuscule Duchy of Parma.

The issue of his elder daughter’s marriage was raised early in her childhood. She was first engaged to be married to Léopold Clément of Lorraine, who was supposed to come to Vienna and meet Maria Theresa in 1723. Instead, news reached Vienna that he had died of smallpox, which upset Maria Theresa. Léopold Clément’s younger brother, Francis Stephen, was invited to Vienna, but Maria Theresa’s father considered other possibilities (such as marrying her to the future Charles III of Spain) before announcing the engagement of the couple. France demanded that Maria Theresa’s fiancé surrender his ancestral Duchy of Lorraine to accommodate Stanislaw Leszczynski, the deposed King of Poland. Maria Theresa’s father compelled Francis to renounce his rights to Lorraine and told him: “No renunciation, no archduchess”. They married in February 1736, and Lorraine devolved to France in July 1737. In 1737, the Emperor embarked on another Turkish War with Russia. Unlike the previous confrontation, it ended in a decisive Austrian defeat. The territorial advances made in the last Turkish War, under Prince Eugene of Savoy, in Bosnia, Serbia and Oltenia (Lesser Wallachia), were obliterated. Popular discontent at the costly war reigned in Vienna. As a result, Francis of Lorraine, Maria Theresa’s consort, was daubed a French spy by the Viennese.

At the time of his death, the Habsburg lands were saturated in debt; the exchequer contained a mere 100,000 florins; and desertion was rife in Austria’s sporadic army, spread across the Empire in small, ineffective barracks. Contemporaries expected that Austrian-Hungary would wrench itself from the Habsburg yoke upon his death. The Emperor died on 20 October 1740 at the Favorita Palace, Vienna. There is some evidence that Charles’ death was caused by consuming a meal of death cap mushrooms. Charles’ life opus, the Pragmatic Sanction, was ultimately in vain. Maria Theresa was forced to resort to arms to defend her inheritance from the coalition of Prussia, Bavaria, France, Spain, Saxony and Poland—all party to the sanction—who assaulted the Austrian frontier weeks after he died. The result: Maria Theresa lost the mineral-rich Duchy of Silesia to Prussia, and the Duchy of Parma to Spain. Emperor Charles VI has been the main motif of many collectors’ coins and medals. One of the most recent samples is high value collectors’ coin the Austrian Göttweig Abbey commemorative coin, minted in 11 October 2006. His portrait can be seen in the foreground of the reverse of the coin.

1924 – Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States (1977–1981) and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. Before he became President, Carter served two terms as a Georgia State Senator and one as Governor of Georgia (1971–1975), and was a peanut farmer and naval officer. As President, Carter created two new cabinet-level departments: the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), and returned the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. Throughout his career, Carter strongly emphasized human rights. He took office during a period of international stagflation, which persisted throughout his term. The end of his presidential tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (at the end of 1979), and the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.

By 1980, Carter’s popularity had eroded. He survived a primary challenge against Ted Kennedy for the Democratic Party nomination in the 1980 election, but lost the election to Republican candidate Ronald Reagan. On January 20, 1981, minutes after Carter’s term in office ended, the 52 U.S. captives held at the U.S. embassy in Iran were released, ending the 444-day Iran hostage crisis. After leaving office, Carter and his wife Rosalynn founded the Carter Center in 1982, a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization that works to advance human rights. He has traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, observe elections, and advance disease prevention and eradication in developing nations. Carter is a key figure in the Habitat for Humanity project, and also remains particularly vocal on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Carter was elected over Gerald Ford in 1976. His tenure was a time of continuing inflation and recession, as well as an energy crisis. On January 7, 1980, Carter signed Law H.R. 5860 aka Public Law 96-185 known as The Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Act of 1979 bailing out Chrysler Corporation and canceled military pay raises during a time of high inflation and government deficits. While attempting to calm various conflicts around the World, most visibly in the Middle East resulting in the signing of the Camp David Accords, giving back the Panama Canal and signing the SALT II nuclear arms reduction treaty with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, the final year of his administration was marred by the Iran hostage crisis, which contributed to his losing his 1980 re-election campaign to Ronald Reagan. In 1978, Carter declared a federal emergency in the neighborhood of Love Canal in the city of Niagara Falls, New York. More than 800 families were evacuated from the neighborhood, which was built on top of a toxic waste landfill. The Superfund law was created in response to the situation. Federal disaster money was appropriated to demolish the approximately 500 houses, the 99th Street School, and the 93rd Street School, which were built on top of the dump and to remediate the dump and construct a containment area. This was the first time that such a thing had been done. He then said that there were several more “Love Canals” across the country, and that discovering such dumpsites was “one of the grimmest discoveries of our modern era”. During 1979, Carter deregulated the American beer industry by opening access of the home-brew market back up to the craft brewers, making it again legal to sell malt, hops, and yeast to American home brewers for the first time since the effective 1920 beginning of Prohibition in the United States. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Alfred E. Kahn, a professor of economics at Cornell University, to be chair of the CAB. A concerted push for the legislation had developed, drawing on leading economists, leading ‘think tanks’ in Washington, a civil society coalition advocating the reform (patterned on a coalition earlier developed for the truck-and-rail-reform efforts), the head of the regulatory agency, Senate leadership, the Carter administration, and even some in the airline industry. This coalition swiftly gained legislative results in 1978.

The Airline Deregulation Act (Pub.L. 95-504) is United States enacted federal legislation signed into law by President Carter on October 24, 1978. The main purpose of the act was to remove government control over fares, routes and market entry (of new airlines) from commercial aviation. The Civil Aeronautics Board’s powers of regulation were to be phased out, eventually allowing passengers to be exposed to market forces in the airline industry. The Act, however, did not remove or diminish the FAA’s regulatory powers over all aspects of airline safety. One of Carter’s most bitterly controversial decisions was his boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow in response to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This marks the only time since the founding of the modern Olympics in 1896 that the United States has ever failed to participate in a Summer or Winter Olympics. The Soviet Union retaliated by boycotting the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and did not withdraw troops from Afghanistan until 1989 (eight years after Carter left office).

Carter wrote that the most intense and mounting opposition to his policies came from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which he attributed to Ted Kennedy’s ambition to replace him as president. Kennedy, originally on board with Carter’s health plan, pulled his support from that legislation in the late stages; Carter states that this was in anticipation of Kennedy’s own candidacy, and when neither won, the tactic effectively delayed comprehensive health coverage for decades. Carter’s campaign for re-election in 1980 was one of the most difficult, and least successful, in history. He faced strong challenges from the right (Ronald Reagan), the center (John B. Anderson), and the left (Ted Kennedy). He had to run against his own “stagflation”-ridden economy. He alienated liberal college students, who should have been his base, by re-instating registration for the draft. He was defeated by Ronald Reagan.

This week we present The Sept 24th Birth Of King, Queen and Guru. On this day, three great were born:

• 15 – Vitellius, Roman Emperor
• 1513 – Catherine of Saxe-Lauenburg, Queen of Sweden
• 1534 – Guru Ram Das, fourth Sikh Guru

Great things happened on this same day!

15 – Vitellius, Roman Emperor

Vitellius (Latin: Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Augustus; 24 September 15 – 22 December 69), was Roman Emperor for eight months, from 16 April to 22 December 69. Vitellius was acclaimed emperor following the quick succession of the previous emperors Galba and Otho, in a year of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors. Vitellius was the first to add the honorific cognomen Germanicus to his name instead of Caesar upon his accession; the latter name had fallen into disrepute in many quarters because of the actions of Nero. His claim to the throne was soon challenged by legions stationed in the eastern provinces, who proclaimed their commander Vespasian emperor instead. War ensued, leading to a crushing defeat for Vitellius at the Second Battle of Bedriacum in northern Italy. Once he realised his support was wavering, Vitellius prepared to abdicate in favour of Vespasian, but was executed in Rome by Vespasian’s soldiers on December 22 of 69. He was the son of Lucius Vitellius Veteris and his wife Sextilia, and had one brother, Lucius Vitellius the Younger. Suetonius recorded two different accounts of the origins of the Vitellius (gens), one making them descendants of past rulers of Latium, the other describing them as of lowly origins; Suetonius makes the sensible remark that both accounts might have been made by either flatterers or enemies of Vitellius—except that both were in circulation before Vitellius became emperor. Suetonius also recorded that when Vitellius was born his horoscope so horrified his parents that his father tried to prevent Aulus from becoming a consul.

He married firstly before the year 40 Petronia, daughter of Publius or Gaius Petronius Pontius Nigrinus, by whom he had a son Aulus Vitellius Petronianus, the universal heir of his mother and grandfather. He married secondly circa 50 Galeria Fundana (ca 40 – aft. 69), perhaps the granddaughter of Gaius Galerius (ca 15 BC – aft. 23), Praefectus Aeg. in 23. They had two children, a son called Germanicus and an unnamed daughter (b. ca 55). Settipani and Birley have suggested that this daughter married Libo Rupilius Frugi, the father of Rupilia Faustina. Suetonius, whose father had fought for Otho at Bedriacum, gives an unfavourable account of Vitellius’ brief administration: he describes him as unambitious and notes that Vitellius showed indications of a desire to govern wisely, but that Valens and Caecina encouraged him in a course of vicious excesses which threw his better qualities into the background. Vitellius is described as lazy and self-indulgent, fond of eating and drinking, and an obese glutton, eating banquets four times a day and feasting on rare foods he would send the Roman navy to procure. For these banquets, he had himself invited over to a different noble’s house for each one. He is even reported to have starved his own mother to death—to fulfill a prophecy that he would rule long if his mother died first. Other writers, namely Tacitus and Cassius Dio, disagree with some of Suetonius’ assertions, even though their own accounts of Vitellius are scarcely positive ones.

Despite his short reign he made two important contributions to Roman government which outlasted him. Tacitus describes them both in his Histories:

Vitellius ended the practice of Centurions selling furloughs and exemptions of duty to their men, a change Tacitus describes as being adopted by ‘all good emperors’.

He also expanded the offices of the Imperial Administration beyond the imperial pool of Freedmen allowing those of the Equites to take up positions in the Imperial Civil service.

Vitellius also banned astrologers from Rome and Italy from 1 October, 69. Some astrologers responded to his decree by anonymously publishing a decree of their own: “Decreed by all astrologers in blessing on our State Vitellius will be no more on the appointed date.” In response, Vitellius executed any astrologers he came across.

In July 69, Vitellius learned that the armies of the eastern provinces had proclaimed a rival emperor; their commander, Titus Flavius Vespasianus. As soon as it was known that the armies of the East, Dalmatia, and Illyricum had declared for Vespasianus, Vitellius, deserted by many of his adherents, would have resigned the title of emperor. It is said that Vitellius awaited Vespasian’s army at Mevania. It was said that the terms of resignation had actually been agreed upon with Marcus Antonius Primus, the commander of the sixth legion serving in Pannonia and one of Vespasian’s chief supporters, but the praetorians refused to allow him to carry out the agreement, and forced him to return to the palace, when he was on his way to deposit the insignia of empire in the Temple of Concord. On the entrance of Vespasian’s troops into Rome he was dragged out of some miserable hiding-place (according to Tacitus a door-keeper’s lodge), driven to the fatal Gemonian stairs, and there struck down. His body was thrown into the Tiber according to Suetonius; Cassius Dio’s account is that Vitellius was beheaded and his head paraded around Rome, and his wife attended to his burial. “Yet I was once your emperor,” were the last and, as far as we know, the noblest words of Vitellius. His brother and son were also killed.

1513 – Catherine of Saxe-Lauenburg, Queen of Sweden

Catherine of Saxe-Lauenburg (Katarina in Swedish) (24 September 1513 – 23 September 1535) was the first consort of Gustav I of Sweden and Queen of Sweden from 1531 until her death in 1535. She was born in Ratzeburg to Magnus I, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg and Catherine, daughter of Henry IV, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. King Gustav married Catherine for political reasons. Negotiations began in 1528. He wanted closer connections with German Protestant rulers in order to gain support for his reformation efforts and his throne. The marriage also gave Gustav closer connections to the throne of Denmark, as Catherine’s older sister Dorothea was engaged to Christian, the Crown Prince of Denmark. Catherine was 18 years old when Gustav’s proposal was accepted, and she travelled to Sweden in the company of her mother. They were married on 24 September 1531. The short marriage was allegedly stormy and remained so after the birth of their son and only child, the future King Eric XIV of Sweden, in 1533. Catherine never learned to speak Swedish, and as her husband’s German was less than perfect, they had difficulty in communicating and did not spend much time together. It has been claimed that Queen Catherine was not popular, was intrigant, melancholy and full of whims, and that she also complained about her husband to Count John of Hoya who was married to her sister-in-law Margaret.

During a visit by her brother-in-law Christian III, the recently crowned King of Denmark (and her sister’s husband as noted above), she allegedly accused Gustav of planning to murder him. At a castle ball, she and Christian fell while dancing, which caused her to have a miscarriage. She died soon after Christian’s departure, on 23 September 1535, two weeks after her fall, and was eventually buried in Uppsala Cathedral after Gustav died in 1560. After her death, rumors about the cause of it were spread by Gustav’s enemies, claiming that he had killed Catherine with a silver hammer he used to summon servants. No formal accusation was made by Catherine’s family, and an analysis of her remains, made during the 20th century, showed no damage to her skull or to the rest of her skeleton.

1534 – Guru Ram Das, fourth Sikh Guru

Guru Ram Das (1534–1581) was the fourth of the Ten Gurus of Sikhism and was given the title of Sikh Guru on 30 August 1574.

Ram Das was born in Lahore, Punjab on 24 September 1534 to a Sodhi family of the Khatri clan. His father was Hari Das and his mother Anup Devi. His wife was Bibi Bhani, the younger daughter of Guru Amar Das. They had three sons: Prithi Chand, Mahadev and Guru Arjun Dev Ji.

ਮਲਾਰ ਮਹਲਾ ੪ ॥ ਗੰਗਾ ਜਮੁਨਾ ਗੋਦਾਵਰੀ ਸਰਸੁਤੀ ਤੇ ਕਰਹਿ ਉਦਮੁ ਧੂਰਿ ਸਾਧੂ ਕੀ ਤਾਈ ॥ ਕਿਲਵਿਖ ਮੈਲੁ ਭਰੇ ਪਰੇ ਹਮਰੈ ਵਿਚਿ ਹਮਰੀ ਮੈਲੁ ਸਾਧੂ ਕੀ ਧੂਰਿ ਗਵਾਈ ॥੧॥

Malaar, Fourth Mehl: The Ganges, the Jamunaa, the Godaavari and the Saraswati – these rivers strive for the dust of the feet of the Holy. Overflowing with their filthy sins, the mortals take cleansing baths in them; the rivers’ pollution is washed away by the dust of the feet of the Holy.

ਤੀਰਥਿ ਅਠਸਠਿ ਮਜਨੁ ਨਾਈ ॥ ਸਤਸੰਗਤਿ ਕੀ ਧੂਰਿ ਪਰੀ ਉਡਿ ਨੇਤ੍ਰੀ ਸਭ ਦੁਰਮਤਿ ਮੈਲੁ ਗਵਾਈ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥ Instead of bathing at the sixty-eight sacred shrines of pilgrimage, take your cleansing bath in the Name. When the dust of the feet of the Sat Sangat rises up into the eyes, all filthy evil-mindedness is removed. ਜਾਹਰਨਵੀ ਤਪੈ ਭਾਗੀਰਥਿ ਆਣੀ ਕੇਦਾਰੁ ਥਾਪਿਓ ਮਹਸਾਈ ॥ ਕਾਂਸੀ ਕ੍ਰਿਸਨੁ ਚਰਾਵਤ ਗਾਊ ਮਿਲਿ ਹਰਿ ਜਨ ਸੋਭਾ ਪਾਈ ॥੨॥ Bhaageerat’h the penitent brought the Ganges down, and Shiva established Kaydaar. Krishna grazed cows in Kaashi; through the humble servant of the Lord, these places became famous.

ਜਿਤਨੇ ਤੀਰਥ ਦੇਵੀ ਥਾਪੇ ਸਭਿ ਤਿਤਨੇ ਲੋਚਹਿ ਧੂਰਿ ਸਾਧੂ ਕੀ ਤਾਈ ॥ ਹਰਿ ਕਾ ਸੰਤੁ ਮਿਲੈ ਗੁਰ ਸਾਧੂ ਲੈ ਤਿਸ ਕੀ ਧੂਰਿ ਮੁਖਿ ਲਾਈ ॥੩॥ And all the sacred shrines of pilgrimage established by the gods, long for the dust of the feet of the Holy. Meeting with the Lord’s Saint, the Holy Guru, I apply the dust of His feet to my face.

ਜਿਤਨੀ ਸ੍ਰਿਸਟਿ ਤੁਮਰੀ ਮੇਰੇ ਸੁਆਮੀ ਸਭ ਤਿਤਨੀ ਲੋਚੈ ਧੂਰਿ ਸਾਧੂ ਕੀ ਤਾਈ ॥ ਨਾਨਕ ਲਿਲਾਟਿ ਹੋਵੈ ਜਿਸੁ ਲਿਖਿਆ ਤਿਸੁ ਸਾਧੂ ਧੂਰਿ ਦੇ ਹਰਿ ਪਾਰਿ ਲੰਘਾਈ ॥੪॥੨॥ And all the creatures of Your Universe, O my Lord and Master, long for the dust of the feet of the Holy. O Nanak, one who has such destiny inscribed on his forehead, is blessed with the dust of the feet of the Holy; the Lord carries him across. As a Guru, one of his main contributions to Sikhi was organizing the structure of Sikh society. Additionally, he was the author of Laava, the four hymns of the Sikh Marriage Rites. He was planner and creator of the township of Ramdaspur which became the Sikh holy city of Amritsar. He founded it in 1574 on land he bought for 700 rupees from the owners of the village of Tung. Earlier Guru Ram Das had begun building Santokhsar Sarovar, near the village of Sultanwind in 1564 (according to one source in 1570). It could not be completed before 1588. In 1574, Guru Ram Das built his residence and moved to the new place. At that time, it was known as Guru Da Chakk. (Later, it came to be known as Chakk Ram Das). In Amritsar, he designed the gurdwara (ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ) Harmandir Sahib (ਹਰਿਮੰਦਰ ਸਾਹਿਬ), which translates as “The Abode of God” also known as the Golden Temple.

A hymn by Guru Ram Das can be found from page 305 of the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib:

“        One who calls himself a Sikh of the True Guru shall get up early morning and meditate on the Lord’s Name. Make effort regularly to cleanse, bathe and dip in the ambrosial pool. Upon Guru’s instructions, chant Har, Har singing which, all misdeeds, sins and pains shall go away.    ”

—Bani of Guru Ram Das

There are 688 Hymns of Guru Ram Das included in the Guru Granth Sahib which have various teachings for Sikhs. Guru Sahib’s Bani is also part of Rehras Sahib and Kirtan Sohila, the daily prayers of Sikhs. Page 305 of the Guru Granth Guru Sahib decries the morning activity of one who calls himself a Sikh of the True Guru (God):

One who calls himself a Sikh of the True Guru shall get up early morning and meditate on the Lord’s Name. Bathe daily in the ambrosial pool and following the Guru’s instructions, chant Har, Har. All sins, misdeeds and negativity shall be erased. —Guru Sahib on Sadhu People and Pilgrimage Bath

This week we present The Sept 17th Birth Of Kings and Queen. On this day, three great kings and queen were born:

•  879 – King Charles III of France
• 1688 – Maria Luisa of Savoy, first queen of Philip V of Spain
• 1819 – Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, first President of the South African Republic

Great things happened on this same day!

879 – King Charles III of France

Charles III (17 September 879 – 7 October 929), called the Simple or the Straightforward (from the Latin Karolus Simplex), was the undisputed King of France from 898 until 922 and the King of Lotharingia from 911 until 919/23. He was a member of the Carolingian dynasty, the third and posthumous son of Louis the Stammerer by his second wife, Adelaide of Paris. As a child, Charles was prevented from succeeding to the throne at the time of the death in 884 of his half-brother Carloman. The nobles of the realm instead asked his cousin, Charles the Fat, to rule them. He was also prevented from succeeding the unpopular Charles, who was deposed in November 887 and died in January 888, although it is unknown if his deposition was accepted or even made known in West Francia before his death. The nobility elected Odo, the hero of the Siege of Paris, king, though there was a faction that supported Guy III of Spoleto. Charles was put under the protection of Ranulf II, the Duke of Aquitaine, who may have tried to claim the throne for him and in the end used the royal title himself until making peace with Odo. Finally, in 893 Charles was crowned by a faction opposed to Odo at Reims Cathedral. He only became the effectual monarch with the death of Odo in 898.

In 911 Charles defeated the Viking leader Rollo, had him sign the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte that made Rollo his vassal and converted him to Christianity. Charles then gave him land around Rouen, the heart of what would become Normandy and his daughter Gisela in marriage. In the same year as the treaty with the Vikings, Louis the Child, the King of Germany, died and the nobles of Lotharingia, who had been loyal to him, under the leadership of Reginar Longneck, declared Charles their new king, breaking from Germans who had elected Conrad of Franconia king. Charles tried to win their support by marrying a Lotharingian woman named Frederuna, who died in 917. He also defended the country against two attacks by Conrad, King of the Germans. On 7 October 919 Charles re-married to Eadgifu, the daughter of Edward the Elder, King of England. By this time Charles’ excessive favouritism towards a certain Hagano had turned the aristocracy against him. He endowed Hagano with monasteries which were already the benefices of other barons, alienating these barons. In Lotharingia he earned the enmity of the new duke, Gilbert, who declared for the German king Henry the Fowler in 919. Opposition to Charles in Lotharingia was not universal, however, and he retained the support of Wigeric. In 922 some of the West Frankish barons, led by Robert of Neustria and Rudolph of Burgundy, revolted. Robert, who was Odo’s brother, was elected by the rebels and crowned in opposition to Charles, who had to flee to Lotharingia. On 2 July 922, Charles lost his most faithful supporter, Herve, Archbishop of Rheims, who had succeeded Fulk in 900.

He returned the next year (923) with a Norman army but was defeated on 15 June near Soissons by Robert, who died in the battle. Charles was captured and imprisoned in a castle at Péronne under the guard of Herbert II of Vermandois. Rudolph was elected to succeed him. In 925 the Lotharingians accepted Rudolph as their king. Charles died in prison on 7 October 929 and was buried at the nearby abbey of Saint-Fursy. Though he had had many children by Frederuna, it was his son by Eadgifu who would eventually be crowned in 936 as Louis IV of France. In the initial aftermath of Charles’s defeat, Eadgifu and Louis fled to England.

1688 – Maria Luisa of Savoy, first queen of Philip V of Spain

Maria Luisa of Savoy (Maria Luisa Gabriella; 17 September 1688 – 14 February 1714) was a Savoyard princess and the first wife of Philip V of Spain. She acted as Regent of Spain and had great influence over her husband. She is closely associated with Princesse des Ursins. She was the third daughter and second surviving child of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy and his French-born wife Anne Marie d’Orléans, the youngest daughter of Philippe of France and Henrietta of England. Throughout her life, Maria Luisa remained close to her older sister Maria Adelaide who later married Louis, Duke of Burgundy, the eldest grandson of Louis XIV. In her youth, Maria Luisa was described as playful and fun loving and had received a good education.

Marriage

Philip V of Spain, a French prince, was recently crowned King of Spain upon the death of childless Charles II. In order to enforce his shaky authority over Spain due to his French birth, Philip V decided to maintain ties with Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy. Philip V’s brother, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, had married the elder sister of Maria Luisa several years earlier, and in mid 1701, Philip V asked for Maria Luisa’s hand with the permission of his grandfather Louis XIV.  Maria Luisa was wed by proxy to Philip V on 12 September 1701 at the age of barely thirteen and was escorted to Nice, arriving there on 18 September. While in Nice, she was greeted by Pope Clement XI who gave her the Golden Rose on 20 September as a ritualistic gift for the young princess. Within a week, she sailed from Nice for Antibes and was taken to Barcelona. The official marriage took place on 2 November 1701. The princesse des Ursins was a member of the household of the Queen. She would maintain great influence over Maria Luisa as her Camarera Mayor, chief of the household to the young queen, who was still a child.

The couple were deeply in love. In 1702, Philip V was obliged to leave Spain to fight in Naples as part of the ongoing War of Spanish Succession. During her husband’s absence, Maria Luisa acted as Regent from Madrid. She was praised as an effective ruler, having successfully implemented various changes in government and insisted upon all complaints being investigated and reports made direct to her. Her leadership encouraged the reorganization in the junta and, in doing this, inspiring people and their cities to make donations towards the war effort. Despite her young age, Maria Luisa’s effective regency made her admired in Madrid and throughout Spain. After her husband’s return in 1703, she resumed her role as queen consort. In 1704, the Princesse des Ursins was exiled at the order of Louis XIV, devastating Maria Luisa. However, in 1705, the Princesse des Ursins returned to Madrid, much to the joy of the young queen.

Maria Luisa gave birth to the couple’s first child, Infante Luis Felipe in 1707. After the birth of her eldest child, Maria Luisa went on giving birth to three more children, two of whom would survive infancy. Towards the end of her life, the Queen became ill with tuberculosis. She eventually died from the effects of tuberculosis on 14 February 1714. She was buried at San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Maria Luisa died in her 25th year. In December 1714, just months after Maria Luisa’s death, her widower Philip V remarried, to Elisabeth Farnese, the only child and heiress of Duke of Parma. All of Maria Luisa’s children were to die without issue, leaving behind no descendants of Maria Luisa of Savoy.

1819 – Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, first President of the South African Republic

The son of the famous Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius, Marthinus Wessel Pretorius (17 September 1819 – 19 May 1901) was the first president of the South African Republic, and also compiled the constitution of the Republic. After the death of his father in 1853, he was appointed as the Commandant-General of the ZAR (South African Republic) and moved from his farm Kalkheuwel, near Broederstroom, to the city of Potchefstroom. He was the last Head of State of Potchefstroom between 1853 and 1856. In an endeavor to establish a new town, he bought two farms named Elandspoort en Daspoort between 1854 and 1855, on which he founded the city of Pretoria in 1855. He originally named the town Pretoria Philadelphia, in honour of his father and his father’s brothers, but the name of the town was later shortened to just Pretoria.

Five years later the capital of the ZAR (South African Republic) was moved from Potchefstroom to Pretoria. He served as the first president of Transvaal from 1857 to 1860. However in 1859, in an effort to create closer bonds of relationship with the Orange Free State, he simultaneously held the office of State President of the Orange Free State and that of president of the ZAR (South African Republic). This however created tension in Transvaal and he resigned the presidency of the South African Republic in 1860. After serving in the presidency of the Orange Free State until 1863, he was reelected as president of the ZAR (South African Republic) in 1864 and served a second term until 1871. Finally, he served a third term as joint head of state (triumvirate) of Transvaal between 1880 and 1883. He died in 1901 at Potchefstroom.

This week we present the Sept 10th Birth Of Kings. On this day, three great kings were born:

• 920 – King Louis IV of France
• 1169 – Alexius II Comnenus, Byzantine Emperor
• 1385 – Le Loi, national hero of Viet Nam, founder of the Later Lê Dynasty

Great things happened on this same day!

920 – King Louis IV of France

Louis IV (10 September 920 – 30 September 954), called d’Outremer or Transmarinus (both meaning “from overseas”), reigned as King of Western Francia from 936 to 954. He was a member of the Carolingian dynasty, the son of Charles III and Eadgifu of England, a daughter of King Edward the Elder. He was only two years old when his father was deposed by the nobles, who set up Robert I in his place. When he was only three years old, Robert died and was replaced by Rudolph, duke of Burgundy. Rudolph’s ally, a Carolingian himself, Count Herbert II of Vermandois, took Charles captive by treachery and the young Louis’s mother took the boy “over the sea” to the safety of England, hence his nickname.

Charles died in 929, but Rudolph ruled on until 936, when Louis was summoned back to France unanimously by the nobles, especially Hugh the Great, who had probably organised his return to prevent Herbert II, or Rudolph’s brother Hugh the Black, taking the throne. He was crowned king at Laon by Artald, archbishop of Rheims, on Sunday 19 June 936. Louis displayed a keenness beyond his years in obtaining the recognition of his authority by his feuding nobles. Nonetheless, his reign was filled with conflict; in particular with Hugh the Great, count of Paris. Louis IV fell from his horse and died 10 September 954, at Rheims, in the Marne, and is interred there at Saint Rémi Basilica.

1169 – Alexius II Comnenus, Byzantine Emperor

Alexios II Komnenos or Alexius II Comnenus (Greek: Αλέξιος Β’ Κομνηνός, Alexios II Komnēnos) (10 September 1169 – 24 September 1183, Constantinople), Byzantine emperor (1180–1183), was the son of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos and Maria, daughter of Raymond, prince of Antioch. He was the long-awaited male heir, and was named Alexius as a fulfilment of the AIMA prophecy. On Manuel’s death in 1180, Maria, who became a nun under the name Xene (“foreigner”), took the position of regent (according to some historians). She excluded her young son from power, entrusting it instead to Alexios the prōtosebastos (a cousin of Alexios II), who was popularly believed to be her lover. Friends of the young Alexios II now tried to form a party against the empress mother and the prōtosebastos; Alexios II’s half-sister Maria, wife of Caesar John (Renier of Montferrat), stirred up riots in the streets of the capital.

Their party was defeated (May 2, 1182), but Andronikos Komnenos, a first cousin of Emperor Manuel, took advantage of these disorders to aim at the crown, entered Constantinople, where he was received with almost divine honours, and overthrew the government. His arrival was celebrated by a massacre of 80,000 Latins in Constantinople, especially the Venetian merchants, which he made no attempt to stop. He allowed Alexios II to be crowned, but was responsible for the death of most of the young emperor’s actual or potential defenders, including his mother, his half-sister and the Caesar, and refused to allow him the smallest voice in public affairs.

The betrothal in 1180 of Alexios II to Agnes of France, daughter of Louis VII of France and his third wife Adèle of Champagne and at the time a child of nine, had not apparently been followed by their marriage. Andronikos was now formally proclaimed as co-emperor, and not long afterwards, on the pretext that divided rule was injurious to the Empire, he caused Alexios II to be strangled with a bow-string (October 1183). During Alexius II’s reign, the Byzantine Empire was invaded by King Bela III losing Syrmia and Bosnia to the Kingdom of Hungary in AD 1181, later even Dalmatia was lost to the Venetians. Kilij Arslan II invaded the empire in AD 1182, defeating the Byzantines at the Siege of Cotyaeum resulting in the Byzantine Empire losing Cotyaeum and Sozopolis.

1385 – Le Loi, national hero of Viet Nam, founder of the Later Lê Dynasty

Lê Lợi (1384 or 1385? – 1433), posthumously known with the temple name Lê Thái Tổ (黎太祖), was Emperor of Vietnam and founder of the Later Lê Dynasty. Lê Lợi is among the most famous figures from the medieval period of Vietnamese history and one of its greatest heroes. Lê Lợi was the youngest of three sons. His father was an aristocratic nobleman in Lam Son (northern-Vietnam). The town was in a newly colonized area of Vietnam which would eventually be called Thanh Hóa Province. Lam Son had been established by Lê Lợi’s great-grandfather Le Hoi sometime in the 1330s. His exact date of birth is not certain, but 1384 is generally agreed on by historians. Lam Son was on the frontier of Vietnam, as a result it was further and hence more free from government control.

This was a troubled time in Vietnam’s history as the Hồ Dynasty in 1400 finally displaced the Trần Dynasty and set about reforming the kingdom. Hồ rule was short lived as members of the Trần Dynasty petitioned for intervention from the mighty Ming Emperor Yongle (永樂 Vĩnh Lạc) to the north. He responded by sending a powerful army south into Vietnam and vanquished the Hồ. Upon failing to find a Trần heir, the Ming choose to re-establish sovereignty over Vietnam, as was the case in the days of the Tang empire, some 500 years previously. The Ming enjoyed some support from the Vietnamese, at least in the capital of Hanoi but their efforts to assert control in the surrounding countryside were met with stiff resistance. The Vietnamese claim that the Ming stole valuable artifacts from Vietnam such as gems, jade, golden pieces of art as well as books. Lê Lợi himself said that he chose the path of revolt against China’s brutal government when he personally witnessed the destruction of a Vietnamese village by Ming forces. Lê Lợi began his campaign against the Ming on the day after Tết (New Year) February 1418. He was supported by several prominent families from his native Thanh Hóa province, most famously were the Trịnh and the Nguyen families. Initially, Lê Lợi campaigned on the basis of restoring the Trần to power. A relative of the Trần Dynasty emperor was chosen as the figurehead of the revolt but within a few years, the Trần pretender was removed and the unquestioned leader of the revolt was Lê Lợi himself, under the name “Pacifying King” (Binh Dinh Vuong).

The revolt enjoyed patchy initial success. While Lê Lợi was able to operate in Thanh Hóa Province, he was, for 2–3 years, unable to muster the military forces required to defeat the Ming army in open battle. As a result he waged a type of guerilla war against the large and well organized Chinese army. In 1421, one famous story from this time is about the heroism of one of Lê Lợi’s commanders, Le Lai. One time during the early years of the revolt, the Chinese had Lê Lợi’s army surrounded on a mountaintop. In an effort to break the siege, Le Lai devised a plan that would allow Lê Lợi and the main bulk of the force to escape. He pretended to be Lê Lợi to divert the Ming army’s attention by dressing himself in Lê Lợi’s attire and lead a kamikaze-like cavalry charge down to attack the Ming. Le Lai fought bravely but was captured and executed. During the battle, Lê Lợi and the rest of the main contingency were able to escape. (Le Lai Story).

Beside Ming forces, Le Loin and his army also against ethnic minorities forces who Ming bribed as Ai Lao (Laos) . Although there are a lot of troubles but Le Loi army defeat Ai Lao enemy a lot of times. However Because of the force is not enough power, so he must lurk in the forest or mountain, sometime lack in food, Le Loi must kill horses and elephants for militaries. In dangerous situation, Le Loi must reconcile Ming army at 1422. But 1423, when his forces is better, and Ming army catch the envoy, Le Loi break the mutual agreement. By 1427, the revolt had spread throughout Vietnam and the original Ming army of occupation had been ground down and destroyed. The new Ming Emperor, Xuande, wished to end the war with Vietnam, but his advisors urged one more effort to subdue the rebellious province. The result was a massive army (some 100,000 strong) being sent into Vietnam. While the Chinese thought this troop number sufficient, Lê Lợi’s army by this point was much bigger at about 350,000 men. The final campaign did not start well for the Chinese. Lê Lợi’s forces met the Ming army in battle but quickly staged a mock retreat. The Chinese general, Liu Sheng (Liễu Thăng in Vietnamese), urging his troops forward, was cut off from the main part of his army, captured and executed by the Vietnamese. Then, by sending false reports of dissent within the ranks of Lê Lợi’s own generals, the Chinese army was lured into Hanoi where it was surrounded and destroyed in a series of battles. A Vietnamese historian, Trần Trọng Kim, told that the Chinese army lost over 90,000 men (60,000 killed in battle and 30,000 captured). By Nguyen Chich tactic, 1424 Le Loi decided to march his army to Nghe An plain. On the way, Lam Son army defeated Da Cang rampart, beaten back Cam Banh forces, a commander follows Ming. Then Lam Son attacked Tra Long, Ming general is Tran Tri who took his army from Nghe An to Tra Long to rescue Cam Banh but beaten back by Lam Son forces. Le Loi surrounded Cam Banh, Tri didn’t dare to rescue. Be surrounded a long time, Cam Banh must surrender. By Nguyen Chich tactic, 1424 Le Loi decided to march his army to Nghe An plain. On the way, Lam Son army defeated Da Cang rampart, beaten back Cam Banh forces, a commander follows Ming. Then Lam Son attacked Tra Long, Ming general is Tran Tri who took his army from Nghe An to Tra Long to rescue Cam Banh but beaten back by Lam Son forces. Le Loi surrounded Cam Banh, Tri didn’t dare to rescue. Be surrounded a long time, Cam Banh must surrender. Le Loi sent Dinh Liet to attack Nghe An, and the same time he took his strong army. Tran Tri was defeated a lot of times, must retreat and entrench in the rampart.

Ly An , Phuong Trinh was from Dong Quang to Nghe An to rescue Tran Tri, Tran Tri also moved out his forces from rampart. However all were defeated, Tran Tri rush to Dong Quan, An and Chinh rush into Nghe An rampart. May 1425, Le Loi commanded Dinh Le to attack Dien Chau, Ming army lost and rushed to Dong Do (Thanh Hoa), Then Le Loi also sent Le Sat, Le Nhan Chu. Le Trien supported Dinh Le for attack Tay Do, Ming army must retreat the rampart. Le Loi one side surrounded Nghe An rampart and Tay Do, and the other one he sent Tran Nguyen Han, Doan No, Le Da Bo to attack Tan Binh, Thuan Hoa, Ming general is Nham Thang against but be defeated. Then Le Loi sent Le Ngan, Le Van An to support Tran Nguyen Han. Ming army must entrench in the rampart. As that, until last 1425, Le Loi was active all land from Thanh Hoa back and surrounded all the ramparts. 1426 August, Le Loi divided into 3 parts for moving to north. Pham Van Xao, Do Bi, Trinh Kha, Le Trien went North west, Luu Nhan Chu, Bui Bi went East North. Dinh Le, Nguyen Xi moved Dong Quan. Le Trien was coming Dong Quan , suddenly met Tran Tri and defeated Tri. Hear Ming army was incoming from Van Nam (the province of China). Trien divide force to Pham Van Xao, Trinh Kha for intercepting, and combined Doanh Le, Nguyen Xi attached Dong Quan.

Pham Van Xao defeated Van Nam reinforcement. Van Nam forces fled and entrenched Xuong Giang rampart. Tran Tri lost reinforcement, go to sought Ly An reinforcement at Nghe An. Ly An, Phuong Chinh commanded Thai Thuc to keep Nghe An rampart , took forces to rescue Dong Quan. Le Loi commanded Le Van An, Le Van Linh surrounded the rampart, he himself moved main forces to the north. Ming King sent Vuong Thong, Ma Anh to rescue. They combined Dong Quan forces and be became 100.000 forces and dive to Phuong Chinh, Ma Ky. Le Trien, Do Bi defeated Ma Ky at Tu Liem and attached Chinh forces. Chinh and Ky fled and combined with Vuong Thong forces at Co So. Le Trien attacked Vuong Thong but Thong was prepared before, Thien lost, retreat back Cao Bo and made a help from Nguyen Xi. Dinh Le, Nguyen Xi took their forces to Tot Dong Chut Dong to make the ambush. They know Vuong Thong would divide forces into two part to make a raid Le Trien, they enticed Vuong Thong to place have ambush force. Vuong Thong army lost heavily, Tran Hiep, Ly Luong and 50,000 soldiers were killed, 10,000 ones took alive. Thong fled and entrenched at Dong Quan.

Le Loi got victorious news and then sent Tran Nguyen Han, Bui Bi divide two ways into to move to near Dong Quan. Vuong Thong was lost and retreated, found the reason The Ming want to help Tran empties defeated Ho, sent to Le Loi withdrawn condition which made Tran descendant to be become King. Le Loi wanted Ming to withdraw fast. So he found Tran Cao, made the King. Vuong Thong agreed mutual agreement in the outward appearance but made a help from everywhere to rescue. When Le Loi knew this, he broke mutual agreement. After broke mutual agreement, Le Loi sent some generals to attack and occupy some ramparts at North such as: Dieu Dieu, Tam Giang, Xuong Giang. They were occupied soon after. At the beginning of 1427, he moved his troop to Nhi river, and attacked Dong Quan. Le Loi create strict troop rule to assure the people. Ming general is Thai Thuc surrendered and hand over Nghe An rampart. Le Loi demand foreign minister Nguyen Trai write a letter for placating others general to surrender. When Lam Son force at Dong Quang was lax, Ming attacked suddenly. Le Trien died at Tu Liem. Dinh Le. Nguyen Xi was captured at Thanh Tri. After that Dinh Le was killed, Nguyen Xi fled. At the ending of 1427. the Ming Emperor sent reinforcements to rescue Vuong Thong,. Lieu Thang took 100.000 soldiers from Quang Tay, Moc Thanh with 50.000 ones from Van Nam. They are general who take participate the battle at Ho and Tran after emprise. According to some historians, 150.000 soldiers are magnified number, in the fact, the number is 120.000 and the main forces is belong Lieu Thang.

Hear this information, a lot of general want to attack and occupy Dong Quan immediately. However according to Nguyen Trai, attacked rampart is worse solution because the Ming forces in the rampart is so crowded and food is full. So he decide to attack reinforcements first to discourage Ming force at Dong Quan The first, Le Le commanded to move the resident at Lang Giang, Bac Giang, Quy Hoa, Tuyen Quang to segregate Ming troops. He know Lieu Thang kept the main forces, so he sent Le Sat, Le Nhan Chu, Le Van Linh, Dinh Liet to wait at Chi Lang, and the same time commanded Le Van An, Le Ly took alternative forces to support. With Moc Thanh ‘s forces, he knew Thanh was experienced general and will be wait Lieu Thang result for the action, so Le Loi commanded Pham Van Xao and Trinh Kha entrenched all time. The border general – Tran Luu simulated to lose and run from Nam Quan gate to Luu gate and then moved Chi Lang, 18 – September at lunar calendar, Thang run Chi Lang after, Tran Luu was lost continuous, Thang is satisfied, just took 100 cavalries for running after. 20 September, Thang was killed by Tran Luu, Le Sat ‘s forces shed. All Le Loi ‘s general got the opportunities and attacked Minh troops, killed 10.000 soldiers, cut Luong Minh, Ly Khanh committed suicide. Some remain Ming generals such as Hoang Thuc, Thoi Tu try retreat at Xuong Gaing but they come there and knew the rampart was occupied, must garrison troops in empty field. Le Loi sent Tran Nguyen Hang blocked Ming food transporting way, sent Pham Van, Nguyen Xi supported Le Sat and get close to attack, killed 50.000 Ming soldiers at Xuong Giang. Hoang Thuc with 30.000 Ming soldiers were arrested, Thoi Tu didn’t surrender and be killed. Moc Thanh listen to Lieu Thang was killed and retreated and run. Pham Van Xao, Trinh Kha followed, killed 10.000 soldiers, arrested 1000 ones and horses.

In 1427, after 10 years of war, Vietnam regained its independence and China officially acknowledged Vietnam as an independent state. Lê Lợi took the throne and was declared Emperor of Đại Việt (大越) (though King is a more accurate term for the ruler of Vietnam). Lê Lợi’s proclamation of independence reflected the Sino-Vietnamese tennsions as well as Vietnamese pride and patriotism:

Lê Lợi formally established the Lê Dynasty as the Ming Xuande Emperor officially recognized Lê Lợi as the new ruler of Vietnam. In return, Lê Lợi sent diplomatic messages to the Ming Court, promising Vietnam’s loyalty as a vassal state of China and cooperation. The Ming accepted this arrangement, much as they accepted the vassal status of Korea under the Joseon Dynasty. The Chinese largely left Vietnam alone for the next 500 years, intervening only about once every hundred years. Lê Lợi embarked on a significant reorganization of Vietnamese government, clearly based on the Confucian system of government which was developed by the Tang Dynasty and Sung Dynasty. He also elevated his long time comrades and generals such as Nguyễn Trãi, Tran Nguyen Han, Lê Sát, Pham Van Sao, and Trịnh Khả to high official rank. The Le government rebuilt the infrastructure of Vietnam: roads, bridges, canals. Land distribution were rewarded to soldiers that contributed in the war against the Ming. New money currency was minted and new laws and reforms were passed. The system of selecting government administrators by examination was restored and exams were held at regular intervals throughout Lê Lợi’s reign. From 1430 to 1432, Lê Lợi and his army fought a set of campaigns in the hills to the west of the coastal area. Then, in 1433, he became sick and his health declined. On his death bed he appointed Lê Sát as the regent for his second son, who would rule after him as Lê Thái Tông. Internal palace politics quickly decimated the ranks of Lê Lợi’s trusted councilors, Tran Nguyen Han and Pham Van Sao were executed in 1432 and Lê Sát, who ruled as regent for five years, was executed in 1438. Nguyễn Trãi was killed in 1442 (it was claimed he was linked to the death of Lê Thái Tông). Only Trịnh Khả survived to an old age and even he was executed in 1451.

• 1499 – Diane de Poitiers, French noblewoman and mistress of King Henry II of
• 1849 – Sarah Orne Jewett, American writer
• 1851 – Olga Konstantinovna of Russia, Queen of Greece

Great things happened on this same day!

1499 – Diane de Poitiers, French noblewoman and mistress of King Henry II of

Diane de Poitiers (3 September 1499 – 25 April 1566) was a French noblewoman and a prominent courtier at the courts of kings Francis I and his son, Henry II of France. She became notorious as the latter’s favourite mistress. It was in this capacity that she wielded much influence and power at the French Court, which continued until Henry was mortally wounded in a tournament accident, during which his lance wore her favour (ribbon) rather than his wife’s. She was immortalized in art as the subject of paintings by François Clouet as well as other anonymous painters. After the capture of Francis I by Charles V’s troops during the battle of Pavia (1525), the two eldest princes, François and Henri, were retained as hostages in Spain in exchange for their father. Because the ransom was not paid in time, the two boys (eight and seven at the time) had to spend nearly four years isolated in a bleak castle, facing an uncertain future. Henri found solace by reading the knight-errantry tale Amadis de Gaula. The experience may account for the strong impression that Diane made on him, as the very embodiment of the ideal gentlewomen he read about in Amadis. As his mother was already dead, Diane gave him the farewell kiss when he was sent to Spain. When he was returned to France at the age of 12, she was ordered by Francis I to act as a mentor to him and teach him courtly manners. At the tournament held for the coronation of Francis’s new wife Eleanor in 1531, while the dauphin François saluted the new queen as expected, Henri addressed his salute to Diane.

In 1533 the future Henri II married Catherine de’ Medici. There had been strong opposition to this alliance, the Medicis being no more than upstarts in the eyes of many in the French court. Diane, however, approved of this choice of bride. Diane and Catherine were actually related to one another, being both descendants of the La Tour d’Auvergne family. Indeed, to Catherine, Diane was an intrusive elder cousin as well as a rival. As the future royal couple remained childless, concerned by rumours of a possible repudiation of a queen she had in control, Diane made sure that Henri’s visits to his wife’s bedroom would be frequent. In another act of preservation of the royal family, Diane helped nurse Catherine back to health when she contracted scarlet fever. Diane was in charge of the education of her and Henri’s children until 1551; her daughter Françoise managed the queen’s servants. While Henri and Catherine would eventually produce 10 children together, and despite the occasional affair, Diane de Poitiers would remain Henri’s lifelong companion, and for the next 25 years she would be the most powerful influence in his life. Based on allusions in their correspondence, it is generally believed that she became his mistress in 1538. A famous painting of Diane de Poitiers in the nude by François Clouet. Remembered as a beautiful woman, she maintained her good looks well into her 50s, and her appearance was immortalized in art. Only two signed paintings by François Clouet are known to exist, one being a painting of Diane. The subject of that painting shows her seated nude in her bath. She sat for other paintings of the time, often topless or nude, other times in traditional poses. When Francis I was still alive, Diane had to compete at the court with Anne de Pisseleu, the king’s favourite. She had the latter exiled on her lands upon Francis I’s death in 1547.

Diane possessed a sharp intellect and was so politically astute that King Henri II trusted her to write many of his official letters, and even to sign them jointly with the one name HenriDiane. Her confident maturity and loyalty to Henri II made her his most dependable ally in the court. Her position in the Court of the King was such that when Pope Paul III sent the new Queen Catherine the “Golden Rose”, he did not forget to present the royal mistress Diane with a pearl necklace. Within a very short stretch of time she wielded considerable power within the realm. In 1548 she received the prestigious title of Duchess of Valentinois, then in 1553 was made Duchesse d’Étampes. The king’s adoration for Diane caused a great deal of jealousy on the part of Queen Catherine, particularly when Henri entrusted Diane with the Crown Jewels of France, had the Château d’Anet built for her, and gave her the Château de Chenonceau, a piece of royal property that Catherine had wanted for herself. However, as long as the king lived, the Queen was powerless to change this. Despite wielding such power over the king, Diane’s status depended on the king’s welfare, and his remaining in power. In 1559, when Henri was critically wounded in a jousting tournament, Queen Catherine de’ Medici assumed control, restricting access to him. Although the king was alleged to have called out repeatedly for Diane, she was never summoned or admitted, and on his death, she was also not invited to the funeral. Immediately thereafter, Catherine de’ Medici banished Diane from Chenonceau to the Château de Chaumont. She stayed there only a short time, and lived out her remaining years in her chateau in Anet, Eure-et-Loir, where she lived in comfortable obscurity. She died at the age of sixty-six. In accordance with her wishes, and to provide a resting place for her, her daughter completed the funeral chapel built near the castle. During the French Revolution, her tomb was opened and her remains thrown into a mass grave. In 1866 Georges Guiffrey published her correspondence. When French experts dug up the remains of Diane de Poitiers in 2009, they found high levels of gold in her hair. It is suggested that the “drinkable gold” she regularly took — believed to preserve youth — may have ultimately killed her.

1849 – Sarah Orne Jewett, American writer

Sarah Orne Jewett (September 3, 1849 – June 24, 1909) was an American novelist and short story writer, best known for her local color works set in or near South Berwick, Maine, on the border of New Hampshire, which in her day was a declining New England seaport. Jewett’s family had been residents of New England for many generations. Her father was a doctor, and Jewett often accompanied him on his rounds, becoming acquainted with the sights and sounds of her native land and its people. As treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, a condition that developed in early childhood, Jewett was sent on frequent walks and through them also developed a love of nature. In later life, Jewett often visited Boston, where she was acquainted with many of the most influential literary figures of her day; but she always returned to South Berwick, the inspiration for the towns of “Deephaven” and “Dunnet Landing” in her stories.

Jewett was educated at Miss Olive Rayne’s school and then at Berwick Academy, graduating in 1865. She supplemented her education through an extensive family library. Jewett was “never overtly religious,” but after she joined the Episcopalian church in 1871, she explored less conventional religious ideas. For example, her friendship with Harvard law professor Theophilus Parsons stimulated an interest in the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, an eighteenth-century Swedish scientist and theologian, who believed that the Divine “was present in innumerable, joined forms — a concept underlying Jewett’s belief in individual responsibility.”  She published her first important story in the Atlantic Monthly at age 19, and her reputation grew throughout the 1870s and 1880s. Her literary importance arises from her careful, if subdued, vignettes of country life that reflect a contemporary interest in local color rather than plot. Jewett possessed a keen descriptive gift that William Dean Howells called “an uncommon feeling for talk — I hear your people.” Jewett made her reputation with the novella The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896). A Country Doctor (1884), a novel reflecting her father and her early ambitions for a medical career, and A White Heron (1886), a collection of short stories are among her finest work. Some of Jewett’s poetry was collected in Verses (1916), and she also wrote three children’s books. Willa Cather described Jewett as a significant influence on her development as a writer, and “feminist critics have since championed her writing for its rich account of women’s lives and voices.”

Jewett never married; but she established a close friendship with writer Annie Fields (1834–1915) and her husband, publisher James Thomas Fields, editor of the Atlantic Monthly. After the sudden death of James Fields in 1881, Jewett and Annie Fields lived together for the rest of Jewett’s life in what was then termed a “Boston marriage.” Some modern scholars have speculated that the two were lovers. In any case, “the two women found friendship, humor, and literary encouragement” in one another’s company, traveling to Europe together and hosting “American and European literati.” In France Jewett met Thérèse Blanc-Bentzon with whom she had long corresponded and who translated some of her stories for publication in France. On September 3, 1902, Jewett was injured in a carriage accident that all but ended her writing career. She was paralyzed by a stroke in March 1909, and she died on June 24 after suffering another. The Georgian home of the Jewett family, built in 1774 overlooking Central Square at South Berwick, is now a National Historic Landmark and Historic New England museum called the Sarah Orne Jewett House.

1851 – Olga Konstantinovna of Russia, Queen of Greece

Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, later Queen Olga of the Hellenes (3 September 1851 – 18 June 1926), was the queen consort of King George I of Greece and briefly in 1920, Queen Regent of Greece. She is the great-grandmother of Queen Sofia of Spain, the paternal grandmother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the great-grandmother of Charles, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the British throne. lga was a genuinely popular Queen and was extensively involved in charity work, endowing the Evangelismos (Annunciation) Hospital, Greece’s largest, in downtown Athens, as well as a Russian hospital in Piraeus.  In 1898, she insisted on continuing her engagements without a military guard even though shots had been fired at her husband and daughter.Being an Orthodox Christian from birth, Queen Olga became aware, during visits to wounded servicemen in the Greco-Turkish War (1897), that many were unable to read the Bible. The version used by the Church of Greece included the Septuagint version of the Old Testament and the original Greek language version of the New Testament. Both were written in Koine Greek while her contemporaries used either Katharevousa or the so-called Demotic version of Modern Greek. Katharevousa was a formal language that contained archaicised forms of modern words, was purged of “non-Greek” vocabulary from other European languages and Turkish, and had a (simplified) archaic grammar. Modern or Demotic Greek was the version commonly spoken. Olga decided to have the Bible translated into a version which could be understood by most of her contemporary Greeks rather than those educated in Koine Greek. The translation was opposed by those who considered the translation “tantamount to a renunciation of Greece’s ‘sacred heritage’”.

In February 1901, the translation of the New Testament from Koine into Modern Greek that she had sponsored was published without the authorisation of the Greek Holy Synod. The price was set at one drachma, far below its actual cost, and the edition sold well. In order to mitigate opposition to the translation, both the old and new texts were included and the frontispiece specifically stated it was for “exclusive family use” rather than in church.  At the same time, another translation was completed by Alexandros Pallis (1851–1935), a major supporter of a literary movement supporting the use of Demotic in written language. Publication of the translation started in serial form in the newspaper “Acropolis” on 9 September 1901. Almost immediately Purist theologians denounced this version as a “ridiculing of the nation’s most valuable relics” while a faction of the Greek press started accusing Pallis and his Demoticist supporters of blasphemy and treason. Ecumenical Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople denounced this translation, adding further fuel to the opposition. Riots were started by students of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, who had been organized by conservative professors. They requested the excommunication of Pallis and anyone involved with the translations, including Olga and Procopios, the Archbishop of Athens who had been a favorite of Olga and had supervised the translation after her personal request.

The conflict between rioters and troops, who had been called in to maintain order, resulted in eight deaths and over sixty people wounded. By December the remaining copies of Olga’s translation had been confiscated and their circulation prohibited. Anyone selling or reading the translations was threated with excommunication. The controversy was called the “Evangelika”", i.e. “the Gospels question”, after the word “Evangelion”, Greek for “Gospel”, and ultimately led to the resignation of the Metropolitan bishop, Procopius, and the fall of the government of Georgios Theotokis.

• 1487 – Anna of Brandenburg, queen of Denmark
• 1669 – Anne Marie of Orléans, queen of Italy
• 1875 – Katharine McCormick, American women’s rights activist

Great things happened on this same day!

1487 – Anna of Brandenburg, queen of Denmark

Anna was the daughter of Johann Cicero, Elector of Brandenburg and Margarethe of Saxony. She was born in Berlin, Brandenburg, and died in Kiel, Holstein.

In 1500 she was betrothed to Frederick, then Duke of Schleswig and Holstein and, after her death, king of Denmark and Norway. Because they were second cousins (Frederick’s mother Dorothea of Brandenburg was the cousin of Anna’s father) their marriage required a Papal dispensation. In addition, the marriage was not held until 10 April 1502 due to Anna’s youth. The marriage, held in Stendal, was a double one: on the same day, Anna’s brother Joachim and Frederick’s niece Elisabeth were married.

Anna and Frederick had two children:

Christian III of Denmark (12 August 1503 – 1 January 1559)

Dorothea (1 August 1504 – 11 April 1547), married 1 July 1526 to Albert, Duke of Prussia

She died in 1514 at age 26. Her husband was remarried, to Sophie of Pomerania, and had six more children.

1669 – Anne Marie of Orléans, queen of Italy

Anne Marie d’Orléans (27 August 1669 – 26 August 1728) was the first Queen consort of Sardinia and the maternal grandmother of Louis XV of France. She is also an important figure in British history (see Jacobite Succession below). She was the daughter of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, younger brother of Louis XIV, and Princess Henrietta of England, the youngest daughter of Charles I of England. Her mother died at the Château de Saint-Cloud ten months after Anne Marie’s birth. A year later, her father married 21-year-old Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, who became very close to her stepdaughters. Her half-brother Philippe d’Orléans, the future Regent of France, was born of her father’s second marriage. Her stepmother later described her as one of the most amiable and virtuous of women.

To maintain French influence in the Italian states, her uncle King Louis XIV arranged her marriage, at the age of fifteen, to Victor Amadeus II of Savoy, then Duke of Savoy, later King of Sicily and then of Sardinia. The proxy marriage of Anne Marie and Víctor Amadeus took place at Versailles on 10 April 1684, the day after the signature of the marriage contract. Her husband-to-be was represented by her cousin, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc du Maine. Louis XIV gave her a dowry of 900,000 livres. The Duke of Orléans accompanied his daughter as far as Juvisy-sur-Orge (18 kilometers south of Paris), and the comtesse de Lillebonne accompanied her all the way to Savoy. She met her husband Victor at Chambéry on 6 May, the nuptials being performed at the castle by the Archbishop of Grenoble. Two days later, the newlyweds made their “Joyous Entry” into Turin.

The first of the eight children she bore was Marie-Adélaïde, whose birth nearly cost Anne Marie her life, prompting administration of the viaticum. Marie-Adélaïde married Louis, Duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis XIV in 1697, and was the mother of Louis XV. But both she and her husband died before he could succeed to the throne. This marriage was arranged with the assistance of the maréchal de Tessé and of Jeanne Baptiste d’Albert de Luynes, comtesse de Verrué, who was Victor’s mistress from 1689 till 1700. Her husband had two children with Jeanne. Nonetheless, when he fell ill with smallpox, Anne Marie nursed him until his recovery. At the death of her father in June 1701, her half-brother became the new Duke of Orléans. On 2 November 1701, her third daughter, Maria Luisa, then barely thirteen years old, married Philippe de France, duc d’Anjou, who had just become King Philip V of Spain. The young princess would become Regent of Spain while her husband was away campaigning in Italy.

Despite his marriage ties to France, Victor Amadeus joined the anti-French side in the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1706, Turin was besieged by French forces under the command of Anne Marie’s half-brother Philippe d’Orléans, and Spanish forces of her cousin and son-in-law Philip V. She and her sons Victor Amadeus and Carlo Emanuele were forced to flee the city. When the war was ended in 1713 by the Treaty of Utrecht, Victor Amadeus received the Kingdom of Sicily, formerly a Spanish possession. Anne Marie’s stepmother, Madame, the Duchess of Orléans, wrote: I shall neither gain nor lose by the peace, but one thing I shall enjoy is to see our Duchess of Savoy become a queen, because I love her as though she were my own child…  He was forced to exchange Sicily for the less important domain of Sardinia in 1720, but retained the title of King. As the Savoyard consort, Anne-Marie had the use of the Royal Palace of Turin, the vast Palazzina di caccia di Stupinigi outside the capital, and the Vigna di Madama Reale. Queen Anne-Marie died of heart failure at her villa on 26 August 1728, the day before her 59th birthday. She is buried at the Basilica of Superga in Turin, where all her children, except Marie-Adélaïde and Maria Luisa, are also buried.

Her husband, Víctor Amadeus II, abdicated in favour of his son in 1730, and died two years later in Moncalieri, after having remarried morganatically. From 1714 to 1720, Anne Marie d’Orléans was the heiress presumptive to the Jacobite claim to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland. These claims were held at the time by James Francis Edward Stuart (“the Old Pretender”, son of James II). Ann Marie became heiress presumptive with the death of James’ sister Queen Anne in 1714. She was displaced as heir by the birth of the Old Pretender’s son, Charles Edward Stuart (“Bonnie Prince Charlie”), on 31 December 1720. Charles Edward and his brother Henry, Cardinal Stuart, both died without legitimate issue, so the descendants of Anne Marie d’Orléans inherited the Jacobite claim, i.e. they would have inherited the British crown had it not been for the Act of Settlement, which excluded the claims of the catholic Stuarts and d’Orléans’ and settled the throne on the nearest protestant relatives, the Hanoverians.

1875 – Katharine McCormick, American women’s rights activist

atharine Dexter McCormick (August 27, 1875 – December 28, 1967) was a U.S. biologist, suffragist, philanthropist and, after her husband’s death, heir to a substantial part of the McCormick family fortune. She is remembered for funding most of the research necessary to develop the first birth control pill.  Katherine Dexter was born August 27, 1875 in Dexter, Michigan, in her grandparents’ mansion, Gordon Hall, and grew up in Chicago where her father, Wirt Dexter, was a prominent lawyer. Following the early death of her father of a heart attack at age 57 when she was 14 years old, she and her mother Josephine moved to Boston in 1890. Four years later, her brother Samuel died of meningitis at age 25. In 1904 McCormick became the second woman to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the first woman to receive a science degree from MIT, a BSc with major in biology. She planned to attend medical school, but chose to marry Stanley McCormick, youngest son of Cyrus McCormick, an heir to the International Harvester fortune. They married on September 15, 1904.  In September 1905, they moved into a home in Brookline, Massachusetts. The couple did not have any children.

For over a decade, since graduating cum laude from Princeton University in 1895 where he had also been a gifted athlete on the varsity tennis team, Stanley had been showing signs of progressively worsening mental illness. In September 1906, he was hospitalized for over a year at McLean Hospital and diagnosed with schizophrenia. In June 1908, Stanley was moved to the McCormick’s Riven Rock estate in Montecito, California where Stanley’s schizophrenic older sister, Mary Virginia, had lived from 1898-1904 before being placed in a Huntsville, Alabama sanitarium. While there, he was examined by the prominent German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin and diagnosed with the catatonic form of dementia praecox. In 1909, Stanley was declared legally incompetent and his guardianship split between Katharine and the McCormick family. In 1909 McCormick spoke at the first outdoor rally for woman suffrage in Massachusetts. She became vice president and treasurer of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and funded the association’s publication the Woman’s Journal. McCormick organized much of Carrie Chapman Catt’s efforts to gain ratification for the Nineteenth Amendment. While working with Catt, she met other social activists, including Mary Dennett and Margaret Sanger. In 1920 McCormick became the vice president of the League of Women Voters.

Throughout the 1920s McCormick worked with Sanger on birth control issues, McCormick smuggled diaphragms from Europe to New York City for Sanger’s Clinical Research Bureau, and in 1927 she hosted a reception of delegates attending the 1927 World Population Conference at her home in Geneva. In that year McCormick also turned to the science of endocrinology to aid her husband, believing that a defective adrenal gland caused his schizophrenia. She established the Neuroendocrine Research Foundation at Harvard Medical School, and subsidized the publication of the journal Endocrinology. Katharine’s mother Josephine died on November 16, 1937 at age 91 leaving Katharine an estate of more than 10 million dollars. Stanley died on January 19, 1947 at age 72 leaving an estate of over 35 million dollars to Katharine. She spent five years settling his estate, most of which went to pay inheritance taxes. In 1953 McCormick met with Gregory Goodwin Pincus. Pincus had been working on developing a hormonal birth control method since 1951. McCormick agreed to fund Pincus research into oral contraception and she and Pincus persuaded Dr. John Rock to conduct human trials. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the sale of the Pill in 1957 for menstrual disorders and added contraception to its indications in 1960. McCormick had provided almost the entire $2 million it took to develop and test the oral contraceptive pill. She continued to fund birth control research through the 1960s. While MIT was always coeducational it could only provide housing to about fifty female students. Therefore, many of the women who attended MIT had to be local residents. However, the place of women at the Institute was far from secure as Katharine Dexter told Dorothy Weeks (a physicist and mathematician who earned her master’s and doctorate from MIT) that she had lived “in a cold fear that suddenly–unexpectedly–Tech might exclude women…”.

In order to provide female students a permanent place at MIT, she would donate the money to found Stanley McCormick Hall, an all female dormitory that would allow MIT to house 200 female students. The ramifications of the hall are best stated by William Hecht ’61, executive vice president of the Association of Alumni and Alumnae of MIT when he said, “the visible presence of women at MIT helped open up the science and engineering professions to a large part of the population that before had been excluded. It demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that at MIT men and women are equal.” Following her death in 1967, aged 92, her will provided $5 million to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which funded the Katharine Dexter McCormick Library in New York City, and $1 million to the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology. Katharine McCormick is a character in T.C. Boyle’s novel Riven Rock (1998), which is mainly about her husband Stanley’s mental illness. She was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in 2000.

This week we present the 20th Birth Of Writers. On this day, three writers were born:

• 1847 – Bolesław Prus, Polish writer
• 1856 – Jakub Bart-Ćišinski, Sorbian writer
• 1890 – H. P. Lovecraft, American writer

Great things happened on this same day!

1847 – Bolesław Prus, Polish writer

Bolesław Prus (pronounced: Ltspkr.png [bɔ'lεswaf 'prus]; Hrubieszów, 20 August 1847 – 19 May 1912, Warsaw), born Aleksander Głowacki, was the leading figure in Polish literature of the late 19th century and a distinctive voice in world literature. As a 15-year-old, he had joined the Polish 1863 Uprising against Imperial Russia; shortly after his sixteenth birthday, in a battle against Russian forces, he suffered severe injuries. Five months later, he was imprisoned for his part in the Uprising. These early experiences may have precipitated the panic disorder and agoraphobia that would dog him through life, and shaped his opposition to attempts to regain Polish independence by force of arms. In 1872 at age 25, in Warsaw, he settled into a 40-year journalistic career that highlighted science, technology, education, and economic and cultural development. These societal enterprises were essential to the endurance of a people that had in the 18th century been partitioned out of political existence by Russia, Prussia and Austria. Głowacki took his pen name Prus from the appellation of his family’s coat-of-arms.

As a sideline he wrote short stories. Achieving success with these, he went on to employ a larger canvas. Over the decade between 1884 and 1895, he completed four major novels: The Outpost, The Doll, The New Woman and Pharaoh. The Doll depicts the romantic infatuation of a man of action who is frustrated by his country’s backwardness. Pharaoh, Prus’ only historical novel, is a study of political power and of the fates of nations, set in ancient Egypt at the fall of the 20th Dynasty and New Kingdom. As a newspaper columnist, Prus commented on the achievements of scientists and scholars such as John Stuart Mill, Charles Darwin, Alexander Bain, Herbert Spencer and Henry Thomas Buckle; urged Poles to study science and technology and to develop industry and commerce; encouraged the establishment of charitable institutions to benefit the underprivileged; described the fiction and nonfiction works of fellow writers such as H.G. Wells; and extolled man-made and natural wonders such as the Wieliczka Salt Mine, the town of Nałęczów, and an 1887 solar eclipse that he witnessed at Mława.

His “Weekly Chronicles” spanned forty years (they have since been reprinted in twenty volumes) and would help prepare the ground for the 20th-century blossoming of Polish science and especially mathematics. “Our national life,” wrote Prus, “will take a normal course only when we have become a useful, indispensable element of civilization, when we have become able to give nothing for free and to demand nothing for free.” The social importance of science and technology would recur as a theme in his novels The Doll (1889) and Pharaoh (1895). Of contemporary thinkers, the one who most greatly influenced Prus and other writers of the Polish “Positivist” period (roughly 1864–1900) was Herbert Spencer, the English sociologist who coined the phrase, “survival of the fittest.” Prus would call Spencer “the Aristotle of the 19th century” and would write: “I grew up under the influence of Spencerian evolutionary philosophy and heeded its counsels, not those of Idealist or Comtean philosophy.” Prus interpreted “survival of the fittest,” in the societal sphere, as involving not only competition but also cooperation; and he adopted Spencer’s metaphor of society as organism. He would use this metaphor to striking effect in his 1884 micro-story “Mold of the Earth,” and in the introduction to his 1895 historical novel, Pharaoh.

After Prus began writing regular weekly newspaper columns, his finances stabilized, permitting him on January 14, 1875, to marry a distant cousin on his mother’s side, Oktawia Trembińska. She was the daughter of Katarzyna Trembińska, in whose home he had lived, after his release from prison, for two years in 1864–66 while completing secondary school. The couple adopted a boy, Emil Trembiński (born September 11, 1886, the son of Prus’ wife’s brother Michał Trembiński, who had died on November 10, 1888). Emil would be the model for “Rascal” in chapter 48 of Prus’ 1895 novel, Pharaoh. On February 18, 1904, at age seventeen, Emil would fatally shoot himself in the chest on the doorstep of an unrequited love. It has been alleged that in 1906, at age fifty-nine, Prus had a son, Jan Bogusz Sacewicz. The boy’s mother was Alina Sacewicz, widow of Dr. Kazimierz Sacewicz, a socially-conscious physician whom Prus had known at Nałęczów. Dr. Sacewicz may have been the model for Stefan Żeromski’s Dr. Judym in the novel, Homeless People—a character resembling Dr. Stockman in Ibsen’s play, An Enemy of the People. Prus, known for his affection for children generally, took a lively interest in little Jan, as attested by a prolific correspondence with Jan’s mother (whom Prus attempted to interest in becoming a writer). Jan Sacewicz would become one of Prus’ major legatees and an engineer, and would die in a German camp after the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising of August–October 1944.

1856 – Jakub Bart-Ćišinski, Sorbian writer

Jakub Bart-Ćišinski (20 August 1856 in Kuckau – 16 October 1909 in Panschwitz), also known as Łužičan, Jakub Bart Kukowski, was Sorbian poet, writer and playwrighter, translator of Czech, Polish, Italian and German literature. He produced his works in Upper Sorbian language. He is also an inventor of modern Upper Sorbian poetic language.

1890 – H. P. Lovecraft, American writer

Howard Phillips “H. P.” Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction. Lovecraft’s guiding literary principle was what he termed “cosmicism” or “cosmic horror”, the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and that the universe is fundamentally inimical to the interests of humankind. Lovecraft is best known for his Cthulhu Mythos, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works often challenged the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Humanism and Christianity. Although Lovecraft’s readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades, and he is now regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century. According to Joyce Carol Oates, Lovecraft — as with Edgar Allan Poe in the 19th century — has exerted “an incalculable influence on succeeding generations of writers of horror fiction”. Stephen King called Lovecraft “the twentieth century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.” King has even made it clear in his semi-autobiographical non-fiction book Danse Macabre that Lovecraft was responsible for his own fascination with horror and the macabre, and was the single largest figure to influence his fiction writing.

Lovecraft’s themes and ideas have had a profound effect on culture and literature in general. A few weeks after his mother’s death, Lovecraft attended an amateur journalist convention in Boston, Massachusetts, where he met Sonia Greene. Born in 1883, she was of Ukrainian-Jewish ancestry and seven years older than Lovecraft. They married in 1924, and the couple moved to Brooklyn and moved into her apartment. Lovecraft’s aunts may have been unhappy with this arrangement, as they were not fond of Lovecraft being married to a tradeswoman (Greene owned a hat shop). Initially, Lovecraft was enthralled by New York, but soon the couple were facing financial difficulties. Greene lost her hat shop and suffered poor health. Lovecraft could not find work to support them both, so his wife moved to Cleveland for employment. Lovecraft lived by himself in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn and came to dislike New York life intensely. Indeed, this daunting reality of failure to secure any work in the midst of a large immigrant population—especially irreconcilable with his opinion of himself as a privileged Anglo-Saxon—has been theorized as galvanizing his racism to the point of fear, a sentiment he sublimated in the short story “The Horror at Red Hook”. A few years later, Lovecraft and his wife, still living separately, agreed to an amicable divorce, which was never fully completed. He returned to Providence to live with his aunts during their remaining years.

Back in Providence, Lovecraft lived in a “spacious brown Victorian wooden house” at 10 Barnes Street until 1933. The same address is given as the home of Dr. Willett in Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. The period after his return to Providence — the last decade of his life — was Lovecraft’s most prolific. In that time he produced almost all of his best-known short stories for the leading pulp publications of the day (primarily Weird Tales), as well as longer efforts, such as The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and At the Mountains of Madness. He frequently revised work for other authors and did a large amount of ghost-writing, including “The Mound”, “Winged Death”, and “Under the Pyramids” (also known as “Imprisoned With the Pharaohs”) (for Harry Houdini) and “The Diary of Alonzo Typer”. Lovecraft considered himself a “New Deal Democrat”, and was an ardent supporter of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His political views can be considered as “moderately socialist.”

Despite his best writing efforts, however, he grew ever poorer. He was forced to move to smaller and meaner lodgings with his surviving aunt. He was also deeply affected by Robert E. Howard’s suicide. In 1936, Lovecraft was diagnosed with cancer of the intestine, and he also suffered from Bright’s disease and malnutrition. He lived in constant pain until his death on March 15, 1937, in Providence. In accordance with his lifelong scientific curiosity, he kept a diary of his illness until close to the moment of his death. Lovecraft was listed along with his parents on the Phillips family monument. That was not enough for his fans, so in 1977 a group of them raised the money to buy him a headstone of his own in Swan Point cemetery, on which they had inscribed Lovecraft’s name, the dates of his birth and death, and the phrase “I AM PROVIDENCE”, a line from one of his personal letters.

This week we present the August 13th Birth Of Politicians. On this day, three politicians were born:

• 1662 – Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, English politician
• 1889 – Camillien Houde, Quebec politician, mayor of Montreal
• 1926 – Fidel Castro, Cuban revolutionary and politician

Great things happened on this same day!

1662 – Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, English politician

Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset (13 August 1662 – 2 December 1748), sometimes referred to as the “Proud Duke”. The son of Charles Seymour, 2nd Baron Seymour of Trowbridge, and Elizabeth Alington (1635–1692), he succeeded his brother Francis Seymour, 5th Duke of Somerset, to the dukedom when the latter was shot in 1678. He also inherited the title of Baron Seymour of Trowbridge. Charles was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1682 he married a great heiress, Elizabeth Percy, daughter of Joceline Percy, 11th Earl of Northumberland, who brought him immense estates, including Alnwick Castle, Petworth House, Syon House and Northumberland House in London.

In 1683, Somerset received an appointment in the king’s household, and two years later a colonelcy of dragoons; but at the Glorious Revolution he bore arms for the Prince of Orange. Having befriended Princess Anne in 1692, he became a favourite of hers after her accession to the throne, receiving the post of Master of the Horse in 1702. Finding himself neglected by Marlborough, he made friends with the Tories, and succeeded in retaining the queen’s confidence, while his wife replaced the Duchess of Marlborough as Mistress of the Robes in 1711. The Duchess became the Queen’s closest confidante , causing Jonathan Swift to direct at her a violent satire The Windsor Prophecy, in which he accused her of murdering her previous husband, Thomas Thynne. The Duchess retained her influence even after the Queen following a quarrel , dismissed the Duke as Master of the Horse in 1712. In the memorable crisis when Anne was at the point of death, Somerset acted with Argyll, Shrewsbury and other Whig nobles who, by insisting on their right to be present in the Privy Council, secured the Hanoverian succession to the Crown.

He retained the office of Master of the Horse under George I till 1716, when he was dismissed and retired into private life; he died at Petworth on 2 December 1748. The duke’s first wife having died in 1722, he married secondly, in 1726, Charlotte, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Nottingham. He was a remarkably handsome man, and inordinately fond of taking a conspicuous part in court ceremonial; his vanity, which earned him the sobriquet of “the proud duke,” was a byword among his contemporaries and was the subject of numerous anecdotes; Macaulay’s description of him as “a man in whom the pride of birth and rank amounted almost to a disease,” is well known.

1889 – Camillien Houde, Quebec politician, mayor of Montreal

Houde was born in Montreal on 13 August 1889 and died there on 11 September 1958. He was nicknamed “l’imprévisible” — the unpredictable. He was the only surviving child of Azade Houde and Josephine Frenette. He is descended from the first Houde ancestor, Louis Houde, who came from Manou (La Loupe, Eure & Loir, France) to Quebec in 1647. Louis Houde’s son was Louis H. who married Marie Lemay in 1685. He was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Quebec as a member of the Conservative Party for the riding of Montreal-Sainte-Marie in the 1923 election. He was defeated in the 1927 election, but re-elected in a by-election on 24 October 1928. He was elected leader of the Conservative Party on 10 July 1929, led the party to defeat in the 1931 election, and failed to win a seat in Montreal-Saint-Jacques after vacating his previous seat. He resigned as Conservative leader on 19 September 1932. He moved to federal politics and lost in a bid for election as a Conservative candidate for the Canadian House of Commons in a 1938 by-election in the Montreal riding of St. Mary. In 1940, he was arrested and charged under the Defence of Canada Regulations. He was imprisoned at Camp Petawawa in Ontario until the end of the war. He ran again in St. Mary, this time as an independent candidate, in the 1945 federal election, but was again defeated. He won a seat as an independent candidate in the riding of Papineau in the 1949 federal election by less than 100 votes. He did not run for re-election in the 1953 election.

On his death in 1958, Camillien Houde was interred in the Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges in Montreal, Quebec in an Italian marble replica of Napoleon’s tomb.

Mayor Houde was a reform-minded mayor in the areas of patronage, unemployment, and organized crime. He was also responsible for some of the major public park improvements in Montreal including the park on Mont Royal with its man-made lake and park facilities. After his death, Mayor Jean Drapeau named a new road over Mount Royal after Houde, an act many considered ironic, as Houde and many others had long opposed building roads over the city’s famous mountain.

1926 – Fidel Castro, Cuban revolutionary and politician

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (Spanish: [fiˈðel ˈkastro]; born August 13, 1926) is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party’s foundation in 1961 until 2011. Politically a Marxist-Leninist, under his administration Cuba was converted into a one-party socialist state, with industry being nationalised under state ownership and socialist reforms implemented in all areas of society. Born the illegitimate son of a wealthy farmer, Castro became involved in leftist and anti-imperialist politics whilst studying law at the University of Havana. Subsequently involving himself in several armed rebellions against rightist governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, he went on to conclude that the U.S.-backed Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, who was widely seen as a dictator, had to be overthrown. To this end he led an armed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953, but this failed and he was imprisoned. Getting out of prison after a year, he travelled to Mexico, and with the aid of his brother Raúl Castro and friend Che Guevara, he assembled together a group of Cuban revolutionaries, the July 26 Movement. Returning with them to Cuba, he took a key role in the Cuban Revolution, leading a successful guerilla war against Batista’s forces, with Batista himself fleeing into exile in 1959.

Castro subsequently came to power and shortly thereafter became Prime Minister of Cuba. His anti-imperialist views alarmed the United States, who through the CIA organised the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 to overthrow his government, before proceeding to orchestrate repeated assassination attempts against him. This only served to turn him further against the U.S., instead forging an alliance with the Soviet Union and adopting Marxism-Leninism as his guiding ideology. In 1961 he proclaimed the socialist nature of the Cuban revolution, and in 1965 he became First Secretary of the newly founded Communist Party of Cuba, with all other parties being abolished. He then led the transformation of Cuba into a socialist republic, nationalising industry and introducing free healthcare and education for all. In 1976 he became President of the Council of State as well as of the Council of Ministers. He also held the supreme military rank of Comandante en Jefe (“Commander in Chief”) of the Cuban armed forces. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Castro led Cuba into its economic “Special Period” during the 1990s, before then taking the country into the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas in 2006 and forging economic and political alliances with other nations in the Latin American “Pink Tide”. Amidst failing health, in 2006 Castro transferred his responsibilities to Vice-President Raúl Castro, who was then elected President when Fidel stepped down in 2008. Castro is a controversial and highly divisive world figure, being lauded as a champion of anti-imperialism and the oppressed by his supporters, but alternately his critics have accused him of being an authoritarian dictator whose administration has overseen multiple human rights abuses. Nonetheless, he has had a significant influence on the politics of a number of other world leaders, namely Nelson Mandela, Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales, and he is widely idolised by socialists and anti-imperialists across the world.

One of Castro’s biographers, the Briton Leycester Coltman (2003), described the Cuban as being “fiercely hard-working, dedicated loyal… generous and magnanimous” but also noted that he could be “vindicative and unforgiving” at times. He went on to note that Castro “always had a keen sense of humour and could laugh at himself” but could equally be “a bad loser” who would act with “ferocious rage if he thought that he was being humiliated.” In her study of the Cold War in the Caribbean, the British historian Alex Von Tunzelmann (2011) commented that “though ruthless,  was a patriot, a man with a profound sense that it was his mission to save the Cuban people”, contrasting him strongly to his Haitian contemporary François Duvalier. By his first wife Mirta Díaz-Balart, whom he married on October 11, 1948, Castro has a son named Fidel Ángel “Fidelito” Castro Díaz-Balart, born on September 1, 1949. Díaz-Balart and Castro were divorced in 1955, and she remarried Emilio Núñez Blanco. After a spell in Madrid, Díaz-Balart reportedly returned to Havana to live with Fidelito and his family. Fidelito grew up in Cuba; for a time, he ran Cuba’s atomic-energy commission before being removed from the post by his father. Díaz-Balart’s nephews are Republican U.S. Congressmen Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, vocal critics of the Castro government.

Fidel has five other sons by his second wife, Dalia Soto del Valle: Antonio, Alejandro, Alexis, Alexander “Alex” and Ángel Castro Soto del Valle. While Fidel was married to Mirta, he had an affair with Natalia “Naty” Revuelta Clews, born in Havana in 1925 and married to Orlando Fernández, resulting in a daughter named Alina Fernández-Revuelta. Alina left Cuba in 1993, disguised as a Spanish tourist, and sought asylum in the United States. She has been a vocal critic of her father’s policies. Alina was assisted by Elena Diaz-Verson Amos, wife of AFLAC founder John Amos. Alina lived with Elena in Columbus, Georgia, for several years. By an unnamed woman he had another son, Jorge Ángel Castro. Fidel has another daughter, Francisca Pupo (born 1953) the result of a one night affair. Pupo and her husband now live in Miami. His sister Juanita Castro has been living in the United States since the early 1960s. When she went into exile, she said “I cannot longer remain indifferent to what is happening in my country. My brothers Fidel and Raúl have made it an enormous prison surrounded by water. The people are nailed to a cross of torment imposed by international Communism.”